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

the change that needs to be done here is...

INVITE ANY PLAYER THAT LIKES TO TEAM AND PLAY THE GAME!

Seriously... If you only like uberteams youre too much numbercrushing. Have a bot of fun please! Stalkers aren't that bad.

I think the OP is asking the wrong question because stalkers ARE acceptable additions to almost any team.

However, based on past inequities and lingering player perception they would need to be exceptional on teams.

I think part of the problem with stalkers is they don't really do anything special. Yeah, high burst is valuable, and taking out threats is valuable, but there are other ATs that can do that, and more, often. A blaster can take down a tough target pretty quickly, as well as pump out massive AoE. Scrappers can take down a tough target and play as backup tank. Debuffs can neuter an entire spawn, and buffs can make everyone tough enough that the burst isn't needed. A troller or dom (especially with Domination up) can easily take a tough target out of the fight.

Another thing is that stalkers don't absorb buffs as well. With lower HP values, resistance isn't quite as good, neither is regen. Defense doesn't do any more for them as it does for anyone else, and damage buffs aren't super special on them like they are on brutes, since they have the same lower caps as everyone else.

Also, villainside is a different playground than heroside. It's more offensively based, where everyone is capable of good damage, so an AT designed to do only lots of that isn't as valuable. Brutes can deal damage *and* tank. Corruptors can do damage *and* buff/debuff. Dominators can do damage *and* control. VEATs can do damage, and tank, and buff/debuff/control. Masterminds can do all kinds of crazy things. Stalkers just do damage. This does make them less team-friendly than the other villain ATs.

I wouldn't say they need to be fixed, but maybe give them something unique, that can't be done by all the other ATs. Anyone can stealth around, anyone can deal damage. The fear and tohit effect are very nice, but can be duplicated. I don't know what could be done, but right now they don't offer anything that any other AT can offer.

I like stalkers but I don't play them on teams. It feels wrong.

I love stalkers, I started with CoV and my first ever character was a stone/inv brute. He didn't make it out of the tutorial. Didn't like the concept, didn't like the feel. My next attempt was a stalker, and I was hooked. I didn't care about numbers or the fact that It was PvE deficient. It was fun.

I played stalkers more, pre-buff than post-buff, because I had concepts for the characters. To me playing a character who's story you like, while still feeling like the character gameplay-wise is tops. Right now I don't have stalker concepts I can acctually make, so I don't play them.

Numbers wise, I have no issues with stalkers. The immense damage they deal is situational, and the situation that manages that damage is both safer and more controllable than say, fury. Such as when in full teams, being able to provide more damage while scrapping than either brutes or scrappers. Would I say no to boosting Stalker melee mods so their damage is always more than brutes and scrappers? Probably not, Stalkers pay for higher damage with lower health and AoE damage. Do they need the boost? Not at all.

Even with GR I don't believe stalkers will fall by the wayside as they are different than scrappers/brutes not worse. In my oppinion they are better, but that is a playstyle preference.

As to the question asked in the OP, changes need to be made to the mindset of the general playerbase as that is the only area where Stalkers are not acceptable on teams. The more you educate people for there ignorance, the closer you get to your goal.

Point of fact, I've had far more problems getting on a team with a Mastermind than all of my Stalkers put together. Additionally I've heard "lvlx team lfm, sorry no mm's" while i've never heard "sorry no stalkers".

I've only played stalkers up to level 18 but what immediately stands out to me is that they suck tons of energy if they get interrupted, and in general if you get interrupted it's because you're trying to attack in a difficult situation and everything is recharging. That probably happens less at higher levels, but the AT could be made far more accessible by removing energy cost for powers that you are not actually using. Shorter interrupt would improve 50 slotting.

What would have to change would be a fairly radical rework of the game's AoE damage and buff/debuff stacking mechanics. (Note that I'm not advocating either at this stage.)

Anyone who really is that unhappy that a Stalker has been invited should probably be similarly unhappy with any single-target-oriented Scrapper, Blaster, or any Brute that's not built to hold aggro. None of these characters bring things to the table for a large team that really especially improve their performance except against large hard targets like AVs, GMs, and the like.

If they are singling out Stalkers, they're probably just reciting some party line they heard in the past about how bad Stalkers are, or are miss-attributing previous bad performance to poor Stalker players, or some combination of the two.

I can't speak for Virtue so much, but Freedom, as the historically largest server, has long been saddled with what seems to be more than its fair share of absolute morons, who do things take hearsay as the written word of God about what's good and bad in terms of powers, powersets, and whole ATs. You're advised to take any behavior you see there with a whole bag of salt, and try to find a sub-community of more reasonable people to play with instead of pure PuGs, especially for TFs.

Maybe there is some confusion:

This doesn't happen in RO. This happens with Pugs.

This happens on pugs you have been on.
It doesnt happen on PUGs (TFs or Teams) in my experience.

I've played a Elm/Nin stalker to 50. While I may have a bias view due to having one of the better primaries for teaming, the only thing I would change for stalkers would be to make placate, hide and AS inherent so they don't have to gut good powers out of the sets they get. That ain't gonna change, though.

Barring that, I'd probably make all AoEs auto-crit from hide instead of just 50% of the time.

I think there are several factors that all contribute to why Stalkers are generally passed over for other ATs on teams.

1. Previously held (pre i12 changes) opinions.
2. Perceived or factual PvP over PvE role. (I’ve had many stalkers join teams only to mention they were PvP builds, this doesn’t help the reputation of the AT).
3. Overall lack of AoE damage for most primaries.
4. Very specialized role, in a Hybrid teaming environment. CoV PUGs can be very powerful, but can also be fragile at times. Not taking an AT that performs multiple roles can weaken some teams.
5. On top of this “boss killer” as part of that specialized role is not often sought for or needed on a full team of ATs that all have damage dealing capabilities + another area of focus.
6. Lack of overall knowledge in game and on the forums with hard numbers (or even rough estimates) on Stalker DPS capabilities solo or on teams. “Stalkers do more damage than X AT in X situation.” – How much more? Is it enough damage to make them competitive with other ATs to teams?

I play solely on Virtue, and in playing a few stalkers up, I've never really encountered any discrimination since the buff. Hell, the only real comments I've gotten were along the lines of 'Holy <pile of expletives>' after unleashing a wall of AoEs on my Spines/Regen.

I think a lot of the anti-stalker stuff comes from this: melee=tough. The 'squishier' armor sets get some of this. The same people that say "ugh, a stalker" will probably do the same with a /energy brute, fire/ tank, or /dark scrapper. If there's a 'good' melee AT on the team to take point, this will be treated as fine, they may 'permit' the squishy melees as the 'good' invulnerability, stone, or whatever melee guy does what the melee AT's are 'meant' to do...jump out front and get pounded on.

Stalkers don't fit that.

The best stalkers take care of the two roles they have on a team: troublesome target elimination, or when there's no troublesome targets, take out the big hunks of HP hanging around. Timing is key, because if that ring mistress gets her mask of vitiation on your group, your assassination afterwards means a lot less.

As such, the best stalkers save the trouble for the team by trouble prevention, which few notice. This is also why said people don't appreciate control: if that sapper was held/assassinated, they didn't sap said player, so that player has no problem with the sapper.

The other bad side is, yes, bad stalker players. There's no point in finding that last objective ahead if the team has to wade their way to it. Likewise, I've found many stalker players to be soloists...they use their invisibility to go somewhere, start killing things they want to. When you're free to go where you please, some players don't stay with the team. When you can't rely on a stalker to quickly slice and dice that enemy that's killing you because they're off soloing a boss down the hall, that's a problem.

Mechanically, stalker function excellently for what they need to do. Burst kills, target elimination before it can be trouble. Heck, on a team they don't need hide for burst kills, they get critical hits so well.
On teams, people have to just be aware of the thing suddenly dropping dead, or the lack of nasty enemy powers as those mobs hit the floor. Likewise, stalker players need to be team players, and work as a unit with their visible comrades.

The character I've most played lately is a pvp build claws/nin. I still contribute just fine on teams. I may only have 1 AoE but that's ok it feels like 3. I don't do as much AoE as say my Archery/mm blaster but really not many builds can.

Unfortunately as so many people have mentioned it's perception that is largely the issue, and perception is much more difficult to change than fields in a database.

Personally, I think the controlled burst damage of Stalkers complements the control burst capabilities of doms quite nicely. While playing my doms, you don't appreciate burst damage until you notice you've got 1 less boss to stack holds on which can ultimately save you a press of the domination button.

Also, after the fact of laying down some serious mez, having a guy rip through the tough and annoying stuff alleviates the need to lay down extra control that I can easily save for the start of the next spawn.

You can say a Brute could do this, but more often than not, those Brutes are always pushing forward sometimes even before all the enemies are defeated. So this also presses me to follow to keep the spawn contained.

Not to mention, as a Dom, I want to mez everything *NAO* not when the Brute wants me to. Stalkers certainly don't mind my dominating ways.

One change I think is useful is if people don't share a target with a stalker unless it is of a very high rank. Hitting something that is about to be AS'd is a waste of time, whoever hits that target first has wasted the other persons time. Then also feel free to let stalkers finish up a straggler or two that are split from the main group of enemies as stalkers are pretty much single targetty anyway. I don't understand the way people play with the people playing a stalker some of the time.