Well you've kinda made it all rather a moot point by discounting out the top two primaries on the grounds of character concept. If you want pure PvP strength (regardless of player skill, infamy invested and possible buffs from friends) then Energy Melee is the only way, followed by Dark Melee. The rest you can certainly make work but they drop off a fair bit in a contest with heavily IO'd out the wazzoo heroes.
Still if your determined to ignore the top two and the possible 'third best' Spines (and Dual Blades), then I'd flip a coin between Claws for its range and fast animation attacks and Martial Arts and its mix of semi exotic status effects.
At the start of inventions my Claws Stalker had mixed nights in Sirens Call - poor to good with mostly below average/average nights. It was highly dependant on a good team, who could buff me up or debuff the enemy and if there was a second Stalker with ranged abilities it helped greatly. She wasn't and still isn't set for PvP fighting (no extra stealth, not single target exclusive).
My Ninja Blade Stalker has always been pure PvE as well and the one or two times she's gone PvP-ing its been pretty brutal stuff for her as Acrobatics just kills the knockup/knockdown she lives on in PvE. The only time I've seen it getting used with results is with teleport foe and using teleport right after it for ultimate hit n run/cheese.
Willpower I have no experience in PvP with but looking at the numbers and some comments from the Yanks, it seems the 'worst' possible one to PvP in. While it offers protection to nearly anything its all rather low so its probably a case of getting hit often and for quite alot of damage.
Heh, so I've doomed myself simply because I don't like glowing fists but like the "pain-ignoring" theme? Ouch...
Well, thanks for the comment. I'll see if I can force myself to reconsider.
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Willpower I have no experience in PvP with but looking at the numbers and some comments from the Yanks, it seems the 'worst' possible one to PvP in.
[/ QUOTE ] Thats just wrong. In high level PvP (wb, rv, arena) its potentially the best if not the second best after regen.
Really? How so?
Well I can comment from experiance on a few notes - yes EM is the top runner on PvP but i play an MA and get along pretty well in pvp in alot of aspects - it can dish out good damager vs the right targets (It falls down as highly resited) but even so I have taken down a fair share Of PvP'ers of all standing with it - although not the 'nbest' choice go for anything I'd say that you will enjoy - if you want to go for a maxed out toon to have the numebrs up you can find them on the baords but it's not always about the buold (AS mentioned above) the player has alot to do with it too 
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Really? How so?
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There are a numbers of reasons why willpower in the top 2 for high lvl pvp:
1 Sadily defense sets mean [censored] all in high pvp now due to insane tohits from heroes and the number of accuracy bonuses from IOs. Even my SR with elude popped is a large target. Therefore a heavy RES set much as wp is more useful
2 30% MaxHP already puts you at 1321 HP which is easily raised to 1524 with accolades, giving you more HP than a brute. And i know some who have capped HP at 1606.
3 Uninterruptable self heal every 25-30secs
4 Protection from confuse, fear and repel unlike most sets
5 A fast recharging tier 9 upping the status proc and res to all damage. Small crash
6 Perception built in
I could think of more but theres the evidence. If you dont believe me thats its one of the top two in high lvl pvp then roll one and see for yourself
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2 30% MaxHP
3 Uninterruptable self heal every 25-30secs
4 Protection from confuse, fear and repel unlike most sets
5 A fast recharging tier 9 upping the status proc and res to all damage. Small crash
6 Perception built in
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Yes.
Also in-built KB protection.
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2 30% MaxHP
3 Uninterruptable self heal every 25-30secs
4 Protection from confuse, fear and repel unlike most sets
5 A fast recharging tier 9 upping the status proc and res to all damage. Small crash
6 Perception built in
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Yes.
Also in-built KB protection.
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Yes i take that as a given 
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2 30% MaxHP
3 Uninterruptable self heal every 25-30secs
4 Protection from confuse, fear and repel unlike most sets
5 A fast recharging tier 9 upping the status proc and res to all damage. Small crash
6 Perception built in
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Yes.
Also in-built KB protection.
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Yes i take that as a given
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Not all sets have it.
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2 30% MaxHP
3 Uninterruptable self heal every 25-30secs
4 Protection from confuse, fear and repel unlike most sets
5 A fast recharging tier 9 upping the status proc and res to all damage. Small crash
6 Perception built in
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Yes.
Also in-built KB protection.
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Yes i take that as a given
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Not all sets have it.
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Which I am aware of
pedantism sux
@Rooks
"You should come inside the box... Then you'll know what I mean."
I think you mean pedantry 
Actually pedantism is a word so rooks wins :P
(to be precise, its included in american dictionaries and not english ones as far as i'm aware)
@Jaw Dropper - Toons of all levels so drop me a line!
Imaginary Inc.
Twitter me!
That implies that "American English" is actually counted as a genuine language and not just something that randomly occurred when we sent a bunch of spelling-impaired morons to colonise a new continent...
(Note I wrote "coloni[u]s[u]e"... )
Haha true, but unfortunately words they invent often make their way over here. One such word is anagram. An american word that is now in everday use over here (although usually used incorrectly imo)... at least i think it is, I havent checked that :P
Anyway this is massively off topic and i will shut up now.
@Jaw Dropper - Toons of all levels so drop me a line!
Imaginary Inc.
Twitter me!
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pedantism sux
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aye
American English is also a quality song by Idlewild.
@Rooks
"You should come inside the box... Then you'll know what I mean."
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That implies that "American English" is actually counted as a genuine language and not just something that randomly occurred when we sent a bunch of spelling-impaired morons to colonise a new continent...
(Note I wrote "coloni[u]s[u]e"... )
[/ QUOTE ]
That needs to be said on the US forums
Me again.
Decided to go for Martial Arts/Willpower. However, I'm a little confused on what's good and what isn't in MA. I picked Storm Kick as my first attack and figured on skipping Thunder Kick, but then I read somewhere on the forums that Thunder Kick's chance to disorient was good for PvP.
This leads me to the fact that I don't understand how mezzing in PvP actually works. Stun from EM and Cobra Strike from MA both have Magnitude 3 disorients as far as I am aware of. On top of the fact that I'm not even sure what "Magnitude 3" means, I noticed that in the Combat Attributes window it says my Brute has 10.2 (I think) magnitudes of resistance to it from one of his toggles, yet some EM Stalker managed to disorient me somehow in Warburg after he noticed he can't kill me normally even after 3 Assassin Strike attempts and ran away.
My logic states that to beat over 10 magnitudes of stun resistance with a mag 3 stun you'd need to stack it 4 times, which doesn't even seem possible from one person. But then I'm a n00b and still don't understand much about game mechanics...
Short version: Could anyone with a lot of free time suggest a PvP build for MA/WP and possibly even provide descriptions of powers - what's good for what and what's bad, and why?
Could anyone provide me with a more-or-less objective view of what the current rated "best" Stalker primaries are in PvP from strongest to weakest? I realise it's pretty much up to the player and making one's own build work and so on, but the character concept I have in mind right now, well... I just can't decide on a primary on him.
I realise Energy Melee is currently rated the "best" because of omgwtf single target burst damage and stuns, but I'm not very interested in it both because it seems to be fotm and because of the glowy effects which sort of counter the non-magical feel of the character concept.
I also realise Dual Blades is rated as worst because of the scrapper playstyle favoring nature of the powerset and the PvP-useless combo system.
Spines are out of the question until the day I can color them black.
Dark Melee, once again, too magic-feely.
I'm just picky like that... I guess it's down to the following:
Ninja Blade - Pretty generic assassin type weapon, could fit.
Martial Arts - Wears metal boots, potentially fitting, though he's not a ninja or a monk or anything, so...
Claws - Has black spikes protruding out of his body in some areas. Widow Claws model looks quite good, from what I can see in the character creator.
A listing of strengths and weaknesses and descriptions of overall pvp performance or your own experiences would be very helpful.
As a final note, I'm 100% certain about picking Willpower as a secondary.
Thank you in advance.
P.S. Yes, I am aware I keep asking questions about different ATs each week, but due to certain events in my life recently I've ended up with a lot of time to play CoX and not much else to do with my time either, temporarily.