Putting My Claws Stalker On Ice (Again)

It was a good run, but with 19% set bonuses for damage and a Musculature Alpha, Stalker Claws still disappoints me. So, Ms. Bush Ranger, one of my favorite characters, is getting put back in deep freeze due to insufficient capability. She's supposed to be dead anyway, so it kinda makes sense at any rate.

What precipitated this was in doing Villain Tip missions at 50, you end up fighting a lot of Crey. Stalker Claws is pretty miserable against Crey. You really have to see to believe how little damage is done by Buildup>Assassin's Claw on a Paragon Protector. It doesn't injure the Protector so much as tickle it. It loses only a tiny sliver of health, and that is discouraging.

Taking on entire spawns of those Tanks, the story isn't much better. Shockwave also just tickles them and over the course of a single spawn fight it feels like I cast Shockwave one or two dozen times.

And it really isn't just Crey. It's objects and any group that uses robots. It gets old throwing umpteen attacks to kill anything.

I guess Claws is just a poor fit for Stalkers. A DPS set on an Archetype that specializes in Burst. You can hit things other Claws Archetypes can't because you've got Buildup, but that's just about it.

I noticed the lack of damage leveling up, but I kept telling myself it would get better. It didn't. Being locked in eternal combat with Ms. Liberty was a living hell.

Is Claws the worst Stalker primary? IMHO, it is. If you enjoy it, bless you and have fun. It sure isn't for me.

*rolls Broadsword and crosses fingers*

What Stalker primary would you put on the bottom of the pile? Which do you think is the overall best Stalker primary?

WARNING: I bold names.

I'm not really sure about the worst... I never had the guts to play the lower burst damage/lethal stalker sets (or maybe I just got lucky). But from your description and how it looks on paper against the wrong enemies, claws does seem to be way down there. I'm curious though: don't DB and NS share that problem, to a smaller degree maybe? Both are all lethal damage with faster attacks that don't seem to hit so hard (compared to, say, BS).

For the best ones though, for ST damage (with a side dish of extra survivabilty) I'd say DM is at the top. MA does more damage on paper and kicks a**, coming a close second, but the mobs who resist dark noticeably are much rarer (though they do tend to resist it a lot) than those who resist smashing, and that's still not as bad as lethal. In the old days, people were crazy about EnM stalkers and they looked good playing them, but for whatever reason I hardly ever see them discussed nowadays... I never got around to playing one, but I wonder what happened to the set's rep.

Now, if we're talking AoE, ElM is hailed as the best set for Stalkers (better than spines): nice damage type, nice tricks and, thanks to AS's burst ST damage, it doesn't loose so much in the ST department as badly as it does for other ATs. My Electric stalker is still in his pre-DO baby steps, though, so I'm going by third party accounts and how it looks on paper.

I leveled up a Katana/Regen stalker back in the day (as in, back when Stalkers had similar damage to Tankers, with Defender level HP, and Hide that used endurance), and about half the enemies in the game were a nightmare to fight. Like you said, even BU + Assassinate would do pathetic damage vs oh so many different enemies. At the time, I didn't really realize how little damage I did, as that was my VERY first character (it was fairly obvious in comparison to Brutes... but it really hit me when I started encountering Scrappers).

Eventually, I rolled my much loved Energy Melee/Ninjitsu, as it was really considered to be one of the top sets at the time... and it was MUCH better, doing actually GOOD damage, and wouldn't just instantly go down the moment I drew a bit of attention (Regen with little HP = easily bursted). I had lots of fun with that one, but she's stalled out at 47, seeming to be left in the dust by the sexier, more AoEy sets (plus, it's not easy to soft cap, so it's not as survivable as a lot of other sets).


So, point being: Lethal damage sucks. And whatever is currently the new hotness will eventually be old hat.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

Is the issue with the blend of Stalker mechanics & claws, with the lethal aspect of claws or a mixture of both?

I started a Claws/Nin stalker last night but I'm thinking of recreating the concept as a brute or scrapper based on the OP. I've done the slow pinging to death against robots & ghosts before with lethal weapons and have no interest in doing it again if Stalkers make it even worse.

Yeah claws is lacking at best for stalkers. When I look at a night widow I think to myself "that's what a claw stalker should perform like". Instead we get a low damage primary that is highly resisted to boot.

The only good thing about stalker's claws is that build up recharges faster (75 seconds base rech vs 90 seconds on other primaries), so on a high rech build you can have it up 50% of the time. Doesn't quite make up for the high resists of the npcs though. Paragon protectors, warwolves, anything with a resist T9, malta... villain side is truely villainous!

Sadly, it's even lackluster against carnies...

I play concepts more than effectiveness, I have a claw/nin I got to 50, and I am just happy playing it, but even I find it is a little week. Eviscerate should work just like the scrapper version, and even the eviscerate is on the week side!!! This set needs to be fixed.

I can conceptualize a scrapper/brute just as easily as a stalker. Part of my concept though is, you know, not doing sucky damage

I too feel lethal and smash only attack sets are lacking. Mostly because of the global defense and resistance to those two damage types....drives me crazy.

I always felt claws should do bleed attacks to make up for that fact...heck i felt all the lethal only attacks sets should do that...but go figure.

Your only saving grace with claws is the attacks speed....and thus technicaly....if you slot the attacks with enhancements that do say knock down and other damge types you can get a bit more out of it....but otherwise.....claws in particular is one of those sets that never got balanced the correct way.

Attack speed is an interesting advantage since it allows you to be mobile. Probably nowhere near enough of an advantage, though. I'm thinking of leaning towards procs for some of the attacks. As fas as Eviserate, they should either make it more like a Stalker and give it higher crit chance or they should revert it back to a cone like other ATs. Intriguingly, the part of the set I like the most is Focus and Shockwave for the fact that the knockback is guaranteed but it's rater low mag plus they are ranged.

I am not sure why ninja blade, and dual blades would have the stigma of not having burst. Not only do both power sets offer burst, but better scrapping ability. I would hesitate to put energy melee ahead of ninja blade and dual blades, but an argument could be made. Electricity, KM, and Spines make up the upper tier, while Claws, energy melee, and MA make the lower tier for stalkers in my opinion. Dark Melee, Dual blades, and ninja blade are middle of the pack, but it could be argued Dark Melee should be at the very top due to the negative energy damage.

Claws is straight up scrapping though, and the attempt to give it more single target burst with eviscerate was a mistake.

Most experienced stalker players prefer AoE sets, while newcomers like stalker sets that are single target focused. Claws simple doesn't fall into either category.

Yeah I would have to come to the same conclusion Jibikao.

It is actually a lot simpler than that. If you have a weeker defence and hitpoints than a scrapper and still have a scrapper out-damage you that is just wrong. Stalkers are the melee equivolent to a blaster with NO AoE!!!

So your a blaster.
You can not do ranged attacks or next to no AoE blaster damage.
However you have a slightly higher defence, it doesn't compensate for the surprising lack of damage you deal.

In the end, stalkers with their lack of range, AoE, hitpoints, and defences should be the HUGEST damage dealing class in the game.

My main is a claws stalker and I never have too much trouble with her. I proc'd the hell out of most her attacks and, because I attack so fast and frequently, things die just as fast as any other primary. I'll admit that, being my main toon, she's slotted to the teeth, but even leveling I never felt horribly gimped. *shrug*