Ragnarok M: Stalker guide (bow or dagger?)

Just like being an assassin, Stalkers are divided by the type of weapon they use - the bow types and the dagger types. Both have their pros and cons. On this article, I will try to discuss both in detail, to give you an idea which is better for your type of game play.

EDIT: I switched to dagger-type Stalker, here's why.

At the early stages of being a rogue, it is best to begin using bows rather than daggers. For me, ranged farming/grinding is faster and better than melee. Even though it is has been proven that daggers yield better damage than bows. When you reach higher levels, you can decide if you want to stay with using a bow, or switch over to daggers.

Daggers

The main skill of dagger-type stalkers is the ambush+backstab combo. Backstab is a skill that deals 900% damage and deals double (1800%) when used right after ambush. This is great in PVP especially when ambush stuns your opponent. The only downside to this is it's SP consumption. Since stalkers (or thieves, in general) have naturally low SP, being skill-based begs you to equip yourself with items that has SP regeneration, Max SP or INT. Alternatively, you can mix a little bit of INT in your build just so you can cover that huge SP consumption.

PROs

- high damage output

- can farm fast, skill-based or normal attacks

- runes are near the center which means, you can get a lot of bonus attributes through runes and guild contributions but with less Gold medals needed.

- very versatile in PVP

- less food consumption when grinding/farming

CONs

- low hit rate unless you bank on Dex (in PVE, this is not a problem unless the monster has high flee)

- high SP consumption due to 2-skill combo

- low demand in ET due to inability to tank/semi-tank

Skills

TIP: the numbers within the parenthesis () are the suggested levels for each skill. You can change them depending on your job level or preference. The description beside each skill are in my own words - to understand more about the skills, please see the in-game descriptions.

Thief skills

• Double attack (10) - main grinding skill, gives 50% chance to deal x2 damage when doing normal attacks using daggers
• Improve dodge (10) - necessity, adds flee
• Hide (10) - needed for vanish, go into hiding state for a couple of seconds
• Ambush (10) - needed for back stab, deals damage. When used in hiding, has a chance to stun target.

Rogue skills

• Tunnel drive (5) - decreases movement speed penalty during hide for 25%. Also increases flee by 10%
• Enhanced Hiding (5) - needed for vanish, allows you to use skills only usable in hiding for 11 seconds
• Backstab (10) - deals dmg, deals twice when used after ambush
• Raid (5) - deals damage to area. Has a chance to inflict negative buff (snared, stunned and darkness) on enemies, they also receive more damage for 5 seconds. Only usable in hide.
• Dagger proficiency (10) - adds damage when using daggers
• Plagiarism (3 or 4 until Juno comes out) - versatile skill. learn skills from monsters, skill depends on which monster you use this skill on. Does not mean that if a monster uses soul strike, you will be able to copy it from that monster.

Stalker skills

• Vanish (5) - immediately enters hiding state. Unlike hide, you won't be revealed by any skill, by being hit or by using any other skills or even if you attack your opponent. Also reduces damage up to 80% for the duration. Lasts 5 seconds max.
• Rogue's nature (10) - permanently increase dexterity +10 and attack speed +10%

The following stalker/rogue skills are optional, depending on your taste:

• Intimidate (10) - deals damage and teleport you with the enemy on a random spot in the map.
• Close confine (5) - locks the target with you for a couple of seconds. Can only be removed by certain actions and/or skills.
• State pursuit (5) - passive, necessary if you use close confine and/or Raid. lets you deal more damage to enemies under snared, stunned, darkness or hit by close confine.
• Disabling strike (5) - deals dmg and decreases movement speed of enemy.
• Raid (5) - deals damage to area. Has a chance to inflict negative buff (snared, stunned and darkness) on enemies, they also receive more damage for 5 seconds. Only usable in hide.

Aside from using the combo ambush+backstab, dagger-types also has the option to go full-stripper. I did not include the stripper skills here because (tbh) I haven't tried them. Plus, the items required to make stripping effective are expensive as of the moment (in SEA). However, I'd like to say that strippers play a vital role in WOE or even in PVP as they can nullify tanks or nukers if they successfully strip them. Also, if you go full stripper, it doesn't mean you can't go backstab. If you go full stripper, you will need to sacrifice intimidate, close confine, state pursuit and disabling strike to get skill points for the stripper skills.

Bows

The other end of the stalker build is the bow-type which focuses on one skill - Triangle shot. I'm sure you've heard that TS-types are so powerful and OP but I say wait until Shinto/Shadow Chaser is released (Mana trap build). But since it isn't yet, let's talk about Triangle Shot.

Triangle shot is basically, an upgraded double strafe. Now, there's nothing fancy about the skill itself - damage output is x3 your ATK. However, the power of TS is coming from runes and the Roguemaster's bow. I'll explain them in detail as we go along.

PROs

• high damage output
• ranged attack
• one shot, fast kill

CONs

• Expensive equipments
• runes are too far away from each other
• maximum damage output depends on the final tier of the weapon and the runes
• low sp pool, unless you bank on INT

Skills

TIP: the numbers within the parenthesis () are the suggested levels for each skill. You can change them depending on your job level or preference. The description beside each skill are in my own words - to understand more about the skills, please see the in-game descriptions.

Thief skills

• Improve dodge (10) - necessity, adds flee
• Hide (10) - necessity
• Enchant poison (10) - very useful in quest bosses or high def monsters

You can choose to spend the other 10 skill points on any of the following skills:

• Strong attack (10) - reduces movement speed of enemy
• Poison attack (10) - deals damage, with chance to inflict poison
• Detoxify (1) - removes poison

Rogue Skills

• Double strafe (10) - aside from dealing double damage on a single attack, it also increases the skill multiplier of Triangle shot.
• Auto-firing (3) - 9% chance to auto-fire double strafe when dealing auto-attacks
• Vulture's Eye (10) - increases Hit permanently, and increases range for double strafe, disabling strike (stalker), and triangle shot (stalker)
• Tunnel Drive (5) - increases movement speed when hiding (20%), and permanently increases Flee by 10%
• Enhanced Hiding (5) - after hide status is disabled/ended, hide-only skill effects can still be used (ambush double damage, raid increased damage, etc)
• Snatch (5) - steal zenny from monsters, pre-requisite for Rob
• Rob (10) - very useful in farming, gives 20% change to get x2 crafting material from monsters (means, not all items dropped by monsters are doubled)
• Plagiarism (optional, 4) - I say this is optional because you only need to use this once - when you copy level 4 EDP from Parasite in borderland (Juno entrance). After that, no matter how you reset your skills and leave plagiarism with 0 points, the EDP skill will be there for you to use.

note: As you could see, the total number of skill points needed here is more than 40. Its because you only need 25 skill points for stalker skills (seen below), then you can use the rest on rogue skills.

Stalker

• Triangle Shot (10) - deals 190% x3 to enemy. can only be used with bows
• Rogue's nature (10) - permanently increases Dex (10) and Attack speed (10%)
• Vanished (5) - very useful in PVE or PVP, keeps you hidden even after being hit. Also, decreases dmg intake when in this status. (up to 80%)

Below are some of the optional skills you can use:

• Snatcher - automatically triggers 'snatch' when doing auto attacks, also increases snatched zenny
• Intimidate - I use this for trolling. but could also be useful when the monster you farm is far away from each other - i.e dark priests\
• discount - very useful when you constantly purchase meals from NPCs

Breakthrough:

Once you breakthrough, you will have 30 more skill points at your disposal. You can follow my suggestion below:

• Triangle Shot (+10) - increases skill dmg to 240% x3. Downside: 47 SP per skill
• dodge (+5) - Permanently increases Flee by 30, Flee rate by 5% and Move Spd by 15%
• Vulture's eye (+10) - new meta: double strafe and auto attacks increase damage depending on distance from target (up to 60%)
• enhanced hiding (+5) - new meta: increase movement speed when hiding (up to 20%)

My 2 cents on the increased SP consumption of Lvl20 triangle shot:

You can opt NOT to increase TS to 20 if you want to save up on SP (and meals/foods of course). If you farm on crowded maps like OrcLadies in Clock tower B1F, use that Lvl20 TS for faster kill and to avoid other players for stealing your kill. But if you farm on mid-level monsters and that the map is not too crowded, you can opt to use a lvl 10 TS with a Lvl 20 Vulture's eye - One hit with a normal attack and a 10TS will be sufficient enough to kill the monster in about 1 sec. If it doesn't, use the other way instead.

END NOTES:

The use of bow or dagger is totally up to you as a player. But, the fun thing about Ragnarok Mobile is that the Ymir's notebook is available. This means, you can reset unlimited times and use this in your advantage - use a bow to farm, and use a dagger to kill MVPs/PVP.