A Scrapper's opinion on the Stalker Archetype?

Stalkers don't get Dark Melee/Shield Defense.

I don't think I need to say anything else.

I've never played them but once they're able to switch sides I'll roll an EM/Nin

On teams, Scrappers slightly outperform Stalkers in damage. Generally speaking, Scrappers have much more AoE's. Also, Scrappers have a higher melée damage scalar, meaning outside of Hide, Scrappers are doing more damage than Stalkers. However, Stalkers crit more on teams so that evens it out (or tips the scales in the Stalkers). But then you just need to go back to the fact that Scrappers have more AoE capabilities to tip it back in the Scrapper's favor.

Solo, it's about the same. Stalkers can take down hard targets without any problems whatsoever. AS, a few attacks, placate, AS again, and the foe should be dead by then. Or close. But Stalkers can't handle the bundles of enemies that Scrappers can.

They're very different AT's, to me. One is a fighter meant to, well, scrap. The other is a shocktrooper whose purpose is to take down the biggest threat with an ease that makes other AT's jealous.

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A softcapped /Nin Stalker has more staying power than any /SR Scrapper, with slightly lower DDR but alot more toys to play with (including a burst self heal)

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That's true. Only a matter of time till that set gets ported. It will be interesting to see what they do with hide and caltrops.

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What makes you think that, if the set will ever be ported over, that Scrappers will keep Hide?

And Scrapper already have access to Caltrops in Weapons Mastery.

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A softcapped /Nin Stalker has more staying power than any /SR Scrapper, with slightly lower DDR but alot more toys to play with (including a burst self heal)

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That's true. Only a matter of time till that set gets ported. It will be interesting to see what they do with hide and caltrops.

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What makes you think that, if the set will ever be ported over, that Scrappers will keep Hide?

And Scrapper already have access to Caltrops in Weapons Mastery.

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That's what he's stating.... what will replace Hide and Caltrops if they port Nin over to scrappers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5u3dxo2txs

Make of that what you will. I have a good opinion on Stalkers

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A softcapped /Nin Stalker has more staying power than any /SR Scrapper, with slightly lower DDR but alot more toys to play with (including a burst self heal)

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That's true. Only a matter of time till that set gets ported. It will be interesting to see what they do with hide and caltrops.

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What makes you think that, if the set will ever be ported over, that Scrappers will keep Hide?

And Scrapper already have access to Caltrops in Weapons Mastery.

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That's what he's stating.... what will replace Hide and Caltrops if they port Nin over to scrappers.

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Oh my bad, I'm sleepy

Re: Blasters vs. Doms... I like both, but my fire/fire blaster has 7 different AoEs. Granted some are very situational... still, the pure carnage I can unleash with that character is a lot of fun. Sometimes I just want that many attacks to choose from.

I have a 50 claws/sr stalker that I dearly love to play solo. However she is completely eclipsed by either of my scrappers on teams. My spines/regen and fire/shield can decimate entire spawns before she can take out the second minion. The lack of spin in the stalker claws arsenal is quite noticeable and her best AoE is unfortunately shockwave (which is just okay, but nothing spectacular).

Most other stalker combinations also suffer from the lack of AoEs. With that said, I've never teamed with a high level electric melee stalker, but the spines stalkers I've seen seemed disappointing. I see a lot of PvP centric builds that seem to gimp their performance on PvE teams.

My Stalker has a completely different playstyle than my scrappers. With my Stalker I don't bother with minions when on teams (except the annoying ones like sappers, surgeons etc). I go straight to the bosses and AS them before anyone hits them. Then I scrap it out or placate+AS if Placate is up.

Most Stalkers have to choose their targets to be at peak efficiency (especially the ST ones, meaning non-elec and spines), I usually don't get into 'Stalker-lock' because it interferes with the target selecting that I find so crucial to the Stalker playstyle.

I don't care much about the ST specialization on some Stalkers but I may be biased since my only high-level Stalker is EM and he does a LOT of burst damage. Although my DM/EA at 30 is doing very well too.

Stalkers are like sneaky, nastier Scrappers.

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A softcapped /Nin Stalker has more staying power than any /SR Scrapper, with slightly lower DDR but alot more toys to play with (including a burst self heal)

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That's true. Only a matter of time till that set gets ported. It will be interesting to see what they do with hide and caltrops.

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What makes you think that, if the set will ever be ported over, that Scrappers will keep Hide?

And Scrapper already have access to Caltrops in Weapons Mastery.

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That's what he's stating.... what will replace Hide and Caltrops if they port Nin over to scrappers.

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Oh my bad, I'm sleepy

[/ QUOTE ] While scrappers wouldn't keep hide, I wouldn't be surprised if they got some sort of stealth power. Ninjas are supposed to be sneaky and all.

I've tried a few stalkers... the highest I've gotten is a mid 40's Elec/EA which... its "okay" at best. ST Damage its nothing special. Sadly at the time I was playing my Dm/SD and it made it seem worse I'm sure.

For AoE? Again sadly.. I was playing a Shield/SS/Pyre at about the same time. And again I was like "Why am I playing this toon again? Anemic Damage, horrible survivability even while softcapped"

Survivability even while softcapped I found to be abysmal with the low HP. I found myself regularly face planting even with Energy Drains heal saturated (Where my Spines/SR would waltz right through the same mobs without breaking much of a sweat)

Damage wise... yeah there is that high burst to start with. BU + L-Rod + Thunderstrike for the AoE Crits was nice... but my DM/SD was actually making it through LT mobs noticeably faster despite being a much more "ST" oriented scrapper.

Whats worse... my tank was even faster yet. Granted SD/SS/Pyre is a high end build but Elec stalkers are supposed to be "AoE Beasts" Maybe the addition of Ball Lightning next level will change things a bit, but at this point I kind of doubt it.

<QR>

I love Scrapper AT the most among all, my second would be Blaster, then Stalker -> Brute -> Tanker.

There's a reason why people usually compare Scrappers and Brutes. They have similar rolls.

Stalkers are more like... nerfed/boosted Blasters, range nerf, damage nerf, stealth cap boost, and such.

Though comparing Stalkers with Blasters could be just my thing =x

I don't see the blaster comparison, they have no primary or secondary form healing, shields, resists outside of their epic pool powers.

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Dominator = Controller + Defender


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Dominator=Controller + Blaster

Dom do Blaster damage now.

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their melee attacks have a higher base dmg point, right?

Dominator=Controller + Scrapper

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Don't know about the others, but I generally ignore stalkers when pondering the melee archetypes because stalkers seem more like blasters to me.

Granted, I haven't played one since the last round of major changes, so that opinion is probably pretty far off now. If it is, maybe I'll try out a MA/NIN after I-16 goes live.


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I had fun with my stalker up until about the 30s. Then it just felt weak.

I understand the buffs made them much more playable, but I haven't dipped my toes back into that AT.


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and Catw

I really think you both should give stalkers another try. The changes really did alot for them. I dont worry about survivability because stuff dies so fast with a stalker. If you pick an aoe set like elec or dual blades you can really see how well this works due to the higher crit rates than scrappers. On teams it gets even better. The only thing stalkers have thats bad is elec armor. If they would just fix this set it would do wonders for this AT.

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A softcapped /Nin Stalker has more staying power than any /SR Scrapper, with slightly lower DDR but alot more toys to play with (including a burst self heal)

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That's true. Only a matter of time till that set gets ported. It will be interesting to see what they do with hide and caltrops.

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What makes you think that, if the set will ever be ported over, that Scrappers will keep Hide?

And Scrapper already have access to Caltrops in Weapons Mastery.

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That's what he's stating.... what will replace Hide and Caltrops if they port Nin over to scrappers.

[/ QUOTE ]Not saying they have to. All they got to do is change hide to stealth and caltrops can stay. They have the technology to block certain power choices if you already have a clone of this power. They did it with the VEATs already. They just need to add more to the pool to make it have an extra choice to replace what was missed.

QR

My em/nin stalker ASes once a mission. Then the rest of the time he's charging from target to target, killing things.

The 'cute trick' problem that plagues most people's estimation of the stalker seems to be a non-factor for my style of play. In the lower levels, you can - and probably should - play sissy stalker games. But after about 25 or 30, my stalkers just wind up playing like st-specialised scrappers with more utility in a team.

YMMV.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

Really, I've never been threatened by a single Stalker while on my Scrapper, and usually 2 of them can't beat my Scrapper, either. Generally takes 3 or more Stalkers to take him down.