Stalker (Killing Floor 2)

The Stalker

The Stalker is a common specimen in Killing Floor 2. It is implanted with a cloaking device that makes it nearly invisible to most players, the only sign of a Stalker being a faint shimmering and whispers. When it is visible, it appear as a gray-skinned naked female with elongated fingers and only a small patch of long hair on their head.

It is classified as a lesser enemy, their main purpose being to sneak past defenses and attack from the flanks. Their quick speed, fast attacks, and agility makes hitting cloaked Stalkers difficult; only the Commando has the ability to point them out to other perks.

Base Statistics

	Normal	Hard	Suicidal	Hell on earth
Kill Reward	15	15	15	15
XP	8	10	10	10
Health (body)	56	75	75	75
Health (head)	15	20	20	20

For kill reward calculations read Dosh Mechanics.

Attacks

Melee (base damage)				9
Melee (damage multipliers vs. doors)				1/3
Melee (damage multipliers vs. players)				0.5/0.75/1
Melee (range)				180

The base damage value further modified by the difficulty-specific multipliers.

XP Notes

• Killing with weapons other than your current perk grants the XP to the perk that weapons belongs to.
• Damaging with on-perk weapons and then finishing it off with an off-perk weapon divides the XP and grants it to both perks.
• Assist kills grants full XP.

Speed

Stalkers move slowly when docile, and sprint when enraged.
On higher difficulties, Stalkers have a chance to enrage upon sighting the players, and have a chance to enrage when shot.
Movement speed is randomized within ± 10% range and further modified by a multiplier based on difficulty.

Walking speed (per difficulty)	(360 - 440) x (0.9 / 0.95 / 0.95 / 0.95) x (1 / 1 / 1.3 / 1.4)
Running speed (per difficulty)	(450 - 550) x (0.9 / 0.95 / 0.95 / 0.95) x (1 / 1 / 1.3 / 1.4)
Hidden speed	600
Sprint chance	Normal - 0 / Hard - 0 / Suicidal - 0.6 / HOE - 0.75
Sprint chance (when damaged)	Normal - 0 / Hard - 0.05 / Suicidal - 1 / HOE - 1

For comparison, by default a healthy player character with the minimal weight walks at speed of 383 units/s, and sprints at speed of 460 units/s.

Sprint Conditions

Should sprint if can sprint OR (if can sprint when damaged AND damaged) (i.e. if sprint chance met its value) AND if distance to player laying between 6 and 12 meters (600 units < distance < 1200 units). Should sprint when frustrated.

Resistances and Weaknesses

Damage Resistance

Stalkers have resistances to some forms of damage types, and do not have any weaknesses to damage types.

	Piercing	Slashing	Bludgeon	Toxic	Fire	Microwave	Explosives	Freeze	Shells	Bleeding	EMP
Damage Multipler	x1	x1	x1	x1	x0.85	x0.2	x0.75	x1	x1	x1	x1

Ballistic Resistance

Stalkers have minor resistances to certain ballistic weaponry and are extremely vulnerable to assault rifles.

	Sub-machine Gun	Assault Rifle	Shotgun	Handgun	Rifle
Damage Multipler	x0.9	x1.5	x1	x1	x0.85

Hitzones

Stalker only have one weak spot, which is the head.

	Damage Multiplier
Head	x1.1
All other	x1

Incapacitation Resistance

Affliction:	Stun	Knockdown	Stumble	Gun hit	Melee hit	Snare
Torso vulnerability:	x2	x1.5	x1	x0.75	x2	x10
Head vulnerability:	x2	x1.5	x1	x0.75	x2	x10
Legs vulnerability:	x1	x1.5	x1	x0.75	x2	x10
Arms vulnerability:	x1	x1.5	x1	x0.75	x2	x10
Special zone vulnerability:	x1	x1.5	x1	x0.75	x2	x10
- Incap cooldown	5s	1s	0.5s	0s	0s	5.5s
- Incap duration	3s	---	---	---	---	4s
- Dissipation rate	-20/s	-20/s	-20/s	-20/s	-20/s	-20/s
- Incap threshold	100
Affliction:	Poison	Microwave	Fire panic	EMP	Freeze	Bleed
- Vulnerability	x10	x0.5	x3	x2.5	x2.5	x2
- Incap cooldown	7.5s	20.5s	3s	5s	1.5s	---
- Incap duration	5.5s	5s	4s	5s	4s	---
- Dissipation rate	-10/s	-20/s	-10/s	-50/s	-20/s	-20/s
- Incap threshold	100 (EMP Disrupt - 25, Bleed - 65)
Knockdown (getup duration)	1.33s
Stun (time + wakeup duration)	3s + 1.2s, for PvP ZEDs - 2s + 1.2s
Freeze (time + thaw duration)	4s + 1.2s, for PvP ZEDs - 2s + 1.2s
Stumble (duration)	Between (0.87-1.33)s
Parry (duration)	Between (0.93-1.2)s

Behavior

The Stalker is an ambush-based, melee-only ZED.
Upon spawning, it will walk or sprint towards the nearest player and attempt to attack them.
Stalkers tend to spawn from unusual locations such as ventilation shafts, high ceilings or open manholes. This allows them to attack from multiple angles and slip past defenses undetected.
Stalkers also tend to use their invisibility to sneak past front lines and attack players in the back more often.
Stalkers have the ability to dodge gunfire. When shot at, Stalkers will quickly backflip to the left or the right, or jump backwards to approach from another angle. On Suicidal and Hell On Earth, Stalkers will always dodge when shot at.
On Suicidal and Hell On Earth, Stalkers gain a huge boost in movement speed, as well as new attack animations that they will use when enraged. They easily become the fastest ZEDs in the game, only beaten by the bosses themselves in speed.
On Suicidal and Hell On Earth, Stalkers will begin to use more acrobatic attack animations, such as drop kicks and axe kicks, making their heads harder to hit once they get into attacking range.

Miscellaneous Information

Teleportation:

Frustration delay	Random (2.5-5)s
Disabled, when total AI remains	0
Cooldown	5s
When hidden, can use after	5s
When spawned, can use after	10s

Unlike the other ZEDs, Stalkers are able to teleport regardless from amount of the remaining AIs, while for other lesser ZEDs teleportation being completely disabled when less than 12 ZEDs remain throughout the wave.

Miscellaneous:

Penetration resistance	0.5
Parry resistance	1
AI pause, on gun / melee hit	0.65s

Various information:

• (PvP) Rally boost: forces AI Stalkers to sprint, players do x1.2 more damage.
• Damage to doors (possible values) = 9 / 27.
• ZED mass = 50.
• Should sprint if can sprint OR (if can sprint when damaged AND damaged) (i.e. if sprint chance met its value) AND if distance to player laying between 6 and 12 meters (600 units < distance < 1200 units). Should sprint when frustrated.
• Stalker has a chance to evade upon taking damage. Stalker has a chance to evade certain damage sources. Chance to evade after taking damage: Normal - 0.1, Hard - 0.4, Suicidal - 1, HOE - 1. Health loss percentage to trigger evade: all difficulties - 0.01.
• Once hit in the head (at least 1 piece of skull chunk lost) Stalker will lose its ability to cloak.
• When shot Stalker will re-cloak, after 0.35 seconds, if weapon featuring Melee hit power - after 1 second.

Extermination Tactics

Stalkers are extremely fragile, but they compensate for this with their speed and cloaking. When visible, though, they're an easy target for most perks. Demolitionists may find Stalkers to be a major nuisance when using a single-shot weapon like the M79 Grenade Launcher or the RPG-7 because of the Stalker's tendencies to get in the way of large ZEDs.

Stalkers are invisible to all players except the Commando. The Commando is able to see Stalkers as a bright red silhouette that glows. Other players will also be able to see Stalkers that the Commando points out, depending on the level of the Commando (2m to 50m distance).

Stalkers only break invisibility to attack or when shot at. They can be seen as a faint, shimmering outline when they are invisible.

A less reliable way to find Stalkers is to look for them among groups of Crawlers, as Stalkers and Crawlers tend to spawn together in the same spots, though this isn't always the case. Stalkers are more unpredictable in where and when they appear from.

If a Stalker somehow survives a headshot, it will lose the ability to cloak.

Ammunition can be saved in early waves by switching to the knife and cutting their heads off, though this is significantly more difficult compared to Clots, given their acrobatic attack animations. They also output significantly more damage, making knifing them a lot riskier, plus they are invisible, thus it is harder to see and anticipate their approach.

Extremely weak to Assault Rifles, making the Commando the best perk for quickly exterminating Stalkers. Commandos are also the most likely to kill them as they will see cloaked Stalkers first. Firebugs are also useful in removing a Stalker's cloaking due to the side effect of flame damage charring ZEDs and afterburn making them visible.

Be careful when throwing grenades without a Commando on the team, as Stalkers can show up in front of you and block grenades; at best, you waste a valuable explosive, and at worst, it blows up in your face.

Gallery

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  The Stalker

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  Another image

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  Halloween Horrors event variant

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  Artbook concept

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  Artbook renders