Hammerfall

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Hate to burst the bubble, but GM's sometimes spawn multiple times when people don't defeat them for a while.


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Well Ive only seen Paladin and Luska as multiples, do others do this?

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The epic holds IMO are great , could do with being longer but the main fact is stalkers get criticals on held targets, more crits can not be sniffed at.

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This is something I didnt know..

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sting of the wasp is better than gamblers as its moderate compaired to gamblers min dmg.

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Erm lol youre correct, my mistake. I don't use ninja blade myself and Im used to the mod damage attack to be second from the top XD

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Open Season on BadgeHunters. Now wheres that pesky wabbit?

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This sounds like a good idea... *logs in*

"Be vewy vewy quiet, Im hunting badgehunters!"

Hmm some pointers from me:

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Gambler's Cut is skippable

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You can't skip the first power of the set, and its either this or sting of the wasp which is worse.

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[*]Get Divine Avalanche in the build and at least 3x DEF and 1x ACC - you can hit DEF cap when it stacks twice


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I'm not sure this is a stalker thing, but your mileage may vary (whatever that means)

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Kuji-In Rin doesn't need all that DmgRes, 2 slot it for Rch and it will be perma

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You can't even slot it for dam.res, once again a hero builder glitch. 2 recharge is correct.

On another note, I think most of the Epics arent that great and would be skippable altogether. I know Im getting dark blast on my stalker to constitute my bubbler/stormie/dev blaster etc killing arsenal along with Focus, but thats precisely because I have claws. Thats about it.. Afaik a.) spawning the pet breaks hide (im not sure though) b.) It will have trouble staying with you when you zoom around in PvP zones c.) it has really long recharge compared to its uptime. Theres already been discussion about the snipe, but Imo thats propably the most useless epic ever. Hold.. stalker shouldnt need holds to kill its targets, but maybe you have a more exotic build in mind. I left it at my proposed build because you can spam dark blast, soul storm, dark blast,.. to give some resemblance of ranged attacks.

For a PvP build particularly I dont think the epics are good, on a PvE build trying them out is more justified..

Personally Id instead take things like invisibility (slot 3 end red) and/or grant invisibility (to play with other stalkers)

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Just came from RV....and im a bit puzzled.

While i was in there i got the "Villains control pillbox" msg.."great" i thought. So i grab a heavy and head on over.
Once i get there, there is a lone Villain on the pillbox, so i send in my heavy (as you do), then get told to STOP by a group of Heroes saying "he's helping us get the temp powers" :/ .
Sorry, but this is a joke right?


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Yup, its a joke. Go ahead and keep going with your heavy next time.

My opinion is that making a pvp stalker build is FAR from easy, in a way that you know what powers you want, but trying to squeeze them in at correct lvl ranges is a damn pain. Especially when stamina is involved.. I simply don't know a way to put every power I want in before lvl 30 including stamina,

You don't want to PvP before you get stealth, and its not gonna be enough against everybody. Depending on your play style you might want to get invisibility as well. In the build below I'd swap acrobatics for invisibility, but thats me. I tried to guess what you wanted from your build and retain some aspects.. Like acrobatics, epic powers and such.

Overall, the below build doesnt want to PvP before stealth, ie. lvl 30. It is also a LEVELING build more than a final build, you might want to swap some powers around.

And I still think the defensive toggles are the weakest link in the first 18 powers.. so damn tight build.. The toggles are not too good before you get SOs in them anyway.

And I consider smoke flash, blinding powder and caltrops as the most easily dismissable powers.. But to each his own.

Kuji in Sha is great in zonal PvP, and thats what Im thinking here.

Name:
Level: 50
Archetype: Stalker
Primary: Ninja Blade
Secondary: Ninjitsu
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Gambler's Cut==> Acc(1) Dmg(3) Dmg(5)
01) --> Hide==> EndRdx(1) DefBuf(21) DefBuf(31) DefBuf(40)
02) --> Flashing Steel==> Acc(2) Dmg(3) Dmg(5) Dmg(11) Acc(19) Acc(46)
04) --> Ninja Reflexes==> EndRdx(4) DefBuf(17) DefBuf(17) DefBuf(36)
06) --> Assassin's Blade==> Acc(6) Dmg(7) Dmg(7) Dmg(9) Acc(19) Acc(43)
08) --> Build Up==> Rechg(8) Rechg(9) Rechg(11) TH_Buf(21) TH_Buf(36)
10) --> Combat Jumping==> Jump(10) Jump(36) Jump(40)
12) --> Hasten==> Rechg(12) Rechg(13) Rechg(13)
14) --> Placate==> Rechg(14) Rechg(15) Rechg(15)
16) --> Super Jump==> Jump(16) EndRdx(37) Jump(37)
18) --> Swift==> Run(18)
20) --> Health==> Heal(20)
22) --> Stamina==> EndMod(22) EndMod(23) EndMod(23)
24) --> Kuji-In Sha==> Heal(24) Heal(25) Heal(25) Rechg(33) Rechg(34) Rechg(34)
26) --> Soaring Dragon==> Acc(26) Acc(27) Dmg(27) Dmg(29) Dmg(31) Rechg(31)
28) --> Kuji-In Rin==> Rechg(28) Rechg(29)
30) --> Stealth==> EndRdx(30) DefBuf(37)
32) --> Danger Sense==> EndRdx(32) DefBuf(33) DefBuf(33) DefBuf(34)
35) --> Acrobatics==> EndRdx(35)
38) --> Kuji-In Retsu==> Rechg(38) Rechg(39) Rechg(39) DefBuf(39) DefBuf(40)
41) --> Golden Dragonfly==> Acc(41) Acc(42) Dmg(42) Dmg(42) Dmg(43) Rechg(43)
44) --> Dark Blast==> Acc(44) Acc(45) Dmg(45) Dmg(45) Dmg(46) Rechg(46)
47) --> Soul Storm==> Acc(47) Acc(48) Hold(48) Rechg(48) Rechg(50)
49) --> Summon Widow==> Acc(49) Dmg(50) Dmg(50)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Empty(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Empty(1)
01) --> Assassination==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Empty(2)
---------------------------------------------


And lastly, im not an expert, so this is just a suggestion.

EDIT: You cant slot AS for interrupt time reduction, thats a glitch in hero builder.

EDIT EDIT: Kuji In Rin is perma with 2 SOs, with hasten thats more than enough, although at times you like it when its stacked (it gives 12,5% psi resistance )

Hmm I seem to have posted the results to the wrong thread, sorry about crossposting but here goes:

team 10: DaSlasher(sub for soaring dragon), starstorm, singhMC
wins over
team 9 captain Skyfire, Vamos, red hot rock

You couldtry it at skull mobs in perez park, you can confirm how many you killed from system channel.

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I've only played a Stalker to level 15 (Claws/Nin) at most, but I can tell you already what you're doing wrong: You don't wait next to enemies for the hidden state to kick back in, you run away until the enemies stop pursuing you so hide can kick in. And don't be afraid to fight a few "fair" battles, a Stalker can easily deal with small groups of enemies at the low levels even if he only criticals on one enemy at first.

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Aye, stalker can srap with most enemies nicely, although preferably not more than 3 at a time. Bosses can be different.

Its a sort of letdown that defense toggles arent much use before you get them SO-ed, and they do have hefty end drain. I dont have stamina on my lvl 25 stalker atm, and I run the def toggles off most of the time to save endurance.

The newspaper method is based on the idea that you have the damage to take a purple boss down as long as he doesnt kill you, which is where the insps come in. You'd have no hope otherwise against a purple boss. You can AS the boss at least 3 times while one dose of def insps are running. And the finish bonus for relentless missions is truly great, at best of times I was making nearly 1,5 bars of xp in 5 minutes. Punctuated only by runs to contact to buy insps. The lvling pace will obviously slow down past lvl 20, but you'd still be making more xp than most.


...aaargh the stamina issue, I cant squeeze all powers I want in before lvl 30 (sirens call)

Hmm heh, dark I dont have experience about.. I dont know, buildup asap I say. Taking defensive toggles straight away usually produces tedious lvling process as I always emphasize attacks over defense in the per-lvl 10 game myself. Plus if you only use the newspaper-method, you dont have much use for defensive toggles before you can put SO slots in them, around lvl 22-25. But I guess you already took them, heh.

Plus you will find that endurance drain is considerable with ninjitsu, so taking stamina is a good idea.
(propably more so for me as I aim at PvP build with lot of toggles)

Im not the one to order people around, I just give little hints Choose what feels right, but my advice is attack over defense in the early game.

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So in the beginning it's basically just a matter of "sucking it up" and taking the time necessary?

I'm going to have to see if I can't suppress that darn scrapping instinct then and stay on track, not picking up "lesser attacks" along the way ... and try out the newspaper tactic .

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Yeah well, you cant survive on AS alone, im not saying that, its just the mindset of stalking im talking about When soloing you unavoidably have to scrap, but if you dont have aggro on you, wait for hide+AS Pace will speed up as you lvl and slot powers, in a continuing crescendo

Hope you find the fun

EDIT: hasten will help your scrapping considerably, and before you get SOs, the bread and butter powers recharge real slow.. So were looking at Assassin strike, build up, hasten, placate in order of importance thereabouts.. Most damaging primary attacks as well.

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I've read you can stack the Acid Arrow, making you able to hit -60%ish resist debuff. Flash arrow seems to stack too, US forums say its a -20%ish base -acc debuff.


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Sounds plausible, as I calculated -66% res for poison everytime noxious gas is up, and its uptime is 1 minute to a downtime of about 55 sec with hasten and reasonable slotting. And this is without stacking anything as I hear envenom cant be stacked on same target. If it could, debuff would be much better. Noxious gas is autohit area debuff, btw.

I agree trick arrow sounds nice though Most of the poison stuff is single target targeted powers, so fighting a big mob is more challenging.

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....sounds like the 25th June is a good day to be in RV dontcha think?

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Heh...bring it Spec!

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This time I WILL be there!

I only need scirocco for my tank, I will switch to my blaster once I have his badge.

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By that I mean debuffing in the sense that they die quicker, not so much in the stopping thme hurting you sense.

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I'd vote for poison in that sense as well, although I dont have personal experience from trick arrow. And quite frankly I dont care what the best build is, once I experienced taking down scrappers in a matter of seconds during the test server event , Im quite happy with my MM plan

And both protector bots and battle drones get heavy laser burst as a 1st tier upgrade.

And looking at things in perspective: From range Battle drones do more damage upgraded than assault bot does non-upgraded. And theres still 3 battle drones to one assault bot .. (from prima guide)

It gets better when you get the more juicy powers, like As at lvl 6, hasten, placate et cetera. Although Im not really all that fascinated that stalkers are so 'pre-designed', ie. that you have to take a lot of certain powers to make them shine, but you get used to it in the long run.

Basic idea is to utilize criticals from stealth as much as possible, even to the extent of running away, waiting stealth to kick in and coming back. This is obvious with the AS oneshots once you get to lvl 6.

Later on I made my own records of solo lvling speed with the following formula: crank difficulty to maximum, get only newspaper missions: defeat boss x, buy def insps so you can max out your defense for short period. Stealth to straight to the boss, max your def with insps, and repeatedly AS the boss (with max defense you can just stand there and wait for hide to kick in and AS to recharge), take out the nearby mobs and wham: great xp for like 5 minutes play when you do it right. Some bosses may need other types of insps as well, rock armor and bubblers need acc, freak tanks need damage insps etc. (Edit: you can decline doing the heists - just keep doing the 'assassination missions' )

teaming with other stalkers you do this same thing in greater numbers, AS the same target. LAter on you can do the PVP zone missions to same effect. I made lvl 24 in about 5 days I think, but lately ive been PvPing and laying back the lvling..

Obviously thats not everyones cup of tea, but it is effective. You can go back to doing things 'normally' if this sounds too tedious. Just mute the 'scrapping' instinct that you have, scrapping couple minions is ok, but use stealth when you can.

Im not too fond of the fact that stalkers only seem to function well when teamed with other stalkers though.

But all-stalker teams are immense fun.. I was in a 4-stalker team in Sirens call last night, got three shiny SOs as a reward

Hahah, hah, heh...

Ok, he must have an interdimensional quiver..

Or the theory about him calling in an airstrike of Stratofortresses with an arrow bombload..

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What were the S4 rules exactly? I have found a cached page, but it does not mention the length of the matches, insps or temp powers.

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S4 was a team tournament.. Hence it doesnt really apply. I recommend rules that most people seem to perceive as balanced, ie. rated duels. Which means the clock is fixed on 10 minutes, tactical start, and all else is allowed.

Afaik, not counting match length (which was 20 minutes iirc for S4 team matches) this is about the same as S4 was.

Im not entirely sure that some temp powers even work in arena, but there isnt an option to disable them. Accolades work in arena if they were gained within level range. In this case obviously super heavyweight, 47-50.

I can tell controllers are still immensely good, because some can 2-shot my blaster with epics once they get containment, so I guess holds are a sort of constant threat. I certainly dont see it as "negated primary". Plus, like others have noted, the resistance from insps can be overcome by good controllers.

team 10: DaSlasher(sub for soaring dragon), starstorm, singhMC
wins over
team 9 captain Skyfire, Vamos, red hot rock

Good match folks.

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Raid was called off. Stupid PA changes meant we couldn't actually get anyone into the bubble.

If I decide I can be bothered to do another one, I'll post the date in the future.

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Thanks for attempting in the first place, I feel sorry for the whole community for some change or bug like this to destroy everything. It cant really be working as intended?

[/ QUOTE ]Well, the tactic we use is not how the devs intended the raid to work, AFAIK that strategy hasn't been figured out yet.

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Well when are you going to figure it out, then? You'd think that the US players would have figured it out already..

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Raid was called off. Stupid PA changes meant we couldn't actually get anyone into the bubble.

If I decide I can be bothered to do another one, I'll post the date in the future.

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Thanks for attempting in the first place, I feel sorry for the whole community for some change or bug like this to destroy everything. It cant really be working as intended?

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I'm not the slightest bit surprised PvP zones are like this. It's no different to the morons in Counter Strike. Doesn't matter where you go, if there's PvP, then you'll get 1 or 2 total morons out of a hundred good players who'll stop at nothing to ruin other peoples fun.

Personally, I don't PvP. I've tried it about 10 times, and had 8 bad experiences. I dislike the attitude prevalent in a few players in those zones, and I dislike the smacktalk. When I've deathmatched in things like Quake etc, smacktalk is almost non-existant! Maybe it's because I play with people I know...

Anyway, the worst part of it all is being TP'd into PvE mobs with low health, just to give you debt (This happened to me only a few days ago so don't say it doesn't happen). Fair fights are fine, even interrupting an existing fight is within the rules (though REALLY rude IMO), but doing it in a way that causes debt is just low.

I've said it before and I say it again, PvP has made this game less fun.

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There are bad people in PvP just as there are bad people in PvE. Things are not that black and white. Important thing is to try keep an open mind.. And try to find and befriend the good people. I have been happy to find that some of the PvP people I thought elitist and hostile are not so, and instead are quite ok people.

Im not on this game ONLY for PvP, but it has become and important part of my game experience.

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doesn't levitate have -fly?

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Not to my knowledge, and flying targets wont take the falling damage part from levitate.

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i have 1 concern tho.. even tho not mny SG will be able to afford it, in the long run the big SGs will afford to buff their entire attack squad in a baseraid... its really hard to defend as it is, and imagine a skilled PvP-group complimenting their chars with aux-buffs?? sure it swings both ways, but in the end im sure attackers gain more, due to them having less problems winning to start with... perhaps a zoning nerf could be introduced, which would unfortunatley mean we cant use them in PvE tho.. any other reflections regarding this?

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Which is why the buffs propably are a bit weak..

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how often do you focus a pvp char on aoe. About never?:P

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So what if things change? Change is good