Early maps Azak Stalker feedback

This is feedback on a particular mob that struck me as just way more frustrating than others.

Currently playing a Ritualist and using pure evasion bases for the most part and my impression in tier 1 and 2 maps is that Azak Stalkers are a standout threat.

Their slam attack feels awfully over tuned in damage for how far it reaches and how fast they are.

I know without armor or other sources of phys mit, unblockable and undodgeable attacks are going to be a threat with evasion bases but Azak Stalkers slams are hitting me from the bottom edge of my screen before I can see them.
They are more manageable from the upper portion of the screen or from the corners where I have a better view of them before they can start a slam.
Also their windup isn't as slow as most other mobs with slams and they come in larger packs it seems.

I think maybe with more damage falloff based off distance from the slam hit or with less AoE they would feel much more fair.
As they are, if I don't offscreen stun and kill them then the pack will all slam at the same time or in rapid sequence and do well over 1600 damage.
If my gear was even slightly worse than it is right now they would be instant death in tier 1 maps.

With less AoE they would still be deadly if they get close.
And I'm sure they can considering how fast they are.
The current size of the AoE sometimes means even a well timed dodge will still get clipped by one or two of the pack due to the way some will have to path a bit farther and start their slams later and closer.

I know you guys have a lot of mobs to tune and I'd like to thank you for all your hard work.
But if you could take a look at these guys soon that would be great thank you.

YES! the azak stalker and the bearer of penitence are doing slams that 1 shot me with almost no visibility (especially during delirium, where the grey map blends the grey attacks that have no hitbox). Playing an evasion ranger, there's nothing i can do about being 1 shotted with max res. there are no hp nodes in the passive tree for me to even mitigate SOME damage.

+1, they're absolutely overtuned and an outlier compared to similar mobs.

It's not so much the slam attack itself that bothers me but rather the fact that the movement speed of the mob is similar to you as a player. More often than not a group of Azaks has run up to you and started to channel their slam before you've barely even seen them pop up on your screen. A fair adjustment to the mob would be to reduce their base movement speed somewhat but keep the damage/slam attack as it is in terms of damage.

Agreed! So many map corridors are so narrow that strafing stalker shockwaves is near-impossible. The game teaches us to solve this problem with mobility, then takes away mobility. It's a recipe for frustration.

It would also be great if investing in armor actually helped vs big physical damage. I'm still in awe that the armor formula works the way it does, rendering one of the main defensive layers most useless when it's most needed.

Toning down their slam damage, even just for white mob variants, and opening up map layouts a little would make fighting stalkers feel so much better.

Yeah I actually just searched this mob's name online to make sure I wasn't crazy. It's not just early maps.

I'm running mostly corrupted T15 maps with pretty optimized Armor/Evasion hybrid gear on my Witchhunter and almost all my deaths in the last few days have been from 4 of these guys sprinting up to me from off screen, each one doing a slam attack on a slight delay from each other making it so any timing of dodgeroll still gets hit by the other three almost guaranteed, and losing 1/3 of my health 3 times in 3 clock ticks.

Seemingly the only way I've been able to avoid it is by constantly shooting at nothing in the direction I'm walking to try and clip them and maybe kill/interrupt them as they practically teleport in from off screen. If you have a map modifier for increased enemy movement/attack speed just forget it.

I feel like they should do something other than slam immediately upon entering melee range, or randomize it slightly, because as is, having a mob of them all start the slam at slight delays from each other is the equivalent of getting frame trapped in a fighting game, you're getting hit no matter what unless your build can clear them while they're off screen.

EDIT: Just saw them again on a map and almost forgot the best part. Each of those slams gives a nice little stagger/stun to you that your stun charm doesn't stop or prevent! So you get a nice chain stun keeping you still for the other 3 slams as soon as you get hit by one of them.