Help with KM/Nin Leveling Build?

I've always loved the stealther playstyle in MMOs, and I've tried playing a couple of Stalkers but I haven't been able to stick with them. I've decided to try again, this time with a Kinetic Melee/Ninjutsu. I was trying to put together a leveling build to post here and ask for advice but realized I have enough basic questions that I can't seem to get a coherent build together. So here's my questions. If someone could be kind enough to clue me in I'll finish a sample build for everyone to laugh at, er, I mean comment on.

Looking at Mid's, it appears that KM has an inherent accuracy bonus. Is that correct, and does it mean I can get away with only one Acc in each attack power?

Are all of the first three KM attacks worth taking quickly? In the abortive build attempt I was making I took Quick Strike and Body Blow at 1 and 2, but put off Smashing Blow until 16 in order to get the Ninjutsu defensive toggles and AS/BU/Placate in place. Smart or not?

How is endurance usage with KM? Do I need to be thinking of getting an EndRed into my attacks fairly early, or not? Can I get away with just the one EndMod in inherent Stamina until later in the build, or do I need to get those extra couple of slots into it fairly early?

I was thinking of picking up Ninja Run to use as my travel power. Should I still take Combat Jumping for the extra Def, or is that not enough Def with just the one enhancer to be worth it?

I was thinking of pickup up Caltrops at level 10 and putting a couple of slots into it as a place for a few of those entertaining proc TOs that new toons are now given. Does anyone know if those TOs will actually slot into Caltrops?

What other power pools should I be looking at? I know teams often expect Stalkers to have Recall Friend, and I'm not opposed to that even though I tend to solo more than team. If I take that, I assume it should be quite early. Is Fighting necessary for Tough and Weave, and if so should I be looking at Boxing or Kick as the pre-req? What about Hasten? I was surprised when I looked at some builds here on the forums and saw that Hasten was taken either very late or not at all. Is it just not needed for KM, or was that just a function of the builds I was looking at being end-game respec builds with lots of recharge from sets rather than leveling builds?

Speaking of IOs, when I think of a leveling build I generally think of a build using mostly just common IOs, but I realize there are certain set IOs that are just too good to pass up. I assume I'm going to want a -KB IO somewhere by the mid levels. (Maybe that's my need for Combat Jumping? I forget offhand where the -KB IOs can be slotted.) Should I also be looking for a spot for the Steadfast Protection global Def IO early? Is there anything else obvious that I'm overlooking?

Thanks in advance to those willing to answer. Sorry if the questions seem silly. I'm going to go ahead and blame it on the codeine and whatever else is in all these meds the doctor has me on right now. ;-)

AS is the only Kin power with an Acc boost, which it receives just like all other AS's.

I lean towards forgoing the weak starter attack on both Scraps and Stalks, since generally the stronger one is better*.

Don't know on End Usage, ain't leveled a Kin yet, but I generally don't find the need to slot Stalker attacks for EndRed until later on if I've gotten 3 slotted Stamina.

Combat Jumping is phenomenal, leave it with the base slot and it's +2% Def added in, not much alone, but fantastic on top of /Nin. Just remember to toggle it on, since Ninja Run detoggles it.

They should slot into any damaging power, and is a decent idea. I usually through them into attacks though.

Teams expect Recall Friend? Wha? They expect you to Taxi them? Get offa Freedom. ^_^ Combat Jumping is good, Acro if no KB IOs, Hasten, Fighting, hell... one can even make an argument for Leadership (Maneuvers, Assault, Tactics could all be useful, and Venge is tasty). Grab Pool Powers only if you need them/you've got room for them instead of a Pri/Sec power you want.

Karma -KB are the defense IO's, and should be looked at for a /Nin. Slot either 1 or 3 (mag 4 protects most, there's a few Mag 10 KB out there, so Mag 12 protects against virtually all in PvE). If you dabble into Fighting and get Tough, the Steadfast is another Delicious one. The Perf Shifter Proc into Stamina is also Tasty, and I'd sometime lean towards slotting it afore an EndMod.

Teams don't expect Recall Friend, really.

You can soft cap without the fighting pool but find somewhere to put the stedfast unique - the heal can take it since it provides toxic res.

Doesn't matter if you take Boxing or Kick, you won't be using them anyway, they're crap powers. Difference is you can slot a stun set in boxing and a kb set in Kick, and Stupefy (stun) and Kinetic Crash have great bonuses (you can even use K. Crash as your sole KB protection if you feel it's enough).

Hasten is nice for /nin, mostly because of the heal. Not a necessity tho, I have an IO'ed EM/Nin that left the mez protection on auto and I often forgot to click Hasten and didn't feel it made a lot of difference like it does for certain sets like regen. I usually pick Hasten on my toons after 22 because of SOs.

Kin Melee is not very end heavy, Stalkers in general aren't end heavy, but you'll probably want some endred in your attacks, maybe not in AS since you won't be using it too often in the later levels. I skip the tier 1 in most sets except in special cases (like Katana/N. Blade where the tier 1 is better than the 2)

The rest, Errant covered well.

With regard to endurance, I'd go ahead and slot up Stamina as early as convenient. Beyond that, unless you're playing Brute style running from spawn to spawn without re-hiding, endurance probably won't be an issue aside from perhaps EB battles, but you can use inspirations to cover those so I wouldn't worry about that while leveling.

Combat Jumping is too good to pass up IMO, especially on a defense-based build. If I skip a travel power and use Ninja Run I create a macro to smoothly toggle between the two. /macro Jump "powexecname Combat Jumping$$powexecname Ninja Run"

Recall Friend is nice to have on a Stalker, but I haven't run into people expecting me to have it on mine, even on Freedom. I fit it in if I have room, but if I don't I drop it without a second thought.

Procced Caltrops is an intriguing idea, but I don't think I'd put off other powers I'd want to get it early. That probably means I wouldn't end up taking it in time to make good use of the starter IOs. I don't know I hadn't thought of it but I'm really tempted to try it now. I'd have to play around in the builder to see if I could make room for it. Slotting all the starter IOs into it would probably be quite lulzy. Tough call there.

I don't think the build would benefit that greatly from Hasten, but that's a very personal decision. Getting Concentrated Strike up more quickly, and therefore getting more chances to refresh Build Up, would be nice. Again I'd have to put together a build and see if I ended up with room for it.

As for Tough/Weave, Weave at least would probably be good for a leveling build because presumably you won't be slotting IOs for defense, so any extra help you can get would be good. Steadfast Res/Def IOs are cheap enough, I'd pop one into Tough and just not run Tough, even on a leveling build. That extra 3% will really help. You could also slot the Res/Def IO in the heal, but that would be a slot you didn't have available to slot recharge and heal, so use the free slot in Tough if you take it, otherwise try to fit it into the heal.

The thing is, if you're running Weave, my guess is you'll be getting to the point where you'll have enough toggles running you'll start needing end redux in your attacks. So I'd put it off until late enough in the build that you think you'll be able to get your attacks slotted a bit.

With regards to which of the first three attacks to take, that's hard to say. For a final build I'd skip Quick Strike for sure. For a leveling build with little to no recharge reduction slotted, the other two attacks will leave significant gaps in your attack chain. So you'd probably want to either take the first two, which you said you did, or take all three. You said you haven't been able to stick with Stalker projects in the past. One thing that might be worth asking yourself is, would standing around with no attacks to use a lot of the time take too much of the fun out of leveling? If so, I'd say take the first three, regardless of what you have to do to make room for them. After all if you lose interest in this one, the rest won't matter.

As to how to make room...I tend to put off Build Up and/or Placate until later in my builds. I know for some that would be blasphemy, but having Build Up before SO level enhancements usually just means I have an icon on my tray recharging and unavailable to use most of the time. The same for Placate, except that while it does recharge faster, it is actually less useful (to me). If I was going to put just one off it would probably be Placate. There's only a narrow band of levels when a Build Up/AS will actually make a solid dent in a boss's HP bar, so you might as well enjoy it while you can. Once again, personal preference trumps all here. If Placate is iconic to the AT for you, you may not want to put it off.

For leveling I go through the teens kinda like this:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.952
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 24 Mutation Stalker
Primary Power Set: Kinetic Melee
Secondary Power Set: Ninjitsu
Power Pool: Leaping

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Body Blow -- Acc(A), Acc(3), Dmg(5), RechRdx(9)
Level 1: Hide -- Krma-ResKB(A), Ksmt-ToHit+(7)
Level 2: Smashing Blow -- Acc(A), Acc(3), Dmg(5), RechRdx(9)
Level 4: Ninja Reflexes -- EndRdx(A), DefBuff(11), DefBuff(15), DefBuff(17)
Level 6: Assassin's Strike -- Acc(A), Dmg(7), RechRdx(13)
Level 8: Build Up -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(11)
Level 10: Caltrops -- RechRdx(A)
Level 12: Placate -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(13)
Level 14: Danger Sense -- EndRdx(A), DefBuff(15), DefBuff(17), DefBuff(19)
Level 16: Combat Jumping -- Krma-ResKB(A)
Level 18: Kuji-In Rin -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(19)
Level 20: Burst -- Acc(A), Acc(21), Dmg(21)
Level 22: Kuji-In Sha -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), Heal(23), RechRdx(23)
Level 24: [Empty]
Level 26: [Empty]
Level 28: [Empty]
Level 30: [Empty]
Level 32: [Empty]
Level 35: [Empty]
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A)
Level 1: Assassination
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run



I quite often use some level 15 common IO's to save money, I replace them usually by level 25 with SO's or common level 25 IO's.

The Steadfast IO and the Karma Knockbacks are cheap enough that I slot them early using merits (between alts and running content on the leveling character its very easy).

Link doesn't work so heres the data chunk.

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If you slot a Knock back protection IO in anything....just remember thats a slot taken by that IO.

Karma offers a -Knockback IO..for defense...Steadfast offers it for resistance.

Since you are choosing that specifc defense set.....i recomend that you try to keep the two base defense armors free for slotting in a luck of the gamblers defense set, no its not common....but its a very good investment that can be worked on over time as you level...and thus can put common Invention Originas in as you fill it.
Your hide might be a good place to put a knock back protection IO...if you are serious about using combat jump then there is another place....When i try to use only ninja run....i tend to only take travel powers like fly or hover or teleport which can be used while ninja run is going.

Another Investment is realize that your powers may seam endurence heavy....and so another good investment is to at least slot your stamina power with 1 more slot....and place a performance shifter chance to recover energy enahcnement into it...again not common...and no not required...but does help you.(btw Ninja run consumes alot of energy and effects energy recovery....more then it says it does....more then those accuracy epic powers even....so if you are having energy issues...try turning off ninja run)

Now you where asking about the figthing pool....if you thnk the value of some powers that grant you 11.25% resistance to smash lethal and a 5% or so extra defense is worthwhile....then go for it.(as others have pointed out you might be a bit toggle heavy and find energy to bit tight at first)

As other have said recall friend isnt required...no power is ever required....the only requirement is to have a character that can be played.....
If you intend to play Task Forces later and exemplar...then it might be wise to slot accordingly and gradualy build....

The only way you should ever build...is based on how you intend to play and what you expect to do.

So for example:
If you plan to be playing like a support stalker as i call it...then yes recall friend is a requirement at level 4 and so is getting the day jobs physician and proffessor so you can get the revive ally power.

if you plan to play as an attack stalker then you best choices are to grab as much offensive and attack powers as possible...and work on recharge becasue you will be using placate and the ninja area of effect placate alot at times.(this one tends to make sure they change to villain so they can get the patron pools and grab the sniper so they can do long distance assassinations)

If you plan to play a tank stalker....then you want to make sure you have lots of defensive abilities but also want to grab the heal pool for self healing in addition to what you have. (I hate personaly playing this way and filling in as a tank)

if you want to play an advanced scout stalker...then your priority will become movement....thus you might take powers like flight and teleport to be able to get through spots no one else can undetected.(enemies blocking a door for example)also you would have recall friend and might even have the long range teleport(even though it doesnt go to all places)

Those are just some examples of play style that i have personaly labeled....is that what the play style is called? I dont know.....its what i see people do....and i play a combination of all of that.

As a few people have pointed out many times....thats what the multiple builds are for.