Jibikao

I am already so mad that Stalker doesn't get Shield. They better modify Titan Weapon for Stalkers.


Shield would be such a great set on Stalker because of Shield Charge. They could have modified just one or two powers to be stalker-friendly but they chose not to. They think having a Shield there means you can't "Hide". I never know they put that much emphasis on "theme". T_T I don't buy that Shield set doesn't work on Stalkers. That's BS. I bet they think Shield Charge is going to be too powerful for Stalkers because Stalker has one more aoe... oh my god, that is soooooooooo going to break the balance of this game.


They better give Stalker Titan and make sure it's worth it! They've modified Kinetic Melee to be very stalker-friendly and I am sure they can do it again too.

By the way, I've been doing +4 missions and Genin's Crank Kick knockback becomes a Knockdown. The 3 knockdowns are surprisingly useful and effective because knockback causes ninjas to pause/chase.

Maybe changing knockback to knockdown is a good start, just like what they did for Bruiser's handclap and Lich's knockback. Do you see a common trend here? When you give pets knockbacks, it's bad business. It's too unreliable and sometimes it hurts their performance.

Nothing is more annoying than a Genin knocking back a foe to another group of enemy or knocking a foe down to another level and then the pets chase (with their amazing speed), and you can't cancel their action in time, and then they aggro and die. T_T

In fact, Jounins' caltrops can be just as destructive as the knockbacks because enemies run when they get feared. Some mobs like the Wolves can't be immb/slow and they run like a girl EVERYWHERE. If your ninjas are in bodyguard mode, you have at least 5 Aggro-Magnets (Oni is alright) that can cause serious damage to yourself or the whole team.



It's funny that for every ONE POSITIVE Ninja has, there is at least ONE NEGATIVE that comes with it.

1. Faster Speed (positive) : Aggro faster (negative)

2. Higher melee damage (positive) : Taking way more damage at melee especially from aoe (negative)

3. More controls in knockbacks and fear caltrops/fire rain (positive) : causing enemies to run away/spread out way too much and ninjas chasing too fast and aggro (negative)

4. Genins probably do the most damage for Minions (positive) : It's never a good idea to rely on Minions as they are just... minions (negative)

5. Oni has many powers (positive) : and yet he doesn't cycle them frequently (negative). At this rate, I rather Oni have fire blast, ring of fire, char, breath of fire and rain of fire.


It's like Ninjas just can't win.

Stalker's problem also has more to do with some of the old sets that don't get any aoe at all. The newer sets like Dual Blade, Electricity Melee and Kinetic Melee are what I consider "good enough".

Sets like Martial Arts and Energy Melee still need more love.

In terms of qualify of life improvement, it's definitely Mastermind that got the most out of it because I am a team player and my MM tends to buff teammates as well. That means I have to buff force field on 6 pets and then all the other teammates. That's A LOT of boring bubbling. Sure, I can skip some bubbles here and there but the aoe buff change makes me want to play /FF and /Thermal MM.

The best part of this is that no bubbler buffs MM pets one by one, so this buff makes sure that some of pets get OTHER'S shield buffs as well. If my Ninjas fight melee with other Brutes and those Brutes get /thermal or /cold shields, my ninjas will get them too! It's a no brainer that MM got the best quality of life change.

The 2nd best quality of life change is Kinetic because speed boost only lasts 90s and a lot of people ask for "sb pls!". If you can buff most of people in one or two hits, that's great.

Edit: This change saves me so much endurance too.

Is it me or I feel Clockwork does a lot of range dps? Their damage type is all energy-based.

Where is Clockwork ranked in terms of ST dps? It feels very high to me. Higher than Seer's.

I haven't done Keyes yet because I don't feel like doing Keyes or Lam without even one level shift, but after reading the posts here, I wonder if MMs are better off using Group Flight? I don't know the map but if the pets have trouble "going upward", maybe they get rid of +acc for a reason to encourage Group Flight users?

Is Group Flight going to be somewhat useful in Keyes?

Like I said, I have no idea about Keyes but I just find it interesting that they improve Group Flight all of sudden.

Shocking finding from last night's test... I was fighting +0 Freakshow boss and I was testing with each group of ninja: Genins, Jounins and Oni.

The first test is with Oni. Without smoke flash, Oni takes forever to kill a +0 Freakshow. I am not surprised as he doesn't cycle every attack when it's recharged.


Second test is with Jounins. In the dummy test, the numbers were calculated when the target does not move but in real situation, it may not be the case because caltrops do fear the target(s). Surprisingly, Jounins take a bit too long to kill the freakshow boss because the boss runs a lot and caltrops certainly does not help that. When the boss runs, Jounins would chase and shoot poison dart which lowers dps greatly. I put chance for negative and AH proc in them.

The last test is with 3 Genins. This is actually the fastest group to take down Freakshow! I think when the enemy group is only +0, Genins' damage output is very high, but when the enemy is +4, their damage gets reduced so much by level difference. I put Chance for Build Up in them. Genins took down freakshow boss faster than Jounins because even when he ran, their throwing stars were still doing good damage.


So the gist is that Genins, when they survive, they add a lot of damage. Of course we know the problem is when genins die. I am still a bit shocked by Genin's damage output.

I did 3 runs of BAF last night and the new group buff certainly helps a lot when people gather in the same area. In fact, in one of the runs, none of my pet even died once, which is totally shocking because before the group buff, I had to resummon and reupgrade all the time.

My pets benefit other people's thermal shields and cold shields.

I haven't done Lam with any of my MM but I can see how that part can be difficult. The problem is that you don't always have to skip everything. People pretty much know the location of the crates so it won't take that much time to kill a group or two that are in the way. I sometimes take out a crate and the explosion takes out 50% of the surrounding mobs and I'll try to finish them off rather than letting them roam around. You can get exp too by killing them so I don't see why we have to skip them.

It's kinda hard to tell since my new lvl 50 Ninja/FF hasn't got any level shift yet. I have noticed that the Group AoE buffs benefit my pets a lot because nobody would single buff with your pets fire shields or cold shields but now my pets can benefit from them, which makes a big difference in their survival.

I've done 3 BAFs so far and in each one I got Common reward. Weird. When I did BAF with my other toons, I had problem getting Common ones. It was always either Rare or Uncommon.

We seem to get this question often.

I think it's a toss between Stalker and Scrapper. For Scrapper, you have a legit 20s HARD hitting attack in Concentrated Strike and power siphon works well with Scrapper's high base damage, although some really hate aoe knockback.

However, Stalker version (recently got buffed) has 100% critical chance in Burst and 100% Build Up Refresh when Concentrated critical. It has become a very interesting set as you constantly try to keep that build up going. The first 3 attacks are fast so you can squeeze in 3 quick attacks before build up runs out and placate and concentrated strike again.

With the new build up refresh, I no longer open the battle with assassin strike. And I believe Kinetic may have surpassed Martial Arts in terms of single target damage because Kin has dual damage type and build up makes sure you hit more often and hit hard. And most importantly, Kinetic has an awesome pbaoe and MA has NONE, ZERO, NADA aoe.

I didn't suggest anything for Grave Knights because they are already doing majority of the damage and it seems like Zombies tend to draw more aggro than Grave Knights because they run in sooner (due to lack of range). The Knights have Dark Blast and Gloom which have 80' range. The zombie pukes only have 50 or 40' range?

Giving Zombie lethal resistance is not critical. It would be nice if they have lethal instead of smashing because most range attacks are lethal. Longbows kill Necro so fast with both lethal and fire damage (Flamethrower).


I think Zombies are a bit under-performing because in terms of damage, they are at least 30% less than Genins and in terms of survival, they are not that stronger than Genins. Zombies fold just as easily as Genins.

I just think Zombie's 2nd upgrade sucks. Siphon Life recharges way too long at 30s. It needs to either recharge faster or does more damage for a 30s attack.

After testing Necro and having several high level Necro, I would recommend:

Zombie
1. Add Lethal resistance to match Smashing

2. Zombie pbaoe Vomit should have a bit lower recharge. It has 12s recharge and while the damage is a bit higher than Projectile one, its radius is really quite small. I think either the damage needs to be a bit higher or recharge needs to be 10s. I am voting for 10s recharge so Zombie attacks a bit more frequently.

3. Siphon Life: This is probably the worst 2nd upgrade of all. Zombie's Siphon Life recharges in 30s and only does the same damage as Brawl. I think the recharge needs to be much lower and damage scale needs to match Stalker/Scrapper version.

Recharge 16s (keep the same damage and healing). 16s would match all the 2nd upgrade cone attacks like Full Auto Laser and Exploding Throwing Star.

or

Keep Recharge 30s with damage scale that matches Stalker's version (5.99xbrawl). Stalker's brawl damage is 20 and Siphon Life is 119.9.

Merc's damage is ok. It depends on your secondary and the situation, sometimes Merc can out-damage Ninja and Necro simply because the pets don't die as often. If the situation is tough and zombies/ninjas run in, you lose out on a lot of dps due to their fast deaths.

Mmm, interesting. I thought Lich has Psionic resistance like Zombies. Weird.