Reposting from I19 Beta threads

Replace Hide with a multiple-choice disguise power that allows you to con friendly to the faction you are disguising yourself as. Disguises drop randomly from enemies you defeat.

Replace Placate with an AoE version that actually works and prevents you from being targetted.

Switch the Fear debuff with a weak (3 second?) Mass Confuse and centre it on the player not the victim.

Add the AoE effect back to Stalker - Claws - Eviscerate. I can count on one hand the number of times I have played my Claws Stalker since that nerf was put in (why play the Stalker when I have a Night Widow who still has an AoE Eviscerate AND has Spin??)

Its become clear to me that Stalkers will never get the love other AT's got. So how about they just get rid of the stalker AT all together. I know it might be harsh, but if they ain't going to try and make the stalker more playable, then just get rid of it.

I don't think that is a reasonable opinion. Moving on, I tend to lean on the side of minor changes to improve stalkers, which I hope Castle considers. Many of the minor suggested changes in this thread would be easy to put in until the larger problems can be dealt with down the road.

Just an idea about what I always felt was missing from Stalkers...

I always felt that Stalkers should do a better job of fulfilling the role of the monsters and killers in slasher flicks. I'd love to see a bid of code worked into the game so that when someone starts running away from a Stalker (you know that cowardice code that makes people chase something all over the map, or have to wait till it calms down and comes back), well as long as they're under the effect of the "running away" status when targeted by a Stalker, give them a chance to suffer Knockdown every 5 seconds or so, just like everyone who tries to run away from a serial killer in a movie It's too circumstantial to cause much of a major shift in combat, but the fun and satisfaction involved would be awesome.

I also wouldn't mind seeing a "20% chance for fear" proc aura added to Hide... They know something's wrong, but not quite what or where, and every so often it makes the lesser enemies freak out a bit I'd even take it as a proc enhancement invention.

Well, solo my stalker is probably the fastest at completing missions where you just have to kill a boss and get out.

Teamwise, the team should get some other benefit from the stalker other than just DPS.

Heh, if missions were made "unstealthable" except for stalker Hide, then all of a sudden they would be Mr Popular.

You guys don't seem to understand that by giving Stalkers more AoE, they would have to bring single target DPS down. More AoE isn't going to improve Stalkers. I think you should probably just play a scrapper or a brute if you want to do more AoE.

The solution to buffing Stalkers and making them valuable is to improve their potency on a single target. Assassin Strike should do percentage damage on EB's and Heroes. 7-10% health on a Hero NPC modified by resistance buffs/debuffs would be welcomed and would encourage stalkers more to use placate and AS more while fighting harder content. Having a stalker on a TF should be useful and the only way they are going to remain unique and remain useful is to focus on their strengths. Currently when you AS a Hero you don't even see their health bar move. It's pathetic. TF leaders should be actively looking for a Stalker to help gank harder Heroes quicker.

That was actually tried before when Stalkers were first looked at.

It broke the game in ways it wasn't intended to.

The same is true for unresistable damage.

Am I the only one who finds it bizarre that in a thread begun by Castle stating that there will be no further Stalker changes, everyone is restating their requests for Stalker changes from other discussion threads on the subject? Did you guys skip over the OP?

Don't mind me, carry on...

Based on Castle's post this is how I see it.

An increase in damage is out of the question, and utility of the fear debuff seems unlikely. In addition, no new changes slated for I19.

With that out of the way, there have been several suggested changes in this thread that doesn't require a tweak to damage, or increased AoE damage, or even increasing the effectiveness of the fear debuff from AS.

* Making Stalker Hide behave like Brute's Energy Cloak

* As other have pointed out, Inherent Fitness opens up Stalker builds. Making Placate inherent for example opens up builds, and opens up the opportunity for a new power in its place.

*Increasing the range of the crit team buff, so Stalkers can be feel wanted even on an all range team.

Three simply suggestions, and I am sure I missed some too.

Couple of comments here:

1. Why doesn't AS accept Interrupt enhancements? That should be a very easy design implementation that could help with the AS complaints. Yes, you'll have to balance your slotting to accept it, but why not? If you can pull down your interrupt timing, you might still be locked in the AS animation, but at least if you're hit outside of the interrupt time, you'll still get your strike off (and hopefully crit).

2. For people who are complaining that Stalkers need to be able to take aggro from other players, Stalkers do have a power for this - it's called the Presence pool. With i19, you'll be able to free up some power options for it if you want to play your stalker that way.

3. Good ideas: Hide/Placate inherent (although there's the matter of getting no more slots to spread between the whatever new powers fill those spots), increase the unsupressed portion of hide.

4. Interesting ideas: Anti-tanking placate power (I disagree that this is brute/tank griefing. Brutes and Tanks have enough taunt-effects to take back any aggro they would lose); I like shadestorm's idea of a "Distraction Bonus", but I'd suggest that it affects the re-Hide rate. The more stuff going on the easier it is for the Stalker to re-Hide and continue the crit-from-hide rate.