... is praying. Hard. Please please please, don't kill me. Sorry, I couldn't help to put this joke on the infiltrator forum ^^ But even if it's true, I'm interested to what is your 2nd best method to attempt to survive such situations. Let say that you see someone enter the room you are with a darklight, you are crouched, and deep cloaked, but convinced he won't leave until it finds you... what desesperate move will you take? For my part, if I'm near enough of a door and still have some AP mines, I run will run to the door, uncloak, turn as soon I'm outside and drop mines just at the corner, hoping that I will survive the initial shots, and the flashlight user will follow me too fast... it sometimes work.
Depends on what class he is using (mostly amounts to "HA or not HA?"), how far away he is from me, whether or not he has a couple of friends around, and if he has his darklight on his secondary or on his primary... Lots of fast thinking to do as a stalker. ^^' If he has his secondary out (meaning we are on an even field as far as DPS go, never forget that detail), and I know no one else is around, and he is reasonably close, and not a HA (or I know his shields are depleted, or he is facing away from me), I just take the initiative, uncloak and either shoot him (any weapon except crossbow) or charge him screaming to crossbow-knife him (crossbow, my usual load-out). I'm reasonably good in CQC, and most people won't expect the stalker they are hunting to take the offensive, so it tends to work quite well. If there are multiple enemies, or the person hunting me has his darklight on a primary (HA with a darklight on his jackhammer... ), or more generally if I know I'm done for the moment I uncloak, I just try to run away (with the cloak, it's not that difficult unless your pursuers are straight on top of you or the hex is overpopulated), maybe stop a second or two to set up a trap (prep two mines > put down a motion spotter right there or fire a few rounds in the air with unsilenced weapon > go back to running like hell), and either resume hunting far away from the threat or, if they are very persistent, just redeploy. Lastly, if I know there is neither hope of escaping nor of surviving the fight, well... Mad knife suicide bomber time. Take as many with you as possible. At the end of the day, I suppose it's really just a matter of fight or flight. So, yeah: anything BUT staying still and praying. Also, here, have another cute animal (we seem to love them on this sub), reacting more or less how I do when I turn a corner to end up face to face with an AI MAX and I know, oh yes I know, he has seen me. http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2013/31/1375112114-iugvckwjisske.gif
Darklight in a room is by far the worst scenario of all for me as a Stalker. Yes, it's like turning a corner to land straight nose to nose with a scatter-MAX. In other cases, statying still and praying have comparable chances to succeed than fightning back or fleeing. Not high chances, but not worst than the two other methods. But inside a room with a flashlight....... that's adifferent matter. I feel a lot in common with your cute animal when it happens to me: Heh, will this thread turn into a contest of the best image of how we feel when we see someone with a darklight approach? XD
Don't stand somewhere obvious; corners, on top of the point, ect. Also always be ready to fight, because if I have a chain gun i'm going to do a full 360 till I find you, or you sneak away.
The trick here is staying in control of the situation. If hes alone, good hes going to die because the moment he pulls that flashlight out he just said: "come get me" - as far as I am concerned the darklight its the opposite of self defense. I know where I am, he does not, but I can see where he has "searched" and where he feels confident I am not. This allows me to create a false negative and abuse his assumptions if want to get closer to him. Your course of action can be different depending on the room, cover, and exits. Most DL users sweep the room in a clockwise or counter clockwise pattern. The DL gives them a false sense of security. Ultimately do have an escape route in mind, and keep tabs on his search attempts. Be aggressive if the opportunity presents itself. Sometimes running from the situation just gets you noticed by other people. Honestly Id rather take down the darklight user. If the player is a HA with a primary I would normally try to crossbow - quick knife them from behind. Using the false negative method to get in striking range. (However quick knife is still bugged.) Plan B is to find cover (just in case you miss your shot) - uncloak EMP - wait for the explosion (sometimes I get trigger happy and fire too soon)- crossbow body shot. I used to enjoy bolt + knife over this method since the Heavy can still shield sometimes. With the changes coming to EMP this will be an easier solution with less chance of failure. This is also the best method to deal with multiple targets if people are clumped up. Provided you have a cover object its viable to take down 2 targets before they have enough time to react in a meaningful way. Anything beyond 2 seconds during an ambush becomes risky. A third target or shot, is where risk truly begins to build based on the crossbows firing rate and human reaction time. If there are multiple people involved 2-3 sometimes you can still make it work but it really depends on the room / situation. Medics are easy to manipulate. So if I get a chance to take out a an enemy on one side of a large room behind cover... yet I still feel threatened I will lace his corpse with proxy mine, back up and wait for the medic. Most wear flak, so I expect to have to body shot him. Sometimes he will come over and res too far away from the mine, in which case I still win because he has a medic tool out. If the res is completed my mine kills the HA once he takes the revive. If I have no mines, or I don't feel threatened by the medic I will camp the corpse and stand close enough with a knife. Again quick knife is broken right now, so hold it in your hands. Do not expect bolt + quick knife to work until the bug is resolved. Example my Slasher has: 68% quick-knife accuracy, and my Icikill has 22% quick-knife accuracy because of the bugs. That is allot of failed ambushes. So just don't try a pre-meditated bolt / quick knife combo this until its fixed. Reflex? Sure its better to try and miss then nothing, but when you have the power of planning don't bet on something unstable. Also keep in mind enemies can hear you pull out the knife (even if you don't activate it) so pull it out sooner rather then later when your hiding near the body. There is no harm in running away and resetting the engagement when someone catches on. If your looking at more then 3 targets under bad circumstances the most you can do is kill one and bail. The easiest, and safest thing to do is just bail while you have not been detected. When someone pulls a darklight - Beaver gets angry.
