Crawlers / Death Stalkers

[ciox]

Furthermore this is completely moronic considering until that time YOU DO NOT SEE THE FUCKING BASE VERSION unlike any other critter. I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to have Derp Stalkers down in the Protectorate Warehouse cellar

This has also struck me as a little bit excessive.

[Qiox]

Dunno.
I did recently Protectorate Warehouse mission - 3-4 DS, 3 Con, no problem.
I even didn't use Uncanny Dodge in some cases.
You just need to intuitively wait-move to bump into DS after he bite you.
Then tazer, incapacitate or stun.
At least for melee.

Ok I did not see this last year and just recently played through the Protectorate Warehouse mission again on a stealth PSI/Sniper level 11 so I feel I can address this even a year later on the newest beta build. My Sniper had 7 agi, 10 per, maxed stealth with ninja tabi boots and stealth overcoat plus Paranoia plus 60% +/- plus cave hopper steak plus stealth generator. I did not even have 1! second before a Derp Stalker initiated combat regardless which vent I went through. I cannot initiate combat since it is on a CD when you move through the vent. There is not even time to place a single trap or throw a single flare. There was absolutely nothing I could do besides having 70 Persuasion and go through the front door.
Having now a dozen of mostly unfinished playthroughs on Autistic difficulty, I more than ever think that Derp Stalkers are shitty grossly inflated enemies, worse than any of the other newly introduced ones, and for some idiotic reason Derp Stalkers got the most powerful gamebreaking debuff, denying you the ability to recover in any fashion from their initial attack, while dishing out high damage. Even if you break the following stun with stuff like LoC you still have to wait 10 turns until the debuff is gone, during that time you can basically heal yourself only via regenerative vest. However at higher levels, 18+ they become manageable even for low con stealth characters though still very dangerous and painful to deal with. In fact so much that I try my best to avoid them completely on all of my characters, because they are simply no fun to deal with, period. At least the other new enemy types have some weakness I can deal with. Derp Stalkers? Not so much.
It is possible to completely avoid them until high level but requires quite a bit of meta knowledge. Now the problem is that for some retarded reason Styg thought he should throw Derp Stalkers as early as level 10 at characters, one when you go to seek out the Rathound King and four down the aforementioned Protectorate Warehouse. One already is enough to give you a world of hurt, and that is putting it mildly. Four on the other hand at that level is, for most builds, essentially suicide.
Furthermore this is completely moronic considering until that time YOU DO NOT SEE THE FUCKING BASE VERSION unlike any other critter. I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to have Derp Stalkers down in the Protectorate Warehouse cellar except to spite players. For a normal natural playthrough having 4 of them down there is basically playing Russian roulette unless you made your build specifically to counter them.

I did these two areas a couple days ago on a crossbow build that had not yet invested much in stealth.  I stopped putting points in at 40 for Ambush.

For the warehouse basement I enter stealth before dropping out of the vent.  This way you are already still in stealth in the room and it takes a bit for the death stalkers to spot you.   Run immediately straight down and through the double doors, and close them behind you.  This almost always works allowing me to completely avoid them on the way in.  If not I reload and try again.

On the way out, they always agro on me because they are near the double door.  I throw an incendiary at my feet to get them to back off and run to the bottom right room.  I already opened that vent on the way in.   To get out, while in combat I flashbang the DS, restealth then exit via the vent on my next turn.

Worse case scenario, going in and out takes 2 or 3 reloads.     Last character before this run, I instead just dropped down from the North room again, and quick tinkered a bear trap in front of me and then set another before the DS showed up.  It was an AR build and he dropped an incendiary at his feet and was able to burst them down and keep them either burning or stuck in a bear trap.

[TheAverageGortsby]

I did not even have 1! second before a Derp Stalker initiated combat regardless which vent I went through. I cannot initiate combat since it is on a CD when you move through the vent. There is not even time to place a single trap or throw a single flare. There was absolutely nothing I could do besides having 70 Persuasion and go through the front door.

Did you try going into turn-based mode before you went through the vent?  It only takes 25AP.  If you pop Adrenaline on the other side, that's enough AP to throw three grenades - incendiary, whatever, and flashbang, for example.  The first two will establish a safe area around you, revealing any hidden creatures, and the flashbang will give you the upper hand on the following turn.

Since your stealth isn't high enough to matter, did you swap out armor and wear a Regenerative Vest? Regen Vests tick their healing without triggering Hyperallergenic.

Do you have Quick Tinkering?  Lay down a bear trap.  Death Stalkers are melee so all you have to do is be one tiny fraction of a tile out of their reach and you're safe.

You're playing psi, huh?  Did you try going through the gate and simply setting up a Force Field?  The Death Stalkers will see you through it and come stand right next to it.  Since you initiated turn-based before you went through the vent (you did that, right?) you'll have initiative when the force field drops, four turns later.  And you'll have had 4 turns to see them, so you'll be able to target them right away.

Did you use Enrage?  Death Stalkers don't have an impressively high resolve, so theyre very susceptible.  While they're killing each other, you kill them, too.

Did you try putting up mirror images before you started combat?  The Death Stalkers don't have machine sight so they'll hit those images and miss you.

Did you use Irongut before combat, so that you could take antidotes in case you needed to drop a few stacks of poison, and still take only a tiny bit of damage from Hyperallergenic?

Sounds like you're just unwilling to do the things that would give you the upper hand.  You complain a lot about the Death Stalkers, but they're really very easy.  Maybe you should play better.

[Sykar]

I did not even have 1! second before a Derp Stalker initiated combat regardless which vent I went through. I cannot initiate combat since it is on a CD when you move through the vent. There is not even time to place a single trap or throw a single flare. There was absolutely nothing I could do besides having 70 Persuasion and go through the front door.

Did you try going into turn-based mode before you went through the vent?  It only takes 25AP.  If you pop Adrenaline on the other side, that's enough AP to throw three grenades - incendiary, whatever, and flashbang, for example.  The first two will establish a safe area around you, revealing any hidden creatures, and the flashbang will give you the upper hand on the following turn.

Since your stealth isn't high enough to matter, did you swap out armor and wear a Regenerative Vest? Regen Vests tick their healing without triggering Hyperallergenic.

Do you have Quick Tinkering?  Lay down a bear trap.  Death Stalkers are melee so all you have to do is be one tiny fraction of a tile out of their reach and you're safe.

You're playing psi, huh?  Did you try going through the gate and simply setting up a Force Field?  The Death Stalkers will see you through it and come stand right next to it.  Since you initiated turn-based before you went through the vent (you did that, right?) you'll have initiative when the force field drops, four turns later.  And you'll have had 4 turns to see them, so you'll be able to target them right away.

Did you use Enrage?  Death Stalkers don't have an impressively high resolve, so theyre very susceptible.  While they're killing each other, you kill them, too.

Did you try putting up mirror images before you started combat?  The Death Stalkers don't have machine sight so they'll hit those images and miss you.

Did you use Irongut before combat, so that you could take antidotes in case you needed to drop a few stacks of poison, and still take only a tiny bit of damage from Hyperallergenic?

Sounds like you're just unwilling to do the things that would give you the upper hand.  You complain a lot about the Death Stalkers, but they're really very easy.  Maybe you should play better.

In essence, cheese the shit out of the game, scrub, is what you are trying to tell me. /yawn

[harperfan7]

daily reminder sykar is a buttmad troll nigger, never give him attention

[Sykar]

daily reminder sykar is a buttmad troll nigger, never give him attention

And yet you did, retard, and as usual without having an argument, like all the other dipshits.

[ChaunceyK]

Well, fwiw, my experience so far feels like these buggers are overpowered.

I've found them in areas where they seem to be just vastly more dangerous than other critters and humans. So far, I've avoided them altogether because I haven't really "needed" anything from their screens and I've had alternate paths I could take to get past them. And now that I've gained a good amount of levels, I'm going back to explore their areas just to make sure there's nothing of use. Even then, I'm not always able to spot them so I can attack them, so I just run away and hope I survive long enough to finish exploring.

[newageofpower]

Well, fwiw, my experience so far feels like these buggers are overpowered.

I've found them in areas where they seem to be just vastly more dangerous than other critters and humans. So far, I've avoided them altogether because I haven't really "needed" anything from their screens and I've had alternate paths I could take to get past them. And now that I've gained a good amount of levels, I'm going back to explore their areas just to make sure there's nothing of use. Even then, I'm not always able to spot them so I can attack them, so I just run away and hope I survive long enough to finish exploring.

Crawlers are quite weak *if* you can gain vision on them; they're only strong if players do not actively 'defend' against them.

Most of the opponents in the game are can be mitigated via passive defense, which Stalkers can't be. Probably why Stalkers draw so much hate.

[Toxxus]

I'm playing on Normal.  I had two delete my first two characters at around level 10 because I generalized too much and the game difficulty spikes up really hard around there.

I read several build and gear recommendations on the wiki to make a more solid 3rd character.  I'm playing a crossbow expert and I have to say that at level 12 trying to find the Rathound King I've encountered my first Deathstalker.  I've tried my usual bag of tricks on organics (setting it on fire, knee capping it, etc.) and this thing feels like it was meant for level 20s.

It regenerates at a good clip so you cannot retreat and come finish it off later.  It never misses and it prevents you from using medicine.  It hits STUPID hard.  After dying about 20x I logged off the game.

There were other instant-deaths I've encountered along the way, but they were avoidable.  This thing is between me and the mission I'm supposed to be on.  I recall on my way to the junkyard veering one map off course and being instantly killed by a single shot.  Initiative started, I lost, bad guy shot me 1x - instantly dead - on normal.  I just left that area for later - no big deal.

This Death Stalker, however, is orders of magnitude more difficult than anything I've encountered.  Flares don't seem to reveal it.  Fire works - OK, but he runs off so fast I can't kill it and I only have about a 30% chance to hit him despite max perception and crossbow skill and a scoped crossbow with a super string.

I can see many players moving on to another game from this one encounter.  I'll try the ideas mentioned earlier, but this thing is flat out stupid.  I've adapted to the earlier challenges, studied up a bit (generally not indicative of good game design) and read the wiki to get past previous problem areas.  This one is a show stopper.

[destroyor]

I was thinking about sitting on this info because I don't want Styg to nerf it but ...

Styg did implemented a hard counter to Death Stalker since the introduction to expedition. Lot of players apparently did not fully explore all available options (there's a recent post on how boots are currently useless - absolutely not! Which is proven below.)

Infused Sea Wyrm Scales/Leper Serpent Skin leather armor + Infused Sea Wyrm Scales//Leper Serpent Skin boots. Using these very heavy armor set, at some point you'll become immune to knife attack, at top quality you'll be immune to melee attack. This have some interesting implications which will completely changed a lot of meta once you achieve that point (which I did on my current spear run). I did some testings against Death Stalker wearing this 100% melee immune armor set and it's possible to learn their behavior. However I can confidently say it's not possible to use this behavior knowledge to 100% counter Death Stalker or even effectively counter Death Stalker using this knowledge alone for some char.
It's much easier with Skinner but possible if you tediously farm Sea Wyrm/Leper for high quality drop (don't forget to exterminate Native too for their leather loot).

Again I like to remind everyone the light from marsh honey can reveal stealth enemies.

And Styg, if you are reading this, please please please for the love of god don't nerf them. These armor set is far from OP as they are:
very high in armor penalty - with all its associated con
still weak against sniper, xbow and psi even with top quality kelvar coat + top q shield
very hard to obtain without Skinner and/or tedious farming, oh man super steel farming alone on my current run was tedious as hell. Sea Wyrm rusting debuff is so god damn annoying and financially costly on dominating.