ZemX

Sure, but "teamwork" isn't eight people just doing their own thing, ideally. It's also thinking about the way the rest of the team works and how things can work better that makes you more than just someone who understands their own powers and role. People immobilizing scattered mobs over a 30ft radius area only really works for teammates who can do wide area damage. That's nice and all, but if that's just you and maybe one other teammate... you kind of aren't helping. Holding off on pressing that button for a few seconds isn't that hard. Folding space around the tanker/brute instead of you doesn't prevent you from following up with your own AoE. It just means everyone else can do that same. I mean, I don't pretend to know how every AT works. I stick to the few that interest me. But I can see what they're doing on a team and adapt my play. I can see a Brute or Tanker running around gathering up enemies and hold off on running in to pull aggro with an attack right away. I can see them corner pulling out of a room that seems to have multiple level 54 groups in aggro range of each other and NOT interrupt their pull before it has gathered at the corner. Yet I would say more often than not, PuG teammates simply can't resist attacking long enough to let that properly develop. At best it just means it takes longer to clear. At worst, team gets wiped. Some in this thread are already dismissing this sort of play as being overly concerned about efficiency. I just call it good teamwork. Nobody HAS to do it... but isn't it nice when they do?

I guess the problem is what you'd drop for it. As mostly a defensive measure, you could drop Fighting and gain a slot for Ice Patch and two other picks but... that's got some caveats. While I said I'm thinking about dropping Fighting, I haven't done it yet. Ice Patch protects well against ground-based melee enemies mostly, not aerial or ranged, unless you have a means to get them onto the dance floor. It's particularly useless against CoT ghosts, for example, as I was painfully reminded on a Tarikoss SF last night that was set to +2. At that level, the CoT debuffs were brutal and the ghosts just laughed at Ice Patch as they floated above it flooring my toHit. I am also just a few points shy of capped S/L on my Ice/Rad and that's pretty nice. I am not at the soft cap, so losing Weave doesn't hurt me much. I could pick up Maneuvers instead and get a few of those points back as well as the place to slot a LotG. But losing around (if I remember right) 17% S/L? Ouch. Other than that, you might drop Unleash Potential, but it would cost you a LotG. Less than it would cost you in recharge if you lost Hasten though of course. Anything else you'd drop looks like it would walk back some of your -res goal.

Seconded. I am even considering respeccing out of Tough/Weave to see what other utility I can fit in. But I get that not everybody cares about that sort of thing on a Stalker. Still, Patch is not just defensive if you consider using it to collect and nuke groups. I was just using it last night on an ITF. I could pile up entire Roman ambushes into a neat little pack and nuke them with Frost, Frozen Aura, and Ground Zero (with a few procs). Shame I didn't have Judgement slotted yet too. With Assassin's Mark it was sometimes literally: Hide -> Patch -> Build Up -> Frozen Aura -> Build Up -> Ground Zero -> Build Up -> Frost ... etc. And through that, Patch helps keep you alive by cutting down on a ton of attacks you would otherwise be receiving. To me that's worth the 1-slotted power spot it takes up in my build. If there's a down-side, it's that Ice Patch occupies a spot in the primary usually filled by another moderate/high-dmg ST attack. As a result, when I eventually dropped Frozen Fists while leveling up, I feel like I no longer have a fast ST chain to build focus quickly. At least it seems like I see less of the orange ring around AS than I do on my Staffer. Thinking about finding room for Frozen Fists again. I might drop Fighting pool and pick up FF along with some other fun stuff. I'll have to ponder that.

Every PUG team I am ever on that runs into a Warrior mission, just after zoning in. We're all that old.

I don't think that's true in this case. Or I just got insanely lucky. If Build Up->Moonbeam from a hidden Stalker on Holtz didn't aggro Weakened Honoree, I am not sure what would unless it's an actual AoE that hits them both.

Endurance? Why run Flight if you're in combat? Or does the endurance usage get suppressed along with the flight speed automatically? I've honestly never checked because I don't do fliers mostly. I don't run Super Jump and Combat Jump at the same time because it offers TOO much control in the air for my liking. It's too twitchy. That wouldn't be a problem for flying. Nobody mentioned Evasive Maneuvers. I assume that IS being run all the time if someone takes it.

Well, now I don't feel so bad about missing out on HC's opening.

There's no need to nail anything down or be neat. I brought this up as a way to improve the odds over simply getting 8 randoms of any level and AT. That's why I said AT and Level matter more than anything else people were bringing up. I'm not saying you need to consider AT for every one of the eight slots. I'm not really saying anything that isn't already done by most PUG leaders putting together a tough TF at the very least. Get at least one Brute or Tanker at the TF level and a couple support and you pretty much have tanking and support covered. And support is a whole list of different ATs. Not just defenders. That's pretty common knowledge. It's been a whole lot of years since I've seen anybody asking specifically for an empathy defender and if you do see that... you know to steer clear. Because that's someone who doesn't really understand the game.

Again, people keep piping up to say what else beside the trinity works and I keep saying... yeah man... I know. That's not the point. It's about playing the odds, not just hoping people will surprise you pleasantly. Personally, I do prefer the latter, but that's not who I was responding to with that.

How? I join PUGs with MMs all the time. I play Stalkers mostly and there are definitely more of you guys around than Stalkers. 😛 I've never played an MM but even I know they can do damage and support at the very least so why wouldn't someone count you in those roles? I don't know if you have any aggro management though. Tanking isn't just surviving. It's surviving while controlling aggro. Brutes and Tankers have the best tools for drawing aggro and holding it. Doesn't mean nobody else can do it or do things like it (or do things that make it irrelevant). Like I said, this is about playing it safe with unknown players who may or may not turn out to be MMs that can solo ITFs at max settings. A LOT of other things work and IOs and Incarnates change almost ALL the rules to boot. These other things just aren't AS likely to work in any random pick-up team is the only point I am making. I still vastly prefer collecting 8 randos and going. It only sometimes ends up with the entire team in a +6 Arachnos jail on the FIRST spawn. (But to be clear... I didn't put that team together. 🤪)

Fair. I'm being loose with the definition of "Holy Trinity" here by saying tanking rather than Tanker and especially "support" rather than "healer". And again, this is all only if you want to play it safe as possible. I generally don't care enough. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It's RARE that things don't work, in my experience. In most cases it does not, the problem is levels first and AT composition a more distant second. It's a good point though. When you run into someone who is being overly specific about team needs, they are doing YOU more of a favor than they are doing themselves, I think. Same goes for team members who aren't willing to put up with your decision to run at a particular level or difficulty based on what you see happening. Tell people up front you will adjust difficulty as you see fit so they know it can happen. If they still want to complain about it after being invited and accepting... that's on them. They're doing both of us a favor by leaving.

You must have done something different. This works exactly as you specified. If Super Jump is already running, hittting its key turns it off. It does not turn on Combat Jumping. @UberGuy has just posted the same solution I did. It works. Give it a shot. If it doesn't work, try unbinding both keys and trying again. Like I said, I did experience one problem like you describe but once I made sure both keys were unbound first, I got it working.

AT and level. These will, more reliably than anything yet mentioned, give you the best chance of success if you don't know who you're teaming with. The game may not require the Holy Trinity, but that's not the same thing as saying it doesn't work. It does work. It's not the only way... but it is a safe way when you don't know the people you're teaming with and aren't willing to roll the dice. If you are teaming with people you know, then it's much easier to be comfortable with any mix of ATs. Nothing is a guarantee of course, but having some tanking, some support, and some damage at levels appropriate to the mission and difficulty is going to work nearly every time. If it's a TF, and you're unsure, don't start out at +4. Read the team on a mission first. Then adjust. Not saying badges don't tell you anything, but I don't think they're as reliable an indicator of how well a random team might work. To say nothing of... how exactly would you form a team that way? Do you advertise for people to have a minimum number of accolades? I've definitely never seen that one.

I just did this with Combat Jumping and Super Jump: I had these two powers in trays 1 and 2 in position 9 in each. I had 'q' bound to CJ and 'alt+q' bound to SJ. So I keep the powers there just like before. But I didn't ever activate them by clicking the mouse. Just the keypresses. If that's okay with you, this will work same as before the issue release (except in your case, with Hover and Fly): bind q "powexec_toggleoff Super Jump$$powexec_name Combat Jumping" bind alt+q "powexec_toggleoff Combat Jumping$$powexec_name Super Jump" Like I said, mouse clicking doesn't work this way and would still allow both powers to be active if you activate them by clicking. Mouse clickers would have to create macro buttons with the above binds in them. That would work, but wouldn't show the spinning indicator of an active toggle around the button like before. Very close though to the same functionality as before. I should note, I had some weirdness while I was doing these binds. I had to unbind both keys first and then rebind them as given above. Not sure what that was about. You can add toggleoff statements to these binds for things like Ninja Run as well, since I think that used to be exclusive with travel powers before as well. And then the Ninja Run bind would toggle off both Hover and Fly. Should work.

I wouldn't mind seeing this updated but I also wouldn't be too surprised if it hasn't changed all that much either. I'm a long time stalker fan and even here, this long after the Issue 22 overhaul, Stalkers are still at the bottom of the list of standard ATs in popularity. So I wouldn't suspect even after some of the powerset changes here that much has happened to change people's typical preferences on what is "the best" enough to make much of a difference in these charts.

Heh... I just discovered HC a couple months back and last night was the first time I'd run LRSF since Live. But it was neat arriving at that Freedom Phalanx mission and thinking to myself... "Didn't we used to go to Warburg for bio nukes and Shivans on this one?" Or am I remembering a different one? I kind of remember the sleep tactic too now that I'm reading it here. But anyway, I was on a similar team that didn't really know the right way to tackle that fight. Fortunately, there were enough incarnates on the team to just brute force it. My ninjitsu stalker took one instant dirt nap in that mess, I don't even know from who, in there somewhere, but I got back up with Unrelenting and the team finished the fight relatively quickly. Certainly way less trouble than I remember.

I PUG all the time too. It's why I play this game. It has such variety! But I'm a filthy casual. I don't much care if every team I am on operates like a well-oiled machine. Figuring out how to make it operate at all is the fun part for me. But everyone should do what makes them happy. I don't knock min/maxers and spreadsheet superheroes. If that's their thing, good for them. That said, I think there are definitely exceptions to my "PUGs are fine!" attitude and Barracuda is probably one of them. You don't want to join a BSF and see all the warning signs (+4 mission setting, more than half the team is sidekicked, there's no tank... or the tank is sidekicked too and has no set bonuses to boot, etc.) It's more than likely not gonna go well. Overall, even though I PUG exclusively, I've rarely failed a TF/SF and when it's happened it's usually because of the team composition things I just mentioned, not because you can't get people to listen to some simple instructions. If I had to pick only one thing to watch out for it's not badges, accolades, ATs, or even powersets and set bonuses... it is levels of teammates relative to the difficulty setting. Sidekicks can be facing up to +6 bosses/EBs/AVs on a +4/x8 team, meaning for those enemies, they might as well be spectators unless they are strictly providing buffs/heals. That other stuff is important too, but the relative levels makes the biggest difference in my opinion. Similarly, a team leader who notices these things and adjusts difficulty to compensate is a good team leader. I'm always a little wary of people who are advertising their teams as +4/x8 for that reason. It means they more than likely aren't flexible and would rather wipe and have people drop than lower the difficulty.

Thanks! Guess I've been doing this the hard way on my Stalkers. Well... sort of. I usually have Moonbeam (snipe) and one-shot the portals one by one. The summoned gang around the portal comes after me and I beat them down. Rise. Repeat. During this time, most of the ambushes arrive, but fortunately not while I am battling EBs. Finally, it's just the two EBs left. Snipe the Captain. Beat him. Then go beat the Honoree. Next time I can play it a bit smarter!

I've only gotten a few 50s myself and always did Ramiel right away, but this latest one I noticed (because I wasn't paying attention before) that I was earning IXP, threads, unlocking the Alpha slot, and was able to craft an Alpha without having done Ramiel's arc. So... he's just flavor then? Or is there something he does unlock? ETA: Nevermind. A little more reading... it unlocks the Alpha at the end of the arc without having to earn the IXP to do it? I guess that's good to know. I've probably wasted some IXP in the past because I usually hit 50 on a team, earn half the slot anyway, then take a break to do Ramiel's arc.

This. Also, the lightest colors (full white being the best) will look more like polished metal because you'll see the environment mapped reflections more clearly in it. But if you want to tint it, that works too, but I'd stick to lighter shades close to white to maintain the shiniest most reflective appearance. It's still there, but somewhat muted by dark shades.

Croax's big Tier List and Builds thread recently posted has many build examples, including KM/EA. Keep in mind though that they are endgame builds, including a fair amount of purple IOs and such. Still usable though while leveling if you substitute some cheaper sets for the purples for now (unless you're just that rich). As for what I've been doing: I usually just wing it. I knock out the power order first in Mids to use as a guide while I level. Often there's a respec in there in the 20s or early 30s because I find having both low-tier ST attacks is often good in the beginning and then the faster recharging one tends to become irrelevant later in the presence of better recharge in both the powers and globally. But it depends on the set. But it's also not a bad idea to use an endgame min/max build as a starting point and work backwards from there if you want to relax it a bit and add more "fun" stuff. You can then see how much defense or resist or recharge it is costing you to make those choices compared to the min/max build. As a Stalker, in general, I would prioritize getting the ATO procs first at the very least. Get Stalker's Guile: Chance to Hide and put it in AS. Get Assassin's Mark: Chance to Build UP and put it in a lowish tier attack power so you have it active even when you exemplar (remember, it doesn't matter which power that one is in because it globally makes any attack you use, including secondary and pools that hit enemies, have a chance to refresh build up. So I prioritize availability because I exemp a lot for TFs and lowbie mish teams). The rest of those sets are obviously nice but you can often kit out several other powers with normal set IOs for the same price as one full set of either (non-superior) ATO. Then at 50 you buy on AH (and/or use dropped) catalysts to turn those slotted ATOs into the superior versions. Gaussian's Build Up proc is also really nice in Build Up, especially once you have Assassin's Mark refreshing it more often than it normally would on recharge IOs. It means you probably don't have to worry about adding two or three slots to recharge IOs for Build Up, so you can spare one for Gaussian's. The proc when placed in Build Up pretty much fires every time you use Build Up... which is a lot when you have the ATO proc as well. Its extra damage isn't as long lived as Build Up's, but it will enhance at least one strike after Build Up with that extra damage. This is a good thread on endurance recovery IOs and enhancements if you want to prioritize a few of these to help with endurance issues. But mainly I just make sure to get one end redux IO in each major attack first as well. I start putting normal IOs in place of SOs at either 22 or 27, then replace them eventually with full sets when I have the scratch. Sorry that rambled a bit but that's kind of my process. I prefer to hammer this stuff out as I go rather than spend too much time not playing pouring over Mids builds.

Yeah, I'm aware of that, but solutions like Creative's Alchemy or IndirectSound were supposed to wrap those APIs and redirect them through their own implementation. And it works for a lot of old DS3D games, but not this one apparently. You can install the Alchemy DLLs in the game directory but it still doesn't "detect" the capability. It must be doing something non-standard to decide that 3D audio isn't available and so it leaves the 3D Audio selection grayed out. Ah well, It's not a huge issue. Just one I was curious about. I'm playing around with the Creative sound control panels to try to tone down the peaks a little and made some of the sounds less annoying without having to dive into individual wave files. It's a little better. Thanks everybody!

I assume since nobody in two years ever responded to this the answer is probably no, but I figured I might as well ask. I keep playing around with audio. I have tried Alchemy as well as several registry hacks related to it found for other games, and can't get the 3D Audio option to un-grey. Anyone else have the magic solution? I otherwise just set Windows to stereo and get at least some left/right separation of sounds in the world. It's not a super big deal but there are certain sounds that are tremendously annoying. Like they are implemented without location at all so if you are in range of the sound it is just blasting max. volume into both ears (I game on headphones). Rushing water in sewer maps, the giant PI teleportals, and the overhead monorail are a couple examples. I just started an Ice Melee character and literally feel brain-freeze when I draw the Ice Sword, it's so damned loud. I can't just turn down overall volume or else everything else is too quiet. I guess I will play with dynamic range in the sound drivers or something. Anyone else with similar problems or is it just me?

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks. Also, I don't want you to think I was giving you a hard time about Regen being a meme. This entire AT was a meme, once. Still loved playing one, even then. 🤪

Really appreciate all the work, Croax, but I'm a little confused by the secondary rankings in this one vs your other guide thread. You didn't give a ranking there but to take just the most glaring difference: There you called Rad Armor "one of the best secondaries across all ATs" but here, you put it in C tier. You also seemed a little more positive on Electric Armor and Willpower there than here. And the worst you said about Regen was "Not a bad choice, but not great either." Here, it's a... meme? 😀 Has your opinion on these just changed that much over time?