Cognito

Big thanks and congratulations to team today who did the Dr. Quaterfeild TF.

Thats the best time I have heard of for it, and it was set on rugged, and no Kin on team!

Well done all!

Id have to say Force Bolt is one of the stand out powers of the set, IMO. Dont dare skip it.

Now it can be used clumsily, just be knocking random enemies out of the melee.

On the other hand, it can be used on the boss, perma knockbacking him/her against a wall (or even better, a corner).

With its built in accuracy bonus, all you need is one slot (acc or maybe an acc/end KB IO), you have a power that can take a boss out of fight from the word dot with one slot.

This is not skippable!

Depends on the dominator. My plants/Psi dominator can defeat large numbers of enemies just as easily as small ones with Seeds of Confusion, AoE immob, Psychic Scream and Psychic Shockwave. 8 man spawns as easy as 1 man.

EXCEPT for bosses, or confuse resist enemies, who I struggle against.

My dominators (ice/ice and Plants/Psi) can both take down EB's, but both chew more inspirations than any other AT, and take longer to do it.

Id agree with PRAF there, if any enemy has the PtOD, then I find dominators have the toughest time vs EBs. Brutes outpunch and outsurvive them, Masterminds wear them down and keep a steady stream of cannon fodder (although AoE heavy EB's are hard), Corruptors just destroy them (pack some break frees). Stalkers I found can have a slightly tough time.

But dominators are pure pain. You are a sitting duck when PtOD are up. Sure you can swallow purples. But dominators have the lowest damage output of any villian AT - whilst its not *bad*, it makes an EB slow work. And purples run out.

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Making some toon bad in teams for any reason is not a very bright idea from devs if you ask me. On the other hand, I dont think stalkers are that bad in teams.

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A well played stalker isn't bad in a team, it just doesn't bring as much to a team as any of the other ATs.

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Which is doublespeak for bad

More seriously, its a question of semantics. Every toon offers something to a team, even if its a Controller who only uses brawl and no other powers.

There are three questions...

1. Does the toon offer *enough* to justify the increasing mob sizes etc. In other words, the more toons, the more danger / risk. If you dont, I would say you are more than bad, you arent worth having.

2. Similarly, is the team getting xp as fast as it could without you. If its slowing down, then you arent worth having. (from a purely "reward" based equation. You may well be worth it from fun or social reasons, but thats outside of development, balancing and game mechanics)

3. Are you adding more or less to a team than another AT/Toon?


if 1 or 2 are firfulled... i.e. you make the team worse by being there, then, IMO, thats a problem.

If 3 are furfulled.... i.e. you are pulling your weight / justifying your existence, but you are less valuable than another AT, then that seems *reasonable* if perhaps undesirable.

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Making some toon bad in teams for any reason is not a very bright idea from devs if you ask me. On the other hand, I dont think stalkers are that bad in teams.

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I would agree, but then so is making toons bad solo. You cant have a situation where a toon A is good solo and teams, and toon B is bad solo and good in teams.

However, this is all pretty idle speculation. The Devs, IIRC have pretty much said this is the WAI (Some ATs are team toons, some ATs are solo toons), and I cant see it being readdressed without massive changes to game mechanics.

At the moment, I would prefer it that stalkers and scrappers are mediocre in teams as they have an advantage solo.

Mind you, this is excellent news for stalkers. Not only where they underperforming generally, they are a far to extreme example of (good solo, bad teams). Whilst scrappers are similar, they still function tolerably in teams.

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No, but its an unavoidable effect. If some ATs are relatively good, it is unavoidable that others will be relatively bad.

It's just they put a positive spin on it.

A bit like a goverment saying "We will increase funding for Health" without saying "And, hence, we will withdraw funding from other areas and/or increase taxes to pay for this".

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That's not the only way you could take the statement. It could mean ""We wanted some AT's to shine in teams but be poor solo". It certainly doesn't mean "We deliberatly make an AT be sucky in teams to balance it being good in PvP".

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Ah yes, I see your point, thanks for catching me out!

I cant remember the Dev post clearly - that one statement always stuck in my mind quite clearly though.

I *think* the rest of the post mentioned something about a quid pro quo affair: i.e. good solo = bad team, and visa versa (albeit couched in "positive spin" language). But it was a long time ago and my memory is a bit fuzzy. The only thing im pretty sure about is that statement.

But to me honest, it seems fairly clear from game mechanics this is the size of things. It all boils down to AoE. AoE outshines ST damage hugely in large teams, and is very weak solo. Scrappers do mainly ST damage, Stalkers do almost exclusively ST damage. The same applies to AoE effects (e.g. AoE Debuffs) or Buffs that recharge very fast (e.g. speed boost, FF bubbles) vs ST versions of the same (e.g. Heal Other).

I appreciate there are exceptions to this (there are times when ST effects are very important, like vs AVs) (and there are things like Spines/Dark scrappers stuffed full of AoE), but these are fairly rare exceptions. I cant see how you can escape the maths of the game that AoE is A+ in big teams, and E- solo, and ST effects are the obverse.

No, but its an unavoidable effect. If some ATs are relatively good, it is unavoidable that others will be relatively bad.

It's just they put a positive spin on it.

A bit like a goverment saying "We will increase funding for Health" without saying "And, hence, we will withdraw funding from other areas and/or increase taxes to pay for this".

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Stalkers solo easy, they should team hard.

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Not a design philosophy that has any place in a MMO, IMO.

Anyway, brutes can solo at least as quickly as stalkers, and they are also good in teams.

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Agreed, but nevertheless thats straight from the Dev's mouth. By design, they wanted some ATs to shine in teams.

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can you link?

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Nope, im a lazy so and so. Dev post about 18 months ago IIRC - "We wanted some AT's to shine in teams", is my fairly clear recollection allthough I may be paraphasing.

I cant see much in the blatant power of defenders in big teams compared to scrappers (and the pain of soloing defenders compared to scrappers) that indicates they have modified their veiw on this.

Apologies for lack of link.

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Stalkers solo easy, they should team hard.

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Not a design philosophy that has any place in a MMO, IMO.

Anyway, brutes can solo at least as quickly as stalkers, and they are also good in teams.

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Agreed, but nevertheless thats straight from the Dev's mouth. By design, they wanted some ATs to shine in teams.

And if they make scrappers/stalkers as useful in teams as everyone else (which is highly unlikely until they get AoE attacks), then they would have to (for balance reasons), make defenders as easy to solo as scrappers/stalkers.

I cant see it changing. And whilst it is a design flaw, it dosent bother my unduly.

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Good buff - hope it's released soon and then hopefully more stalkers will have good places in teams - i feel like a bit of dead weight at times in teams with my MA/SR but this will be a much wanted boost..

So now scaling AS for pvp against AT's.. hmmm (<<that last bit was a joke before the nerf stalker comments come in )

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Unless they boost AS to insane levels, ST damage will always be second rate in big teams (AV fights aside).

But thats probably fair. Stalkers solo easy, they should team hard.

I beg to differ. Firebreath can normally hit most of mob, and Rain can easily hit entire mob for whopping damage providing you have the right team (i.e. slows, immobs). I dont have anyproblem hitting most of a mob on my Fire/Dark corruptor. And im not a skilled player.

You could also say Assault Rifle has a Target AoE (M30 Grenade), 2 Cones (Flamethrower, Buckshot), and Ignite (awesome AoE if you have the control to use it). Its just the KB effect of Grenade and Buckshot alongside Ignites "run away" effect that make it difficult to use. But ultimately, in an immob heavy team, AR is the best AoE of all.

Elec has Short Circuit, Ball Lightning, and Thunderous Strike
(I count Voltaic Sentinel as ST attack, seeing as it fires out single target bolts)

Fire has Fire Breath, Fire Ball, Rain of Fire, and Inferno.

If im not mistaken, Fire is THE AoE set, not elec?

Invuln:

Outstanding Smash/Lethal Resistance: which is the hardest hitting.
Less Resistance to others.
Gets "hardier", or more defence the more foes you face (Invincibility power), so better in big teams / big spawns
Relatively weak vs non Smash / Lethal (the most common and highest damage in the game)
No protection vs Psi


Will Power

Best Psi protection in the game (but, uncommon in CoH)
The worst tank versus "Alpha Strike" (excepting psi) (this is because it relies on regeneration to counter its relatively poor resistance and defence)
Gets more resiliant the more enemies around (Rise to the Challenge), but not to quite the scale of Invun.
Taunt Aura (Rise to the Challenge) seems borked at the moment - hard to maintain aggro (hopefully will be resolved)
Gets Quick Recovery: Meaning you could skip stamina or get both and wave goodbye to any endurance worries.


That should about cover it I think!


Personally, I dont think there is a lot in it. WP is slightly more suited to scranking and has Invun slightly more suited to big team tanking. But I emphasise "Slightly".

Just a word about the taunt aura of RttC. It seems bugged at the moment and isnt WAI. I would hold back from will power until we get clarification and/or resolution on this.

In summary, I would go for concept.

Id rather not too, but actually taunt aura's do make it slightly too easy!

no dev post on it yet, as far as I can see. i hope it has been tagged as an issue.

Good to see its not just me then. There def seems to be something up with it from my persepective.

Hopefully enough concern raised to draw Dev's attention to this?

Well the first thing to decide is if you want this to be a team or solo freindly build.

Ultimately, the golden rule of thumb is that in biggish teams, AoE dominated play. This is especially true at higher levels and in big teams with a tank. The only exception would be fighting Arch-Villians (at least, most of them), but this probably accounts for less than 1% of game play.

Fire blasters are kings of AoE. Nothing wipes out enemies faster. In Issue 11, with new defiance buff, you will truly be the glass cannon that blasters are meant to be. Non Spines scrappers will be lucky to reach 1/2 of your damage output in ideal circumstances. Ive seen some blaster heavy teams when they struggle to reach the mob before the kinetics boosted blasters have finished the mob. So whilst scrappers are great solo and seem so much better at early levels, by level 30+ they can only sit back and quietly weep at how much more damage you do revenge will be yours!!!

BUt anyway, back to your question.

If you are building for solid team AoE, then make freinds with lots of tanks, and go all out for it!

Fire Blast AoE are fire breath, fireball, and rain of fire. All are good, but Rain of Fire I would get later. It causes scatter. This is not a problem if you have slows or immobilises in the team, and is not a problem if you are killing things so quickly they die before running out of the rain (the later will occur in fast powerful teams late on).

Aim is almost a "must have" aswell.

At the moment, practically all fire blast powers are good, and you cant go wrong with any of them.


Then you want to choose your secondary. Fire secondary is the most offensive, Ice is the most controllery/protective, Energy is the most single target damage with some stuns abd boosts in, Electric is a mixed bag of everything, and Devices is a totally different kettle of fish altogether.

For a dedicated team PvE toon, Fire secondary would be great. Fire Sword Circle and Combustion are great AoE attacks. Burn and Hot Feet, in the right team at the right time, also add major AoE damage.

Whatever your secondary, make sure you get build up. Another staple blaster power.

I am afraid Issue 11 is the day of the blaster.

Agree, Snipes seem much more attractive as openers atm.

*Weeps that his only blaster is sonic*

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*Gets out map. Looks closely. Gets out magnifying glass. Looks closer. Looks up with confused look on face.*

Ok, can anyone tell me there the rails of this thread are? I cant seem to find them.

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I think there are faint traces of them on the first few posts.

Therafeter they are as DEAD AS A PARROT.

*runs*

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Agree, but nevertheless it should be occassionaly, very occassionally. I.e. You shouldnt build or plan for it. And being "last man standing" is cold comfort to the rest of the team.

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Oh, does that mean I shouldn't plan for the Spanish Inquisition either? That's my build out the window!

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All that influence on Clarity set: Darwin's Theorem, and you still cant fight of the Inquisition!

Agree, but nevertheless it should be occassionaly, very occassionally. I.e. You shouldnt build or plan for it. And being "last man standing" is cold comfort to the rest of the team.

Phrases like "Last man standing" are not, IMO, particularly good indicators of a well oiled team

Personally, I think making a Stalker that pulls its weight in a big team is virtually impossible. Hence, its something I have been trying to do.

My limited thoughts:

1. Build will be tight, like for any stalker.
2. Teleport is the only travel power to take, because you get recall freind with it.
3. AoE attacks will be your freind. Meaning Dual Blades, Claws, or (ideally) Spines.
4. AoE effects will be your freind. Meaning Ninjitsu, Energy Armour, or (ideally) Dark Armour.
5. Whilst damage is important, debuffing or damage mitigation for your freinds is more attractive. Dark Melee, Claws spring to mind but not a vast amount in it.
6. You are looking to be a scrap-stalker. A large team simply wont hang around for you to AS every enemy. AV's aside, you arent going to get more than one AS per enemy mob in a reasonable team - if you are lucky. You need to scrap.
7. Play with Dominators and maybe Masterminds or Corruptors. Brutes will play a "Steamroller" game, which forces you largely into "second class scrapper" mode.


My thoughts on ideal team Stalker.

Recall Freind / Teleport is the "must" travel power.

Overall this would be my order of Team goodness:-

1. Spines / Dark (But will be end heavy)
2. Spines / Ninjistsu
3. Claws / Dark (more balanced end than Spines / Dark)
4. Claws / Ninjitsu
5. Dual Blades / Dark
6. Spines / Energy
7. Claws / Energy (Very end light - may not need stamina, which could push it up list)

Sets you should avoid:

Primary: Martial Arts, Energy Melee
Secondary: Regeneration, Will Power, Super Reflexes.


NB: This all applies to team PvE. PvP is a totally different ball game.