Stalker Cloak - I don't play it, but I think it's only Fair..

I think the Stalker cloak needs a buff, because I think it's fair.

When players play Inf they can't look around while using Stalker Cloak and I think that is completely unfair and unreasonable to force a Player to sit perfectly still and not move the mouse even an millimetre.

So Stalker Cloakers should be able to look around while "not moving" without the cloak fazing..

I've met so many players who love playing Stalker Cloaker even though it ruins their KDR, and some players who play it because it gives them nostalgia from PlanetSide 1.. but their experience is ruined by constant deaths and inconvenient things that make them visible.

I am not sure that is what stalker needs, but I agree that it needs some changes to make it more viable.

The class itself is fine. The issue is it has really nothing to interact with. Doors, terminals, bridges, ect. Need more of this sort of stuff. Allow Stalkers or Infils in general to affect the flow of battle more.

One buff I wouldn't mind seeing is the motion spotter being hidden from the minimaps of enemies while the infil is within its proximity. Lore reason is the spotter relays the data directly to the infil using low power shortrange comms instead of omni-directionally which leaves a detectable wavelength trace at higher power signatures.

Uhm, cloak does not "faze" while turning around.

And I wouldn't say stalker cloak ruins KD. I played stalker a lot lately, and it didn't "ruin" my KD. Maybe a bit lower than my LA main when using shotguns / SMGs. Ruins SPM - yeah, that true. Spend a lot of time sneaking up on people.

the things you see.. and having enemy walk Right At You. . creepy
but some epic kills when it plays out right

Honestly they just need to make deep cloak full invisibility already, It's pretty stupid that you can run near them and see it if you know what to look for. I mean that's how I find most stalker cloakers these days since I put Adv laser on my pistol.

Oh and fix the head not in deep cloak bug too.

This isn't Dungeons and Dragons. Full invisibility is a state of illusion, aka a mind trick. There's no magic in PS2. Cloak is Active Camouflage.. use it as such.

Here's the Ironic thing. I can sneak into places on my Engineer that most Stalker Infiltrators cannot. Why? Because I use cover. They use cloak thinking its a form of invisibility. Like its some sort of invis spell from Everquest or stealth from World of Warcraft.

But when you treat it like Camouflage, it does wonders.

Not really a veteran infiltrator but i've used it yesterday and you are right, don't think you're invisible. You are pretty well hidden though, unless people run into you wich i think makes the cloak shimmer or so. Also if you run to somewhere and stay there, people will just fire at the area when they move up, since you're more visible when running and they know you're there then.
But i've had people nose-to-nose with me not seeing me.

The Stalker cloak is absolutely fine.

I'm never found when I'm hiding properly (unless someone has a Darklight on which is rare).



There's two things that badly effect the Stalker cloak:

1) the myriad of cloak bugs where your head, gun, silencer can be uncloaked (although it looks cloaked to you) and completely gives you away.
2) ESP users.


Other than that it is just people not knowing how to use it. They could never give Stalker cloak PS1 type invisibility without basically massively nerfing every single weapon useable with it.

As someone who stalker cloaks often

Theyre extremely useful in combat

Throw a spotter down

Wait by a spot where enemies will come through

Let them start shooting at your team and then blast them in the back of the head

You can consistently prevent attacks this way

And if theres a big push youll find yourself standing behind the helpless enemy who arent at all suspecting the emp in your pocket

if we have to buff stalkers, deepcloak should be deeper (nearly full invis) and crouch walking cloak could be current deepcloak

Agreed, the problem is not the Stalker cloaking itself. Rhe problem is Infiltrators have no real reason to sneak behind the enemy lines.

To troll or not to troll. That is the question

But no, you can do some things as stalker, but it requires to stay closer to friendlies. Not running off into an enemy base.
And staying closer to friendlies = death 75% of the time.

I just started stalking practice in a new account, so I'm in Koltyr. I've got to level 3 cloak and when crouched and stationary I find huge numbers of enemy players run right past me or even through me. OK, so there are a lot of new players on Koltyr but even so, the cloak is already pretty good. I have also been shot from long range once or twice while cloaked and stationary and I just assume that is one of the cloak bugs exposing me from time to time - or maybe that thing people can do with their settings? (could be getting that wrong).The other explanation could be that not all people in Koltyr are new.......I got killed by a GD7F and by the NC heavy weapon shotgun this week so some guys have access to expensive weaps and presumably the experience to match.

Without trying it in a full blown battle involving experienced players I have to say that so far the cloak is mostly effective for me. But I'm just creeping around knifing people and hacking stuff as there really isn't much else I have learned to do that will help with the slightly unreal battle scenarios in Koltyr. Apart from picking off loners or converting undefended control points and then skedaddling I have to say that so far I find playing stalker is pretty suicidal, but then I have a lot to learn.

As my new account is free to play it will take me ages to earn enough to max out the cloak, get a silencer and then the AI mines. Being a super sneaky basterd I have been hanging around enemy spawn points and equipment terminals. I cannot wait to place a few mines in the paths that enemies take running from their spawn point towards the battle (the knife does it for the terminal guys as they stand nice and still...........

I've been reading the infil class forum but there is not much about gameplay there. I bet Iridar has one of his excellent guides and maybe there are others too? I'll get looking.

1400 free certs with level up + 150c for basic training (10/20/50/70 i think) will help you deck it out quite fast

It's not trolling I maxed the Stalker the day it came out and I find it very effective to get rid for instance of enemy snipers.

The problem is this class used to be much more interesting and effective in Planetside 1. The role of the Stalker was supposed to sneak behind enemy lines and cause some havok in order to pave the way to the incoming forces. This just doesn't exist in Planetside 2. A Stalker can just hack terminals who can counter hacked in 3 seconds and blink on the minimap. It can turrets but they're bugged since pu04 and the gunner won't render so it is basically a suicide.
It's a very limited role, the best thing you can do is... killing people.

Ah yes, I forgot about that - thnks for the reminder.

Yup, my most frequesnt/common prey too.

The deep cloak might as well be invisibility. 90% of the players who go past me could run into me and not even notice. It happens frequently. 8% realize that CoF carrot array turning red means spam fire instantly. 2% headshot me from distance and/or run straight up to me and blast away.

Now some portion of that 2% may be hax. Or they may play inf. Yesterday, i probably Blackhand sniped 10-15 cloaked INF's, at least half a dozen were stalkers, which does make a huge difference. The main issue, and I think the hardest thing to learn as an INF is to break your other gaming tendencies. If they buffed the cloak I would accept it, but I won't ask for it. Here is why:

1) ASSUME someone is always watching AND listening. So many times I see INFs blow past me in a fairly empty area, and it's just enough for me to follow them. You can easily lose someone in deep cloak, but if you know where they were, any motion and it's gg.

2) Don't be where you're supposed to be. The single biggest helpful thing I have learned is that if they are looking for you, they will find you. So don't be where they are looking. I know that sounds dumb, but what I mean is:

I hide in the middle of the road, not by the wall. I might be near cover, but I am not next to cover. Grenades explode on cover, everyone else uses cover. Who ever shoots up the middle of the plains in esamir looking for that INF? Exactly nobody.

I have people regularly duck and hide almost on top of me. So close that I literally don't have to move to knife them. But I am NEXT TO where they want to hide, not exactly where they want to hide. If my power knife is running already (you'd better preload that thing while the noise is still going on) as a Vanu it's loud but not a chainsaw, and they're typically spinning like oh wtf but by that point I'm uncloaked and staring at them filling their screen. gg.

The best way not to get caught is to avoid places where people travel. And stay out of corners. You're far safer where you don't silhouette clearly. Use the outside of the stairs because 99% of players are shortcutting staircases and jumping on the inside curl. I almost ran into a bouncing betty stacked on top of a tank mine in a tower once. Fortunately, I saw it, top of the stairs, just before I died ignominously. What did I do? I waited right there, on the stairs out of frag range, and waited for the poor blind enemy HA to run past me. As he ran past I decloaked and shot the betty which he was right on top of. Then went to cap point troll.

Just yesterday I was sniping from some **** bushes in Indar in the middle of a giant plateau. Granted, nobody I killed had an 8+ KD, but the hidden muzzle flash and other activity meant not only did I kill the nuggets already hiding in the bushes and then use them myself, but I got to spot maxes from behind and then watch them die.

Interesting thing about that though - as a stalker - USE THE SKY. Look, bad snipers or players use the high point on hills or flat platforms or anywhere and when you can see their silhouette, you KNOW they are coming back out of cloak soon, so you wait. So as a player it's a horrible idea to silhouette yourself against the sky. As a stalker it's your best friend. One of the INFs I killed yesterday almost lost me because he was running NEAR high point. Literally all I could still see were his feet hopping around because a blue sky or a night sky have so little detail that the warping of a cloak is negligible. In fact, I couldn't even be sure if he was crouched or standing UNTIL he went by his trusty old rock to use cover - and I painted that rock with his head.

Remember, bright lights are not your friend. Any flashes, explosions, shield or regen fields, basically anything bright and flashy WILL WARP AND REFRACT through your cloak. Our eyes can't find a stationary guy on a neutral gray background, but if you run past those hallway lights and it causes the tiniest glint flash, expect to be pasted in about a second.

This all kind of reminds me of some show where they talked about ancient ninjas not necessarily blending by being invisible, but they became invisible because they either were places where people did not look, or they hid in plain sight by looking as if they belonged where they were.

As for counter-sniping, I prefer to use my knife, but I will use the blackhand if the distance is prohibitive.

Spawn at an enemy base one hex behind the main battle

Spawn an invisible sunderer

Deploy near the vehicle terminal

Wait for the inevitable convoy flank

I wasn't talking about Nurfing or Buffing the strength of the invisibility.
I was talking about is that looking around with the mouse it makes you more invisible.

I was saying I think they should be allowed to at leased look around when not moving.
I find Stalker cloakers by completely accident when I'm not even activity looking for one, because the player was looking to the left or right and it makes the slightly more visible. Not Quite as visible as moving but not quite completely invisible.