Stalker Epics

[Erydanus]

My previous experience playing a stalker was always a villain so I'm used to the Patron epic pools. Now that I'm playing as a hero I'm pretty underwhelmed by the choices. There's a few good powers in there but they overall look pretty bad to me, and they're also formulated very differently than the Patron pools. I looked at the Darkness Mastery pool vs Ghost Widow's pool and they could easily have been quite similar other than including an Arachnos minion, but the hero one is formulated very differently. On the one hand, I get that doing that gives more choices instead of just being a hero reskin; on the other hand, those alternates are not impressing me and I don't see how they're going to help my stalker end-game. I'd rather not randomly go villain at 35 just to unlock patron pools and then come back to herodom, but now I have to consider that.

 

What do you guys do about this? At this point I'm seriously considering taking a bonus pool instead, like maybe Presence (for Unrelenting and an extra Placate). Too bad the additional premium pools like gadgetry and so on aren't in...yet.

[StrikerFox]

I usually go with Body or Weapons Mastery for Superior condition/Physical Perfection. Since the Stalker change, they have become end hungry by using AS frequently in attack chains.

 

Visit Null the Gull in Pocket D to instantaneously change your alignment, and complete a patron arc to unlock the Epic Pools. See the gull again to revert back to hero when you're done.

[Microcosm]

Just FYI, any placate other than the one in your primary powerset won't put you in a hidden state, it just removed your threat from the enemy. In other words, don't expect to get an extra crit after a pool placate.

[Erydanus]

Thanks for the tip. My character is Willpower secondary so unrelenting had specific uses, but that seems like too many filler powers to get it then. 😑

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I didn't have many melee characters but on the few I did I found that having Focused Accuracy, Heightened Senses or Targeting Drone was incredibly useful. I didn't run them all the time (the end cast was to high for the small bonus to To Hit) but they all give good resistance to To Hit debuffs so I would turn them on when I got hit by a debuff to counter it out.

[Statesmandy]

I stuck with the patron pools. I didn't really see anything in the APPs that I wanted more than the instant-cast snipe that Ghost Widow gave me.

[Zerethon]

Ghost widow, all day every day on every stalker i make.

 

One-click instacap defense + another spot for LOTG

Crit-capable ranged dark blast that can hold the purple ST Ranged damage set

Potentially-instant snipe that can hold a ranged set

Coolest looking hold in the game that can take a purple set

FREAKIN' NIGHT WIDOW PET.

 

Or:

Some dissapointing dark blast/dark control powers

 

Yeah, hero dark has always been garbage compared to soul. Body mastery or whatever is fine to take while you unlock the patron powers, but once you start slotting IO's (2 slots in health, miracle and numinas proc, 3 slots in stam Perf shifter proc+end mods + Any other recovery bonuses you get) your don't really notice AS or anything using endurance.

 

Basically, if you're a stalker, go body whenever to make the last bit to 50 easier, at 50 you swap to soul and become a nearly unkillable god.

[vegetableknife]

Yeah Ghost Widow all the way.  You can turn into a shadow like Slark from Dota2

[Justisaur]

The insta snipe is full of win.  I took the snipe just as I saw it in someone else's build and thought that'd be cool, but then I got into a repec sf and the other guys were killing stuff so fast I felt like I was along for the ride... The I noticed that yellow circle around it sitting off on tray 4, and wondered what it meant, and tried it out.  One of the other toons was a widow with double tactics, and I was all instant snipe all the time, and hitting things from afar, hidden sniper!  It was awesome, I give a full recommendation.  I tend to team a lot, so I tend to get +end from support too (or blues from so much dying) so haven't really noticed the end bar going empty much.

[Dixa]

I stuck with the patron pools. I didn't really see anything in the APPs that I wanted more than the instant-cast snipe that Ghost Widow gave me.

 

waterspout does insane aoe and single target damage

 

body mastery means you don't need to take ageless incarnate.

[Erydanus]

This is why I feel like slapping basically the scrapper pools on stalkers was really lazy by the OG Devs. They had their own formula and I struggle to believe it would have taken much time to assemble a grab bag of equivalent powers. I.e., pry torrent out of darkness mastery and turn it into Moonbeam.  Now that my character is closing in on 50 I'm messing around with the Weapons Mastery pool (I do like Physical Perfection) but I haven't gotten to chuck shuriken yet. I kinda suspect I may flip villain at 50 for about 5 minutes and then respec. For concept reasons I wanted him to stay 100% hero the whole time. :/

[Koda651]

For concept reasons I wanted him to stay 100% hero the whole time. :/

 

I had this RP dilemma with my Stalker.  I decided that she had been tasked to go deep undercover to steal Ghost Widow's secrets.  She was never "really" a villain at all.