Top primaries for ST damage?

Quick question for the pros...what primaries are currently at the top reference ST damage? Thanks in advance.

I'm not sure on this but it should be

Dark Melee
Martial Arts
Energy Melee

I've been playing my Energy Melee recently and he seems to down them pretty quickly, to chime in with what some of the others are saying. I'm pretty sure he's faster at it than my DB stalker was, at least; part of that probably has to do with resistance to lethal that a lot of foes have.

I haven't played any other stalkers past, say, 15th however, so take this with a grain of salt.

The last time I ran numbers for it, which is before KM came out and is purely based on the best available chain and ignoring endurance sustainability and damage types, it was MA > EM > DM while solo, and MA > DM > EM with (iirc) 4+ people around. The more often you critical, the worse EM ranks.

KM doesn't have great DPA attacks - it has relatively short animations on the low damage attacks but the medium and heavy hitters are slow and/or don't critical - so I don't imagine that a sustained chain would be in those top three, but if I read the patch notes correctly being able to reliably bring BU back may bring it close overall and it still has a good PBAoE in Burst. For a "well-rounded" set it's a nice option, although for general PvE I still like ElM better.

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Ninja Blade can deliver great DPS with the top attack chain and the right procs(purple and -res ones). However the lethal damage will be a hindrance at times, and the slow AS animation is a drawback as well.

Personally I would rather take something AoE centric like Elec or KM and just rely on AS and teammates for the hard targets.

Thanks all. I currently have nrg/, elec/, spines/ on different servers at different levels but was just curious about opinions on ST damage now with all the patches/nerfs etc that I don't keep up with. I want to revisit playing a Stalker again and without procs and IOs considerations etc...what are the hardest hitting ST primaries now?

While I haven't done Broadsword yet...here's a list of the best ST DPS chains I could find for all the sets. The numbers are all using 3 generic lvl 50 IOs worth of damage, and no procs.

So, Ninja Blade may move up the DPS list if one considers it can slot two different -Resist Procs as well as slot 2 Purple IO Procs, versus the other sets.

This also doesn't include getting an Assassin Strike off everytime you can pop Placate + AS. But in my experience, where DPS matters, that's not an easy feet and I tended to waste more END than anything, unless I Placated then waited, which defeats the whole purpose of the big attack for DPS. :/

If there's better DPS chains out there, I'd be glad to hear them, these were just the ones I could find/figure out.

Dual Blades is also another set that with it's DPS chain can slot 2 -resist procs. So, obviously it can move up the DPS list as well.

None of these DPS take into account the use of Build Up either. Though the only ones that should be a bit higher due to the use of Build Up, is Kinetic Melee and Claws (Insta recharge on CS crit, and lower Recharge on Claws).


MARTIAL ARTS

SK - CK/CS - SK - CAK
5.808 - 140.90


DARK MELEE

SM - SL - SM - MG
6.732 - 133.14


ENERGY MELEE

EP - BS - ET - EP - BS - TF
11.88 - 130.72


NINJA BLADE

GC - SD - GC - GD
5.412 - 129.60


KINETIC MELEE

BB - BS - FB - BB - BS - CS
10.824 - 114.26

BB - BS - QS - BB - BS - CS
9.636 - 118.24


DUAL BLADES (*Unsure of Attack Vitals Combo*)

NS - AS - NS - SS
5.016 - 114.10

PS - NS - VS (*Attack Vitals*)
5.412 - 81.25


CLAWS

Swipe - Focus - Slash - Evis
6.468 - 109.64

(*SW - FO - SW - EV = 110.?? DPS, but lacks the -Defense of adding Slash and thusly the -Resist Proc*)


ELECTRIC MELEE

CB - JL - CB - CI
5.148 - 106.44


SPINES

IM - RI - TS
6.864 - 104.40

Purple Procs and -Res procs throw off BrandX's list a bit if you use them; I'll try to calculate some later tonight.

Actually, Electric Melee's chain gets really complicated, and even more so if you use the special trick with /nin, but that increases its dps dramatically.

With nin, it will end up being more like this:

Waterspout or Caltrops->BU->LR->AS->(Repeat CI->CB->JL->CB until others recharge) {Notice no placate}

Everyone can get Water Spout and Caltrops, so I would leave them out of this.

K, putting in purple procs, applying the tohit clamp and the -res from procs, Ninja Blade comes out to ~172.3 dps, not including Buildup (that gets messier than I'd like at the moment).