Anti-Placate Comments in Threads

So, I'm deep in Alt-itis again and wanted to revisit all-the-things. I remember really struggling with my stalker back in the day and now it sounds like some things have changed. Maybe for the better.

Here's how I used to play stalker:

see new mob group, identify big bad.

hide, run into group AS big bad hopefully for a good chunk.

use placate, hit again with something else big.

from then on run through "easiest target to kill" with standard attack chain.

hopefully eliminate sources of damage before they eliminate me.

rinse-repeat.

All of this was always slower than any scrapper I played... so I wondered, why am I playing a stalker? Especially since AoEs messed this whole thing up so it felt like I was "restricted" to single target attacks or at least not taking auras.

So I figured I'm doing something wrong because this looks like what a scrapper does, just with taking the time to hide to get a buff at the beginning, and then having less survivability because of a smaller HP pool.

It sounds like folks don't even bother with placate now!? So mostly I'm here to be corrected on how to play a stalker.

I'm no stalker pro but I quit taking placate and now use a big hitter out of hide for the crit rather than assassin's. Reason being the faster animated version of assassin's still hits hard and with the chance to hide proc in it often sets you up for yet another big hit. Placate has its uses but unless it's the AOE one you take a chance on it being broken by another enemy before you can hit your target. It just feels like a skippable to me now given the much more scrappery faster style you can play stalker with now. For me it's no comparison, stalkers are way more fun than they used to be.

I think you're unaware of some updates to Stalkers (https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Stalker) You said you used to attack something with your AS and then placate and use "something else big." Uh, my understanding was that you do Placate + AS and USUALLY only AS. AS has that special mega damage boost it gets from being used in Hide that is not just a critical, it becomes a "melee snipe" complete with build up time. If you use any other attack from hide, you get an automatic critical hit but you don't get the mega damage of a 2nd AS. If that's not practical just do frontal melee. Stalkers gained a system where every attack (EXCEPT AS) gives them a stack of Assassin's Focus which is a 1/3 chance of an unhidden crit with AS, so after you do 3 regular attacks your AS should light up - it's going to get an auto crit at least.

When you want to use Placate is when you're soloing a boss or something like that. Since you have wind-up time with it if there's several mobs meleeing you there's no point. But soloing a boss? Heck yeah. Or handy for getting a 2nd guy to stop beating on you for a few seconds.

When you want to use Placate is when you're soloing a boss or something like that. Since you have wind-up time with it if there's several mobs meleeing you there's no point. But soloing a boss? Heck yeah. Or handy for getting a 2nd guy to stop beating on you for a few seconds.

That not only makes a lot more sense, it would speed things up considerably in normal play. Thanks.

Stalkers gained a system where every attack (EXCEPT AS) gives them a stack of Assassin's Focus which is a 1/3 chance of an unhidden crit with AS, so after you do 3 regular attacks your AS should light up - it's going to get an auto crit at least.

Minor correction, every attack has a chance to generate Focus.  It doesn't automatically do it.  It doesn't say the % on that page, but I'd guess it's about 50%-75% based on how often I get one.  It doesn't say there, and I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure I've never gotten Focus from a miss either.  I've actually taken to tossing off AS when I've got two focus, as that's a pretty good chance to crit, 66%, and I think you tack on the 10%+3% per extra team member, which means actually 76% when solo, and with a full team it's 87%, and I've just got AS sitting there doing nothing.

I didn't know you got a crit chance from hidden on AoEs, which is also listed there, if I understand correctly, it's 50% if you're hidden (maybe 55%? +1.5% per team member?), which is a pretty good way to start a fight with a large mob.

Placate is more utility now than a DPS one, it gets you a crit, but it can also get a big bad off you in a pinch

I Keep it and just single slot it with a recharge, since the +hide proc and focus gives us silly silly damage on their own

the stalker ato replaced placate.

never delay your assassins strike. focus is not guaranteed and only lasts 10 second per stack.

the stalker ato replaced placate.

I didn't know this existed until last week. I stopped playing right after Incarnates went live (not by choice) and before ATOs went in. I saw the ATOs on the merit vendor day 1 of Homecoming but mistook them for level 50 purple sets as attuned sets were also new on me and I did not understand what they were. I have literally been setting on hundreds of merits. So at level 42 I bought a couple of pieces and slotted the 2 special ones yesterday. I'm kinda mad that nothing in the game gave me a tip that I could have done this earlier. I mean, I could have been using the 2 special pieces for so many levels already not to mention since the other pieces are scaling I could have been using them instead of some of the Frankenslotting I've been doing.

And now I'm really perplexed that in so many builds I see on here (not just stalkers) I almost never see the ATO pieces. Even if someone wants a mostly-SO leveling build we still stick things like Karma Knockback protection in there - pieces like the ATO chance to build up recharge and hide should in the sample builds. Those pieces are available at level seven as level 10 enhancements for a reason. Some of the other ATs don't get such great ones - like one that controllers get is just a damage proc no big deal but the other one is a chance to spawn a damage-dealing temporary pet. ERH? Scrappers get one that raises their critical hit chance, defenders get an AoE heal, and blasters get one that gives mez protection.  I think people may not know about this stuff, or think it's for level 50 only.

So, I'm deep in Alt-itis again and wanted to revisit all-the-things. I remember really struggling with my stalker back in the day and now it sounds like some things have changed. Maybe for the better.

 

Here's how I used to play stalker:

 

see new mob group, identify big bad.

hide, run into group AS big bad hopefully for a good chunk.

use placate, hit again with something else big.

from then on run through "easiest target to kill" with standard attack chain.

hopefully eliminate sources of damage before they eliminate me.

rinse-repeat.

 

All of this was always slower than any scrapper I played... so I wondered, why am I playing a stalker? Especially since AoEs messed this whole thing up so it felt like I was "restricted" to single target attacks or at least not taking auras.

 

So I figured I'm doing something wrong because this looks like what a scrapper does, just with taking the time to hide to get a buff at the beginning, and then having less survivability because of a smaller HP pool.

 

It sounds like folks don't even bother with placate now!? So mostly I'm here to be corrected on how to play a stalker.

Stalkers who don't know how to play the class skip Placate. Don't let anyone tell you different. They claim Placate is poop now, but that free controlled critt is priceless as a Stalker; along with using it to get out of hairy situations. A Stalker without Placate does less controlled critts, which means less DPS. A Stalker without Placate means less survivability; which also equates less DPS. I am getting the strong feeling some of these "Stalkers" who are skipping placate don't fully understand the class.

I'm gonna want to see some numbers before I believe a claim like that Solarverse. Sure placate is good for survivability and if I have room I'll take it, but on the face of it I find it hard to believe that DPS is increased by adding in the placate animation and the longer ass strike animation over the zippier playstyle. Seems especially unlikely to me on a team situation with the increased critical chances and the frequency of things dying while you're mid-animation.

I'm in the camp of "use the ATO that gives you frequent random hides" as your primary source of bonus crits as well. I will not give up my placate, but I'm going to use it even more rarely now since I'm flicking into hide off and on in fights now. Next stalker I roll the first 200 merits are going to be for those 2 ATO procs, no question unless I need to fork over 20 first for a knockback protection.

Stalkers who don't know how to play the class skip Placate. Don't let anyone tell you different. They claim Placate is poop now, but that free controlled critt is priceless as a Stalker; along with using it to get out of hairy situations. A Stalker without Placate does less controlled critts, which means less DPS. A Stalker without Placate means less survivability; which also equates less DPS. I am getting the strong feeling some of these "Stalkers" who are skipping placate don't fully understand the class.

This is confusing burst damage with sustained damage.  The changes to AS, the inclusion of focus, and the Stalker ATO all improved sustained damage for the AT. 

Placate still has a place for burst damage, but it is eclipsed in sustained rotations incorporating the ATO into Assassin's Strike.  This is evident on the old forums Stalker threads in the Pylon thread.  You can replicate that methodology and test if for yourself right now on Justin if you don't believe it. 

In short, Placate has uses but it is not the mandatory damage increaser it once was.

Stalkers who don't know how to play the class skip Placate. Don't let anyone tell you different. They claim Placate is poop now, but that free controlled critt is priceless as a Stalker; along with using it to get out of hairy situations. A Stalker without Placate does less controlled critts, which means less DPS. A Stalker without Placate means less survivability; which also equates less DPS. I am getting the strong feeling some of these "Stalkers" who are skipping placate don't fully understand the class.

 

This is confusing burst damage with sustained damage.  The changes to AS, the inclusion of focus, and the Stalker ATO all improved sustained damage for the AT. 

 

Placate still has a place for burst damage, but it is eclipsed in sustained rotations incorporating the ATO into Assassin's Strike.  This is evident on the old forums Stalker threads in the Pylon thread.  You can replicate that methodology and test if for yourself right now on Justin if you don't believe it. 

 

In short, Placate has uses but it is not the mandatory damage increaser it once was.

Mandatory? That is debatable. However, the first part I would strongly disagree. Sustained damage, with a fast recharging placate (which isn't hard to do) gains you an extra crit every single time. Sometimes you even get a double critt. Check my next post. I'm going to show you guys something here.

I'm gonna want to see some numbers before I believe a claim like that Solarverse. Sure placate is good for survivability and if I have room I'll take it, but on the face of it I find it hard to believe that DPS is increased by adding in the placate animation and the longer ass strike animation over the zippier playstyle. Seems especially unlikely to me on a team situation with the increased critical chances and the frequency of things dying while you're mid-animation.

I ran a series of tests against Hewers in Siren's Call. I conducted 5 tests each based on time and Critts. How many Critts can I get in a single kill, and how long does it take to kill.

Here are my findings.

First up; a run without placate in the chain.

Electrocution HITS you! Build Up power was autohit.

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Assassin's Shock power was forced to hit by streakbreaker.

Your Assassin's Shock waylays Hewer Elite for 121.38 points of Smashing damage!

Your Assassin's Shock waylays Hewer Elite for 65.02 points of Energy damage!

You land a critical hit on Hewer Elite with your Assassin's Shock for an extra 390.17 points of energy damage!

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Thunder Strike power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 20.23.

Your Thunder Strike deals 69.9 points of smashing Damage to Hewer Elite.

Your Thunder Strike deals 83.88 points of energy Damage to Hewer Elite and drains some of their endurance.

You disorient Hewer Elite with your Thunder Strike!

Your Thunder Strike drains some endurance from Hewer Elite!

You have knocked Hewer Elite off their feet with your Thunder Strike!

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Chain Induction power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 82.29.

You smash Hewer Elite with your mighty Chain Induction for 55.48 points of smashing damage!

You smash Hewer Elite with your mighty Chain Induction for an additional 45.08 points of energy damage!

Your Chain Induction drains some endurance from Hewer Elite!

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Charged Brawl power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 28.57.

Your Charged Brawl smashes Hewer Elite for 34.67 points of smashing damage!

Your Charged Brawl smashes Hewer Elite for an additional 29.47 points of energy damage!

Your Charged Brawl drains some endurance from Hewer Elite!

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Havoc Punch power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 49.57.

You smash Hewer Elite with your mighty Havoc Punch for 41.8 points of smashing damage!

You smash Hewer Elite with your mighty Havoc Punch for an additional 33.96 points of energy damage!

Your Havoc Punch drains some endurance from Hewer Elite!

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Charged Brawl power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 18.56.

Your Charged Brawl smashes Hewer Elite for 26.12 points of smashing damage!

Your Charged Brawl smashes Hewer Elite for an additional 22.2 points of energy damage!

Your Charged Brawl drains some endurance from Hewer Elite!

You land a critical hit on Hewer Elite with your Charged Brawl for an extra 54.87 points of energy damage!

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Assassin's Shock power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 1.80.

Your Assassin's Shock waylays Hewer Elite for 100.96 points of Smashing damage!

Your Assassin's Shock waylays Hewer Elite for 54.08 points of Energy damage!

You critically hit Hewer Elite with your Assassin's Shock for 180.3 points of Energy damage!

16.41 Seconds. (This number was virtually the same every single time. Always within .50 seconds.

These numbers are with placate.

Electrocution HITS you! Build Up power was autohit.

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Assassin's Shock power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 32.70.

Your Assassin's Shock waylays Hewer Elite for 121.38 points of Smashing damage!

Your Assassin's Shock waylays Hewer Elite for 65.02 points of Energy damage!

You land a critical hit on Hewer Elite with your Assassin's Shock for an extra 390.17 points of energy damage!

Your Placate power is autohit.

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Thunder Strike power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 53.89.

Your Thunder Strike deals 69.9 points of smashing Damage to Hewer Elite.

Your Thunder Strike deals 83.88 points of energy Damage to Hewer Elite and drains some of their endurance.

You land a critical hit on Hewer Elite with your Thunder Strike for an extra 69.9 points of smashing damage!

You land a critical hit on Hewer Elite with your Thunder Strike for an extra 83.88 points of energy damage!

Your Thunder Strike drains some endurance from Hewer Elite!

You have knocked Hewer Elite off their feet with your Thunder Strike!

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Chain Induction power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 92.14.

You smash Hewer Elite with your mighty Chain Induction for 55.48 points of smashing damage!

You smash Hewer Elite with your mighty Chain Induction for an additional 45.08 points of energy damage!

Your Chain Induction drains some endurance from Hewer Elite!

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Charged Brawl power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 25.17.

Your Charged Brawl smashes Hewer Elite for 26.12 points of smashing damage!

Your Charged Brawl smashes Hewer Elite for an additional 22.2 points of energy damage!

Your Charged Brawl drains some endurance from Hewer Elite!

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Havoc Punch power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 2.10.

You smash Hewer Elite with your mighty Havoc Punch for 41.8 points of smashing damage!

You smash Hewer Elite with your mighty Havoc Punch for an additional 33.96 points of energy damage!

Your Havoc Punch drains some endurance from Hewer Elite!

Your Havoc Punch has put Hewer Elite to sleep!

You activated the Assassin's Shock power.

HIT Hewer Elite! Your Assassin's Shock power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 53.07.

Your Assassin's Shock waylays Hewer Elite for 100.96 points of Smashing damage!

Your Assassin's Shock waylays Hewer Elite for 54.08 points of Energy damage!

You critically hit Hewer Elite with your Assassin's Shock for 180.3 points of Energy damage!

14.27 Seconds. (Again, every single time, within .50 seconds of each other.)

Stalkers are the Burst damage kings. The previous poster said that this is only good for burst damage, sustained damage not so much. I disagree with this statement...our Burst damage can be sustained. My placate recharges rather fast, and all I have are SO's right now. I don't even have a single IO. As long as I do not run out of endurance, then I can keep this up all day long and get more Critts than a Stalker not using Placate. In a team situation, I will drop Bosses faster and move on to the next guy much faster (2 seconds in combat is an eternity) before the Stalker not using Placate. Burst damage over a period of time adds up to the sustained damage. There is nothing you can do to add to your sustained damage that I can't....I add Placate in to that and I will out DPS you every time.

I have provided the numbers. It's up to you guys to think about it, test it out for yourselves...and then come tell me that skipping Placate is an option. I believe skipping Placate is an unwise choice. Good luck, Stalkers.

I have provided the numbers.

Those numbers don't appear to include a stalker ATO, though, which kind of misses the point.

Placate is of course an extra crit, giving double damage on your next attack. But Placate itself has a cast time - you could have just thrown another attack. Getting 2x damage on one attack, instead of 2 attacks with normal damage, is still a net gain if the crit is from a strong attack. That's what you've shown: a TS crit is more extra damage than throwing in another Havoc Punch or Charged Brawl.

But with the stalker ATO, you can already get auto-crits on your strongest attacks. This literally reduces the value of Placate: you can't use it for a TS crit because you've already got those; all you get out of it is a CI crit. CI does the same damage to the initial target as Havoc Punch, so HP+CI does the same damage as Placate+CI, and has the same cast time. Except HP+CI has a chance to crit and do more damage, so using Placate instead of an attack is a DPS loss. Fewer controlled crits does not automatically mean less DPS.

Yeah we wanted a comparison with the ATO in play. I'd also like to see a comparison vs not using ass shock from hide but using hide crit on something else and only using the quick ass version. But really I'm not much of a numbers guy. I enjoy playing the faster style so much more that it'd have to be a serious gimping for me to go back to the plodding pre changes style. Ran a tf last night with another stalker and a kin sb'ing us last night and it was an absolute blast. Just target after target melting with no animation delays.

Stalkers are the Burst damage kings. The previous poster said that this is only good for burst damage, sustained damage not so much. I disagree with this statement...our Burst damage can be sustained. My placate recharges rather fast, and all I have are SO's right now. I don't even have a single IO. As long as I do not run out of endurance, then I can keep this up all day long and get more Critts than a Stalker not using Placate. In a team situation, I will drop Bosses faster and move on to the next guy much faster (2 seconds in combat is an eternity) before the Stalker not using Placate. Burst damage over a period of time adds up to the sustained damage. There is nothing you can do to add to your sustained damage that I can't....I add Placate in to that and I will out DPS you every time.

 

I have provided the numbers. It's up to you guys to think about it, test it out for yourselves...and then come tell me that skipping Placate is an option. I believe skipping Placate is an unwise choice. Good luck, Stalkers.

I'm not talking about base gameplay with just SO's.  As Hopeling points out on the previous page, the sustain changes I was referencing include the Stalker's ATO +Chance to Hide. 

With an IO build including that single ATO proc in Assassin's Strike, the game play of the AT changes.  That change diminishes the value of Placate as a DPS rotational aspect and converts it to a burst move. 

If a player chooses to go down the path of the IO and ATO build, Placate becomes an option in combat.  If you wanna play your stalker like a CoV release era character, I'm not going to stop you or tell you that build is wrong. 

Just don't dump a bunch of completely irrelevant data from a test that has absolutely nothing to do with anything I said and tell me I am wrong.

I have provided the numbers.

Those numbers don't appear to include a stalker ATO, though, which kind of misses the point.

 

Placate is of course an extra crit, giving double damage on your next attack. But Placate itself has a cast time - you could have just thrown another attack. Getting 2x damage on one attack, instead of 2 attacks with normal damage, is still a net gain if the crit is from a strong attack. That's what you've shown: a TS crit is more extra damage than throwing in another Havoc Punch or Charged Brawl.

 

But with the stalker ATO, you can already get auto-crits on your strongest attacks. This literally reduces the value of Placate: you can't use it for a TS crit because you've already got those; all you get out of it is a CI crit. CI does the same damage to the initial target as Havoc Punch, so HP+CI does the same damage as Placate+CI, and has the same cast time. Except HP+CI has a chance to crit and do more damage, so using Placate instead of an attack is a DPS loss. Fewer controlled crits does not automatically mean less DPS.

Ah okay, I didnt realize the conversation had shifted to that. So yeah, I agree that changes things. I apologize for that. In this case, I would say for PvE, Placate is not so aggressively needed, but can still come in handy under certain situations.

For PvP, I wouldn't suggest skipping Placate.

Sorry I missed the conversation shift. Carry on!  :)

With an IO build including that single ATO proc in Assassin's Strike

Why there? I thought it would go better into a faster more spammed attack. As a psi stalker already in melee, if I get a bonus hide I'll probably jump to Mass Levitate if there's a lot of mobs or AS if there's a dangerous foe/boss I need to get instead. I am wondering if I am missing a subtlety here...

I took Placate on my kinetic melee, in case the class io set doesn't hide me on assassin strike, so that I can get perma build up on single targets.

With an IO build including that single ATO proc in Assassin's Strike

Why there? I thought it would go better into a faster more spammed attack. As a psi stalker already in melee, if I get a bonus hide I'll probably jump to Mass Levitate if there's a lot of mobs or AS if there's a dangerous foe/boss I need to get instead. I am wondering if I am missing a subtlety here...

I guess it depends on your goals.  Who am I to tell you something is wrong, right? 

Due to how procs per minute work, longer base recharge can still be a factor for each builders IO placements.  The goal, as I understand it, is not to leverage the ATO to pop off another Assassin's Strike in combat due to the long animation time.  The goal is to drop to hidden and either continue an attack chain with a guaranteed crit (influenced by choice in Primary) or sub in a hard hitting attack for the critical or  other effect like with Kinetic Melee's T9 or an AoE or whatever. 

Since getting the ATO to trigger has nothing to do with a follow-up Assassin's Strike AND said power has a default long recharge, it becomes a good candidate for that particular proc.  Putting that ATO in any other long recharge single target power is likely going to be depriving you from the bonus damage of said power when the proc fires off (since it is on cool down).  That would leave you with some other power option or Assassin's Strike. 

A shorter cool down power will have more randomness when the ATO fires off vs potential consistency of AS. 

I could be completely wrong on how I have been designing my builds too, but that's what I gather of why that proc works in AS so well. It's all about proc trigger reliability and opportunity costs.

Why there? I thought it would go better into a faster more spammed attack.

PPM proc rates don't favor fast attacks.

It would work fine in another attack instead of AS if you prefer. I think people might be over-extrapolating from StJ, where it goes really well in AS because that also gives two combo points, so you're frequently using CU or another finisher right after AS.

PPM proc rates don't favor fast attacks.

 

It would work fine in another attack instead of AS if you prefer. I think people might be over-extrapolating from StJ, where it goes really well in AS because that also gives two combo points, so you're frequently using CU or another finisher right after AS.

Yeah, when I was writing my response to Erydanus I wanted to take a step back and consider play style difference.  I wanted to address my method which ultimately is a choice to make Stalker play a bit more Scrapper-esque.  With StJ it is pretty obvious to do given the set mechanics.  However, the rational for smoothing out an attack sequence by not having an accidental Assassin's Strike during that hide window is applicable to other sets. 

Though on the other hand, is the animation time of an attack substitution any better than an Assassin's Strike would have been?  Right?  For me I do it purposefully to improve PPM reliability while also removing AS from my own internal decision tree.  I'm getting older, playing twitching just isn't as much my cup of tea as it was.  So making sure I don't clicky the wrong thing by accident is a limit imposed on myself.  The by product is consistent damage, but I do admit I play that way because of preference. 

That said, with 5 stalkers, I have Placate on 4 of them and I may even add it back to the 5th just because I can. 

Though on the other hand, is the animation time of an attack substitution any better than an Assassin's Strike would have been?

I'm not sure what you're asking here. If you're asking whether using the hide proc for another attack is better DPS than hardcasting AS, the answer is pretty firmly yes.

Though on the other hand, is the animation time of an attack substitution any better than an Assassin's Strike would have been?

I'm not sure what you're asking here. If you're asking whether using the hide proc for another attack is better DPS than hardcasting AS, the answer is pretty firmly yes.

Rhetorical question.  I'm just sort of airing a thought process.  Maybe my crazy and rambling will be useful to someone else. ;)