Been playing the game for a couple of weeks, and fairly new to infiltrators. Been trying to learn stalker infiltrator and I'm getting the hang of it in small and medium sized engagements, as it's not that difficult to setup ambushes and lure people into traps as long as I remain patient. But it's been very unrewarding for me to play the class in big engagements, because I feel that I spend a LOT of time sneaking around and running away from vehicles/MAXes/heavies, and looking for openings. But it seems that the more people there are in the area, the less opportunity there is to do anything and get away with it alive. Often what I end up doing is switching to LA, because flight allows me to flank more effectively than cloak, and I can frequently take out tanks/MAXes, which rack up a lot of points and help out the team tremendously. I'm guessing I'm probably something wrong here, you guys have any tips on how to infiltrate and be useful when there's a lot of people?
If you're NC on Connery, use darts, especially on or around a point. Feel free to locate Sundies when the location doesn't appear to be widely known. If you're between bases on major fights, snipe and countersnipe. If you're running Stalker between bases, go take out as many of the smaller groups as you can (being able to efficiently get group kills will take some practice). If you're a Stalker on a normal base, find the best spot to annoy them on a point. Or bring a Sundy with you and place it in a smart spot. If it's a larger base with turrets on surrounding walls, go hack those. If it's a Tech Plant, get the gun deck. If it's a Bio Lab coming up, grab a Gate Diffusing Harrasser and attempt to maintain the terminals in the colon as long as possible to prevent any pushback from armor (recommend Stalker with knife for this). If you're VS or TR on Connery, don't do any of this. If you're on a different server, I don't care what you do.
Pull a Battle Bus and charge the enemy. I'm serious, the level of harassment you accomplish will be a boon to your team. But whenever possible, hack ALL terminals you find, shoot recon darts around, lay those AI mines next to doors and other entrances, or distract the enemy by firing so that you appear on the minimap, only to disappear seconds later. As an Infiltrator, you can do a lot of things to confuse (and even harm) the enemy.
You might not like the answer to this question, because the question itself is subjective. We don't have fancy hacking in place to give us "defined" purposes so infils in general have to be creative based on what is actually happening. You have to adapt from solo play to group play. Your priorities should be changing during alerts, and should change when you know you have absolutely no support from your allies. How do infils contribute ? Well our class has one of the most powerful support tools in the game. Motion can help allies respond to threats and keep themselves alive for longer. We have the ability to place a motion spotter at the capture points themselves, on route to the capture point, or to the sunderer and help prevent enemies from reaching it with tank mines or C4. We become even more useful in higher level squad play: Infils are perfect for preventing wipes during clutch moments, preventing backrage and flanking, orbiting a mobile squad with an SMG and keeping its medics from being flanked. Stalkers are great for taking down SCU generators in a crowded biolab where half the battle is getting there unnoticed. We Stalkers excel when it comes destroying enemy spawn beacons, and EMPing large enemy pushes at those critical moments when they are trying to breach. The problem is when your solo you don't get to see those types of opportunities. It may not be very dramatic when enemy spawn beacons gets destroyed by an EMP but trust me when I say those actions can make or break base captures. EMPs are fantastic for group play. So many times I would hear " front door is buckling" and everyone else would rush to front door.... leaving back door with maybe 1-2 guys defending. Guess what ? Its time for me to rush to back door and to EMP the enemies coming towards that location or your else my squad is going to end up with two buckled locations and the team won't be able to recover from that. Its our job as infils to look at the mini map, to call out threats to our squads, and to mitigate the incoming forces so they loose their momentum. We allow our squads to play smarter with motion detection, and we keep them safer. Don't think for even a second other classes check the mini map as much as we do. Infils are hyper aware stressed out little folks who in general have adapted to being more map alert because we simply cannot survive otherwise.
When you say "higher squad level play," I start thinking about 40 Infiltrators, perched on a hill, firing at a tower at once. That would do a lot with Engineers equipped with various weapons.
Sharkasaur you can try multiple techniques as stalker infiltrator my personal favorite is using the lifts on a tower to get above the spawn room where planes can be acquired and using the crossbow to one hit kill enemy snipers as long as it hits the head. Motion spotters are also extremely useful more you know of how your enemies are moving the more allies can set up a killing field. EMP grenades are also useful both as offensive and defensive, you can use them with your basic pistol toss it in a group then aim for the head and pick them off. Defensive you can do the opposite when out numbered you can take a high risk toss it down and run, the visual effects can detour the enemy enough to re cloak and hide. Hack a base back is another good idea. When your faction is over powering the enemy position it's best to hack their vehicle terminals leaving them well without a vehicle terminal you can even defend it and take pot shots at enemies. Might seem bad to do but you help your team without them really knowing. Can always just stay back cloak around a enemy sundy and provide information in /re (region) chat or /squadsay, /platoonsay all three can help mostly when enemies are preparing a max crash or just providing sundy location and how many. More known or at least more used I see is stalkers sitting on a cap point waiting to cap it as soon as people leave bad news is as soon as it happens to flip. Everyone who just left will come back either with a flashlight or shooting everywhere. I hope this information helps you and your play style, experience is the best teacher. Remember though it is a game and do what you find fun.
Well i won't hinder you using stalker cloak, but i would suggest the hunter cloak and NS-Vandal. Attache a forward grip, 6x scope and a compensator if you need it to it. With this, you can be mobile, you are able take out enemies from range and you can also be effective in closer ranges. But that's only my opinion, maybe because i don't use stalker cloak that much. I think stalker cloak atm is more suited for trolling, the lolz and some cute beavers
If all else fails, big battles tend to have a hill-side of enemy infiltrators sniping away. I see Stalker infils as partway counter-sniping harassers. Get round to the hill, kill snipers, and generally make it so they can't just camp and spam your team without struggle.
I'm going to be a bit harsh and say that as a stalker infil, especially as you're new to the game, you're most likely being fairly useless. I've seen very few on my own side doing anything of consequence. Most seems content to just sit in place. And stare while my squad gets shot to pieces. When I'm infiling I feel like I'm contributing the most when I'm using a scout rifle or smg with Emp nades and motion spotters. Stalkers and snipers (generally) have very little impact on a fight compared to that. Think of Stalker cloaking as NewGame+ for when you're more familiar with the game mechanics and base layouts.
Thanks for all the advices guys. I play TR and have been splitting my time between LA and infil. I tried various things this past weekend on trial, but unfortunately most didn't really seem to work for me. - vandal - short range sniper - smg - hunter qcx + stalker - commissioner + stalker - silence repeater + stalker Being fairly new, I don't have that many certs to sink in the infil class so maybe my equipment isn't up to par. I only have level 2/1 hunter/stalker cloak, 1 heal, and 2 EMP grenades. I was particularly disappointed in the QCX as on paper it seems to be the best option for a stalker. I don't have a problem aiming and hitting with it, but I can't get kills because the rechamber time takes so long. I also can't seem to ever pull off bolt+knife combos, because I can't run fast enough to catch unaware sprinters. I found that in larger fights, smg + EMP seems to be the way to go. It's hectic enough that I can throw out an EMP without being noticed, then kill a couple guys from the flank before cloaking out again. Rinse, repeat, and hack terminals/turrets as opportunities allow. I can probably get the short range bolt actions to work better if my fps didn't dip below 30 in 96+ fights. But as it is I find it almost impossible to land shots with any kind of consistency in CQC once the region fills up. In small/medium fights I've been able to work the silenced repeater pretty well by camping outside capture points and generator rooms. A few burst from the repeater and a quick knife pretty much drops everyone except heavies, for which I basically have to resort to EMP again to level the health difference. In general, I think I'll ditch stalker in large fights for now. It's just not very rewarding considering the time one must spend waiting for opportunities. And the smallest mistake leads to being q-spotted, which almost always results in immediate death. Once I have suit equipment kitted out, I'll come back and revisit stalker + QCX again because I'm not quite ready to give up on it.
In a lot of bases there are very good vantage points over the enemy cover, you want to be to their side or behind them. If you can see the places they think they are safe then you can really stop their attack/defense. Ti Alloys is the perfect example. that tree across the road, you can either climb it (see cutebeaver's videos) or drop out an esf/gal/valk with a bit of practice this is 100% reliable. Once you are in that tree, you can see every hiding place an attacker will use plus their 3 or 4 main sundy placing locations. You are also somewhere they won't look. In this situation in a 96+ fight you can easily use all of your ammo as a sniper (I have full ammo belt so 60 shots) and all of them could easily be kills in about 20 minutes... If you were really trying to farm rather than help, you wouldn't kill the medic... Also if the other team happen to take the base more often than not they will all pull vehicles, people at vehicle terminals are easy kills and it really helps your team by stopping any sundys or tanks getting to the next base before the defense is set up. Smg infiltrator also works very well with similar tips, come from the side or behind and you will drop 3 people easy. If you emp a crowd around a medic you will eat them all. Basically the trick to playing infi is positioning however it takes a long time to learn this and it is very hard for new players to get in the right positions and use them correctly when they get there, you will learn.
Good to sea you're finding your niche. As a parting piece of advice, if you want a CQB stalker loadout, pick up the AMP and silencer. Some people like the idea of the Repeater+silencer gameplay but find the burst-fire somehow off-putting. With the AMP at close range you need just click once holding down, fraction of a second and your target is dead. The SMG is the best option though as you've found out if you can live with the hunter cloak. It also encourages better movement discipline (moving from cover to cover, etc). Ideally stalker cloakers should still move from cover to cover and operate as if they're on borrowed time but it can instil a false sense of safety and more sloppy movement. I like to use stalker cloak but then infil for me is the fun mess-around class rather than serious-business-MLG play.
I find stalker more suitable for defense. Equip adrenaline pump for speed (or ammo belt if you have certed it) and get on the outer perimeter of the fight. There you will find snipers and engineers who think they are safe. Watch for enemy sensors and mines. Use an xbow if you have it. The blackhand is an option too if you don't mind playing cat and mouse. Otherwise, any pistol will due.
As a Stalker, stay away from close Quarters in big fighs (Use Blackhand, Xbow or any other wepaon with good range) Also, I always run the grenade bandolier with EMP, it's ridiculous how powerful they are for group control.
In large engagements you should switch to hunter because you need mobility if you're going in close. Though some people can see cloakers when they're sprinting, you're a harder target. Cloak has saved me so many times because the enemy will unload on me but i'll just run in a small circle in front of them while I reload. And even though they can see me, cloak can throw off people's aim when you're making sudden movements and turns.
Honestly the larger the fight gets the more likely I'll use Stalker Cloak to find their sunderers. Once I have them marked I'll switch out to 1st gen AV MAX and ruin the fight for everyone.
