Gulbasaur

I play a BS/Shield/Fire/Sorcery stalker as my first ever stalker, and I have to say I really enjoy it. It's partly because of the theme, but it's also really fun to play. Elemental sword and the energy shield, coupled with a wizardy getup and he's my flying battlemage who blinks in and out of visibility in combat thanks to the ATO. Broad sword has some heavy hitters, shield is a good balance of defence and resistance and I took blaze mastery for the AoE, range and debuff. The shield teleport is a really useful knockdown power and you can basically AoE all the minions out of a fight with fireball then shield charge as a combo. I've included Sorcery because it's a core part of how I play. Rune of Protection patches the psi hole with no crash - I use it much more than One with the Shield and between the two you've got pretty high damage resistance most of the time. With global recharge reduction bonuses, it's up very frequently. Spirit Ward is a useful utility power as it can prevent a teammate from faceplanting and Enflame does acceptable damage if you cast it on a tank surrounded by enemies but is really great as a control power as the AI hates standing in patches. If you whack it on an enemy they'll just start running - useful for breaking up boss-heavy spawns because the boss you cast it on will basically vanish for 30 seconds on several maps.

Look for toxic farms - there aren't as many but rad/rad has really high toxic resistance so can just hop in, spew out a few DoTs and let things vomit at you until they fall down.

Stalkers got a fairly significant buff in i22 (I believe) and now rival scrappers in much the same way that brutes rival tankers, defenders rival corrupters and peacebringers rival warshades. They have about 10% less health and do about 10% less base damage but crit more often and can force crits by using stealth and using assassin's focus - it's fairly easy to crit twice in a row and you can basically decide when this happens. High-floor-low-ceiling vs low-floor-high-ceiling. They also have an inherently lower threat level and no taunt-on-hit like stalkers, meaning they're slightly safer in group play. Honestly, I think they got hit by power creep fairly hard and would eventually have been nerfed a bit as they can out-scrap a scrapper in the same way that a dominator can out-control a controller. The low threat level and decent defences means that my stalker is usually the last to go down in a fight and it can take a beating before that happens. They have the same health as blasters but the same defences as scrappers meaning you can kick the crap out of them and they'll stay standing. I got distracted. Yes, they crank out critical hits and the ATOs mean you get extra build up and extra crits with the hide proc.

Honestly, there is no "best" and it depends on what you want to achieve? More damage? Musculature. Easier endurance? Cardiac. Use them as a way of plugging holes in your build and you won't go too far wrong. Also, interface ones are sort of buggy and don't really do anything until you can get them to 75% proc rate so leave that until last.

I've had three in Peregrine Island (where I was) followed by a mixture of Atlas and Independence Port, at level 50. I don't know if the tip itself dropping when exemplared down has an impact on the location, like if you're exemplared down to 23 and get a tip then it breaks the location rule and goes into a backup pool or something. I've definitely had more variety Blueside than Redside, for whatever reason. I just open about as many as I can and tell my group that I have two in (location) and we're going there next and drop an Ouro portal in front of them. People seem to be okay with that if you advertise it as "tips/radios" in the LFG.

Hah, yeah I'm not that bad. It's more a strong opener than a berserker rage as a lot of my survivability is built on a blaster-style "they can't kill me if they're already dead" attitude when my click powers are down. Also, I need to start off Hidden so I have to hang out for a few seconds. I'm not a selfish teammate, honest! That did make me chuckle, though. Hmm. I was wondering about this as I have it slotted in with the rest of the set for the bonuses and I wondered how the recharge would impact it.

Just to add on that I upgraded it to the 75% proc and it it hitting 3 times in a row - I think the Cancel on Miss thing really is to blame as it's being applied at every step with the same modifiers, leading to exponentially low rates on the lower proc and more gradual rates on the higher ones.

It already goes off more often than I can keep up with... it's bananas on AoE powers. I usually open combat with Build Up > Shield Charge1 > Fireball2 and it usually procs in one or the other, so that makes sense that it checks repeatedly, actually. I almost always have it back up to start my normal single-damage routine after my initial Very Stealthy Explosions3 phase. 1 does not break stealth - this must be an oversight and will maybe get patched 2 your second AoE crit because of the above - you're still Hidden 3 seriously, it is utterly broken. I've cleared +4x8 groups before my teammates have even caught up the distance as the nuke phase starts with a teleport. This combo and Pyronic Judgement is guaranteed to finish off any thing below boss-tier and reduce most bosses to one-shot wonders.

Submitted a bug report and told to post here. My cognitive radial interface procs aren't firing at all. Edit: I tested with 40 swings and got one proc, which suggests to me that it's double-dipping in the chance-to-hit rolls. See explanation below. I've had something similar happen on the reactive set, too, although my combat log says it has procced at once in a +4x8 spawn - so it seems to be running but proccing at rates far, far below the tooltip. I googled it and other people seem to be either having the same issue or not having the problem at all so it might impact some sets and not others. It looks like the Core ones proc and the Radial ones don't, but that could just be confirmation bias. Here is a discussion that suggests it was a bug in the beta at the end of Live. Here is a post that suggests it's proccing at 1/5 the expected rate (which for a 25% proc would be 5% - the automatic success roll, perhaps?). Maybe a misplaced decimal or something is being multiplied twice and ending up with a much lower number? E.g. 0.25 for the effect x 0.25 for the DoT or it's rolling to hit for each tick separately and therefore gets quickly diminishing returns? Edit: According to another thread here, it looks like the Cancel on Miss might be firing off more often than predicted - if it rolls to hit to apply the effect, then rolls to hit for the first damage tick, then there's only a 6.25% chance that the damage will tick at all, assuming no defence or to-hit modifiers enter the equation. If either of those rolls miss, the effect ceases entirely. Presumably, this is affected by the 5%-min, so with a number that low, just over one in twenty ticks will actually hit on the first round, with diminishing returns on that. Logically, it looks like the chance for two ticks is less that one percent, which matches the claim that "it's bugged and only ticks once". For the .75 to tick ones, this increases to a .56 chance that the first tick will hit, then .42, .31, .23, .17... which matches the claim that "it ticks all the time, I don't see a problem" This also seems to correspond with claims that the debuff is being applied, but the damage is not if the debuff is being applied on the first instance. I would say this isn't working as described in the tooltip - is this something the devs could take a look at? Given that powers have been updated to match descriptions, could this be added to that list?

Stealth is useful for, well, stealthing. It's not as powerful as you think it is, but give enemies a wide berth and you'll be okay. Stealth+Super Speed was pretty much invisibility in the early game due to the way they stacked - not sure if they still do. Invisibility is the strongest concealment power in the game, but you can't attack (or do anything other than heal and buff yourself) with it on so it is only moderately useful. I prefer Grant Invisibility if you team a lot as it's a bit of protection for your squishy teammates.

The Live game had a limit on Vanguard Merits of 9999, if that's any guidance. Merits can be turned into influence very easily (buy converters or boosters and put them on the auction house), which is usually better value than buying anything else with merits directly. If you hit, say, 999 and it stop ticking, go to a Merit Vendor and buy some goodies.

No, I said it was good and this makes it better. I said that slotting the Build Up proc in Build up was loophole abuse. Saying something is good doesn't mean you think everything else is bad. Anyway, it's a good combination for any stalker but this thread is about BS/Shield so I mentioned it in the context of BS/Shield. I didn't say "it's great on energy melee/rad" because that's not what this thread is about. As an aside, I experimented with the ranged attack Chance for Build Up proc and it doesn't go off enough to really be worth considering for real gameplay, sadly. I'm still enjoying my sword and board stalker - the fact that the shield-o-port attack doesn't break stealth means you can immediately follow it up with an AoE like fireball from the epic pool for a double AoE crit. Marvellous stuff.

I'd recommend putting a Gaussian Chance to Build Up enhancement in Build Up - you get double Build Up for 5 seconds or so and it's very handy. It's very handy. You can normally fit two attacks in five seconds if you're quick - which is why I'd suggest putting your Chance to Hide proc in Assassin's Strike - it allows you to get two crits with buildup - the AS one and the hidden one. I've crit for over 900 using this method... which is really rather satisfying. As soon as I can afford it, I'm going to try a second Chance to Build Up enhancement from Decimation in a ranged attack... again, it's more damage on demand which is what a stalker is all about. I'd recommend Kick over Boxing - the knockback is useful and you can stick a Force Feedback chance for recharge in there for some occasional extra recharge. I use it on my brute and it's adequate filler in an attack chain. I'd also maybe swap out one of the End Mods in Endurance for a slot in health for Panacea's proc - it's a health and endurance proc and just generally pretty wonderful. This is all theorycrafting, though, and it looks pretty solid to begin with.

Absolutely my experience. It does the job. It's fine. The heal is nice. Contamination is... fine. It's a few bits of occasional AoE damage. By end-game, my rotation is to drop a lot of AoE DoTs out from Mu and Rad Armour and then use atom smasher and the justice smash thing... then I use rad melee to full time while things are on cooldown. It's fairly run-of-the-mill, but I like the consistency of theme with rad/rad. If you're farting through PI missions or something like that, that playstyle is absolutely more than enough. I've got separated from my group and not noticed before.

I slotted my sword and board stalker up like this yesterday - it's complete loophole abuse by circumventing the recharge rate for a fairly reliable +160% damage boost proc; I was critting for over 700 damage two or three times a fight. The two ATOs and chance for Build Up are a really good combination which is utterly ridiculous on The Thing That Should Not Be as it has two big hitters which can basically crit on demand. It's not 100% reliable, but they're all powers you should be using anyway, so it takes something good and makes it better. Tip: if you do this, bind Build Up to Crtl+1 or something so you don't have to click it. It'll go off about about two or three times a minute so you want it accessible quickly.

Shield has a good cross-section of positional defence and damage resistance, which people don't particularly mention in the forums. It also comes with a very nice damage buff/debuff power that adds a bit of oomph. Damage resistance is harder to come by from bonuses and buffs, so on my shield stalker I spend a lot of time with 70-90% defence, which is so far over the cap it's not even worth considering. Shield is awesome, but remember to slot for resistances as well as defence - I think you get about 25% against most damage types just from normal slotting, which is a good platform to build off of for IO sets.

Do you mean the ATOs? If so, the Chance to Hide one is one of the best ATOs out there and the other one is... good, I guess. Build Up is always a bonus so having it up more is useful. Being able to make two out of three hits a crit with the Chance to Hide is outstanding, though.

Ah, thanks! And yes it does. The lack of proper line breaks is annoying me as well as I have to double line break like a barbarian.

It has a bit of resistance, too, and the AoE doesn't break stealth because I think it's done via a pseudopet. It's good fun.

Is there any scope to put together player-built (or suggested) versions of these? I've been absent-mindedly thinking of unique-feeling powers that are mechanically (comparatively) simple to work out as they're based on existing powers as templates. Mind Some kind of scaling power like Beta Decay's recharge effect or Against All Odds +DMG or Warshade's Mires - as you show more awareness of your surroundings you gain strength. Each enemy gives you some X and each ally gives you some Y. Higher levels could apply damage or control effects or provide a wider array of buffs. Genesis Should be thematically linked to starting things, so perhaps this could be linked to origins? A buffed version of the Origin powers you get at L1? Turn apprentice charm into a -resistance toggle that becomes an AoE in its final form (like one of the Rad auras). Vitae Perhaps some kind of mirrored buff/debuff - E.g. Applies -DMG to target and DMG to you, -DEF and +DEF, -res and +res etc as you drain the life force from your foe. This could presumably be ramshackled from Kinetics powers like Siphon Power and Siphon Speed. Omega Obscenely long cooldown mega-debuff for tackling AVs. Like drops massive (selectable) DoTs and -regen but with a crash - after 30 seconds, you're hit with the same debuff and a (percentile? so it's equal threat across ATs) DoT. When you really, really need something to die no matter the consequences. Think DoT snipe power with a crash like Light Form or one of the T9s. Two pathways could be AoE or single-target. What do you think?

Just to add on that I literally played with adding +end procs for the first time earlier today and it made a colossal difference. I was a bit sceptical, but it was night and day. Panacea and Performance Enhancer together pretty give you a tangible endurance sustain. Panacea is a bit expensive, but I had a stack of reward merits to use up (buy Enhancement Boosters from a merit vendor and sell them for ~1mill each on the /ah) and I think it was worthwhile. I also got the two +3 defence resistance-slot enhancements so am now quite poor.

Had the same thing happen to me - ruined my no combat deaths run... five times in under a minute. Respawn point is very firmly within aggro range. Sent a ticket.

Yeah, I know. It's powerful but has a big payoff and it's definitely something you have to plan around. It honestly didn't occur to me about the super-duper-mega long recharge powers because I don't really use them so that is a really worthwhile point - thank you. Build swaps themselves are situational and I only really think it benefits the VEATS to do it mid-mission because their builds can be night-and-day different. I'd be pretty annoyed to lose Return to Battle on my brute when I was pugging. However, I use it constantly with my Night Widower/Fortunado (with just about enough innate defence to be able to do it mid-fight), but if you make a lot of use of the slow recharge prestige powers you're in for a frustrating time.

Builds reviews don't often get a lot of comments, don't worry. If no one says anything, it means it's probably fine. My only comment really is that you probably don't need Barrier - you've probably got enough defence already. Clarion might be a better call so you can provide a more even spread of protection.

Awesome! The colour palette swap is a real good touch.