Eddy_B

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Whilst welcome, I still cant see stalkers being anything other than a courtesy place in big teams.

Whilst this will give them a huge, much needed boost vs AV's, AV's are still less than 1% of PvE game play.

In large teams, large spawns, A0E remains king, and stalkers have the worst AoE potential of any AT. In addition, unlike other melee toons, they have neither the ability or capacity to absorb any aggro off squishies.

Its a strong idea, and will help resolve some issues of Solo Stalkers vs EB, but it seems it will remain a solo toon.

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Something often discussed, and there are several threads about this issue. But saying that only AoE toons are usefull on a team would mean no one would ever take ST attacks on anything other than a PvP toon. Boss killers become very usefull on a big team, especially when an 8 man team can spawn 2+ bosses in one spawn. Any toon capeable of taking these out quick means that the Aoers can focus on the minions and LTs.

This buff will make Stalkers far more specialised boss killers on a team, and having more than one stalker on a team will actually be usefull in an EB/AV/Hero mish. This may be a small part of the mishs, but when a team takes 10 minutes to take down the health of one AV, this might give a very nice damage boost. It will also make soloing a lot less painful against EBs, some of which are soloable, some require a team, or just a shivie.

In regards to taking aggro off squishies, it depends on how good the stalker is and how much attention they are paying to the squishies. They are usually on the outskirts (or should be IMHO) taking out the troublesome mobs, and the ones that stand at range, ie, the ones more likely to pick on squishies. That to me, is saving a squishies bacon, without them even realising they were in trouble. Just because an effect isn't directly noticeable, doesnt mean it isnt there.

To me though, any buff a stalker gets for PvE is welcome, as thats what I mostly use mine for.

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Interesting. I wonder how this will change a stalkers role in a pve team and when they will actually implement it.

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It should make them the top EB/AV/hero killers.

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Will it mean we can still take out an LT in one hit with BU, or a minion without?

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With the current values, you can still take out the lt, but you won't be able to one-shot a minion higher than +2 without BU. They are likely to be tweeked though, according to Castle.

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Will our damage vs bosses/ebs/avs be HUUUUGE! and make us noticeble in a large team vs an AV?

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Yes (unless the AV has a high resistance to your damage type).

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All sounds good to me. What about a normal attacks crit from hide though? BU+AS+placate+MG is an awesome 2 hit combo taking out a lt and a minion, but if the crit bonus of the MG was increased, that would be some very serious damage indeed. Looks like it will only be a buff to AS though.

So, any news on when this will be implemented?

Interesting. I wonder how this will change a stalkers role in a pve team and when they will actually implement it.

Will it mean we can still take out an LT in one hit with BU, or a minion without? Will our damage vs bosses/ebs/avs be HUUUUGE! and make us noticeble in a large team vs an AV? I hope that any changes they do make will help us be more accepted to a PvE team and no more "eww a stalker" type comments.

Thank you so much Pious, absolutely fantastic!

At the moment my taunt just has a taunt duration in it. RttC has a tanut effect, and I usually wallop the bosses in fight, but mostly use taunt to ensure i get as much on and around me as possible to maximise RttC. As its effectiveness is already quite long, I think ile just slot it for recharge for when someone decides to aggro another group.

Only 17? Seems kinda low. Ah well, never was much good at counting

Well i'm liking my tank and think ile play him a lot more, so need to actually find some more things out about them.

Taunt - great power, nothing like mouthing off to a big mob, tossing my mace from hand to hand and letting them come get me. But how to people slot it for PvE? Taunt duration seems fairly long anyways, its up pretty fast, doesnt cost much endurance, doesnt need a to hit check in PvE, so is it best to just put range in it? Any help with this would be great.

Aggro - Is there a cap to how many mobs you can keep on you? As in if I taunt two entire spawns, will all of them come after me? Will some stray and go after others? Or turn away from me if somone hits them hard enough? Is there a cap to how much aggro we can hold?

How does gauntlet actually work? Still figuring that one out.

Any help with this, or any extra tips and hints you can throw at me would be greatly appreciated, thanks all.

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Arghhh i hate the im herding binds!

Im herding TO this point exactly! Stand behind me its like just jump in and taunt HEY no herding needed :P

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I see it more as corner pulling mostly. In certian maps its pretty easy to do ie offices, and doesnt take long for one mob to come round the corner. For a WP tank, having a tight group is how you survive.

The rest of time, like in caves, its just pick the mob at the back, taunt and run in. Harder to get them tight when there are lots of ranged ones in the mob, but works generally. That said, on teams where I have been able to use corner pulling occasionally. It does improve the safety of the team and killing effeciency when there are some nice aoes going off. I dont corner pull as a rule, just as a tactic.

Cant much see the point of herding several mobs all in one go unless its a room of death. Just seems slower to me.

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I now, finally, get what tanking is all about, and look forward to playing him more!

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There'd be more to "get" but as you can see from making controllers "time!" their aoe immob that: that bit more to get may require a compliable team.

Icetanking Frostfire at 6 with herds an all was an icing on the cake for me!! The sooner the better and there are things called bfs for those who know what they're up against.

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Had some fun again with my tank last night. Joined one team that was truely aweful and quickly left. 2 tanks and still the blasters manage to aggro everything, end up killing themselves and most of the others. Ah well, the joy of the quit button. Picked up another one. Only tank on the team, though I dinged and suddenly found myself in amongst lots of whites abd blues, so got taunt happy and would pull a second group in the cave just for the fun of it. A few deaths from the blasters who couldnt handle one itty bitty mob on their own, but otherwise went good. Was great fun.

As for getting trollers to time their aoe immobs, the ones that are open to suggestion, or just know when to use it are always going to be more fun to play with. The ones that insist they know best, will refuse to even think about changing tactics etc...well they usually aren't.

I think being a tank is probably the most heroic i've felt in this game. Stand there with a whole horde of mobs around you all trying to bash you in, but failing, standing there and laughing at them and calling them names while the rest of your team wipes them out in relative safety. Great fun!

Well i'm still pretty new to tanking, but I found a few inf, so ile put them in.

My WP/ tank loves a nice tight group. Helps him survive when he as lots around him. Corner pulling just one mob at a time seems to work great at the moment, at least, when it can be done. Otherwise i just taunt and run in. A nice tight bunch around me makes me happy, and then the team can take them out freely. I don't herd several groups, just one, so it keeps it fairyly dynamic, and makes me feel all tanker like cos I stood there and took lots of damage, though didnt myself deal an aweful lot.

As to the scranker - tanker thing. For me a scranker is a tauntless/damage aura tanker who focuses more on damage than aggro management, and relies more on punchvoke to control aggro, mostly by smacking the bosses etc around. A 'pure breed' tank I guess is one that takes tough and weave and all their defences very early, and then gets their later attacks. Fair enough, if you can make either type work for you, great.

For my, on my WP, im taking a lot of my defences early, and only have a few attacks, but am planning on taking more attacks later. For now, i just wanan be able to survive and add what damage I can, but as long as as much as possible is on me, I feel like i'm doing my job even if I aint a powerhouse of damage yet.

As for the soloing issue, thats what alts are for. Get solo-capeable alts, lowbies, vill alts etc. If I cant find a team for my lvl 14 tank, ile try and find one for my lvl 24 defender, or my scrapper etc. Can usually find a team for one of them, or just go on a soloing toon and play them for a bit.

While I know tanks can and do solo, its not a toon I particually want to solo, so am not building him to be a solo toon.

Guess it all comes down to what you wanna do, and how you wanan do it.

Ahh yeh good point. Had forgotten about that power. Yeh its one im likely to pick up at some point. For now my PFF is my panic button power. Doesn't help the rest of the team much when it goes pear shaped, but at least it gives me time to get out of there!

Yeh when I was figuring out my build, I thought "Hey, im leaving out half my powers on both my primary and my secondary!" I then realised, I'm not that big a fan of knockback, especially in teams (which my toon is purely for) and I know it can be used well, but well, i'm not one of those that can. So I was left with an awefull lot of power slots free. Ok, so manooovers is a given, so might as well get tactics and maybe veng. Could use a heal, so ile get aid other and aid self, and might as well get rez to go with veng as well. Makes the build nice and loose really when you leave out the knockback stuff. Might pick up force bolt for entertainment perposes, but otherwise, the knockback would be usually counter productive to the 2 cones of dark blast, as keeping them tight becomes more important. So I sacrificed some control for better damage and better teaming utility.

Not saying the knockback powers are bad, but for a ff/dark, they make less sense I guess.

Hey Pious, finally got round to finding an image i'de like as an Avatar for my stalker - Marcel Marceau!

Mime Artiste - Magic Stalker

Last night, I got on my lvl 12 WP/Mace tanker, found a PuG around my lvl and went into the mish we love, spanking Frostfire. The team had 2 blasters, 2 trollers and a Warshade, and from the looks of things, it hadnt been going too smoothly. I come along in my nice and DOd up tank and hit my "im herding" bind. The trollers dont pay any attention and hit stone cages before the group are around me. I keep em taunted and the team survives fine. I then ask if they would keep the cages till they are all packed around me (helps a willpowers survival nicely) and they listened well. We then tore through the mobs, me herding when I could, or just taunting and running in. I even got praise for my tanking abilities (this is my first ever tank, on any game i have ever played) and the fact that we had no form of heals and yet ran so smoothly (i popped one green i think in the entire mish), as no one died, and the blasters made sure stuff went down scarily fast.

So I just thought ide say a big thanks to those that were on that team, was great fun to know i was doing my job right and that it went so well.

I now, finally, get what tanking is all about, and look forward to playing him more!

People have been asking for a dark/dark domi set for ages, and this seems like a pretty good version of it to me! nice one rapthorn!

I can only assume that the OP wants a zonal domi to play stalker like and destroy single targets quickly and effeciently. Energy's blapper playstyle i can see as being a obvious choice cos of energy overpowered feel in other ATs, but I think for Domies, it's not that great. Ice or fire are probs the best for single target damage, and cos of powerboost in ice, and its secondary effects, personally ide prefer ice.

Fire is the most damaging primary, so ide go fire/ice.

In the arena though, I think fire/ isnt as powerful as some domi sets. Mind/ Plant/ and Ice/ all being particularly nasty in the arena. My ice/psi can make regens cry and most toons wondering where on earth all their attacks went. /psi aint the best ST damage set, but its stacking of insane -rch is damage mitigation in itself.

But as an arena domi, a mind/fire or for me a mind/ice would probs be a good bet, as for pvp, psionic defence is often lacking, and will often bypass most defences anyways.

For zonal pvp, well, best ask someone else on that.

Ahh the joys of SS, Grandville is so much fun when you only have SS and the Jump Pack...

I managed to get my ff/dark up to 23 over the weekend, and am quite enjoying him now. They synergy of the sets is great, especially post-SOs. Your build is pretty similar to mine with a few differences. I'de suggest picking up maneuvers earlier, as while its defence aint that high on its own, combined with your bubbles and dispersion field, thats reaching the soft cap of defence, 45% with SOs. I got maneuvers at 18 and am leaving getting fly till 24, (temp travel powers really helped). Maneuvers also helps your defence too, which is always good.

As yet undecided about detention field and blackstar (often cosidered the worst 'nuke' in the game).

So ide get maneuvers earlier, at least by 24, but otherwise, your build looks pretty good.

I think there is very little info about /da for stalkers, most of the info about the individual powers can be taken from mids, guides about /da for scrappers/brutes with a few differences.

Em/da i can see as being very end heavy, and probably not the best in pvp, but I dont see why it wouldnt work, its just a case of making it work. But then for me, /da never made much sense of stalkers anyways.

Oo Happy Cake day Marquandance!

I always enjoy playing my domi, but find him the toughest to play, and find he requires a good deal of concentration to play well, and I end up dieing regularly on big teams. He is a ice/psi domi, and now he is in his 40s, I am really having a lot of fun with him.

I dropped my aoe immob on him pretty quickly for the single target one, as I use that to drop flyers out of the sky. Aoe Immobs have a use, such as keeping mobs tightly packed around a herding brute, or keeping them in the rain of fire/ice etc. Otherwise, I just found it an end heavy, aggro getting power I dont miss.

The above advice allready given is good. Your primary is your mezzes and holds. Use them first, then tear things apart. Domies are best described as the chains and whips AT. You chain them up so they cant do anything to you, and then dish out the damage in relative safety. The other way to play a domi is the blapper playstyle, just with more control. It takes a lot of getting used to, and I still havent quite got the hang of it, but I still find them a lot of fun.

Also, some domies can solo pretty well, I made my ice/psi domi for teaming, and thats where he thrives. Nothing quite like seeing an 8 man spawn hit by glacier while in domination then being wiped out by my PSW, makes me smile every time.

a good bind for domies i found was: /bind numpad0 "powexec_name Domination" This means that the numpad 0 key, which is nice and big, and very easy to hit while still using the arrow keys activates your domination/happy button. Anyone who has ever teamed with Chilling Thought, will also remember the bind that goes with it "MIDGET POWER!!!"

Why has a discussion about Stalkers actually getting a buff turned into yet another discussion about stalkers sucking in teams? Getting pretty tired of these discussions now tbh.

From what Castle is thinking, this sounds great. Stalkers have long needed a PvE buff, and if they can do it well enough to make people actually want stalkers for AV fights especially, then good! Who cares about large spawns of minions and lts with the odd boss going down super fast unless you are a farmer or plvler? If they make it so that a team of stalkers could take out an AV/Hero in a few seconds, now THAT would be impressive!!!

I look forward to seeing what actually comes of this.

A Stalker not at the stealth cap in a pvp zone is a very popular target. Most Blasters use them to get warmed up.

This I found out the hardway

I have a great love of /SR on my stalker and my scrapper. For me the feeling of 'it's all down to luck. Do I feel lucky? well do i? punk!' just makes me love the set more. I'm either the first to faceplant, and then get to watch the remaining fight from the cold comfort of the floor, or remain standing till the end or overwhelming odds finally win through.

It's the set you gamble with, unlike the resistance sets which are more predictable.

When I bring my domi out, I always enjoy playing him, even more so now he has his patron shield 3 slotted with resistance to help him. Every so often though, a friend wants to try out the arena and a bit of PvP, and I will usually use him over my Stalker.

He is an ice/psi domi so has -spd -rch and -rgn up the wazoo and im pretty happy with his build. Though he has no proper heal, just drain psyche slotted for heals.

Went up againt a claws/regen mate of mine, without insps ile add, and manage to nerf his regen to the point where his end bar only ever went down, and his heal bar just didnt seem to move up either. His Hasten slowed to the point of going backwards, he only popped Dull Pain like 2 or 3 times and he was repeatedly left with few or no attacks. Nothing quite like making a well played, well slotted, highly IO'd up regen scraper cry cos he well, isnt a regen anymore

I know it was without insps, and as such managed to hold him quite often, especially when Jack was using his hold too. But it was just fun to see that a scrapper my stalker would have stuggled with, could be used as a floor mop in the arena.

So, any tales others would like to share of Arena domi pwnage?

Well yeh, I guess I pretty much answered the OP in my first post, see my guide, explains most of it I feel.

If anyone thinks they have extra hints and tips relating to PvE stalking that could help others, please feel to add them if they weren't covered already.