Stalker

Overview

Skill can divert clumsy raw power, and precisely applied force can solve many problems. As a Stalker, this is the core of your specialty. You do your best work when attacking from ambush, and can even hide in plain sight to escape foes. Deadly attacks and good defenses make you a dangerous combatant and assassin, but you can be overwhelmed if you're not careful.

Faction: Villain

The Stalker's power sets are:

Primary: Melee
Secondary: Defense

The Stalker has Low Hit Points and High Damage.

Power Sets

Primary Power Sets

A Stalker's primary power sets are designed for melee. They are:

• Claws
• Dark Melee
• Energy Melee
• Martial Arts
• Ninja Blade
• Spines
• Dual Blades

Secondary Power Sets

A Stalker's secondary power sets are designed for defense. They are:

• Dark Armor
• Energy Aura
• Ninjitsu
• Regeneration
• Super Reflexes
• Willpower

Patron Power Pools

• Leviathan Mastery
• Mace Mastery
• Mu Mastery
• Soul Mastery

Inherent Power

• Assassination

Hiding and Criticals

Being Hidden and being invisible due to stealth are two different things, despite the name and the fact that both results often come from the same power. The Hidden status means that the Stalker is poised to deliver stronger or more reliable critical hits. It has nothing to do with being harder to see.

Stalkers have two ways to become Hidden. The Hide power continually grants Hidden status (as well as other benefits), though that status suppresses for ten seconds each time the Stalker uses an attack power, suffers damage from an enemy (falling doesn't count), or clicks a mission object. The Placate power grants non-suppressable Hidden status for a fixed period of ten seconds.

Most Stalker single-target attacks automatically do double damage if the Stalker is Hidden and have a 20% chance of doing double damage if the Stalker is not Hidden and the target is Held or Slept. Stalker area-effect attacks crit half as often (sometimes less), typically with only a 50% chance when the Stalker is Hidden and a 10% chance versus Held/Slept enemies. Crits for AoE attacks are checked separately for each target. A few Stalker attacks can critical when not Hidden against any target, not just Held/Slept ones, though the chance is always lower.

A Stalker's special Assassin Strike attack criticals only from Hidden status, but does so for seven times normal damage. In PvP, 6/7ths of that damage ignores the target's damage Resistances.

Strategies

Hidden: This, and the extra Defense and Stealth it provides, is suppressed when you attack (including Placate), or when you are *damaged* by an enemy. A lucky (or Lucky) Stalker can perform their Assassination strike while the victim is shooting at them.

For most of your attacks, if you hit while hidden, you'll score a Critical Hit for double damage. You might start with the slower, higher-damage attack to take advantage of this. Your Assassination power, when attacking from Hidden, will do perhaps ten times the base damage in an Assassin Strike. No matter what power pool you were thinking of at Threat Level 6, take your Assassination power; it'll make 8 come much quicker. =)

Combine Build Up (Focus Chi, ...) with your Assassination power to take out non-resistant yellow Lieutenants in one shot.

Against a small group of tougher enemies in a mission, you can take one out, run away, wait for them to lose interest (target one of the survivors and wait for the box elbows to run the other way), then come back and take out another. Repeat until you feel comfortable scrapping with who's left.

Placate is useful and good fun, if slightly random. If it works, it lets you get an Assassination critical against a lone enemy that was attacking you, without having to run away and wait for Hidden to come back.

Placate may miss. It puts you back in Hide, sort of, making you semi-transparent but not necessarily adding "Hidden" under your effects bar. It also modifies the behaviour of the victim enemy, causing them to give up on attacking you. However, if you take damage from another source, they may go right back to attacking you. They may also have another attack queued up, which may also knock you back into scrapping.

Against a pair, Assassin's Strike one, then Placate, Build Up and hit the other one for an extra-strong critical. Against three, Assasin's Strike the first one, Build Up and scrap with the second, then Placate and AS the third. (Against four or more, consider using the "run away!" technique given above.) Placate's also useful for not having to cross fifty yards of mission to stop that last minion from following you before your next Assassin Strike.

In many missions, you'll find a group of enemies run up to somewhere you were, intent on stopping you; they may run right past you then do nothing, thanks to your Hide. Take them out at your leisure. In bank heists, such 'ambush' squads attack you regardless of your Hide; charge in and get your critical while you can. Placate still works on members of those squads, thankfully.

External Links

• Archetypes documentation on official City of Villains site
• Official City of Villains Manual as a PDF file
• Subtler Placate techniques on US forum.