Stalkers actually being looked at

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2.8k unbuffable crit portion against a L50 Hero (Mynx).

So far I like this. As it ignores Build Up I can spam it more, too.

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Is that the 3rd part of the damage or normal crit plus new 10% portion?

That's the 10%. There's the standard/new AS values in addition to that.

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Interesting. I wonder how this will change a stalkers role in a pve team and when they will actually implement it.

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It should make them the top EB/AV/hero killers.

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Will it mean we can still take out an LT in one hit with BU, or a minion without?

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With the current values, you can still take out the lt, but you won't be able to one-shot a minion higher than +2 without BU. They are likely to be tweeked though, according to Castle.

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Will our damage vs bosses/ebs/avs be HUUUUGE! and make us noticeble in a large team vs an AV?

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Yes (unless the AV has a high resistance to your damage type).

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Interesting. I wonder how this will change a stalkers role in a pve team and when they will actually implement it.

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It should make them the top EB/AV/hero killers.

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Will it mean we can still take out an LT in one hit with BU, or a minion without?

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With the current values, you can still take out the lt, but you won't be able to one-shot a minion higher than +2 without BU. They are likely to be tweeked though, according to Castle.

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Will our damage vs bosses/ebs/avs be HUUUUGE! and make us noticeble in a large team vs an AV?

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Yes (unless the AV has a high resistance to your damage type).

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All sounds good to me. What about a normal attacks crit from hide though? BU+AS+placate+MG is an awesome 2 hit combo taking out a lt and a minion, but if the crit bonus of the MG was increased, that would be some very serious damage indeed. Looks like it will only be a buff to AS though.

So, any news on when this will be implemented?

Whilst welcome, I still cant see stalkers being anything other than a courtesy place in big teams.

Whilst this will give them a huge, much needed boost vs AV's, AV's are still less than 1% of PvE game play.

In large teams, large spawns, A0E remains king, and stalkers have the worst AoE potential of any AT. In addition, unlike other melee toons, they have neither the ability or capacity to absorb any aggro off squishies.

Its a strong idea, and will help resolve some issues of Solo Stalkers vs EB, but it seems it will remain a solo toon.

They should also be better at taking out bosses. After the AOEs have taken out all the minions (maybe 10 seconds), you are often left with a couple of bosses (maybe a further 20 secs for aoe orientated characters). This means that possibly 2/3 of the time you spend fighting bosses. Adding a couple of New Stalkers (TM) to the team and the bosses go down in 10 secs to, greatly reducing the time to defeat the whole spawn.

This is something farmers know well, they won't have more than 6 players on thier team, because that way bosses don't appear in standard spawns.

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Whilst welcome, I still cant see stalkers being anything other than a courtesy place in big teams.

Whilst this will give them a huge, much needed boost vs AV's, AV's are still less than 1% of PvE game play.

In large teams, large spawns, A0E remains king, and stalkers have the worst AoE potential of any AT. In addition, unlike other melee toons, they have neither the ability or capacity to absorb any aggro off squishies.

Its a strong idea, and will help resolve some issues of Solo Stalkers vs EB, but it seems it will remain a solo toon.

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Something often discussed, and there are several threads about this issue. But saying that only AoE toons are usefull on a team would mean no one would ever take ST attacks on anything other than a PvP toon. Boss killers become very usefull on a big team, especially when an 8 man team can spawn 2+ bosses in one spawn. Any toon capeable of taking these out quick means that the Aoers can focus on the minions and LTs.

This buff will make Stalkers far more specialised boss killers on a team, and having more than one stalker on a team will actually be usefull in an EB/AV/Hero mish. This may be a small part of the mishs, but when a team takes 10 minutes to take down the health of one AV, this might give a very nice damage boost. It will also make soloing a lot less painful against EBs, some of which are soloable, some require a team, or just a shivie.

In regards to taking aggro off squishies, it depends on how good the stalker is and how much attention they are paying to the squishies. They are usually on the outskirts (or should be IMHO) taking out the troublesome mobs, and the ones that stand at range, ie, the ones more likely to pick on squishies. That to me, is saving a squishies bacon, without them even realising they were in trouble. Just because an effect isn't directly noticeable, doesnt mean it isnt there.

To me though, any buff a stalker gets for PvE is welcome, as thats what I mostly use mine for.

I have played on some maxed out AoE teams. Even these toons are forced into taking some single target attacks.

Provided the team focus these attacks on bosses, even with an ABSOLY+UTELY maxed out AoE 8 man team, the boss has fallen about 1 second after the minions.

(For reference, this was a team of 7 corruptors and 1 MM, all of who took all available AoE attacks).

Seriously, providing nobody looses their bottle and dosent focus ST fire on bosses, it is an incredible feat to take "too much AoE". When we did it, the bosses literally dropped about a second after all the minions.

Of course, occassionally things went a bit askew, mob got split, ambush etc etc, and things slowed down slightly, but I couldnt see a Stalker adding much to this.

The one and only advantage of ST attack is dropping a particularly undesirable enemy fast, as far as I can see. And in large teams that dosent seem to be needed very often, unless your team is lacking in support / protection.

If anyone has been on an AoE team where bosses survive longer, let me know, but it certainly wasnt my experience. I must emphasise that this requires all ST attacks to be focussed on a boss (or maybe a lt.)

As an additional argument, Stalkers remain slow pace AT's. They have to wait to hide, get in position, and then use a long animation AS to really work. And big teams are, by and large, fast teams (Especially at higher levels).

Im not knocking the buff, it seems cunning to me, but AVs aside, I cant see many "we need a stalker" shouts in a team.

If you are taking down a spawn in 8 seconds, you are farming, not playing. Playing requres their to be an element of challenge, at least a chance of defeat.


This buff is intended to make stalkers useful on challenging missions, not farming missions.

As Praf said, a farming team with that amount of AoE will overshadow anything else. But in a PuG, how often does the perfect AoE team get together? Kinda like putting Delta Commandos vs a platoon. In a farming team (and if it isnt a farm team, then well, what is?) You have all chosen to specialise in AoEs, most toons are not this specialised, and generally a more rag tag bunch when in a team.

I also don't see a "We really need a stalker on this team" shout going out, but vill side, apart from a "we need a brute" (usually one is enough) shout, the rest of the team might as well just be Corrs. Don't often get shouts for MMs or Domies either. But then, why would anyone want to roll a toon that isnt a brute or a corruptor? Just sounds silly to me choosing something that isn't UBER-1337 teh smex like Corruptors. /em sarcasm off

What this means for stalkers is that people wont have quite as much reason to ignore them in the search list, as they often do. But then at the end of the day, who you pick for your team is up to you. But then I prefer to play the game cos of the lvling up with people, my sg, or the content. So if a mate has a stalker they want to play, why shouldnt they. I leave farming to those who only care about being great at all costs. I'de rather be average and have fun.

I bet my Spines stalker could 'out' AoE 4 out of 7 scrapper primaries. But hey cos im a stalker I obviously dont have that potential according to some :S

Sorry should clarify that team wasnt a "farming" team at all. Whilst it was a maxed out AoE team, it wasnt a min/max team, and it was quite informal. Sure, we ratched up the mission difficulty to tops, but it felt quite different to the "farming" teams I have been on which are quite a snoozefest.

Did we defeat mobs in 8 seconds? no. Fast, but not farming.

I merely used it as an example. It is *extremely* hard to get "too much AoE" in my experience. So arguments like "Sure, but if you dont take ST damage you are less flailing against a boss" in practice just dont wash.

I absolutely agree that the most important thing is fun points and the character of people you play with.

But this is *why* im dissapointed with the stalker "buff". I tend to think that if people are constrained by a mathematical disadvantage of the game to much they a) feel like a spare part (not fun) and b) slow down / frustrate othe playes (not fun).

So im actually more concerned about stalkers gimping fun points, not experience points, in team.

But there is no stalker buff that would ever alow them to compete with corruptors for aoe damage, so they need to have a different role in a team.


I have a hunch that these tweeks we are seeing now are connected to the data from joint teams from the RWZ. I.e. the are to preper the way for "Going Rogue" in issue 13 or 14. Thus the devs are keen to make stalkers more distinct from scrappers, not less.

Which is all good.

Personally I would have preferred a buff which boosted team performance, and not solo play, rather than one which is a mediocre team buff at best (and more significant solo play). For instance, increasing crit chance on held / slept enemies to 50% which would be of no use solo (or very little) but would have made them much stronger in teams (especially with dominators).

Increasing the crit chance would still leave stalkers behind all other ATs if all you are intrested in is how quickly you can slaughter minions, so would be a pointless change - There still would never be a situation where the team leader would say "we need a stalker".

Making stalkers more effective against bosses is a team buff: bosses don't appear in regular spawns unless you have 7-8 people on your team (or 6 if you play on level 2 or 4).

As for AVs, even with this buff I still don't see many stalkers soloing AVs, but they will be extreemly effective with a team to keep them alive.

And it will turn stalkers from a liability to an asset on SFs and trials, which all involve AV fights.

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Increasing the crit chance would still leave stalkers behind all other ATs if all you are intrested in is how quickly you can slaughter minions, so would be a pointless change - There still would never be a situation where the team leader would say "we need a stalker".

Making stalkers more effective against bosses is a team buff: bosses don't appear in regular spawns unless you have 7-8 people on your team (or 6 if you play on level 2 or 4).

As for AVs, even with this buff I still don't see many stalkers soloing AVs, but they will be extreemly effective with a team to keep them alive.

And it will turn stalkers from a liability to an asset on SFs and trials, which all involve AV fights.

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Fully agree with Praf here

Aye, Praf is on the right track. I don't think it should be possible for a stalker to solo an AV, at least not without tons of insps, temp powers, accolades and IO set bonuses up the wazoo.

I've just respecced my stalker to do the LRSF regularly. He might not be always the best damage dealer, but he will have his uses, and when this comes in, the ability to score a massive crit hit on a Hero would just be awesome.

Will certainly make me feel less of a spare part on the team, and more like a specialist tool. Something that isnt always that usefull on its own, but for certain jobs, it does nicely.

Would agree there - the change will certainly help Stalkers join TF / Trials.

PS: Actuallyu one of the reasons I was advocating stalkers doing higher crit chances vs held / slept opponents is that it would also help Dominators, who sadly are another AT that is a "Mercy slot" in the LRSF (due to AV problems).

Even with 100% crit against immob, assuming the dominator has a ST immob to use on the AV, you would still do much less damage against AVs than this enables.

I would argue that for a SF it's only the AVs that matter, ability to kill anything else is irrelevent.

Generally I would agree, except

1. Sometimes people like to do "fast" TF for badge and recipe drop. For example, the "big 6" of needed for TFC accolade on CoX. In such cases, things go much much faster with AoE. Killing the AV acounts for less than 1% of total TF time, and generally isnt a huge challenge. Sure, a ST specialist makes it go faster, but its a drop in the ocean compared to total TF time. So if you are doing a TF with a veiw to doing it respectably fast (and some TF can be a drag some Im thinking of this in terms of "fun" not farming") you may well be inclined to "AoE teams".

2. There are some TF where the AV summons large groups of minions. As far as I understand it, this is pretty much by design so that AoE specialists have a big role. The Catalyx AV and Lord Recluse / STF are the ones that spring to mind.


As an aside, I was using my example to illustrate how I would prefer a stalker buff that

a) didnt buff solo play (or very little)
b) vastly buffed team play (or a lot)

Instead we have one which is a moderate buff to solo and team play.

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1. Sometimes people like to do "fast" TF for badge and recipe drop. For example, the "big 6" of needed for TFC accolade on CoX. In such cases, things go much much faster with AoE. Killing the AV acounts for less than 1% of total TF time, and generally isnt a huge challenge. Sure, a ST specialist makes it go faster, but its a drop in the ocean compared to total TF time. So if you are doing a TF with a veiw to doing it respectably fast (and some TF can be a drag some Im thinking of this in terms of "fun" not farming") you may well be inclined to "AoE teams".

2. There are some TF where the AV summons large groups of minions. As far as I understand it, this is pretty much by design so that AoE specialists have a big role. The Catalyx AV and Lord Recluse / STF are the ones that spring to mind.

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Other than replacing the stalkers primaries with ranged aoes, there is no change that would make stalkers able to compete with corruptors in this role, so it is better that any buff should focus on what stalkers can do. Then there will be at least some occasions when you would choose a stalker for your team instead of a corruptor.

What this buff does is give stalkers a role, which is something a simple damage buff can never do.

As I've said before, it isn't a buff for solo play at all, since you won't be fighting many bosses and AVs solo, and minions are made slightly harder.

I would disagree there. Bosses are going to be easier for stalkers, and Elite Bosses more so.

Unless a stalker is going to be playing on heroic and avoiding any ELite Bosses, this is a buff for solo play.

I appreciate the change means less damage to minions, but I would imagine its still plenty enough to one shot most of them unless playing at a ridiculous level (more than one could get from playing solo for instance).

Its a buff to solo play as far as I can see. Maybe not huge, but where it counts.

Some folks in the US have crunched the numbers... See here

It looks like this is a nerf to stalker to damage against anything except EBs/AVs/GMs.

Higher level minions might not get one shotted, Lts won't get one shotted, and damage against bosses doesn't quite break even to the current AS. EBs you only start doing more damage against once you get to about level 24. AVs you'll do massive amounts of damage, but how often do you go up against them, and what are your chances of getting a second shot in afterwards.

So, stalkers will find it harder to solo, and will only be useful to teams when going up against the very big stuff. I think they're going to have to look at the numbers again...

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Unless a stalker is going to be playing on heroic and avoiding any ELite Bosses, this is a buff for solo play

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Only if your idea of solo play is only do kill the boss newspaper missions. As I've said before, if you have 5 or fewer players bosses only spawn where the mission code specifically calls for it. That usually means only one per mission, so if you solo you spend most of the time fighting minions and lts, especially in kill all missions.

Yes, it will help against EBs, but I doubt it will make it any easier for stalkers than for brutes.

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Some folks in the US have crunched the numbers... See here

It looks like this is a nerf to stalker to damage against anything except EBs/AVs/GMs.

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Castle has already said he is going to change the numbers when he gets the data in. Expect this to spend a long time on Test and have several itterations before it goes live.

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only be useful to teams when going up against the very big stuff.

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Those are the only teams worth playing on.

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2. There are some TF where the AV summons large groups of minions. As far as I understand it, this is pretty much by design so that AoE specialists have a big role. The Catalyx AV and Lord Recluse / STF are the ones that spring to mind.

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In those missions a team of 7 stalkers and a brute to hold the aggro could kill the AV with 2 Assassin Strikes (around 7 secs, depending on how much recharge you have). That would be long before the spawned minions could arrive.