Stalknetic melee

No more NDA! I can now hoop and hollar about how much I love KM/ for Stalkers!

PBAoE attack that crits out of hide- awesome! (Burst)
Concentrated Strike (T9 move) instantly recharges Build up instead of a crit- awesome!

BU-->CS-->placate-->BU-->AS
EDIT: If you're lucky enough to get a random crit at that moment.

The AS animation is sweet-looking, definitely cooler than ones like /EM or /claws.

Where I found that the KB hinders fury on a brute, especially with the fury changes (though it is understandable) it makes for great mitigation for the stalkers, and the -DMG effect helps a lot too.

RRRRRGHICAN'TWAITTOPLAYTHISLIVE!!!!!!!

I've only tried out /SR, /EnA, and /regen so far, and out of those 3, /Regen was the most survivable while still having room in the build for other stuff like travel powers. the -DMG combined with regen makes you pretty unkillable.

However, /EnA LOOKS the coolest with KM/. I'd even say that it's more thematic-looking than EnM/EnA

The first one I rolled was with /SR. Softcapped with the mitigation and -DMG whenever you DO get hit makes for a good combo as well.

Gonna try it with /nin tonight and see how that goes.

I'm noticing now though that CS out of hide doesn't instantly recharge BU. Might have to be a random crit, not sure.

I played a kin stalker at 41 in beta.

CS doesn't crit out of hide. The BU-instacharge has to happen off a random crit. On the upside, that means in a melee focused team, you're going to see it happen more often.

You lose the KB cone (which is kinda junk) and Power Siphon. PS is a "rolling uphill" damage buff, like Fury... it relies on hitting stuff to get anywhere and you have to build up to one well timed final hit. Frankly, I prefer Build Up. I tried a KM scrapper and it was a pain to juggle that thing, compared to on-demand powerful bursts of damage.

Chainwise, I like BU - AS - CS - Burst. If I recall it all fits in there and it gives enemies a few seconds to close in to Burst range. Mop up the rest with your attacks -- the -damage is okay, but the real gem is the soft controls. Whoever you're focused on is going to be too dizzy and too knockdowned to really do much of anything to you. The soft controls alone (along with energy/smashing damage) make this a pretty decent set for mitigation-needing stalkers.

Personally I'm going to try to skip the T1 attack. The ranged attack is actually pretty good damage and hits quick. (All the attacks hit quicker than it looks -- the set only FEELS slow because it has beefy animations. When you run the numbers it hangs in there decently.)

Secondarywise, yeah, the def sets are always good, but if you're looking for something different try Willpower or Regen. Both work well with the -damage debuffs. I'm going Willpower, myself.

I haven't tried willpower, though it does seem good with KM/ as well.

Tonight I was playing with Ninjitsu, and it's a cool combination. Tossing some caltrops and blinding powder around helps with not getting hit while the animations from KM/ are going, and smoke bomb coupled with burst is pretty cool too when smoke bomb actually works, lol.

So now I'm torn betwen /Nin and /Regen for my first live toon but I'll probably go with /Regen.

I'm thinking Kin/Nin for my first, for stylistic reasons. "I'm the Mystic Ninja!" *makes complicated hand gestures*

Kinetic Melee's actually kind of cool on a Stalker (it lacks AoE obviously, but that's Elec's and Spines' thing). It's just unfortunate that the AT the new melee set is best on is the least-popular melee AT.

...so what does the set's AS look like?

Also, is it really just called Assassin's Strike? >_>

The AS is like a Hadoken, with a little additional waving before you charge up the blast. It reminds me of Sakura's hadoken, which you can charge up with a few taps of punch... she builds it up before letting out this near-melee power blast.

That's half the reason I love the set, honestly. No kancho of doom. (The other half of the reason I love it is the energy damage, the knockdowns, the stuns, the debuffs, etc...)

It's got a lot of good stuff under the hood, for sure.

Personally I would have like to seen something that looks like Naruto's Rasengan, but a couple of the moves look similar, just done with two hands instead of one (and no shadow clone helping you lol)

But everyone loves a good Hadoken! I've caught myself saying it under my breath a couple of times.

Focused burst actually reminds me of Mewtwo's attacks from Pokemon Stadium back in the N64 days.

EDIT: forgot to mention. Mime costumes look great with all the hand-waving

I was taking a look at future proc options. Seems you can fit a good 3 Force Feedback: chance for +recharge in there, which will be sweet with the CS/BU chance. I doubt it will scrape on the suppression too much.

Focused burst can take ranged damage so a Devastation: chance for hold can work, also sweet. Makes for a good chance to BU/AS again.

Assassin's strike should get a different name too, I think Assassin's Pulse would be cool. Or Assassin's Blast, it does look pretty blasty.

3 days to go....

Yeah, KM is making me want to actually play a stalker that I might stick with past the 20s...

why doesnt burst take kb sets?

Can you use Burst in Hide, which crits, and then use CS (which also crits) - like with Elec Melee and the LR + TS combo?

Thanks for clearing that up.

I made a 18 Kin/Dark Stalker. I chose /Dark because I heard they've fixed it so the offensive aura won't do anything until Stalker is out of Hidden and I want to stack Resistance + Damage Debuff to increase my Stalker's survival.


The first few powers are pretty basic. The activation seems a bit longer than what it advertises but I think that's because some attacks go out right away and then you are stuck in that animation until it's done; whereas Kinetic attacks would do the "hand swirling" animation first and then go out.


I like Burst's animation a lot but there is one pretty big problem. I sometimes like to open with just BU + Burst on a large team as it does decent damage and debuffs and knocks down. The big problem is the enemies would SEE ME before Burst goes off. This can be very deadly if I use it on a large team. I am not sure if this is intended but I think it's a bug because Spine Burst takes a while activate but you only reveal yourself after the spines go out. Has anyone noticed this?


I am taking my Stalker slowly because I am reading the story arcs. I'll post my review later.

PS: Having psionic resistance early on isn't bad when I fought so many Seers!