Shadow Stalker

"I am your reckoning!"

- Stalker

The Shadow Stalker is an ominous, vengeful figure that infrequently appears during missions, armed with powerful weapons and abilities to hunt down the Tenno. He appears during and after The Second Dream quest. Visually, Shadow Stalker takes the form of Excalibur Umbra with his own original helmet, donned with the Sentient-imbued Pakal Stalker Armor.

As seen in the aforementioned quest, the Shadow Stalker was bestowed with Sentient powers and equipment by Hunhow, allowing him to adapt to damage continuously as well as releasing new forms of power. While this appears to have cost him some of his previous abilities such as Absorb and Shuriken, he retains use of his signature move Dispel.

He can only be fought if the Tenno has confronted him on The Second Dream, if the Tenno in question has not, they will be confronted with the pre-Second Dream Stalker instead.

Spawning & Combat
During The Second Dream, Shadow Stalker will spawn automatically during the mission "Protect the Moon". Afterwards, Shadow Stalker will attack in the same manner as his traditional variant whenever the player's Death Mark activates in a mission.

Shadow Stalker's spawning behavior is identical to his traditional counterpart. Shadow Stalker can spawn in almost any player-accessible mission with enemies in it, except for Syndicate missions, Assassination missions, Archwing space missions, and Trials. At least one squad member must be marked for death by Stalker before he will have a chance of spawning.

Stalker and Shadow Stalker are considered the same entity for the purposes of Death Marks; the Mark itself reads "Stalker" in a player's profile regardless of whether the player has completed The Second Dream or not. The following formula is used to calculate if a version of Stalker will spawn: ""Shadow Stalker's arrival is heralded by the same flickering darkness and threatening HUD messages as his normal variant; the only difference is that the HUD message window will show Stalker wearing his Pakal armor. After three taunts, the tileset will enter lockdown (where possible), and Stalker will appear in a puff of black smoke before proceeding to attack the targeted player.

If the targeted Tenno is killed, the Stalker (Shadow or otherwise) will kneel and vanish into another cloud of smoke, proclaiming his victory and that justice was served. He may target many Tenno during single assault, trying to kill them one by one. Victory is claimed once all targets have entered bleedout at least one time. If his health drops below 10% before he manages to kill his target(s), he will kneel and flee, announcing his shock at his failure, teleporting away in another cloud of smoke.

If he is defeated (regardless of whether he fled or was killed), he always drops one Mod from his mod drop table, and has a chance to drop further loot, such as a blueprint for one of his weapons.

Damage Adaptation
Imbued with Sentient powers, Shadow Stalker has the ability to adapt to damage from attacks: his health is gated such that upon its hit points falling below a fixed percentage, it will grant 95% resistance to the damage type it has received the most. The Stalker will adapt to damage once per health gate, with the percentage listed below:


 * First gate: 25% Health lost
 * Second gate: 45% Health lost
 * Third gate: 65% Health lost
 * Fourth gate: 80% Health lost

Damage to his Proto Shield is not considered. However, should his shields start to regenerate, those shields will have the same resistances as his health.

Subsequent adaptation will be done in descending order of damage proportion for each health gate. Consequently, Shadow Stalker can only adapt against a maximum of four damage types, and he will still receive full damage from any damage that exceeds their health gate before adapting.

General
Instead of his classic weapons, Shadow Stalker wields War, which deals more damage than his old Hate, and is capable of staggering players on hit. He also has two grenade attacks which he uses after performing a meditative stance within a glowing aura; his first grenade is an explosive grenade lobbed to the ground, dealing explosive radial damage to players caught within its range, while the second attack is a floating sphere of light that emits laser beams similar to those of a Battalyst while moving towards the player. Shadow Stalker also retains his classic Slash Dash, and he can cast sword beams similar to those from Exalted Blade, which can push back players if they hit.

Though he loses most of his ability, he still possesses his own unique ability, Dispel.

Strategy

 * If marked, it is recommended to go into missions with at least two weapons with different elemental damage types in case of a surprise appearance, in order to counter Shadow Stalker's damage adaptation defense.
 * Unlike his old incarnation, Shadow Stalker's War is one of the most powerful melee weapons ingame, and is capable of dealing massive damage to players in melee. Coupled with its ability to stagger upon hits, and engaging Shadow Stalker in melee can be difficult at best. If engaging in melee is required in case Shadow Stalker has adapted to the player's ranged attacks, using slide attacks and running slashes is recommended to limit the amount of time that Shadow Stalker can engage in melee.
 * All three of Shadow Stalker's ranged attacks are rather slow and telegraphed. It is thus most advantageous to engage Shadow Stalker at range, while taking cover or evading once he begins to prepare his ranged attacks.
 * Activating a laser trap on Orokin Void Defense missions at the right moment can instantly kill the Shadow Stalker.
 * A Phoenix Gaze beam will harm Shadow Stalker drastically and bypass his damage adaptation.
 * A Valkyr using Hysteria can be used against Shadow Stalker to nullify damage and do massive damage to Shadow Stalker.

Bugs

 * When attacking a cell with multiple players, Shadow Stalker may not retreat in victory after downing his target.
 * After dropping to 10% health or below, Shadow Stalker may not kneel. In this state he will continue to attack his target, though he will still announce his failure. He will disappear as normal once his failure message is finished.
 * Occasionally when he is reduced to 10% health or below, instead of kneeling, he will throw a smoke bomb at his feet and disappear -- Generally when he suffers majority of the damage from source other than the marked player.