Stalkers ??? Where??? R U Hiding?

Why are stalkers becoming harder and harder to find in the game. Are they so good at using stealth you can't see them? Or do stalkers need buffs to make their population grow.

Thanks

They need buffs. This has become more apparent since GR hit.

I play mine pretty often (I'm in the process of leveling a new KM Stalker over on Union, so Kestrel, Mei, Ru and Shade haven't been around as much on Liberty as they usually are-), but stalkers just aren't particularly common over-all. Too many players consider them a broken, or at least heavily sub-par, AT I guess.

I enjoy my own a lot, but that "LOLStalkers"-thing seems to work against getting other people to try them.

I was in a mid to high teens group earlier, had 3 stalkers in it. My Dark/Dark, a KM/Nin, and a Nin/Nin I think. Was pretty fun.

Stalkers seem to only be good at one aspect of the game, which is PvP, which almost everybody ignores, especially the devs.

Single-target burst damage is virtually worthless in this game from any practical standpoint, especially when coupled with the squishiest defense of any melee archetype in the game.

If stalkers did about ~20% higher damage than they do now, lack of AoE or not, squishie defenses or not, I'm sure there'd be plenty more people playing them.

Stalker's problem also has more to do with some of the old sets that don't get any aoe at all. The newer sets like Dual Blade, Electricity Melee and Kinetic Melee are what I consider "good enough".

Sets like Martial Arts and Energy Melee still need more love.

Like already said. Stalkers don't do any thing particularly better than the other three melee ATs.

There is a meta of:

Scrapper----------Brute----------Tanker
Damage---------------------------Durabilty


Where does stalker fit in there?

Why play an AT with less durablity and less Burst and Sustained DPS than a scrapper?

<=== likes my precious stalker :3 aka Vigos on freedom ^_^

Every character can be fun, so it makes no sense to bring that up. Same with the "they do good enough, really" argument.

If the game is more balanced so that ATs are close enough in power:
- people who are on the fence between power and fun/concept get to choose based on fun/concept alone.
- people who already play the currently weaker ATs get to see their character become a little bit more powerful, are more appreciated by other players and get more team invites.

Everyone wins.

I quite often play on my stalker in Union, too. In fact, I play with it so much I dare say it's my main :3

I really haven't understood why Stalkers get so little respect from the players! I mean sure, they are not as resistant as Scrappers and they don't have access to that much AoE, but why should that be bad? I often get the feeling that my stalker, albeit battling at a lower difficulty than my other toons (x3), is one of my strongest toons, for the simple matter that her ST damage is so strong as it is. You see, in my book, a toon that can destroy +2/+3 bosses without the biggest qualms is just as good as the toon that can break through a mob of +0/x8 in 30 seconds! And most importantly, my Stalker is so interesting to me because I HAVE FUN PLAYING HER.

Furthermore, I certainly feel that Stalkers team experiences can be best shown in the Incarnate trials!
- Generally, their AS can deal a lot of damage to the AV's in question
- On Lambda, a lvl 50+3 Stalker should be very much able to single-handedly take out a glowie like other toons indeed, although with the chance of attracting less followers thanks to Hide
- Keyes is in fact one of my main's best trial experiences, as she's a DM/Regen (bye bye AM Pulse), AM pulse does not break hide and she can easily get a lot of temps from glowies unnoticed, thanks to her Hide