Stalker Archetype: Overview Of The Stalker Archetype in City of Villains

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No, not that kind of stalker.

Stalkers are deadly masters of stealth attacks, capable of fading in and out of notice to rapidly damage enemies and escape. They have very low health for a melee class, making it very important to pay attention to how much attention you’re attracting to yourself.

While you might think that this would make them a strong solo archetype, their fragility makes it so that you need to be cautious if you plan to spend much time out of experience debt. The best way to play a Stalker is to choose your targets carefully. Don’t try to take on an entire group at once, or you’re going to wind up on your back. Try to jump in only after the rest of your group has engaged to try to take down the most powerful target as soon as possible. Avoid using too many area attacks unless you have the support to back it up. It can be difficult to adjust to a melee character that’s also so fragile - use your stealth abilities well.

Stalkers do far more damage when they’re in groups than they do alone. They will automatically get a highly damaging critical hit if they’re hidden to an enemy, but when they’re not, their base critical chance is 10% plus 3% for every additional teammate within 30 meters. This makes it so that the larger the group that a Stalker has, the more damage that they’re going to put out. All the primary powersets have something called an “assassin strike,” which does massive damage to the target if the Stalker makes it while hidden, and maintains stealth even if they miss. Stalkers can also be considered “hidden” temporarily if they use the Placate power on their target, allowing them to do more damage. Managing enemy attention and using stealth properly is the key to playing a Stalker well so that they do as much damage as possible.

Using your build up abilities and buffs from your friends can help you kill Lieutenants of your level in one shot if you enhance the right abilities - great for weakening a group at an initial engagement. No one can put out as much burst damage as the Stalker can, but no archetype puts itself at risk nearly as often. If you like the idea of that kind of high tension play, the Stalker is a good choice - but you’ll probably die many times before you get a handle on the intricacies of the archetype.