Northman

Originally Posted by Lucky666

Not nearly as over powered as my current ill/dark troller can take 2 hive monsters down in 5 minutes.

Illusion for Doms!

Originally Posted by nalrok_athzim

baseball bat temp power.

Ghost widow's tower in mercy.

Level 8 enemies.

That is all.

Originally Posted by MisterMagpie

Mindgame
Nachtfrau
Nightdragon
Ghost-Light

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle

Defense debuffs are hard on it but its excellent resistance numbers plus the near-perma regen buff and frequent heal from energize tend to mean that even in ginormo-debuff situations you have a bit of time to thin out the crowd or perform a tactical rearward relocation.

Here's where I definitely don't fit in with the common wisdom: I think this combination is particularly powerful on scrappers because of the fact that enemies get scared of you so easily. If everything I pulled in Dark Astoria stuck to me like glue the no inspirations thing would not be happening. Since things run away for a few seconds before returning it's more like being the nucleus of a villain atom. I may not be able to measure where that Conqueror is going to be at any given nanosecond but sooner or later its general proximity to my whirling doom vortex will cause it to die. Any time they spend scooting around aimlessly is time not spent attacking me.

Isn't it quicker to kill stuff if it's all sitting next to you? That depends. One question is whether you'll survive its undivided attention. Without even going into that, though, my attitude is that nobody ever said I had to fight just one group at a time. As long as you maintain aggro on some members of a spawn and prevent anyone from running two hundred yards or so away from you they'll all come back eventually, so why not meet some new friends in the mean time? Older members of the probability ellipsoid are cycled out as new ones are cycled in, as nature intended. Obstacles can be used to cluster up the enemies that remain before you enter a transition they can't follow you through, such as an elevator.

That was a wild aside that didn't really have a lot to do with the topic at hand but I figured I'd bring up my playstyle since you may or may not favor the sit 'n stomp technique that's all the rage with the brutes these days. I think that this is more fun and that the results speak for themselves.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle

Whoops, I meant knives of vengeance there, as the talons clearly are not featured in that arc (and getting killed by the talons would be less embarrassing).

Staff/elec scrapper. I wanted to mix things up from my normal strategy so I shot for ~34% s/l/e/n defense rather than focusing on smashing and lethal, and so far it has been seriously paying off. In addition to that I was able to get 87.5% global recharge for nearly-perma hasten which is only a little more than you need to run staff's single target and aoe chains. In spite of the fact that power sink is up like constantly and I never use it, I forgot to switch out of form of the soul for form of the body just because soul was so handy while leveling that I was essentially married to it. I even made a bind to switch between them and everything! Old habits, I guess.

But yeah, I can't say enough good things about this combo. It seems like staff would also be very good with the other damage aura sets, but elec caught my fancy and I'm glad I went with it.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle

Just fwooshed my way through Heather Townshend's arc on x6, tier 1 musculature my only incarnate goodie so far. Staff worked exactly as I predicted it would: exceptionally well. One death against the talons of vengeance of all things when all three bosses in the spawn hit build up at the same time and I neglected to get out of the way, no deaths against the tsoo or pantheon. My plan was to use purple inspirations judiciously but in reality they were fairly unnecessary; for the last two missions I didn't use any inspirations at all save obviously for the final fight. This was possible for a variety of reasons, from guarded spin's amazing usefulness in high end chains to having sufficient aoe damage to chew dangerous lieutenants up rapidly and en masse to having appropriate control powers immediately available any time a problem enemy was present.

As it happens I can think of an easier way to sum all of that up: Staff is a stellar set.

Originally Posted by Microcosm

Ice (stalker version) and electric are my favorite two armors. They can both be unstoppable behemoths with the right slotting choices, and are probably the two best at most itrials. That said, ice beats electric slightly for most max survival scenarios, though I feel it also likes to have aid self. Electric's thing is its complete endurance drain protection, which can be a huge deal in those rare events when you need it.

For Granite, I would say make sure you use Caltrops at your feet, take/use kuji-in retsu and hibernate and you should have no problem with Romans.

Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy

My Warshade did this with all the level shifts at 54x8. I'm sure he could do it without them too, but it would be annoying without Clarion and Agility is helping me reach build goals.

Originally Posted by Steelclaw

Don't use them... wish they'd remove them from the game as Recipes and ONLY have them as Story Arc rewards...

Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn

No. It suppresses while hidden.

Originally Posted by NightErrant

You don't crit every time with Crushing Uppercut. But when you do, woo! Like 800 damage on a single hit.

Ice Armor is also a wonderful set. Very survivable. High HP, easy to softcap.

ATOs are a must, if you can get them.

Originally Posted by Blood Red Arachnid

AS from hide still has plenty of uses. On those rare occasions where my Stalker has to tank for the team, it is a blessing. The -7.5% unresisted BTH on the entire group works great with IO defenses, and the 25% chance for mag 5 terror fragments alpha so even the squishy stalkers can take it. The fight doesn't technically start until someone draws alpha, so the 2 second windup is negligible in those cases. With a lot of players slotting the ATO proc into AS, it recharges in, like, 7 seconds anyway, so by the time you would've built up enough focus to get a critical hit AS is there and waiting. The proc also works most of the time in AS, so you don't "lose" your hide to the attack, and the enemy response is long enough to allow you to use another power before their attacks break hidden status. Then there is the benefit to outright killing an LT (or boss if you have enough following AoE from the team) with one attack; enemies are fighting you the whole time you build up focus.


My biggest gripe with the new system is that I constantly feel like I have to babysit assassin's focus to get the most out of it. I often find myself using attacks I shouldn't or delaying attacks just to build up focus. This causes my attack chain to shatter, and then my offense becomes a mishmash of different moves strung together in a random fashion, where any combinations I would have with the ATO proc and AS itself falls apart. The alternative seems to be to ignore the focus mechanic, but even though the math says it still has higher DPS than AS from hide, it seems highly inefficient and bugs my neurosis to no end. This is a hurdle that I'll have to climb over eventually.


With that said, I currently am running a Kinetic Melee stalker, and AS in that set is wicked scary. Half the time I don't even see it. No exaggeration there; the action is so quick that I don't see it. Using AS in a chain is so fast it's like I didn't use a power at all, and I have to race to click another power. The damage from this output is Gary Busey insane: My current set up does 626 damage from critical (ignoring global +dmg), and with a 0.67 second activation time and 0.8 second w/ arcanatime this attack does 919 DPS and 770 DPS respectively!

I don't turn off AVs when solo for my stalker anymore. He bulldozes right through them. The speed and subtlety in which AS fires off adds to the gaming experience. It's like "I'm going to go fight this lolstalker and why is there a gaping hole in my chest?". I also have the ATO proc + 4 set pieces in AS, so this lets me pull off some righteous combos since it procs most of the time. I can follow through with burst and have it auto-critical from hide, killing minions instantly. I can also follow through Concentrated Strike, which recharges Build Up instantly (NOTE: there was a hidden update that displays when build up recharges now). I probably had used Build up before AS, since it adds 111 damage 222 on critical, and thus pays for itself instantly in a DPS chain, leaving 9.2 seconds of "bonus time" in which I just increase my damage output. 19.2 seconds if I used concentrated strike and got another buildup.

BTW there is a gaping hole in your chest.