Stalkers are what?

Yep.

Remeber when we used to have to be lakeyed an your stalker mentor would run ahead an leave your lowbie to die a horrible death or how about " Mr wanna stealth every mish " never mind all the drops we could have gotten or the money we could make from killin atleast a few mobs . oh no mr stalker dont worry bout the rest of the team .

When I play my DM/Nin Stalker on a team, I have it attack the toughest thing in the mob with Assassin's Eclipse and then start attacking any enemies that are a) nearby or b) threatening the squishies.

When I play my Elec/Regen Stalker, I have it open up with AoEs out of hide or Assassin's Shock the biggest enemy as needed, and run away only is in imminent danger. I like my Elec/Regen, but it isn't as durable in the middle of a big melee as my DM/Nin Stalker is.

Well, question has been answered for the OP, I guess, but in the interest of future visitors to this thread I thought I'd give my views on the matter.

In a sense, what I like to say is that the Scrapper is the "generic" fighter on the blue side, while the Tanker is a specialist. He specializes with defense and heavy (slow) attacks, making him the better tank for the team. The Scrapper is more flexible, having more roles including both tanking and damage dealing. On the red side, it's the other way around, it's the BRUTE that is the generic, and the Stalker that is the specialist. The Stalker specializes ONLY with dealing damage, he can't tank, or at best, can only tank in short bursts, but he needs to LOSE all aggro in order to make best use of his powers.

As for damage, it basically goes Tanker > Stalker > Scrapper, with the Brute basically starting at the Tanker and working his way up to Scrapper as his Fury builds up. Stalkers and Scrappers really do close to the same damage now, but a Scrapper still will do more sustained damage over time. The increased chance of Critical on a team, though, means that in a large team, a Stalker will probably be contributing as much damage as the Scrapper will. He can even tank almost as well, given the right backup. (Despite what some people might say, a Stalker's defenses are, with a few exceptions, exactly the same as a Scrapper or Brute's. It is only the hit points that separates the three in terms of survivability)

Where a Stalker specializes is in single target burst damage. A Tanker, Brute or Scrapper can take several seconds to take out their first foe, more if it's a Boss or AV. A Stalker takes its first foe out in one strike, unless it's an AV, and even then the target and the foes around it will be weakened. This means that in essense the Stalker takes out a bunch of foes in a quick flurry, and then the Scrappers and Brutes catch up with him as the fight ends. This is what makes him very much like a Blaster. (If you think of the strike from Hide as the Blaster's Aim+Build Up, this is similar too)

Any idiot that hits once and runs away is unto Stalkers what a 'he4lorz' is to Empath Defenders. *grumbles*

My Claws/Ninja Stalker is pretty damn stabby. Ninjitsu has some nifty little control tricks in it, a nice heal, and more than enough defence to see me get by. And this is at level 38, not IO'd. If it's alive longer than a couple of minutes, it means I'm slowly wailing down on an EB or something. And by slowly I mean by this guys normal average
Just dont talk to me about Ballista's, that's all...

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Must have been a lot of heals going his way, cause Rom's got that nasty pbaoe autohit attack; extremely annoying.

I'm no expert on Stalkers but I've got one I enjoy. My mindset in a team is that I'm the equalizer. I watch what the leader's doing then make my own tactical decisions to support the team. Maybe a Lt's a big threat, he goes down first. Maybe it's the boss. He's gone. But I rarely back off to re-Hide unless things are so crazy, special effects and chaos everywhere, that I can't make a good decision. Then I'll hover up over the battle, wait for Hide to kick in, and dive down to make a surgical strike.

So it's really a mix for me. Initial tactical strike. Then pseudo-scrapper mode on anything nearby. Or if the situation is unclear I'll back, not off, but up and assess the battle before making another tactical strike.

But I always try to keep an eye on what the team's doing. Which mobs are anchors for abilities, which ones the Brute's having fun with, who might be in trouble, if there are runners, where nearby spawns are, etc.

I don't talk about it. I just do it. I level the playing field.

Edit: I haven't played a Blaster seriously yet and they may do the same kind of thing. To me it feels like inverse tanking. Instead of trying to get everything attacking me in a big mass, I'm looking for specific targets that are causing specific problems and neutralizing them. It's much more of a team oriented mindset than when I play a Scrapper or Brute.

Gruppa you should be ashamed of yourself. People like you raise the bar for the rest of us and make it so that teams think hit and run nubs don't know how to use a stalker. Next thing you know they'll be expecting masterminds to control their pets instead of just setting them to Aggressive and then going to town with their primary set attacks, or expecting corruptors to use their secondaries. Dogs and cats living together MASS HYSTERIA!!!11!one!