Looking to make a Strong ST Stalker

Hello All, Thanks to the new Tasty Stalker Buffs I have once again started to make many, many stalker builds in mids in anticipation of much stabbity fun. I have 3 Stalkers and only one of them is ST focused. I'm not a melee guy normally and my memory is quite fuzzy but what is the best performing or most well rounded Single Target Set for stalkers?

I recall Dark Melee taking first place due to consistent streamlined DPS no?

Energy Melee seems promising but I'm guessing that it's more BURST ST damage due to the cast times and whatnot.

How does Broadsword and Street Justice Match up?

EDIT: Oh and I think I remember Ninja Blade being up there but I would think it wouldn't do so well due to everything having strong resistances to Smashing and Lethal.

StJ ranks first in terms of ST damage, but all stalkers have strong ST DPS now due to how Assassin's Focus and Stalker's Guile work.

Ah, so when StJ came out it took the crown eh? Nice...I would purchase it but I might wait until Staff comes out. I want to conserve my Paragon Points just in case something else comes out that I didn't know about.

I do know about the Assassin Strike changes and the Stalker ATO and how Every set excels at ST damage now but I want to make a stalker that's more geared towards the Traditional Single Target style just for a nice play-style change.

Ah, wow...looking at Mids now and I'm checking out the ST potential on StJ...quite impressive I think i have found my winner thanks Auroxis.

Personally, I feel Street Justice is rather cheaty. I don't have a Stalker version, but it's a pretty nice set in regards to relative DPS. I think where it starts feeling cheaty is the set gave up a weaker ST attack (although that attack did -res, but nothing to call home about) and gained a stronger ST attack (Assassin's Strike) while retaining all its AoEs. That plus the tier 9 hits about as hard as an assassination crit.

That said, I find the attacks rather boring looking. I know a lot of people love the animations and I'm a fan of MMA too, but the animations have so little flash, I quickly bored of them. Perhaps because the Brute I made with StJ is a small girl and I can barely even see her while she's attacking, or that the sound FX were uninspiring, but yeah. StJ is pretty meh for me.

For ST dmg, I'd say Martial Arts is pretty substantial. No AoEs but practically every attack is a truck. No gimmicks, it allows you to take full advantage of Assassin's Focus. You don't have to constrict to an attack chain to get great effects from the ATO proc since every attack minus the tier 1 is a prominent followup.

Kinetic Melee is also a good one, I enjoy the animations too. Flashy and fulfills quite a few concepts.

I'm a fan of Stalker Dark Melee. Mine is quite fun and despite the simple animations, it's got some customization options. Probably the least resisted of the damage sets with lots of juicy pure-neg dmg crits. When you crit, things hurt *always*. That, and your ride will be silky smooth no matter what set you pick. SR or Ice? Got a heal to cover you. Anything with +def? Has some -ToHit to make that count more. Not much def or none at all? Well you've got Touch of Fear to cover your bases.

You can go with StJ too, it's a fine set. But frankly, I've seen my share of the set...just rather common place like Elec Melee and I like being unique myself. Haven't seen many Claws, Energy Melee, MA or DM though...and DM is actually pretty good so no idea why.

Before the buffs (and the intro of StJ) MA held the top spot, but it was also all smashing damage.

Haven't gone through the sets lately to do new DPS tests on them, buuuut, last I recall at least for Scrappers, StJ and MA pretty much evened out.

I wouldn't be suprised if they still evened out, since MA has Storm Kick.

Dark Melee and Energy Melee actually had the ability to be way up there in DPS, and while lower by just a little bit, had the benefits of exotic damage.

I wouldn't discount KM, with the stalker proc, Build Up is recharged so often it's part of the attack chain.

I think one of the reasons Dark Melee isn't as popular is because it's an old set, it also likely feels concept limiting to many people, which doesn't help it's obviously older animations.

So to the OP if you're looking for the top DPS from a purely numbers stand point, it's very likely StJ, and while it can slot a -Resist proc, I don't know if I'd discount sets like Kinetic Melee or Dark Melee which have the different energy types to work for it.

Not to mention Dark Melee comes with high DPS (before the changes it was #2 for DPS before procs were put into the equation), a self heal in an attack, and additional survivability in -tohit.

SJ, MA, DM, and KM are top ones IMO. EM has good burst damage but I feel it suffers quite a bit when the last two attacks can't critical or can't have full critical and they are freaking slow too. If you are are on a full team, EM's effectiveness drops.

DM, on paper, looks good to me. It may be boring but a mix of dark/smashing damage is good. Smashing damage is not as bad as lethal.

Claw is just messed up. I think it's rare for a reason. One of the best pbaoe Spin is taken out. Its other pbaoe is changed to ST attack which has LESS DPA than Focus and Slash. Stalker AT is built for burst damage and not full of low damage, fast recharge attacks. Claw Scrapper can stack Focus buff to make Claw a very good dps but Stalker only has build up. Its recharge is discounted but not including the "stacking" potential.


I think Dual Blade can be good too but that set is tricky. Ninja Blade has great potential with procs.



Conclusion, if you are looking for the best ST while having the benefit of some pbaoe aoe, then Street Justice is a clear winner IMO, followed by Kinetic.