Jibikao
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Posts
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Wow.. never know it's possible to have Perma Arachnos Blaster?? Isn't recharge at 900s with only 240s duration?
And since your goal is to utilize pet, I wonder if other patron pets are better? I think Blood Widow could be doing a lot more damage for you. -
Quote:What's SAD is waiting for 8s for a Snipe to go off...Originally Posted by Novella
Too many of you approach playing Stalkers or the game in general from a numbers view and that is your metric in determining if a character is fun/efficient. In my opinion that is a sad way to play, but to each their own.
I may settle for 4s but not 8s.
I don't think Stalker is "un-fun". I may be one of the players here that have the most high level Stalkers in the forum right now. I enjoy Stalkers but it doesn't mean I can't have problems with their design. -
Dimension Shift power is really pain the !@#$ to use. My 3rd Gravity dom is lvl 49 now. I enjoy Wormhole a lot (20' radius would be nice) but I still can't stand how Dimension Shift works.
DS just causes so much confusion. Years ago phased out mobs would just stand there but now they are attacking even though they are not doing any damage. I don't know how many times my teammates say like "WTF is going on". I spend more time explaining to them than trying to enjoy the phased outs.
I think aoe phase shift in general is just poor. Single Cage is fine.
If they don't want to break the cottage rule, they should at least add strong -Regen in it because without it, the mobs eventually have a "net gain" from it after 30s (for example, bosses regenerate back health).
If they want to break cottage rule, I would prefer seeing a Reverse effect of Ice Patch where you cast a patch on the ground and the mobs have a chance to get Knocked Up and the patch causes -fly/-jump. -
Quote:This is mostly true before they change Stamina to inherent and before set bonuses are included. Mastermind's strength in endurance usage isn't that big of a deal once people have set bonuses or epic powers. And it's not like pets don't use endurance. Oni and Commando can easily run out of endurance without -end.Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
Fair is subjective in a game like this.
Not all ATs and powersets benefit equally from inspirations.
An MM's pets, as long as they are alive, deal damage basically "for free" in terms of your endurance usage - so you'll need to excuse most people if they aren't feeling bad that MMs don't get the same benefit from damage inspirations (this is also a part of why it would be massively overpowered).
Inspiration usage is extremely important in this game and MM benefits the least from it. Sure, you can toss inspirations to pet but do you have enough to give to all 6 pets? The most I would do is to toss to boss pet or purple to Jounins. -
However, I would play /Poison on Corruptor than Mastermind because /Poison offers little to protect 6 pets. Thug/Poison is probably the best combo so far because of Bruiser.
Oh, and don't be so sure that they'll re-design Corruptor /Poison a lot. I think the most they'll do is to put noxious gas on ally and adjust the debuff values.
I think /Poison overall needs help. They should get rid of the interrupt in Poison Trap. While we are at it, can we please change the name to avoid confusion? How about Sleep Trap or something? -
Quote:164 ST dps is with or without any pet?Originally Posted by Exxar
Heh, just made a hybrid crab/huntsman build with 164 ST DPS vs the bane's 155, but with no Surveillance or Shatter Armor. Unlike the bane, however, this toon has massive resists, 2000 hp and 25 hp/s regen, two arachnobot disruptors and a excrementload of AoE. So much for banes.
Like I said, I am not surprised that Bane has less dps because he does the most resistance debuffs of all. If Bane has the highest dps while debuffing the most, then there is a problem.
Technically I can get another 20% resistance debuff from AH Proc in both Soldier rifle attacks but I hate to redraw. I am pretty happy with just surveillance, venom and shatter armor. -
Patron Spider's damage is that pathetic? Wow... didn't anticipate that. I know patron pets suck but this suckage. What else does the Blaster do? More controls?
I know Stalker's 3 Spiderlings do a lot of damage but Stalker is the last AT that needs a pet because the pet aggros and unless the pets can tank (which the spiderlings can't), they die very easily. (The Patron Spiderlings have a tiny bit more health than Stalker without any HP+ buff)
I still like Call Reinforcement the best because you get two decent pets and they survive much better than the little spiderlings. In fact, I believe my current Crab build got rid of the spiderlings. -
Quote:There are two types of MM AT: There is Robot/Thug users that claim MMs are perfect and there's Ninja/Necro users like me who think the pets are just dying too fast to be effective. I will never bring my Necro/Pain to Barracuda SF again. All those aoe frustrates me to no end and I highly doubt that I'll bring Necro/Pain to Apex. It's tough enough to survive ambushes. I can't imagine all the hard work just to goto undead pets so they don't just run through the blue flame. It is just not worth the effort.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I've found that while masterminds tend to be highly versatile, they tend, on average and in the incarnations I've played, to have two significant vulnerabilities that my Ill/Rad does not have:
1. They tend to be vulnerable to AoE damage. In situations with a lot of AoE, you can easily find all your pets vaporizing faster than you can keep them alive unless you have a huge amount of AoE defense (Bots/FF, for example, tends to be less vulnerable, but not completely invulnerable). Two of the three sources of aggro control in Ill/Rad are totally indestructible: PA and Spooky.
2. They tend to be vulnerable to high order burst damage, such as from AVs. The little pets in particular are AV cannon fodder. That makes it tricky for most masterminds to control AV aggro without significant help.
Really strong MMs can cover for these weaknesses of course, but they tend to be pits in the armor Ill/Rad doesn't have. They have other strengths that Ill/Rad doesn't have, of course, but those two tend to hurt the overall versatility of MMs in my mind, even given their other advantages.
Which is not to say they aren't highly versatile archetypes in general. And Bots in particular, being essentially completely ranged, can in practice neutralize a lot of the issues with aggro and burst damage by staying at range. My experience with Mercs is much more limited, so I can't say with first hand experience what the top end performance of Merc MMs is.
If melee pets like Genin can't survive even one hit, then they have no business going in kicking.
I agree with your points on MMs. While they are versatility, they also have a lot of weaknesses. And I am one of those who hate using Bodyguard mode with taunt. If I want to direct damage to myself, I'll play Tanker/Brute. When I choose MMs, I want my pets take most of the damage, not me.
Speaking about which, Arcanaville, is there any chance to add Positional Resistance? I figure the system already has Positional Defense. It shouldn't be that hard to add Positional Resistance, right? I want them to add AoE resistance to MM's pets (mostly melee ones). It's ridiculous how fast they die against aoe from bosses/AV. -
How many of you actually played /Poison MM until lvl 50?
I have a 50 Merc/Poison and from my experience, /Poison is a very under-performing set. Reasons:
1. Single Heal is slow and not enough to keep 6 pets alive. This is less of a problem for Corruptor.
2. The two strong debuffs are only ST, on a pretty long recharge timer, and there is accuracy check. The debuff values will be stronger on Corruptor, however.
3. Poison Trap is a piece of crap. It has 4s interrupt and it's only Sleep. And they need to decide on lvl 38 power. Either put the gas on yourself or put the gas on somebody else.
4. If Gas is set to put on somebody else, then it's not useful when you solo.
Don't get me wrong. I've been wanting a Poison/Toxic Blast set but honestly, I think if you haven't played high lvl /Poison, you probably will be a bit disappointed. MM doesn't have Radiation so there is no comparison but /Radiation can do a lot of things that /Poison can't. I don't think /Poison is anymore powerful for soloing than /Radiation and /Dark.
They'll need to re-design /Poison to fit Corruptor's standard IMO.
Now, I want a Toxic Blast set which has more short-range Puke powers (just like Zombie). And if you can put Gas on yourself, it will be an interesting "melee-style" Corr. -
Quote:Ouch again.. full team critical buff only buffs Stalker to 1.31? That's pretty sad.Originally Posted by Dispari
Scrapper: 1.125 * 1.1 = 1.24*
Stalker: 1.00 * 1.31 = 1.31
* = For the sake of argument, Scrappers have 10% crit rate on anything that actually matters. Especially since the argument is mostly based around AVs. Doesn't really matter about minions, and even if it does, well, AoEs take those out and Scrappers have those.
Has any Stalker beat a pylon? I read that pylon result thread and I don't recall seeing a Stalker doing it. Maybe they have but with other conditions?
I've tried it with my Kin/Dark. I can't even take out 10% of pylon's health. My lvl 50 db/nin can't either. I don't even bother using my lvl 50 spine/ea.
So the irony is when the REAL threat matters, Stalker is the worst of the 4 melee ATs. Tanker tanks extremely well. Brute can take up both tanking/damage. Scrapper with buffs can deal more damage than Stalker. -
Quote:Exactly. My Bane can do more burst damage under 10s than most of my Stalkers WHILE providing great resistance debuffs, team defense buffs and survive just as well.Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
High end builds across a variety of ATs are easily capable of putting out 1k or more damage over 5s time.
Stalker's biggest problem is that during low levels, Assassin Strike works quite well because other ATs can't do that much damage in 10s (lack of attacks, buffs, set bonuses). However, as you are over lvl 40+, other ATs can dish out very quality damage to the point that Stalker's Assassin Strike is just not needed.
Stalker's effectiveness drops greatly when the content gets much harder. My Claw Assassin Strike + Build Up can't even kill a +2 Longbow Lieut... that seems like a joke to me. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Dispari
I touched on that earlier, but yeah, in addition to just the 5% damage advantage in ideal situations, Scrappers also have the following advantages:
* BU is +100% instead of +80% (advantage over all Stalker sets)
* Scrappers get Soul Drain (+220% possible)
* Scrappers get Follow Up (perma +75% possible)
* Scrappers get Blinding Feint (perma +75% possible)
* Scrappers get Power Siphon
* Scrappers get Fiery Embrace
* Scrappers get Against All Odds (up to 68.75% damage)
* Scrapper combos do not rely on BU, Placate, or AS
* Scrappers get Fire Melee
* Scrappers get Shield Charge
* Scrappers get damage toggles (Death Shroud, Blazing Aura, Quills)
* BS, DB, Katana, KM, MA have +1 AoE; Claws has +2
* Numerous powers come earlier (Touch of Fear, Crane Kick, Parry)
Even besides damage advantages, Scrappers get more endurance management options. They get better returns on +HP powers (even ignoring the difference for heals and +regen powers). They have the ability to taunt and draw aggro if they desire. They don't suffer performance-wise from autohits, patches, or AoEs. They have an even and predictable performance regardless of where their teammates are in relation to them.
Stalkers just lack in so many ways that there's a huge gap between what they sacrifice and what they gain for said sacrifices.
Ouch... when you list it out like that, Stalker's damage does seem quite inferior.
I do agree that sets like Claw and Dual Blade on Scrapper definitely does more damage because of stacking follow-ups.
The one AT that can benefit so much from Shield Charge = Stalker. But wait, Shield can't be invisible... I don't buy that some shield powers don't work well with stalker because they modified Willpower for Stalker. They can do the same with Shield set if they want to. I guess Shield Charge on Stalker is just very un-assassin like. -
Quote:I have to assume Snipes do get normal critical rate (at least 10% base and more for teammates) just like what patron Dark Blast gets.Originally Posted by Gatecrasher
Hi,
Dopey noob-Stalker question: there are other Patron pool snipes (at least one), do they also get bonus damage coming out of Hide?
Thanks.
-Gate
If you wait for 1s, you'll be back to Hidden by the time your snipe goes off anyway (snipe has 7 something casting time). lol
Just a side note, 3 out of 4 Epic sets can't critical. I believe the only epic set that can critical is Fire Mastery. Don't ask me why. I've reported this 3 times now. They don't seem to care enough to fix such obvious bugs. I respec my /Weapon Stalker because I hate the fact that my throwing stars can't critical. -
Quote:They've made Hover a lot faster than before. It's not "fast" but it's good enough for combat purpose.Originally Posted by makerian
I don't have Hover, but I use Raptor Pack. It uses more End but it's also faster. In my 7 years, I've almost never tried hover blasting. I'll try it out a little this weekend, see how I like it
I rely on raptor pack for traveling too. We sometimes do Master TFs and Hover becomes useful for me to reach certain area that I can't jump up to. Hover also offers defense that stacks with others. You really only need one slot. -
I would at least take Venom Grenade. It is too great of a power to skip IMO.
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Quote:I would keep Vengeance as well. It's a good "oh ****" power to have when somebody dies. VEATs don't have defense debuff resistance so when you get hit by attacks with -defense debuff (Longbows and PPD for example), the higher the defense, the better.Originally Posted by makerian
It's a little late for me, as I probably won't redo this build unless I really messed something up. I will have a few weeks to test it against the ITF, Apex, and Tin Mage TFs, so I will see how I handle the Acc/THB issues. I agree, it's great to have on a large team, but I guess in my case, I'm hoping a few other support toons will have it instead of me
I like Tactics, too, and generally on my Controller/Defenders I get the trifecta of Leadership, so I'm sympathetic to the arguments in favor of Tactics.
This build hopefully does enough to help teams as it is. I could've dropped Vengeance, but when the going gets really tough (as in, it's not just a Widow or Drone giving a team of 8 problems), I'll go for Vengeance instead
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I don't see Hover in your build but it is great on a toon that uses all range attacks. Hover is extremely good in Apex because those Swords can't fly. You can avoid so much damage.
I think it's always good to try something first. You can always respec later. -
Tactics is a VERY good power to have. It will help you kill Drones, Roman Soldiers and Night Widow so much easier. NW has high defense and if your setting is +2 or higher, you'll have a hard time killing NW especially when her Smoke Grenade keeps hiding her. Your teammates will love you too.
Training: Tactics's endurance cost is much lower than power tool's. I highly recommend you take it. You don't have to run it every time if you can't afford the endurance. -
Quote:I agree that Bane, on his own, can't deal top damage but the charm is that Bane has access to 3 resistance debuffs/team buffs that Brute/Scrapper are lacking. Bane can help the team take down a hard target much faster.Originally Posted by Exxar
Yes 155 is nicely at the top of the second thread but I expect results much closer to the first thread when I deck a toon with a 1-1.5 billion build (I use everything except PvP IOs and purple sets, with the exception of cheapass ones like Absolute Amazement and Fortunata Hypnosis). Spending that kind of inf I can get a comfortable minimum of about 180 DPS with most scrapper or brute primaries (which is pretty much consistent with Billz' first thread, with a few exceptions of course in which I'm not sure how he got such low results, DB and Claws for example). Ignoring Alpha slotting, of course.
And the build I based my calculations above is just such a build. That's why I said the toon was fantastic for leveling, but became quite lacking in the endgame when some serious IOs entered the picture.
If Bane has "good" damage and with no resistance debuffs, then I would say Bane feels "crappy".
Hey...I started at least 3 "Bane needs help" threads myself. lol That's before I respec for stamina inherent and took Shatter Armor. I now think Bane is very good on team because he can fill 3 roles really well: Team defense buffs, resistance debuffs and stalker role (burst damage and stealth).
Edit: My Bane build still can't solo a pylon because 1. I don't have Acrobatic and with just one anti-knockback piece, I still get knocked back which hurts dps big time. 2. I feel pylon has good resistance against toxic damage (I could be wrong on this one) 3. I am all melee and my Reinforcements will go melee after a while and they just die. If the spiders don't die, I am very confident that I can beat pylon in the end. -
Quote:No, I mean like 90% of the team play. I don't assume you spend 90% of the time fighting AVs in this game, do you? I know I don't.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
You mean like, say, 90% of the AV fights in the game that a team will be involved in?
If you feel like your stalker only serves a purpose in AV fight where everyone "cuddles" together, be my guest. That's not my idea of Stalker. -
Quote:I don't mind using snipe on Stalker too (that's why I took it in the first place on my db/nin) but not with 8s super long animation time. When I first took it, I didn't read the 8s casting time. I thought most patron powers just have double the recharge timer or maybe a bit less damage.Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
The game is more than just a numbers exercise. It is not always about how much damage you can do and how fast you can do it.
I may take Moonbeam on my DM/Nin stalker's build because it is thematically appropriate to him.
I don't really care if it isn't the most efficient power, because I create characters, not just collections of numbers I pit against other collections of numbers.
The reply is "there are far more important things to worry about" and I wonder what are they?
I am not always a min/maxer but stalker snipe is very poorly designed (I think snipe is poorly designed in general). The damage isn't that good (due to stalker's low range scale). If the damage is great or if the snipe casting time stays at 4s, it may have its use WHILE preserving its "coolness" that you like.
Why can't we have a cool power that also works well... is what I am asking? -
Quote:Somebody brought up that Defender's Vigilance works whenever there is party member (in the same zone only?). From coding stand point of view, isn't it easier this way than trying to check for how many party members within the radius? Someone told me that Stalker only gets 30 radius because the game could be lagging too much if the radius is larger.Originally Posted by UberGuy
(In terms of whether it's technically feasible, standard code rant applies, but the way the Defender damage buff unconditionally decays with team size seems to suggest it's possible.)
If the answer is "no, you can't have both"... I don't know. I guess it might be OK. The 33% works pretty well for me, because teams I run with tend to run around in a clump, especially around hard targets.
I don't know if Stalker's damage is crazy high with 33% critical potential (some attacks have no critical damage anyway) so that's why I suggest a trade-off for something around 25% but at least the buff is always there (as long as the teammates are in the same zone). -
While I think Stalker still has a lot of room for improvement, I don't think Scrapper is always a clear winner of the two.
I think in the situation where everyone is within 30' radius (yes, I know it's rare), Stalker should be doing more dps than Scrapper.
The problem is the dev do have a system to make Stalker better on a team (the Team Critical Buff) but the restriction, in my opinion, is too harsh. 30 radius is really quite small.
I do not want them to just simply increase Stalker's base damage to match Scrapper. I find that boring/lazy. I like to see more critical. The randomness in Stalker is what I enjoy.
I suck at math but can somebody do an analysis between Scrapper VS Stalker with full Team Critical buff? Let's take Martial Arts VS Martial Arts as a comparison.
With the old difficulty setting, I would say my Stalker seems to solo a bit better than my currently MA Scrapper. However, you can be creative with the setting now. Instead of doing +2/+3 x 1, a Scrapper can probably solo more efficiently with +0/+1 x 4 setting because Scrapper has more aoe. Single Target sets used to have an advantage when it comes to soloing but not anymore. Take Mastermind's /Poison for example. It has awesome ST debuffs and it's good against +3x1 but now with the new settings, a /Dark can solo more "efficiently" at +1x6 (AoE debuffs in Tar Patch and Darkest Night pull); where as /Poison will be less effective against +1x6.
My other question is would you take a 25% capped Critical Team buff but you get it for sure whenever you team? Is that a fair trade-off? I would take a sure 25% over 33% potential. -
Quote:Yeah, without Domination, I can't hold bosses in one hit (unless with procs). If I can't hold boss(es) with one hit, I might as well focus on team buffs and blasts and my Dominate recharges fast enough to the point that I can hold a boss in several seconds.Originally Posted by makerian
You mean the Dominator "Domination" effect? Yeah I'm not too concerned about being the primary mezzer.
I wanted a Fortunata build to switch to sometimes as opposed to my Night Widow (which does great on TFs and teams, I just prefer range when possible). In large teams, it should complement doms/trollers, adding to holds/immobs/confuses and the occasional disorient as well as giving decent aoe dmg to complement blasters/corruptors.
I might switch my Night Widow to having Tough and keep this build with double Assault instead. That makes it more of an overall contribution (mez, dmg, +def +dmg, recall) character. I doubt the added S/L will make as much of a difference on the Fortunata as it could for the Widow, who takes a lot more aggro than my Fort probably will on a large team.
If I am fighting against AVs, I won't be able to perma hold him anyway.
I am curious to find out how well Fortunata controls. There is a mag 4 stun (takes a bit too long for my liking) and confuse. You can put chance for knockdown in Scream to provide more soft controls. Tornado also has knock up. -
I am really surprised that the Animal Pack didn't come with Bear face.
Bear is such a common "creature". I've made tons of Bear-related characters and I was really hoping the pack would come with a default, nice-looking (or cute looking) Bear head.
I've tried Monstrous head. It looks UGLY but is that the closest I can get?
I was hoping I can make something like a Panda character to fit my Kung Fu stalker.
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Quote:For example?Originally Posted by Novella
I don't care about the animation time like most people do, there are far more important things to worry about.
Animation time factors in how much dps you can do, which relates to how efficient your "burst damage" can be, which relates to your how good your role is on a team.
Spending 8s to snipe, placate (1s) and then run in to the boss (while not being hit by minions around him) and then set up AS for another 4s.
May I ask what do you care when you play Stalker?