The Stalker is a hostile mob from the Deeper and Darker mod, and it’s found inside some of the 
Ancient Vases in Ancient Cities and Ancient Temples. It’s a tall, blind sculk mob with 200 health, which is 100 hearts, and it has its own boss bar as well, even though it doesn’t have an arena of its own like most bosses do.
Like the Warden, it finds you by sound rather than by sight, so it’s the noise you make that decides whether it attacks. Beating it is the main way you’ll get a 
Soul Crystal, which is needed for the 
Sonorous Staff and the 
Soul Elytra, so most players end up fighting a few of them.
Spawning
The Stalker doesn’t spawn naturally in any biome. Instead, it’s hidden inside some of the Ancient Vases that generate along the walls of Ancient Cities and through the rooms of an Ancient Temple in the Otherside, and it will only come out when one of those vases is broken.
About 16% of the vases that generate in the world are fake, and breaking a fake one will either release a Stalker or a few Sculk Leeches. The Stalker is the rarer outcome, as it only turns up from around 31% of fake vases, so you’ll see one from roughly 1 vase in every 20 you break.
Any vase you’ve placed yourself will always be safe to break, and if you break one with a Silk Touch tool, it won’t be able to release anything at all, so you’ll just get the vase back. Sculk Omen makes it more likely for a vase to be fake, though nothing will come out of them on Peaceful, or if mob spawning is turned off.
Both chances can be changed in the mod’s config file, so a modpack might make the Stalker more or less common than it is by default. The fake vase chance is 0.16 and the Stalker chance is 0.3125 unless a pack has changed them.
When it spawns, the Stalker digs its way up out of the floor over about 3.5 seconds. It won’t go after anyone until it’s fully out of the ground, which gives you a moment to back away or get your weapon ready before the fight starts.
Behavior
The Stalker is blind, so it listens for the same sounds the Warden does, like footsteps, Chests being opened, blocks being placed and arrows landing nearby. Any of these within 20 blocks will get its attention, and if the noise came from a player or a mob, it will go straight for them, the same way a Shattered does.
If you sneak, your footsteps won’t make any noise, so you’re able to walk right past one without it ever noticing you. 
Warden Boots and Sculk Affinity will keep you quiet as well, and you can throw a 
Snowball or fire an arrow somewhere else to send it off to check where it landed.
It won’t attack other sculk mobs either, like the Warden or the Shattered, as they’re all on the same side. It’s also immune to knockback, so you won’t be able to push it away from you with a Knockback weapon or a Punch bow.
Attacks
It only has one real attack of its own, a long swipe with its claws, but it gets a second one if you stay close to it for too long. That second one is the attack that tends to catch players out when they try to fight it up close.
| Attack | Damage | What to Know |
|---|---|---|
| Claw Swipe | 22 | Reaches about 3 blocks, further than most mobs |
| Ring | 2 per hit | Hits every player within 10 blocks for 10 seconds |
| Sculk Leeches | 1 per bite | Summons 1 to 3 Sculk Leeches every 2 seconds during the Ring |
The damage above is for Normal difficulty, and its swipe hits for 33 on Hard, which takes a big chunk of your health in a single hit even through good armor. It can reach you from around 3 blocks away, so it’s worth keeping more distance than you would from a Zombie.
If a player stays within 10 blocks of it for around 22 seconds, it lets out a ring that hurts everyone nearby for 10 seconds straight. While the ring is going, it will also pull Sculk Leeches up out of the ground around it every couple of seconds, and each of those will drain your experience when it bites.
The ring only reaches 10 blocks, so the easiest way to deal with it is to back off until it’s over, then come back in to keep attacking. The timer only counts while someone is close, so a fight with plenty of backing off will see far fewer rings.
Drops
The Stalker only has one drop, but it’s one of the most useful items in the mod. It’s the main reason you’ll want to fight a Stalker at all rather than sneaking past it whenever one turns up.
Stalker Drops
Soul Crystal Each Stalker drops a single Soul Crystal, and Looting adds up to one more per level, so a Looting III weapon will give you between one and four. It’s one of the only reliable places you’ll find them, which makes the Stalker worth hunting down rather than avoiding.
You’ll need two Soul Crystals for the Sonorous Staff and one more for the Soul Elytra. They can also be brewed into an Awkward Potion to make a Potion of Sculk Affinity, which stops sculk mobs from being able to hear you, a bit like being able to sneak all the time.
The Stalker is one of the mobs you’ll need to kill for the Sculk Slayer advancement, alongside the Warden and most of the Otherside’s other mobs. Any weapon with Sculk Smite will deal extra damage to it, which makes a big difference against something with 200 health.
FAQ
The Stalker comes out of fake Ancient Vases, which generate in Ancient Cities and Ancient Temples, so you’ll need to break vases until one releases it. Only around 1 vase in 20 has a Stalker inside, and a Spawn Egg or a command is the only other way to get one.
It has a boss bar and 200 health, so it plays a lot like a boss, but it doesn’t guard a structure the way most bosses do. It turns up from fake Ancient Vases instead, which means you can end up fighting more than one in a single Ancient City.
It drops one Soul Crystal, with up to one more for each level of Looting on your weapon. Soul Crystals are used for the Sonorous Staff, the Soul Elytra and Potions of Sculk Affinity.
The Stalker is blind and hunts by sound, so sneaking will stop your footsteps from giving you away, and Warden Boots or Sculk Affinity work as well. If you’d rather not meet one at all, break Ancient Vases with a Silk Touch tool and they’ll never release anything.
