A Flash in the Dark: The Electric/Ninjitsu Stalker

I. Introduction
A. Why Electric Melee
B. Why Ninjitsu
C. Other Secondaries
II. Powers
III. Power Pools
IV. Patron Powers
V. Tactics
A. Use of AoE’s
B. Use of Single Target’s
VI. Problem Enemies
VII. Builds and Slotting


As of right now, there are no other guides for Electric Melee Stalkers. It's been several issues since this power set was introduced to us, and it's different enough from the version given to Brutes/Tanks/Scrappers that it is time someone wrote a guide specific to Stalkers.

This guide is my feeble attempt to fill that void by providing advice from my own experience as an Electric/Nin Stalker. This guide is from the perspective of an IO’d build, and not all advice applies to SO builds.

(For an introduction to Stalker mechanics and some more in-depth guides to Ninjitsu, check the Stalker guide section here and here).

OK, so why an Electric Melee Stalker? Electric Melee is a very AoE-centric set; the Stalker version gets 4 AoE attacks vs. 2 Single target attacks and the signature Assassin's Shock. No other Stalker set gets this many AoE's (although Spines is perhaps comparable because of Lightning Rod's longer recharge timer). The Stalker version is preferable to other AT's Electric Melee, in my opinion, because Assassin's Shock keeps its single target damage capabilities high. If you play any other version of Electric Melee, you will be lacking in single target damage options from the set.
So Electric Melee provides arguably the best AoE capabilities of a Stalker with a Stalker’s signature massive single target damage attack, the best of both worlds.

Electric Melee has other benefits as well. It has possibly the best looking and one of the most powerful feeling tier 9 attacks in the game with Lightning Rod. But Lightning Rod is special for us too, because it is classified as a summoned pet and thus does not break hide on a Stalker; this will be an important point for our later tactics. In addition, both Lightning Rod and Thunder Strike offer very consistent knockdown, which is great soft control, especially helpful in getting time for an Assassin’s Shock mid-battle if desired. Finally, the set has a good mix of Smashing and Energy damage in its attacks, with an emphasis on the less frequently resisted Energy.

Why couple this with Ninjitsu? Well I personally tend to be a min-maxer, and Ninjitsu’s combo of defense, heal, and utility powers seemed the best option. Ninjitsu also lacks any mezz holes other than Knockback protection, the only one that can be gotten easily with IO’s. It offers resistance to Psionic attacks, which positional defense sets can’t always protect against, and a helpful resistance to Toxic damage from its self heal. Other than that, defense sets are usually considered ideal for Stalkers because we have lower hit points and completely avoiding taking damage is key in increasing our critical rate. We are going to be drawing a lot of aggro because of our heavy use of AoE’s, so we want a set that can handle that best.

As far as other Secondaries go:

Super Reflexes offers higher defenses and a +Recharge power, as well as scaling damage resistances and very high resistance to defense debuff. It offers no protection against Fear, and does not have the heal or gadgets of Ninjitsu. It also has to wait until level 35 before it has any AoE defense out of hide. Overall, If I was not going to IO my build, I might go with this set, but IO’s make Ninjitsu’s tools more appealing to me.

Electric Armor fits thematically, and it also has a +Recharge power and other nice aspects, but it is a resistance set which makes it not all that appealing without heavy +defense sets. It now has an interesting power in Energize that will help with some endurance issues as well as provide a self heal. This set is better used in conjunction with a different primary unless focusing on end drain.

Energy Aura also fits some thematically, but it focuses on typed defense, which will make it harder to softcap. It does offer a self heal and endurance management. You might be able to effectively use the endurance draining power in this set or in Electric Armor’s in combination with the end drain of Electric Melee’s attacks.

Regeneration and Willpower both offer faster healing and recovery. Willpower is weaker here but has some other tricks; both sets offer very little defense though.

Dark Armor is a mixed set with resistance, some minor defense, a great self heal, and some mezz powers, one of which is also a Pbaoe -tohit. However, Dark tends to be heavy on endurance use. Don’t be fooled by the help text on Electric Melee’s powers that say it will give you some endurance back on occasion; this effect seems pretty negligible in the long run.

This is why I chose Ninjitsu. On to the powers.


Electric Melee

Charged Brawl: Fast and light attack, this should be your first power. This power has a better DPA than Havoc Punch, the tier 2, and it has been brought to my attention here and in other threads that this power outperforms Havoc Punch with not-ridiculous amounts of recharge in our chain. There is a window amount of recharge where Havoc Punch will do better for our single target chain, but as a whole Charged Brawl is the way to go.
Special Notes: This attack can put an enemy to sleep briefly, which makes them look like they are convulsing in electricity. The effect is not so important or very helpful, but this attack can be slotted with sleep sets because of it. Take advantage of the really cheap sleep sets at a low level on this and other attacks that can slot them. Also note that this means you can slot the Call of the Sandman: Chance of Self Heal and occasionally get a very small heal from any attacks with sleep components. I never found this worth it, but others have.

Havoc Punch: The tier 2 attack, and your alternate choice to Charged Brawl for your first attack. Generally Charged Brawl will give you more damage over time. Special Notes: Sleep sets.

Jacob’s Ladder: Melee cone that looks pretty nice as well. We will want this in our final build, but you can skip it early on if you so desire. It takes a little practice to learn how to line this up. Backing up a little just before the attack and letting the enemies follow you, forming a line to some extent, can help in hitting more than one enemy. Special Notes: Sleep sets. Also, you can slot the Fury of the Gladiator -res proc here, and since this attack is in our single target chain, it is a very good idea to do so.

Assassin’s Shock: The Stalker attack. This is what makes a Stalker Electric Melee well rounded, and Electric’s version looks really nice. You should already know how this and other signature powers work from the Stalker mechanics. This is the best place to slot the ATO hide proc.

Build Up: Not much to say other than you need this, especially to use just before Assassin's Shock.

Placate: When at 50 and all tricked out this power becomes less useful, as the animation time eats up dps; but it is still good for getting crits in multi-target situations if you can afford to keep it. Special Notes: From other guides we know that this can be used very strategically by Placating one enemy, which removes him as a threat, and turning to another enemy to attack them, getting the free critical on the second enemy because you Placated the first. You should learn this tactic early on and use it throughout your career.

Chain Induction: This is a great power, and it has finally had all the bugs that made it undesirable removed. The attack first hits your opponent with smashing and energy damage, then, provided that opponent is close enough to another, the attack has a (very high) chance of jumping to another, causing energy damage, and then again a few more times. This will be important both as a single target and AoE attack. Special Notes: The jumps from this attack are extremely accurate and as such can be used to hit opponents you otherwise would have trouble touching. For example, there is some lieutenant with very high defense that you probably cannot hit, but next to him is a normal minion; hit the minion with Chain and watch as the jump hits the lieutenant with ease. The power cannot jump back to a mob it has already hit.

Thunder Strike: A massive looking AoE attack. You jump up in the air and come down on your target, inflicting smashing and energy damage on him as well as energy splash damage on enemies in a small radius around him. This attack can stun and has a high chance of knockdown. It is very good to use from hide to get criticals on multiple enemies. Special Notes: Because of the knockdown, you can slot the Force Feedback +Recharge proc, which has a chance to fire per every enemy this attack hits; I personally do not have it slotted, but it can be useful.

Lightning Rod: The unique heavy-hitter of the set. You catch a lightning-bolt and teleport on it into the middle of an enemy group, inflicting heavy energy damage. This power looks amazing, has very high accuracy, and does great damage and excellent knockdown in a wide radius. It also does not break hidden status, which means you can teleport in, knocking down your foes, and while they get up your next attack gets the from-hide-critical. However, this power is on a long recharge (90 seconds base), and does not itself critical. Try to hit the center of the group you are attacking, as the damage this attack does decreases the farther away the enemy is from your targeted point.

Ninjitsu

Hide: Basic Stalker power. This power costs no endurance, grants massive stealth, gives a small amount of defense when suppressed and a very large amount of AoE defense while unsuppressed, and attacking from its "hidden" status will guarantee you a critical (or an Assassination if you use Assassin's Shock). Note that AoE powers from hide (except Lightning Rod which gets none) get a 50% chance to crit: the single target portion of Thunderstrike will get a 100% chance to crit while its AoE portion gets the 50%.

Ninja Reflexes: Your melee defense toggle. I sometimes skip all armors until SO range and focus on having more attacks early on, though this one is more important as you will be in melee range constantly. Includes defense debuff resistance.

Danger Sense: Ranged and AoE defense combined in one toggle. Very important, and includes defense debuff resistance.

Caltrops: A very Ninja tool. Does minor damage and more importantly keeps enemies slowed and busy trying to run away from it (so not attacking you). This power has hidden uses (that's a pun, by the way). First of all, it's a summoned pet, so it does not break hide (see the pun?). Secondly, you can slot the Ragnarok knockdown proc in this to further keep enemies from doing anything.

Smoke Flash: Another Ninja tool. You throw a smoke bomb down and placate all enemies around you so they cannot target you… that is, if it hits them. This does not work like the normal placate, it does not let you get a free critical on your next attack, it just stops them from attacking you. Skip it, this build is too tight for something like this. You can also now get a temp power that functions the same, so there's absolutely no reason to pick this up.

Kuji-In Rin: Mezz protection to all but Knockback, plus resistance to Psi. It is possible to enhance the Psi resistance with Ribosome HO’s if you so wish.

Kuji-In Sha: A good self heal with resistance to Toxic. Special Notes: This power can be slotted with resistance sets, which makes it the only place other than Tough that we can put the Steadfast Protection: Res/Def unique or the Gladiator’s Armor: Def unique (if you can afford it).

Blinding Powder: Cone control power that causes –tohit, sleep, confuse, and –perception. This power can come in handy in solo and team situations, but we really want it to slot in the relatively cheap purple set, Coercive Persuasion, for the large range defense bonus. Special Notes: This power does not break Hide, so it is completely safe to use; if you slot it with a damage proc, however, when the proc fires it will alert the enemy to you. The Contagious Confusion proc does not cause damage and does not alert the enemy to you, so the full purple set is safe to slot.

Kuji-In Retsu: Instant softcap, increased running speed and jumping height, increased recovery, and as much defense debuff resistance as your two toggle defenses combined. It has an endurance crash, but no health loss. Special Notes: As we are aiming for the softcap all the time, this power’s usefulness comes into question. It can still be slotted with a Luck of the Gambler +recharge, and the defense debuff resistance is very nice, so I would take this over Super Speed. You can also put Blessing of the Zephyr IO's in it, but the defense return may not be worth it anymore.

Power Pools

Power pools are generally straight forward and based on preference. There are some particular things that will help us, though, that I would like to highlight. Whatever movement power you want, if you want one, is fine, but for complete optimization skipping a travel power and relying on Kuji-In Retsu, a raptor pack from Grandville, Ninja Run or all of the above is best. Note that you cannot use Lightning Rod while flying.

What we really want from the pools are three things: Hasten, and extra defense to push us to the softcap.
Options for defense include Combat Jumping, Hover, Maneuvers, Stealth (which does work with Hide unlike other concealment powers), and the Fighting pool.
Of these Combat Jumping and the Fighting pool are the best options. CJ has low endurance cost for the defense it gives, and Weave from the Fighting pool offers the highest defense from the pools while Tough gives us another place to slot a unique +Def IO and can be turned on to increase survivability in certain situations.

I personally had Hasten and the Fighting pool; this got me to the softcap with my slotting so I replaced Combat Jumping with something more useful. However, in order to squeeze Kuji-in Retsu into my current build, I had to drop the fighting pool and go with Combat Jumping and Maneuvers.

Patron Pools

I have limited experience with the patron pools for Stalkers, because I knew what I needed and found no need to experiment with other pools. Leviathan Mastery is the most directly beneficial pool for this type of Stalker. I experimented briefly with Soul after Shadow Meld was added to it on test; while Shadow Meld is an excellent power, it is most useful to non-softcapped Stalkers. The other two pools had nothing that seemed to compete with Leviathan.

The two important powers from Leviathan are Water Spout and Hibernate. Some love Spirit Shark, especially for PvP, but the utility of the other two powers is what we are after.

Water Spout: Summons a, well, water spout that does damage over time, knocks enemies up (not back), inflicts –defense, and causes fear and stun. It is mobile and lasts for 30 seconds, so it can be a very nice addition to your damage as well as great soft control of mobs. Be careful though, it can attract aggro to you when you are not ready. It also does not break Hide to summon it, though enemies will be alerted to you when you do. Special Notes: This power can be slotted with the Achilles Heel –Res proc, which makes it a great help against AV’s. It can also be slotted with the Force Feedback +Rech proc, though this does not work on summoned pets like Water Spout, so don't slot it.

Hibernate: An enormously useful power for Stalkers, despite all the flack it gets. Encases you in a block of ice and makes you untouchable while it heals you and improves your recovery. This power is great for us for two reasons. First, if you are being hit with defense debuffs and are starting to experience a defense failure, sitting in Hibernate for a while will let those debuffs wear off while you are untouchable. Second, because you are untouchable, sitting in Hibernate will put you back in Hide after a bit, so you can come back out of it with a critical or Assassin’s Shock immediately. Special Notes: This power is a phase power, and as such it follows a peculiar rule. After using the power, 90 seconds must elapse before a player can use the power again, regardless of whether it has recharged or not. So remember when slotting this that any recharge you give it below 90 seconds is a waste of a slot. Also, and very importantly, when you’re in a tight spot and need to activate this power, click it or hit the button once and then stop and let it activate; if you get impatient and hit it again, you can activate and immediately deactivate the power and have to wait for it to recharge to use it again

Do not be afraid to use Hibernate; if you think you need to, do it.

If you have to make build choices, Hibernate takes precedence over Kuji-In Retsu when already softcapped. This is because Kuji-In Retsu is just stacking more defense in the face of something that is eating your defense or bypassing it, while Hibernate gives you another way to deal with the situation and recuperate.

A note on Pets: There is a theory out that pets from patron pools will increase your critical hit chance while out. This is because of how the Stalker inherent works. The Stalker's chance for critical hits increases by a small amount for every teammate around within a certain radius. Pets, it is thought, are counting as "teammates" and thus increasing your crit chances, whether intended or not. I really do not know if this works or not. Generally Stalker pets have been considered lackluster, but they do provide some extra damage if you don't mind losing some stealthiness. Note also that this makes the Mace pool somewhat more attractive now, as its pet is actually three spiderlings; spiderlings can also be slotted with the Achilles Heel -Res proc. It's your call whether having these would be worth giving up Water Spout and Hibernate.

Tactics

Tactics are pretty straight forward.
AoE situations: Build Up->Lightning Rod into the group; if that group has a particularly nasty enemy, immediately Assassin’s Shock him while they are all getting up, then cleanup the group. If there is no immediate threat, after Lightning Rod do Thunder Strike on a central enemy to get (hopefully) the multiple crits, follow up with Chain Induction, then placate a mob and quickly lineup for Jacob’s Ladder to get multiple criticals with it. Use Charged Brawl or Havoc Punch on what you need to and repeat as you see fit. Throw down Water Spout at any time.

Single Target situations: Chain Induction->Charged Brawl->Jacob’s Ladder->Assassin's Shock. This chain needs a lot of recharge, so if you still don’t have it you can put Thunder Strike or a patron attack in there. Don’t use Thunder Strike when you don’t have to against a single target though, because its damage per activation time is really not worth it in this situation. Lay down Water Spout whenever you can to add to your damage, decrease the enemy’s defense, and give the Achilles Heel proc chances to fire. Note again that charged Brawl is more often than not better for your chain than Havoc Punch, but both have lower DPA than Chain Induction and Jacob's Ladder.

Problem Enemies

Certain enemies can be a particular nuisance to this combination and it is better to know about them and why beforehand.

First of all, Romulus Augustus in nictus form on the ITF will give you problems. Before your team defeats him the first time, he will use a Pbaoe autohit Sunless Mire repeatedly; your defenses have no chance against it since it is autohit, and it does some hefty negative damage. You will have to time your attacks between these Mires just right in order to survive for extended periods unless you have a dedicated healer. After he goes down the first time he will not use that attack any more. Another effective tactic is to take in several resistance inspirations, cutting down the damage of this aura to something manageable, though consistent heals works better.

Next is defense debuffers. A single debuff will not be that bad and really you probably will not even notice them. Occasionally two or three debuffs will happen to hit you at the same time, in which case you may be in trouble. This is when Hibernate or Kuji-In Retsu come into play. Just pay attention to your attribute monitor when fighting debuffers.

Arachnos, I find, is particularly annoying, and for several reasons. Banes have high energy resistance; you will notice when you fight them how anemic your attacks seem. Mu’s, especially in groups, are killer on your endurance and can detoggle you fast if you aren’t paying attention. Worst is Tarantula Queens/Mistresses. These seem to have an autohit defense debuff that is very hefty and lasts for a long time. You must be extremely cautious when fighting these in large groups; preferably take them out with an Assassin’s Shock.

Some enemies, notably Blades of Artemis and Rikti Drones, have enough +perception to see through Hide. Even if you add in Super Speed, a Stealth IO, and Stealth from Concealment, they will see you and they will attack you, alerting all the enemies around them to your presence. If there is just one in a group, you can placate them outside of their range and then you are fine for a while because they cannot attack.

When you know you will be dealing with a certain type of foe that you must watch out for, it is helpful to have a bind/macro that automatically targets the problem enemy. I have a macro that looks like this:
/macro Target beginchat /bind t "targetcustomnext
(You will have to edit the macro after making it to get it to work right with the various slashes and quotation marks)
The way this works is you hit the macro, and your chat bar opens up ready for you to type in the problem enemies name. (Make sure there is a space between |targetcustomnext| and the enemy's name). After you typed out the name, close with a final quotation mark and hit enter or return. Now when you hit |t| you will automatically target the next of that type of enemy within your range. You can reset what type of enemy is targeted by hitting the macro again.

Builds and Slotting

The main focus of your build should be softcapping, for obvious reasons. It is extra important for Electric melee to have high defense because of all the aggro it can draw. The Steadfast unique is a must. If you can afford the Gladiator unique, more power to you. A full set of Coercive Persuasion in Blinding Powder should be aimed for (it’s not as bad as other Purple sets). A full set of Gaussian’s Synchronized Fire-Control in Build Up is a good source. Other than that, get it where you can.

The second focus of your build, unfortunately, should be recharge. Purple sets and LotG’s are the way to go here, but shy of that you can pick up sets like Crushing Impact, Doctored Wounds, Obliteration, etc.

I don’t post my personal builds, but I may come back later with an example build or two. These builds are tight. We want all but Havoc Punch from our primary and we want to slot things well. Trim the fat where you can, but don’t worry if you can’t make it perfect. This combo is fun at both ends of the spectrum.

Check The Inspiration Maker’s Guide in my sig for info on filling in particular build holes you find along the way.


Well that’s it. Happy shocking.
--Mr. Microcosm

Nice guide, I have an elec/ninja and I only desagree with one thing, that is your choice on level one.

While havoc punch DOES more damage, Charge Brawl has a better Damage Per Activation and half the recharge time.

So while you activate Havoc punch once, you can activate Charge Brawl twice, it hits faster and at lower levels it's much better than wait for power recharge.

With 100% recharge bonus you can get a very good single target chain of around 160 DPS (BU not included.) Charge Brawl / Chain Induction / Charge Brawl / Jacobs Ladder. (notice that while this is the best single target chain you can get and it will still hit multiple enemies if they're lined so after killing the boss you might have killed all minions around as well.)

HISTORICAL

Well this is actually quite a complicated matter once you start calculating in crits and build up and such, which tend to favor Havoc Punch. However, after some back-and-forth in various places, I have to concede that Charged Brawl is usually better for your chain than Havoc Punch. There is a certain level of global recharge where it would be better to have Havoc Punch, but this is not maximizing our chain. Generally, Hasten plus 100% recharge in Chain Induction plus one LotG +Recharge in your build will allow you to pull off a good chain reasonably well. Lightning Rod is also not bad dpa against a single target, so you can use that when it recharges and get the knockdown from it as a nice side effect.

Edit: That 160 single target dps you listed can actually be quite a lot better. You can calculate in Water Spout which contributes damage as well as giving a few chances for the Achilles proc to go off. Also, hopefully you have the pet and maybe even can get it perma. The pet increases your crit rate by 3% as well as contributing good damage. While pet damage can be difficult to calculate for a variety of reasons, adding those two things could very possibly (on super recharge builds) get you nearly 100 extra single target dps. The pets also sometimes have AoE powers too My own build in mids using that chain (with buildup as available), water spout, and the pet can dish out 230 single target dps assuming I don't have to take the time to activate my heal etc. (Not including judicious use of Lightning Rod, which would slightly raise dps). I think the pet can be a much better help than people assume.

HISTORICAL, NO LONGER APPLICABLE

Extreme Builds' Single Target chain:

After a bunch of number crunching and a little bit of testing of some strange things, I have found a chain that should allow my current build to go quite far past the 250 single target dps range, conservatively. Solo. Yes, that's right, from Electric Melee. About 67 of that is from the patron pet (which is also increasing the crit rate by 3%). It's entirely possible that I messed up some calculation somewhere, but regardless there is a little oddity of this combo that helps out a ton. I alluded to it in the main post, but I'll go ahead and give you the chain as I currently have it.

(Waterspout referred to as WS, Caltrops to CT, Chain Induction CI, Jacob's JL, Charged Brawl CB, Lightning Rod LR, Assassin's Shock AS, Build Up BU)

WS(/CT)->BU->LR->AS->(CI->CB->JL)->CB->CI->CT(/WS)->JL->CB->(CI->CB->JL->CB)*3->repeat

Whenever you come across a WS(/CT) combo and Water spout is not recharged, use Caltrops.

Why is this so great? It's the built up AS in there, along with -res procs in Waterspout and Jacob's Ladder. "But, Micro, I can placate->AS on many Stalkers." Look again; there is not placate in that chain. In fact, I don't have placate in my build. Waterspout, Caltrops, and Lightning Rod are all summoned pets, and as such do not break hide, or keep you from reentering hide. As long as more than 8 seconds passes between your last normal attack and the moment Assassin's Shock lands, you will reenter hide and pull off the AS. (This, of course, depends on you not being hit during those 8 seconds as well, but for a softcapped Stalker with the knockup/down of Waterspout and Lightning Rod, this is pretty easily done). Adjusting for arcanatime, Waterspout (or Caltrops) and Buildup take 1.32 seconds to activate each, LR takes 2.772, and AS takes 3.168. Add that up for 8.58 seconds, and voila: hidden status with full Assassin Shock. The only time you're not directly doing damage there is activating Build Up, for a grand total of 1.32 seconds. Waterspout and Caltrops both do some good damage over their duration for their required 1.32 seconds of activation, and Lightning Rod is one of the set's best dpa attacks as well.

This is why Electric Melee is superior on Stalkers, especially the /Nin variety.

Edit: Had the wrong activation time for AS :S

... dammit, new alt time. *shakes fist* This combo falls perfectly with a character I had in mind, and looks fun.

See my Guides and Tutorials

HISTORICAL

Quote:

Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade What does AS-> (CI->CB->JL)->CB mean? Why is it in parenthesis? Why does it get a x3 at the end and not in the middle?

Assassin Shock, followed by Chain induction then Charged Brawl then Jacob's Ladder; the parenthesis there was copied from my calculation sheet where I was trying to see what powers would be able to get the buff from Build Up, so don't worry about that. I wanted a Caltrops in the middle so I had to break up the chain slightly, which is why the 3x only comes at the end, filling in the rest of the time for everything else to recharge.

You could simplify it if you want with:
WS(/CT)->BU->LR->AS->(CI->CB->JL->CB)*5 -> repeat

By the way, WS needs to come before the build up because it does not inherit the buff.

EDIT: And, actually, instead of *5 you can just make it *however many you need till everything is recharged. I was just assuming a certain amount of recharge in that chain and globally.

Great read and gave me a good idea of a concept for a character =)

And now I have to break out a shelved character

Quote:

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*