How do you do it?

Get the patience to play a Stalker, that is?

Granted my newly rolled lowbie Stalker is only L4 so far, but it has also been insanely boring and very slow levelling so far - waiting and waiting for hidden state to kick in again and again (usually only to have the waiting time being a waste of time as the foe(s) hit you just at the wrong moment). Waiting for Smite to recharge isn't a rollercoaster ride of fun either, and Brawl+Taser Dart doesn't pump out too much damage either - but it seems counterproductive to have taken eg. Shadow Punch at L4 at that'd result in less hidden time due to attacking.

It gets better when you get the more juicy powers, like As at lvl 6, hasten, placate et cetera. Although Im not really all that fascinated that stalkers are so 'pre-designed', ie. that you have to take a lot of certain powers to make them shine, but you get used to it in the long run.

Basic idea is to utilize criticals from stealth as much as possible, even to the extent of running away, waiting stealth to kick in and coming back. This is obvious with the AS oneshots once you get to lvl 6.

Later on I made my own records of solo lvling speed with the following formula: crank difficulty to maximum, get only newspaper missions: defeat boss x, buy def insps so you can max out your defense for short period. Stealth to straight to the boss, max your def with insps, and repeatedly AS the boss (with max defense you can just stand there and wait for hide to kick in and AS to recharge), take out the nearby mobs and wham: great xp for like 5 minutes play when you do it right. Some bosses may need other types of insps as well, rock armor and bubblers need acc, freak tanks need damage insps etc. (Edit: you can decline doing the heists - just keep doing the 'assassination missions' )

teaming with other stalkers you do this same thing in greater numbers, AS the same target. LAter on you can do the PVP zone missions to same effect. I made lvl 24 in about 5 days I think, but lately ive been PvPing and laying back the lvling..

Obviously thats not everyones cup of tea, but it is effective. You can go back to doing things 'normally' if this sounds too tedious. Just mute the 'scrapping' instinct that you have, scrapping couple minions is ok, but use stealth when you can.

Im not too fond of the fact that stalkers only seem to function well when teamed with other stalkers though.

But all-stalker teams are immense fun.. I was in a 4-stalker team in Sirens call last night, got three shiny SOs as a reward

So in the beginning it's basically just a matter of "sucking it up" and taking the time necessary?

I'm going to have to see if I can't suppress that darn scrapping instinct then and stay on track, not picking up "lesser attacks" along the way ... and try out the newspaper tactic .

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So in the beginning it's basically just a matter of "sucking it up" and taking the time necessary?

I'm going to have to see if I can't suppress that darn scrapping instinct then and stay on track, not picking up "lesser attacks" along the way ... and try out the newspaper tactic .

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Yeah well, you cant survive on AS alone, im not saying that, its just the mindset of stalking im talking about When soloing you unavoidably have to scrap, but if you dont have aggro on you, wait for hide+AS Pace will speed up as you lvl and slot powers, in a continuing crescendo

Hope you find the fun

EDIT: hasten will help your scrapping considerably, and before you get SOs, the bread and butter powers recharge real slow.. So were looking at Assassin strike, build up, hasten, placate in order of importance thereabouts.. Most damaging primary attacks as well.

According to plans, I'll pick up Shadow Maul shortly after Assassin's Eclipse... and then no real attack until Midnight Grasp (Placate and Build Up early and Touch of Fear just before Midnight Grasp).

How is this going to work... (Brawl/[Tranq Dart/])Smite/Assassin's Eclipse/Shadow Maul for... a lot of levels...?

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Name: GenericVillain29482
Level: 40
Archetype: Stalker
Primary: Dark Melee
Secondary: Ninjitsu
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01 : Smite : Acc(1), Acc(3), Dmg(3), Dmg(5), Dmg(27)
01 : Hide : DefBuf(1)
02 : Ninja Reflexes : DefBuf(2), DefBuf(25), DefBuf(34)
04 : Danger Sense : EndRdx(4), DefBuf(5), DefBuf(25), DefBuf(34)
06 : Assassin's Eclipse : Acc(6), Acc(7), Dmg(7), Dmg(9), Dmg(19)
08 : Shadow Maul : Acc(8), Acc(9), Dmg(15), Dmg(17), Dmg(19)
10 : Hurdle : Jump(10), Jump(11)
12 : Placate : Rechg(12), Rechg(13), Rechg(13)
14 : Build Up : Rechg(14), Rechg(15), Rechg(23)
16 : Kuji-In Rin : Rechg(16), Rechg(17), Rechg(29)
18 : Health : Heal(18)
20 : Stamina : EndMod(20), EndMod(21), EndMod(21)
22 : Kuji-In Sha : Rechg(22), Rechg(23), Rechg(27), Heal(29), Heal(31), Heal(31)
24 : Combat Jumping : Jump(24)
26 : Super Jump : Jump(26)
28 : Acrobatics : EndRdx(28)
30 : Touch of Fear : Acc(30), Acc(31), TH_DeBuf(37), TH_DeBuf(37), TH_DeBuf(40)
32 : Midnight Grasp : Acc(32), Acc(33), Dmg(33), Dmg(33), Dmg(34)
35 : Blinding Powder : Acc(35), Acc(36), Rechg(36), Rechg(36), Rechg(37)
38 : Kuji-In Retsu : Rechg(38), Rechg(39), Rechg(39), DefBuf(39), DefBuf(40), DefBuf(40)
---------------------------------------------
01 : Sprint : Jump(1), Jump(11)
01 : Brawl : Acc(1)
01 : Assassination : Empty(1)
02 : Rest : Rechg(2)
---------------------------------------------

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Hmm heh, dark I dont have experience about.. I dont know, buildup asap I say. Taking defensive toggles straight away usually produces tedious lvling process as I always emphasize attacks over defense in the per-lvl 10 game myself. Plus if you only use the newspaper-method, you dont have much use for defensive toggles before you can put SO slots in them, around lvl 22-25. But I guess you already took them, heh.

Plus you will find that endurance drain is considerable with ninjitsu, so taking stamina is a good idea.
(propably more so for me as I aim at PvP build with lot of toggles)

Im not the one to order people around, I just give little hints Choose what feels right, but my advice is attack over defense in the early game.

Yeah, I had originally planned on taking Shadow Maul at L4, but since I kept being interrupted by ranged attacks when waiting for hidden state to kick in, I went for Danger Sense to migate that a bit.

I find building a Stalker to be really hard. Not figuring out what powers to get... but when to get them and which of them to delay for others. There's a damn lot to fit in during the early levels; Assassin's Eclipse, Build Up, Placate - and then you ideally want prerequisites to Stamina and a travel power... and a bit of defense .

I've only played a Stalker to level 15 (Claws/Nin) at most, but I can tell you already what you're doing wrong: You don't wait next to enemies for the hidden state to kick back in, you run away until the enemies stop pursuing you so hide can kick in. And don't be afraid to fight a few "fair" battles, a Stalker can easily deal with small groups of enemies at the low levels even if he only criticals on one enemy at first.

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I've only played a Stalker to level 15 (Claws/Nin) at most, but I can tell you already what you're doing wrong: You don't wait next to enemies for the hidden state to kick back in, you run away until the enemies stop pursuing you so hide can kick in. And don't be afraid to fight a few "fair" battles, a Stalker can easily deal with small groups of enemies at the low levels even if he only criticals on one enemy at first.

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Aye, stalker can srap with most enemies nicely, although preferably not more than 3 at a time. Bosses can be different.

Its a sort of letdown that defense toggles arent much use before you get them SO-ed, and they do have hefty end drain. I dont have stamina on my lvl 25 stalker atm, and I run the def toggles off most of the time to save endurance.

The newspaper method is based on the idea that you have the damage to take a purple boss down as long as he doesnt kill you, which is where the insps come in. You'd have no hope otherwise against a purple boss. You can AS the boss at least 3 times while one dose of def insps are running. And the finish bonus for relentless missions is truly great, at best of times I was making nearly 1,5 bars of xp in 5 minutes. Punctuated only by runs to contact to buy insps. The lvling pace will obviously slow down past lvl 20, but you'd still be making more xp than most.


...aaargh the stamina issue, I cant squeeze all powers I want in before lvl 30 (sirens call)

Sometimes I ignore the 1st group, run to the 2nd and attack there. Then I run to the previous group, by which time the mobs persuing me have got bored, and hide has kicked back in, so i can attack them and repeat the process. It doesnt always work, has to be a big enough distance between groups etc. It pays to look around 1st, plan escape routes and so on.

pretty end heavy build to .. i have 2 end reduxs on my toggles for /nin and its still heavy.danger sense being the heaviest

I leveled a stalker almost entirely doing the process described by hammerfall(i started doing this on 12 with DO`s at vicious and switch to relentless on 22 with SO's).

The only storylines i made were(if you can call them storylines) the cape,the flight packs(both),the aura and the costumes slots and soloed the whole time.

The results were,i must admit,real impressive: got to 40 on 126 hours(every other 40 toon I have needed a lot more than 200+ hours).

Heres some tips I found real interesting:
a) Superspeed - ss on getting to the mission and ss inside the mission getting to the objetive.Slot ss.At this point is more a matter of how skilled are you driving this rocket than your combat skills.Learn to drive and you could do 30+ relentless mission on an average 3 minutes.
b) Learn the maps: defeat X mission does not change the position of the bosses on the map.Once you know where is the boss and you remember all the mission maps it is a lot faster.
c) you DONT earn money this way: doing storylines and killing most(or at least some) of the mission mobs rewards a lot more money and enh.If you wanna slot DO and SO the very first level you can you must have a "older rich uncle"(wich is not really a problem for most of us).
d) You dont need stamina: youre gonna spend 75% of time travelling and 25% of time fighting.You just have to rest after every fight.
e) Vertical movement is imperative: although ss is what get you the fastest to the mission once youre in there a vertical wall can hurt you bad(inside and outside mission).This is not a problem if you make the skyraiders and goldbrickers storyarc(i used it everytime I needed and have still 1:45 h of 2:30 h when I reached 40)
f) Just do the heist missions needed to get the initial contacts on each zone.The most contacts on the zone the less time spent reaching to one to buy insp.

The real problems of these method(are only problems from an specific perspective):
a) ?&%·$%& boring.a real serious grinding.Once youve killed for 200th time the friggin Archon anything it could get hard.
b) Change the game.The speed of the process,as before stated,is a matter of time invested in reaching the objetive.So you basically change a mmorpg for a mmo-driving simulator.Once you get to the boss youll use insp so even a drunk monkey with his hands tied to the back could kill the boss.

Im not gonna ever do it again because is no fun to me.Besides,the almost 50% reduce time on leveling(based on my results with herostats) if a matter of consideration.

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So in the beginning it's basically just a matter of "sucking it up" and taking the time necessary?

I'm going to have to see if I can't suppress that darn scrapping instinct then and stay on track, not picking up "lesser attacks" along the way ... and try out the newspaper tactic .

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Yeah well, you cant survive on AS alone

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So far I have. Hell, I boosted myself up with Enrage and oneshotted the Sea Witch. T'was fun.

I run in with or without Hide

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Yeah, I had originally planned on taking Shadow Maul at L4, but since I kept being interrupted by ranged attacks when waiting for hidden state to kick in, I went for Danger Sense to migate that a bit.

I find building a Stalker to be really hard. Not figuring out what powers to get... but when to get them and which of them to delay for others. There's a damn lot to fit in during the early levels; Assassin's Eclipse, Build Up, Placate - and then you ideally want prerequisites to Stamina and a travel power... and a bit of defense .

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Do yourself a favour and give up for dark/ and roll a EM/* stalker. you will find SM very frustrating when it roots you for hours when the target is already dead and other foes keep shooting you. of course, EM aint the ultimate way for a stalker, its just my favourite set.
with TF and ET you can easily oneshot 3 minions when soloing on relentless, making 1 oneshotted group per hide/attack cycle in paper missions. i doubt you can do that with dark. also EM/ seems pretty good for soloing, dont have any pvp yet (only 33), so i dont know how EM works in pvp compared to other sets.

thats, however, only my personal opinion. i got a dark/dark brute at 40, and i dont like it at all, i dont like that dark/ attacks, nor the /dark shields (please dont ask why i got to 40 then :P ). imho dark doesnt work with the concept of "in-all dead quickly-out".

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[...] Do yourself a favour and give up for dark/ and roll a EM/* stalker. [...]

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I can't do that. Well... I can... but I won't.

First of all, I already have three Energy Melee characters; a Tanker, a Brute and a Blaster, so that's quite enough Energy Melee for me.

Secondly, I'm not looking for 'easy mode', which... and let's face it... Energy Melee is (at least when it comes to PvP, from my experiences [of being on the receiving end]), with its disgustingly extreme and overpowered, in comparison, damage output. Sure, being a Stalker is all about blowing off insane amount of damage in as little time as possible... but no... just no.

Third... I postponed rolling a Stalker until Dark Melee hit the live servers, of conceptual reasons (which is another reason I won't cheapen myself down and go Energy Melee like ~75+% of the other Stalkers out there). It's bad enough I had to compromise with the secondary, going Ninjitsu instead of Dark Armor.

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[...] Do yourself a favour and give up for dark/ and roll a EM/* stalker. [...]

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I can't do that. Well... I can... but I won't.

First of all, I already have three Energy Melee characters; a Tanker, a Brute and a Blaster, so that's quite enough Energy Melee for me.

Secondly, I'm not looking for 'easy mode', which... and let's face it... Energy Melee is (at least when it comes to PvP, where BU+AS+ET is pretty much defeated anything, from my experiences [of being on the receiving end]), with its disgustingly extreme and overpowered, in comparison, damage output. Sure, being a Stalker is all about blowing off insane amount of damage in as little time as possible... but no... just no.

Third... I postponed rolling a Stalker until Dark Melee hit the live servers, of conceptual reasons (which is another reason I won't cheapen myself down and go Energy Melee like ~75+% of the other Stalkers out there). It's bad enough I had to compromise with the secondary, going Ninjitsu instead of Dark Armor.

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Well then, good luck with your dark stalker.

Ive tried quite a few stalker builds (spines, blade, claws, different secondaries), and i found that i like EM best. i just thought something other than dark/ would be better for you, since you already find it slow and boring on lower levels.

I went with Dark/Dark while my brother went with EM/Nin and I didnt really notice any difference in our performances or survival. Though he re-rolled at level 10 or so.

Imo dont let people influence you into what powersets YOU should play, theres always a cookiecutter set of the month or sometimes year :P

I re-rolled my hero when CoH first was released when i was around level 30 and to be honest, I had a miserable time with my new character.. even though it was the "optimal" build, I quit the game a few months after that due to frustration and boredom.

Bytheway, dont underestimate SM, it does sick damage and if you can line up 2 or more mobs you can do aoe damage. Infact its one of my favourite powers. It takes a bit planning and experience to get around the 4seconds animation, but I just love the animation and damage it does. Its only drawback besides the animation is that its only 50% crit out of stealth. I suspect the energy problems your experiencing is due to you not using SM at all to finish of things, it does more damage than Shadow Punch and Smite combined after all.

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I run in with or without Hide

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Bet thats "exciting"

I have tried some stalker builds and I must say I like dark/dark very much. I can´t stand stalkers with EM, because pink pom poms just don´t look very stalker-like to me. Yes, the damage output is very good, but... but... Aw, hell!
Dark melee never looked so good when I tried it out on a brute, but I think it is just this whole stalker-thing with AS and stuff that makes it work.

I think most ATs are boring when they first start due to waiting for something. Blasters wait for end. Tankers wait for attacks to charge.

Personally I hate all low lvl ATs, anything before about 16 bores me to tears. I don't think its fair to say a Stalker is any worse.

Personally I found my Stalker became really enjoyable at lvl 25 (respec'd in stamina, had SOs, etc)

this question is specifically for hammerfall
wat lvl do u think you could start running though paper missions on relentless?

i just made my stalker and was wondering...