Quick question for min/maxers

[Lifeblood2112]

I loved stalkers back in live for both pve/pvp.  I want to make two new ones.  I'm considering:

 

streetjustice/shield

ice/ice

something/sr

 

I want to be able to solo tf's but also be decent in group teams.  I want to be able to tank if need be.  I want DPS before aoe but want aoe to be at least a 7 out of 10.

Please only reply if your toon is level 50 or close.  Those  with incarnates feel free to add input as to how they affect the above also since they can change a combo drastically. 

Go!

Edited September 25, 2019 by Lifeblood2112

[Frostweaver]

5 hours ago, Lifeblood2112 said:

Go!

Okay, Bye.

[Hopeling]

11 hours ago, Lifeblood2112 said:

Please only reply if your toon is level 50 with incarnates and has experience with the above.

LOL, good luck with that. There are, in total, 18 StJ/SD stalkers that have gotten to 50, and 14 Ice/Ice stalkers. Of these, let's be generous and say half are Incarnated-out min/maxers. That leaves 16 people who could even possibly respond to your question, but only a small fraction of the playerbase visits the forums at all, so you're probably looking at a low single-digit number of people who could even possibly answer. But most people who visit the forums at all just lurk without posting much.

11 hours ago, Lifeblood2112 said:

I want to be able to solo tf's but also be decent in group teams.

That's basically any stalker.

11 hours ago, Lifeblood2112 said:

I want to be able to tank if need be.

For this, are you sure you don't want to play a scrapper or brute with the Concealment pool? A stalker can certainly be durable, but without any taunt effects, you can't really tank in a meaningful way.

11 hours ago, Lifeblood2112 said:

I want DPS before aoe but want aoe to be at least a 7 out of 10.

Ice/Ice may not be for you here. The AoE is passable but not great, and Ice Melee in general is not known for dealing great damage. /Ice offers no help with DPS.

 

Street Justice is a great set and suits Stalkers very well. With two melee AoEs and Shield Charge, I'd call it at least 7/10 on AoE, and you can always take Fireball or Ball Lightning if you want more.

[Croax]

Shame on you @Hopeling and @Frostweaver, how dare we post here without meeting the prequisite of the OP.

 

Oh, i don't either. I better get out here fast....

[Lifeblood2112]

1 hour ago, Croax said:

Shame on you @Hopeling and @Frostweaver, how dare we post here without meeting the prequisite of the OP.

 

Oh, i don't either. I better get out here fast....

I didn't mean to come off that way guys, I just didn't want a slew of level 25 stalkers who haven't had true experience overall with their combo yet.  To ask for incarnate players may have been pushing it but with incarnates, everything changes so drastically that I felt it would be especially helpful.  I'll edit my original post however.

 

[Lifeblood2112]

3 hours ago, Hopeling said:

LOL, good luck with that. There are, in total, 18 StJ/SD stalkers that have gotten to 50, and 14 Ice/Ice stalkers. Of these, let's be generous and say half are Incarnated-out min/maxers. That leaves 16 people who could even possibly respond to your question, but only a small fraction of the playerbase visits the forums at all, so you're probably looking at a low single-digit number of people who could even possibly answer. But most people who visit the forums at all just lurk without posting much.

That's basically any stalker.

For this, are you sure you don't want to play a scrapper or brute with the Concealment pool? A stalker can certainly be durable, but without any taunt effects, you can't really tank in a meaningful way.

Ice/Ice may not be for you here. The AoE is passable but not great, and Ice Melee in general is not known for dealing great damage. /Ice offers no help with DPS.

 

Street Justice is a great set and suits Stalkers very well. With two melee AoEs and Shield Charge, I'd call it at least 7/10 on AoE, and you can always take Fireball or Ball Lightning if you want more.

Thx for your info.  I'm not looking to tank per se, but at times a team with no tank/brute or a weak one, I wanted to be able to step in and do my best taunting using aoes.  Not ideal but I see this situation happen from time to time.  The idea kind of goes along with a well built toon in terms of survivability also which is always a goal for me.  I've yet to find a combo after over 85 lev 50's back in live that I couldn't soft def on without gimping.  Now, with all the new enhancement sets and such, it's even easier.

I will go with Stj/shield, any input on what synergizes well with SR for stalkers?  I'm considering Savage.

 

 

Edited September 25, 2019 by Lifeblood2112

[drbuzzard]

Actually ice melee does quite good damage. You just need to dip into pools to flesh it out due to a small number of attacks (and the tier 1 sucks). It has a good wide cone and a reasonably good PBAOE

 

I probably would pass on ice armor myself. Ice melee couple with SR would likely work quite well (as long as you can stand click status protection).

[Call Me Awesome]

I really doubt you'd be able to hold aggro with any Stalker; the AT completely lacks the tools to do this.  I was playing my Fire/Regen stalker today in a Summer Blockbuster and was unable to hold aggro off of the squishy toons despite my best efforts and a considerable damage output on my part.  I could get the attention, but they were remarkably fickle about who they attacked.  A second or so of gap on my damage would have the mob turn on the blaster.

 

Of the combinations you listed I'd think StJ/Shield would be the best pairing for damage and durability.  Admittedly my experience with StJ is on a Scrapper and it's a helluva lot of fun.  There's just something that makes you want to snicker when you kick the bad guy in the balls.  The downside is limited AOE of course.  Shield just plain works well no matter what AT you run it on, I've a mid-30's Elec/Shield Stalker that's quickly becoming a beast.  One of my favorite pairings is Broadsword/Shield; I've played that to 50 as a Scrapper twice and a Tank once... from what I gather it's even more of a beast on a Stalker thanks to the 'on demand' criticals.

[Haijinx]

You can definitely build a Stalker to take Alpha strikes from +4/x8, but no you wont be able to hold aggro.

 

Street Justice has some AOE, but not a lot - there are likely better options.   Staff possibly.   

[SeraphimKensai]

I only have 2 lvl 50 IO'd and incarnated stalkers: psi/sr, and elec/bio. I had a couple more back during the live era as well but not all the sets discussed here.

 

For an Sr stalker, you are defense based so any set that either reduces tohit or increases defense will be decent. For my sr, I went with Psi as it's not too often resisted. The character shreds things solo until streak breaker goes into effect, then I pop a couple inspirations and continue to slaughter things.

[Dr Causality]

On 9/25/2019 at 9:09 AM, Hopeling said:

LOL, good luck with that. There are, in total, 18 StJ/SD stalkers that have gotten to 50, and 14 Ice/Ice stalkers.

Does that include from Beta servers?    I personally had two Ice melee Incarnated stalkers on Justin. 

[Mr. Vee]

I have a stj/ice and an elec/shield. does that count? stj/ice/shield are all great on stalker - with /shield be sure to take grant cover - lots of folks skip it but it gives you defense debuff resist. with both /ice and /shield take ageless radial if possible for more DDR. /sr you'll be capped on DDR anyways.

 

with enough recharge stj is fine on aoe at 50 with just spinning strike. you may want sweeping cross to fill out an exemped chain or to mule something and it's a fine power. i'd imagine a built up shield charge plus a couple applications should clear the soft targets and stragglers. i'd throw an achilles proc in shin breaker if you can, but you'll be golden single target no matter what.

[Hopeling]

19 minutes ago, Dr Causality said:

Does that include from Beta servers?    I personally had two Ice melee Incarnated stalkers on Justin. 

The Flavour of the Month data only counts live characters, I think. Unless you played on Justin quite a lot, I'm not sure it would count as "true experience overall" though.

[DreadShinobi]

On 9/25/2019 at 9:09 AM, Hopeling said:

For this, are you sure you don't want to play a scrapper or brute with the Concealment pool? A stalker can certainly be durable, but without any taunt effects, you can't really tank in a meaningful way.

Does AAO actually taunt for stalkers? My assumption was that it did I outside of hide.

[Hopeling]

I don't believe so.

[Lifeblood2112]

29 minutes ago, DreadShinobi said:

Does AAO actually taunt for stalkers? My assumption was that it did I outside of hide.

I was wondering that myself(AAO) since I didn't want it to mess up hide but thought the taunt aspect would help on teams plus I want the damage buff.  I went with stj/shield btw, liking it so far.  Still undecided on /sr primary.  I know katana would synergize well with it (plus def) but I think I'd like dark melee more.  The minus to hit would equal katana's plus def plus it has a self heal.  Staff looks fun also.  I am a big sr fan and had a dark/sr scrapper who was nearly unkillable  back in arena days so still leaning toward that.  Any other advice on a primary here welcome.  I won't care so much on that toon if she is big aoe since I use stalkers in a group to kill bosses, sappers, AV's etc mostly anyway.  Blasters etc can aoe the mobs.

 

[Mr. Vee]

AAO doesn't taunt on stalker and it only messes up hide in a roundabout way - i.e. enemies will notice you because of it. so you'll still have your hide status and can crit from it but enemies will attack and if they hit your hide will be broken. Basically this only comes up in situations where you telenuke in  - you're attacking which activates AAO but pseudo pet doesn't break hide. Assuming you're defense capped you should be able to get off your crit, just as one normally does when the chance to hide ATO proc goes off while enemies are attacking.

 

RE sr pairing - dark melee's a good choice for the heal. Katana's a fine set (er, ninja blade, rather) but divine avalanche would pretty much be a leveling only power on an SR.

[Rapunzel]

I have a fully incarnate elec/sr that I enjoy tremendously that might fit what you're looking for, or at least give you some ideas.

 

I started her for theme reasons, so I hadn't really expected awesome, but she is FUN and durable. I focused more on AoE than I think you're going for, but on high level, fast moving teams, that's the game. And Lightning Rod keeps not getting old.

 

I dont have taunt, so I can't properly tank, but the attack chain is fast and vicious enough to keep attention. I've pseudo-tanked an ITF on her. It's not my first choice, and having ranged tools is a must so that when some out of range mob is picking on your blaster you can shut them down - I have a snipe and a hold.

[Lockpick]

On 9/24/2019 at 11:11 PM, Lifeblood2112 said:

I loved stalkers back in live for both pve/pvp.  I want to make two new ones.  I'm considering:

 

streetjustice/shield

ice/ice

something/sr

 

I want to be able to solo tf's but also be decent in group teams.  I want to be able to tank if need be.  I want DPS before aoe but want aoe to be at least a 7 out of 10.

Please only reply if your toon is level 50 or close.  Those  with incarnates feel free to add input as to how they affect the above also since they can change a combo drastically. 

Go!

 

I have played StJ/SR to 50 and incarnates.  It is a very strong build with high DPS and high defense.  I have not played SD on HC, but my main on Live was a StJ/SD Scrapper.  I think between SD and SR that SD brings more to a team due to Grant Cover and Shield Charge.

 

I have no experience with Ice.

 

On 9/25/2019 at 11:09 AM, Hopeling said:

For this, are you sure you don't want to play a scrapper or brute with the Concealment pool? A stalker can certainly be durable, but without any taunt effects, you can't really tank in a meaningful way.

 

I have played a few times with a StJ/Inv Stalker who took Provoke and he was able to tank pretty successfully on a 4/8 ITF.