Jibikao

Yup it does. Well, VS sounds good on paper. There's been a lot of debates on VS. It has the potential to deal good damage but in real game situation, there are a lot of down-sides as well. 1. You can't control which target it hits (which means if you try to focus on a boss, your VS may be hitting other things). 2. It doesn't always hit as soon as its within range. I know sometimes it waits a bit and then shoots. 3. If you are hitting a runner, your VS lags behind you. 4. VS doesn't benefit from damage buffs (so no Aim and Build Up) but they did eventually add good amount of Defiance buff (around 20%?) after you cast VS.


VS did benefit from -recharge from Endurance Modification sets. I did a test and the -recharge really increased VS' damage a lot. Of course now all the -recharge in pets are gone.... T_T

I've made several suggestions before on VS. I think they should give VS another attack that recharges in 10s. Electricity Blast should have that "chain of lightning" effect. Too bad it was created before Electricity Melee was created. VS could use a chain of lightning attack just like Chain Induction.

Why do we need Assassin Strike that is interruptable? lol

Anyway, I am leveling a Beam Rifle Blaster and I swear his burst ST damage is higher than Stalker at lvl 24. If I do Aim + BU, Disintergration, tier 1, 2 and 3... most +0 and +1 bosses are dead or very close to death. The setup time is about the same. I hit Aim + BU on the run.

You know just a simple Dis + Lancer shot is good enough to kill +0 and +1 minions! My Disintegration isn't even slotted for damage yet. I just have +acc and +recharge. If I put a full set in, I believe Dis + Lancer can kill some +2 minions?

Edit: As for my Martial Arts Stalker, I think one time during BAF, I was checking my critical damage and one time I score 3 criticals in a row. Eagle, Axe and Cobra. The highest Eagle Claw I've seen is about 900 + 900. I don't think that's my damage cap but that's the highest I've seen.

Since when is Stalker that good in pvp? Stalker is only good at ganking the newbies. Stalker is good in zone pvp but I doubt Stalker is that great in tournament. Last time I checked the top performances in tournament are mostly tankers?

Like I said, I don't pvp much in this game (I do in other games) but I never find Stalker that big of a problem if you know they are coming. I've fought Stalkers in tournament or base raid and they are not that scary.

I find a buffed Blaster a much bigger threat than Stalker because Blaster has range and even higher sustained dps.

I enjoy the extra critical chance on a large team but I hate how small 30' radius is. The extra critical chance with a small radius is to encourage Stalkers to fight with the team, rather than trying to "hit and run".

I know many people want the dev to just increase damage modifier to 1.125 to match Scrapper's and stop worrying about how big the radius should be./;

That just means they are not reading the reports that were submitted and that just pisses me off because I spent quite a bit time testing them issue after issue. I even respec out Weapon mastery because I can't stand not dealing any critical damage at all.

I honestly don't think they pay much attention to Stalkers and I am not even joking...

Synapse told me he looked at Stalker epic and there's no "critical" assigned to any of the epic. I was worried because I know Blaze mastery can critical. He didn't tell me whether or not Epic is supposed to deliver critical damage.

Then just a few days ago, I PM Arbiter Hawk and he said Stalker Epic sets are supposed to deal critical damage, just like Patron sets.

Well, at this point, we need to pick our "poison". I know I am one of the few that is against increasing HP Cap and mostly because I don't want Stalker to become another Scrapper with higher HP cap and survival.

If Stalker is a truly "Glass Cannon", give me that CANNON part! I am not seeing the Cannon part except when I am on a full team with 8 people hugging me.

Of course any buff for Stalker is welcome but I want more damage with less restriction on the Team Critical Buffs. It makes no sense that the truly "Stealthy Assassin" class in this game needs teammates to do good damage. That is just so against the traditional design.

They can improve Regen on Stalker by giving it more +resistance, +defense or other goodies without increasing the HP Cap. Now I don't know the reason behind the low cap and quite frankly I don't really care. I just know that my Stalker survives pretty well but the damage potential in comparison to other ATs is quite limited. Stalker's damage is decent for most parts of the game but you have other ATs with broken set combos that deal just too much damage with good survival.

As for PvP, is Stalker really that good? I've only got killed by Stalker when I am not careful and standing there. Other than that, if you know Stalker is there (IE Tournament), I think Stalker is quite easy to kill. I find high level Tankers and some Blasters are the hardest to kill. Stalker is really only good at ganking the weak in both PvE and PvP. Assassin Strike damage doesn't scale with AV so its "burst damage" advantage fails in that situation.

From the players point of view, we don't care if things have been "talked about" or "planned". They can plan up until year 2014 for the new stuff but as long as the new set is not made, it is not planned.

An actual plan is to follow through and make it happen. They didn't plan anything for Dom in 21.5 and that's wrong.

Of course they always have "plans" in the works. I'll be worried if they have no plans in 2012...

I care more about "quality" than "quantity" at this point. Dominator will always lag behind in terms of total # of sets but that's fine. I just want to see them commit to making at least one new set for Dominator in 21.5 since Dom didn't even get a proliferated set in 21. I don't think this is too much to ask.

I'll give them the benefit of doubt that they are unsure of Illusion Control, but Dark Assault can EASILY be put together as a proliferated set with no new animation.

But instead, Dom isn't getting anything new in 21.5 and we may need to wait another 3-4 months until one new Dom set comes out (and by then I am sure Staff set is already done. :P)

This is just poor planning. It has nothing to do with "time restraints".

Currently, all Patron attacks for Stalker can critical.

I am talking about Epic (Hero Epic sets). Unless they've fixed in issue 21 (which I doubt since I haven't tested them and lost interest in testing them), Body, Darkness (not Ghost Widow, Soul) and Weapon cannot critical at all. Only Blaze (Fire Epic) can critical and critical too much.

Yup, they should start by fixing the other 3 Epic sets that cannot critical. Body, Weapon and Darkness. I did PM Synapse about this issue and he told me he believes none of the epic sets are assigned with any "critical" value (by looking at the data sheet), so he doesn't even think Blaze should critical. I went to Test server the day he replied to me and Fireball and other fire epic attacks indeed critical and throwing stars still cannot critical.

This doesn't give me much confidence to tell you the truth. The dev is not even sure if Epic sets have critical or not. It's like how much do they really know about Stalker? How often do they actually play Stalker? We may be surprised by the answer... which is not often at all. I just have a guts feeling about it. You can't tell me they are not even sure if Stalker's Epic sets can critical or not. That is just wrong...

And I've submitted bug report 3 times. This bug is really not that hard to fix. I still remember one of the Patron sets don't give Containment to Controller and they fixed that right away.


Has anyone tested Epic sets recently? Can they all critical? I haven't tested it since 21 came out.

Yup, year 2013.

And that's the trend I don't want to see and I hope we see less in the future. Sure, we all know there are more people playing Brute/Scrapper/Tanker than Controller/Dominator but this doesn't mean they should "ignore" Dominator for several months. We are not asking 2-3 new sets for Dominator. We just want something... even a proliferated set and even that hasn't been announced yet.

All those "new" players you are talking about, the old sets are just as "new" to them as the "new" sets. Those "new" people are not the determining reason why they should ignore Dom for months.

All in all, priority is still the issue. The priority of 21.5 should get some new Incarnate and get one Dominator set. Push Titan to 22 if time doesn't allow. Time is ONLY an issue when they try to work on Titan before Dominator or before they think about how they are going to port to Stalker. Now Stalker is left out and they may need to do a proliferated set in the future. Why rushing like that? Poor planning.

I think the dev is under-estimating Dominator fanbase. I would say dominator fans are extremely loyal to the class and they will buy the new sets.

Looking at how they push the new sets out, they probably think there's not much 'cash" in Dominator category.... and this part annoys me.

Yes, we all know melee AT is the most popular category but it doesn't mean nobody plays Dominator (and Stalker). Well, Stalker's problem is mostly their problems. Stalker fans have come up thousands of ideas to improve the AT but in the end, Castle said what's done is the best they can do. Dominator, on the other hand, is more popular and I see more people playing them at high level. Dominator is at least fun! Stalker is statistically weaker than all melee-counter parts. Stalker has the worst damage/survival ratio and Stalker is the worst at soloing AVs/Pylon. You can't fault people for not wanting to invest a lot of time in Stalker AT. I usually see quite a few Stalker between level 1-35 and then after that, this AT just vanishes.

At some point the dev needs to be "fair" and figure out a way to satisfy all fanbase especially when they rely on people buying cash items. Yes, players ALWAYS want something but melee already got several proliferated sets and SJ. I think that's enough for issue 21, don't you think?

Dom didn't even get one proliferated set. I don't know why some people kept bringing up that Dom got Elec control. Every core AT got something new in Going Rogue, not just dom (dual pistol, kinetic melee, demon).


By your logic, there are always more people wanting to play Melee and Range specific sets. Let's just hand out all the candies and ask that Dominator child to wait for 4-5 months for his turn. And by the time Dominator has something new, guess what? Staff Weapon is on test again! :P And looking at how Staff melee works, it is going to be nightmare to design it for Stalker's needs.

They are rushing out sets. I don't mind having new stuff to play but we all know Dominator and Stalker are somewhat unique AT that require specific attention. If Titan weapon requires more time to be released for Stalker, then spend the time. They can easily add more different "large weapons" like a deadly scythe for stalker instead of a giant hammer. The options are there but they feel they don't have the "time" in 21.5 because they are rushing it. That's the part I don't like. Priority is not set straight.

If anything, 21.5 issue should include Dominator stuff since they didn't get anything in 21. I can't believe they ignore Dominator until next year.... I find it strange that I feel so strongly about this issue and I don't even play Dom that much anymore. I play mostly Stalker!


(And about your comment that Stalker is the least of their concern. I can echo that. Sometimes I feel they wish they could just get rid of this Stalker AT. It's a headache to balance an AT that is out-dated and has a bad design to begin with. I have never been to any convention, but can somebody tell me if any of the Dev mains Stalker? I know Poistron likes Dominator and BAB plays Tankers. I don't recall any of the AT mains Stalker? When I say "main", I mean he plays mostly Stalkers and not just in pvp. I believe every designer has his/her favorite.)

Exactly.

The main excuse for Stalker not getting any proliferated primary set is due to the fact that Animation takes the longest time. Assassin Strike will require one different animation. Just one....

They threw in two "new sets" for Blaster. Dark Blast version is different and so is Dark Manipulation. Those two are just re-cycled sets *=(using mostly existing powers with no new animations).

I refuse to think it's harder to create a Dark Assault. All it is is a mix of range/melee and some controls. Da Da! I bet most people here can come up a Dark Assault within minutes.

So the fact that they didn't even have time for Dark Assault raises a question... why not? Maybe there's no Dark/Dark in the work.

I have to say I may get a bit annoyed if Dom ends up having a Dark Assault set that looks similar to Dark Manipulation. The first question in mind is "this takes more than 4-5 months to make?!" You kidding me? I've said it before, "Time" is only an issue if the priority is not right. They tried to say Stalker isn't getting Titan Weapon because time doesn't allow. Well, time is ONLY AN ISSUE if they try to work on another melee set before working on a new Dominator set. I refuse to think balancing a Dark Assault takes longer than testing for Titan Weapon which has new mechanics. So, all in all, Brute/Scrapper is just way more important than Dominator's needs but they don't want to admit. I specifically don't want to test titan weapon and don't care about it (I did test SJ on stalker) because this set shouldn't be created before dom gets something new first. I know I am in the minority here but oh well.