Croax

I said that. In the first post after the OP. Also you will more likly use Stalkers Guile proccs for TF to get 2 EF stacks. That way you will have a lot of fast cast ET which will not allways crit. Energy Melee is heavy on your healthbar. You do not crit often enough to compensate. In a high recharge build you will need some other source of healing. Either all the passive IOs, Inspirations or straight healing abilities like Energize or DNA Siphon.

Dark has Selfhealing, -toHit and will have another AoE with i27. Ice has a knockdown patch, sleeps and slow. Rad has Selfhealing and Knockdown. Staff, Broadsword and Ninja Blade have +Defense. But the best advice i can give is to not play Fiery Aura on Stalkers. It is better on other AT. If you want to play Something Special on Stalker i recommend /Invul, /Shield, /Energy Aura, /Ice, /Bio as Secondary and Energy Melee(i27), Street Justice, Savage Melee, Psionic, Ice, Dark(i27), Dual Blades, Electric and Kinetic as Primary. Any Combination of these would be different from other AT and play into the Strengths of a Stalker in its own way.

On the beta server there are changes to Dark Melee. Touch of Fear will be changed into an Area Attack like Street Justice Spinning Strike. It will still fear the targeted enemy but will be a new Source of Area damage. The downside is that the melee cone will be more in line with the other melee cones like Street Justice Sweeping Cross. Maybe having this in Mind will impact the build. I would be angry if i spend millions on the AH to find out that i need to respec two weeks later. Also on AT like Scrappers you could have Soul Drain, Dark Consumption, Touch of Fear, Shield Charge and Shadow Maul. That is a strong area damage rotation. Even more if you slot Soul Drain and Dark Consumption with proccs. I know that Dark Consumption is not a solution to Endurance Problems, but it helps. Speaking of Endurance there is a very nice proc for Endurance that can be sloted into Siphon life, which procs quite often. If you frequently use it, there will be a noticable change in endurance consumption. And you should use it often, because it is a strong single Target attack.

Easy. Roll /Invul or /EA. You do play Bio for Damage boost. When you start to reduce your damage in favour to cap defenses and increase resist it is not anymore meant for damage. You can play a bio def caped but you have no DDR within the set. Any way to increase survivability comes with a price. Also in my opinion a mids build is like a cake. Sometimes you can sprinkle choclate over it but when you ask to get the eggs out of it, i would recommend making a complete new cake.

Ok i tested now a EM/Bio Stalker and i wanted to give some Feedback. I build for maximal Damage and went a little bit lower on the defenses this time. I am amazed how much damage i could dish out but i had some troubles with the survivability. When Bio Armor allowed the enemys to smash my health into the orange red and i had a TF crit, i killed my self, because of 2 ETs. I will more likely ignore the damage i received to kick asses. Well but with bio if i do not use my clickys i will die. and i did die a lot. until i managed to really be carefull. i think in teams i can be more reckless but with a EM/EA Stalker i could just keep on smashing. In my Opinion the Energy Melee aas it is now is the best Version of Energy Melee ever. This Set is really good balanced at this point.

I have made one for maximum dps. it will need you to pay attention to you hp and use the bio skills. also DNA siphon is now an huge AoE power. With masslevitate Ball lightning and DNA Siphon you have a nice area damage addition to psi excelent single target damage. use Greater psiblade allways after Assasin strike.

In my Opinion the population is declining because of Regen. If you want people to come back and stay here: NERF REGEN!

Nice to see more people playing my favorite AT. All Stalkers are very good Boss killers. But in some cases i like to start a fight by killing Leutenants first, depends on the enemys. Also the Build Up and Assassin Strike is on all Stalker Primaries why you can just roll what you like and still get 1k crits. If you do not want to look into each powerset, here are some suggestions: Primaries: Street Justice: Maybe the best in Single Target. Savage Melee: The best Balance between Single Target and AoE but most of its Damage is over time Energy Melee: On the Beta Server is the new Version of EM. After this hits life it could be the new Single Target King. Notable Mention: Ice, Psi and Dual Blades are also cool. Secondaries: Bio Armor: Best for Damage Energy Aura: Very Good Overall Notable Mention: Shield and Invul are good on Stalkers If you are good aware of your capabilities and know what you are doing go with StJ/Bio (EM/Bio in i27). If you want less buttons to push go with StJ/EA (EM/EA in i27).

This looks like Street Justice. I do not understand why you refere to it in this thread. As far as i know Concentrated Strike is still bad. But i have been wrong in the past. Maybe it is not useless anymore..

For Kinetic Melee on Stalkers i have some important information for you. These are 4 Topics: Attack Chain: You use the first 3 Attacks, then Assassin Strike. This is all you need and it is the highest dps Attack chain you can have on KM. Just make sure to use 1-2 Damage procs on each attack. AS Included. This Attack chain is very good and you will have it on very low levels, making the leveling a good experience. Burst has 100% chance to crit from Hide. No idea why it is like that, but abuse the fact! Build Up Burst from Hide using 3 Attacks and only using Assassin Strike when you are Sure to use Burst again. That way you have very reliable AoE for a Stalker. Focused Burst and Concentrated Strike are just for getting set Bonuses. These 2 Powers are not needed and can be completly skiped. The ATO does something similar, so Concentrated Strike is not needed, it does not crit and has very long animation time. Focused Burst is not that horrible but just cycling the first 3 attack powers and AS will be better Single Damage. Endurance is a problem for you. KMs fast attacks will drain your blue bar very fast. If your Secondary Powerset does not give you Endurance you will suffer. Neither SR nor Nin will fix Endurance. I would recommend to look into Energy Aura or Bio if you can. Both have good ways to deal with Endurance. Bio will also help with Damage, toxic procs for single target and proced out DNA siphon for AoE. EA is a little bit more relaxed and will only require you to click energize, everything else is toggles and passive.

I have respeced my EM/EA into Mu and lots of recharge (~225%). I also included a snipe and tested Agility Core vs. Musculature. I like the new Version of EM and loved the ET crits. This new build plays very fluent and with the high recharge i could just use TF, ET, AS and Zapp whatever comes up. This is not an optimal attack chain but in ITF it was really cool because almost every click is a dead body. And sometimes i forget that the time i need to switch targets or reposition myself is impacting my attack chain. ET will be up so fast that i could easily play without the gaps which would make me use Bone Smasher on the pylon and previously consume EF. Now it feels really good. It is fluent and high dps. I also had a funny moment in RWZ that made me laugh for real. I was punching the pylon when the Dropship hit me. Normaly i just shake it off and keep punching. So i just used my dpuble EF stacks on a very quick ET->Zapp->ET combo and found myself at the hospital! I LOVED THAT! That is exactly what i wanted and i remember myself back in the day when i frequently killed my EM/Nin Stalker with ET after getting hit in the middle of a fight. Why stop to heal yourself? HA! This Version of EM is great! When this hits life servers i will dust off my abacus and start to optimise the attack chain and pylon kill times. Thank you for this HC Team!

Build Up and the ATO are all good on Stalkers as they are. If you want Follow Up, play any other melee AT. Build Up is vital in terms of dps and should not be changed. I recommend to try out a Stalker with a good build. Let people of forum or discord look at the build before you claim that Stalkers either suck or do not need Build Up. You either want a claw Stalker with Follow Up so badly that would screw up the whole AT or simply do not understand the fundamental importance of Build Up for Stalkers.

I have tested a EM/EA Stalker and want to share my thoughts here. All of this is from a Stalker Point of View. When i look at a Attack set i ask myself: What Power will i be using after Assassin Strike? Normaly that is the hardest hitting ability of the Set like Greater Psi Blade or Crushing Uppercut. For EM i was looking at: Totall Focus: A crit does very little extra Damage and gives another Stack of Energy Focus. The extra Damage is not worth it, maybe the extra Stack is good. Energy Transfer: Instead of dealing extra Damage i get healed and do not get damaged myself. Not getting extra Damage is bad. And in a world of Panacea, Power Transfer, Numina and various other ways to passively heal up for every Stalker, i do not need the extra healing. Power Crash: It is a Cone and has a reduced chance to crit from Hide. Bone Smasher: No real Downside but this Power is by far not the Hardest hitting ability. Now i would have to choose which one should follow up after Assassin Strike. ET and PC are ruled out because of reduced crit or no crit. TF also is not dealing enough Damage but there is a second stack of EF. So i went out and tried different attack chains with TF and BS after AS. My problem was that BS would consume EF stacks and just be a gimmick which i could ignore. In fact i came to a situation where i would random crit TF, use one stack on ET and now i was avoiding BS because i hoped to get another fast ET instead of a stupid BS that consumed the stack. It felt punishing to crit with TF. That was really weird and it was much more stupid when i used TF after AS. I had 3 Powers on my bar with a white circle knowing that i only want to use either fast TF or better PC. Hitting BS with a white circle felt so wrong. Especially if you are hitting enemys that will not life long enough to make a stun usefull. Should i jump into the next group to get more out of my PC in such a case? Or use a snipe? (I had none in my build). It was the most uncomfortable thing i stumbled upon. Now if i look at the 4 Powers that i considered, i came to the conclusion that i do not want any of them after Assassin Strike. A Snipe will not grant Assassin Focus Stacks and is available very late in terms of levels. Since TF is a big commitment because of the long cooldown, long casttime, i still started to hope that it does not crit for the sake of the feeling to waste EF stacks on bad powers. For a crit based AT that is very paradox. If the EF stacks would 'flow' better i would not hesitate to waste/use it on BS. Or if EF stacks would increase the Damage of BS. I would like to use it on it and would start to hope for crits. One way could be to give Build Up the opportunity to grant EF stacks. I am sure it would spice up the rotation, more for Stalkers than it would for other AT. In most modern mmorpg proc based powers that break up 'rotation' into priority based attack chains tend to be more fun. A builder/spender combo gimmick system will somehow be brought down to the best possible attack chain. But this was the first time in playing COH that you guys made me think of modern rpgs and how Energy Melee could be the greatest Attack Set. It is not yet there but it has potential. If you would release it to life in the state the set is right now, it will be OK. EM was bad and is now mediocre. It is in line with Psi, Ice, Fire and Kinetic. It is outperformed by Savage, Street Justice and Electric Melee. It is better than Broadsword, Claws, Martial Arts, Dark and maybe Dual Blades. I hope that EM will see some more adjustments before it hits life.

Hi Quantum, i have looked into different Epic Pools and was sure to pick up Mu Mastery for extra area damage. But when we talked about what you are going to do with this build and that exemplaring would be a important part of it, i chhanged my mind. In my opinion having a build that exemplars well is best possible when you reach the Def caps early on. This build has 45% M/R/A at level 25 when exemplaring down. Also important is to keep your powerfull set bonuses while exemplaring down, that is best achieved with having the slot heavy powers early and leaving the "one slot wonders" and set mules to later levels. Unfortunately This leads to having very few slots to later levels. which ultimately forces us to take the Body Mastery Pool because it is very good with just initial slots. Doing this also removes every Endurance Problem you may have. Ninjitsu is prone to knockback effects and in my opinion having only +4 protection is not enough. with another IO it will feel much better. That is why i have sloted Hide with it and also some other unique IO to make early levels a breeze (when exemping). Maneuvers is there to go over the cap with you defenses, especially in higher levels. Why would you do that? Well in higher levels enemys will debuff your defense once they hit you. So for Example at lvl 35 you will maybe encounter angry romans that will reduce you defense with a successfull hit by f.e. 10%, which makes it easier for other romans to hit you again. That will reduce your Defense some more and you will die instantly. That effect is called Cascading Defense Failure (CDF) and is common in endgame content for Defense only Armor sets. Ninjitsu is no exeption to this Problem. The game gives you 2 options to deal with CDF. First is to have more Defense than you would need. That is why you have Maneuvers and can use but should probably not use Guarded Spin. Using a purple inspiration is maybe a better option. Now the other way you can get around CDF is to gather huge amounts of Defense Debuff Resistance. That is not so easily achieved because it is baked into the various Armor Sets. Ninjitsu only gets a small amount of 34,6%. I do not know the real math behind it but This Defense Debuff Resistance will now reduce the amount of the Defense Debuff. Not the duration like other resistances. The Roman will now reduce your defense only by 7% not anymore 10% like in this example. These are just examples. I do not know the real numbers. Well this makes it easier for you to survive. Well why would i write so much about defensse? Easy. Pick the Ageless RADIAL Destiny. It will make sure that you have 119% Defense Debuff Resistance instead of only 34,6%. This will save you in Endgame Content much better than other Destinys. The original Devs gave Ninjitsu so low amounts of DDR because you would have a self heal and are supposed to hit Kujin Retsu when you are struck by defense Debuffs. I personally do not like Kujin Retsu because it is a time bomb that will get you killed. At least that would happen to me. So a possible rotation for Single Target Damage would be: Precise Strike -> Mercurial Blow -> Assassin Strike -> Sky Splitter For Area Damage i would just replace Sky Splitter with Eye of the Storm. Ok i guess that would be all. Here is the Build:

I would use the Overwhelming Force KB/KD IO in Shockwave. But than again i would play claws on a Scrapper because of Follow up and Spin...

@Krzbrg1 sign me up on this project. My Global is @Croax. I will be glad to help. I am online on the evening hours of the EU.

Instead of the stun proc i would mule a LotG in energy drain. And energize i usually my 6 piece Preventive Medicine. It gives good bonuses.

@beradical can you this with Street Justice?

I was yesterday in RV on Indomitable. There was one guy only and we started chating. He wanted to test his build and would ask me to try to kill him. We hit each other for a while and chated. Then two others would join and we started complimenting each other for the big damage spikes. I have to admit it was weird to be called bro and fam so much. A while ago on Reunion i did attack 4 people and would kill them a lot. They did not react friendly or just asked if they could complete a badge. They just started insulting me, so i killed them some more. Toxicity is not monopolized by PvP Players. I really like helping other Players with builds, tipps, PL, inf or whatever. But i expect a little bit of friendlyness. The arena PvP community has been very friendly. I wish the time of day when people play arena would not differ so much to my gaming schedule.

@StrikerFox thank you for this tipp. I did not know about the combat log. I will do the test with Assault equiped but not toggled on. Also Alpha and Interface equiped. What about Ageless? Are we allowing ageless to be active or not? It concernes the endurance consumption a lot. The Rotation and recharge is usually fine.

You should test Zapp from the Mu Pool too. It has the same damage as Moonbeam but you also get Ball Lightning. I think it can not hurt to have another good area attack and it fits better thematicaly.

Now i was shocked by my pylon times today: 108 117 130 102 (Switched Builds) 93 96 99 (Switch Builds) 116 Gave up I was thinking i did something wrong and changed the build to my Zapp Build and used the Rotation again. i would reach ~95 seconds with the Zapp build. I can not understand why the difeerence is so big and the Soul-Build sloting wields such worse results. unfortunately i can not make videos so that you can analyse them. But believe me when i say that the Mu Build is better than the Soul build and procing out AS and Shinbreaker seems like a bad idea. I think i will settle with the rotation that Strikerfox and I used and will simply try to skip a heavyblow every now and then. If someone could support me with a PvE Build that has very high recharge i could try the more "theoretical" rotations. But since i tend to use these Toons on generell PvE content i want something that is not purely designed to kill a pylon. On my Zapp Build i have Ball Lightning and a Procced out DNA Siphon to support Area Damage for example. That is more designed the way i like to play it. But i am still willing to test other Builds and rotations!

I look at EM from a Stalkers view and compared to all other Stalker Primaries it is just bad. Single Target Damage is lower than StJ, Psi, Savage, Ice, Fire and Dual Blades. These are the ones i personally tested on the test server. Even Broadsword was better just because it had crits on the Heavy hitters. Not critting is a huge nerf to stalker attacks. For Area Danage it is a much easier comparison, because it has none. The secondary effect is weaker because you either would want an area attack to effect as many enemys as posdible (Mass Levitate for example) or it should be applied in a fast manner to shine ( Kinetic Melees -Dam). So we are looking at a Attack Set with no Area Danage, useless secondary effects and the worst single target damage of all Stalker Primaries. Even if it would be good on one of these 3 categories i would not play it. For me you have to check at least 2 boxes (Single Target, Area, Utility) or be the undisputed Number one in one of the categories to be worth playing ( Elec Melee Nr. 1 Area).If someone asks me which Stalker Primary is best for Area it is Elec Melee. For Single Target Damage i would say StJ and Savage. Utility is not asked much but probably a Powerset with 'Parry-equivalents'. But there is not a single szenario where i would recommend Energy Melee it is just so bad. If you would want to improve it, the things to look have been said over the last decade. Animation Time and crits are my suggestions on how to improve this set. And if you just don't touch the area aspect and just pimp out the single Target Damage, People will just keep on playing Super Strength, Titan Weapon, Street Justice and Savage. But EM would not be total garbage anymore. The PvP meta has long ago moved to something else and is not comparable to 2008. No one would be pissed because you buff Energy Melee. Everyone would like it.

I made this here: If this is OK i would take it to the Pylons.