How did I never try Stalkers before?

[ranster44]

 I played for a few years back in the day (10 years ago I think)... Just tried to Stakler builds for a few levels, Staff/Ninjitsu, SJ/SR. I'm in the teens with both. My question is, am I going to encounter major issues with either build as a solo toon? I am not ready to eam with anyone as I am still working on game knowledge, game mechanics, build strategies, ect... So I will be soling for a while. I am also open to ideas for a different build with the understanding that I don't have a super rich main toon to support them...

[gourdhead]

I'm soloing a stalker as my "experience all the content" toon, and so far the only issues I've had are not getting inspiration drops (because I just sneak to the end and ki;ll the boss/click all the glowies) and I seem to be leveling slowly for the same reason.  Otherwise, Jarrita the Latina Ninja is a freaking death machine :)

 

[ranster44]

Yeah, I'm loving Stalkers for solo. I'm barely level 20 with no major enhancements and I'm playing at +1/+1

[Hardboiled Hero]

I'm not that big on stalkers, but I'm trying out a savage/regeneration build right now and it seems fun.

 

  In the old days I remember people talking about stalkers being god-like in soloing missions because they could just sneak around everything and kill the boss or get the objective..  But somehow when I played my stalker I always seemed to get escort missions or "kill everyone" missions.  I would also point out that enhancements in general aren't important until about level 22 (when you should try to keep some IO's slotted), since the stalker is "skipping past" a lot of "content", they're not generally making as much inf. as they should or getting as many salvage drops as they should.  that's not to say they can't.. it's just that's not how most people want to play stalkers.. but that's my old experience from Live.. I'm not sure how it really goes these days.

[Croax]

A very good way to play solo and still get good inf is the sister psyche story arch in ouroboros. You can set it to super easy mode and get up to 50 merits per hour. There is a whole guide about it.

I did not reach the 50 merits but also i use jetpacks for travel in lower levels. So that might be the reason.

 

Looking at your two Stalkers i would rank the StJ/SR higher but it is a late bloomer, because you need all the powers. The other Stalker could turn out to be easier while leveling, because you get a good selfheal. Just remember to buy any kind of knockback protection IO.

[Six-Six]

Like with any AT, the Stalker is not the end-all. I enjoy them a lot, depending on certain moods and style of play that I want. Hella fun and way cool.

Can you solo with them, of course. They're one of the highest crit-dealing damage dishers out there. But also keep in mind that you can solo with practically any AT depending on your build. Speaking of builds, IOs are almost unnecessary until mid 20s. some may argue they're not necessary at all, but they do help.

Can you expect some difficulties along the way? Yes, do. You're primary asset is your stealth and sneakiness. there will be maps and missions that will take that away from you. Rikti drones can sense you no matter how high your stealth is. Some bosses will also sniff you out. And while you deal incredible destruction in a swipe, it will be easy to get overwhelmed with numbers. There will be defeat all missions, but these are doable if you're patient and take the time to apply some strategy to attacks. Then there are the escort missions which also force you to turn off your stealth, which sucks for a stalker. (stalker no stalking)

Some maps/missions, even on -1/x1, will spawn a big enough mob that may be too much for you to handle (and not on -1) game's tricky like that. this is when the MMO part of the game comes into play. teaming up with even just another person (doesn't need to be a full 8-man team) will benefit you greatly. You and your teammate are greater than the sum of your parts. 😃 

If you enjoy your Stalker, stick with him. build him up right, experiment. most of all have fun and enjoy.

[MTeague]

I am a map-clearing-fool on my stalkers.  I almost never ghost to the target and surgically take them out.  I lay waste to almost the entire map.  It's very possible, you open with an alpha-gank and cutting down the remaining minions is not difficult.  Once you get some decent AE's you may prefer to open with the AE's instead of AS, and just use AS when it gets the wonderful lovely orange circle.

 

@ranster44:  you said your secondaries are /Nin and /SR.  Like any defense-based sets, you'll have taken some hard punches along the way to get to the teens. You will find some aggravation because you probably just can't amass enough defense to have things reliably miss you as much as you'd like.  For /Nin, I would definitely take Caltrops, because it makes everything in melee stop attacking you and slowly run out ,and you get Free Hits in the meantime. Definitely handy to have caltrops keybound for a quick release to buy yourself some time.   Most importantly, keep a few purple inspirations stocked. popping a couple Luck's will take you from "dang this guy hurts" to "bwhahahaha, nothing of this world can touch me!"

 

When you get being able to slot multiple lvl 25+ SO's or IO's into your defense powers, that's when you really feel the strength of your respective sets. 

 

But for first 20 odd levels, for both my stalkers and scrappers, I usually leave my secondary powers with only the default slot, and just get my first few attacks like 4 slots each, so I can give them a good mix of acc and dam and endurance reduction.  

[Seraph]

I was a scrapper main prior to City of Villains and then when I got into the beta for COV, I sorta punished myself knowing I'd sacrifice utility for burst. Fell in love with the class and became an admirer of Rogue-type characters across all MMOs because of them. 

On 5/5/2020 at 5:51 PM, gourdhead said:

I'm soloing a stalker as my "experience all the content" toon, and so far the only issues I've had are not getting inspiration drops (because I just sneak to the end and ki;ll the boss/click all the glowies) and I seem to be leveling slowly for the same reason.  Otherwise, Jarrita the Latina Ninja is a freaking death machine 🙂

 

The shortage of exp makes sense. Sure you get a bit of mission completions but the biggest chunk of xp you get is from killing mobs so if you're just stealthing to find glowies and then kill the boss with his henchmen, naturally you're accumulating less xp overall. But I always found it fun... until you run into Nemesis or Rikti Drones. 

[Gulbasaur]

On 5/6/2020 at 4:16 AM, ranster44 said:

Yeah, I'm loving Stalkers for solo. I'm barely level 20 with no major enhancements and I'm playing at +1/+1

Stalkers are the only archetype that I'd say the Archetype Origin enhancements are definitely worth getting - they really push stalkers from Sneaky Scrappers territory straight into Action Movie Superhero territory. If you've got the inf or the merits to get the inf, I'd really recommend grabbing the two "special effect" ATOs. The stealth proc one should go into Assassin's Strike and the Build Up one can go anywhere it fits. 

 

Anyway, welcome to the club!

[Shockacon]

I've recently made a few scrapper and brute alts but have had issues rrally getting into their grooves. I got to level 6 on a rad brute and found myself irritated when the power selections didn't include assassin's strike. Stalkers have been too much fun and kinda ruined the other melee toons for me (except Night Widows which feel like cousins anyway). Pretty sure half the 50s I've ever made were stalkers.  I should've opened up a stalker-only shop somewhere called Stalk-N-Stab...

[Hjarki]

7 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

Stalkers are the only archetype that I'd say the Archetype Origin enhancements are definitely worth getting - they really push stalkers from Sneaky Scrappers territory straight into Action Movie Superhero territory. If you've got the inf or the merits to get the inf, I'd really recommend grabbing the two "special effect" ATOs. The stealth proc one should go into Assassin's Strike and the Build Up one can go anywhere it fits. 

I tend to put both procs into the Assassin's Strike. The Superior Assassin's Mark set is nothing special and you can split Superior Stalker's Guile across two different powers to get the +5% S/L Defense twice. This also means that your powers will be better as powers since you're not stuck with whatever random benefits complete sets give you. And, of course, it makes your build cheaper since you're using 7 ATO rather than 12.

 

 

[Troo]

On 5/5/2020 at 5:40 PM, ranster44 said:

My question is, am I going to encounter major issues with either build as a solo toon?

Nah.

No more than most other archetypes.

 

There is a lot of ways to go with a stalker. Some characters are scrappers, some are heavily burst damage, while others lean toward aoe specialists. Once you find your groove, they are amazingly fun.

 

Staff Fighting and Street Justice have some attack mechanics to be mindful of. There are other sets without.

 

I love Placate, some don't use it. The concept of making an enemy basically ignore what's happening is awesome and it does not require a accuracy check.

[Force Redux]

Staff/Ninjutsu should be a good leveler. Solid ST and AoE damage both, plus a parry ability to stack with defense. Plus endo and health heals, comprehensive status protection and, as mentioned caltrops for area denial. 

 

My own incarnated stalker is spines/bio and it's super fun and robust. Solid AoE and some range too.

[ranster44]

I love this community, y'all are so helpful. Thank you!

 

[SwitchFade]

Check out the build I posted in the thread here where someone asked about dual blades/energy aura.

 

Short version, it's a killing machine. Dps is over 450.

 

Seriously, the build is so tough and straight ganks everything, the damage is so high.

 

I solo, team, alpha soak, boss murder, AoE sweep and stealth. I had never stalkered before I carefully planned, tested and then finilized the build. From lvl 10 on it was a steamroll time, I love it.

 

Now I have 5 stalkers, all /EA, so much fun.

[Spectre7878]

Stalkers are fun. I love the hide and assassin strike. Solo/duo is fun, but when it comes to big teams I feel left out. I don't mean to whine and for sure its just my issues with the AT but when I am on a big team especially with brutes, masterminds or anything with heavy damage, I start to feel like I am on the side line wanting to play. By the time I even get assassine strike or any of my attacks the mob is dead. Maybe I just don't understand my role on a team. I just hate feeling like I am not doing anything.

[Mr. Vee]

7 minutes ago, Spectre7878 said:

Stalkers are fun. I love the hide and assassin strike. Solo/duo is fun, but when it comes to big teams I feel left out. I don't mean to whine and for sure its just my issues with the AT but when I am on a big team especially with brutes, masterminds or anything with heavy damage, I start to feel like I am on the side line wanting to play. By the time I even get assassine strike or any of my attacks the mob is dead. Maybe I just don't understand my role on a team. I just hate feeling like I am not doing anything.

That's why they weren't particularly fun before. Now you can just not AS from hide, put the chance to hide proc in AS, the chance to recharge build up proc in something that gets used and enjoy yourself. On a full team with both of those procs and the team crit bonus stalkers are a blast.

[Spectre7878]

2 minutes ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

That's why they weren't particularly fun before. Now you can just not AS from hide, put the chance to hide proc in AS, the chance to recharge build up proc in something that gets used and enjoy yourself. On a full team with both of those procs and the team crit bonus stalkers are a blast.

cool thanks for the info 🙂

[Force Redux]

1 hour ago, Spectre7878 said:

 By the time I even get assassine strike or any of my attacks the mob is dead. Maybe I just don't understand my role on a team. I just hate feeling like I am not doing anything.

This is a common complaint across all ATs due to incarnate powers, crashless nukes, etc. 

[Sovera]

11 hours ago, Force Redux said:

This is a common complaint across all ATs due to incarnate powers, crashless nukes, etc. 

A bit less so with Stalkers I feel. once the nukes and the incarnates go off there are always a few mobs left and a stalker can hop around finishing them in a few moves. I was playing with a Brute earlier and it was almost painful to see the guy do full rotations and hitting mobs with big moves while I was zipping around with my procced out KM and having crits make explosions of gore.

[WhiskeyDingo]

On 5/17/2020 at 12:25 PM, SwitchFade said:

Check out the build I posted in the thread here where someone asked about dual blades/energy aura.

 

Short version, it's a killing machine. Dps is over 450.

 

Seriously, the build is so tough and straight ganks everything, the damage is so high.

 

I solo, team, alpha soak, boss murder, AoE sweep and stealth. I had never stalkered before I carefully planned, tested and then finilized the build. From lvl 10 on it was a steamroll time, I love it.

 

Now I have 5 stalkers, all /EA, so much fun.

Why EA over the other armor sets?  Is there something inherently better about it?  Ask for... a friend... who rolled a Shield stalker and has some regrets.

[Riverdusk]

4 hours ago, WhiskeyDingo said:

Why EA over the other armor sets?  Is there something inherently better about it?  Ask for... a friend... who rolled a Shield stalker and has some regrets.

EA is overall a very well balanced set with a lot of layers.  It has the 2nd highest innate defenses (only slightly behind SR, although typed instead of positional), and then also has a built in heal, endurance management, a +recharge bonus, and some basic level of resistances.

 

Nothing wrong with shield though, I'd say shield trades some survivability for better damage.  Shield has a damage bonus and an extra aoe attack.  Shield is also generally going to be better against psi attacks as most psi attacks have a positional vector to them and EA doesn't have any built in psi defense.  EA would have to try to get psi def/res from pools/IO's.

[Frosticus]

Dont underestimate shield. 

On 5/31/2020 at 4:56 PM, WhiskeyDingo said:

Why EA over the other armor sets?  Is there something inherently better about it?  Ask for... a friend... who rolled a Shield stalker and has some regrets.

what sort of regrets? Shield is very easy to reach 32.5% def while leveling , which means a small insp from breezing thru most content.

 

Once leveled it is easy to softcap to 45% even while exemplaring into the high 20s. 

 

you also have good/reliable ddr, +hp, solid resistances and tangible offensive tools. 

 

I actually think shield might be a tiny bit too good on stalkers as it aids removing adds so quickly and stalkers are so strong vs a small number of foes. It rarely gets overwhelmed.

[Hyperstrike]

How did you never try them before?

Because they were locked behind Red-Side for most of the game's existence.
And Red Side is enough to make you go down the road and not across the tracks...

Also, the fact that ATOs and Winter-Os have VASTLY improved the general performance profile of Stalkers.

[WhiskeyDingo]

21 hours ago, Frosticus said:

Dont underestimate shield.

what sort of regrets? Shield is very easy to reach 32.5% def while leveling , which means a small insp from breezing thru most content.

 

Once leveled it is easy to softcap to 45% even while exemplaring into the high 20s.

 

you also have good/reliable ddr, +hp, solid resistances and tangible offensive tools.

 

I actually think shield might be a tiny bit too good on stalkers as it aids removing adds so quickly and stalkers are so strong vs a small number of foes. It rarely gets overwhelmed.

Mostly appearance related regrets with the shield being always present, which isn't a big deal at all.