Storm Kick or Cobra Strike?

Hey fellow Stalkers

Rolled a new MA/Nin and I'm wondering which I should take. I know for Scrappers they equalized the two powers so it makes sense to skip one or the other. But for Stalkers the damage and Recharge aren't the same. Just wondering if there's a consensus on which one to grab.

Storm Kick has the best DPS in the MA set and is the better initial pick over Thunder Kick. They equalized Cobra Strike with Crane Kick if I remember correctly. SK and CS are great powers and both should be present in the end build but I would choose SK first.

Well, you have to pick one of the two early powers. Between storm and thunder, storm is a no brainer.

I think your question should be Cobra vs Crane right? I would take Cobra because it can stack stun with eagle and it doesn't have knock back. I do like Crane but with enough recharge, I really only need storm, axe, cobra and eagle. I think I'll eventually respec crane out.

Axe kick is good so you don't want to skip it. And Eagle used to be the hardest hitting critical attack (minus Assassin Strike) for Stalker before Crushing Uppercut came into the picture.

Yeah, Crane Kick is the one, not Storm. Storm is unskippable. I prefer Covra Strike over Crane but being identical powers, some people I asked around in the Scrapper forums actually prefer Crane Kick because CK's mitigation (KB) works on bosses.

Ah, guess my memory was a little fuzzy.

Well now the decision's a lot tougher. I like Cobra's Stun and the alternate animation is really cool. But Crane's got great style too and there's nothing more satisfying, IMO, than watching an enemy go sailing through the air after a foot to the face. Hmm...gonna have to think on this for a while.

I squeezed Crane Kick into an alternate build with 2 slots (acc/dam HamiOs). I just use it as a finisher for spits-and-giggles. There was a thread discussing fun with CK:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/archi.../t-258441.html

Since that MA changes were made, I take all of the MA attacks.

My MA/NIN experience was really awful. The strongly single target nature of MA puts extra stress on NIN, a task the set just isn't up to. I highly recommend you go SJ/NIN instead if at all possible, and I say this as a big fan of MA.

If you want to stay MA/NIN, do yourself a favor and never increase spawn sizes. MA just takes too long to work through large spawns for NIN to keep you upright.

WARNING: I bold names.