Long Time Player: First Time Stalker

That is a lot to pack in by level 20, let alone worry about a travel power. In fact, at level 16 now, I can't see getting Stamina by 20 without pushing a lot back. Not that I feel I need it atm.

I guess I could push Caltrops back bit (22?) and get a Travel Power in it's place on a Respec.

Thanks again!

EDIT: So after playing Tyla Duto a bit tonight, I got to thinking: Is it possible to Respec and pick up Divine Avalanche and use that for my "minor damage" over Gambler's Cut? I know it has the longer activation time, but by that point I'll have enough tricks and tools to still be fine for my play style. Essentially I'm wondering if it's a viable choice. It would let me respec, and be able to get Hurdle and Health pre-20 (by pushing back Caltrops) and then get Stamina around 22-ish (18 for Divine Avalanche, 20 for Kuji-in Sha).

So I'm back, and my Stalker is now at level 23. Thanks to the advice I've gotten here, I managed to use a Vet Respec and pick up Stamina while dropping Sting of the Wasp. This means my attack chain consists of two attacks (not counting Vet Powers and AS), but because they activate quickly, I actually don't mind. Plus, pushing back Caltrops has let me get the heal, which has proven very handy.

My next objective will probably be determining some decent slotting to obtain some good, if not soft capped, defense.

So far, this has been an absolute success story for me! Thanks to everyone's opinions, both opposing and not, I have found a Stalker I enjoy playing. So thank you everyone for your help, and I can't wait to begin the process of Going Rogue with Tyla Duto!

I just got my nin/nin stalker to 24, wait and try out divine avalanche before you start pushing slots to work defense. I cant get a solid 53% melee with nothing but SOs and DA and melee is most of your incoming damage when scrapping. I don't think I'm going to mess with IOs on my stalker till he hits the 30s and I get a good idea of exactly what I am going to finish out with and what slots I can fiddle around on.

Just food for thought.

Some sets to look out for when you start to IO would be Mako's Bite, Obliteration, Scirocco's Dervish, Red Fortune, Gaussian's, Numina, Performance Shifter, Touch of Death, Blessing of the Zephyr, and don't forget the 3% unique steadfast which you can put in either the heal or the status protection. Don't remember which one. Or just put it in Tough if you plan on taking Weave.

/Nin in my opinion is by far the best Stalker set when you start planning IOs. Capped defense gives you the obvious advantage of almost never being hit. On a Stalker this is extra awesome due to being able to pull off mid-combat AS (which I do often). It also happens to be the only pure defense set with it's own self-heal which makes you practically invincible. You also get lots of places to put LotGs, tools to mitigate tons of damage, and it's just plain more fun (to me) than any other set.

rant/

Any other stalker set is just a gimped version of a scrapper/brute set that was never truly designed to work on the AT. Resist in general I find pointless on a Stalke, and even the so-called "good" stalker sets like WP are just bad versions of their counterparts. That's the reason why I don't play stalkers anymore. /Nin is a better version of /SR any if I wanted to play any other set I'd play them on ATs that they were designed for. Play /nin to 50, IO it, and you'll see everything the AT has going for it.

Stalkers are a supreme example of dev laziness. And I know what the naysayer is thinking! "But Neo, the dev team works really hard and gave us X, Y, Z and only had N employees working, etc, etc, blah blah freaking blah." I appreciate the devs for this game as much as the next guy, but if they aren't gonna do something right then they might as well not have done it. Dark Armor and Elec are an insult as Stalker sets, and the rest of them are just hack-jobs they threw in there to make it so Stalker's had more than 2 secondaries when CoV launched.

Obviously the devs are capable of making something unique and fun. Just look at /Nin for the example. They just chose to ignore stalker power sets for the most part for whatever, potentially valid, reason they had. Stalker's themselves are a conceptually sound AT but flawed in many ways, and I don't see that changing. Just my two cents.

/rant

With your suggestions and such, I managed to get a rough idea of how to get "near" soft capped defense through Sets. I can get about 40 to Melee, 43 to Ranged, and 42 to AoE (give or take a couple percents). This doesn't count powers like Stealth, Combat Jumping or Divine Avalanche so the final numbers may be a bit higher. It'll be pricey, but I think it'll be worth it in the end.

If I get this going, I can easily shift about 3% from Melee to Ranged to reach the soft cap there, and rely on Divine Avalanche for the rest (I may just end up doing that anyway).

So I guess my question to everyone in general would be: Is it better to Soft Cap Ranged and AoE, and use Divine Avalanche to cover the gaps (less then 15% from Soft Cap) in Melee Defense? Or should I aim for a consistent "near" Soft Cap for all to minimize the risk in allowing a power that has to hit to cover some of my Defense. I ask mostly because if I'm opening up in the middle of a group, they're going to be in Melee range when the Alpha hits me (for the most part), and Divine Avalanche's protection won't be in effect at that point.

Status Report!

So recently I hit level 29 with my Stalker, and Ninja Blade / Ninjitsu seems to have been the right choice for me. I have a fairly light in the damage attack chain, but soft capped Melee defense thanks to Divine Avalanche. I managed to get the +3% defense IO, which has brought my overall defense to a little over 32%. At level 30, I expect to get Weave which will bring me to 36%.

The sets so far feel fairly fast (the low damage attacks help there) and the secondary has been great to me. I'm very survivable solo and on teams, thanks to DA and my heal I've often been the sole survivor on a team of eight.

I really can't wait to reach the higher levels so I can have my full attack chain and excellent secondary powers. I have been contemplating skipping my Tier Nine in favor of.... something. I don't know what, but I'm thinking Stealth or Caltrops. I've never been a big fan of those kinds of powers with a crash, so I figure some utility is what would help me the most. I may still end up getting it much later, but the most likely scenario is that no, I won't.

So, with the opening of the new APPs for Villains, what would the be a decent addition to my Stalker? I've contemplated Body Mastery, but I'm unsure if that's a good fit.

IMO Leviathan patron is still the best choice for a stalker, especially one that can softcap through its secondary. Waterspout with an achilles -res and hibernate are both extremely good, and taking the patron pet is not a bad idea if you can figure out how to use it.

Glad to know it's going well for you, so far.

I didn't take Golden Dragonfly on mine (I had a good "fast enough" chain
with Soaring Dragon by then), so I can't say much there - haven't used
it, haven't missed it (even in PvP).

I would definitely recommend Kuji-In Retsu at L38 though. It's one of the
key "situational powers" you can have, and it's especially good vs EB/AV's
and/or when a battle starts going south on you - it can be a difference
maker. As with most situational powers the trick is all about timing.

With regard to "crash" powers, the issue of course is lack of endurance.

The old Blaster strategy of popping a CaB or two still works fine here.

For stalkers, however, you needn't even do that. Hide takes no endurance.
So, pre-crash, Placate, break Line of Sight, and you're off the hook as you
melt back into the shadows during the crash...

For patron powers, I like Gloom or Sharks. A big gap for NB/Nin is no
ranged attacks. Either of these make a good finisher for runners (Sharks
is better for PvP), and Sharks comes with KB which is a nice mitigator for
PvE as well.

Caltrops is also good (esp. in PvE), and I use it regularly - in fact, that was
an early pick on my builds (along with TP Foe as well).

In any case, I'm glad you're having fun with it - that's the main win.


Regards,
4