docbuzzard

Ok, then nevermind on the complaint. I think the buffs were fine. Stalkers get a chance to shine now, and it's a welcome change.

Remind me, did they only buff the cap or the base HP as well? If it's just the cap, then there's no issue.

I leveled 2 stalkers to 50 before the recent buffs (one to 50 before the old buffs).

I stopped playing stalkers for a while when Castle basically said that they would receive no buffs. After the whole exercise with changing brutes so there was a spectrum of survivability vs. damage, and yet stalkers got left out in the cold I decided it wasn't worth bothering with stalkers since they were the red haired stepchild.

Could you solo a stalker before the buffs? Of course. People manage to solo emp defenders, how hard can it be to solo a stalker?

That's one hell of a pathetically low bar to set as your measure. The ability to solo does not imply anything about being even vaguely comparable to the other melee classes.

They needed a buff for the simple reason that if the devs wanted to even suggest the pretense that the melee classes operated on a spectrum of high offense/lower defense to higher defense/lower offense, then the lowest defense option, the stalker, had to have the highest offense.

Now I will say, I don't really see why they buffed the HP, as it doesn't do much for the argument, but the offensive buffs I fully support. It is was a necessary change such that you could differentiate the melee classes properly.

Oh, and if you are focused on the wonders that is attacking from ambush, well that's all well and good, but the mechanics of the game blew past that a long time ago. The game is too fast paced for that tactic to be anything but a hindrance, especially on teams.

Oh, and as for the OP, I have no objection to giving the scrappers a team buff which they don't notice themselves. It would be good for them to have some force multiplier status since they lack almost any team support outside of straight up damage.

I did it on an alt which recently switched over to hero, but had done all the villain SSAs. He was treated as a villain, and had to fight Manticore at the end.

He has done I think 3 or 4 of the hero SSAs as well.

Movies or videogames as evidence? Please.

Never before Donna did any companion really make that big a difference to me. I like some more than others, sure, but they really didn't make or break the show.

Donna broke the show. I put up with her for a while, but eventually dropped the show until she was gone. I watch the show to be entertained, not annoyed.

Yeah, I don't recall anything in the way of that in 2nd edition. The Gold Box sets, while being fun games, where not verbatim translations of the rule set.

In 2nd edition you had to use constricted spaces and positioning to keep things off the squishies with fighters (or meleers in general).

Third edition introduced the AOO. Because of this, maps and miniatures became much more important. In previous editions a battle map was entirely optional.

The primary mechanic of 4th edition which turned me off was the powers. I understand the rationale for their existence (balance), but it just drastically changes the nature of D&D to have all classes be about resource management like that. That used to be the line which separated casters and non casters. Of course you generally gained power (at least a high level) in exchange for that resource management.

Though 3rd edition did do some of this even before 4th. Barbarians had (and still do in Pathfinder) limited rage per day, and there were certain feat based abilities which had limited uses per day.

Gotta go with this.

I'll end up checking out the movie, but definitely hope the art style does not indicate and ongoing trend.

I can't get past the sticking point that they have the same name and characters. Thus I still despise the movie. Oh yeah, and skipping powered armor, and the cool tech. Nevermind that.

As one might expect when his initial argument got demolished, he's moved the goalposts. It's now the horror of people asking for level shifts and stripping his trials of people.

As someone above mentioned, the days after new content debuts is not a useful indicator of any sort of regular behavior patterns. People want to try new shinies. It will return to normal soon enough, and the BAF/Lambda/Keyes farming will resume.

OK fair enough, but when put in the context of opportunity cost, it's not worth it compared to the alternatives I needed in my build to get it where I wanted it. Placate is no longer compelling enough to make it even close to 'must have'. Leveling up, so I can see it as a nice survival tool. However once you have survival pretty well covered, yes it would it nice as an "Oh Frak!" power, but I wouldn't take it unless I had a power to spare.

Given how many people frankenslot, I think this is a bad idea. I believe providing warnings about the lack of IO functionality when a preem logs in would be worthwhile, and pointing out second build options as well. However the gating which IOs are behind is a really short gate to be honest. Anyone unwilling to shell out $2/month is unlikely to have much interest in shelling out anything at all.

no

Well then if that's the case, I might go with trim their sails like the other poster suggested. I don't like the NPC necessarily telling them what to do, but make there be consequence for rash decisions.