I like Tier lists too and i'm an oldschool gamer (no tier lists back then). I like to follow my own path but really enjoy seeing other people's opinions, often they are more experienced, some have 10 stalkers, they can definately mention pros and cons of certain sets. You don't have to blindly follow tier lists if you get them.
Many people mention Psi melee is bad because often resisted later and low aoe dmg, having a useless confuse. Well, I'm going to make myself a psi stalker because i LOVE confuse, will be adding Crosspunch too because i've been using that since day 1 (of homecoming) on almost all my characters: with force feedback proccing 50% of the time (when hitting multiple mobs) and even when not proccing i get 5% to hit and +recharge per enemy hit.
Ice/Bio, was great, i think this is really underrated.
Staff felt really cool and fun, love the animations, i had Bio as secondary
Elec/shield was... really heavy on the endurance (but i think most stalkers have end issues at low lvls)
Ninja Blade/ninjitsu: This was pretty neat tbh, beautiful animations, felt better in oldschool combat than the new stalker way of life; meaning better for stealth missions, i really enjoyed caltrops a LOT, go assassinate someone, run through a door, caltrops to keep others away/slowed while i defeated them one by one.
That said, after my elec/shield i really wanted something with easy endurance management so kept going back to bio. I like toys/versatility. If one set has dull attacks but highest dps, i'll probably go for a lower dps set because it has fun stuff like confuse, sustain, buffs, utility in general. So do with a tier list what you want.