Why Evasion over Lucky on a Stalker?

[Solarverse]

I'm sure this question has been brought up at least once and I am betting it was even suggested a time or two on the Suggestion Forums...which leads me to my personal opinion followed by three questions.

 

Opinion: Evasion on a Stalker just simply put has never made any sense even from day one of CoV. Stalkers already get AoE Defense with Hide and having yet another toggle (remember, Hide used to cost endurance) was just overkill on a set that has no endurance recovery bonuses. That set has always been an endurance hog, even after Hide was changed to cost zero endurance, it's still hard on Endurance. However, even if I were to be completely wrong about that information, when we look at the set today, the way so many things avoid Defense in the end game by obliterating Defense with Defense Debuffs, it becomes clear that Stalkers really could use the scaling resists granted by Lucky.  I am thinking you would be hard pressed to find any Stalker who actually takes Evasion in to their build, and I am betting that it has always been this way for Stalkers. So IMHO, it was just a bad choice by the OG Devs to have Evasion in the build instead of Lucky.

 

Question 1: Does anyone even take Evasion in their builds? If so, mind giving your reasons outside of, "I use it for Shield Wall or LotG."

 

Question 2: Does anyone know if the OG Devs has ever given their reasoning behind putting Evasion in the build instead of Lucky? I can't imagine it being for any balance reasons, since Evasion grants more AoE Defense than Lucky.

 

Question 3: Assuming this has been suggested in the Suggestion Forums a time or two, what was the final consensus on that subject; if any? Or was it another tug-of-war suggestion that simply got buried in the arguments as most of those types of suggestions often go?

[Uun]

All but 1.875% of the defense in Hide suppresses in combat. You need Evasion to provide AoE defense in combat. You also need it to get your full complement of DDR. 

 

The stalker version of Evasion combines the AoE defense values of Evasion and Lucky that other ATs get. Scrappers get 13.875% AoE defense from Evasion and 5.625% AoE defense from Lucky. Stalkers get 21.375% AoE defense from Evasion. Stalkers do lose the 6.92% DDR in Lucky (for some reason those values weren't combined). 

[Solarverse]

3 hours ago, Uun said:

All but 1.875% of the defense in Hide suppresses in combat. You need Evasion to provide AoE defense in combat. You also need it to get your full complement of DDR. 

 

The stalker version of Evasion combines the AoE defense values of Evasion and Lucky that other ATs get. Scrappers get 13.875% AoE defense from Evasion and 5.625% AoE defense from Lucky. Stalkers get 21.375% AoE defense from Evasion. Stalkers do lose the 6.92% DDR in Lucky (for some reason those values weren't combined). 

 

Hmmm, interesting. I honestly didn't know that those values were stacked with a nonexistent Lucky. I can also say that I have never taken Evasion on a Stalker. I have never had issues with AoE kitting me on my stalker, either, despite the fact that I never took it in to my build...that was even before IOs came out. I mean, they would hit me occasionally, but rare. Thank you for the nontypical answer though, you have given me a bit to think on. Appreciate it, @Uun.

[Captain Fabulous]

Yes, you should take Evasion. The end cost is pretty low (same as the other two toggles) and it's your only appreciable amount of AoE defense. Also a nice chunk of defense debuff resistance. Stalkers get a higher scaling resistance in Agile and Dodge than other ATs to make up for not having Lucky.

[Solarverse]

55 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Yes, you should take Evasion. The end cost is pretty low (same as the other two toggles) and it's your only appreciable amount of AoE defense. Also a nice chunk of defense debuff resistance. Stalkers get a higher scaling resistance in Agile and Dodge than other ATs to make up for not having Lucky.

 

Damn, I thought it was the same values. That's good to know, thank you.

 

Just checked Mids, unless mids is incorrect (which it has been known to be from time to time) the values are a 10% difference. Stalker caps at 50% and a Scrapper caps at 60%. However, that may be intentional by the Devs, so I'm not going to wine about 10% Resist difference.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Solarverse

[Uun]

2 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Stalkers get a higher scaling resistance in Agile and Dodge than other ATs to make up for not having Lucky.

Not sure why DDR didn't get the same treatment. Stalkers get 55.36% while scrappers get 62.28%. 

 

1 hour ago, Solarverse said:

Just checked Mids, unless mids is incorrect (which it has been known to be from time to time) the values are a 10% difference. Stalker caps at 50% and a Scrapper caps at 60%.

Scrappers get a 0.003 multiplier that's applied to 3 powers:

[MagExpr]% Damage Resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative Energy) (self only) for 0.75s

Magnitude Expression: 0.003 * minmax(60 - source>kHitPoints%, 0, 100)

 

Stalkers get a 0.004 multiplier that's applied to 2 powers:

[MagExpr]% Damage Resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative Energy) (self only) for 0.75s

Magnitude Expression: 0.004 * minmax(60 - source>kHitPoints%, 0, 100)

[SwitchFade]

You want evasion. Hide def suppresses, so evasion is your sole source of big aoe def in combat, the 4 to 6 slots for set bonuses and lucky is passive, also ddr and scaling resist. Combining evasion and lucky is the path to incarnate soft cap aoe def.

 

I really don't recommend ever skipping evasion.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by SwitchFade

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, SwitchFade said:

You want evasion. Hide def suppresses, so evasion is your sole source of big aoe def in combat, the 4 to 6 slots for set bonuses and lucky is passive, also ddr and scaling resist. Combining evasion and lucky is the path to incarnate soft cap aoe def.

 

I really don't recommend ever skipping evasion.

 

 

 

Oddly enough, I have had quite a few /Super Reflexes characters over the years, both here and on live, and what brought me to think Evasion was...well, useless, is that dodging AoE has never been an issue for me. Now, that might be because I often stack other defenses like Combat Jumping and Weave/and or Maneuvers, add IO set bonuses to that, I simply never had an issue with dodging AoEs. I guess it gave me a false sense of perception that Evasion was simply useless and easily skippable. However, if I can just take Tough and skip Weave and Combat Jumping and replace the two with Evasion, that will change how I build completely.