KaizenSoze

Late to the party, but hover on stalkers is such a boom in group melee. Every power, BS/SD, works in hover. My character is a tiny pixie, so flying around the top of the battle lopping heads off works perfectly.

This makes my very happy to hear.

Thank you. I have been trying to figure out good targeting binds. Usually tabbing is good enough, but this macro is better. Getting to the darn mob is most of my problem in a crowd. Nothing more frustrating then hitting AS 3x before I realize I am just a little too far away. My stalker is short, so jumping over mobs tall mobs is also an issue. Hovering solves 90% of these problems. So, I wanted to share.

I have tried that. It helps, but if I try to AS and the mobs moves then I interrupt my own AS. Because I forgot to break the follow. It has happened enough times that I stopped trying to follow. Happy to concede that I am probably not the best stalker.

Maybe this will be obvious to folks. Maybe I am just doing it wrong. I thought this might help a few folks. Thanks to this forum, my first char on returning to COX was a BS/SD stalker. The problem was I hated melee in groups. Constantly blocked by other players, pets, mobs. Pushed out of range, all the familiar issues. So, I played a lot of alts, but I hated shelving my stalker. Tried other stalkers, same issues. I was playing my baby dom who ended up melee from hover. Then I realized, my stalker can fight from hover too. Respec'ed into hover/fly and it works! Assassin strike works perfectly well in hover. You can sit on the mobs head and all the attacks work. All the blocking and pushing is gone. Find the boss or lt, swoop in, kill. Back up find the next target. So, much better, than being on the ground. I am not high enough to try shield charge, but if works then I will be even happier. If not, I will still want to play my stalker. Melee in groups in now fun!

If you do not what clicky. Then rad armor is not for you. Multiple clicks powers. Invul, SR, and Willpower are I think the most toggle and forget armors.

I have decided on elec/thorns/cold?. I love the end drain powers and cold has decent defense. I am flying blind, but here what I am trying. Conductive Aura has pretty good vertically. I can hover just out of melee range of the mobs, but hit most of them. Thorns has a lot of ranged attacked. And, I have a lot of practice hovering and lining up cones with other toons. So, I get the benefit of CA, but not the downside of being in melee. Level 25 right now. Only died once. I have mostly been in groups. Static field's +/- end effect a great benefit to teams. The build is very much in flux, so I will not post anything yet.

Reading this thread in the defender forum: Which Sets Benefit Most from the i25 Proc Rules I have a desire for a */thorny assault dominator. Thorns do not seem a popular choice, but I was thinking that the new procs might benefit the set a lot. Since, most of the powers have -def, KD, KB, etc... Has anyone done any testing? What are good primaries?

+1

I agree with oldskool. I tend to get around not taking the 2nd blast with ranged P2W and prestige powers. They are good enough attacks till you can get a complete attack chain. Or you can just respec. Either works.

Yes. The first blast triggers Offensive, the second Defensive. <IHMO> There is no reason to take the second blast, unless there is a power set where the second blast is very effective. Hydro Blast is not one of those blasts. Defensive is mostly ignored and for good reason. </IMHO>

I thought about DA. How is your endurance usage?

I would go with Rathulfr's MOG suggestion. My incarnate IO experience is nil. Side note, on a corrupter, I would slot Whirlpool with damage and slow.

I have a 50 water/rad Sentinel. No special IOs. Water blast - looks good * Whirlpool - I slot slows and -def. Primary to keep mobs grouped while AOE-ing Regen * Moment of glory is very situational. I personally would drop it for weave. A power that will constantly provide defense.

Is it possible to get development attention on this issue. The bug makes the beasts power set the worse by far in the Mastermind AT.

Most of the time I do not even care what the melee is doing. As soon as the mob aggros, I start firing. I spend my time lining up my next AOE or cone, not worrying about over aggro-ing. If there is a second group or ambush, then often I engage the new threat to give the group time to adjust. Hover plus rad armor resists, heals, and buffer, give me a lot of durability. Also, never discount the scrapper level mezz resistance. On top of that, water blast has a lot of soft control with KDs and slows. Don't get me wrong, I love a good melee-ers, they gathers the mobs into a nice tight groups. :)

Same experience with my WB/Rad. At 47 I have been pulling groups in +3/4 if we do not have a solid tank. I had this great group in PI yesterday. No melee at all for the first 10 missions. We rolled with minimal deaths. If I can get any def buffs like bubbles, most mobs do not even through my Particle Shielding buffer.

Thank you for all your work! Now, we should never mention this again. I do not want the devs nerfing water blast. :)

What appears to be some debate on what the AOE/cone/PBAOE hits caps are for Sentinel. I did some testing in Perez Park today. Why PP, lots of tightly bunched groups, some as large as 12. AOE and PBAOE the caps appears to be 10. Most people agree. Now, the interesting part, Steam Spray in Water Blast is a nice 40deg cone. I was able to hit 9 mobs, I suspect the cap is actually 10, but I could get 10 in the cone. This appears to be greater than the common wisdom. Better testing would involve a tanker with an aggro aura to group the mobs tighter. Post your test results or point how I could test better. If you want to help, I am Blood Pixie on Excelsior.

Thank you for that information. I was thinking more along the lines, no more than X deaths. Less all or nothing, allow for Murphy's law. The fact that they already tracks deaths means the code is already available. Just need to enhance it for other TFs.

Many of the task force are too easy. Even if you group is under powered or playing poorly and dying left and right, you can still grind out task forces because the mobs do not re-spawn. As an option, add a bonus for TFs completed under a certain number of deaths. Or a huge bonus with a failure option if X deaths are reached. It will add more teammate care and consideration and make fights more exciting. Right now if some trigger happy teammate dies 10 times, no one cares.

I am no expert on water blast, but so far I have been very very happy with it on Sentinel. Water blast is an end hog and radiation has enough end buffs to keep shooting continuously. I can chain TF->GS->WB->SS or TF->WB->SS->GS depending on recharge on every group. The soft control, KD, is good for the whole group. I still contend that it is possible, that over an entire mission, some sentinels will out damage blasters or at least corrupters, because we can keep shooting w/o fear of getting killed. Hard to prove though. I tried making a corrupter version, the damage appears to be better, but the lack of end buffs and sacrifices made for mezz protection are hurting. She is low level still, might get better. Also, do underestimate the toughest aspect of Sentinels. Last night, yet again, 6/8 teammates down, just the tanker and myself left. I spent two minutes dog fighting with mobs while the group recovered. I rarely die. We need a TF with a death cap, die three times are you're out. :)

I would agree until I found steam spray in the water blast set. I think I will start another thread on AOE and cone caps, so as not to de-rail this one.

Spray stream is a 40deg cone. A really nice one actually, I can hit more than 6 target in my testing.

A question about the AOE cap. I ran some tests in the Perez Park. With water blast, I was hitting more than 6 targets with Water Burst, Steam Spray, and Geyser. Does the level of the mobs effect the cap? What am I misunderstanding?