Stalker Strategy
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Hidden: This, and the extra Defense and Stealth it provides, is suppressed when you attack (including Placate, but not including a missed Assassin's Strike), or when you are *damaged* by an enemy. A lucky (or Lucky) Stalker can perform their Assassination strike while the victim is shooting at them.
For most of your attacks, if you hit while hidden, you'll score a Critical Hit for double damage. You might start with the slower, higher-damage attack to take advantage of this. Your Assassination power, when attacking from Hidden, will do even more bonus damage. No matter what power pool you were thinking of at Threat Level 6, take your Assassination power; it'll make 8 come much quicker. =)
Combine Build Up (Focus Chi, ...) with your Assassination power to take out non-resistant yellow Lieutenants in one shot.
Against a small group of tougher enemies in a mission, you can take one out, run away, wait for them to lose interest (target one of the survivors and wait for the box elbows to run the other way), then come back and take out another. Repeat until you feel comfortable scrapping with who's left.
Placate is useful and good fun, if slightly random. If it works, it lets you get an Assassination critical against a lone enemy that was attacking you, without having to run away and wait for Hidden to come back.
Placate cannot miss (Smoke Flash being an exception). It also modifies the behaviour of the victim enemy, causing them to give up on attacking you. However, if you take damage from another source, they will go right back to attacking you. They may also have another attack queued up, which may also knock you back into scrapping.
Against a pair, Assassin's Strike one, then Placate, Build Up and hit the other one for an extra-strong critical. Against three, Assasin's Strike the first one, Build Up and scrap with the second, then Placate and AS the third. (Against four or more, consider using the "run away!" technique given above.) Placate's also useful for not having to cross fifty yards of mission to stop that last minion from following you before your next Assassin Strike.
In many missions, you'll find a group of enemies run up to somewhere you were, intent on stopping you; they may run right past you then do nothing, thanks to your Hide. Take them out at your leisure. In bank heists, such 'ambush' squads attack you regardless of your Hide; charge in and get your critical while you can. Placate still works on members of those squads, thankfully.
Unless the mission requires you to click multiple objects or escort someone out, you can generally skip straight to the end of the mission thanks to Hide to complete the objective. You may also look for small groups or easy kills (such as a lone lieutenant or minions who are spread out). Because mission completions and bosses are worth so much experience, it's a good idea to stick to simple defeat missions and only take out groups that you're comfortable with.
