Synaesthetix

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except the DoT from fire cages and hot feet after fulcrum shift and containment....believe me fire/kin does the most dmg in the game by a long way

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I never said it didn't - it's just not the safest way to go about it.

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And it also requires you to be in spitting distance of every mob, is almost exclusively DoT, and with a decent endurance drain for the privilege.

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True, but if you go /kin, you'll need to be there anyway and will have Transference after 35 (and probably Stamina before then).


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pretty much what he said, i no this isnt supposed to be about secondaries bout with /kin the heal is so rapid u can easily look after urself in the middle of a mob, and fulcrum works wonders on fire cages, imps and hot feet

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If you're spending all your time spamming Transfusion, that's time you're not spending using RoF>Char, and that's time you're not spending directly damaging things. Those tactics really work best with Fire/Rad, where you can get into melee with relative safety... although you then lack Transference and Fulcrum Shift (but can pick up Consume in the /Fire epic).

This just further illustratess my point, though - Mind gets a solid attack chain from level 6, whereas all the Fire tricks require powers that don't pop up until over halfway through the game (Imps, Transference, Fulcrum Shift). Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-Fire (I love my little Fire/Rad to bits ), but Mind allows for just as much offensive play, and it works straight out of the box.

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Pool: Leadership
Assault - Confuse? (I know assault protects against something)
Tactics - +perception (but then you already knew that!)

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Assault gives res to Taunt and Placate, Tactics gives res to Fear and Confuse as well as +Perception.

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*wanders off to try and construct a makeshift bed*

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Two office chairs, facing each other, legs up and you're away.

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Sorry unless you live in the PvP zone , you going to be leveling with teammates , and when in the endgame people like things to be higher levels , so you seriously think they are always fighting +1 ?
In what situation does a MM pet loses his damage buffs , well in the same situation you say leave those pets to turn out there own damage and they do good damage on there own you said without supremacy

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I was playing on Relentless in teams since level 15ish, and that's precisely my point - in the instances where I wasn't in Supremacy range, when I was nipping about the battlefield, my bots were still doing enough damage (and more importantly, not dying) to take down masses of +2, +3 mobs. I've even left them to take out AVs whilst I dealt with controlling additional mob aggro. Given your theorising, that should never be able to happen - so somewhere, there's a discrepancy.

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What people saying "Mind/ has more damage" fail to remember is...

Half of fire control damage is "passive". Hotfeet, fire imps... it deals damage and doesn't cost any activation time to you.

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And it also requires you to be in spitting distance of every mob, is almost exclusively DoT, and with a decent endurance drain for the privilege. For quick, low-endurance burst damage on specific targets, without having to aggro the entire room, Mind is always a better bet than Fire. For vastly superior AoE damage, Fire > Mind (as I said in the Questions thread on Mind Control). Fire has the greater potential damage output, but Mind can use its entire arsenal all of the time.

If it's any consolation, the problem of mob-centred heals/buffs firing off with no effect when the mob dies is a known issue - I seem to recall that Castle said it was an issue on his (very long and rapidly growing) list. Poor Castle.

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..duration with 3 fear enh is only 13 seconds.

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If you're playing an assassin-style Stalker, you shouldn't need much more than 13 seconds.

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not 32 upgraded .

What are the chances of success ?

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I don't know what it is exactly that you're trying to prove - Battle Drones don't do enough damage if you fail to buff them? Do you want a prize for making the most obvious post on the board, or will a simple commendation do? And in the "example" I gave, the Blaster I was thinking of wasn't being chased by anyone else, he was trying to solo me - after he gave up trying to chase me, he started trying to destroy my bots, managed to take out the Assault and PBots but decided to fly after hitting 1/4 health... the BDrones followed him up onto the rooftops - out of Supremacy - and scythed him down before he could return to base. (All this was achieved with a damage decrease in Sirens at the time.)

In terms of balance, I'd say that illustrates the point relatively well - PvP is a fairer basis for comparison I feel, as it's the one part of the game where balance issues are best highlighted. I don't need to know if unenhanced BDrones without Supremacy can take out a +2 minion, because it's an unrealistic scenario - if I don't use 4/5ths of my potential as a Stalker, I'd expect to find it hard going as well, not using any of my secondary and only the first attack from my primary (which is a comparable scenario). So far as I'm aware, I don't think anyone's shouting for buffs for underpowered Stalkers.

(And PRAF's got it right, a third Acc really helps the Drones for anything more than +2 mobs.)

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It was ridiculous low , so in reality 3 drones can´t even handle a +2 minion , so most endgame fights they are worthless supremacy and leadership makes up for it , but if they dont have it cause you are far off doing something else, they dont account for much .

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That's not "reality" though, it's a test heavily biased in favour of a predetermined conclusion - why were the bots not buffed? What MM would leave his pets unattended for an extended period of time? How do my henchies, even without Leadership, still take out difficult targets? Mastermind damage isn't accrued solely by T1 henchmen, it's spread across all pets, and that's how they're balanced. Removing that balance and calling it unbalanced is an exercise in redundancy.

By some odd twist of fate I've ended up with the keys to the Defender group - as with everyone else, if you need an invite and I'm around, just holler @Syn.

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That's what my SG's done since launch, and we get some great teams going.

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Yep, we've had our fair share of amazing teams and amazing (but for the wrong reasons) teams - still great fun, that said.

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Second thing did you ever notice how much damage your pets do to a +2 stand aside so they dont have supremacy , tell them to attack and watch the nice grey damage above a +2 head , now dont tell me your pet does good damage after that , especially those battle drones with there standard attack of 2 2 2 ... really thats so awesome and great damage

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I know I can happily send my bots to chase after (and kill) half-dead heroes in SC, way out of Supremacy range at times. (Obviously enough, that's without the level 32 Upgrade.) Do they need to do more damage? If so, that's what red insps are for, but I rarely use them.

Depending on my secondary, I'd nearly always go for Intimidate/Invoke Panic (Presence) over Leadership. Tactics won't give you that great an acc boost, as the modifiers are set quite low for Stalkers - however, only /Nin and /SR have +Perception toggles, so you might want it for that purpose if you're /Regen or /EA, or possibly for the Confuse Res. Assault will also give some protection against Taunts in PvP - however, if you're staying around long enough to have status effects like Confuse and Taunt put on you, you've stuck around too long.

Fear, however, is a pretty powerful tool - not many sets resist it, although some buffs and BFs will negate it. In the main though, it should give you an edge in combat, especially if you need to waylay your target's teammates - it won't last a massively long time, but should be long enough to get the kill, and get out.

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ROFL!! Am Grav/Rad here, don't bother trying to solo it until it gets over 40 with the epics.

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I know my gf solos on Invincible quite happily (and quite quickly) with her Grav/FF, only having any trouble against mobs with extra mez-protection.

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I don't have it on mine, I can solo AV's without it

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How many Regens/Blappers can you solo?

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darknest night didn´t take it on my MM

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*shudders*

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and pets without supremacy have BS damage against +2 or higher even fully 3 dam slotted (especially robots master minds).

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I don't know what you're doing, but my bots still punt out the damage if I have to leave them for a few seconds. I rarely, if ever, leave them on their own (unless there's a specific reason for it) for more than the time it takes to heal up the members of the team in melee, but it's not as if they go to pieces if it happens.

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I might well be interested in finding a home for some of my Defiant alts in these SGs - I have a tough time finding teams over on Defiant with not being in any SGs, and I'd love to join an all-Defender team on my Stormy just to see how it works out.

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Pretty much my feelings too - I currently have 1 Blaster, 1 Scrapper, 1 'troller, and 2 Defenders on Defiant without SGs, all sub-20. As a result, I usually end up in slightly wanky PuGs, duoing with 'cel, or soloing. It'd also make a change to be part of an active SG, as opposed to the (l33t) exclusivity of Freaks and LoUD, and someone might as well have my Prestige.

In those situations you're still probably better off leaving the bots to churn out damage by themselves, rush in to heal the brute (staying away from the AoEs which will still be directed at your bots), and then drop Fearsome Stare/Darkest Night on the group if they're not already.

Bots in melee are like [censored] on fish, unless you're sacrificing them.

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mainly because a lot of it's power is reliant on Lethal/Smashing power

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It's mainly Lethal, then a bit of Fire, then a smidgen of Smashing, actually. Lethal is where it falls down, as most mobs and their dogs resist it like you're tickling them with bullets.

It's more a utility set than an out-and-out damage set, with some neat tricks you can pull depending on secondary. Beware the horror of the rooting animations, though.

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I was definitely thinking more along the lines of PvP Zones (never really like the Arena tbh) so would that make Mutation a good pick again?

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If you can get your teammates to stay dead long enough to use it on them, yes.

I've been on both sides of the Mutation coin - had it used on my Blapper after he fell, then went on to take out the 5 villains who dropped me. I've also had to high-tail it after I dropped a Blapper with my Brute, and his Rad buddy rezzed him next to me.

Personally, I'd take Mutation if I were planning on creating a support build; I'd think about taking Choking Cloud if I was making a more offensive build. Both types of Rad defenders are dangerous, in their respective ways. I wouldn't take both nukes either - actually, I wouldn't take any nuke, but that's my personal preference - but I would fully slot the other attacks you have taken, Cosmic Burst is a nice skill.

You don't really need 2 Acc in each attack if you're constantly running Tactics - the only problem is, you have to make sure that Tactics is always on. (Tactics+1 Acc > 2 Acc.)

I would throw some more slots at Fly though - for a Stamina-less build, I'd always advocate 3 EndRdx, 3 FltSpd - possibly grabbing some from Grant Invis, which isn't that great a buff.

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As for mutation, i'm not with cybercel on this one. Any rezzing power may be useful in zones, but is a waste of a power in the arena.

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Which is a difference between Zonal PvP and Arena PvP - if you're going to spend more time in one than the other, I'd decide whether or not to take it based on that.

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One thing I have noticed is that "perceived accuracy" on Brutes seems to be lower than other characters for some reason. Maybe we just notice the misses more?

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From my POV, it's probably because my Brute has the most rapid attack chain of all my toons - more attacks invariably leads to a greater number of misses, especially noticeable when the big-hitters fail to connect.

That said, I've been more frustrated by my newbie Stalker missing AS's than by any of my Brute attacks missing. YMMV.

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I'd rather take SS as travel power, hasten with triple stacked siphon speed is amazing, and IR gives you all the vertical movement you need.

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This I agree with.

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Also, I'd take mass hypnosis instead of mesmerize.

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This, I do not - purely from a playstyle perspective, though. Mesmerize is great with Containment, and highly accurate to boot. Mass Hypnosis is only as useful as the team you're playing with, does not damage, and has an accuracy penalty. If you want more control pick Mass Hypnosis, if you want more damage pick Mesmerize.

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Have you seen the DM/DA Stalkers?

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Obligatory: Nope, they're stalkers.

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Totally useless rehash IMO

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I'm not hopeful, but I won't dismiss them without first seeing how they play.

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The more I think about this the worse it seems to me, having to turn on toggles following your alpha strike in battle is not exactly a dynamic set for the stalker AT

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Having passive mez powers isn't anything to sniff at (I can think of a few applications), I just don't know how much longevity /DA would provide for a stalker... but I guess we'll find out.