Jibikao

If I were castle, I would ignore Stalkers because some ATs are meant to be soloers! (giggles)

Can't perform well on a team? That's not my problem! Stalker is meant to be a soloer.

All these "placate" talks...


I just want to have separate system:

1. One power that allows me delivery Critical
2. One power that allows me to lose aggro(s)


I do not want them to be combined together because sometimes I don't want to keep aggro on me (if I team with squishies and they are dying already) and sometimes I want to lose aggro on me (so I can setup Assassin Strike or run or whatnot).

So, as I've said it before, I quit Peacebringer 4 times before. This time I am serious!

My new lvl 23 PB is currently all Human. I took Tanker form just for getting out of mez. Man, Tanker form's base damage is really low. lol I've never made a Tanker (and I don't intend to) but man, the base damage is really really low.

Anyway, I have some questions about Cosmic Balance. I've joined large team with my friends in RWZ and there were 3 Brutes. I looked at my stats and I had an amazing 75%-ish resistance to S/L. That's pretty good "team buff".

I think Defender and Corruptor gave me 20% base damage buff. What about Stalker?


My question is what does other WS/PB give me? The stats shows 10% resistance to "recharge debuff"? Is that a typo? 10% resistance to a specific debuff type seems very very low to me. I thought it was 10% recharge bonus for each WS/PB on the team. lol

And I am deeply disappointed in Troller/Dom bonus. Only mag 1?? Which mez attacks only cause mag 1? The lowest I know is a mag 2 stun attack. Shouldn't the Troller/Dom bonus be at least mag 2? I was getting held/slept left and right by Mentalist in RWZ.


Overall, I find PB Human to be quite "sturdy". I think I can see why Human damage is a bit on the low side because PB human can survive quite well with all the +HP, healing, shields and knockbacks. I am impressed by bonus from melee ATs and Corr/Defender. The other bonuses, not so impressed.

Yeah, I've always thought Stalker's stealth should be more like stealth in Energy Aura and Dark Armor on Brute. It's a bummer that Stalker gets seen as soon as Hidden is gone. I guess they don't want Stalker to eliminate from group to group.. wait, Stalker has limited AoE so at the rate it's going, Brute may eliminate groups faster. :P

So I've been trying to drain AVs. So far, the only one I can drain dry is Silver Mantis at even level. I can't drain any AV consistently if he/she is +1.

I am a bit disappointed because I took Mu Mastery to drain AV dry. It just takes a bit too longer.

At this point, just increase Stalker's base damage to 1.125 and increase Team Critical buff to 300' ft to match Peacebringer's Cosmic Balance radius.

Personally, I think Assassin Strike IS one of the main problems why Stalker isn't favored on a larger team but I don't think dev would touch that.

If I were Castle, I would increase Stalker's base damage to match Scrapper's and increase Team Critical buff radius to 300' ft and be done with it.

My original intention to give Stalker -regen in AS is because I want to give Stalker something other 3 melee ATs don't have. I think Stalker should help "more" during AV fight. The -regen debuff is only one of the buffs. I know it won't matter to a lot of Stalkers out there but it is still a buff regardless and it gives Stalker a better role on a team that doesn't have strong -regen.


Yes, we already have Defender, Troller, MM and Corruptor having access to -regen but the way this game is setup, if you can stack more buffs/debuffs, why bring any Melee AT at all? If anything, a super-team really only needs one Tanker/Brute and the rest are just stacking buffs/debuffs AT. Why bring a Scrapper or Blaster? Well, I know why! I don't always want to play a support AT or find a support AT! Sometimes I just want to bring my Stalker or Dominator to a SF even though I knew that bringing another debuff/buff is better.

Just because other four ATs have -regen, it doesn't mean Stalker can't have one and that's my take on it. It's not a biggie if Stalker has no -regen but I don't see why giving it to Stalker is going to "ruin" the game. I think Stalker should help more during AV fight just because Stalker is a Single Target specialist. Tanker can offer 20% resistance debuff and Stalker can offer -regen (or -special debuffs like Benumb).

Liquefy isn't all that good with that long recharge. I think Sonic Resonance can use a lot of help with a quicker recharge Liquefy.

I have a lvl 42 Rad/Sonic corr whom I feel very weak. Three good powers are all for allies (which is fine I guess ) but those buffs are not even as good as Kin or Rad or Cold Domination.

Well, I eventually went with Mu Mastery. I think it's great to have a great debuff in Sleet or a melee attack like Energy Transfer but I feel my Elec control's strength is in endurance draining.

I was lvl 41 fighting lvl 41 Silver Mantis AV. I could drain her dry but it took about minute and 20s. If I have Power Sink with Power Boost, I believe I can drain her to zero within 30s and the rest is more about maintaining that drain. One annoying thing with her is that her caltrops would "scare" my two pets away. Those two pets will make sure she is constantly dried.


I also took Tough so Charged Armor can stack S/L resistance at least.

We'll see how it goes. I was on a team against Death Surge and we even drained it completely dried.


I've also learned that AoE defense is more important than Melee defense because if I am on a large team in SF, I am never going to be the main "tank" but I do get hit hard by AV's AoE damage. I've been trying to get more AoE defense now because I need to get close.

If I were Castle, I would find the quickiest and easiest way to satisfy Stalker fans because I have other bigger issues to address!


Since Stalker usually has no soloing problem, then team-play is the key and the new strike forces are going to be hard and Stalker may feel even less welcome.

This means...

1. Get rid of team critical buff radius (check!). Most people who don't play stalkers probably will never know Stalker gets this team buff anyway so I doubt getting rid of the radius is going to ruin the game. If making the radius bigger causes too much lag, then I would make the critical buff even stronger because it is unlikely that Stalker has teammates around him all the time. 3% per teammate? Now it's 5% per teammate!

2. Interrupt in Assassin Strike is a must so I would probably reduce activation time a bit and I would reduce even more for MA and EM because they have no aoe.

I actually have never really looked into WS builds but I am a bit of a weirdo in a way that I prefer using something that is a bit less common. I've seen more high level WS than PB so I automatically assume WS > PB. (later I found out that more PBs were created but this doesn't mean they play them more than WS)

I just carefully looked through WS' powers. Yeah, they are quite interesting. I don't think I'll ever like Tri-Form as I don't like changing forms so Human form is my only choice, but even WS' human form seems a lot more interesting than PB's Human form. PB's human form seems pretty standard with build up and some pretty serious knockbacks in aoe. WS has a neat mini-nuke power Unchained Essence and then there is Dark Extraction. Gravity Well seems pretty decent too.

1. Reduce Assassin Strike activation time and possibly remove interrupt in PvE. If they get rid of interrupt, then they can keep the same activation time.


2. Get rid of the team buff radius. Does Kheldian have radius limitation for their team buffs? Stalker should get team buff critical with teammates in the same zone/map.


3. Add decent -regen in Assassin Strike. This makes Stalker a bit more attractive than other melee class during tough AV/Hero fights because afterall, Stalker should be the Single Target Elimination specialist. During AV fight, it seems like Brute and Scrapper are better than Stalker because they survive a bit better and it's not like Stalker's dps is higher without teammates.


4. I don't know why being hit after Placate loses critical as Placate doesn't really grant "Hidden" status does it? You only "blind" one target but other targets can still see you. It would be nice that Placate grants Critical regardless you get hit or not. Either that or shorten Placate's animation time.
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The above is what I consider "likely" fixes but I still think it doesn't address some of the main problems.


1. Some sets need to have at least one AoE, namely Martial Arts and Energy Melee. I know this won't happen so I classify it as "not likely" to change but I think it should. AoE in this game is just too important and it's not like MA and EM's Assassin Strike is much stronger than other sets'. If AS replaces the precious AoE, then those two sets' AS need to be stronger to make up its loss of aoe.

2. Higher critical rate is nice on a team but it is still RANDOM. I've always thought Stalker should be able to control his critical hits rather than random. We already have Scrapper for random critical hits.


3. Ideally, I think Assassin Strike should come with different buffs or debuffs for each set, like Spines can apply poison dot damage after AS. This won't happen but I think it will make each AS more interesting.