Death Stalkers are a bit unfun

[bati]

Disclaimer - I've killed many of these bastards, most on my crossbow trapper (Hard diff), and that mostly came down to how OP Quick Tinkering is. Well, that and backing into a corner lol.

What's frustrating about them is that even at level ~18, with maxed dodge, Nimble and wearing Tabi boots I can't seem to dodge their initial sting, at all. What's worse, on my other character with 12 PER I don't even begin to spot them (not even the non-targetable shadow outline) before I get attacked. And if I manage to hit them with a flare in time they'll usually win the initiative anyway and still get me. It seems like outside of cheese or speccing in a very specific way (Thick Skull, Uncanny Dodge + magic ball) relying on character skills alone just doesn't cut it, not even a small % of the time.

[Mindless]

What's frustrating about them is that even at level ~18, with maxed dodge, Nimble and wearing Tabi boots I can't seem to dodge their initial sting, at all.

Buff from Stealth Mode "When attacking in melee from stealth, target's dodge rating will be ignored if it hasn't detected you yet".

What's worse, on my other character with 12 PER I don't even begin to spot them (not even the non-targetable shadow outline) before I get attacked.

Detection Googles really helps here.

[bati]

What's frustrating about them is that even at level ~18, with maxed dodge, Nimble and wearing Tabi boots I can't seem to dodge their initial sting, at all.

Buff from Stealth Mode "When attacking in melee from stealth, target's dodge rating will be ignored if it hasn't detected you yet".

What's worse, on my other character with 12 PER I don't even begin to spot them (not even the non-targetable shadow outline) before I get attacked.

Detection Googles really helps here.

Even if I hit them with the flare and remove their stealth I still can't dodge the sting. I think their high level simply weighs the rolls too much in their favor.

As for detection goggles...yeah, sure, but since I already have 12 PER I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that it does something at least. This wouldn't be an issue if high level enemies were exclusive to endgame areas but you can get them as early as camp hathor or when exploring upper caves. So you go one cave fighting pigs and warthogs and then death stalkers in the next. I distinctly remember having to fight 4 in a single cell near one of the abandoned warehouses in the NE part of the upper caves. Without Quick Tinkering I don't think I would've been able to clear that area, at least not without getting ~6 more levels at the time.

[Fenix]

Well, my Agent Orange with 10 Per and 3 Agi and Paranoia able to see them, their non-targetable siluette.
You definitely need to use Cloacking Device first of all.
Second, I don't know exactly how mechanics work, but I noticed long ago, that if you will be close to a stealthed target, he/it will detect you much earlier then if you with same stealth rating against same target will try to detect it from almost the borderof LoS.
So, if you lost detection battle with someone, just stay as farther from them as you can, and you will detect them, but they won't detect you.


Also, I don't know if NV turned on help to detect stealthied targets faster in dark caves, wanted to ask this long ago, like years.

[bati]

Also, I don't know if NV turned on help to detect stealthied targets faster in dark caves, wanted to ask this long ago, like years.

I remember reading somewhere that light levels affect detection but don't quote me on that. I always use NVGs when hunting stealthed targets, didn't notice much difference though.