The Stalker Is Getting Out Of Hand

[SFkenny]

Also, remember that on certain maps you can decompress areas. Stalker shows up, wait until he spawns inside a window room, get near a door jam and hit a window. You could lock him inside this way and basically wait for oxygen deprivation to do it's work.

[-IX-]

This was outlandish...

 

I was leveling up my ember prime on the mercury defense mission.  You could say I was solo as I was with two level 0 excel's that were just lost and dying all the time to level 1 enemies.

 

My ember prime was level 9 at the time.

 

So during the 4th wave of defense, suddenly there is something weird happening;  my ember prime is constantly staggering, falling down acting all weird, weird colors on screen.  I'm like... wth?

 

It turns out it's Mr Stalker, a level 27 Mr Stalker out to get a level 9 ember prime.  The two other friendly excalibros try to get in on the action, and they die IMMEDIATELY.  I mean this thing wasn't even aiming for them but hey... I envy them.  

 

Why? Because you see, I have just a few mods in the level 9 frame, but they are max rage, quick thinking, vigor and overheat.  So basically, I'm not dying.  I mean I am but my health goes back up to full from zero and my energy goes to almost full from rage, yada yada.  But I'm basically stun/stagger locked.  I cant even just die to get this thing over with.

 

I manage to slide away a little and try to fight it... no way.  Level 27, and this is the NEU 27 complete with the damage 2.0 improvements. I'm not even denting it with my weapons (they are low level weapons with not many mods in them).  The pod is at 20%, so I run around and clear the wave, Stalker poofs right up next to me, back into stagger lock for a few more Rage/Quick thinking cycles.... aaaaand.... wave 5 begins.  All I can do is run/slide really fast out of stagger lock to kill those pesky clowns attacking my pod.

 

A few secodns of cleairng around the pod... poof... back into stun stagger lock.... pod is down to 40% again... somehow break free, clear pod from the Grineer....   Select reward or keep fighting!  I'll take that crappy electric mod any-day and get out of here instead of having more infinite staggerlock fiesta with your neighborhood friendly stalker.

 

Long story short.  New stalker is annoying.  Not dying thanks to quick thinking and rage ONLY drags out the TERRIBLE experience.

 

I'm all for a slightly tougher stalker but this is just bleeeeh. And we want this thing to 'take a pause' ?  We should NOT have him spawn in defense/survival missions where he can cause mission failures.

Edited November 21, 2013 by -IX-

[PocketSand]

In general, I'd like to see more robust reactions to tenno abilities rather than just straight up dispelling everything.  In particular, maybe a line like "I don't need to see you to find you!" and then he just doesn't care about invisibility instead of dispelling it.  Maybe his high-power slash dash becomes a response to skills like iron skin or nyx absorb that breaks through it instantly and knocks down instead of instagibbing everyone.  Give him a valid response to each ability and you won't even need to make him omnipotent - he would be able to respond to and nullify a skill with a valid counter but through excellent teamwork and timing players would still be able to land skill hits and that would feel great.  Just give him a custom fit.

 

On dispel, just getting a white flash and stagger every time you use an ability is frustrating, especially since it used to happen no matter who you were wheverer you were, even if he lost pathing ability onto you.  One time he got stuck and I had no idea what was happening until I looked him up in the wiki, since he'd gotten lost somewhere behind me in the level I was just getting staggered out of iron skin every time I tried to use it and it was extremely confusing.

 

Additionally, I'd very much prefer he have to perform a finishing move onto you when he "kills" you rather than straight up ragdolling a player.  For example, he picks up a tenno by the neck and stabs through him.  This would give allies a chance to get him off the target or finish him off before wasting a revive, and would add potential for other mechanics such as him swapping aggro before the finisher so he can add other players to a valid target list he needs to take care of.  That'd open the door for someone else to do a stealthy revive and avoid frustration through quality teamwork.  At that point, if something goes wrong people can blame other team members and not the game's design.

Edited November 22, 2013 by PocketSand

[Taihus]

In general, I'd like to see more robust reactions to tenno abilities rather than just straight up dispelling everything.  In particular, maybe a line like "I don't need to see you to find you!" and then he just doesn't care about invisibility instead of dispelling it.  Maybe his high-power slash dash becomes a response to skills like iron skin or nyx absorb that breaks through it instantly and knocks down instead of instagibbing everyone.

 

Just getting a white flash and stagger every time you use an ability is frustrating, especially since it used to happen no matter who you were wheverer you were, even if he lost pathing ability onto you.  One time he got stuck and I had no idea what was happening until I looked him up in the wiki, since he'd gotten lost somewhere behind me in the level.

 

Additionally, I'd very much prefer he have to perform a finishing move onto you when he "kills" you rather than straight up ragdolling a player.  For example, he picks up a tenno by the neck and stabs through him.  This would give allies a chance to get him off the target or finish him off before wasting a revive, and would add potential for other mechanics such as him swapping aggro before the finisher so he can knock you down too and finish the job on his initial target.

Heyhey! Constructive feedback! Me likey!

[Antonie_Van_Leeuwenhoek]

Stalker at the moment has too much hp. No enemies should able to withstand 15 Seconds of flux rifle in the face...

[NanoTheBandit]

I just faced him, He teleported to me from across the place and killed me in 2 seconds when I was using an armour build for Frost Prime.

[SatouJin]

during event mission my 2 brothers and i decked in super gear. he one shots my brother's rhino with a slash dash even though he had full IS and over 1200 shield. fight lasted all of about 5 seconds. totally broken. my other brother and i emptied nearly a full soma clip into him b4 his slash dash and barely even dropped his shield.

[Nitrinium]

2nd game after U11 he turned up and downed two clan mates chasing me lol, he still died and dropped a melee channel mod this time and not the usual slash dash. My clan mates all got revived in time and that's where it got weird because along time ago when the stalker killed me last I think he insta- killed me and everyone who he managed to slash dash but this time downed players are revivable.

 

Also I forgot to try to scan the stalker lol, is it possible?

[LoneTonberry]

2nd game after U11 he turned up and downed two clan mates chasing me lol, he still died and dropped a melee channel mod this time and not the usual slash dash. My clan mates all got revived in time and that's where it got weird because along time ago when the stalker killed me last I think he insta- killed me and everyone who he managed to slash dash but this time downed players are revivable.

 

Also I forgot to try to scan the stalker lol, is it possible?

 

It's possible, just I don't think he has an entry in the Codex. I scanned him when he tried to murder me last night and didn't get anything. Though I was scanning him while he was kneeling down to leave so I don't know if that affected it. Also IIRC the guy he's targeting, if he would go down then he dies full stop, anyone else just goes down.

 

I would love it if this guy was an actual challenge that didn't consist of him doing too much damage for anything to survive, dispelling or being outright immune to pretty much every ability in the game and being able to instantly teleport to you and pretty much gib you before you can react. 

[pisces13]

I ran into this creep earlier today on my frost prime. He ate full clips from my vipers and lived. Flux rifle didn't scratch him. At around 40% he used this nyx skill to absorb dmg. My weapons did nothing to him after that point. I'm sure that must be a glitch. I had to end my survival because that dude wouldn't die. In fact, I only lived that long because of godmode rage+ quick thinking set up. Newbies would not stand a chance vs this guy. He needs a fix before people quit.

[MericcTheBronze]

The Stalkers weakness is Boxes. And I am not meaning this in a joking sense, I literally hid behind boxes that were against the wall and shot at a small sliver of his body and managed to slowly widdle his health away. I took on or two hits but it was just something that didn't really work out for the stalker and he didn't seem to be able to figure out how to get past that. " You are hiding up by boxes! .... I don't know how to react to that." Was basically the reaction.

[kill3r_furby]

I don't think we play the same game...

 

 

*Sigh* Read the signs people. Trolls are for watching, not for feeding.

[ZachC]

Fun fact: If you are in tower two, run into Stalker, and he inflicts a bleed effect on you, you will take around 170 damage per tick through both iron skin and shields. This is a death sentence if you do not have a Trinity with your group or the near god-mode combo.

[Revel72]

I still see people playing too much with Soma. Now then the power creep has been nerfed you can't play? I pity you all who uses that thing. Nuking stalker is the best option. Brakk and Strun Wraith are currently his nightmare to go up against. I can about 4 peeps who are champions of W+M1 strategy.

 

You have mobility why you are not using it? Dodging slash dash is nearly same as dodging volley of bullets on Matrix -.-

[Meatuchu]

I wish they'd have just given him an automatic weapon and called it a day. Dread Is uselessly bad, and they overcompensated with ridiculous powers. 

[OcelotVampire]

I like very much what they did to first born ... err I mean the stalker. He is now a force to be reckoned with. People actually complaining about this? Sure it would be nice if killing him net you some better rewards. Maybe like BP for the new prime scarf. Hes much tougher now and I like it that way. He was a joke before. Making him able to actually fight against 4 tenno is great.

 

If they were to balance him a bit better though I guess him turning invisible to avoid getting insta kiled would be good. He could do this every 20% health loss. Just to regen full shields and try at his target again. Once hes down to 25% health left he should then use his ult skill. Not lead with it. However if they were to leave him as is would be fine to me. It's been awhile that something actually challenged me in this game. Once again though the rewards for such a challenge should be better.

[TheHeraldXII]

The difficulty of the fight is fine, the fact that you can't avoid the fight is the problem. You used to be able to run from the Stalker, and he'd be fine if there were counter moves, but all I can see is "have tons of health and damage mods" because the dispel and the teleport force you into a straight-up slapfight with the guy. No outmaneuvering, no dodging, no clever use of your warframe abilities, nothing. Just you, your health bar, your guns and one angry goon.

The teleport should honestly just go away or be limited to line of sight, there should be a way to outrun him. If there is a monster put in a game to be super-scary and near unbeatable that would mean to start running and not look back, right? As for the dispel, that was put in there to fix things like going invisible and just wailing on him. A better idea than a dispel would be a link that gives him any buff you put on yourself. You could run out of range of this link but if you go invisible, so does he. You use Iron Skin, now he has Iron Skin too. This would make him suitably scary and difficult to fight, but it would also let the players make smart moves in order to beat him. That's the key to a good fight, you want to make it about smart counterplays and skillful moves, not just health stacks and DPS.

[Liminal]

The difficulty of the fight is fine, the fact that you can't avoid the fight is the problem. You used to be able to run from the Stalker, and he'd be fine if there were counter moves, but all I can see is "have tons of health and damage mods" because the dispel and the teleport force you into a straight-up slapfight with the guy. No outmaneuvering, no dodging, no clever use of your warframe abilities, nothing. Just you, your health bar, your guns and one angry goon.

The teleport should honestly just go away or be limited to line of sight, there should be a way to outrun him. If there is a monster put in a game to be super-scary and near unbeatable that would mean to start running and not look back, right? As for the dispel, that was put in there to fix things like going invisible and just wailing on him. A better idea than a dispel would be a link that gives him any buff you put on yourself. You could run out of range of this link but if you go invisible, so does he. You use Iron Skin, now he has Iron Skin too. This would make him suitably scary and difficult to fight, but it would also let the players make smart moves in order to beat him. That's the key to a good fight, you want to make it about smart counterplays and skillful moves, not just health stacks and DPS.

Remember they also made him ignore (and be ignored) by other mobs, which used to be a very valid tactic!

On the topic of giving him the skills you use: that's way better than what we have now. I've suggested giving him one specific effect per "problematic" frame skill before. I think it could be more interesting and fun.

 

Examples -> Cloak: he goes invisible too / Absorb: he stops attacking you / Blessing: he turns invisible and stalks you for the rest of the mission until you are not invincible / Snow globe: he channels a power and a second later everything in the globe takes continuous electric damage as the sphere is filled with lightning. Stuff like that.

[Jin_Kazama]

i LOVE the fact that they're making stalker hard, he doesnt even spawn that often, and he can come at ANY time :D

its a good thing in the game. and much better then before, where he would just spawn, 4 soma bullets and hes gone

[TheHeraldXII]

Remember they also made him ignore (and be ignored) by other mobs, which used to be a very valid tactic!

On the topic of giving him the skills you use: that's way better than what we have now. I've suggested giving him one specific effect per "problematic" frame skill before. I think it could be more interesting and fun.

 

Examples -> Cloak: he goes invisible too / Absorb: he stops attacking you / Blessing: he turns invisible and stalks you for the rest of the mission until you are not invincible / Snow globe: he channels a power and a second later everything in the globe takes continuous electric damage as the sphere is filled with lightning. Stuff like that.

That's pretty much what I want from the Stalker too, I want him to have some sort of countermove to Warframe skills that isn't "nuh-uh, it doesn't work 'cause I said so". I'm not upset about the Stalker's difficulty level, but the kind of difficulty he present. A brainless, gear-check fight is not what I expect or want from the scariest badass in the origin system, it's unfortunate.

[ThePresident777]

i LOVE the fact that they're making stalker hard, he doesnt even spawn that often, and he can come at ANY time :D

its a good thing in the game. and much better then before, where he would just spawn, 4 soma bullets and hes gone

Stalker right now is just a dumb bullet sponge. How is that better?

[Jin_Kazama]

Because you're scared of him

[Nagisawa]

Because you're scared of him

Scared?  Scared of a single trick, fakely difficult bullet sponge?  No, we're not scared, we eye roll, we sigh, we go "Oh we go again, crap, may as well just die, and burn a respawn.  Wake me when he kills me, wouldja?"  We're BORED and ANNOYED that this is the best DE can do with it.

[Toom1275]

At minimum, he MUST stop being able to teleport. Best part of a stalker encounter was ditchihg him at the elevator. This needs to come back.

[FierceRadiance]

Seems to me the point of most of these comments is that Stalker has become pretty much invincible, and can't be beaten except in rare (i.e., LUCKY) circumstances.  To me, and probably many others, this is unfair and disheartening.

 

He was too easy before, he's too hard now.  DE, please balance him a bit more, and all will be rainbows and daffodils again.  Tenno being unable to shape the battlefield because he can always Teleport you to melee range seems to be completely unreasonable.  Being able to totally destroy even the heaviest armor builds in three or four seconds, as has been reported, also seems unreasonable.  Lose the one, and tweak the other, and then let us play him for a bit and see if we perceive our odds improving.