Jibikao

PvP in this game is even more laughable.. please don't start.

The worst thing between Dark VS Poison is that in order to get the best of /Poison debuff, you need to get closer to the mob. Venomous Gas is only 15' and has no lingering effect. This alone makes /Poison a lot more dangerous and /Poison also has no self-heal.

Dark VS Poison shouldn't even be in the same sentence. /Poison is neat and cute and playable, that's all.

Those sets that have 100% critical will have an advantage and sets like MA and EM don't even have an aoe to begin with.

Oh well. I hope they don't fix too late because we are used to 100% critical Burst. :P

You know, unless your toon is buffed with many set bonuses, doing the mission at +4 isn't that easy especially when you are lower level.

+4 only seems easy once you are an Incarnate with a lot of set bonuses. At that point, I think you've EARNED to be "god-like" because you've spent the time to become an awesome incarnate.

I hear complaints on the game being too easy so I tried +4 at lvl 26. Blah.. I died quite a few times after inspirations ran out. :P

Yes, the game can be easy when you have a lot of buffs/debuffs stacking or when the game setting is too low.

Oh no, so Kinetic's Burst is a bug then? lol I thought it's a feature since they haven't fixed it. I am pretty sure Fireball is bugged as Hawk has responded.

That's not my complaint. In order to "strategically" Assassinate a target, Assassin Strike must come out faster. The new buff will make sure Stalker has a fast, strong attack out of hidden. The new buff does not take away the current Hidden + BU + AS. You can't strategically and efficiently assassinate on a large team if the team moves faster than your signature attack that takes over 4-6s (if you use Placate) and has interruption attached to it.

Stalker's little "niche"? Well, the whole Stalker AT alone is niche enough. Stalker is probably the lowest population of all and it's even more apparent at lvl 50. I think even Dominator has caught up in terms of popularity. Yes, even with the new buffs, I don't think the whole playerbase would change much opinion but stalker fans like me will certainly enjoy a bit more because Stalker should be doing better ST damage while doing some AoE if your powersets allow it. I think the whole Assassin Class in general is never the most popular class in any game I've played.

Could there be more buffs? Sure. I don't mind seeing better Demoralize or a mix of -Maxhp debuff or -Special debuff or Purple Triangle debuff that some people suggested. We can keep asking until the dev agrees to it. :P

No way worse, the Dog does not bark! I spent 500 points on a German Shepard that doesn't bark!

Yeah, I don't think Stalker will ever have Fiery Aura and Shield (put the theme restriction aside) because of Fiery Embrace and Shield Charge.

I can see Stalker having Fiery Melee though (although they may not want to port FM due to not being able to port FA)

I never understand the DoT bug with Placate. I know it doesn't bother me in pve but I think it does in pvp. Oh well, I don't pvp so screw them. :P

Well, since you want to play this childish game, I'll entertain you.

Stalker VS Scrapper
1. Stalker has less HP but has Hide to start the fight which can potentially reduce alpha damage. Stalker can pick his target(s) easier.

2. Stalker naturally attracts less aggro unless you throw aoe around. I've tested this with my Blaster. I am sure it has something to do with stealth powers. I know my Scrapper draws more aggro which puts Scrappers in more danger. But on the plus side, Scrapper can hold aggro for the team which Stalker may have trouble with. That's one tactical difference. The team may need a meatshield or a team can use a selfish assassin.

3. Stalker has less aoe.

4. Most of Stalker's secondary sets do not offer more damage but Scrapper can get more damage from secondaries.

5. Stalker has assassin strike. With the new buff, Stalker should have better Melee ST Burst and Sustained damage with most set combinations. This is very logical because Stalker excels in ST while Scrapper excels in AoE.

6. Stalker can cause Demoralize, Scrapper can't.

7. Stalker can Placate a target and run away and come back with another stab. Placate + AS may not be attractive but the choice is yours. You still have a few seconds of safety by using Placate + AS rather than just keep on hitting.

8. Stalker and Scrapper have different sets. Scrapper has more variety mace/axe/titan/fiery and Stalker has energy melee and ninjitsu.

That's plenty of differences there.


Maybe that's not enough for you but I see even less differences between Tanker/Brute/Scrapper. As someone have said it, they can technically combine Brute/Tanker together and Scrapper/Stalker.

Placate + AS is still not on the "better" combos. It's a good combo for soloing and other than that, it's a slow and interruptable combo.

Placate + AS takes more than 4s. Placate itself is 1.5s. A good assassin needs an attack that is FAST and high damaging.

I was playing my SJ/Ice with two friends (a Dominator and a Defender) in Lady Winter and I don't even bother with Placate + AS. One, I hate detoggling Chilling Embrace. Two, I find a simple Placate + Shin Breaker good enough to kill off a minion or a lieut. If it's a boss, I usually start the fight with BU + AS on it anyway and finish it off with the rest of attacks.

And stop fantasizing that the dev made this change for me. You have your ideas and I have mine. The dev sees the problem that Placate is unreliable and they are giving you a way to bypass that extra step (Focus) to get a very good ST attack. If you don't like it? Don't use it. You are more than welcome to play the way you want Placate + AS. I know I am not the only one that sees Placate is a bad offensive power and there is no need to improve upon a bad power unless they totally re-vamp it.

I still see plenty of things that Stalker differs from Scrapper.

And some of you need to stop crying before the beta is even up. There could more things that we can get them to buff/change before it goes live.

Oh my... 4s against mobs that are +4? What's left? 1.5s? lol

Do you guys farm her at AV or Elite? Or she is always AV?

I fought her on my lvl 34 Beam Blaster but she was an AV and I have no set bonuses to last long.

How long does the Winter Gift slow resistance last? 7 days?

When they made ET change, there wasn't that many focuses on AoE damage. I mean ITF probably just came out and there was no game setting that allows you to increase mob size. Energy Melee was very popular for soloing and pvping.

This game is changing. It has way more emphasis on Larger Team Size. Larger Team size comes with larger spawns. Stalker's old tactic of BU + AS on SINGLE TARGET becomes highly ineffective. They've also introduced more and more "auto damage" which un-hidden Stalker (TNP for example).

I don't think it's a shame to bring back the old ET. They can re-vamp EM again but I think Stalker will definitely get a good use of good ST attack. You are not a good assassin if your bread-n-butter attack is interruptable, taking 3s or longer and doing less damage.

Energy Melee is the only Stalker primary I have not tried. :P

I always have good points!! :P

Just kidding. I play Gravity a lot and trust me, I have tried to like Propel. The current Gravity in my book is "fine" but only for Dominator. I can see Controllers not liking Gravity because at least with domination, I can wormhole almost everything (yes, even Hami in Lady Grey task force! That's how we got Master Badge. ) as long as they are within the radius but with controller, I don't think they can teleport bosses?

My perma Dom would WH a group and rain aoe on them. This tactic I like but the radius is a bit too small. 20' radius would be REALLY nice. And I give up caring about Dimension Shift. I've tried to like that power but every time I use it, I spend even more time trying to explain to others what's going on. They actually made this AoE Shift power WORSE!! A few years ago when you use Dimension Shift, the mobs would just STAND THERE and do nothing. The graphic is hard to tell but at least they are not attacking. Now? The phased foes are STILL ATTACKING. You are just not attacking any damage. It's confusing as hell. I am surprised they somehow made this power worse than before.

Anyway, back to main point...

This new change makes it "awkward". In order to get Impact damage, I have to use Hold first. Why would I need to Hold something that's already stunned by WH? That just takes one extra step.

And the reason Propel belongs to the Control Set is that it has a 100% knock back. Whether people like knock back or not, that's beside the point. Propel itself is a control power. Why would I need to use a knock back on a Held target? This makes little sense for Dominator who has assault secondary.


I am not against having extra damage because I do feel the theme of Gravity for Controller is more about that extra damage than extra controls. Gravity was created for Controller first and it's one of the two control sets that have decent, direct attack (rather than long DoT).

We'll see if we can change dev's mind once beta is up.