Kolyma_Nova

I think this is a good handy guide for aspiring Spines/EA stalkers.

I have a couple of quibbles, not to argue with you but just to offer an alternate viewpoint from someone who took one of these beasts to 40.

First, I would give Spine Burst three or maybe four smilies. It is all but worthless PvP, not very helpful solo, but is very helpful on teams, the bigger the better. If there are lots of enemies around (10+ or so), it can be your single most damaging power in terms of total damage done to all. That it will put the small -recharge and -speed debuff on everyone it hits is nice too -- hard to tell how much that actually helps but in the long run it probably helps more than you would think.

If you are playing with a Dom or Corruptor with debuffs or control, you can use it pretty safely if you wait until the middle or end of battle, when everyone else has attracted some aggro.

With an AoE Corruptor, your spine burst may hurt everyone just enough to ensure that the next AoE blast hits scourge territory and drops them all.

At any event, toward the end of a battle, a single spine burst may drop a bunch of foes so the single target brutes and stalkers don't have to go around and take out nearly dead foes one by one.

I agree that, apart from Barbs it is probably the Spines power to skip if you have to, but especially on big teams it is a big part of my Spines arsenal.

And I would give Repuse at least two smileys. It is kind of a carnival power, but at least it makes a lot more sense with a Spines than any other primary, because once you bounce them away you can immediately hit them with Impale and Throw Spines instead of chasing them down. It is certainly skippable, but I think it is fun to have if you take the time to figure out when to use it, and then remember to use it. I use it to knock things over ledges and balconies so I can concentrate on bosses, knock things into a corner for a good dose of Throw Spines, knock things onto ice slicks and into tar patches when teaming, and even to bounce enemy groups away from doorways so the dang MM minions clear the door

Again, skippable, but it has a lot of non-intuitive uses that are fun to discover how to use.

As for pool powers: I decided to make a very "pure" Spines/Eng, which means I took every single power in Spines and Energy except for Barb Swipe. That left me with only three pool slots, where I took Air Sup (almost a must for the young Spines stalker), flight (need a travel power, good with Impale) and Stealth (for PvP).

That means I took Repulse (as described above) and even Energy Protection. I agree that EP probably rates only one smiley, but my logic is that I would not have to slot it, and could put those slots into my attacks for damage, accuracy, or recharge. (Repulse isn't slotted either, it is an endurance hog but I only use it in short bursts anyway instead of keeping it on, which is dumb for a stalker.) That sounds like and kind of is damning with faint praise -- it's not good but at least you don't have to slot it -- but I did in fact choose powers that would let me slot out the big damage attacks, and take as many damage attacks as possible, without being tempted to slot pool powers.

Thus in my build I have plenty of slots to max the damage and accuracy of my attacks. I don't have hasten, because my attack chain usually has something up and ready to use. As you suggest, hasten would be great for Overload and the two endurance powers in /energy, but I have found that I don't have any problems with endurance if I use Energy Drain and Conserve Power wisely, and three recharges in Overload brings it up often enough for me.

Again, not arguing, just glomming on to your efforts to write a guide to offer a different perspective because I myself am to lazy to write a whole guide. Good work.

In a way it is balance. Although stalkers may take longer soloing a mission than other ATs because of all the hit and run, they make up for it by spending about 5 seconds each hit taking out three or four bosses on the way to the next mission.

And when you are on a team, those street assassinations between missions are just experience gravy. If your teammates are lucky, they will be within range to share the bounty when you strike.

I think some of the defender jealousy concerning controller damage misses an important point: controller damage is mostly unfocused and random. While Ill and Fire controllers especially put up impressive damage numbers as applied to a group of enemies over time, that damage is not necessarily being applied to the enemies who really need it -- the bosses, sappers or mezzers for example. Pets are stupid and random, even with all the little tricks controllers can use to try to lead them in the right direction. There is little subtlety or tactics to it, even with the most careful attention paid to positioning and approach you pretty much just lead your gang into their gang and hope for the best. Defenders get to apply all their damage exactly where it needs to be.

Some people repeat the mantra that CoH is supposedly all about the AoE over time damage, and in some situations with certain teams that is true. But in other situations it is very important to concentrate fire on certain enemies. Speaking as a controller, I was thrilled to finally get a single target blast with my APP to help pick off certain enemies first or nail an enemy with a sliver of health so my pets moved on to something better, and as several varieties of defender I fully appreciate the ability to blast some baddie directly instead of waiting for my pets to finish dealing with insignificant minions and get to the dangerous guys.

I think Defenders generally are in good shape overall, but some of the sets do need a little help.

The darks and rads seen pretty happy and useful throughout; they don't need anything but some tweaking here and there if that.

The empaths complain a bit their heals are unneeded in the higher levels, but RA, clear mind, and fortitude are usually still quite welcome and the heals still play an important part in some groups, so they are probably more or less fine as is.

The kineticists still provide the supercharge to speed up teams usefully to the end. Perhaps Fulcrum needs to be made a bit more powerful again but on the whole the set seems to work fine.

The FFs need something extra, because at the higher levels most people have either gotten their own defense in order or have the tools to either kill, hold, or resist enemies before defense becomes much of an issue. FF needs some sort of enemy debuff or ally buff (beyond defense) to somehow speed up the kill rate so as to make them more useful at the end of the game for teams that otherwise don't really need more defense.

There is no major problem with Storm (in the hands of skilled players) except for the fact that Storm is particularly seen as a better controller secondary, mainly because a controller can keep the enemies from being blown all over the place by Storm's major powers. The simplest fix is to give Storm some sort of ranged AOE immobilize that prevents knockback for a respectible amount of time.

Ice works fine, sir. I'd almost rather you didn't tweak it. Help Mind and Gravity first.

But since you are asking, my suggestions would be to have Chilblain do reasonable DOT, so it is a viable solo power early on, as it is basically worthless as a damage power after the first couple levels now. (Controller sets generally should have their first power do more reasonable damage.)

Also, few people take Flash Freeze because a sleep doesn't really work with the rest of the set. A mag 2 disorient would be more tempting for people to consider and increase diversity in Ice builds.

I'm not fond of Arctic Air, and that seems to be a majority opinion, but some people like it and it fits in with the set thematically, so I see no reason to change it. There should be an "eh, whatever" power or two in every set anyway.

I personally think Jack is fine, but if you want to help him, reduce his Greater Ice Sword recharge by about a third, and see if it is possible to keep his attention better focused on one guy at a time, unless another is attacking him.

Or better yet, just leave Ice alone, we seem to be relatively content compared to others.

{edited to change mag 2 immobilize to mag 2 disorient}