Stalker that wants to stay and fight...

I'm wanting to build a PvE stalker that can stick around after the initial strike and fight the rest of a group. What would be the best primary and secondary to do this with?

one of the fun stalker combos ive used is elec melee/energy aura/mu mastery

i basically just sap the mobs to death, although without IOs he can be a little squishy

I should have said I'm looking for something that doesn't REQUIRE IO's for survivability. I'm pretty sure with the right sets, just about any stalker should do about as well as any other. I've been looking at Ninja Blade as primary for thematic reasons, but was also looking at Dark as well for its well-rounded utility. Plus, I seem to remember a long time ago that it was one of the better sets.

I was wondering about the defensive sets in terms of effectiveness. I'm guessing in spite of its overall larger numbers, Reflexes is still not chosen as often as Ninjutsu because of the latters utilities and built-in heal. It seems that both would benefit somewhat from Ninja Blade's +def power. I've heard nothing particularly good about Energy Aura.

I was also wondering about the other sets in terms of survivability since they lack the concentrated defenses of the above three.

Claws/Will

Enough defense to avoid most hits after placating, enough toughness to take hits that get through, awesome self heal, and great mitigation from primary.

Plus, Placate & hop back>Shockwave makes me giggle.

/Nin or /SR is probably your best bet. I've done better with my /dark and she's horribly built, she stands and fights in large groups. thanks to the heal and the fear aura it's very hard for enemies to deal damage fast enough to actually get her down.

/Nin has the advantage of caltrops though which does a great job of messing with the AI. If you stand in or behind the patch enemies spend more time running away than attacking.

/SR is famous for being the least expensive to softcap and does it on SOs just fine.

Not going with IO sets will make it a little harder, but I've had good luck playing a trio of very scrappy Willpower stalkers (Two Dual Blade, one KinMelee). Even on SOs they were reasonably good at sticking around and surviving a regular, stand-up fight.

With IOs, it gets easier to do that kind of thing, but even without it can still be done. You just have to be a little more cautious.

I would go with ???/nin for all the utility. And shadow meld from the soul mastery will help if you cant afford to softcap yourself

Pick a defense based armor. Any of the primaries will let you remain in the fray. There's no reason to back out if you can take the heat of the fight.

I stick around and scrap after the fight's started on all my Stalkers, regardless of secondary.

I'm partial to my NB / Nin Stalker as a "pocket scrapper", and have run him
that way on more than 1 TF team quite successfully.

As others have mentioned, +Def is pretty decent for that AT. He also has
his anti-mez power and a self heal which are quite helpful in a melee role.

The two additonal powers I really like for him in this scenario are:

Caltrops: This is a hands-down beautiful power in PvE. You don't need
slots in it, but if you have extra slots, you can do some good things here
with procs & debuffs. But even by itself, it is a great damage mitigator,
and a sweet ambush remedy. It also synergizes nicely with TP Foe if you
want to cull a pesky mob out of a crowd, or simply thin/divide a spawn.

Divine Avalanche: If you're going to melee, this is the key power to have
(imho). Can you say "Capped Melee Defense" without IO's - the stalker with
this power can. With any recharge on it at all, it's double stackable - a
nice 30% bonus to Melee defense. On top of that, it does decent (~tier
1) damage. It's also an easy & helpful way to counteract pesky -def
debuffers.

NB is pretty much in the middle of the Stalker damage curve, so it's a decent
primary, and /Nin is one of the best Stalker secondaries. Taking these two
powers along the way, makes him very survivable and successful if he
wants to stick around and mix it up a little after his AS.

GL with whatever approach you take.


Regards,
4

Defense based sets are the preferred route for scrappy Stalkers, since better AoE Defense will keep you from being hit and spoiling Assassin Strikes or Placate. Any good AoE Primary like Claws or Spines should be good too, although in that case being scrappy is more playing to your Primary's strengths.

To be honest, I like Dark Armor a lot with the recent changes. ELA I wouldn't recommend though unless you have a lot of experience playing with stalkers.

But I concur with the others that a defensed based set may be the way to go with a non IO build. Will is a good second route to take as well.

To echo the Ninja Blade votes, don't forget that there's also Broadsword. It's very similar, with slower recharge time. It's not numerically superior but MAN, it feels SO MUCH angrier than Ninja Blade. Broad/Nin ftw.

no love for elec/wp even with SOs it is quite fun and survivable. Remember LR does not take you out of hide. Sure it aggros but you can follow up with TS and get the crits.
WP is the jack of all trades, Decent resist,defense and regen

I understand, if not agree, with the idea that it is better to avoid damage than to heal. That said, I have had great success with my Ninja Blade / Regen stalker. There are some EBs and Heroes that hit so hard that increased defense & regen rates don't matter if I die in two hits. But most mishes I do just fine. Last night I soloed a purple EB -- Dull Pain and Instant Healing together are a nice duo, and kept me alive long enough to do some good dmg. When that wears off, still have Moment of Glory and Shadow Meld, and still have the Accolades powers (DA & FoN). When those wore off I hit Phase Shift and took a moment to recoup. Then my DP and IH were back, and started the cycle over again. Hasten is a must imho in order to keep these secondary regens cycling (as well as Placate, BU and AS). I used to have whirlwind which occasionally saved my butt when trying to get mobs off, though I dropped it to make room for Epics. Since I just came back after a few years off, I only have SOs slotted.

I recall a few years ago I had a PvP nemesis, he was a Spines/Regen Scrapper, and we could fight for an hour, neither of us ever able to kill the other because we were both stacked with so many regen powers.