Stalkers Hide should be made Inherent/Ability to skip t1 powers from Secondary

[Darkneblade]

All of secondary powers of stalkers add hide anyway with no change in animations/FX, so I think they should be inherent.

WHY? : Well it is not like this change anything in game balance, all this does giving 1 extra power choices (Secondary) to stalkers. But reason I think should be made Hide inherent because of another reason entirely.

Ability to choose tier 2 of Secondary powers when creating character/respeccing. I know people wanting that for this ages so I think devs easier time doing it if Stalker's Hide made inherent if it is possible at all. I know I never choose Poison in non-defenders version because first tier heal is skippable but I can't skip anyway. 

Edited May 11, 2020 by Darkneblade

[SurfD]

SOOOOO, your actual suggestion really has more to do with wanting to be able to skip the mandatory First Power in secondary pools, rather than making Hide Inherent?

 

Why not just make this suggestion directly then?

 

Honestly, as interesting as the idea sounds, I imagine it would break all sorts of things trying to get the game to allow you to skip the initial power in Secondary Pools, so I doubt it would actually be allowed.

[Naraka]

Some question:

 

1. What armor set powers have a tier 1 you want to entirely skip?  And why?

 

2. What AT inherent power has an enhancement slot or is slottable with more?

 

3. What do you have slotted in Hide and would you be okay losing that?

 

But that first question is really the kicker.  I cannot think of *any* armor powerset that wishes to skip the tier 1 and would rather the choice of picking the tier 2 at the start that this suggestion would fix.  The 2nd question really is more pointing out how good Hide is.  To just add it as a consolation to the AT and with a free slot in it with no END cost and enhanceable defense with a sizable buff to AoE def when not suppressed is *very* good.  And the last question, proposing losing that option to slot this power in exchange would upset more builds than it helps.  There are so many defense unique IOs that fit nicely in that slot or just putting a defense enhancement for non-def sets to not get knocked out of hide.

[Darkneblade]

Well for first of all Hide being inherent only to stalkers.

They should be slottable like how stamina is slottable for all characters even though it is inherent. 

As for skippable powers in t1 armor powers? Well not really armor perse but overall secondary powers. Like only ally effect powers. If t1 is skippable and t2 could be selectable Stalkers has a option to not select Hide as t1 power (who will crazy enough to do that? no idea.). That's why I think it should be inherent. 

If Hide is out of picture t1 is like t2 armor power. That leaves 1 power free.

Willpower stalkers could get Quick Recovery power for example with tier 1 power as High Pain Tolerance.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Darkneblade

[Naraka]

47 minutes ago, Darkneblade said:

Well for first of all Hide being inherent only to stalkers.

They should be slottable like how stamina is slottable for all characters even though it is inherent. 

As for skippable powers in t1 armor powers? Well not really armor perse but overall secondary powers. Like only ally effect powers. If t1 is skippable and t2 could be selectable Stalkers has a option to not select Hide as t1 power (who will crazy enough to do that? no idea.). That's why I think it should be inherent. 

If Hide is out of picture t1 is like t2 armor power. That leaves 1 power free.

Willpower stalkers could get Quick Recovery power for example with tier 1 power as High Pain Tolerance.

So you're saying Stalkers, a non-epic AT, should get a free slot then.

 

As for options for selecting tier 2 powers for the secondary, there is a whole other issue that messes up the game buried in the code.  That seems like a whole other can of worms than asking to make Hide inherent.

 

And as for the missing +recovery in sets like Regen or Willpower, I feel that could be resolved by just adding that effect to an already existing power in the set Fast Healing and High Pain Tolerance.  But as is, there are already nearly no skippable powers in the early tiers of armor sets so I don't see how inherent Hide helps that except giving more freebies to an AT that is arguably one of the better melees in the bunch.

[SwitchFade]

Stalkers are fine as in.

 

Very sorry, no vote.

[Troo]

16 hours ago, Darkneblade said:

Well for first of all Hide being inherent only to stalkers.

Actually, attacking from ambush is the stalker ability. Stealth and invisibility are available to many.

19 hours ago, Darkneblade said:

Well it is not like this change anything in game balance, all this does giving 1 extra power choice

This is also arguably incorrect. Giving and extra power to one AT would likely have some effect. Definitely some power creep in there.

 

I did like the laser bullets idea for alternate animations so keep the ideas coming.

[MTeague]

Now, I could perhaps see a /Regen and /Willpower stalker getting some portion of a Quick Recovery effect melded into Hide... and perhaps some of the other trees, some other ability that relates to the power that gets skipped to make room for Hide in those sets.

 

I am for the record, holding out exactly zero hope of that. 

But if an adjustment were deemed to be necessary, which I don't beleive it is, then that would be the route I would take.  

 

Honestly though, stalkers are in a crazy good place right now. They can do extremely good single target damage, they're scrappy as heck, and with the ATO procs they become at least twice as deadly as before. Several primary sets have good AE options to complement their single target stabbiness, and while yes, Hide by itself isn't going to provide much in-combat defense, out of combat, it provides a giant burst of AE defense and gives us a way to simply bypass any mobs we choose (unless it's a laser-targetted-ambush).  No one else gets that right out of the box.  We get plenty enough from Hide to justify it being part of the secondary tree.

 

[AkuTenshiiZero]

I'm getting really tired of these "I want X power for free" threads.

[MTeague]

27 minutes ago, Troo said:

Actually, attacking from ambush is the stalker ability. Stealth and invisibility are available to many.

This is also arguably incorrect. Giving and extra power to one AT would likely have some effect. Definitely some power creep in there.

 

I did like the laser bullets idea for alternate animations so keep the ideas coming.

Stealth from the Concealment tree doesn't even hold a candle to Hide in how much stealth hide provides.  I can literally run straight into a boss with hide and no aggro of any kind. Try that with Stealth pool power sometime.  And Invisibility requires you to take either Stealth OR Grant Invisibilty before you can take it, and either way, no one gets them out of box. 

 

Illusion Controllers have Sup Invis, but not at lvl 1.  

Storm Defenders get Steamy Mist but not for several levels and again, it doesn't do nearly as good a job as hiding you as Hide.

[Troo]

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Inherent_Powers#Assassination

 

I'll concede hide is a big part of it..

 

This is the trouble I get in for not just saying 'No'.

 

Edited May 12, 2020 by Troo

[Snowdaze]

26 minutes ago, AkuTenshiiZero said:

I'm getting really tired of these "I want X power for free" threads.

agreed! my vote is stalkers are fine 

[MoisesG]

13 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

agreed! my vote is stalkers are fine 

Seconded

[Haijinx]

6 hours ago, Snowdaze said:

agreed! my vote is stalkers are fine 

The older primaries that get no AOE attacks could stand to be looked at.

 

With that caveat, I agree.  Stalkers are in a great place.

 

They do not need a change to hide.  

 

[Greycat]

7 hours ago, MTeague said:

Stealth from the Concealment tree doesn't even hold a candle to Hide in how much stealth hide provides.  I can literally run straight into a boss with hide and no aggro of any kind. Try that with Stealth pool power sometime.  And Invisibility requires you to take either Stealth OR Grant Invisibilty before you can take it, and either way, no one gets them out of box. 

 

Illusion Controllers have Sup Invis, but not at lvl 1.  

Storm Defenders get Steamy Mist but not for several levels and again, it doesn't do nearly as good a job as hiding you as Hide.

*nitpick* at 20 you can get invisibility for the cost of running a patrol in Siren's, and refresh it up to 5x. Not permanent, granted, but it's been "enough" for a number of characters.

 

Also don't forget mobs that can penetrate stealth (including Hide,) either with Tactics or just inherently (Rikti drones.)

[Naraka]

59 minutes ago, Greycat said:

*nitpick* at 20 you can get invisibility for the cost of running a patrol in Siren's, and refresh it up to 5x. Not permanent, granted, but it's been "enough" for a number of characters.

 

Also don't forget mobs that can penetrate stealth (including Hide,) either with Tactics or just inherently (Rikti drones.)

Yeah, or try walking up to a KoA boss using hide.  You'll quickly have your throat lodged with caltrops.

[Replacement]

Stalker is the #1 reason why, even if we could choose our starting secondary, I would vote no to it.  A Stalker relies on Hide to fuel their identity, and it would not make sense for it to be skip-able.

 

Now, why shouldn't it just be inherent?  Because it's damn powerful.  It's an endurance-free defense toggle for starters.  It's also a perfect aggro avoidance tool, is the foundation of an entire playstyle, and oh yeah, it can be slotted too.  Stalkers already have like 82 passives combined in "Assassination."  It's impossible to remember all the things considered their Inherent even before the very powerful Hide.

 

EDIT: effect text from wiki:
 

	Always criticals from Hide 10% chance to critical outside of Hide
	Chance to critical outside of Hide increases 3% per nearby teammate
	Primary attacks (except Assassin's Strike) have chance to grant Assassin's Focus
	1 stack of Assassin's Focus grants 33.3% chance for Assassin's Strike to critical outside of Hide

 

This also misses the aoe ToHit Debuff and Fear chance.

This also misses the (PvP Only) additional crit chance vs held/slept players

 

That's a lot of passive.  No thanks to adding Hide shenanigans to all of that.

Edited May 12, 2020 by Replacement

[Naraka]

20 minutes ago, Replacement said:

This also misses the aoe ToHit Debuff and Fear chance.

That effect is called Demoralized.  It is a, I want to say 20ft radius -ToHit that cannot be resisted so even on AVs, it's -5% ToHit.  Not major but stacked with defense or other debuffs, it can soften an alpha strike a bit.  The fear chance I think is 25% and the mag is high enough to affect Lts.  Can't recall the durations off the top of my head.

 

34 minutes ago, Replacement said:

This also misses the (PvP Only) additional crit chance vs held/slept players

I think this is also exclusive from the team +crit chance.  Basically, you get +crit chance to NPCs when allies are around and +crit chance to Players when they are affected by certain mez.  I could be misremembering though, but there's a lot of things to remember.

[Replacement]

Just now, Naraka said:

That effect is called Demoralized.  It is a, I want to say 20ft radius -ToHit that cannot be resisted so even on AVs, it's -5% ToHit.  Not major but stacked with defense or other debuffs, it can soften an alpha strike a bit.  The fear chance I think is 25% and the mag is high enough to affect Lts.  Can't recall the durations off the top of my head.

 

I think this is also exclusive from the team +crit chance.  Basically, you get +crit chance to NPCs when allies are around and +crit chance to Players when they are affected by certain mez.  I could be misremembering though, but there's a lot of things to remember.

The text version includes both of these effects as part of Assassination.   My whole point was showing that even their short description version is incapable of including everything it does.

Bolded the last part just because it's funny and absolutely my point.  There's already too much going on, there.  No thank you to hiding Add.  Shit, Assassination just broke my brian.

[BrandX]

So, you want Stalkers to have a slottable power, for free, that provides defense and invisibility and they still get to keep their regular critical strikes?  o.O

 

As for Fitness being inherent and slottable, remember, Domination is an Inherent power, and is not slottable.

 

If Hide was a free power, I'd have to say get rid of the slots, and possibly the defense of the power, except maybe AOE defense, when hidden.

[Solarverse]

You may think giving Stalker *1 extra ability* wouldn't make them OP, but you underestimate me. You let me give my Stalker 1 more power...and I'll show you an unkillable God that can also two shot almost anything in game.

 

Sorry my man, I can't get on board with this idea. Because if I can do this with just one extra power, then so can a lot of other people.

[Snowdaze]

I mean when you really look at it, since all stalkers get it at lvl 1, and it is effectively the exact same power in every set.... It already is inherent!

 

The best part you aren't getting something worthless as a T1 secondary forced on you, infact it is arguably the most useful T1 secondary there is. And since you cant choose what power comes first in a secondary I would much rather have it be something fantastic like hide!

 

Can someone explain to me what the OP's issue is? Stalker's situation seems ideal compared to countless others, why are they complaining? I tried to re-read the OP's post, but it failed to make any sense to me this time since I've had time to think about how perfect the stalker's situation is.

[Darkneblade]

2 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

I mean when you really look at it, since all stalkers get it at lvl 1, and it is effectively the exact same power in every set.... It already is inherent!

 

The best part you aren't getting something worthless as a T1 secondary forced on you, infact it is arguably the most useful T1 secondary there is. And since you cant choose what power comes first in a secondary I would much rather have it be something fantastic like hide!

 

Can someone explain to me what the OP's issue is? Stalker's situation seems ideal compared to countless others, why are they complaining? I tried to re-read the OP's post, but it failed to make any sense to me this time since I've had time to think about how perfect the stalker's situation is.

Well I have no problems with stalkers perse. But I generally want to skip t1 powers from secondary in everything. 

But if I want to suggest that people will complain Stalker's hide is necessarry.

If I want to suggest that way Hide will be forced on t1 for stalkers only. No idea who will complain but some of them do or maybe not. Maybe I'm overthinking this but it is general idea.

[SurfD]

1 hour ago, Darkneblade said:

Can someone explain to me what the OP's issue is? Stalker's situation seems ideal compared to countless others, why are they complaining? I tried to re-read the OP's post, but it failed to make any sense to me this time since I've had time to think about how perfect the stalker's situation is.

The OP's issue is that they aren't really concerned about Stalkers.  What they actually want is the ability to "opt out" of the mandatory first power pick in the secondary pool during Respecs or Character Creation.   They just decided that it somehow made sense to bury this suggestion in a stalker related post because it possibly occurred to them that being able to accidentally opt out of picking Hide would basically break stalkers.

[Zeraphia]

I actually don't think this is a terrible or unwarranted idea. Granted, I think the dev time to do this and replace it and balance the sets so one set isn't getting too generous a "buff" from this would not be "worth it." However, I do see the argument that you are forced to pick the same power across every single armor set for Stalkers, no variation being unpleasant. I'm not necessarily supporting or against this (I highly doubt that one extra power in their secondary will make Stalkers "broken.")