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What's the point of taking +res or regen sets as a stalker?
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They give you more resistance and regeneration then you would otherwise have.
There is an obvious synergy between increased defense and the hide+as mechanics. With a Ninjitsu, or SR Stalker with high def outside of hide, you can placate+AS in the middle of a crowd without getting interrupted pretty consistently. This isn't really an option for non-def characters. Non-defs however, should be able to stand toe-to-toe more reliably without getting occasionally floored by unpredictable spike damage.
With IO soft capping, however, it seems to me that the performance of capped def sets starts to pull away from res-based stalkers for a lot of situations, but the devs have stated explicitly that they don't balance based on IO bonuses.
There's a good reason people asking for advice are usually steered towards defense-based secondaries. Yes they work better for your typical Stalker playstyles.
As to the reasons why anyone might pick a resistance or regeneration (or combo) secondary, that's mostly personal preference showing there. Defense-based secondaries feel largely the same. Once you've taken one to a high level, the next will feel similar, at least as far as secondary goes. If you want something different but want another Stalker, you might look at the other secondaries to provide it.
The first time out you usually want performance. After that, you may prefer style.
I have three high-level stalkers: an MA/Nin, a Claws/SR, and a DM/DA. Of the three, the DM/DA was by far the most durable while leveling up. She died far less often than the two with defense-based secondaries. The resist-based armors and Cloak of Fear kept the incoming damage at modest-enough levels so that she could heal up with Dark Regen when she really needed to. In the late game, especially with IO set bonuses, the defense sets do pull ahead, but the DM/DA is the one I chose to be my solo villainous MArc runner since she's the most versatile of the three overall.
That said, Keri, the DM/DA, definitely has a lot more trouble pulling off ASes with Placate mid-combat than the other two. She uses Placate far more often solo, to finish off the last mob in a spawn. On a team, she usually settles for a strong crit, or a multi-hit Shadow Maul (picked up in the 40s) when she's lucky. Fortunately her damage type is rarely resisted, and fear effects even less so. She makes an effective Stalkinator on larger teams. Touch plus Cloak, as well as the AS effect itself, makes even most bosses cower.
When it comes to raw damage I'd recommend non-defense sets more for attack primaries with AoEs, to get more mileage out of Placate. It's far easier to get a crit through Placate than an AS, so might as well make it lots of crits with Shockwave, Throw Spines, 1k Cuts etc. Note that Hide's bonus to AoE defense while hidden is high enough (soft-capped with just a single defense SO, in fact) that any stalker can use AS as an opener with little fear of being hit by splash damage on the way in.
Hope this helps.
Some of the resistance-based sets are considered the less effective Stalker sets for various reasons, so you may have a point.
But, it's not exacting 'shoehorning', as Stalkers are capable of being fairly Scrappery if you know what you're doing, especially since the buffs. They're not as squishy as non-melee ATs, and on teams you're going to have to rely on more than AS to contribute. It makes a good opener, especially against a particularly powerful or annoying enemy, but after that plain old asskicking will suffice.
I'm sure it should be readily apparent, but bear with me here.
Having +def sets seems to make a lot of sense, especially with how Hide works. You can, given enough defense, hide mid-fight and deliver a second(third, fifteenth, whatever) AS.
This, on top of normal defense set bennies, is fairly pimp.
What's the point of taking +res or regen sets as a stalker? The best I can figure is attempting to shoehorn a scrapper's lifestyle into the stalker.
Again, thank you in advance.