Stalker
Overview
The Stalker attacks from concealment, quickly dealing out massive amounts of damage. You aren't nearly as resilient as Brutes. You are however, an excellent complement to Dominators and Corrupters. Stalkers are primarily melee-focused and do not deal in ranged attacks. The Stalker is also fantastic as a solo player, as you are capable of getting in and out quickly and effectively.
This archetype's main Secondary Power is the ability to hide. This allows you to strike from the shadows and greatly increases your ability to get an initial critical hit. While hidden, Stalkers are able to deal out a devastating Assassin's Strike against their unsuspecting foes. It also allows you to sneak around enemies (of similar level range) undetected.
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:
Secondary Power Sets
A Stalker's secondary power sets are designed for defense. They are:
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.