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Muse

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  1. Staff is a combo driven powerset, so recharge has a lot of diminishing returns since you’ll be using your lower tier powers to power up your higher tier powers instead of just using your higher tier powers on cool down. That means extra recharge gets wasted if your t9 powers are up while you are building your combo. Maybe when leveling hasten is good, but in my opinion, in the end game, hasten isn’t optimal unless you perma it since you can get the 70% recharge bonus from IOs without sacrificing a power slot. So the question is do you need perma hasten for staff, and my answer is you don’t, since at a certain point your powers will recharge when you need them. That’s not to say we don’t have any reason to take hasten. For example, for regen it’s a necessity since it is click heavy. It’s going to depend a lot on your secondary.
  2. I think if you solo a lot, it is invaluable, but not as a offensive tool as it once was. In fact, because of the way your AS/staff stacks work, it might kill your dps from your stacks disappearing. But it gives you breathing room. So instead of thinking of it as a set up tool for another hidden AS, it’s a way to get someone from attacking you. You can also do it in a team setting, but in a team setting, you have a lot of people beating on you, so it’s not as good. You can presumably use placate to get a critical for a non AS move, but it’s unnecessary with the changes.
  3. Sure. I will post my build and walk you through it. I think people are probably better number crunchers than me though and would be better at min maxing, but I like to think that I'm fairly good at building character I like to play and that are fairly powerful. Just a note, my def isn't as high as this build says it is, because Pines assumes that you are hidden at all times. Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.962 http://www.cohplanner.com/ Death Shepherd: Level 50 Magic Stalker Primary Power Set: Staff Fighting Secondary Power Set: Dark Armor Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Leaping Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery Villain Profile: ------------ Level 1: Mercurial Blow (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage (7) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance (7) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge (9) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (9) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff (31) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 1: Hide (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed (3) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All) (3) Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage Level 2: Precise Strike (A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage (34) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance (34) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge (36) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (36) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 4: Dark Embrace (A) Gladiator's Armor - Recharge/Resist (5) Gladiator's Armor - Resistance/Rech/End (5) Gladiator's Armor - End/Resist (36) Gladiator's Armor - Resistance (37) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All) (37) Gladiator's Armor - Recharge/Endurance Level 6: Assassin's Staff (A) Superior Stalker's Guile - Recharge/Chance to Hide (11) Superior Stalker's Guile - Damage/Recharge (11) Superior Stalker's Guile - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (13) Superior Stalker's Guile - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (13) Superior Stalker's Guile - Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 8: Build Up (A) Recharge Reduction IO (19) Recharge Reduction IO Level 10: Super Speed (A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points) Level 12: Placate (A) Recharge Reduction IO (27) Recharge Reduction IO Level 14: Murky Cloud (A) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance (15) Aegis - Resistance/Recharge (15) Aegis - Endurance/Recharge (37) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge (39) Aegis - Resistance (39) Aegis - Psionic/Status Resistance Level 16: Obsidian Shield (A) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance (17) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance (17) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance/RechargeTime (19) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP Level 18: Eye of the Storm (A) Obliteration - Damage (21) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge (27) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge (29) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (29) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 20: Dark Regeneration (A) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery (21) Numina's Convalesence - Heal/Endurance (23) Numina's Convalesence - Heal/Recharge (23) Numina's Convalesence - Heal/Endurance/Recharge (25) Numina's Convalesence - Heal (42) Numina's Convalesence - Endurance/Recharge Level 22: Guarded Spin (A) Obliteration - Damage (25) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge (40) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge (40) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (40) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge (42) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage Level 24: Kick (A) Empty Level 26: Serpent's Reach (A) Devastation - Accuracy/Damage (31) Devastation - Damage/Endurance (31) Devastation - Damage/Recharge (42) Devastation - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (50) Devastation - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 28: Tough (A) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance (46) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Recharge (48) Titanium Coating - Endurance/Recharge (48) Titanium Coating - Resistance (48) Titanium Coating - Endurance (50) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge Level 30: Weave (A) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Recharge (43) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Endurance (43) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (43) Gift of the Ancients - Defense (45) Gift of the Ancients - Endurance/Recharge Level 32: Sky Splitter (A) Superior Assassin's Mark - Accuracy/Damage (33) Superior Assassin's Mark - Damage/RechargeTime (33) Superior Assassin's Mark - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime (33) Superior Assassin's Mark - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (34) Superior Assassin's Mark - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime (50) Superior Assassin's Mark - RechargeTime/Rchg Build Up Level 35: Combat Jumping (A) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Endurance (39) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Endurance/Recharge (45) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Recharge (45) Gift of the Ancients - Endurance/Recharge (46) Gift of the Ancients - Defense Level 38: Oppressive Gloom (A) Accuracy IO Level 41: Soul Transfer (A) Recharge Reduction IO Level 44: Shadow Dweller (A) Defense Buff IO (46) Defense Buff IO Level 47: Superior Conditioning (A) Endurance Modification IO Level 49: Physical Perfection (A) Endurance Modification IO Level 1: Assassination Level 1: Brawl (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Dash (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Slide (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Quick (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Rush (A) Empty Level 1: Prestige Power Surge (A) Empty Level 1: Sprint (A) Empty Level 2: Rest (A) Empty Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift (A) Empty Level 2: Health (A) Empty Level 2: Hurdle (A) Empty Level 2: Stamina (A) Endurance Modification IO Level 1: Combo Level 1 Level 1: Combo Level 2 Level 1: Combo Level 3 Level 50: Musculature Core Paragon ------------ I think how you build your stalker is going to rely more on your secondary than anything else, but let's go through my thought process. 1) First step is to fill out your powers with the things you want and need. I obviously can't tell you what you personally need unless you are a staff/dark, but for staff in particular, you will was MB, PS, AS, SS, GS, and EotS. Figure out what you are getting from your secondary and your power pools. You are going to have powers slots left over. Those empty power slots are what you are going to use to beef up your defenses and use as set mules. 2) Slot basic IO in your toggles, defensive powers, and your long recharge powers. This will identify what your end consumption is like, what your defensive holes are, and how much recharge you need. When I IO slotted my staff/dark, I realized a couple of things: 1) Heavy end consumption 2) No knockback protection 3) No defensive holes but no defensive strengths other than psy and 4) My long recharge power was dark regeneration. I found that when I slot IOs, end recovery is a common set bonus for two-three IO slots. So I didn't specifically go out of my way to slot for end recovery. I did, however, focus on those set bonuses first in game when I was slotting out my character. The knockback protection is fairly easy to get. The real question was what I was going to do about the defensive holes and how much I was going to focus on recharge. I've found that the more you focus on recharge, the less defense you get, and vice versa. I eventually settled on focusing on defense. I reasoned that if I had enough defense, I wouldn't need Dark Regeneration to recharge as much. That's not to say I entirely ignored recharge. I actually made sure that I had enough recharge to get through my attack chain (which was MB>PS>AS>SS>PS>GS>AS>EotS) before I did anything else, but that didn't require much more than the Stalker ATOs. But that leaves the question of how to focus on defense. Because again, any defense you focus on incurs an opportunity cost of not being able to focus on other types of defense. I landed on focusing on melee defense, with maybe meandering over and capping S/L and Psy resist for fun if I could. The reason for it was 1) I'm a stalker so duh melee and 2) GS gave a decent amount of melee defense, so I might as well capitalize on it. 3) Fill out those empty power slots with what can help you reach your goals. Usually, this means Hasten, Tough, and Weave. For this build, because I didn't need recharge, I skipped Hasten. This is sacrilege to alot of players but I sincerely can't figure out how hasten would help me in this build considering I don't have enough to perma it and I am not inclined to. There might be a few power slots left over, and that's ok. 4) The first thing I have to think about is what procs I want. This is fairly easy. First, Blessing of the Zypher is a no brainer. Essentially free knockback protection is your travel power. I would highly recommend the Stalker ATOs (they are the enhancements in Assassin's Staff and Sky Splitter). The Stalker ATOs both have great procs and great set bonuses (like 10% recharge and 4% damage bonu) Stalker's Guile's proc gives you a chance to hide. I put that proc in AS because when I'm in the middle of battle, I don't want to rehide + AS with all of the stalker changes, since that reduces my DPS and flow. So I put hide in the one power I don't want to use in hide mid-battle, AS. This works nicely in Staff, because usually AS is going to come before Sky Splitter or Eye of the Storm. Using those moves in hide gives you a auto critical on those moves without the long windup with AS. So, because I want both the proc and the set bonuses, I fill AS with Stalker's Guile. For Assassin's Mark, I actually probably if I was building again (I could do this right now through respec but effort) put it in MB or PS because the AM proc is global and can happen on any attack. The AM proc is a chance to recharge build up, so for every attack, your build up could just magically come up again, which is incredibly nice. 5) Set bonuses. I wish I could give you more insight, but I really can't. It comes down to fiddling around in Pine's for a good while. You eventually just remember which sets you want and which you don't by making enough builds, but the first few times you'll just be bumbling around. I usually like slotting my bread and butter powers first with the best IO sets. I don't know if this is best practice, but it makes me feel better and that's all that really matters and gives me a good starting spot. It also makes sure that I'm not skimping on the actually enhancement benefits from the IO sets like you might when you frankenslot. Don't forget you can use power slots left over to get powers to use as set mules. You can open up alot of possibilities this way, especially with things like holds that can have some great set bonuses. I don't know if that is helpful at all. If you have any specific questions, I will try to help, although I'm by no means an authority.
  4. People are using Pine’s which is just an updated mids. So I can’t really comment on Ice, but what I will say about staff is that I would find room for Mercurial. Staff is based on a four hit combo, and using mercurial blow in the four hit combo has higher dps for ST than using Serpent’s Reach or GS. If you have to get rid of something from your primary to make room for it either Placate or Serpent’s Reach would be fine (because of the new changes to AS) You might also want to look at Titan Weapons. I don’t know if it has a trident as one of its options, but from what I understand, TW feels a lot more like a god wrecking havoc on some mortals.
  5. Just remember there is a difference between having no downtime between attacks and having no downtime in your attack chain. It’s trivial to always have an attack up, but not so trivial to have a optimized attack chain. I don’t know how savage melee plays, but at the very least, you want AS to be every fourth attack, so plan accordingly.
  6. Well, it really depends on your power sets. If you have something you want to perms, then you should build for recharge. But let’s assume you are a generic stalker that doesn’t have any long recharges and who will team a fair amount. The first thing I would recommend is sit down and determine what your attack chains will be and make sure you have enough recharge to cover that attack chain with no downtime. This shouldn’t be very intensive and may only require a few sets, especially if you get the stalker ATOs, which I highly recommend. Then it comes down to your style of play. You aren’t going to be able to cap everything as a stalker. For me, I managed to cap smashing/lethal resistance, psy resistance, and nearly cap melee def (when GS was up) with my staff/dark. However, I like to enhance my strengths while leaving my weaknesses because I find that more enjoyable. You may want to plug your holes instead of trying to get to the cap, which might mean you focus on getting def/resist in something that your power sets don’t address. It’s ultimately up to you.
  7. /bio is always good. I think the only secondaries that I wouldn’t recommend are secondaries that can get above 35% melee def on their own because that makes Guarded Spin loses some utility.
  8. Staff/ stalkers have this feature. It works nicely. I have a four power attack chain, which means that the first attack chain usually has a 66% chance of a crit AS and every attack chain after that has a 100% AS chance, usually. However, I don’t know if this is really that much of a boon since all stalkers are going to be attacking regardless, so AS will build if you are doing your job. I guess it’s nice they line up pretty much 1:1.
  9. From what I’ve read up on a staff, people recommend either playing it as a tank, because the form system offers them additional utility and survivability, or a stalker, because stalkers gets BU and AS. I’ve heard great things about bio, so you should be in good hands. Just remember that you can use GS for a little extra defense to bump up bio.
  10. Hello all, I thought I would make a central thread for talking about staff/ stalkers generally. While I will provide my thoughts on staff/, I thought that making a full blown guide might not be the best because I would rather have a central repository for talking about the staff/ primary. I want to see if this method of providing tips and guidance to new players might be a little better for the community. I am a staff/dark stalker, fully IOd and incarnated. I did not play a staff/ stalker on live, so I don't have a great amount of time playing it, but obviously over the past few weeks I have poured a significant amount of time into staff/. I can't really compare it to other stalkers, so maybe other people can come in and share that knowledge, as well as challenge or add on to my thoughts on the powerset. I would be more than happy to add on to the OP as different opinions or resources are presented. Perfection of Body https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Staff_Fighting For other ATs, the main feature behind staff fighting are the forms. I won't get into it too much, because power proliferation removes this feature from stalkers to make room for Assassin's Staff and Build Up. So, for our purposes, Perfection of Body is the main mechanic that you have to worry about for staff fighting. Perfection of Body is a combo mechanic that builds up when you use some of your powers. Specifically, it builds up when you use Mercurial Blow, Precise Strike, Guarded Spin, and Serpent's Reach, up to three stacks of Perfection of Body. Perfection of Body releases and adds additional effects when you use Eye of the Storm and Sky Splitter when you use those attacks with three stacks of Perfection of Body. If you use EotS or SS without three stacks of Perfection of Body, EotS and SS just add a stack of Perfection of Body. Each stack of Perfection of Body adds a 15% damage bonus. When you have three stacks of Perfection of Body and use Sky Splitter, Sky Splitter will gain additional Smashing Damage and provide you additional resistance. When you have three stacks of Perfection of Body and use Eye of the Storm, Eye of the Storm will gain additional Smashing Damage and debuff resistance for the enemy. The easiest way to think about the mechanic is that you use your lower tier attacks to build up and improve your higher tier attacks. Tips -You basically have two separate avenues when you are fighting, ST and AOE. When you want to do large ST damage, you can use SS. When you want to do large AOE damage, use EotS. A basic combo is Mercurial Blow-->Precise Strike-->Assassin's Staff--> Sky Splitter for Single Target. A basic combo is Precise Strike-->Guarded Spin-->Assassin's Staff-->EotS for an AOE combo. -Guarded Spin adds Melee and Lethal defense. You can substitute Mercurial Blow with Guarded Spin if you want to add to your defense. -Technically, rotating between Mercurial Blow, Precise Strike, and Assassin's Staff without releasing Perfection of Body is the highest DPS because of the damage bonus Perfection of Body provides. However, you should keep in mind that 1) SS and EotS provide additional utility in terms of resistance buffs and debuffs and 2) using SS and EotS allows you to defeat enemies with burst damage, which can help your longevity. -AS generally is central to your play, but how you use it can be different depending on your circumstances. So before the changes to stalkers, the basic play was to try to get as many hidden Assassin's Strikes as possible through placates and running and hiding. But now, you build up Assassin's Focuses (which is different than Perfection of Body) when you use your primary powers. Each stack of Assassin's Focus gives a 33% chance to crit with AS, up to 100%. Now, the basic play is to try to build up those AFs and then crit with AS. However, the option to use AS while hidden is still available. So the question is, when should you bother to use AS while hidden and when should you just not worry about it. The basic problem is that using AS while hidden takes a long time and by the time you actually get it off, your team might have partially damaged your target which means you don't get the full damage of AS, or worse, might have eliminated your target entirely. So, how you use AS changes depending on what is happening. If you are solo, obviously using a hidden AS is ok. If you are on a slow team that takes its time between groups, you can disengage from a group of enemies early and set yourself to AS a tricky enemy like a Quantum or Sapper. But if you are on a team that is steam rolling, my advice is to just forego the hidden AS, because its more trouble than its worth. -Placate and Serpent’s Reach are the two skippable powers in staff. Placate is more skippable. With the advent of the stalker changes, it is not used as commonly anymore and is probably a detriment to a stalker’s dps. It is useful when you are soloing an elite boss or some other difficult enemy for giving yourself a little breathing room before you get back in the fight, but is not necessary. I have probably used it three times in my entire career on my staff stalker. Serpent’s Reach is a lot more useful, but probably won’t be in your usual rotation. It’s a ranged attack, and is very proficient at chasing down runners. I wouldn’t skip it by default, but if you have a compelling reason to get rid of a power, SR is one that you could get rid of. Comparison to other Powersets I don't know enough about stalkers to fill this in, so I will wait for those more knowledgeable. I have read, however, that staff tends to be lower dps than other stalker powers, with people often ranking it in the bottom half of the power sets. It is presumably offset by the utility found in Perfection of Body, SS, EotS, and GS. FAQ To be filled in later. To new people: What would you like to see in the OP? What questions do you have about staff/ To veterans: What can I add to make this an appropriate repository of information?
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