docbuzzard

Maybe I'll do it when bored over break. I'll have my laptop handy after all.

As I said above, I have a Thugs/Traps. I do have plenty to keep me busy. However I just don't like the feel of the class. I grasp the immense power, but it doesn't do it for me.

And yes, I know traps quite well since in addition to my 45 thugs/traps I have a 50 AR/Traps Corrupter.

I have to wonder what you're talking about here. Are you assuming a stalker will sit around with their thumb up their butt and wait for hide to kick in so they can AS? Do you assume everyone who plays a stalker is a moron or something?

AS from hide is immense ST burst damage which I doubt can be matched in the game. We're talking a base of 139+250 = 389 base damage at 50.That's a damage scale of 6.99 BTW. This is in 3 seconds so DPA is 129 before enhancement. Energy Transfer does 252 for a stalker at that level base, and ET only animates in .33 seconds less. ET thus has a DPA of 94. Not even close.

Once hide is up, AS does scale back to 139 damage (DS 2.5) which is nothing special. However it can be fired off for full whenever a placate is ready even if you are in continuous melee (so 30 seconds or less).

You claim that placate consumes time. Yes it does, but only 1.5 seconds, and if leveraged to make a strong attack hit for double, it easily makes up for that time. If I leverage it for an AS, that's huge. If the situation does not permit AS because of interruption, I can use placate to double the damage on some other heavy hitter. Say I'm DM and I thus double the damage of MG. That's a great deal since I've gotten double the damage for a power which uses 2 seconds by only spending 1.5 seconds.

Though on a defense built stalker (and honestly I don't see any logic in the non defense builds, but that's me), you should be able to pop off that non interrupted AS every 30 seconds from placate.

I am tempted to work out stalker attack chain DPS values (assuming they don't exist). I don't really see them lagging much if any behind a scrapper.

Shame I find playing a MM about as fun as watching paint peel no matter how powerful they are.

I suppose it depends on how much, but I'd take damage with stun over stun without damage any day.

Stun has a 1.8 second animation. While that isn't amazingly fast, it's not unbearably slow either. Give it the clobber damage scale 2.92 and it will have a very nice DPA.

DPA
stun (clobberesque)1.62
ET 1.7
TF 1.07
BS 1.09

Much like when people have demonstrated that having stamina will increase your performance in almost every instance, power sink will be much the same.

If you aren't running out of endurance know, you are not putting out as much damage as you could be with power sink. This would be either by attacking more and pausing less, or by changing your slotting for more recharge and less endurance reduction.

Though personally I can't see how a tanker or brute could ever actually attack and not want more endurance.

Umm, you do realize that the clobber treatment means it does damage in addition to the stun right?

Stun+damage>> stun

Initially stalkers were designed as you say. They used to be the hidden glass cannon. However with the buffs they got a while back, their HP totals were upped appreciably, their base damage got a substantial boost, and they got potentially lots of criticals. Stalkers don't need to play hit and run games anymore. They can stand and fight if built well. In the modern world of the stalker, stun is a crap power and doesn't suit how a stalker can be played to best effect. Sure, many people still lapse back into the hit and run games of the initial stalker design, but that is sub optimal and simply not necessary anymore.

The only difference in defenses between a stalker and scrapper are HP really (yes, there are other slight differences, but they are slight). Scrappers are expected to stand and fight, and nowadays stalkers can as well.

I have no idea why you imagine a stalker would like stun as it is. The only reason I have it on my stalker is because it takes a cheap IO set which gets me more recharge. I never use the silly power.

It doesn't do me much good to mez a lieut. Anything which needs to go down which stun can take care of (say a sapper for instance), will get the AS at the get go.

If stun did get the clobber treatment, I'd be very annoyed if stalkers got the shaft. They rarely enough can put out as nice a chain as other ATs because AS and placate taking up attack space (and slots).

Yeah SM can be leveraged to good effect, but I'd say WH is a better AOE. More targets and appreciably better area do make up for a lot.

Don't know MA, so I won't comment there. The cursory look I gave it before making my latest stalker said 'go dual blade' to me.

You also have a choice at the end of:
Respec Trials- you can choose the respec or the merits
Hammidon raids- you can choose the HOs or the merits
STF and LRSF, you can choose the SHOs or the merits.

I suppose if you slotted Soul Drain and Dark Consumption for damage, it might be OK, though the recharge on those is so long that it is unlikely. DM is probably still the worst in AOE.

Though one does have to note that DM has a high damage self heal, rather than self harm.

Fair enough. It does seem to be adequate in ST, so I have to concede that. I'm just spoiled from the when it was ST king.

I have two alts with EM, a stalker and a retired tanker. I don't see playing the tanker again. The stalker isn't so bad since leveraging crits, he can still do mean damage, and on big teams (about the only time I dig him out), he gets a lot of crits.

I don't see myself bothering with the set again though. It just doesn't have enough appeal to bother.

Yeah, I don't have the brute damage values, so I just ported over the scapper ones. Tomax doesn't have brute Claws.

Unless I'm doing something wrong, it only goes to 181 DPS. I assume a .6 value for doubled brute follow up.

I'm looking at the spreadsheet now. It's 90%.

I am looking into the effect of gloom on the weapon sets given the revelation by BAB that weapon draw times can/will be removed. I'm curious to see how things end up with that in the mix. I'm thinking WM will make some large gains.