What are advantages of scrapper over stalker?

[Jeneki]

I picture a tiny WB cartoon character sneaking around with a ridiculously large mallet behind its back when I think of stalkers with titan weapons.

Stalkers cause a lot of weird mental images.

 

"Hey do you guys see a column of fire walking around?" ... "No, not me."

"Why is it so cold in here?"

"Man this new council base has a lot of static electricity."

(short stalker) Street Justice ASSASSINS JUNK PUNCH.

 

[Murcielago]

Scrappers get shield and stalkers don't.

 

Stalkers get it too  ;)

Since when???

 

Since i25. Welcome to the absolutely disgusting world of elec/shield stalkers.

I thought electric/shield was retarded on Scrappers. It's probably ridiculously OP on stalkers.

 

I thought you were all in favor of giving players choices and complete power proliferation.

 

Personally I'm waiting for Stalkers to get Titan Weapons.

I am in favor of it, which is why there's absolute no reason now to not port every melee powerset to every melee AT.  ;D

[Seigmoraig]

Also, Titan Weapons wins, so scrapper?  Stalkers don't get Titan Weapons.

 

I picture a tiny WB cartoon character sneaking around with a ridiculously large mallet behind its back when I think of stalkers with titan weapons.

 

I fail to see the problem with this though XD :O

[Erratic1]

Also, Titan Weapons wins, so scrapper?  Stalkers don't get Titan Weapons.

 

I picture a tiny WB cartoon character sneaking around with a ridiculously large mallet behind its back when I think of stalkers with titan weapons.

 

Given how the weapons are drawn from no visible location big enough to house them, Illyana Rasputin leaps to mind.

 

[itaalh]

Also, Titan Weapons wins, so scrapper?  Stalkers don't get Titan Weapons.

 

I picture a tiny WB cartoon character sneaking around with a ridiculously large mallet behind its back when I think of stalkers with titan weapons.

 

you did not play Dark Age of Camelot with the 2 handed Axe kobold assassins (stealth class)

[Rokkeb]

Lol people in this thread clearly think stalkers as they were in the early stages of cov.

 

They are objectively better than, or equal to scrappers in every way except aoe damage at this point. They have the same hp defense and resistance caps as scrappers. They have instant crits from hide, and an ato that procs them into hide from your regular combat chain, their crit chance scales up in groups to be higher than scrappers even with the scrapper atos.

 

And most importantly, they make broadsword good.

 

Stalkers received huge buffs in later issues, and i25 proliferation gave them some absurd power combos. For example elec shield has 2 teleport aoe nukes that dont break hide because of that weird pet mechanic. So you ultra nuke all the mobs twice then instant crit the remaining boss.

 

Basically if you're using assassins strike from hide at this point you are doing it wrong. Use your big dmg regular attacks from hide, get a crit. 2 small attacks, now assassins strike is instant cast and crits with 3 stacks, have ato in it, proc hide, big crit, 2 small, big crit etc.

 

That said I still roll scrappers because every single stalker should be following the same basic rostation at this point with the exception of adding teleport nukes if you have them. And scrappers still have some flavor to their attack chains depending power choices.

[Konru]

From what I see, stalkers do have more critical-hit opportunities than scrappers, but partially pay for that by doing 10% less base damage. 

 

All stalkers have Hide, Placate, and some form of Assassin attack.  Scrappers get Confront.  Which means the stalker version of their attack and defense power sets has to sacrifice something in order to fit these Stalker specific powers in.  For example, a Martial Arts Stalker wouldn't have access to Dragon's Tail while scrappers do.  An Electric Armor stalker doesn't have Lightning Field, which scrappers, brutes, and tankers do.  It does feel like when the lost power is a passive defense of resistance, some of that gets added back into a toggle defense or resistance to compensate.  But when added up, scrappers are still a slight bit sturdier when it happens.

 

Finally, scrappers have a taunt skill native, so they can act as a backup tank if desired.  If the stalker wants to act as a backup tank he is going to need to dip into the Presence power pool, which is less than ideal.

 

Stalkers to seem to be better at single target DPS.  But it's the scrappers that are better if your team needs AoE or a backup tank.

[Leogunner]

It's been a long road for Stalkers while Scrappers have remained relatively the same for most of the game...although relative kind of paints things when certain set-ups like /dev blasters, mass pet controllers and map-hearding tankers were brought in line.

 

Stalkers have always been my favorite AT and underdog.  I remember when they only could crit from hide or if the target was mezzed.  I believe hide also took longer to get into after combat although that might have been a more universal change to stealth powers.  Also, Hide used to cost endurance and missing AS unhid you.

 

Now? Stalker has higher crit chance than Scrapper (Scrappers tend to have different crits on some attacks...it's a weird eccentricity of the two ATs that give a slightly different feel to some sets so really, you want to try playing both ATs) with lower values and lower damage cap (or maybe the cap is the same but with higher mods, it affects Scrapper more) and controlable crits.  There's an IO that rehides and AS has 2 versions, making it a snipe that fears and debuffs (-ToHit) a group of mobs or just a quick high powered ST attack that you use when it's got high crit or 100% crit.

 

I believe they've had their base HP brought up some since launch...man, I remember when they toyed with the prospect of AS doing a percent of a target's HP, making it garbage on minions and Lts, decent for Bosses and somewhat OP for anything above that.

 

...yep, a long road.  Seems the AT shows scars considering how low a standing it has with some Scrapper enthusiasts.  I'd say, if you like Scrappers, you'll likely enjoy Stalkers too.  They have differences that will make you want to give both a shot.

[Leogunner]

Basically if you're using assassins strike from hide at this point you are doing it wrong. Use your big dmg regular attacks from hide, get a crit. 2 small attacks, now assassins strike is instant cast and crits with 3 stacks, have ato in it, proc hide, big crit, 2 small, big crit etc.

 

 

Meh. I'm not a try-hard. I do what I want lol

 

I still AS from hide because it's fun and it can dampen an alpha strike and it only costs seconds BEFORE a fight starts.  Depending on the situation, (especially speaking to leveling as the 40+ game starts to feel very repetitive), having the choice to start out fights adds tactical choice and variety. Whether you decide to ditch variety for efficiency is going to be a personal choice.

[Shinobu]

They are objectively better than, or equal to scrappers in every way except aoe damage at this point.

 

A Martial Arts/Willpower stalker is not objectively better than or even equal to a Martial Arts/Willpower Scrapper.  The Stalker version of Martial Arts removes the only AoE attack they have (which admittedly isn't a very good one -- but any AoE is better than no AoE) and the Stalker version of Willpower removes Rise to the Challenge, a very useful power.

 

Which is why people have said it depends on the sets in question.  I also like to play fake tanker on my shield and my invul scrappers, and they can hold aggro pretty well.  A stalker isn't going to fill that role.  But yeah, in terms of doing single target damage there's no question you'd rather have a stalker, and depending on what sets you choose, maybe for AoE too.  (I've played shield stalkers but never tried elec/shield on a stalker.)

 

 

[Hopeling]

They are objectively better than, or equal to scrappers in every way except aoe damage at this point. They have the same hp defense and resistance caps as scrappers. They have instant crits from hide, and an ato that procs them into hide from your regular combat chain, their crit chance scales up in groups to be higher than scrappers even with the scrapper atos.

I think this overstates the case.

 

Both do have the same resist/defense numbers and the same resist cap, sure. They have the same HP cap, but that's only really relevant for /Inv, /Ice, /Regen, and kind of for /Shield and /EA during their t9s. Reaching the cap is hard or impossible for other sets, so in most cases, stalkers have less HP.

 

Stalkers are absolutely the king of controlled crits, and in a team they have the highest crit rate overall. But scrappers do more base damage, so a large part of this just goes to catching up. And if we're counting ATOs, the scrapper has pretty great ones too. Numerically: with a 34% crit rate and 1.0 damage scale, stalkers have effectively a 1.34 damage scale, but only when you're on a team of 8 and they're all nearby. With a 16% crit rate from the Scrapper's Strike ATO and a 1.125 damage scale, scrappers are at 1.305, even solo. And while the Stalker's Guile proc provides a lot of extra crits, so does the Critical Strikes proc.

 

Stalkers get different versions of powersets, and this is sometimes great but sometimes not. Elec/ and /Ice make out like bandits in the port, but DB/ and /WP much less so because they lose key powers. Losing taunt auras can also be frustrating for soloing.

 

And anyway, in this game, "better at everything except AoE damage" is a bit like saying that a car is "better at everything except transportation". AoE damage dominates the meta; for most things in the game, being pretty good at ST and AoE is more useful than being really good at ST and bad at AoE.

 

I think post-i24 stalkers are pretty great and very competitive overall, and certain stalker combinations really shine. But they also have quite a lot of tradeoffs, and some sets that do great on scrappers are much worse for stalkers.

[oldskool]

Stalkers get different versions of powersets, and this is sometimes great but sometimes not. Elec/ and /Ice make out like bandits in the port, but DB/ and /WP much less so because they lose key powers. Losing taunt auras can also be frustrating for soloing.

 

Two responses back to back about Stalker WP. 

 

I feel so alone in actually liking how Stalker WP plays differently than Scrapper/Tanker/Brute versions.  I also prefer DB on Stalkers over all of the other AT's that get it. 

 

Different strokes for different folks! :)

 

 

[Hopeling]

Trading RttC for Recon is fine; it works better for hit-and-run play. Losing Quick Recovery is a bummer. I'd much rather give up Resurgence or Strength of Will.

[FUBARczar]

Trading RttC for Recon is fine; it works better for hit-and-run play. Losing Quick Recovery is a bummer. I'd much rather give up Resurgence or Strength of Will.

 

Yeah SoW becomes the situational recovery tool at times

 

And I never understood Resurgence on WP anyhow (it was like... regen has it, WP has regen, so WP should get it), it totally should have been scrapped, and not QR