KelvinKole

This echos a lot of my thinking before posting. The best primaries for this are probably Ice, Spines, Staff, and Dark. I agree regarding things like Parry. Ice has a good single target hold and ice patch. All of the attacks slow recharge. Decent Aoe to kill off adds. Spines also slows recharge, while having some knockdown from Ripper and decent Aoe. Staff atleast has a useful version of Parry, some knockdown potential, decent Aoe, and the +resistance buff. Dark has no Aoe, but has some minor - tohit and siphon life. I think performance wise, all of these will probably net similar results. For secondaries, invuln and ice seem to most robust. Invuln remains the king of layering defenses. Ice can sort of mimic that with the tier 9. Both get +hp. Neither is too reliant on recharge speed, not that ice has to worry about debuffs. So decision time: ice/invulv, staff/ice, staff/invuln, ice/ice, spines/ice, or spines/invuln Hmmmmmm

My CoH hours are, oddly, mostly split between Tanks and Stalkers. Two very different AT's. It occurred to me today that I've never tried to build a Stalker that could just take a beating. Most of my builds are designed to hit high levels of resistance, softcap defense, etc., but not really optimized for it; I optimize for DPS. So, I want to try it. What do people think the toughest Stalker would be? What combination of powersets a why?

This is pretty great. Well done.

I'm going to resist going down this rabbit hole with you. Suffice it to say the definition you copied here doesn't match what you tried to say. Static does not mean "you don't have to do anything"

Ugh, I tried not to... Static means not moving. Defense, resistance, and regen are all moving numbers. They move up via buffs and down via debuffs. What you're trying to describe is passive versus active. Those stats are passive defenses, they're always on IF applied via a toggle or passive ability. Things like healing, max hp buffs, absorbs, and even buffs and debuffs that affect those stats are active defenses. Signed, A RL Engineer.

Your entitled to this opinion, but it's not fact. There are many many other ways to survive.

When the walls come down, heroes step up.

Executive Producer: Nemesis

I'll bite. Two reasons I do it. Theme and pride. Theme is self explanatory. Pride because it does take some resolve to get it to 50 and build it out. But it does reward you for doing it, in the end.

Not really liking the idea of moving the immob protection out of CoD. In general, I don't like the idea that any power in a set can be easily skipped. It's already easy enough to get immob protection and defense from combat jumping, so CoD is already toeing that skippable line. Dark Armor is a very strong set and I think the way to keep it balanced is to add value to the powers people don't take. Not necessarily to buff the set, but to increase the investment cost required to run it at max potential, while adding some flavor or plugging some minor holes. Sets like invuln, energy aura, electric armor, bio, super reflexes, Shield, etc. all function better when you take everything. Dark can reach similar levels while skipping 3-4 of its powers. Any rebalance for this set somehow needs to address spreading out what it does well, while making it more fun (less exhausting) to level, and without raising its ceiling too much higher.

You don't take hasten in your builds, so I understand how this could be your opinion of what it does, but that is not what it really does, or atleast it doesn't do only that... It reduces recharge time of all powers and the consequence of that is what becomes important. It creates higher uptime for buffs, it removes gaps from single target and Aoe damage rotations, it encourages the spamming of nukes on every mob, and provides regular availability of life saving clicks. I don't think it's exaggerating to say it changes the pace of the entire game.

It's not always well understood, but Dark Armor's "Core" shields do cost less than comparable powers in other sets, the sheer number of toggles that DA runs is what makes the endurance demand feel so high. It needs something to make it more self sustainable, but its endurance costs haven't been totally overlooked. I've spent a lot of time on DA. I love the set, so I can't help myself from making a few suggestions: Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear are both entirely skippable in the game now. I haven't taken either one since like issue 7. Cloak of Fear needs its accuracy increased to be useful, but I'd also like to see it increase recovery by a small percentage for each affected Foe. Feasting on your enemy's fear and all that. Let's say the first enemy in range provide 10% recovery and each additional target provides another 2%, and it's enhanceable. This helps offset the endurance demands of the set, while adding almost necessary-to-have value to a power that is often skipped. It would also fit thematically. Oppressive Gloom could use at least a chance to land as a mag 3 stun. There's really no need to stun minions when you can just kill them. The entirety of the set offers no debuff resistance. This is basically unheard of. It offers some resistance to end drain, but many other sets offer defense debuff resistance, slow resistance, or -recovery resistance. Cloak of Darkness, another power that is sometimes skipped, should provide resistance to tohit debuffs. Your Dark Armor; resisting negative energy damage is your thing and resisting its effects should also be your thing. That's it really. I almost prefer the self rez to some of the other ultimate powers which have crashes, I never take those, and I can live with the lack of knockback resistance and build around it.

I thought this was going to be about the old devs. I've always wondered if Positron is out there somewhere, lurking around steel canyon, throwing his helmet at his npc.

Is that really the point of this conversation, though? I hope not. We don't need to spend time trying to determine how many people take it, it doesn't matter. The topic is whether or not the power itself is unbalanced. I looked and didn't find any. What other primary/secondary powers provide 70% global recharge to yourself or teammates?

The investment required relative to what it does seems unbalanced. I'll try and draw some comparisons: Aid Other (Medicine) Vs. Heal Other (Empathy): Aid Other only does 2% less healing, using Controller numbers, but has less range, higher recharge, and longer cast time. Kick (Fighting) Vs. Thunder Kick (Martial Arts): Identical damage, using Brute numbers, but Kick costs more endurance and has a longer activation time. Provoke (Presence) Vs. Taunt: Same recharge and radius, but Provoke has reduced duration and range and offers no -range Stealth (Concealment) Vs. Energy Cloak: Stealth costs more endurance, provides ~2% less defense, and slows your movement. Hasten (Speed) Vs. N/A: There's nearly nothing in the game to compare it to. Arguably the best single target +recharge buff is Speed boost, which provides 20% less recharge reduction. Other powers possibly in this category are Lighting Reflexes and Quickness, which each give 50% less than Hasten. But, as i said, there's essentially no other self recharge buffs that come close and that's probably a problem. So, I'm just recognizing that Hasten is an outlier. It is a VERY good power for a 1st tier pool power and provides the single highest recharge buff in the game, that I could find.

I'm a fan of hasten. I use it in every one of my builds. I'm reluctant to say it's too good, but the pragmatic side of me tends to think it is. I don't have issue with what it does, but I do think it's takes way too little investment to reap the rewards. It's a first tier power pool option, requiring no other investment in the Speed pool to unlock, and doesn't need any enhancement slots dedicated to it to be effective. Hasten probably shouldn't effect itself. It's a little like a finger pointing at its own tip. It provides a massive global recharge buff and also encourages higher uptime of itself by reducing its own recharge time. Obviously there are other powers in the game that also function this way, but as zero investment pool power it should have some limits.

Fact.

Vorpal is the only one with a buff. All of the Radial Final Judgments trade the bonus damage of Core for some secondary effect: Ion Radial - Hold Pyro Radial - Stun Mighty Radial - Knockup Cryo Radial - Slow Void Radial - Damage debuff Vorpal Radial - +defense Vorpal would be too awesome on a Water Blaster. Use Geyser to knock everyone into the air and then Vorpal to shadow roundhouse kick them before they hit the ground!

That was actually the other one I was considering, but somehow the debuff felt wasted to me with judgment killing most things it hits, and the defense buff didn't. Probably not logical, but hey its my delusion and I'm sticking to it.

A couple general comments regards your IO questions. Slot order doesn't really matter outside of leveling up. Once 50, if you examplar down the game doesn't know when you placed the slots. You get the benefit of all enhacements in whatever powers you have available. There is some scaling that takes place, read this thread: You can't attune and boost, or atleast I haven't found a way to do it. Attuning just makes the IO provide values relative to your active level and you can only make superior versions of ATOs and winter sets. If you want attuned enhancements it's almost always more cost effective to purchase them from the AH than to craft and attune them because the AH will automatically attune normal enhacements if that's what you bid on.

It doesn't get the attention Ion and Pyro seem to get, but Vorpal is cool AF. Animation is super fast and just looks cool. Range and width are generous enough to hit whole mobs without much trouble. 30% defense is pretty sweet too, gives it secondary use case. Go Vorpal.

IO's are really the only way. You can slot: (1) Aegis Psionic Resistance for 5% (5) Impervium Armor Psionic Resistance for 6% each (1) Shield Wall +Resistance All for 5% (1) Reactive Defenses Scaling Damage Resistance for 3%-10% depending on health anything else will have to come from set bonuses, I think, and there are lots of good sets that do provide Toxic/Psi resistance. Best case, that gives you 43% at full health, before set bonuses, and assuming you can fit it all. I'm not suggesting it as you could end up gimping the rest of your build to get there, but it's doable.

I want to like spines so badly, but the anmation times just kill it for me on a stalker. I want to be swift and precise and be free to activate defensive clickies if I need to, and spines just isn't that for me. For what it's worth though, I think Barb Swipe has better DPA than Impale and you should be able to get two of them plus Lunge in while AS recharges. I hadn't thought of that before now and it would make the ST rotation pretty quick.

Taking a slightly different position here than I normally do in regards to game balance, but I don't actually think the existence of Permadom is a problem. Given that it's largely unreachable outside of high-end late game builds, I don't think it tips the scales too far. The truth is, control is nice to have, not necessary, at that level; Most tuned 50's don't care if that boss can hit them or not, they can tank the damage and come out unscathed. Similarly, longer mez duration doesn't matter when entire groups drop in 5-10 seconds, so Domination isn't actually all that valuable. Most groups would probably rather have a controller that can provide some buff/debuff. In solo play, the story changes and it's the difference between life and death but for an Archetype who's only means of survival is to lock stuff down I think it's fine that they're able to do it reliably. Consider this a vote for making Permadom MORE accessible, thus providing better flexibility and diversity in builds while eliminating the steep performance wall between non-permas and permas.

A LOT had changed since issue 6. There are a couple of goo guides around this forum that will help with powerset selection and enhacement choices, but to address your direct questions: Dual blades isn't my cup of tea. It only has cones for Aoe and the combo system is a bit limiting for a stalker. Teleattacks don't crit, but they also don't break Hide. So you can open with them and still land a follow up critical hit Aoe or ST attack. I wouldn't suggest willpower on a stalker. Hit points are too low and it doesn't get much defense debuff resistance. For primaries, I'm a big fan of dark, ice, and elec. Savage is also very popular, along with ninja blade and broad sword in certain pairings. There are a lot of viable secondaries. Rad, Ea, nin, ice, invuln, Elec, and dark are all very strong.