You can't go wrong with either really. Both have two reliable knockdowns. Both do lethal damage. The main difference is that ninja blade has divine avalanche that buffs your melee and lethal def by a ridiculous amount and dual blades has a much easier and more damaging cone attack. You can reliably hit two enemies with golden dragonfly, and if the stars align perfectly you can hit three. One thousand cuts is trivial to catch as many dudes as you want in it's 90 degree cone. It does quite a bit more damage too for the cost of 3 seconds more on recharge time and a fairly long animation time vs. how snappy golden dragonfly animates. Also flashing steel from ninja blade has a very nice arc (130 deg vs. 90 deg for 1kCuts and Sweeping Strike) that kinda makes up for GD's inferiority vs. 1KCuts.
Dual blades has krazy kombos too if that floats your boat.
Honestly I like ninja blade a bit more. You can softcap your melee defense easily if you are using a defense based secondary, as long as you remember to keep your divine avalanche going.
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If you're Achilless Heel proc crazy, Ninja Blade is the way to go. Two powers in DB have -def, while six do in Nin (including the quick recharge). Ninja Blade also has D Avalanche and S Dragon... awesome attacks for mitigating damage.|
Originally Posted by Pinny
I have a level 30 Nin/Nin stalker, but I've been having thought about dual blades lately...My only real experience with the set was when they first came out and the training room was boosting people to level 35, so I made a DB/WP scrapper and the first thing I do? Try and go up against Rikti in the RWZ. Derp!
Personally, I think the idea of someone dual wielding blades fits the "ninja" theme more than single wielding a katana, but I'm not sure if I'd be stabbing myself in the foot if I remade to dual blades are not... Any experts on Ninja Blade/Dual Blades willing to give me some advice? Thanks! |
I've never been real keen on DB on Stalkers, but that extra cone attack is pretty tempting. Then there's the fact that Empower is a normal chain for Stalkers anyway (BU->Assassin->Placate) so it's very easy to leverage.
It's more or less a wash in my mind. If you're going to IO for soft capped defense, then the mitigation offered by Nin is less useful, and the extra AoE for DB will be more useful. If you're just going to lightly IO, I would stick with Ninja Blade.
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I made a DB/NIN to 50 and a Nin/SR to 46. |
Originally Posted by Pinny
I have a level 30 Nin/Nin stalker, but I've been having thought about dual blades lately...My only real experience with the set was when they first came out and the training room was boosting people to level 35, so I made a DB/WP scrapper and the first thing I do? Try and go up against Rikti in the RWZ. Derp!
Personally, I think the idea of someone dual wielding blades fits the "ninja" theme more than single wielding a katana, but I'm not sure if I'd be stabbing myself in the foot if I remade to dual blades are not... Any experts on Ninja Blade/Dual Blades willing to give me some advice? Thanks! |
Before melee range being changed to 7' reach instead of 5', Ninja Blade's cone attack wasn't that good (now it's respectable).
Having said that, 1K Cuts is still a very good melee cone attack with 10' range. You can easily hit 2-3 targets in each mob and it offers knockdowns too.
Soaring Dragon > Vengeful but Attack Vital is a cheap and easy combo for good ST damage. You just can't keep chaining Attack Vital because they put a reset timer on it (bummer).
I do like Dual Blade on Stalker. I think it's well balanced for ST damage and AoE damage for Stalker. I am not a big fan on Stalker combos because 1. you have to take all powers to have access to all 4 combos (waste) 2. two combos are tied to either Assassin Strike or Build Up so you can really only have two reliable combos in Attack Vital and Weaken. I just hit BU and 1K Cuts for good burst damage.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
I really enjoy my DB/EA stalker. She'll probably be my first Incarnate. The sweep combo is terribly useful. With the knockdown, you can Placate a boss and Assassin's Blades him again before he and his friends stand up. Empower is good for a bit of extra damage if what you're fighting isn't much of a threat. Attack Vitals is a pretty decent DoT, and you're going to want to be using Vengeful Slice pretty frequently anyway, for the knockdown. I haven't noticed Weaken doing to much to help the big stuff die faster, but it's fun anyway.
With inherent Fitness coming in I19, it's a bit less painful to fit all of the DB powers in. Stalker builds are always pretty tight.
Edit- Obviously, Assassin's Blades is not able to be chained that way. Not sure what I was thinking there. It does give you time to work in a nice Attack Vitals combo, though.
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For me the big deal about Divine Avalanche is that you can go *over* the soft-cap easily. This gives a Ninjitsu stalker something a bit like defense debuff resistance at least with respect to melee/lethal attacks. Absolutely great for going up against Cimerorans who can cut merely soft-capped melee defense to ribbons.|
Originally Posted by milks
Honestly I like ninja blade a bit more. You can softcap your melee defense easily if you are using a defense based secondary, as long as you remember to keep your divine avalanche going.
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Then there is Flashing Steel which became quite a good melee cone attack when animation times were reduced and then melee range was increased to 7'. It animates quickly and recharges quickly. Don't be fooled by the somewhat low per-click damage. You can use that sucker a LOT.
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They're both good. Up to you which you want. DBs has more AoE while Katana has better ST DPS. Katana has better self mitigation while DBs has better 'team mitigation'. Katana looks pretty cool style-wise and extremely awesome with Ninja run while DBs looks great style-wise but quite retarded with Ninja run but makes up for it with more customization options.
I don't really play sets over again, so I don't have a Katana Stalker (just a Kat/SR scrapper which is my main) but I know it can perform great on a Stalker too. Dual Blades is very good too. It has its hang-ups and its perks so do what you will with the set.
-I like taking all the attacks from DBs and it has a bigger purpose than taking all the attacks of other sets. This can be good or bad depending on how you look at it...but I *like* taking a whole set and don't like really crappy throw-away powers.
-Put procs in Ablating Strike.
-Sweeping Strike is more damaging than you'd think. It's nearly Soaring Dragon in a cone...slot it and use it...
-You can mix it up. You can start out a fight with Sweep combo or Empower if its vs few hardier targets (which flows nicely into Attack Vitals which can benefit from 100% dmg buff) or BU > 1k cuts for multiple weaker targets (it does a lot of damage...) Fighting never gets old...
Dual Blades with ninja run is the epitome of awesome.
In my opinion I dumped all my ninja blade, and claw stalkers the minute dual blades came out.
It is a balanced set for single target and AoE damage. There are pauses inbetween attacks in ninja blade that drives me nuts. Claws is fluid with the attack chain, but I feel without spin, and the new "improved" eviscerate it has been neutered in terms of fun of factor.
Dual Blades can be scrappy, but also very stalkerish as well. Its combos are not necessary for the set to function which is amazing...especially coming out of hide which rivals electric melee's capabilities. And the combos you choose to take can be useful in soloing. But the combo sweep for example, is very useful on teams at preventing an alpha retaliatory strike, or even an anti ambush tool.
Dual Blades for stalkers very underrated.
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If you hold a sword behind you like that while you're idle, you'll slice your own legs off or twist your wrist bringing it back infront of you fast enough. The stance is illogical and (IMO) retarded-looking.
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Originally Posted by Gemini_2099
Dual Blades with ninja run is the epitome of awesome.
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I assume he means running with it. If you see someone running at you with a sword in each hand they way they do in ninja run you'd be thinking "oh shi---"|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
If you hold a sword behind you like that while you're idle, you'll slice your own legs off or twist your wrist bringing it back infront of you fast enough. The stance is illogical and (IMO) retarded-looking.
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I do agree that the idle stance for ninja run is retarded, though.
I appreciate the responses! The problem I have is with these sets I'll make one, then start thinking about being the other, then I'll either delete/remake to the other set, and the process will start over again.
Characters!:
Pinny - Scrapper
Shadewing - Defender
@Pinny
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This is the reason I tend to turn Ninja Run off a second before I come to a halt. Like the run animation, can't stand the idle animation. Whether I have a weapon out or not. |
Originally Posted by Pinny
I do agree that the idle stance for ninja run is retarded, though.
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It is kind of cool with a bow. But that hunched over stance is just too different from the normal stances, I feel like I need to straighten up or my own back will start hurting.
I have a level 30 Nin/Nin stalker, but I've been having thought about dual blades lately...My only real experience with the set was when they first came out and the training room was boosting people to level 35, so I made a DB/WP scrapper and the first thing I do? Try and go up against Rikti in the RWZ. Derp!
Personally, I think the idea of someone dual wielding blades fits the "ninja" theme more than single wielding a katana, but I'm not sure if I'd be stabbing myself in the foot if I remade to dual blades are not...
Any experts on Ninja Blade/Dual Blades willing to give me some advice? Thanks!
Characters!:
Pinny - Scrapper
Shadewing - Defender
@Pinny