Well I have a DB/Nin that's level 28 and I haven't actually played him all that much.
Leveling a DB isn't much different from leveling any other character from what I've seen.
It isn't really dependent on the combos but having the Sweep combo at level 8 is pretty good.
I strongly suggest holding off on placate for a bit grabbing it later on in the build as taking it at 12 doesn't really help leveling.
The combos are only as important as you make em. Don't forget that DB's combos are it's secondary effect akin to the -def in Ninja blade or the -tohit in Dark.
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Nah. Unless you team a lot with something that can hold aggro, take Placate ASAP.|
Originally Posted by DMystic
I strongly suggest holding off on placate for a bit grabbing it later on in the build as taking it at 12 doesn't really help leveling
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Whether it's used defensively to reduce the number of foes you have to fight at once or whether it's to Build Up -> Assassin's -> Placate -> crit with your best regular attack (getting Empowered in the process) on a Boss, it is one of your most valuable powers, even early on.
Except for the fairly long recharge on it for those levels.
And a viable attack chain, with strong defensive powers behind it will go a lot farther than placate.
As for bosses generally I keep my difficulty lower until I feel comfortable with the characters capabilities and build. (My DB/Nin isn't even fully SO'd yet)
Also my experience so far has been with a /Nin, Caltrops has proven to be a greater asset to survivability and damage than Placate. Of course I do have placate available I think I took it at 20 though.
The idea is to get a decent set of attacks and defenses before worrying about specialized powers such as Placate.
It's worth it. It is one of the better Stalker sets imo. It is also one the few Stalker sets that's actually AoE friendly. You got two fast recharging 90(?) degree cones with solid damage that can be stringed together easily to form the weaken combo. If you were to take advantage of the combo mechanic, that would be the one you'd use the most.
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Nah, I find delaying Placate provides better gaming experience during early levels especially if you don't have a heavy hit to follow up with. Placate doesn't improve dps at all. It has better use for soloers but I rarely solo on my stalker. |
Originally Posted by JD_Gumby
Nah. Unless you team a lot with something that can hold aggro, take Placate ASAP.
Whether it's used defensively to reduce the number of foes you have to fight at once or whether it's to Build Up -> Assassin's -> Placate -> crit with your best regular attack (getting Empowered in the process) on a Boss, it is one of your most valuable powers, even early on. |
I find it better taking one more attack since we already take Assassin Strike at lvl 6. If you take AS + Placate, you don't have rooms left for other attacks or defensive toggles.
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.
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There are two sides of Dual blade story. |
Originally Posted by Stormbird
I was playing with the idea of making a dual blades stalker. But other than a wicked looking asassin's strike, I don't think it would work out very well. It just seems like it's not that big a deal or too dependant on combos.
Am I wrong? Is it worth leveling up? I haven't made it yet, so if it's too big of a pain to level, no sweat. |
Story 1: People complain that Stalker Dual Blade is not as good because you can't form two combos frequently (since they are tied to Build Up/Assassin Strike) and Scrapper/Brute have a better experience with Dual Blade. The design of Dual Blade is to form combos frequently.
Story 2: Because Stalker's dual blade performance doesn't tie up with combos as much, in situations where you miss combos, you are better off. I've heard scrapper's complaining trollers immbing too quick and the mobs are scattered. In that situation, your Stalker may perform more "smoothly". And also, your 1K Cut cone is 10' instead of 7' (it used to be 5'!) so you can hit more targets. You don't have Hyphoon though.
I made a DB/Nin 50 on Virtue and I miss him. I forgot to transfer him to Freedom when it's half priced. ugh
I will play Stalker DB again. I think it's a perfect set for both ST and AoE damage. It doesn't excel in either but it's above average for both.
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.
Oh also Stalker DB gets Attack Vitals fairly early, and with some recharge slotting/globals you can easily chain AV into itself.
Speaking of secondary effects, DB also sports some fairly solid mitigation from knockdown. Of course, I've got a KD proc in all my ST attacks that don't already do so, so it isn't uncommon to be able to juggle mobs for me.
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I wish people would stop trying to press their opinion so much.|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
Nah, I find delaying Placate provides better gaming experience during early levels especially if you don't have a heavy hit to follow up with. Placate doesn't improve dps at all. It has better use for soloers but I rarely solo on my stalker.
I find it better taking one more attack since we already take Assassin Strike at lvl 6. If you take AS + Placate, you don't have rooms left for other attacks or defensive toggles. |
Placate: it's a power that recharges relatively decent. It stops a foe from hitting you until you hit it. It gives you a chance for a critical hit so long as you're not knocked from hidden.
In those levels, where you don't have slots or enhancements or endurance to burn, it's not like it's a bad choice. It needs no slotting to do it's magic, it's available early when you're hungry for slots and it can be used offensively or defensively.
Please, just pick it up depending on your playstyle.
On characters who I need my powers early so they're slotted by mid-level, it's an optional power to skip. On characters that can and do skip one or some of the earlier powers (See Martial Arts, Claws, Katana, Spines) and need more slots than powers, Placate is a great choice for this.
Is DB worth it? I'd say. I only have a mid level DB/Nin stalker (will get around to lvling it when I'm satisfied with where I leave my corruptor but then I'll probably spend some time on my Kin/EA stalker and Kin/Inv tanker after that) but it is fun to play and effective for single target and has some AoE spread in it too. It has nice options for IOs and comes with the optional tactics of combos to boot.
Just like it's a good suggestion to play at least 1 Kinetic Melee Stalker, I'd suggest at least 1 Dual Blades Stalker too. That, and Electrical Melee.
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Look who is talking? Dude, you are like the master of "pressing your opinions" onto others.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
I wish people would stop trying to press their opinion so much.
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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.
Now, I know for Scrappers and Brutes the highest damage DB attach chain doesn't use combos at all. Is that true for stalkers as well?
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
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Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
Now, I know for Scrappers and Brutes the highest damage DB attach chain doesn't use combos at all. Is that true for stalkers as well?
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If I'm not mistaken that chain uses the Follow Up clone frequently, which interferes with the combo system.
However I think the best Stalker chain also forgoes combos. I know someone(think it was Siolfir) posted a DPS chain for it somewhere.
EDIT: found one from Brand x
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When I make a statement about a power or AT, I give a 'this or that', a 'if you like doing this...' or 'it can do x and y stuff but not z'.|
Originally Posted by Jibikao
Look who is talking? Dude, you are like the master of "pressing your opinions" onto others.
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Do you hear me going on about Stalkers sucking? Although I think some help could be had for them, no I don't and they don't. Do I think placate is a panacea for the AT? No, I even mention why is a candidate for a delayed/skipped power.
It's about what someone wants to do, not what you think someone should do. Otherwise, I wouldn't even have any Stalkers and wouldn't touch MA or EM.
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| Now, I know for Scrappers and Brutes the highest damage DB attach chain doesn't use combos at all. Is that true for stalkers as well? |
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The scrapper Attack Vitals chain ends with Sweeping Strike (AoE), but that's also in the highest scrapper damage chain, of BF>AS>SS(same AoE)>AS. Blinding Feint (the followup clone) does not interfere with the combos, but rather the Vengeful Slice part of Attack Vitals is bad dpa.| I believe that's because those chains are their ST chains. All their combos end or use AoEs. |
As far as stalker DB goes, my hunch would be the Attack Vitals chain is the best, but I never actually calculated it. The lack of Blinding Feint makes the top scrapper dps chain unavailable to stalkers.
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DB dpa from best to worst for stalkers is:
Sweeping Strike
Ablating Strike
Assassin's Blade
Power Slice/Nimble Slash (almost identical)
1k Cuts
Vengeful Slice
Something like SS>PS>AB>PS is likely the best chain you will get, which is nowhere near the scrapper damage potential, but I think we knew that already.
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They put a "timer" so you can't chain Attack Vital continuously. You have to use other attacks and then go back to the beginning of Attack Vital combo (or simply wait a bit but if you are waiting, you might as well use something else). Yes, it would have been a pretty good dps combo and very cheap cost too.
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Originally Posted by Microcosm
As far as stalker DB goes, my hunch would be the Attack Vitals chain is the best, but I never actually calculated it. The lack of Blinding Feint makes the top scrapper dps chain unavailable to stalkers.
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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.
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I'm not sure this is right. If you have the recharge, it should work. I know that you can chain the Sweep combo into itself for Scrappers. Regardless, Vengeful Slice would tend to hurt your dps at the high end of recharge.
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Originally Posted by Jibikao
They put a "timer" so you can't chain Attack Vital continuously. You have to use other attacks and then go back to the beginning of Attack Vital combo (or simply wait a bit but if you are waiting, you might as well use something else). Yes, it would have been a pretty good dps combo and very cheap cost too.
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The Inspiration Maker's Guide [i12] UPDATED with POPMENUS and Movement Binds!
A Flash in the Dark: The Electric/Ninjitsu Stalker [i23]
Kheldian Inspiration Macros UPDATED with POPMENUS and Movement Binds!
Guide to the Katana~Ninja Blade/Electric [i23]
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I am 100% sure because I've tested it. Both Power and Nimble don't have long recharge so you don't even need high recharge. You basically chain Power -> Nimble -> Vengeful. Right after Vengeful, you can't start Attack Vital combo chain again with Power Slice. You can still use Power Slice but it won't start the combo sequence. I don't know why they put such restriction. At first I thought it's because Power is part of Weaken but Sweeping is the start of Weaken, not Power Slice. So you either wait a bit or you are better off starting Weaken combo.|
Originally Posted by Microcosm
I'm not sure this is right. If you have the recharge, it should work. I know that you can chain the Sweep combo into itself for Scrappers. Regardless, Vengeful Slice would tend to hurt your dps at the high end of recharge.
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Now right after Attack Vital, a better filler is probably Ablating since it doesn't start any combo. And then you go back to Power Slice, Nimble, Vengeful. Sweeping has the best DPA but if you use it right after Attack Vital, it becomes Weaken combo which you need to end with 1K Cuts.
Believe me, if they can have a way to restrict Stalkers from being too powerful, they will; and while letting Scrappers stacking follow-up buffs. :P I am not even sure the dps number for chaining Attack Vital nonstop. I just know it's very endurance efficient that's all.
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.
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Here are two other sides to the dual blade story, culminating in my humble opinion that one's enjoyment of a dual blade stalker is INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL to the number of other types of DB characters one has. |
Originally Posted by Jibikao
There are two sides of Dual blade story.
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Story 1: there's quite a few people who love playing their DB stalkers -- just look around this sub-forum!
Story 2: there's another thread around here (with an admittedly small, unscientific sample size) where a few of us who've spent way too much time with our other dual blade toons complained that a DB stalker doesn't play like the others -- and admittedly, it's not supposed to!
I've got a level 50 DB tank, a level 50 brute, and my main is a level 50 DB scrapper. I've spent thousands of hours playing that scrapper, earning 10 million prestige (so far) -- and the scrapper plays a lot like the tank which plays a lot like the brute. I use various combos, but mostly use Blinding Feint and Attack Vitals, or BF -> AV -> Sweep. The damage varies depending which toon I'm playing, as does the survivability, but those three play very, VERY similarly. I can hit the right keys with my eyes closed; I can carry on conversations in "team" while some of the longer animations go off and not miss a beat.
Not too long ago, I decided to make a DB stalker. It's...different. Some of the animation times are different, which throws my timing completely off. It's a perfectly good character, but whenever I find myself in a melee situation rather than Assassin Striking something, my reflex is to start playing like a DB scrapper and the timing is all wrong...no, it's just "different." My brain wants to go from Build Up to Assassin's Blades, and then go directly to "scrapper mode" with the usual attacks and timing, but the stalker doesn't quite work that way --and again, it's not supposed to.
So my hypothesis is that the more DB characters a person has, the less likely it is that they'll be able to adapt to the "new and different" stalker style of play, and thus the less fun they'll have with their DB stalker. If it's someone's first dual blades character, they'll probably have a blast with it. If it's their fourth DB character, they might very well give up at level twenty-something as I did.
"But it wasn't anything some purples and oranges and lots of screaming in fear couldn't handle." -- Werner
30 level 50's: 12 scrappers, 7 other random melee types, 11 blaster/blapper/support squishies, two accounts, and a TON of altitis since 4/28/04
Without running numbers on alternatives, I'd guess that Attack Vitals - chainable or not (and if you can't chain it, that would be a bug that should be reported since there's no reason it shouldn't be chainable just like every other combo that doesn't require Build Up is) - isn't the best option simply due to the crappy DPA of all of the attacks that make up the Attack Vitals chain (let's face it, Assassin's Blades is higher DPA than any of them without the DoT).
Numbers 'n' stuff:
VS: with DoT, scale 2.64 damage in a 2.640 animation time. (yay, 1.0 DS/sec)
PS: 1.1601 damage in 1.584 sec
NS: 0.84 damage in 1.188 sec
That's a total of scale 4.6401 in 5.412 seconds making a chain of DS 0.857 and change per sec.
If you want actual damage numbers for that, Stalker damage scale is 55.61 so that gives you (including the change I cut out) roughly 47.68 dps base. For comparison, Kinetic Melee's Assassin Strike, without any criticals - the closest individual attack for Stalkers - is scale 0.861 and 47.87 base dps.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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Blah... I guess you don't want to keep chaining Attack Vital even if it has no limitation.|
Originally Posted by Siolfir
Without running numbers on alternatives, I'd guess that Attack Vitals - chainable or not (and if you can't chain it, that would be a bug that should be reported since there's no reason it shouldn't be chainable just like every other combo that doesn't require Build Up is) - isn't the best option simply due to the crappy DPA of all of the attacks that make up the Attack Vitals chain (let's face it, Assassin's Blades is higher DPA than any of them without the DoT).
Numbers 'n' stuff: VS: with DoT, scale 2.64 damage in a 2.640 animation time. (yay, 1.0 DS/sec) PS: 1.1601 damage in 1.584 sec NS: 0.84 damage in 1.188 sec That's a total of scale 4.6401 in 5.412 seconds making a chain of DS 0.857 and change per sec. If you want actual damage numbers for that, Stalker damage scale is 55.61 so that gives you (including the change I cut out) roughly 47.68 dps base. For comparison, Kinetic Melee's Assassin Strike, without any criticals - the closest individual attack for Stalkers - is scale 0.861 and 47.87 base dps. |
PS: I've given up on submitting Bug Reports. I think all those reports were sent to a Black Hole. Even if the dev knows about the bug, Stalker issue is soooooooooo down the list of priorities. If they want to fix something, they'll ask. I just think it's a waste of time to find/submit bug reports. I used to do that all the time with mastermind and guess what? Oni is STILL taking knockback set even though he has no knockback power. It sucks that your boss pet has a bugged set which the dev doesn't feel it's important enough to fix. Give Oni Hold or Immb set or get rid of knockback set.
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.
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This is true. I have not tried db on any other melee ATs. |
Originally Posted by Eldorado
So my hypothesis is that the more DB characters a person has, the less likely it is that they'll be able to adapt to the "new and different" stalker style of play, and thus the less fun they'll have with their DB stalker. If it's someone's first dual blades character, they'll probably have a blast with it. If it's their fourth DB character, they might very well give up at level twenty-something as I did. |
I am afraid that after I tried it, I'll trash something that I enjoy(ed). lol
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.
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Or not. |
Originally Posted by Jibikao
This is true. I have not tried db on any other melee ATs.
I am afraid that after I tried it, I'll trash something that I enjoy(ed). lol |
I have two DB tanks, two DB scraps and three different DB stalkers... all at 50, 4 of them full Incarnates... and I like them all about equally. My red-side main, Grey Kestrel, is the second of the three Stalkers and I haven't ever found her (or either of the other two, for that matter-) lacking in comparison to my non-stalkers.
They do play differently... but I don't think that's a bad thing in their case.
@Brightfires - @Talisander
That chick what plays the bird-things...
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Great -- just shoot my hypothesis in the foot. |
Originally Posted by Bright
Or not.
I have two DB tanks, two DB scraps and three different DB stalkers... all at 50, 4 of them full Incarnates... and I like them all about equally. My red-side main, Grey Kestrel, is the second of the three Stalkers and I haven't ever found her (or either of the other two, for that matter-) lacking in comparison to my non-stalkers. |
Then again, you might be a statistical anomaly? ...or not!
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Originally Posted by Bright
They do play differently... but I don't think that's a bad thing in their case.
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I'll be the first to admit that I'm NOT an expert on stalkers, but I suspect that some other stalker primaries are going to play a lot more like their scrapper counterparts than Dual Blades does. I'm currently working on a Ninja Blade/WP stalker, which at level 35 already "feels" quite a bit like a couple of my katana/something scrappers. They seem a little squishier at times, but Assassin's Blade seems to make up for that! I'm not sure what the final result will be like until I hit 50th and (probably) start getting a little crazy with IO's as I did with the scrappers, but I'm definitely having fun so far.
"But it wasn't anything some purples and oranges and lots of screaming in fear couldn't handle." -- Werner
30 level 50's: 12 scrappers, 7 other random melee types, 11 blaster/blapper/support squishies, two accounts, and a TON of altitis since 4/28/04
I was playing with the idea of making a dual blades stalker. But other than a wicked looking asassin's strike, I don't think it would work out very well. It just seems like it's not that big a deal or too dependant on combos.
Am I wrong? Is it worth leveling up? I haven't made it yet, so if it's too big of a pain to level, no sweat.
Wanted: Origin centric story arcs.
If you've only played an AT once (one set combo) and "hate" it - don't give up. Roll a different combo. It may just be those sets not clicking for you.