Although they did a marvelous job in screwing up the combo system for Stalkers (relying on BU and AS), I dislike Claws because it lost almost all of its AoE, DB at least kept the high damage cones.
The only AoE in Stalker Claws is Shockwave which while good, isn't a 'use every time it's up' power especially on a team because of the KB.
Dual Blade hits harder for sure.
I enjoyed Claw because it's a fast attacking set. Its ST damage is kinda low but it's a very safe set when you have knock back and knock down and range.
With the new assassin strike, dual blade combos should work better.
It's kinda hard to decide which one is better. I have a lvl 50 Claw/Will and a 50 Db/Nin. I think Claw plays a lot differently than other sets because you are constantly moving (in and out for shockwave cone) and you have two range attacks at your disposal. (I actually took Dark Blast too for 3 range attacks). Using Claw feels like you are attacking fast but with lower damage.
Oh and I am a bitchy player. I mostly don't care if I knockback with shockwave and some other melee players need to chase. I am not going to change my gameplay just because they don't like it. :P Of course I'll try to knock them to a wall or something but I certainly won't cater to their needs every time I use shockwave.
I've heard more complaints on Stalker DB because two combos can't be formed smoothly. When I level my DB, I mostly only started the battle with BU + 1K Cuts. That's before melee reach got buffed from 5' to 7'. That 10' wide cone does have its advantage. It's a simple way to take out 2-3 minions. Some say Scrapper/Brute db problem is that if you miss an attack, you need to start over again so having bad "combo mechanism" has its advantage because you don't get as annoyed when missing an attack.
If you want to enjoy "combos", Street Justice is a better choice IMO.
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.
Hey,
I was just wondering what would work better in terms of solo and team pve. Both have control for what seems to be a squishy secondary. I could not find any numbers on the combos unfortunately. Does one set hit harder than the other?