Maybe the real strongest faction was the friends we made along the way

Clear Sky to me is the most compelling faction out of all in the Zone, as in their prime, they just seemed to have the best aspects of all other factions - highly trained soldiers, high-end equipment, former scientists of The Group with in-depth knowledge of the Zone, and a clear chain of command with impeccable logistics, and coordination. Their core beliefs also seemed generally sound - to study the Zone, understand it and learn whether humanity can actually co-exist with her or not. They have the determination of Duty but the open-mindedness of Freedom. What I find the most impressive is how little the faction is even known around the Zone - none of the stalkers from Loner, Freedom or Duty factions even mention being aware of Clear Sky. Which means that, when Clear Sky mobilized their assault force from the Swamps all the way to the CNPP, they did it so covertly that no other faction even caught wind of it. Imagine leading a whole company through the Zone without arousing suspicion from the other stalkers. That is a level of covertness that even the Mercenaries would be jealous of.

The ironic thing about Monolith being so powerful is that they are probably the one faction that all other factions would be willing to unite against, if they got too powerful and threatened the others.

Just remember to anyone that thinks it's the monolith: SoC - wiped out by a single guy CS - Wiped out by a single guy CoP - Wiped out by a single guy

Nice analysis! I would personally say that at their peak, the military was the strongest faction because they could go anywhere in the Zone with their helicopters, but of course that didn't last long.

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the logistical issues of the bandits. Bandits are almost always starving, cold, wet, and tired. They constantly talk of how hungry they are, which also explains why they’re willing to do such awful things as the drop of the hat. I digress, it doesn’t matter how fortified you are, how trained your forces are, how armed or how many of you there are. If your soliders are all tired, hungry, wet and cold, theyre gonna have heavily diminished combat effectiveness. Also, the combat styles of the factions should be taken into account. For example, while free stalkers aren’t going to organize like other factions, in an all our war theyre probably going to act a lot more like VC. Small, highly independent cells. The bandits would probably fight a similar way, but be on the back foot because they can’t survive on their own as well as loners because of lack of experience living off the land.

Regarding Duty, they for some reason have access to Russian Abakans and Groza or AS Val rifles - not standard Warsaw pact weapons, more like Elite Russian special forces stuff. Also some of their recruits can be seen with NATO weapons like the SA80. So I suspect that if the recruit came with a NATO rifle or they have nothing else to give to him - it will be accepted. I suspect the only reason they dont use more is simply due to lack of ammo, not any actual hate on the Western rifles. One other thing to mention - Duty soldiers do not really go much for artifacts, but their armour generally has top end or experimental military upgrades some of which are derived from Zone research (other general research). So in a roundabout way - they do get some boosts due to artifacts, just not from them directly. For Freedom - they use lots of AKs and Eastern block Sniper rifles as well. And have access to ex-Speznaz equipment. Which means some military units agreed with Freedom over Duty, even if the minority. Personally, I would NOT give Clear Sky such a high score. The reason is simple. At the end of the game, the few groups of Clear Sky Veterans and Masters we help are really almost everything the faction has, in terms of decent equipment and quality. While they have some decent tech too, they never field anything better than a SPAS 12 or an upgrade AKS-74. So in a sense they are under Freedom and Duty, what they do manage to do is have some nice suits and a few experiment weapons alongside very elite soldiers. Not weak, but under the power of Duty and Freedom for sure. The Mercs often use AKs and some of them (Raven from CoP I think) have Abakans (RU Special Forces weapon). They do strongly lean Western but not only. One thing I recommend you check is how good the factions can fight the Zone's horrors like mutants. For example we know that the Average Merc is very good against human enemies, but not quite as good against mutants. Not his fault, he hasnt faced most of those horrors before. While the average experienced loner has. So that too should play a part in my opinion. Good video.

Loners: 225 [Command]: 25 [Manpower]: 50 [Equipment]: 40 [Artifact]: 65 [T&R]: 45 Bandits: 200 [Command]: 50 [Manpower]: 50 [Equipment]: 20 [Artifact]: 50 [T&R]: 30 Duty: 390 [Command]: 90 [Manpower]: 80 [Equipment]: 85 [Artifact]: 40 [T&R]: 95 Freedom: 375 [Command]: 60 [Manpower]: 75 [Equipment]: 85 [Artifact]: 75 [T&R]: 80 Military: 300-400~ [Command]: N/A [Manpower]: N/A [Equipment]: N/A [Artifact]: N/A [T&R]: N/A Monolith: 490 [Command]: 100 [Manpower]: 90 [Equipment]: 100 [Artifact]: 100 [T&R]: 100 Clear Sky: 410 [Command]: 70 [Manpower]: 80 [Equipment]: 90 [Artifact]: 90 [T&R]: 80 Ecologists: 180 [Command]: 40 [Manpower]: 20 [Equipment]: 30 [Artifact]: 70 [T&R]: 20 Mercenaries: 305 [Command]: 60 [Manpower]: 50 [Equipment]: 75 [Artifact]: 40 [T&R]: 80

Ecologists is my favorite faction to play as in Anomaly. They are peaceful with most factions and so i can focus on a thing i love the most - exploring and searching for artifacts. To immerse and challenge myself i also try to limit body armor to enviromental suits and weaponry to self defense tools like shotguns, pistols and submachine guns. I get by in combat by using powerful artifacts, high quality equipment modules and expensive medicine and combat drugs.

Obviously it is the monolith, The monolith will guide its children to victory

Dude, you deserve waaaaay more subs. Anomalous Dougout needs more subs too. 40 minute videos are hard to make.

Total scores: #1 Monolith 490 #2 Clear Sky 410 #3 Duty 390 #4 Freedom 375 #5 Military 300-400 (i would personally rate them 360, maybe even more) #6 Mercenaries 305 #7 Loners 225 #8 Bandits 200 #9 Ecologists 180 Made this list before i noticed that all of this is shown at the end, but fuck it made it so i'll post it

Monolith I think. They have the advantage of being based in a very hard to reach, irradiated zone, and are very well armed with large numbers. Also things like the brain scorcher, the miracle machine, and any other such device. They have the best base in the zone from which to launch attacks, and they seem to be allied to the zombies. Besides them, Duty and Freedom are clearly tied as one cannot beat the other outright. Mercs seem pretty up there, with impressive equipment and training, and clearly someone backing them with resources. UNISIG if you count them into this from Anomaly are the best equipped, and most other factions don't know they exist. That means nobody can just strike at them, allowing them to hit as they please and pull out to disappear. Bandits are low on the list. They can barely even hold their own in the garbage and are literally seen as a mild inconvenience by the major factions. Renegades appear to be a bandit group that split from the bandits. They're literally just a weaker bandit group. Ecologists don't have much of a military, but they can lock down their bunkers and pay mercs to fight for them. They could probably weather an attack, but not win a war. Clear Sky is wiped out and not a factor. At their height they weren't that impressive equipment or skills, and numbers seem iffy. Only advantages were Scar and their base being hidden. Military: hard to say. Obviously they pack insane firepower, and air power, and even BTRs. However... They also seem to have the least understanding of how the zone works. I think if they were able to, they would have already wiped out most other factions. I think their inability to adapt to and understand the zone is a MASSIVE handicap, and they would be crippled against any other faction deep in the zone. Sin, if you count it from the Anomaly mod, is a joke. They're edgy morons with few numbers and bad gear. They have no advantages besides monolith being friendly with them, and honestly would lose to anyone except Renegades. Loners are a total wild card. When united under folds like Valerian, they are easily the strongest faction. Their knowledge of the zone, how to navigate it, and how to use it to their advantage, combined with their huge numbers and the fact almost every legendary stalker is a Loner, this means that they could easily crush opposition if united and lead by a veteran. However, when scattered and not united, they are easy pickings piecemeal. So it depends... Can they unite? If so they're a huge factor. If not... They're basically a recruitment pool for the others.

Its hard being a military personnel when almost everything that moves in the zone tries to kill you....except for those rare ecologist and dutyers

The more i play and think about Stalker and it's lore, the more it reminds me of some sort of D&D style fantast setting (but yknow mixed with that sort of wartorn mercenaries everywhere sort of setting) I mean, you got lone freelance adventurers going on quests for magic rocks, the obligatory oorah we are the guard type faction, state troops, mercenary companies, basically a cult that worships a strange eldritch entity, it's all there except with guns and Adidas.

I liked the Ecologist path. Took on more of a Gordon Freeman role rather than just trying to survive and make some money. Gaining more understanding of the Zone was more rewarding than a bigger gun. Offered plenty of opportunities to relieve high end equipment from dead factions while simply doing some hot action research

I love these faction and lore videos! Keep it up. I learned a lot about STALKER from you, and you inspired me to start my post-apo channel.

Renegades is the answer. So bone-chillingly powerful that stalkers fear to even mention them in ShoC, and barely even remember their greatest enemy, Clear Sky

I feel bad for Duty in some way. Even though they can be cold, or sometimes a little too triggerhappy, their reasoning and actual goal is probably one of the few that I actually respect in the zone. I always try to ally with them, of course because of how STACKED they are, but also because I can actually stand behind the reason they're here in the first place. Sucks that they tend to get dunked on the most~

Well, i just watched 40 minutes just to came to the same conclusion as always... ALL HAIL THE MONOLITH!!! Jokes aside, it was a really nice analisys!!! Well I know that the books aren't considered cannon, i do belive that they could give us even a more bigger scope of analisys for this subjets. Keep up the good work!!! Now, get out of here, Stalker

Wow, great video. It was quite insightful and helps to understand the factions overall. One can clearly see the passion you´ve put into this video. Thank you for your effort and keep up the good work!

I'm personally a fan of the Military faction. I have a major goodwill with them in Anomaly. I love their skat9 armoured suits and their military exoskeleton.

It's content creators like you, that really breaths new life into the stalker community. I hope you never stop doing what you do:)

Love the channel man, keep this effort up

12:30 need to remember that duty have at least one operational attack helicopter

I literally started playing the game again because of this channel, knowing the lore as you play it from the start is the best

In my mind the Mercenary manpower fluctuates due to them being Mercenaries. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series takes place from the late 1990's to the 2010's so this was at a time when wars in the Middle East and Africa were starting to take place and gain much attention. So in my mind the Mercenary Faction could be a much larger international company (like Executive Outcomes and Blackwater PMC) so the contracts of private individuals or companies wanting stuff in this illegal and supposed Government controlled area would be considered lesser and more difficult when compared to contracts from Governments. Giving reason as to why in some games there are a large number of Mercenaries in the Zone and while others there are only select amounts in certain area's. Unless the Ukrainian government is also utilizing the forces of the Mercenaries in the Zone, not wanting to risk the lives of their own soldiers.

Great video. Your channel made me finally pick up the games again after years. And it's been a blast!

Objectively The Monolith ( source the Monolith told me in a dream), im Monolith's strongest soldier

No even gonna watch this, because strongest faction is Duty. Why? Because deadly anomalies, dangerous mutants, anarchists and bandits... None of them will stop Duty on its triumphant march towards saving the planet!

U forgot one key thing, teritoy or strongholds, which wud matter very much in all out war... great vid

Cheer's for the video! Helped me alot to understand the different factions in the game without crazy spoiler!

Keep up the great work bratan!!.. Coffee and the night is perfect with your videos.

410? FOUR TEN? Come on man, we were on the verge of greatness, we were THIS close?

Tbh my first experience with STALKER was the anomaly mod, mainly because I figured if I’m gonna play the game, I want to see the world as a whole. From there I played the actual games. They were on sale on Steam a while back as like a $10 bundle lol I played the mod to get a feel for the game and really just treated it as a sandbox. Didn’t really pay much attention to quests or anything until I played the real games and took those seriously. “Beat” them, then pretty much modded fallout 4 to make a mix of STALKER and Metro in an open world. Doesn’t have the same feel, I’ll admit, but it’s a nice middle ground where i get to experience the best parts of each game all at once lol Anyway, my point that got lost somehow is that Duty is my favorite faction. Why? Tbh I really dont know, I just like playing with them more than anyone else. Maybe it’s because I’m an AK/AK variant aficionado in real life and I saw AK’s when looking through the Factions and decided “oh, I can start with an AK? Sounds good.” I’m a simple man.

Happy I found this channel, S.T.A.L.K.E.R is one of, if not my favorite series

There is nothing worse than to face a gang of monolith exoskeleton experts with VLA's and rocket launchers

I have both liked and subscribed, because you deserve it.

You deserve more, this was great.

The strongest faction is the main character, one man army at it's best

We thank you, oh Monolith, for revealing the cunning plans of your enemies to us. May your light shine down on the souls of the brave soldiers who gave their lives in service to your will. Onward warriors of the Monolith, avenge your fallen brothers, blessed as they are in their eternal union with the Monolith. Bring death to those who spurned the holy power of the Monolith.

25:21 from what I understand they can tell stories but these are often changed with their worldview

I thought for sure duty and monolith would be the two top factions of the zone, Considering Duty is the most fanatic faction apart from the monolith and their connections in the military.

If the military got their shit together again they would be the #1 faction by far (they have hinds and working BMPS), but there's a reason why they are not so active in the Zone anymore and thats for good reason (they had several failed attempts before).

You were very well spoken and this video was concise and very relevant thank you

such a good video man

How monolith manages to do what they do is beyond me. They have the most exoskeletons and high end weapons (usually because they’re the end game guys you face) despite being cut off from the rest of the world and no factories around. They have seemingly unlimited gear without any sort of equipment shipments unlike every other faction and military, which has shipments from Sidorvich, or the government

Into the Zone: it unlikely to find stalker like them [Strelok and Scar] any time soon Skiff: am I a joke to you?

Sick! Appreciate the detail.

oh yes. What an interesting video. keep making videos man, that algorithm will reach you one day. you're videos are brilliant and can tell you try hard.

Discovered this game two weeks ago and I am so invested and it's awesome mod selection, also for clear sky to rank so high makes me smile....That being the first faction I join and still currently playing through.

Good video man

Great analysis as usual man, and congrats on 6k!

Wooooo I was waiting :D Thank you for the content man, I'm sure you put a smile on a lot of people's faces when you upload ^^

quality content my dude.❤

Really great analyses! The one faction I really don't agree with: Clear Sky. I think their manpower has been rated too high. They seem to be a rather small faction of elite Stalkers. They couldn't even manage to fight off the bandits in their swamps. So they got beaten on their own turf!

Great video, Man!!!I'Great analisys. I'm VETERAN of this games from loong time ago. My favourite faction always be a Freedom-Good soldiers with not military way of thinking, but good in fights against humans and mutants. In Clear sky LOOVE unique yellow Exzoskeleton wining from them! New subscriber!!!Sorry for my bad english!

great videos man, i hope everything goes well and you become the "stalker dude" of youtube for the english audience.

Everything looks great I think mercs could’ve been alittle higher and clear sky maybe Alittle lower

Great video

I would like to see part 2 of this, maybe looking at some factions who aren't cannon or just very small and or relevant, like Zombies, Sin, The Clear sky NATO Secret agency ripoff, the bootleg bandits, you know em.

I'm new to the stalker games, I'm playing shadow of Chernobyl at the moment and your channel came just in time.

Very interesting, thanks!

Monolith is one of three fractions that DO NOT use artefacts at all! The other two are zombies and military.

Military is the strongest if were including protags, they have both degtyarev and strelok on their team after CoP

"No stalkers like scar or strelok will be found anytime soon in the zone" Me playing with Debug mode on: *are you sure about that?*

amazing video

If anything, I'd be interested in a category dedicated to resiliency, specifically in relation to a shakeup of command. For instance, monolith is very organized with the c-consciousness active but disorganized and weak without it. Meanwhile, more loosely organized groups like freedom or the bandits could more readily survive the loss of their primary leader with significantly less pain. Duty presumably has a pretty well established plan of succession in the case of a lost general so they would not be too badly inconvenienced either.

They do say Loners do seek to join mercenaries but they dont seek to recruit but also they are know to not be very friendly to loners so they do probably recruit just not many but even with that they do say they train all recruits. They help bulk up there numbers but like you said they arent activity seeking recruits. Also this is kinda odd but they are also known to hunt rare artifacts if they are wanted, like actually go out and hunt for it not kill pickup or just deliver it and they do take those jobs. Also depending on what game you play but the last one of the 3, mercenaries also seek gear through duty to keep there new recruits geared. They worked directly with Morgan to get supplies for there groups

(Note that this is just a little joke) "There is no friendship in the zone, there is no friends, only factions, your team is your biggest enemies as you know nothing about them or what they are going to do. Never trust anybody. All hail the monolith and it's eternal glory, onward the monolith, may your light shine down on the souls of the brave who gave their lives to you, onward the monolith." - A wise Monolith preacher

I think you gave the loners a fair score, but I also think they have massive potential. With a steady stream of stalkers starting as loners larger manpower is possible. Experienced loners are extremely good at what they do as they do what other factions do with less resources. They also usually have some sort of trader backing so increased funding and equipment is possible. Also while their power structure needs improvement, it has a certain flexibility that would allow for groups to stay active even when the structure is lost or damaged

I love this guy's content.

dude i got that exact same chest rig 15:26 first time I've ever seen it in video games or in irl

Worship the fucking rock >:[

Sure, you could send 100000 soldiers into the zone. ... To be turned into monolith from the brain scorcher. You're basically giving the enemy troops at that point. It might even be why Monolith is a faction in the first place.

I'm pretty sure it's more or less gonna be "whichever faction Strelok is fighting with"

"Told you monolith would be on top for the ranking" "But monolith recently destroyed by a one man army-" *gunshots*

And on Ecologists- if a major war for the Zone started they would either be absorbed into other faction/factions or pledge neutrality (like Zone's version of Switzerland)

a new very cool video!

I love Monolith faction.... Thx for this

Normie answer from me: Let's install Stalker Anomaly and let them fight in Warfare mode until only one remains!

Military is the best because they're literally a military of a country

Just a few things you might've missed/overlooked: 1. Despite their supposed inventory logging, a Duty officer called Morgan was able to steal equipment under their noses and trade it with bandits in exchange for artefacts in Call of Pripyat, which means that the system isn't flawless, and if something like that already happened, it means that it could happen again. 2. If I recall correctly, the only Duty member in the 3 original games we see armed with something worse than a Warsaw pact assault rifle is Warrant Officer (the guy in charge of the Duty checkpoint in Garbage on the road to Rostok who is armed with a double-barreled sawn off), whilst others are all armed with at least an AKS-74U, most of them having AK-74s and even AN-94s, as well as AKM variants (Anomaly only since the AKM doesn't exist in the original games). 3. It might be insignificant but Duty does occasionally use artefacts to aid in their ability to combat the zone, one finds this out from Gen. Krylov in Clear Sky. 4. Joining Freedom might be appealing to free stalkers who seek security from bandits that being in a faction provides (freedom and bandits don't really have any interaction in the first or the last game, even though they are technically hostile towards bandits in clear sky, they won't shoot you - the player if you join bandits, also in Anomaly they are mutually neutral) but want to be able to do mostly whatever they want which joining Duty would disallow. Regarding left-out / skipped factions: Military would most likely be somewhat close to Duty in strength, however they could have less or more manpower depending on the number of soldiers stationed in the zone at the time. Most soldiers freshly rotated into the zone would have good training in combat but would not be ready for the zone's dangers (they would know very little about anomalies, emissions, evidenced by the failure of operation Fairway - the helicopters crashed because the Military didn't know that anomalies change locations after emissions and tried to use an outdated map of sky anomalies to traverse the zone). Morale would be at an all-time low because of massive casualties and the failure of the operations mentioned in the video (among them operation "Monolith" at the end of SoC, as well as operation Fairway), it seems that most soldiers in the zone were stationed there against their will and are afraid of its dangers. They feel as if command has ditched them there are forgotten about them, due to desperation and inadequate pay they often turn to cooperating with stalkers to make ends meet, as well as bandits. Corruption in the Military is rampant as evidenced by Major Khaletskiy and Major Kuznetsov. Renegades are a faction just introduced for tutorial purposes, for teaching the player the basics of the faction wars in Clear Sky. They don't have much of a story, though, according to the wiki they are bandits who split off from the parent faction, because they refused to follow Yoga's orders because they disagreed with him. They took the opportunity, and when the big emission occured they moved into the swamps and got into a war with the Clear Sky faction. Some people theorize that they were actually kicked out of the bandits faction, that they are the biggest scum in the zone, the lowest of the low. That's the way they explain why every single faction except for bandits is hostile towards them in Anomaly, who only tolerate them because they were once bandits too. It's quite apparent that there is no leadership structure in the Renegades, as there is no Renegade leader in Clear Sky nor anomaly, it's more like they are rejects, people who seek safety in numbers because they are shunned by every faction in the zone pretty much, which is the only reason why they stick together. It's plausible that they might even turn on eachother in some cases. Their equipment seems similar to the Bandits' equipment, except it's even worse, it becomes better later on in the game when the player encounters expert renegades in the red forest wielding powerful 9x39mm weaponry who have managed to capture the Limansk bridge.

6:22 **Cheeki Breeki intensifies**

Ok let's consider that game called CoP. In there, monolith falls apart after c-con met strelok. Monolith didn't get any new members, it even gets soldiers to leave as strider. We can also say, that monolith lost a crap lot of people after military tried to steam roll the zone for second time. Last monolith gauss gun was captured by major degtaryov as we can see in the end of CoP.

You sleep on Mercenaries waaaay too much. They have practically unlimited resources for gear, and every man is drastically better trained than the members of any other faction in the zone. They also seem to be sophisticated enough to get in and out of the zone with ease despite how difficult that seems for others, and are able to get supplies and equipment in without difficulty. They are basically a proxy force for the entire Western world to achieve its higher level objectives in the zone, which means they easily have more funding and potential resources available than any of the other factions, as the other factions are all products of a declining Ukraine. Whose GDP and economics are very limited. Them not being adapted to the zone is a very overplayed factor, as with the resources and sophistication they have, they would be able to quickly adapt to the zone. They would die a lot in the beginning, just like any other faction did, but they’d learn like everyone else. Given their extreme organization and focus, and resources though…they would realistically adapt just as quickly if not quicker than the others.

i think you shouldnt have based it on a score system, but in a concrete one on one scenario leading to how much control and/or faction objectives fulfilled, basically to identify that many of the factions do not work as platons at all, but exerts influence anyway.

the canonical ending of the zone will be the military fighting monolith to the death at the CNPP after every other faction has either been assimilated or wiped out.

I mean, I think it's a pretty absurd question on the face of it. You can't assess STALKER factions on their ability to wage "modern war" with companies and platoons. Many factions don't have enough people to fill out one company, let alone companies in the plural. Some like Clear Sky and the Ecologists aren't equipped to fight a war because that's not really why they're there and leave fighting to other factions like the military or Duty. Most stalkers generally, aren't motivated enough to fight a war. What bandit is going to lay down his life so his boss can get rich? What mercenary is ready to die fighting for money he'll never get to spend? The majority will just go to ground until the heat dies down, the way most loosely organized criminals, mercenaries and militias do.

But who has plot armor? that's where the real points come in

I went Clear Sky first time. Great for new players.

These where some awesome pictures of people LARPing the Stalker content.

Protect the world from The Zone. Join Duty.

We thank you, oh Monolith, for revealing the cunning plans of your enemies to us. May your light shine down on the souls of the brave soldiers who gave their lives in service to your will. Onward warriors of the Monolith, avenge your fallen brothers, blessed as they are in their eternal union with the Monolith.

Remember that freedom (at least claims that) they need to follow orders when on missions when you get the former monolith members.

Huhuhuhuhhhuhuh you said "dootie" ahuhuhu ahhuhuh

In my opinion, loners are a bit like mercenaries, but they operate more in neutral conditions

I bought the trench coat in Call of Pripyat. It's terrible, but I want to see if I can beat the game with it because the zone fears my swag.

I've seen what a single Sin from lost alpha can do... they may just be a handful, but they scare the shit out of me

I’m surprised Monolith wins, but they do have the zombified at their disposal.