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Edited by Kana, Rogue Kobold: 9/25/2015 5:08:57 AM
15

A complete review of Nightstalker (and all Nightstalker-viable exotics)

I agree with this Analysis

64

I disagree with this Analysis

16

The OP has far too much time on their hands

65

Author's Note: Due to the character limit, I will be replying to my own post a few times to get the whole review up. On paper, it's just shy of 30,000 Characters, so bear with me and read to the end. Please leave your comments as replies. Edit: Wow. This post is getting a lot of attention on the sudden. Thank you for bumping this thread and leaving your feedback. I really do appreciate it! Going into TTK, It was pretty much a no-brainer that my Hunter was going to become my most active character for the first time since I first hit the level cap in vanilla. I had fallen out of love with my hunter, not so much because I was inexperienced with the nature of hunter classes despite the fact I had been a hunter since launch, but more from the fact that the hunter’s innate abilities demanded more skill than I had yet acquired. Once I saw TTK trailers that previewed the new Nightstalker class, I brushed the dust off my hunter and actively set out to acquire the skills I didn’t yet have in preparation. Gunslingers enjoy the thrill of danger, putting down tough enemies with precision hits with their knives and Golden Gun. Bladedancers deceive their enemies to lower their guard and then ambush them, laying waste to their foes and immediately removing themselves from the danger. Both of these subclasses have an underlying core mechanic to them that helps them to be unique. Nightstalker borrows from these ideas and moves in a completely different direction: Full on support of their allies. They inherited a mixture of the Gunslinger’s precision and the Bladedancer’s deception and somehow made it entirely their own thing. Let’s examine what this class offers and figure out how well it holds up in the current meta. -Grenades- The Nightstalker borrows Spike Grenades from Defenders and Vortex Grenades from Warlocks. Both of these are useful in their own ways, what with Spike Grenades being able to lockout hallways by placing grenades on walls and Vortex Grenades forcing enemies out of open spaces with their large area of effect. They also bring their own grenade, the Voidwall Grenade, into the mix. Out of these options, I have to say the Voidwall grenade is my least favorite. Being able to deploy a long wall of void fire is awesome and one of the few grenades that can accurately flush enemies from around corners or out of cover. However, this wall is always generated to the left and right of where-ever you put it, making how and where you place it far more important than anything else. It does stop advancing enemies (Sword Vandals, Captains, Thralls) more effectively than a Vortex or Spike Grenade, but it is far less effective in the general scheme of things due to an incredible reliance on the exact orientation of the grenade when it detonates. Add to this the fact that enemy AI always forces enemies to move in the shortest path to get out of the effect and you have a grenade that doesn't get to deal much damage due to the narrow design of the wall. Those people familiar with the Vortex Grenade from Warlock will find that this is probably the best grenade in Nightstalker’s arsenal. It affects a good sized area and does reliable damage, can still lock out advancing enemies with careful placement, and can damage pesky enemies in cover or around corners. The voidwall grenade does the latter two things more effectively, but the Vortex Grenade is simply better in the all-around category because you can always get it roughly where you want and achieve the same end effect. If you’re someone who like excellent damage potential, the Spike Grenade has the voidwall and vortex grenade beat in spades. This comes as a rather hefty cost as it affects a much smaller area and has limited reach. It can still lock out enemies advancing enemies in tight spaces, but is generally better used on those slow-moving, larger targets since they are the most likely to stand in the affected area for the full duration. Unlike the voidwall and vortex grenades, the Spike grenade is a rather terrible option for flushing out enemies in cover due to its small effective area and is better suited for enclosed environments where wall placement is available. Verdict: 7/10. The end result of these options is a clear emphasis on exploiting the enemy’s biggest defense: Cover. All three of these grenades can force enemies from cover and most do it really effectively. They all deal respectable damage and have long durations to go with them. The nightstalker can bolster their grenades by doubling the duration with Lockdown, making their area control second to none. These all work well in the design of Nightstalker as a Support Class as controlling a zone and forcing enemies from cover make enemies easy targets for fireteam members.The three grenades create a very diverse feel, giving each one a situation in which it will be stronger than the others. Of the hunter subclasses, the Nightstalker Grenades appear to have been given careful thought and consideration since they all work within the class design. However, Spike Grenade remains the red-headed step child due to its reliance on tight quarters to really shine. -Melee- The traditional formula of the melee attack being this close range attack has been abandoned in favor of a more interesting idea: A smoke bomb. Why is this interesting? It’s a fricken smoke bomb. It is a mid-ranged, multi-function ability that occupies the Melee Skill Slot. It blinds enemies, leaving them helpless and staggering (in PvE) or just shooting blindly while they retreat (PvP), has a respectable duration and deals damage over time, even if only a little bit. The initial explosion of the bomb even deals damage to enemies, which is a nice touch. This doesn’t really have an effect on Ultras, so don’t count on it to save you against them. Options for these smoke bombs are Envenomed, Snare, or Vanish in Smoke. Each has a clever use that helps to really vary how this skill functions. Unlike the melee attacks for Gunslinger and Bladedancer, the options for smoke completely alter how it works and all of them for the better. Envenomed adds a poison element to the smoke bomb, which heavily ramps up the damage output to levels that rival a proper grenade. Each second that an enemy remains in the smoke, they will take damage equal to the initial damage caused by the smoke bomb. This is probably one of the most potent abilities in the Nightstalker’s arsenal, especially since the enemies in PvE will just helplessly wobble around in the smoke as the poison eats away at their health. In PvP, this perk is less useful since players will actively retreat out of smoke if they are affected, or they are more likely already gunned down by the nightstalker or a nearby ally. Vanish in Smoke is easily my favorite perk to use with Smoke. Any allies caught in the smoke turn invisible for about 4 to 5 seconds, which is pretty handy at getting out of sticky spots or trying to avoid attention so you/an ally can revive someone. There are some pretty heavy limitations that go along with this, like how the effective range of the smoke cloud is reduced, the effect no longer blinding enemies, and how it no longer lingers like it normally would. It may also be my perception of this particular effect, but it seems that the radius of the smoke cloud is also about 30% smaller than with any other perk. I take comfort in knowing I have an on-demand stealth skill that I can use to drop attention to myself when I need to, so it definitely a strong support perk. It does take away from the field support aspect of this skill, so it is something to keep in mind. The last perk in the tree is called Snare. Honestly, this is really the least useful of the perks for Smoke. It lets you place your smoke bomb on walls and floors where it effectively becomes a proximity mine, triggering when an enemy gets close enough. You can think of this as a sort of modified Tripmine Grenade from the Gunslinger tree but far less potent. While this perk has some PvP potential, it is less a support skill and more a personal one. Like tripmine, people can see them and detonate them with a well-placed shot, but unlike trip mine, they have little to no lethality other than being a bit annoying and taking minor damage if someone happens to wander into them. It has its place in PvP, but Envenomed is a far stronger perk for both PvP and PvE. If you are a fan of tripmine, you will like this skill but be prepared to supplement it somehow. Verdict: 9/10. Part of me feels that this high ranking is somewhat undeserved and granted only because of the range and scope of smoke. In reality, it is easily the best ‘melee’ skill in the game since it has reach well beyond the melee skills of all the subclasses in the game, in addition to being an Area of Effect. It has very potent damage, the ability to briefly disorient enemies, and a nightstalker has the ability to completely forgo combat use with this skill in favor of turning the entire fireteam invisible. There are two reasons why I can’t give this a verdict of 10/10. The first being Snare, which has its uses in PvP but is generally far too weak by comparison to Vanish in Smoke and Envenomed in every way. The second reason is that Smoke is actually too flexible. To move from a potent ranged attack to a mildly potent stealth skill is a drastic shift in function and it comes with its own set of downsides, like a smaller affected area, the loss of enemy disorientation, and a rather limited duration. Given this, it wouldn’t be fair for me to give this skill a 10/10.

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  • -Exotics- Before going into this section, I just want to say that I am rather disappointed at the exotics that exist for Nightstalkers to use. In Year 2, Hunters saw certain old exotics fall from grace (Don’t Touch Me), New Exotics that become new must haves (ATS/8 Tarantella), and a whole roster of relatively blah gear. Let’s go over the ones NIghtstalkers might find favorable. Skyburners Annex is an Exotic Helm that I wanted to hate. It is not a helm with any particular subclass in mind, but is synergizes oddly well with Nightstalker’s Light of the Pack Perk. The core abilities on this are Versatile Shooter (Heavy Weapon kills have a chance to generate Orbs of Light. Orbs collected while your super is full have a chance to grant special ammo) and Heavy Lifting (Gain bonus super energy from heavy weapon kills on minions of the darkness). Versatile Shooter has an excellent activation rate, sitting at roughly 50% from my own testing. This works oddly well with Heavy Lifting because you can use your heavy weapon to kill enemies, generate orbs from your allies, and recharge you super quicker. I said that Nightstalker’s Light of the Pack perk synergized with this helm very well and that remains true. The orbs generated by this helm do not count against the orbs generated with Light of the Pack, so you can generate 2 orbs from the same enemy. It will record in the log as two separate 1 orb drops. This exotic lends itself more to a Rocket Launcher than a Machine Gun, especially with Light of the Pack since you want to down as many enemies as possible as quickly as possible. Based on the size of the pack, you can get back as much as 30% of your super with a single rocket. This is definitely a raid-worthy exotic. Graviton Forfeit is an exotic helm for Nightstalker that is pretty unremarkable given the flaws that Shadestep has. Like Skyburners Annex, this also comes with Heavy Lifting, but the main perk of this is called Elusive Shadow, which gives you Shadestep for free. I honestly cannot recommend this helm to anyone outside of a solo or PvP Nightstalker since Shadestep is really unremarkable. It does allow you to have a ‘defensive’ skill and Keen Scout at the same time, so it isn’t like its terrible, but it isn’t really worth using your exotic armor slot for this. Sealed Ahamkara Grasps is another non-class specific exotic with some extreme power behind it. Its core perks are Nightmare Fuel (Grants an additional melee charge. Melee Damage has a chance to automatically reload your primary damage) and Switchblade (Decreases Melee Attack Cooldown). These two perks work excellent together. Gunslingers don’t really need this, especially since they already have Gambler’s Dagger, but it does free up that trait for something else like Chain of Woe. Bladedancers would probably enjoy this one a lot for the extra blink strike, but its bonuses don’t make it worth using over Khepri’s Sting or Mask of the Third Man. Like Skyburners Annex, this helm is really geared more toward Nightstalker, who can easily turn Smoke into its own build using this exotic. Depending on your style of play, this might be a Raidworthy exotic. Fr0st-EE5 are a pair of non-class specific exotic boots. They come with the perk Rapid Cooldown, which gives you a tighter turning radius while sprinting and also reduces your melee and grenade cooldown while you sprint. On paper, these sound pretty terrible. I only know one other player who has them, and according to him, your cooldown rate is doubled while you sprint. That is pretty neat, but the use of this exotic is extremely limited. During heavy firefights, you will probably either be hiding behind cover, jumping around to avoid splash damage, or running for cover. That leaves these boots really only helping out between skirmishes or that brief two-to-three second period where you are running for cover. That’s kind of sad. I would honestly consider these to be non-raid worthy, and not worth your exotic slot…. until you consider PvP. For most of us, PvP is all about spawning in, Running to a control point/choke point/hiding point/main skirmish, fighting and/or dying, respawning and doing it all again. Since your skirmishes are only lasting maybe 10-15 seconds and you are running around 70% of the time, these boots might actually be really good. It means you can go into every skirmish with a grenade and a melee available most of the time, something that can’t happen otherwise. In the case of PvP, these might actually be better than Sealed Ahamkara Grasps. Moving into the year 1 Exotics that were brought forward, we have quite a few exotics that Nightstalkers might want to use for one reason or another. On this list, we have Knucklehead Radar, Crest of Alpha Lupi, Don’t Touch Me, Bones of Eao, and Radiant Dance Machines. While all of these pieces have unique effects that are helpful, most of these are simply not worth using. Knucklehead Radar: Keeping your radar active when you aim with your primary weapon is decent, but the best thing about this helm is Inverse Shadow, a perk discernibly missing from Year 2 gear. Unless you need the radar or absolutely demand Inverse Shadow, there is no reason to use it. Crest of Alpha Lupi: This will allow you to revive others and be revived yourself in 2 seconds instead of 4. That’s a pretty decent effect. However, it also allows you to generate an extra orb with your super. With newer exotics being able to generate more orbs more often, this effect takes a back seat to something like the Skyburners Annex in PvE. It’s still good for ToS, but otherwise not worth it. Don’t Touch Me: Prior to the launch of TTK, I would have argued that this would be the best exotic for Nightstalker. Gaining stealth when hit when a melee skill is a neat, if weak effect. It’ll get you out of trouble. The real reason I would have argued this to be the most powerful Exotic is that the year 1 version of these gauntlets had Inverse Shadow on them. That freed up a perk on your helmet so you could effectively double-dip for super generation. Sadly, the Year 2 Version of this exotic does not have Inverse Shadow. It does have Switchblade, so this exotic is not a complete waste, but it takes a back seat to the Sealed Ahamkara Grasps which also has Switchblade and gives you a 2nd Melee Charge. Again, this exotic is not worth it. Radiant Dance Machines: Back in year 1, these were a love-it-or-hate-it Exotic. In Year 2, I don’t think it is possible for anyone to defend it anymore. Since Bungie put out Dunemarchers for Titans, which are effectively Radiant Dance Machines on Steroids, this effect finally looks as lackluster as it feels. Yes, you can maintain walking speed while scoped, but that just isn’t enough to merit your exotic slot. There is nothing remarkable about these boots, and you shouldn’t waste your exotic slot on them. Bones of Eao: Of all the Year 1 Exotics coming forward, Bones of Eao might be the only one worth having on hand. It remains unchanged from year 1, even though it gained an elemental Double-Down perk. It is still nice to have a spare jump if you need it, but for the most part, this is a forgettable exotic. As a nightstalker, you don’t stand to gain anything from it outside that 1 extra jump which has limited situations where it will come in handy.

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