DB/Nin Stalker any good?

So to start with, I'm a troller/MM admin. So this AT is completely foreign to me. However, a friend recently rolled one and began bragging about how much fun it was soooooo.... Curiosity got the best of me lol. Since one of my friends decided to role a claws and the other is using ninja blade. I decided to role a DB/Nin. So the primary question i want to know is, are my power selection any good? I've noticed a bunch of people seem to like Nin however i havent seen any with DB. Is DB bad, what is the best primary for stalkers? Is this build in later levels once is OI any good?

Thanks in advance ^_^

One more thing is coltraps and smoke flash any good?

I want to know this too.

DB is good, attacks are fast and has pretty good AoE. You'd like it, trust me.

Nin is a Stalker-exclusive set, so it's awesome. Avoid Smoke Flash, not as useful as it's planned out to be, and Kuji-In Retsu is god-mode for 3 minutes, though you don't need it if you softcap your defense.

Overall, DB/Nin is an awesome combination for a Stalker, and since your friend is a Nin/Nin, you two would have alot of fun killing together.

I have the same combo..it is really fun. Not AMAZING damage (such an the bang from em or elec aoe) but it is really fast and consistent.

Also, the kb from..um..vengeful is excellent mitigation. You can keep a boss on his butt during a fight. Of the combos, I only use empower and weaken, which means skipping a low tier attack. Also, empower does make bu/as/crit a little clumsy (using the ATO) but weaken flows really well.

I didn't take caltops. I hear it is good..but does not fit my playstyle. Smoke is really nice as an extra escape, especially since it is aoe. It is also fine with just a single slot.

Great thanks for all the advice guys. Now I'm curios is there a specific arrangement i should use my DB powers cause they seem to go off at random times.

I have a love/hate relationship with DB on Stalkers. Pre-i22 I hated it; during i22 I loved it; post i23 starting to dislike it. Since i23, the Sweep Combo has turned into a single target, knockdown attack (Previously it was a 10' PBAoE, knockdown). It is still a ST monster while running the Ablat-SS-Ablat-AS attack chain if you can muster enough recharge and endurance to keep it going. I can get 3 min pylon kills with Agility Radial Alpha and Reactive Radial Interface.

Ninjitsu is in the middle of the pack in regards to survival but the best overall for fun factor IMO. Caltrops is great, enemies aren't hitting you as they slowly try to run away. Self heal is always nice, even Blinding Powder I use sometimes. I did take Smoke Flash but I can count the number of times I used it on one hand. Will likely drop it out for a ranged attack on my next respec.

Overall, DB/Nin is a good combo but it will take a lot of work and influence to make it phenomenal.

For your first stalker, I suggest avoiding dual blade. It's probably the most complex of the melee sets. For stalkers it is especially tricky, because the combos come relatively late in the build.

For comparison, a scrapper can have 2 combos by level 8. A stalker can't have his first combo until level 12, and the earliest he can get the second is 18. The situations is actually worse, because that first combo uses both Build Up and Placate, meaning it's too slow to be part of your normal attack chain. If you don't know what I'm talking about, see "complex" in first paragraph above.

I'm not saying Dual Blades is a bad choice, just that to get the most out of it, you need to work harder and know more. Ninja Blade might be a better first-stalker choice. Every attack lowers foe defense, and your Divine Avalanche attack actually increases your melee and lethal defenses. No combos to plan for and remember. Just keep on swinging...

I love DB on stalkers again, the Sweep Combo has been fixed! I think it was just busted while the devs fixed the Ablating Strike + procs PBAoE bug. It's a fantastic set on stalkers post i22, the bug was just gravy.

Sorry if this counts as threadjacking, but I wanted to ask: do I lose a lot of performance by taking SR as my secondary instead of Ninjitsu? Nin wouldn't quite fit my concept of a gentleman fencing thief.

MonkeySpirit, I think both are good. Ninjitsu has quite a number of extras, such as Caltrops and a heal. SR focuses almost exclusively on defense, with some scaling resist as your health goes down. It's one extra is Quickness, which speeds up both your run speed and recharge time (globally), and provides significant resistance to foes who would try to slow down either. I.e., Ninjitsu lets you be the slower-downer with Caltrops, whereas SR lets you laugh at the Caltrops (and other slowing effects) of others.

Thanks a lot for the input! My DB/SR will be my second stalker after the huge success of my elec/elec and I'm sort of scared that Stalkers, with their recooked primary and secondary powersets, might have a thing like Dominators, where some Assault sets are really good and others merely passable depending on what powers were taken out of the original sets.

I'll be making a /nin stalker once we get Ice Melee as a primary, I think. Coloured blue, the powerset is full of ripple and water splash effects and I really like the idea of an assassin who leaves no traces because his blades melt.