Ethereal Star

Off the top of my head, I'd have to say confusion. I've only ever had an enemy use confusion on me one time, and I wasn't even aware it happened until my blaster instantly defeated one of my teammates on accident. Confusion is very scary and very deadly, if more enemies had that, it would be bad.

I think it's already been brought up, but I want to mention it as well! I'd love if the sonic assault could be similar thematically to the symphonic control, in having effects and sounds like the siren npcs do. I also want to mention that this is a powerset I've wanted for months, if not years--thank you so much for including symphonic control! I am not sure if everyone would want the "symphonic assault" but I know I do and I'd regret it if I did not mention that specifically! I don't know whether or not this is even feasible, but... if it is, please consider it! As for the mechanics themselves, I am very happy with this powerset otherwise!

While I am a little bit sad that ranged weapons will come later, I am glad it will come later, and I love this feature one way or another! It might not be feasible for this update, but I want to mention it anyways. I would love if there was an option to sheathe weapons to the hip as an alternative to sheathing to the back as well. If it is not, that's totally okay though, I am very happy this feature was added and I'm excited to see it in game! Thank you!

I think it's already been brought up, but I want to mention it as well! I'd love if the sonic assault could be similar thematically to the symphonic control, in having effects and sounds like the siren npcs do. I also want to mention that this is a powerset I've wanted for months, if not years--thank you so much for including symphonic control! I am not sure if everyone would want the "symphonic assault" but I know I do and I'd regret it if I did not mention that specifically! I don't know whether or not this is even feasible, but... if it is, please consider it! Edit: I'm sorry, I didn't realize there was a separate thread for sonic assault... and I already posted this in the wrong place already, and there's no way for me to really delete this. I apologize for the confusion!

The changes to stalkers however does make them a bit more like scrappers and especially in team settings you will not be able to just kill everything in one hit. There's a very good chance things are going to turn around and hit you due to how bursty your attacks are and being in melee range in general will put you in harm's way. Don't underestimate the value of extra defenses... especially since you can invest in these kinds of pools without hurting your damage potential in any way. (In fact, with the right enhancement sets, they can even make it better.) Most of all, If you are knocked out, you won't be dealing much damage. 😞

I don't recommend leadership unless you have extra power points and you really need a little extra defense. I strongly recommend not going for assault... tactics is not bad but you shouldn't need it. Maneuvers can be nice, at least! Fighting makes a huge impact for stalkers though, and it will be fairly strong unlike leadership. The benefit of leadership over fighting of course is that you don't have to waste a power pick on an attack you'll never use, which is even more significant if weave doesn't do anything for you and you're just going for tough (which, while nice, is not that good on its own... but smashing/lethal is common and it can be good to have behind defenses if you are a purely defensive stalker, and if its your own power with resistance enhancements it gains significant value for slotting unique resistance enhancements). You can take both, but fighting will almost always be better. The only exception might be if you don't need weave but... if you don't need weave, you probably don't need manuevers either. I dislike assault on principle due to how +damage buffs scale, and I don't consider tactics worthwhile. A lot of stalkers are also a bit endurance thirsty at times so I can't well recommend a lot of expensive support toggles. Leadership is strong though if you use it for team buffs, and it's not a bad choice if you can spare power slots. I just don't personally recommend it over fighting pool, which will significantly increase your survivability.

I think Staff fighting is one of the strongest primaries for a stalker. To give it a C and put it on par with ninja blade feels horribly wrong... I might even put it on par with the others in A but at the very least, it's deserving of a B don't you think? Staff in fact works better with stalkers than it does with most other archetypes. It is one of the sets where one of its weakest attacks gets replaced with one of its strongest, and it has the best buff passively built in instead of the form switching thing other staff fighters have. That said, staff fighting as a powerset is lacking in some ways so I can understand some of where you are coming from. The animations are a little long, but its synergy with stalkers is very good and quite a bit underrated, I think. I also think you are a bit biased against resistance sets for stalkers. That's okay of course, but they can be very strong for them. You don't have to have defense sets to be effective as a stalker. Fire and Electric both are very strong, and deserve better than a C at the very least. I used to think similarly but after actually using the resistance sets I've seen how well they can compliment stalkers. Perhaps it's specific content that makes defense really shine for stalkers to a dramatic degree (or makes resistance really bad) but I haven't run into it yet... Likewise, I kind of feel like you may be giving too much respect to ninjitsu, which does not have a lot of strong powers and severely lacks defense debuff resistance. Its heal is nice at least, and it can provide standard defense capping but... what else can it do? Toss out some caltrops, put down a relatively useless smoke grenade? I really don't feel like ninjitsu is good at all. Putting it on the same tier as shield defense feels wrong, since it basically does everything it does better and then some. (to be fair, I'd honestly put Shield Defense at A for that matter, but that's just me!) All of this said your post is interesting! Thank you for sharing it ^^ I think your post is insightful and helpful, I have some disagreements on how you sorted them and why but this is a valuable resource even so to new stalkers! I didn't look at your builds (and I don't like using premade builds for that matter), but wow at the work you did!! You clearly poured your heart into that, and I really like that! Stalkers don't get a lot of love so it's nice to see a thread like this!

Yes, as you might imagine nova + light form is quite broken! Light form makes dwarf form a bit redundant but you can still use it to hold enemy attention. And yes, this was a relatively recent change, and a very nice one. They do in fact stack.

I tried beast/cold once and I ended up retiring it. A lack of healing and lack of resistance (since beasts are resistance heavy and play very well with resistance sets) made beast/cold not work well for me, my pets felt very fragile since they were so aggressive and the defense buffs didn't help as much as I hoped. It's not bad though, and thematically it does work. I did a beast/sonic instead and it gives most of my beasts 90% resistance. They are almost invincible now! Necromancer/dark has obvious synergy, both thematically and with their powers/debuffs. I recommend it. Necromancy itself isn't the strongest but the debuffs in dark miasma should help with that! I had a bots/force field character on the original servers and it works fairly well. I didn't do it this time though. Instead I went with bots/traps and I have to say it has tremendous synergy and plays very well. Either way, you won't go wrong. I tried mercs/traps briefly too but mercs in general are rather boring and disappointing, and the theme itself feels very generic. It's not much fun. ...but that's just my opinion. These are the sets that I've played that I can comment on out of the ones you've recommended. I can give my own suggestions too of course but I'll hold off unless you want them ^^

I would take both. The question is which ability are you taking that prevents you from taking both? You don't really have to pick between them. I love that ice storm can be stacked with blizzard especially, but I have always used frost breath constantly when I took ice blast. These are not even remotely mutually exclusive and are core parts of AOE blasting for ice blast, so I am a bit confused why you are not taking both..? If you absolutely had to drop one, ice storm is probably the one to drop since a lot of enemies are defeated too quickly for ice storm to truly shine in later content. But I still consider it extremely powerful and useful in a wide variety of scenarios, and it's effective as a debuff as well.

I have. I don't have a strong opinion on it, but I enjoy it! I don't know how it plays for corruptors specifically compared to other archetypes, however my Water/Storm character is a corruptor. Water and storm don't seem to have much direct synergy (aside from whirlpool + freezing rain and shoving enemies into it with hurricane, maybe!) but both are strong their own right, however both can are fairly active powersets so they can sometimes clash depending on your choices, though most storm abilities are toggles and long recharge powers at least which won't disrupt water blast's active playstyle. It's more that Storm Summoning might require more of your attention than some other powersets. Oh, and storm is very endurance thirsty... beware. I will mention this again and again, but I don't think I can emphasize it enough. I will just talk about storm summoning here. Water blast is a bit more straightforward and most of its abilities are strong. Storm summoning isn't quite as clear cut. To an extent you can mostly utilize the cooldowns (Tornado, lightning storm, freezing rain) and be very effective with just those, but a well-utilized hurricane will make a huge difference and helps a lot! Just make sure that you don't use hurricane to spread out enemies and instead use it to nudge groups close together to make AOEing better and give them massive debuffs (the debuff range on hurricane is slightly bigger than its push range, so you can nudge enemies to give them a debuff). On top of this, steamy mist is an amazing team buff and is very powerful. A lot of the powers on storm are skippable. I'll go over the powers briefly You are forced to take gale, but gale isn't bad. You can use it as an emergency knockback ability if you ever need it, or as an ability you can spam with knockdown to trip enemies indefinitely if slotted for knockdown. It is worth mentioning that gale is not very accurate but... this won't matter too much if you are using it for knockdown. I would single slot it, probably either for accuracy (as a knockback tool) or for knockdown (as a tool to knockdown enemies), but you can do both. A lot of storm summoners just never use gale at all but it has its uses. (Defenders can skip it entirely, though.) O2 Boost is a power a lot of players skip but I find it useful. Having a heal in general is very nice to have even if O2 boost is not the strongest (a mere 17.74% base, but it does scale to be acceptably decent, sadly its cast time is not as short as it could be) It doubles as a sleep/disorient resistance buff, and even gives endurance drain protection which many people would definitely appreciate. Like most heals it is a bit expensive, and if you take it and are the only support in your party you might find yourself stuck using it a lot but... that's better than your party dying, right? Hopefully? ^^; I don't skip it, but it is technically skippable (and many storm summoners seem to do this). Snow storm isn't bad, but it's an extra endurance toggle--and an expensive one at that--and what you get from it is not really worth it. Furthermore since it is targetted on an enemy, it can be very annoying to keep up, and it only debuffs speed and recharge, making it not a big priority especially since freezing rain does the same (though they do stack of course). If you have spare power slots, really like stacking debuffs, or really want a -fly ability, this is worth taking but is highly skippable. Steamy Mist is an absolute must have, and if you can, slot both its resistance and defense for best results. The only time this isn't useful is when you are escorting npcs since this does stealth you. Steamy mist gives you defensive buffs to everything (including psionic) and significant resistance buffs to energy, fire, and cold for you and your entire team. It also offers confusion protection but it is highly unlikely you will ever need it (I've only ever been confused one time ever in City of Heroes, by a circle of thorns succubus). Just be aware that steamy mist is a relatively expensive toggle for endurance. It also stacks very nicely with maneuvers in leadership but... these endurance toggle costs all add up, so be careful. Freezing Rain likewise is an absolute must have. It gives tremendous -resistance to enemies which translates to +damage for you and your entire team which stacks with +damage buffs. It also gives -defense, -recharge, -speed, and can be enhanced to be up 100% of the time. It is extremely good. It also has extremely high accuracy (96% accuracy against +3 enemies by default) so you won't need to bother slotting for that. Like many other powers in storm summoning, it has a significant endurance cost, however, so be aware. I recommend slotting it with achille's heel's -resistance debuff and Annihilation's -resistance debuff as well for even better results, but be aware they will only trigger initially and won't stack if someone else using the enhancements to debuff the same enemies... but on the plus side will go up nearly 100% of the time when you first use it. (Don't waste your time with other procs, they will most likely only trigger once initially which is not great.) Hurricane can be either one of the best or worst abilities in storm summoning. A bad storm summoner will use this ability and run in the middle of enemies spreading them out and sending them flying and irritate their entire team. A great storm summoner, on the other hand, will use this ability to nudge enemies tightly together to help with AoE damage and to apply a massive -tohit debuff. Keep in mind that the range of applying the -tohit debuff is greater than the range to push, and the debuff lingers for 10 seconds so you can nudge them then back away if needed. Unfortunately this is a very expensive endurance toggle and combined with the other endurance thirsty powers of storm summoning it can be tricky to use well. I do recommend it however, but if your endurance can't work with it being up at all times, you might want to not keep it up at all times and just when needed. Oh, and slot this power for knockback to knockdown. This is absolutely critical. You can't remove the push (and don't want to) but the knockbacks are not great and are way too much. Knockdown on the other hand works great with hurricane! It's skippable if this power is too confusing or expensive, but I recommend learning it; it has the potential to help teams tremendously. Thunder clap is a magnitude 2 disorient which will only effect minions. If that's not bad enough by itself, it has a long recharge, a short duration, low accuracy and the endurance cost is a bit high. The only place where this ability shines at all is when it can be stacked with another AOE disorient and even then it's not really worth it. Water blast has nothing like that. Do yourself a favor and pretend this ability doesn't exist. It's terrible.. 😞 Tornado is another must-have power for storm summoners as it's great for damage and for control both. in addition it reduces their defense and can be up 100% of the time with minimal enhancements. I do recommend slotting for knockback to knockdown, I cannot recall if tornado does knockback directly (I believe it does) but it definitely causes a lot more problems without it. Just make it a knockdown and then it will be absolutely perfect. 🙂 Unfortunately it is a very expensive power in terms of endurance (20.8 endurance), but it's worth it. Try to reduce its cost if you can. Lightning storm is an exceptionally powerful ability for storm summoners as well. Simply put, you take this ability for damage and it will not disappoint. It comes built in with high accuracy so you should not need to give it any extra accuracy (against +3 enemies, it has 96% accuracy by default). This is an extremely powerful ability and you will easily be able to keep it up 100% of the time. The drawback of course is its massive endurance cost (31.2!!!), so definitely make sure you enhance that down. Definitely take this, it's a must-have of course. If you skip lightning storm you perhaps should ask why you are even playing a storm summoner. ^^; Overall I consider storm summoning an excellent support set that truly shines as a secondary support in particular. It doesn't have strong buffs or healing and synergizes well if you have anyone in your party that can. Just be aware that Storm summoning is one of the most endurance thirsty powersets in the game. There are a few powers in water blast that are also expensive so you should be careful to reduce your endurance through enhancement sets, powers, etc, or make friends with someone who provides you with some nice recovery! A skilled storm summoner really stands out and I've gotten more compliments for playing Storm summoner well than most of my other support characters (many of which have more directly beneficial powers, even), so I think this is a great choice! I've managed to make it work well and the endurance costs are not insurmountable for me. I don't really have advice in the incarnates for this, for the most part which you choose will depend on how you set up your character and what you want from it. Maybe even thematic. And I don't really have much of an opinion on pool power sets either (except that steamy mist stacks very well with maneuvers, and that hasten is just amazing by default). Likewise, since all ancillary powers give armor toggles, you are free to pick whichever you like the most! I hope this helps!

If by better you mean "more effective", I can tell you that Ninjitsu is not that great for stalkers, sadly. It's not really bad, but I can't recommend it as a strong defensive secondary for them. The only benefit of ninjitsu is that a lot of powers are skippable... and I don't think that's a big benefit. ^^; Ninjitsu on scrappers and sentinels on the other hand is excellent, so those might work better. Furthermore, if you are going after theme, ninjitsu is fine. So it just depends! Specifically, ninjitsu lacks any significant powers, has no resistance really to speak of (except toxic, to a very small extent), and no endurance recovery (as a stalker). Also, it's ultimate is borderline useless but that's not unique to ninjitsu at least. It's also worth mentioning that Ninjitsu for some reason doesn't have as much defense debuff resistance as it should, making it less effective than some other defensive sets against enemies that debuff that. It does have a self-heal, at least. 4/9 of its abilities (almost half) are skippable... but I don't consider that a benefit. Caltrops, smoke flash, and blinding powder are extreme niche and rarely ever helpful in any significant way. It's ultimate Kuji-In Retsu is only useful for providing temporary defense debuff resistance (and huge amounts of extra defense on top of what you already have) which is usually redundant and very niche, since it crashes. I just can't recommend Ninjitsu, but at least defense-based defensive secondaries for Stalkers favor them for avoiding damage. Super reflexes is not that absolutely amazing either, but it is significantly better than Ninjitsu. It has some built in resistance (not much), and the defenses are more reliable. It doesn't have healing and it doesn't have endurance recovery and its ultimate is also useless, however it does have some very nice tricks up its sleeves. It has a scaling amount of resistance based off of how low your health is, it also has built in passive +recharge in one of its powers (+20%). Unfortunately, if you want defense debuff protection (and resistance) you'll need to take most of the abilities which can be expensive. Elude, it's ultimate, is useless, and is skipped by almost everyone. It's not the absolute best defensive secondary for stalkers but it is a decent one! Shield defense by comparison is one of the absolute best stalker secondaries and I highly recommend it if the theme suits you and it works with your primary power. Elec/Shield specifically is very common. I don't think savage/shield works, but I may be mistaken... either way shield has very strong defenses, decent resistances, and even some support buffs for your team. It comes with a very nice +damage power (against all odds) as well, which scales up to +65% damage with enough enemies. Shield charge is an effective and useful AoE teleport, and unlike some other secondaries the ultimate (one with the shield) is actually very powerful and does not crash. Everything about shield defense is great! The only bad thing I can say about shield defense is that all of its powers are quite useful and it will be harder to skip them. At best, you can skip grant cover if you don't want to buff your team with free defense and resistance. I want to add that your choices of primaries, electric melee and savage melee, are both very solid and are some of the very best stalkers have! Your secondary is more supporting that, so it won't matter too much if you like ninjitsu for theme and really want to use it. It will work fine! If you want to be more powerful, shield defense is better (but might not work with savage, I am unsure sorry!), or alternatively super reflexes for something close to ninjitsu but more passive. Ultimately it's up to you, but this is my opinion on these powersets. ^^

I just wanted to mentioned some of the flying sounds I found that people might also want to adjust. When you move or shift directions while flying there are 'whoosh' sounds. These sounds are under Powers and are the following: whoosh2 whoosh3 Whoosh7 whoosh8 whoosh9 whoosh14 whoosh15 whoosh16 Whoosh17 whoosh18 (There seem to be minor sounds when changing direction but whatever is left is very quiet; I was unable to find the last few. Likewise I am unsure which specific sounds apply to which specific movements/powers, as these all sound fairly similar.) You can find similar sounds for Ninja Run under: NinjaRun_Whoosh_1 NinjaRun_Whoosh_2 NinjaRun_Whoosh_3 NinjaRun_Whoosh_4 NinjaRun_Whoosh_5 You can also find the jumping sounds for Ninja Run under: NinjaRun_WhooshFlip NinjaRun_WhooshHop NinjaRun_WhooshJump I am not sure if this will help anyone, but just in case it does, I thought I'd list them!

Yes I figured walk would. It helps but I also meant normal running.

I think this is an amazing idea! But I have one potential issue with it... Having a special stance that is active all the time may be a bit awkward in certain circumstances. While you can fix this by having another costume, is there any chance that you could add an ability that can overwrite a special stance with the default stance so that we can use the default as the exception, instead of the other way around? I hope this makes sense... for instance if I want to just run normally instead of dashing around like a ninja when I am at Pocket D. Walk would overwrite it but also just normal running. In the case of default (or any of the others, probably) you can overwrite them with ninja run, beast run, and slide, but it would be nice if you could overwrite ninja, beast run, or slide (if picked for the inherent stance) with the default movement on some ability. Either way, I am excited for this! If I have to use other costumes to change stances for this, I will. It's worth it!