Rebalance The Stalker. He's Too Op For New Players.

[Naftal]

Stalker isn't hard at all.

But maybe to tune him to players of different conclaves,DE should limit his full potential when fighting them

Easy mode would be a low conclave like 500~ where he uses his Slash Dash and Hate most often

Normal mode would be like 700~800 Conclave where he uses his Despair and his signature Dispel in addition to his Hate and Slash Dash

Hard mode would be like 1000+ conclave where he uses his full arsenal including the Absorb and Reckoning.

 

 

The other day I ran Earth exterm with a MR 2 and he was like "Oh no" and I 3 shot Stalker and he said thanks.

He might be too overwhelming for low conclaves but I think MR 4s usually get used to him already and are well armed to duel him.

I still support my Extraction suggestion, giving low conclave players running solo an option to escape.

This would not work. Conclave rating doesn't correlate with your power.

 

For example you can just remove two weapons and lower your conclave rating to almost nothing while still being just as strong...

 

Conclave rating should already be removed and something else should replace it (probably something that measures your damage output and power stats).

[motorfirebox]

Why?  It's the same thing with the G3.  Players run like little girls.  Players disconnect.  Why?  What is there to lose?  It isn't as if the stalker/G3/Zanuka keeps a weapon or mod as a trophy?  It's a fun challenge with no downside yet people act like it's the end of the world.

 

Well, to be fair, the G3 slap you with a limiter that's actually pretty expensive to take off.

[YasaiTsume]

Well, to be fair, the G3 slap you with a limiter that's actually pretty expensive to take off.

It will destroy whatever funds a new player has just to remove it

[Autongnosis]

It will destroy whatever funds a new player has just to remove it

That's a problem unto itself. New players, which are the ones most likely to get a Bolt, are also the ones who get punished more for it, while a veteran, on top of the fact that he's going to mop the floor with the G3*, will barely feel the resource cost of unbolting in the unlikely case he gets bolted.

*yesterday G3 came during a PUG Nitain alert, average MR of the cell was 19, G3 utterly disappeared in one split second in a hailstorm of 6 Forma gunfire.

[YasaiTsume]

That's a problem unto itself. New players, which are the ones most likely to get a Bolt, are also the ones who get punished more for it, while a veteran, on top of the fact that he's going to mop the floor with the G3*, will barely feel the resource cost of unbolting in the unlikely case he gets bolted.

*yesterday G3 came during a PUG Nitain alert, average MR of the cell was 19, G3 utterly disappeared in one split second in a hailstorm of 6 Forma gunfire.

Then the problem is that new players have a very long "weak period" unless carried by someone.

 

DE should really ease new players into the game, be it giving them free base Warframe mods (Vitality, Redirection, Streamline, Intensify etc....) or updating the beginner MK-1 weapons to help them out in case they are so unlucky to get a Stalker mark right after Jackal...

[Maicael]

I think I started playing Warframe right when Stalker was first introduced. I don't think he was mentioned in the patch notes, so nobody had any clue what was going on when he would first appear. He would show up, wipe out the entire squad, and just leave. It was very difficult, and as soon as you saw the lights flicker everyone in the squad, veteran or new player, would be like, "Ah, crap."

 

I don't think Stalker needs to be made easier for new players since his place in the game is supposed to be an angry, vengeful, overpowered assassin that's been training to kill the Tenno since their betrayal to the Orokin after the Old War (however long that's been, centuries? millenia?). He should be able to kill newly awakened Tenno that have not had much time to recover from their sleep in the cryopods.

 

As for him killing players in Warframe I think there's a couple of things to keep in mind:

 

1.) Dying in the game is something that people try to avoid, and new players may even fear, but essentially it has almost no effect or punishment (that I can think of) other than having a countdown on your Revives (which will be even less relevant after U18).

 

2.) Stalker has a low spawn chance. It's what? 1.5% if solo or only Death Mark and 3% max with full squad of Death Marks? Stalker is a good enemy (for newer players) to compare to horror games that have monsters you can't fight against and can only run away from as fast as you can. Warframe, on the other hand, has this extremely difficult enemy (for newer players) that can be eventually overcome once they have become more powerful and experienced.

[JennPhoenix]

opticor to the face, anyone?

 

Last time he spawned on me I had my Mirage with Opticor.

 

He didn't last long, in case anyone was wondering. If anything, I'd like him to be harder. I'd like it to be screams of "STALKER! STALKER! AAAAAAAAAAAAA" rather than "Hey, Stalker! Everybody grab a Dread blueprint!"

 

You know. Like back in the good old days.

Edited December 1, 2015 by JennPhoenix

[(PSN)kickbackevan_723]

I think it best that he op for new player cause when I was new I was killing bosses like they were nothing and I fought warframe had no good enemy then the stalker came and wipe the floor with me after I lost I was thinking damn he op I need to get my gear up and thats what I did.

He need to get better cause now when ever he comes for me I ask my friend do you need any of his weapon O you dont ok guess I'll just kill him

Thought*

[Viedra_Lavinova]

If anything, I say buff him to make him a challenge for veteran/ advanced players while still possible to kill rarely as a newby.

[Terrornaut]

Stop nerfing and buffing,

Let him  SCALE to our CVC points!

A fine use for them.

 

Yeh.

 

The Stalker's level is based on a combination of the level of the mission and the average level of all of your current gear. Purely from a numerical perspective, he will always be stronger than you, unless we're talking multi-forma'd and potato'd etc. etc.

 

I would argue that the fact that he's more powerful than you is rather the point. He's an ominous, overwhelming figure that no one ever seems to acknowledge. He's meant to be terrifying and, frankly, while I'm not sure that's great from a game developer perspective, he's a lethal assassin and it works. We daily run down hundreds of enemy soldiers without a thought; there needs to be something out there that legitimately gives us pause. Indeed, I regret the fact that we can become powerful enough to trivialize him; he's not supposed to be trivial.

 

The Stalker's weakness is his inability to lead targets. Your best bet when fighting him is to stay mobile. Powers can't CC him, but they can damage him. Keep moving, time your shots well, be careful. He is not impossible.

 

This is absolutely the way to fight him.  I'm pretty sure this is intentional on DE's part.  There are certain mobs that are just ridiculous about leading targets, but the stalker is not one of them. If you stay mobile and get a visual lock on him, then that's what you do to stay alive and win.

 

 

Only gripe I have with stalker is he waits till I'm leveling a new weapon (where I will basically have nothing BUT that weapon and a maxed frame) to actually show up.  Which unless his scaling has changed, he scales based on your highest leveled piece of gear.

Hahaha, oh he only shows up when I make the mistake of leveling up a full set of gear at once.  He knows damn well not to show up when I have my ember+tigris loadout and will one shot him hard enough to need to redownload his files the next time he shows up.

 

I agree with the folks suggesting he SHOULD wipe the floor with you on your first encounters.

 

I saw the stalker several times before I finally beat him, in the first encounter I didn't even know what the heck was going on.  Lights started flashing, dude gets all talky about the guy I'd been killing(Vor), and then proceeds to just annihilate me.  I never even saw him in a standing position and didn't even know he was the stalker until later.  Because of these experiences my first successful stalker kill is among my best memories in the game.

 

Fast forward to today.  Depending upon what I'm doing, I either roll my eyes and get trolled or one shot him in the face.  I don't remember the last time I had to fire twice with my Hek, but Friday or so he mopped the floor with me because it turns out a level 12 ceramic dagger, level 12 unpotatoed flux rifle, and a potatoed but level 6 or so Synoid Gammacor can't really make a dent in him. 

 

Nowadays I know that he just caught me at my weakest, back then it was a great kill and was enjoyable to suddenly have that challenge happen.  A far better way to challenge a player than seeing if they can tolerate over forty minutes of grind to scale enemies into stats that push your gear.  Enjoy it while you can.

 

This is the greatest summary of the stalker experience in this thread.

As far as everything else, I regret the amount of ignoring going on to DemonbaneSol's posts and reasoning, but there are some reasonable/constructive comments in this thread.  Ultimately I feel like you -should- lose confusedly the first few times you encounter him, and not even know who he is right away.  He does need to scale more appropriately, but still, the odds should be weighed against the player.  It should not be an even fight in the least - but there should be *some* chance.

 

The G3 on the other hand...I feel like they're worse, but totally map dependent.  Sometimes they show up and trounce you so hard, (well its been a long time for me), but the times I have no problem with them are always when they spawn in and they're scattered and not really coordinated.

[Pride]

in solo play stalker is dangerous in a team all you have to do is run in circles bullet jumping and rolling while your team finds and kills him.... never kill your own stalker if you can avoid it leave it to the party and in return you kill their stalkers.

[PR1D3]

Oh man this is hilarious. You think he's hard now? He's about to get buffed in the next update. Get your anus ready my friend cause he's comin for it.

[Loswaith]

Honestly I personally think he is OK in his current state (his cheese aside).

 

He is a low guard, not a Tenno meaning he should be weaker than fully recovered Tenno in general.

 

However because Tenno start out of the pods not as good as they once were, he is very dangerous to early players.  Once the player again reaches the true potential of their Tenno selves once again the Stalker becomes not as much of a threat.

 

Likely though the biggest factor is even veteran players don't just ignore him, just about everyone stops what they are doing and prepares.  So while he may be seen as a trivial fight (Tenno can take out other Tenno just as easily), everyone prepares for his arrival anyway, thus he achieves the wrinkle in game play.

 

I mean if DE wanted it so players couldn't kill him they would simply make him so we cant (plenty of other bosses have invulnerability stages).  The concept of that kind of enemy is to make the player stop and think about it which he achieves.

[UseNet]

Could always try.. Running from the Stalker if you can't beat him.

It's never a mission objective to fight Stalker; he's slow, enemies will shoot at him to soften Stalker up, you can find better ground to fight. There's many reasons for running from the Stalker.

There's no shame in running from the stalker, after all everything but dread is garbage.

[Maicael]

Honestly I personally think he is OK in his current state (his cheese aside).

 

He is a low guard, not a Tenno meaning he should be weaker than fully recovered Tenno in general.

 

However because Tenno start out of the pods not as good as they once were, he is very dangerous to early players.  Once the player again reaches the true potential of their Tenno selves once again the Stalker becomes not as much of a threat.

 

Likely though the biggest factor is even veteran players don't just ignore him, just about everyone stops what they are doing and prepares.  So while he may be seen as a trivial fight (Tenno can take out other Tenno just as easily), everyone prepares for his arrival anyway, thus he achieves the wrinkle in game play.

 

I mean if DE wanted it so players couldn't kill him they would simply make him so we cant (plenty of other bosses have invulnerability stages).  The concept of that kind of enemy is to make the player stop and think about it which he achieves.

He may have been a low guard once, but recall that he's probably been training for this since the end of the Old War (centuries? millenia?). He's even mastered powers of various Warframes.

[Tzaphchial]

I have no problem killing him. I think he needs to buffed cause he isnt even scary anymore. Leave him the way he is for low levels, but i want them to actually make him scary like he was for me when i first started playing

[-UCPP-]

I think stalker should be more of a challenge...

[Krymanol]

The only issue I've ever had with stalker is he is hard to see or keep track of sometimes (depends on what kind of mission he shows up in and which frame I'm using).   

 

Also, he never ever shows up when I'm on a max geared frame and weapons.   He seems to show up when I'm leveling things up.   Like he seems to show up the most when my frame and all my weapons are not level 30.    But when he's showed up when I'm maxed on frame and weapons and fully modded out, I always drop him so fast that he seems to need a buff.    I remember I 2 shot him with dread couple times before and when penta did guaranteed headshots and I was getting damage in the 20k+ range, I'd drop him so quick that he'd literally have to use absorb to be of any concern to me.   I still remember the first time DE gave him absorb and he'd always bug out where he was invincible even after absorb was over....so much slaughter, so much death, we had no chance to beat him lol.

[Lokithesupersaiyan]

To OP for new players, and to weak for older players. 

[(XBOX)Skode]

Just... less announce his prescence - hes mocking you several times before he shows up, where hes dead as a dodo as he shows up just casually kneeling (why?), Ive taken out with nothing but an under ranked tipedo before... at some point my mods outscaled him, for newbs though hes way too tough. Im against a buff for that reason as theyll only ever beat him if others do it for them.

 

Still the timing of free revives makes me suspicious lol

[deltaheavy]

-SNIP-

 

The Stalker seems OP to everyone who doesn't know how to beat him, scrubs struggle with the Stalker, it's like a rite of passage.

And then when you finally beat him solo you feel like you've accomplished something.

Don't nerf everything just because you think it's OP...

 

Also.

Get stomped.

 

EDIT: He needs to scale pretty violently so experienced players actually get a challenge, it's more fun that way.

Edited December 3, 2015 by deltaheavy

[OnimaruX]

Lol hard just wait till update 18 he'll show up with a bunch of sentient buddies to assist him.....yeah.

[Crewell]

Stalker is only hard for new players because they don't know how to fight him. First thing to do when he announces his attack is let everyone know and throw a marker down so the group has a rally point. The second thing to do is not try to fight him head on. Put objects between you and him and let your team do the work. Remember he isn't trying to kill anyone but you. Your teammates are only at risk if they get hit by his Absorb. Finally if he goes into Absorb mode stop attacking and get away from the blast.

[Otakuwolf]

The only thing i would do is remove the Ash cloak ability from his kit, even if i can take him down in a couple of Spira shots i call BS everytime it hides like a pussy and i get a random hit i couldn't see nor do anything about no matter how much you jump and run around trying to guess where he could be.

 

- small edit -

 

Some people say that Stalker is hard only to new players because "don't know how to beat him". Personally i think that he's hard to any player that don't carry around some very big gun, after all he's nothing more but a bullet sponge capable of oneshooting you so the most common way to deal with it is "shoot first", hence why new players cannot deal with him: they don't have the tools for the job.

It's a fact that 90% of the times people deal with him do so by switching to a Brakk / Boltor Prime (or some heavily modded other weapon) and shoot his face as soon as he appears before tryes anything, like you would do with any other "common" mob, and that's not "knowing how to deal with him" but rather "having the meanings to", which is different.

 

Thinking about it, yes, he's not indeed a good challenge, or at least nothing more than a western style quickdraw IF you have a decent gun for the job, and that's the problem ! He should pose a real challenge, not just a "if you shoot first with a bigger gun you win" thing.

Even bosses pose a better challenge than him because most of them require you to somewhat understand theyr mechanic (Like shooting the firey hatches of Ruk when open), not just "shooting first".

 

The only way i could think to make him "better" would be to make him actually do ninja stuff like jump around, bullet jump, latch on walls and so on, but i think we must wait for a better AI to have that... i would actually love to see a Stalker like that instead of one that just doesen't move much unless for slash-dashing "Durr-hurr, i haz big guns, Durr, no ability for you...".

 

In conclusion, the issue with the Stalker is not about if he's OP or UP but rather the kind of challenge he poses atm, people think he should pose a bigger / smaller threat depending on the cases, but i belive maybe he should instead pose a completely different kind of threat alltogether.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Otakuwolf

[Loswaith]

He may have been a low guard once, but recall that he's probably been training for this since the end of the Old War (centuries? millenia?). He's even mastered powers of various Warframes.

He is playing with various powers, hardly mastered any one of them.  Which also means he is isn't any more powerful than any other veteran tenno, that can easily defeat each other as well.

 

There is a reason only the tenno can master the warframes.  If any one could eventually use them the orokin would of had all their guards in the warframes.