Dual Blades and Combos.

My main villain is a DB/EA Stalker, and I must say it's a really fun combo. I just hit level 28 yesterday, and I (finally) picked up Placate. So far I'm having a blast, but I have a question.

Right now I have the Attack Vitals, Sweep, and Empower combos, and at 32 I will have Weaken, which will mean having to pick up all nine of Dual Blades powers. Is this a good idea for a Stalker? Or is this some personal thing that I just gotta work out myself?

I just want to make sure I don't make some silly mistake by picking all nine powers. Are the power slots better spent elsewhere? Is having all four combos really useful compared to having only two or three?

I can't speak on DB from a stalker specific perspective, but I can speak on the subject from a general one. With that said, I think it would be fairly silly to pick up all nine of the attacks unless you are just an RP fanatic. There is just no way that you can expect to cycle through all nine of those attacks. I have most of my DB time clocked on a brute, and on that particular toon, I only have sweep and attack vitals combos. I couldn't imagine what kind of sacrifices I would have to make to try to fit in more of the primary attacks.
To add to that argument, as a stalker, you probably won't be just straight up scrapping it out that much to whereas you would cycle through all of the attacks and combos. I suppose you might in some circumstances, but generally, you just get in your AS and maybe a few more licks.

Hey, I've got a DB/EnA (yes, yes, lolDBEna). I decided I'd use all the combos, and for me, it's simply more fun to have buttons to press (I'm that kind of player). If anything, you could probably drop Weaken (meaning drop Nimble Slash), but it does add another level of defense with the -to hit, but I'm not sure about the numbers.

If anything, Nimble Slash gives you another place to slot Kinetic Combats to help you softcap S/L.

In contrast with Magik's post, I ask you this: What else do you want to take?

On my DB/Nin, I took all the attacks because, frankly, what *else* am I suppose to take!? Fitness? Yeah, I have the entire pool, what of it? For her, I'm thinking 'why not take them all? now you have the option to use any of the combos'. But if you're trying to fit in extra powers that are a becoming a pain to all fit in, you may want to assess what combos you're not using and look into cutting those out.

On my EM/EA, I 'literally' am full out on all 5 pool choices. EA can provide a loose build, so much so that I took fighting in place of fitness. If you have the power choices free, why not pick what you want? Having all the combos isn't a *bad* thing and you don't have to use them all the time just because they're there.

My DB/Regen has

Power Slice
-Better dpa than nimble and i use it as a attack chain filler

Ablating Slice
-Used for sweep, mostly solo since regular teams move to fast for me to use it for it. And i use it for aoe proc spam and in my attack sequence.

Assasins Blades
-Used mostly when solo and against hard targets. Against tough targets i open up with BU, AS, Placate, Ablating. And when placate recharges i go Placate,BU,AS,Ablating for the extra damage in sweep.

Sweeping Strike
-I like the animation and its a good quick attack with good dpa.

One Thousand Cuts
-10 feet cone of awesome, usually what i open with on teams. Between crits and procs i do really good damage

On my DB/SR I went for the Attack the Vitals combo, I have good recharge so I can spam it constantly - also have the Empower combo that you get pretty much by default.

I also have Thousand Cuts for AoE and thats all I need - it recharges pretty quick.

I took shark throwing for a ranged attack to use on runners and hibernoob to make me virtually impossible to kill

My DB/Regen uses both her builds.

Build 1 is my PvP build that only has the empower combo, shark throwing and phasing.
Build 2 is my PvE build that has all the powers for all the combos. Granted I don't use all the combos, most everything dies on the second combo. First one is either Empower or Sweep depending on the size of the mob and the second is the vitals for all the cone goodness.

I took all the attacks except Nimble Slash. My usual attack chain is:

1) BU + Assassin's Blades + Placate for Empower

2) Ablating Strike for the -RES Proc I put in it, then Vengeful Slice for the KD.

3) Sweeping Strike + Power Slice + 1000 Cuts for Weaken.

I repeat 2 and 3 until everything's defeated. Sometimes I do the Sweep combo (especially when on a team), but then continue my chain.