|
|
 
Official Description: "Skill can divert clumsy ray power, and precisely applied force can solve many problems. As a Stalker, this is the core of your specialty. You do your best work when attacking from ambush, and can even hide in plain sight to escape foes. Deadly attacks and good defenses make you a dangerous combatant and assassin, but you can be overwhelmed if you're not careful."
Primary: Melee
Secondary: Defense
Hit Points: Low
Damage: High
Icon: Crosshairs - There is a basic similarity between the Blaster's Sniper, and the Stalker's Assassin Strike, reflecting their common reliance on strong offense, and getting in the first strike.
Inherent:
Assasination - A Stalker does his best work when striking from ambush. When properly "Hidden", a Stalker can pull of Critical Hits with his attacks, and even land a massive "Assassins Strike" with an Assassins power. Additionally, a Stalker has a chance to land a Critical hit with most of his attack powers when attacking Held or Slept foes.Critical Damage
The Scrapper has the following Power Sets to choose from:
Stalkers are very much like a subclass of Scrappers. Similar to the Tanker, which is a specialized subset of the more generic melee Archetype, the Stalker is built around a particular strategy and playing style. Even so, there are many variations in the sort of Powers Stalkers can wield, and although they all share the common trait of being stealthy and striking for extra damage on their first attack, they may vary in damage of attacks, amount of defense, and whether or not they have control-like powers to help single out their targets. Follow this link for some examples of these "subarchetypes".
Tips for playing the Stalker:
While solo:
While it may be tempting to rely entirely on Hide and Assassin Strike, this gets boring fast as you stand and wait for Assassin Strike to recharge again and again. It is also practically impossible to take on foes one by one. While you can run from each fight and wait for the foe to lose sight of you, so can come back and strike him down, that's boring too. So you should be prepared to fight two or even three foes after each initial strike. Use your Assassin Strike to take out your first target in one shot, then take out the other two in "normal" combat.
As with the Scrapper, then, it is important that you give sufficient attention to your defenses. You don't want to get killed, or even injured badly, while finishing off your foes. If your attacks and defenses are strong enough, in fact, you can usually deal with the emergency situations when four or five opponents jump you by surprise. Thus, as soon as possible after level 1, you should pick your first actual defense (the first one other than Hide) and you should balance defenses with attacks. Slot all of your attacks well, even your basic ones, and make sure that you have enough damage to take out a foe without having to Hide.
Even more than the Scrapper, the Stalker does not strike quickly. The Stalker scouts out the area before he strikes, makes sure enemies aren't hidden in corners or behind doorways. There is no reason for you to go into battle without knowing exactly where all of your enemies are. Be patient, you will do plenty of damage when you strike. You can fall almost as fast as the ranged Archetypes, so don't let yourself be drawn into a combat that you don't completely control.
Movement is extremely important, you will often have to run from fights that don't go your way, and knowing how to duck behind obstacles, to break line of sight, is imperative for using Hide properly. You won't have to rush INTO the fight, though, as you will have plenty of time to set up your initial attack, so Super Speed and other "closing" powers are not so important. Hide, unlike Stealth, will let you get right up to a foe without being spotted.
Placate is also a useful power that is very unique to the Stalker. Placate is the key to getting Criticals while in protracted fights, and it also helps you control incoming damage. Once trick is to use Placate on a secondary foe, and then immediately switch to your main target to take advantage of the auto Hide. You will do the Critical, but not spoil the Placate, and the secondary foe will not be able to attack you.
The Stalker's only real weakness is a lack of a "pulling" tool. As it is very helpful to the Stalker to be able to lure foes out of sight of their allies and ambush them, it may help to take Challenge from the Power Pool, although you can also use the ranged Origin power to pull foes. You can then duck behind a corner, which is of course a usual tactic for the Stalker, and wait for the foe to come to you. Note that putting a corner between you and the foe prevents your Hide from being spoiled by a ranged attack.
As with any meleer, runners can be a problem, but since your damage is usually so great that you take out foes before they even know you are there, runners don't usually get a chance to run. When one does, try and intercept him, going back into Hide if possible. It's interesting to note that many Disorient or Knockback powers are postponed until late in a Stalker's choice of attacks, but if you have a Disorient or Immobilize available, it can be useful not only to stop runners, but to "hold" a foe while you duck out of sight to Hide.
One final note, it's interesting that the Archetype that has the best possibility of sneaking past guards to a mission goal, and fighting only the minimum necessary to achieve that goal, is a villain. Of course, you will often want to earn the XP for your foes anyway, but the potential is there to finish a mission quickly if you are short on time.
While on a team:
While Critical hits can be of use against any foe, the Assassin Strike was clearly designed with Bosses in mind. The damage is actually far greater than the hit points of any Minion, and is sheer overkill, while it can make a huge dent in the hit points of an Archvillain or Hero. The Assassin Strike also causes a to hit debuff and fear reaction in all foes around the target, if it survives. Thus, in a group, the Stalker's role is to take out the big targets, rushing in with an Assassin Strike and then retreating to Hide or maybe Critical a few Minions.
The Stalker also gets a scaling chance to Critical on a team, which goes up as the number of allies on the team increases. This can be as much as 31%, for a full team of eight, three times the chance of a Scrapper's Critical. While the Stalker does not need to attack Bosses to get the full chance of Critical, this does make the Stalker's role more of a Boss killer, just like a Scrapper.
Unlike a Scrapper, however, it's very unlikely that a Stalker will ever be able to tank. He doesn't have the hit points, and may even be hard pressed to survive the attacks of an Archvillain or Hero. While it may seem like throwing one punch and then running away is not much of a contribution, the damage done by Assassin Strike is so great that even that one occasional attack can make a big difference. You just want to break that one attack up with regular attacks, relying on your defenses and random Criticals to continue dealing damage. Just be ready to retreat at a moment's notice.
The best way for a Stalker to contribute to a group is to wait until the other damage dealing archetypes have attracted some attention. Brutes are the best at this, of course, and can easily keep foes occupied while you position yourself for an attack. Because Corruptors have the Scourge ability, they can be very useful for finishing off Bosses you have "softened up" with an Assassin Strike. You may want to wait for them to attract attention with some opening attacks, however, or an area debuff. You should never be the first one to strike, although you may often be the first one in.
Your ability to strike without warning also gives you uncommon ability to protect allies that may be in trouble. If the Brute is about to fall, for instance, dropping the foe that has most of his hit points left may give him a chance to finish off the rest. Keep your eyes open for teammates in trouble, and enemies running to attack allies. Don't be afraid to fall back and go into Hide and then move in to help a teammate. Among other things, being in Hide will raise your defense to AoE attacks dramatically, so you won't be caught by attacks aimed at the Brute.
|