What Changes are needed to make Stalkers an acceptable addition to a Team?

Since coming back to City of Heroes my current projects have been stalkers.

I recently finshed IOing out a Spines/Ninjitsu stalker with all the trimmings: Permahaste, Softcapped, lots of procs. Its quite the AoE Content grinding machine, and it has great single target relatively due to AS!.

I was quite proud of it.

However, I noticed that even though my stalker is so far ahead of the standard curve in terms of AoE damage and survivablity it is not welcome within the City of Villians community.

I have pretty much zero luck getting on Pick up Group TFs (thankfully I am in Repeat Offenders and they accomodate anyone for anything, but this is a discussion outside that.). When the impossible does happen and I do get picked up for TFs, I have had the following experiences:

Had people quit the team because the leader invited a stalker.
Had people threaten to quit the team, until the leader boots me.
In nearly 100% of the time People will say in Team for me to read it: "A stalker?, ugh Stalker. Oh boy Stalker etc"

I have to come to the conclusion that the stalker AT is simply not accepted as a positive addition to any team in City of Villians, and I can only see this growing worse come Going Rogue.

So what must be changed with the AT?
What addtions or subtractions can be done to the stalker AT to make them a welcome part of the City of game as a whole, instead of something people point at and use to comfort themselves and say "at least I am not him!"

I really have no idea. I was quite impressed with my Spines/Ninjitsu's performance that I planned to make my first Praetorian a DB/Ninjitsu. But obviously this AT is lacking in some way that makes it the worst choice for teaming with.

Stalkers (well played of course) are always acceptable on a team.

Your problem is that you're just exceptional at rooting out idiots on teams.

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anything is 'acceptable' on a team. teams by their nature tend to cover up the flaws of individual member ATs via a potent combination of firepower, buffing, and debuffing in various configurations.

I'm not sure what changes they could make to stalkers to move them out of the "pity slot" on a big team. They're a melee AT that is comparatively fragile and their one 'trick', burst damage, is of more use in PvP than PvE.


I like how stalkers play now, but then again I liked pre-buff Dominators.

ya know, in teams, stalkers out damage scrapper by a HUGE amount. Higher burst in the form of Assassin Strike, and with a tanker, or brute, or mastermind, or heck, a defender or corruptor debuffing things, they can scrap a heck of alot better then scrappers. The higher crit rate while on teams, especially on thier AoEs makes things so much better then your stating.

Yes, they have lower HPs and caps, but in all other aspects, they are equal to or on par then scrappers in the defensive department.

Basically on teams Stalkers > Scrappers. Solo, Scrappers > stalkers.

I have never, ever had a problem getting a toon on a team, even the crazy concept ones (like my melee-specific crab spider). Your comments on how everyone is so quick to quit the team because you are a stalker sounds like a exaggeration. Esp how you immediately follow it up with a post on how bad stalkers suck.

You of all folks should be aware of how good they perform with your "Spines/Ninjitsu stalker with all the trimmings: Permahaste, Softcapped, lots of procs" build that is "quite the AoE Content grinding machine, and it has great single target relatively due to AS!" as you put it.

Stalkers are fine. In fact they are better than fine by a large margin. Yeah they could have a few more hit points but I think that is their only shortcoming. If you were hoping for a more in-your-face melee AT that is more "scrapperish" then you should have considered a brute instead of dumping billion of inf into an AT that you believe is subpar.

Stalkers have already been buffed to make them more team friendly. Whether the playerbase on the whole knows/about accepts those changes is not a mechanical problem with stalkers. They are the burst damage kings of the 4 melee types.

WAI.

I never had trouble teaming with my stalkers. My defenses were always enough that the team did not have to keep me alive, and I did respectable single target damage.

I have never encountered anyone quiting or threatening to quit because of a stalker was on the team. About the closest were a couple of times we had a stalker that thought their job was just to scout, or would use AS once then running to the back of the group until hidden again. Both types deserve to be booted, but any stalker that helps the team was invited.

Stalkers are damage dealers, they contribute with damage
Big teams fight big mobs
AoE damage kills big mobs
Electric Melee and Spines have very good AoE potential
Therefore, a Stalker needs to be Spines (spamming Spine Burst and Throw Spines) or Electric Melee (L-Rod, T-Strike) to contribute the most to a team.

You're welcome.

I have to ask... what server is the OP playing on?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Test_Rat So there is a Quantitative case why you should NEVER invite stalkers to the team since they are a simply SUB-OPTIMAL AT.

Maybe I am weird... but I don't play a numbers game before I invite a player. I may not invite a third Tanker to a team, or think twice about a team of 8 Blasters on a TF... but for the majority of content, you can have a team of ANYTHING and do just fine. What kinda weird teams are you playin' on? I have NEVER seen a player quit due to the AT a leader has invited.

Of course anyone can get a pick up group, the OP seemed focused on TFs. Burst damage is great for knocking out bosses while everyone else cuts down LTs and minions, but when your're taking on AVs and heroes burst damage has no place in the group.

Are stalkers useless on TFs, no, but the group is better served by nearly any other archetype or powerset.

There's nothing wrong with Stalkers. They're a fairly offensive AT that is balanced by slightly lower defense with respect to the other melee ATs. But its not a straight-up exchange. Yes, stalker have lower 'hard mitigation' (i.e. HP/regen) but gain 'soft mitigation' in the form of superior stealth, aggro control tools and burst damage. Being able to drop a hard or annoying target before they can retaliate is a boon for self preservation.

No, Stalkers don't need to be changed. They're awesome. What needs to be *changed* is the game itself. And by change, I mean added to. Rather than always a 'herd the dumb AI into a pile and blow it up', I'd enjoy it if the enemies didn't fall for those tricks all the time and used some of their own. You know? A game that requires various differing tactics...

Test_Rat, what server do you play on?
I have never, in nearly 6 years of play, seen anyone make any comments like you describe. Threatening to quit a team over what AT's got invited? Openly insulting the AT choice of a team mate? I'm not questioning that you did experience these things, but it seems completely foreign to me. That's just not the CoH community I'm accustomed to interacting with.

As for Stalkers, I rather like having them around. I know that with a competent stalker that One Big Bad Nasty in the spawn isn't going to live very long. Since Big Bad Nasty's often have rather annoying powers, this makes me happy. As others have said, I don't think anything needs to change with Stalkers. They're fine as they are. I am, however, still waiting on that RL Patch that is supposed to be fixing many people's brains. Sadly it has never arrived.

One thing I will say in the defense of "stalker haters", is that there are quite a few stalker players who are pretty useless on a team, which may well have tainted their views. The modus operandi of many stalkers is "scout out the entire map, then go stand by the final boss waiting for everyone else to get there". Then there's the better, but still pretty poor ones who'll get involved in every fight, but only by ASing a boss, before stealthing onto the next group of foes and waiting there.

A good stalker will AS the most dangerous target, then stay around and help kill the rest of the group.

And yeah, there are bad players from every class but stalkers seem to be prone to non-teamplayers. Or maybe they're just really visible (hah...) due to the fact that the entire map's been revealed while you're still on the second group of enemies....

You must be teaming with some pretty bad players- stalkers can be a poor addition to any team just like tankers, scrappers, dominators, blasters, controllers, brutes, defenders, masterminds, corruptors, VEATs, and HEATs. Conversely, any one of them can also lend some worthwhile help to any team if they are well played.

There are only bad players, not bad ATs.

Are stalkers fragile compared to scrappers? Certainly. Does that make them gimp? No. As others have pointed out- there are a number of things stalkers do that scrappers simply cannot.