guide More than just a Ninja - A Guide to Stalkers

[Croax]

More than just a Ninja - A Guide to Stalkers

 

Index

 

Introduction

AT Powers inherent to Stalkers

Primaries

Secondaries

Basic slotting

Combat, Tricks

Beginer Nin/Nin Build

 

The ATO Synergy

Advanced slotting

Incarnates

Advanced Nin/Nin Build

 

 

Introduction

 

Hello all, i have played a Stalker back in the day and was thrilled to play one here on homecoming. I mostly played on redside only before the ATs and alingnments allowed everyone to switch side and go rogue. Stalkers used to be good in PvP and bad on allmost everything else. After the introduction of the Bane i felt like the Stalkers are obsolete now. Maybe a lot of people think the same. because i have the impression that scrappers and blasters are regarded as the Damage gods and no one speaks about Stalkers anymore. Well i can asure you, that Stalkers are the real Damage gods and that is thanks to the Stalker revamp in issue 22. A lot of people have missed it like me. I was really surprised by the new System off Assassin's Focus. It is amazing how well a Stalker is doing in issue 25.

 

Now what made me sit down and write this guide was the fact, that a lot of people in this forum seem to ask the same questions or just go on to create a Ninja/Ninja Stalker, don't get the AT and just quit like: “A Stalker? Yeah i made me a Ninja, too.“ But Stalkers can be so much more...

 

Before we go into real stuff now let me clarify that i am writing this guide on my personel experience and this is my opinion. If you don't agree with me, that is totally fine. If i did something fundamentally wrong i will be glad to learn something new. Also i used Paragon Wiki for a lot of the informations, it was and still is one of the best sources of information for this game.

[Croax]

AT Powers inherent to Stalkers

 

Criticals

Stalkers cause a great deal of additional damage through critical hits. The exact chances of a critical vary greatly with the situation and the power used. Stalker criticals do double damage except in one case which we'll get to in a moment.

 

Most Stalker single-target attacks automatically critical against any target if the Stalker is Hidden. If the Stalker isn't Hidden and he's attacking a PvE enemy, his chance of critting is 10% + 3% per teammate within 30'.

 

Stalker AoE attacks work similarly, though the crit chances for Hidden AoEs are half the typical single-target chances. Un-Hidden PvE AoEs use the full 10% + 3%/teammate formula without halving. Crits are checked separately for each target hit.

 

Assassin's Strike

If the Stalker is Hidden, this attack becomes extremely potent. First of all, if it misses, the Stalker stays Hidden. If it hits, it crits automatically, for almost triple normal damage instead of double. Whether the target survives or is defeated, all nearby non-player enemies (which may include the target itself!) are Demoralized and suffer a small but irresistable ToHit penalty, and occasionally Fear as well, for eight seconds. If the Stalker isn't Hidden, Assassin's Strike removes the wind-up animation allowing it to attack faster, deals Superior damage, and will not deal critical damage, unless Assassin's Focus is in effect.

 

Assassin's Focus

Assassin's Focus has a chance to be generated from any attack from the Stalker's primary power set except for Assassin's Strike. One stack of Assassin's Focus lasts for 10 seconds, and gives Assassin's Strike 33.3% chance to do normal critical damage. Up to three stacks of Assassin's Focus can be held at any time, allowing Assassin's Strike a 99.9% chance to do critical damage out of Hide. This allows the Stalkers to go into a playstyle that is like a scrapper, without loosing too much time trying to set up a lengthy Assassin's Strike from Hide. This playstyle is refered to as 'scrap it out'.

 

Hiding

Despite the rather misleading name, the Hidden status only means that the Stalker is poised to deliver stronger or more reliable critical hits. Hidden mode and Stealth aren't directly linked, although they often occur together. A Stalker can be Hidden even if an enemy has enough Perception to see him.

 

Stalkers have two ways to become Hidden. The Hide power continually grants Hidden status, though that status suppresses for eight seconds each time the Stalker uses an attack power (except for missed Assassin's Strikes), suffers damage from an enemy (falling doesn't count), or clicks a mission object. Using the Placate power on any target also puts the Stalker in Hidden mode, no matter who he attacks, for a fixed period of ten seconds.

 

Placate

Placate is as it sounds - an enemy who is placated cannot attack the Stalker which placated it for a set period of time (and loses interest in the Stalker as well) unless the Stalker decides to follow up with attacks which will immediately break Placate. It can be used to escape from foes who prove a challenge, allowing the Stalker to regroup or flee, or to take advantage of the fact that Placate will place the Stalker in Hide, allowing him to immediately follow up with a triple-damage Assassin's Strike or other attacks for double-damage if it is not available.

[Croax]

Primaries

 

The Stalker Primaries are Melee Attack Powers similar to Scrappers Primaries , Brutes Primaries and Tankers Secondaries. The biggest exception is the inclusion of Assassin Strike, which mostly replaces some sort of AoE Attack. The other change is that Placate replaces Taunt/Provoke Powers. And the last change is the Build Up Power which is in every Stalker Primary and replaces similar Buff Powers.

 

If you are allready settled on a Primary then skip to the next section. If not i will give you a short overview of the Powersets. But keep in mind, that the Primaries have the biggest impact on gameplay and really define your playstyle. If i go over a Powerset and rate one better than the other, it is purely my opinion. So let's move on to the Powersets in alphabetical order:

 

Broad Sword:

The Broad Swoard has slow but hard hitting abilities which reduce the targets defense, allowing you to hit easier with further attacks. The good thing about BS on a Stalker is the fact that you can get more often criticals on the harder hitting abilities than scrappers. But that is true for every Powerset. With BS you get a lot of these slow but hard hitting Powers, so you deal great damage. Only downside is the lack of good AoE Powers in this Powerset. Sure you get a melee cone and Headsplitter also has a small area but this Set is more about the Single Target Damage. The Star of BS is surely Parry wich deals minor Damage but increases Lethal and Melee Defenses by a great margin AND it stacks! This increases your survivability a lot.

 

Claws:

Claws are very fast and thus don't hit that hard but due to the low endurance cost you can get going quite a long time. Later in the Set you will get a good ranged attack and even a usefull melee cone. Eviscerade has a higher chance to land a critical attack than other Attacks, so you can play claws a lot like a scrapper.It is a well balanced set in the middle of the field.

 

Dark Melee:

The big selling point of Dark melee beside theme is that every attack reduces the hit chance of the enemy. This can be viewed as a bonus to your defense (the real math is more complex), thus making it a very good set to keep yourself alive. You even get a small heal with the side effect of damage and more to hit debuff on the enemy. Like most of the Stalker Primaries you just get a bad melee cone as your only area attack. DM after all this years is still a solid choice.

 

Dual Blades:

Dual Blades have a cool look and are picked up mostly for this reason. Most of the Dual Blade attacks do not have any secondary effect, the reason is a build in system that wants you to use the attacks in a very specific order to get a buff or to debuff the enemy or simply some bonus damage. This is a gimmicky way of making every Power in this set viable. Unfortunately you will now want to take almost every Power, making the Powerchoices for your Build very tight. What i personally dislike is the fact,that you need Placate to give you the Empower effect. I like to skip Placate in my Endgame Builds for Stalkers, but here i am forced to weave it into my attack chain to profit from the buff. If you are someone that does not care about Endgame min max stuff and leave a toon after it dings 50, then there is no downside to this Powerset.

 

Electric Melee:

This Powerset is ALL about the AoE. Beside of the bad melee cone that everyone gets you will find one good, one great and one kind of broken AoE. Chain induction is the good one that deals reasonable damage to a few targets. Thunderstrike can hit a lot more and deals great damage to the unfortunate around your target. And the broken one would be Lightning Rod. It is a teleport power that deals huge area damage in a really big radius to a lot of targets and knocks them down. After that YOU ARE STILL HIDDEN! So go ahead and open up with Assassin's Strike or push your luck with a 50% crit Thunderstrike. The drawback of Elec on other Archetypes is the lack of a good Single Target Attack. But on Stalkers that hole is patched with Assassin's Strike. They removed the stun power which would have been mostly skipped anyway and put Assassin's Strike there. Elec is one of my favorites and is in a very good state, one of the top powersets.

 

Energy Melee:

In the beginning of CoV Energy Melee Stalkers were a Powerhouse in PVP. The Attacks used to be very fast and really hard hitting. And most of the Attacks disorient, so you could stun a lot of ATs or just kill them really fast. So the devs pulled out the nerf bat and hit it too hard. Now the attacks are still really strong but the animation time is also very long, you are like chaining up two attacks (Energy Transfer and Total Focus) and quickly take a toillet break as long as the animation takes to excecute. Energy Transfer was hit so hard with the nerf bat it can not even crit. That is not a joke. This Power does not crit even if hidden. Now Energy Melee has not even a bad melee cone, it has no area damage at all. This is the only Primary that i rate bad. Every other Primary is better.

 

Fiery Melee:

Fiery Melee does not have any secondary effect, like defense debuff. It has only damge and most attacks have some dot component. It has two good area attacks and the well known hard hitters with long cooldown and small attacks that are fast. This Powerset is all about killing them first and didn't care much about survivability. Fire damage is exotic, that means it is not resisted much by the enemys, that makes it a good set for damge only.

 

Ice Melee:

Ice Melee on Stalker trades  Greater Ice Sword for Assassin's Strike. That is a very good port, because ice has two good AoE and one of the most usefull crowd controls of the Stalker primaries, called ice patch. It comes with various debuffs, but the most notable would be the slow effect on almost every attack and Freezing touch, which has a build in hold. I do like the animation and sound of this set and it has a exotic damage type, so enemys tend to have lesser resists against it. I think Ice Melee is one of the better Stalker primaries and performs good in every aspect of the game.

 

Kinetic Melee:

Kinetic Melee is one of the newer Primaries which was added to the game after the devs figured out some basic design formulas for the game and new Powersets in general. So it feels like it has something of everything, you get fast light attacks, strong and slow attacks, a ranged attack and even a good AoE Attack. Something different is that it debuffs the enemys damage dealt, so it kind of helps you to survive. Kinetic Melee is in a good shape and is in the middle of the road. I like the sound and animation of the set because i love Kinetics as a support set. If you do too, you will have a good time.

 

Martial Arts:

If you want to feel like a Kung Fu fighter this Powerset will serve you well. It has various side effects like disorient and knockback, you even get a small increase in crit chance out of eagle's claw. Unfortunately you get no AoE. Everything here is about Single Target. Overall it is not a Powerset that will make the Bards sing anthems. There are better choices out there but also there is Energy Melee, so this set is maybe not bad.

 

Ninja Blade:

Broadsword, Ninja Blade and Katana (for other AT) all work the same way. You got the Defense Debuff, the Parry or Divine Avalanche and you get the Hard hitters. The difference is that Ninja Blade is a little faster with animation and recharge but also deals a little bit less damage than Broadsword. This Powerset is fine as it is, has cool animations and does perform very well. I guess that Ninja Blades are a obvious choice for playing a Stalker, thank god it is a good choice as well.

 

Psionic Melee:

This is the First Powerset in the List that has a game mechanic going. In this case it is called insight and is a small buff for your hardest hitting ability which is greater psi blade. Since that power is the only one that consumes your insight buff, you can totally ignore this mechanic and just play it as a normal Melee Attack Powerset. Looking it that way, you have a well balanced mix of slow hard and light fast attacks. You even get a great AoE Attack with mass levitate. The real selling point of this set is the fact that it deals psionic damage mostly. The attacks deals part smashing part psionic damage but the crit part is completely psionic. This damage type is very rare and thus hardly resisted BUT if you encounter a enemy that has psi resists it tends to have a lot of that. I like this Powerset and it is fairly better than some of the powersets we have talked about.

 

Radiation Melee:

Another Powerset with a Defense Debuff on most of its attacks, radiation melee comes with the contaminated effect. This effect gives your attacks a small chance to contaminate the enemys. Attacking contaminated enemys results in small bonus damage ticks. This effect can spread to other enemys and you get a good Area Attack, so you are looking at a Powerset which has some AoE on top of good Single target damage. You even get a small heal, like Dark Melee. Radiation Melee is in a good state like most of the newer sets.

 

Savage Melee:

Now here we have the first Powerset that want's you to play it's minigame of builder and spender. In this case the stacks give you some recharge bonus and endurance reduction. The stacks can be spend to empower a high damage dot and a good area damage power. Since these attacks are still usefull without the stacks, you can ignore blood frenzy and scrap it out. Savage is a well rounded set that has a good performance. But the damage is mostly over time, so it feels less bursty as some other primaries.

 

Spines:

Spines is the next AoE Powerset beside Electric Melee that will make you feel like a Area Damage Overlord. The Difference is that you get some of the Damage over time. In generall you will start hitting the boss and everything around you will be dead when you are done with it. I like this Powerset but i also like Quills, which was traded away for Assassin's Strike. But having a Damage Aura on a Stalker would make no sense, that way it is a reasonable port to Stalkers. Spines are a good choice, if you expect to play in high density maps or allways with 8 players.

 

Staff Fighting:

The coolest thing with Staff is the different variations and stances and choices you get. But not as a Stalker. The cool part is left for the other ATs. You just get yet another mixed bag of reasonable Attack Powers with varying debuffs. The most noteworthy would be Guarded Spin which works exactly like parry, then you get a ranged attack, some small AoE and the lovely mixture of strong slow, weak fast attacks. Don't get me wrong, Staff Fighting is good as it is and performs well, but on Stalkers you miss out what makes it really special.

 

Street Justice:

Now the Devs did not care about finding cool names for a combo system, they just went ahead and named it .... combo system.

With StreetJustice you get attacks that build up Stacks of combo points that can be spend to empower your combo spending attacks. This combo system has a strangely good flow with the assassin's focus stacks. You could even go ahead and find your perfect rotation for maximum damage if you care. You get a Powerset here with some debuffs and a good balance of AoE and Single Target. But be aware of the mental strain that it puts on you as a player. You will have to watch a lot of things to play this Set at peak performance. Even playing a click intensive Secondary could screw your perfect rotation. I don't want to scare you away from Street Justice. If you pay some attention to it, this is one of the best performing powersets for Stalkers.

[Croax]

Secondaries

 

The Stalker Secondaries are all Powersets based on improving your survivability. All of them have Hide as the starting Power leaving you no big choice. Before we get startet with the various sets i wanted to make clear that survivability for a Stalker can be achieved on mainly three ways.

 

• Defense

• Resistance

• Healing

 

Defense

Defense determines if the enemy is going to hit you at all. Enemys have a chance of 50% to hit you. By increasing your Defense you can lower that chance to hit you. But no matter what you do, they will allways have a 5% chance to land a hit. Therefore you will need 45% Defense to get the maximum result. You will notice that the game is more complex but let's just say you would want 45% Defense.

 

All Attacks in this game are either melee, ranged or area . Also all damage dealing attacks have a damage type like Smashing, Lethal, Cold, Fire and so on. The game allways checks for the highest relevant damage type. Let's take a look at an example:

 

Some Enemy shoots you with his Energy Blast. This is a Ranged Attack that will deal smashing and energy damage. Now the game checks your Range, Smashing and Energy Defense. The highest one would be the one which is taken to see if the enemy has hit you.

 

Resistance

After you have been hit, you will take damage. Your Resiatances help you to reduce that damage. Every Energy Type is checked seperately. This means if you get hit by a attack that deals smashing and energy damage, the smashing part will be reduced by your smashing resistance while your energy resistance reduces the energy part of that attack.

Stalkers have a resistance cap of 75%, which means that no matter how much resistance of a single type you stack, you can not have more than 75% of it.

 

Healing

Now you have been hit, you took the damage and want to go back to full life. That is possible in quite a few ways, like having a great buff on regeneration or using a power which will restore some of your health. There are even Primaries which will give you health back on a successful attack.

 

 

Rating the Secondaries

After we have covered a basic understanding of survivability i will go over the various secondaries. This time i will rate it on the three aspects of survivability with a simple rating:

 

None: This Secondary does not cover this part of survivability.

Some: This Secondary covers some aspect of it, but has holes or the numbers are not high enough to make a difference.

Good: This Secondary is all about this aspect of Survivability.

 

But keep in Mind that every of these aspects can be patched with sufficient IO builds and Incarnares in Endgame settings. Also every Secondary has good enough mez protection even if you will have to use some unique IOs to cover very specific holes. You can not do anything terribly wrong with any of the secondaries.

 

Bio Armor:

Defense: Some

Resistance: Some

Healing: Good

Bio Armor is a hybrid Set with something from everything and very good selfheals. It comes with some bonus to damage and other offensive buffs if you are in the offensive adaption. It is a busy set that will want you to click its powers. But it is also one of the better Secondaries.

 

Dark Armor:

Defense: None

Resistance: Good

Healing: Some

Dark Armor has a lot of toggles and is very endurance hungry but makes up for it with good resistances and a selfheal that will keep you going in crowds but will let you down against single hard enemys like arch villains.

 

Electric Armor:

Defense: None

Resistance: Good

Healing: Some

Electric Armor is one of the very few Secondaries that gives you endurance in form of a hefty endurance discount that can be made permanent and a endurance 'steal' from enemys surounding you. Additionally you get a +recharge reduction which is allways nice. Electric Armor is actually in a good shape.

 

Energy Aura:

Defense: Good

Resistance: Some

Healing: Some

Energy Aura has the same endurance discount and recovery options like electric armor but trades in a lot of the resistances for defenses. Energy Aura does grant good defenses against a lot of damage types but not psionics. If you can ignore or patch this single hole, than you have got one of the best defense sets available for Stalkers. Also it gets recharge reduction, which helps to kill stuff faster.

 

Fiery Aura

Defense: None

Resistance: Good

Healing: Some

Unfortunately you don't get the second build up like other ATs. And the damage toggle is now a bad healing toggle. Overall the set is still ok but is nothing to be impressed with. You will have to manage your health bar, endurance bar and still kill stuff. For a secondary that keeps you busy i didn't feel like getting a lot out of it.

 

Ice Armor:

Defense: Good

Resistance: Some

Healing: None

Ice Armor has some good Defenses to several types of damage and resistances to the ones it has low defenses. Like many other Secondaries you have nothing against psi and almost no healing powers. You get an increase in health which increases the survivability and regeneration in its own way and comes with some more debuffs to protect you. Also you have the T9 which will be up roughly half of the time, which is great. With Ice Armor you get a little bit of everything but have to click a little bit for it. It offers no offensive options.

 

Invulnerability:

Defense: Good

Resistance: Good

Healing: None

Beeing one of the best perceived secondaries across all ATs, invulnerability lives up to his name. With high defenses and very good resistances, you will find no Power skippable and the whole set is quite heavy on endurance. You can get good survivability with little investment out of this set. But be aware that you don't get much offensive out of invulnerability.

 

Ninjitsu:

Defense: Good

Resistance: None

Healing: Some

This is probably the most picked Secondary for Stalkers. Ninjitsu is one of the few Powersets that offer positional Defenses. It is quite easy to reach range, melee AND Aoe Defense caps. You will not get hit, and if you get hit you have a excellent fast recharging clickheal for half your health bar. Ninjitsu has a lot of utility powers that also add to your survivability and can be completely dropped in a endgame build if you want do dive into power pools or epics. You need only 5 powers out of this set and can skip up to 4 of the others. Ninjitsu is one of the best Stalker Secondaries.

 

Radiation Armor:

Defense: None

Resistance: Good

Healing: Good

Here we have one of the newer powersets. You get some endurance recovery, regeneration, heals, absorb, AoE Damage, Debuffs and a T9 without a horrible crash. All on top of some weardly distributed resistances across all damage types. I consider Radiation Armor to be one of the best Secondaries across all ATs. But as it is with Bio Armor, you will have to click a lot.

 

Regeneration:

Defense: None

Resistance: Some

Healing: Good

Regeneration is mostly based on the aspect of healing back to full life and it does very well with that. On Stalkers you get some small Resistance Bonus across all Damage Types and unfortunately no endurance bonus, which would really help. Since there are no offensive capabilitys in regeneration it is purely meant for survivability, with a lot of click powers. This powerset is not a bad choice but not great either.

 

Shield Defense:

Defense: Good

Resistance: Some

Healing: None

The second set on this List with positional defenses. Shield Defense not only allows you to easily cap melee, ranged and aoe defense, it comes with some resistances on top of it. If you get hit, it will not hurt that much. Also you get a direct bonus on Damage and a very good AoE teleport Attack similar to Electric Melees Lightning Rod. No wonder, these two Powersets are often picked together. I consider Shield defense to be one of the best Stalker Secondaries. Of course it has his downside too. You get no healing at all and the whole set is very endurance hungry.

 

Super Reflexes:

Defense: Good

Resistance: None

Healing: None

Super Reflexes is one of the older Powersets and is the third and last Secondarie that allows you to easily cap the positional defenses. Beside of that you get a bonus to recharge reduction and run speed but unfortunately nothing else. You also have to pick most of the powers, there is no easy skip option. The only thing speaking for Super Reflexes is that it comes with such big amounts of defense that you can cap defenses very cheap and beside of the click mez protection it is very low maintenance, so you can focus on your primary.

 

Willpower:

Defense: Some

Resistance: Some

Healing: Some

Willpower is another hybrid that offers something from every aspect of survivability. With a good T9 you can can easily achive different goals for survivability. It offers no offensive options and is quite heavy on endurance but still a very well rounded set.

 

 

 

For a simple overview i have made a visual comparison of all the secondaries. This is mostly to get a feeling for the different sets and does not cover everything to know. This is just to get a idea for it.

 

 

Here is also a Link to some more Details.

 

 

[Croax]

Basic Slotting

 

For the enhancements during your leveling phase i would allways recommend to get DOs up until lvl 22 and after that you should completly switch to IOs. As a Stalker you will have a big focus on your Attacks and some attention at your Survivability options. And then there are things in common for all the Stalker that i play.

 

 

A Standard generic Attack:

Acccuracy, Damage, Damage, Accuracy, Endurance Reduction, Recharge Reduction

 

The Last two slots would be a mix of Recharge Reduction and Endurance Reduction as you see fit. If you have Endurance issues go for 2 Endurance Reduction, if Endurance is not a problem take the Recharge Reduction. I mostly take one of each.

 

The reasoning is to get good value on Damage and Accuracy early on and to hit enemys and get more efficient later on, when you can put more than 2 slots into a new Attack.

 

 

Assasin's Strike and Heavy hitters:

Accuracy, Damage, Damage, Accuracy, Damage, Recharge Reduction

 

Here with Assassin's Strike and the big Attacks you want to get the most Damage as possible. Due diminishing return on enhancements you squeese the highest amount of Damage from your Attacks with 3 Damage enhancements. Also the Heavy hitters are mostly on a lengthy cooldown, so i would go for the recharge reduction

 

 

Placate/Build Up:

1-3 Recharge Reductions

 

Depending on how much you use these Powers go for the desired amount of recharge reduction. If you are short on slots the initial ones have to be enough. i just like to ignore the fact of the to-hit component on build up.

 

 

Toggles:

Endurance Reduction, Defense, Defense, Endurance Reduction, Defense

 

I go for 3 Slots early on and get two Defense/Resistance/whatever and one endurance reduction into my toggles. Later on in your career you can slap two more slots into it if you like to. There are also toggles out there that just offer mez protection and only very little benefit outside of it or in case of Shield Defense you get a Damage increase toggle. in such cases i just stick to the initial slot and use one endurance reduction only.

 

 

Click Powers:

Recharge Reduction, Healing, Recharge Reduction, Healing

 

If i got a click heal for example i try to get a good balance of enhancements but never use more than 4 total slots. Some click Powers don't have Healing components then it is 2 Recharge Reduction, like for the click mez protection of Super Reflexes.

 

 

Hide:

Do not Slot Hide!

Hide gives you a huge bonus to defense when you are hidden but outside of hide you only get a fixed bonus of ~1,88 % on Defense. Every Defense buff IO or more slots than that would go to waste. Hide is really good to carry unique IOs that have a global bonus like Kismet or Luck of the Gambler.

[Croax]

Combat and Tricks:

 

At lvl 6 you get Assassin's Strike and at lvl 8 you get Build Up. I recommend taking these two Powers at these levels.

When you are Hidden a green text in your Buff bar will show up saying “Hidden“. If that is the case your Assassin's Strike will deal triple damage but will take a while to finish. it is similar to the old snipe powers, it can be interrupted, you sometimes have to hit it twice and the cast time is really long. Before using Assassin's Strike you will want to use Build Up to increase the Damage even more.

 

If you are playing solo i would allways Start with Assassin's Strike on a Boss or Lieutenant. With Build Up you will deal enough Damage to kill Lieutenants but Bosses will still have some life left. So it will sometimes be better to kill the Lieutenant, clear the Minions and Placate the Boss, so you can start on him with a fresh Assassin's Strike. If you are ever Hidden and Assassin's Strike misses, just wait and be patient to recharge Assassin's Strike and start over again. That way you will allways have a advantage, because you can take out a threat before he gets dangerous or simply reduce the amount of enemys by one.

 

If you Solo you will find it easier to increase the Level by one or two and not the team size. Also you can ghost very fast through missions and go for the rewards that you get for completing a story arc. Ghosting missions has high rewards but low experience. If you want to Powerlvl yourself i found out the tunnel AE farm with bosses yield a good xp/hour ratio. Since you are lvl 6 effectively you will have Assassin's Strike and therefore kill these Bosses very fast. Just make sure to run at the end of the tunnel before starting to get the kinetic buffs. But also tunnel AE farms are repetitive and get boring very fast.

 

Playing in groups is a totally different game. If the group is moving slow, because people keep dying or simply the damage is low, you play like the Solo Version. Take your time to find the priority targets and take them out fast. Once you are not Hidden anymore, just scrap it out untill the enemy group is finished. When you are in a group that is moving and killing fast, then just stay with the group and use your hardest hitting ability from hide. Because Assassin's Strike will take so long to finish that your target could be dead when it is finished casting. In that case you would not contribute to the groups effords. So you play just like a scrapper with more crits and simply find your flow of attacks.

 

A lot of Missions in Taskforces can be skiped with a good Stalker. Sometimes you just need to click a glowie or kill a boss. You should allways speak with your group if they want you to zip around the map and collect the mission objectives or if they want to do it the 'normal' way to get more XP or even a badge. Also you can get a Prestige Power from the pay2win vendor called 'Assemble the Team'. With that Power you can teleport all members of the team to your location. You could run to the end of the map with the final boss and teleport everyone to your location. I even encountered teams that would encourage me to speed up mission as often as i could. Always check with the other players before you attempt such a playstyle.

 

 

Beginner Nin/Nin Build

 

Here is a sample build for a Ninja Blade/Ninjitsu Stalker. I focused on to get almost all Powers of the two sets. Up to lvl 38 you should get a very good idea of the different powers and usefullnes of certain utility Powers like caltrops. i have not included any unique IO, because this Build is just an example. i truly recommend to get one of the knockback protection IOs since that is the only area that Ninjitsu lacks. I have leveled this Stalker to 50 and had a good time doing so. I did play Solo arcs, ouroboros (f.e. Sister Psyche TF), AE Farms and also joined group content like TF or just missions. I just noticed the lack of AoE otherwise it was a nice ride to 50.

 

 

Villain Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.2
https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Stalker
Primary Power Set: Ninja Blade
Secondary Power Set: Ninjitsu
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Fighting

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Sting of the Wasp -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(27), Dmg-I(29), Dmg-I(29), EndRdx-I(33), RechRdx-I(33)
Level 1: Hide -- DefBuff-I(A)
Level 2: Flashing Steel -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(21), Dmg-I(21), Dmg-I(25), EndRdx-I(25), RechRdx-I(27)
Level 4: Ninja Reflexes -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(5), DefBuff-I(5), EndRdx-I(7), EndRdx-I(7)
Level 6: Assassin's Blade -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(15), Dmg-I(17), Dmg-I(17), Dmg-I(19), RechRdx-I(19)
Level 8: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(9), RechRdx-I(15)
Level 10: Danger Sense -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(11), DefBuff-I(11), EndRdx-I(13), EndRdx-I(13)
Level 12: Placate -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Run-I(A)
Level 16: Kuji-In Rin -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(34)
Level 18: Divine Avalanche -- Acc-I(A), DefBuff-I(34), Acc-I(36), DefBuff-I(36), RechRdx-I(36), EndRdx-I(37)
Level 20: Kuji-In Sha -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(23), Heal-I(37), RechRdx-I(37), RechRdx-I(39)
Level 22: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(23)
Level 24: Caltrops -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(34)
Level 26: Soaring Dragon -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(39), Dmg-I(39), Dmg-I(40), Dmg-I(40), RechRdx-I(40)
Level 28: Smoke Flash -- Acc-I(A), RechRdx-I(42), RechRdx-I(42)
Level 30: Maneuvers -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(31), DefBuff-I(31), EndRdx-I(31), EndRdx-I(33)
Level 32: Golden Dragonfly -- Acc-I(A), Acc-I(43), Dmg-I(43), Dmg-I(43), Dmg-I(46), RechRdx-I(46)
Level 35: Blinding Powder -- Acc-I(A), RechRdx-I(42), Acc-I(50), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 38: Kuji-In Retsu -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 41: Boxing -- Acc-I(A)
Level 44: Tough -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(45), ResDam-I(45), EndRdx-I(45), EndRdx-I(46)
Level 47: Weave -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(48), DefBuff-I(48), EndRdx-I(48), EndRdx-I(50)
Level 49: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Assassination 
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run 
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(3)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(3), EndMod-I(9)
------------

[Croax]

The ATO Synergy

 

The Two Stalker Archetype Origin Enhancement Sets are called Assassin's Mark and Stalker's Guile. The Enhancement sets can be sloted with lvl 10 and i recommend doing so, if you have the inf for it. If you don't want to invest that much at least get the Proc from each set. The Stalker's Guile: Recharge/Chance to Hide should be sloted into Assassin's Strike. Doing this gives your Assassin's Strike a good Chance to give you the “Hidden“ effect, which will grant you a guaranteed critical hit. Assassin's Strike immediately followed up by a hard hitter that will crit for 100% is a very powerful move, you get for only one Enhancement. You don't want to slot it into other Powers than Assassin's Strike because of Assassin's focus stacks and how Assassin's Strike work while Hidden. To guarantee yourself not to loose all Assassin's Focus stacks in the middle of a fight and suddenly casting a lenghty version of Assassin's Strike, you have no other option but to slot Stalker's Guile Chance to Hide into Assassin's Strike.

 

The Assassin's Mark: Recharge/Chance to Recharge Build Up Enhancement gives every Power of you Primary Powerset a chance to reset the Cooldown of Build Up, making it available again. As you know Build Up is in every Primary Powerset of Stalkers and enhances Damage and to-hit for a short time. The short time is enough for a well placed Assassin's Strike followed up by a few attacks. the only downside of build up is it's lengthy cooldown. With the Assassin's Mark proc you get the chance for immediate resets, giving you the oppurtunity to have it ready for the next enemy group as opener or even to stack build up for the double bonus. The ATO does not need to be sloted in a specific Attack. It will work regardless of the Attack or Power it has been sloted.

 

If you spend a few millions on the two ATO's then i strongly recommend to just get the Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control: Chance for Build Up enhancement as well. If you slot it into Build Up you will have a 90% Chance for the Proc to go off. Making double Build Ups a regular buff. And if the stars align well you can even get a quadruple Build Up. Just make sure to never slot more than 70% recharge reduction into Build Up besides the Gauss Procc or else the Chance for the Proc will be lowered.

 

Advanced slotting

 

For making a full functional build you will have to make some decisions. The Stalker AT can be build for different playstyles but they all mostly revolve around dealing damage and trying to stay alive while doing so. Some people forget that fueling your Stalker with endurance is also very important. For all the builds i make i will use some or all of the following enhancements to improve my recovery:

 

Slot into Health:

Numina's Convalescence: Regeneration/Recovery

Miracle: Recovery

Panacea: Chance for +Hit Points/Endurance

 

Slot into Stamina:

Performance Shifter: Chance for +Endurance

Performance Shifter: Endurance Modification

 

Now that we have Endurance covered, you would have to decide if you want to cap certain defenses. For set's with positional Defense (SR, SD, Nin) you would chase the set bonuses that give melee, ranged or AoE defense. The Setbonuses for Defense are allways tied together with one positional and two types of damage:

 

melee, smashing, lethal

ranged, energy, negative

aoe, fire, cold

 

Except for the ranged defense bonuses the other ones are commonly found and it will be easy to build towards them. Since smashing and lethal are the most common damage types and stalkers are melee damage dealers, you will find it a reasonable goal to build for the melee, smashing and lethal defense caps, even with Secondaries that offer no defense buffs at all. But no matter if you are building towards positional or typed defenses you will find these unique IOs usefull:

 

Gladiator's Armor: Teleportation Protection, +Def(All)

Steadfast Protection: Resistance/Defense

 

These two IOs give each 3% defense to everything but can only be sloted into a resistance based slot, like tough from the Fighting pool.

 

Also there are these two IO, which increase Resistance to everything by a total amount of 8%. They can only be sloted in Defense based slots:

 

Shield Wall: Teleportation Protection, +Res(All)

Reactive Defenses: Scaling Damage Resistance

 

For a lot of builds it is important to stack global recharge reduction. You can slot into defense based slots the following IO:

 

Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Recharge Speed

 

The Luck of the gambler IO gives all powers a 7,5% reduction on recharge. It can be sloted as often as you want but only gives this benefit for a maximum of 5. This totals up to 37,5% global recharge reduction.

 

For generally improving the performance of your build you should consider these IOs as well:

 

Karma: Knockback Protection

Kismet: Accuracy

Gift of the Ancients: Defense/Increased Run Speed

Impervious Skin: Status Resistance

Steadfast Protection: Knockback Protection

Impervium Armor: Psionic Resistance

Unbreakable Guard: Maximum Hit Points

Aegis: Psionic/Status Resistance

Regenerative Tissue: Regeneration

Preventive Medicine: Absorb Proc

Blessing of the Zephyr: Knockback Protection

Winter's Gift: Slow Resistance (20%)

Unbounded Leap: Stealth

Celerity: Stealth

Freebird: Stealth

[Croax]

Incarnates

 

Alpha

The Alpha Slot should have priority over the other incarnate slots, because of the level shift you get for every content, not only for the incarnate stuff like some of the other slots. What i like about the Alpha Slot is the fact that you can break the rules of enhancement diminishing return. I like to build my survivability completely without the help of incarnates and focus on getting more damage, that way the musculature core is my first pick. if you like to supplement your survivability with incarnates or even need them to reach caps, then you would like the agility and cardiac cores. The cardiac and agility core both offer some Endurance efficiency option as well as supplementing resistance or defense. Sometimes you will find yourself endurance challanged (Dark/Dark) then the cardiac will be better than everything else. I never go for any of the other alpha options, on a Stalker.

 

Interface

I am not a super science min max guy, but i know that here in the forum are people voting either degenerative or reactive. Since the reduction on resistances will give me bigger orange numbers, i go for reactive without thinking too much on this incarnate slot. Whatever you pick it will not change your gameplay fundamentally like other incarnates.

 

Destiny

Ageless or Barrier. This is as simple as it gets. Ageless will grant endurance and recharge bonus and barrier will make you unkillable or revive allies (if you care about other people). Since Ageless gives recharge bonus it will suplement you in terms of dps even if you have no endurance problems at all.

 

Judgement

I like to pick the Ion because it is easy to use. You can pick whatever you want here, they are all formidable.

 

Lore

Most of the time if soloing you will use lore pets only on archvillains. on groups it will mostly not matter much, so you could go for theme. if you are looking for some specific types of damage or buffs, here is a very good list to start looking:

 

Hybrid

Assault or Melee. Again it comes back to the question of more survivability or more damage. If you go Assault for more damage than take the core one, because you have a high damage multiplier as Stalker and will petform better with it. If you go melee, you should take a look at your resistances and defense and take the one you need.

 

 

 

Advanced Nin/Nin Build

 

I made a Ninja/Ninja example build and wanted to trick him out. Since people tend to claim purple and winter enhancements to be the best out there i looked at this opportunity to build a viable endgame Stalker that didn't use the expansive stuff. It is at the cap for the positional defenses and has a very high recharge rate. The attack chain is solid but i miss a good AoE power. i made this toon and played him and can say it is a good all round Stalker. The Ninjitsu set is not very click intensive and i could mostly focus on my attacks. During the leveling phase i loved divine avalanche but after getting to the caps i barely use it. The Utility powers of Ninjitsu never appealed to me, so i simply did not pick them. The last Powers are more for fun like vengeance or assault. you can focus more on power pools or even take the ninjitsu utilities. it is up to you. i for myself like to laugh at dying squishy team mates and go in discord 'thank you, my vengeance bot'.

 

After all it is a game and meant to be fun. But remember, the Stalker is more than just a Ninja!

 

Villain Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.2
https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Stalker
Primary Power Set: Ninja Blade
Secondary Power Set: Ninjitsu
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Soul Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Sting of the Wasp -- SprAssMar-Rchg/Rchg Build Up(A), SprAssMar-Dmg/Rchg(17), SprAssMar-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(17), SprAssMar-Acc/Dmg(19), SprAssMar-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(19), SprAssMar-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31)
Level 1: Hide -- Ksm-ToHit+(A), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(31), Rct-ResDam%(34)
Level 2: Flashing Steel -- Obl-%Dam(A), Obl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11), Obl-Dmg(13), Obl-Acc/Rchg(13), Obl-Dmg/Rchg(15), Obl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15)
Level 4: Ninja Reflexes -- RedFrt-Def(A), RedFrt-EndRdx(37), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(45), RedFrt-Def/Rchg(45), RedFrt-EndRdx/Rchg(45), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(46)
Level 6: Assassin's Blade -- SprStlGl-Rchg/Hide%(A), SprStlGl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(7), SprStlGl-Acc/Dmg(7), SprStlGl-Dmg/Rchg(9), SprStlGl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(9), SprStlGl-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11)
Level 8: Build Up -- GssSynFr--Build%(A)
Level 10: Danger Sense -- RedFrt-Def(A), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(37), RedFrt-EndRdx(40), RedFrt-Def/Rchg(40), RedFrt-EndRdx/Rchg(40), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(43)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- RedFrt-Def(A), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(43)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Run-I(A)
Level 16: Kuji-In Rin -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 18: Divine Avalanche -- CrsImp-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(46), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg(48), CrsImp-Dmg/EndRdx(48), CrsImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(50)
Level 20: Kuji-In Sha -- Prv-Absorb%(A), Prv-Heal/Rchg/EndRdx(21), Prv-Heal/EndRdx(21), Prv-EndRdx/Rchg(23), Prv-Heal/Rchg(23), Prv-Heal(25)
Level 22: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(25)
Level 24: Boxing -- Acc-I(A)
Level 26: Soaring Dragon -- Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg(27), Mk'Bit-Dmg/EndRdx(27), Mk'Bit-Dmg/Rchg(29), Mk'Bit-Dam%(29), AchHee-ResDeb%(31)
Level 28: Tough -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), StdPrt-ResKB(36), GldArm-3defTpProc(36), UnbGrd-Max HP%(36)
Level 30: Weave -- RedFrt-Def(A), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(39), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(42), RedFrt-Def/Rchg(42)
Level 32: Golden Dragonfly -- Obl-%Dam(A), Obl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Obl-Dmg(33), Obl-Dmg/Rchg(33), Obl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34), FrcFdb-Rechg%(34)
Level 35: Maneuvers -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), LucoftheG-Def/EndRdx(37), LucoftheG-Def/Rchg(42), LucoftheG-Def(50)
Level 38: Moonbeam -- StnoftheM-Dam%(A), StnoftheM-Acc/Dmg(39), StnoftheM-Dmg/EndRdx(39), StnoftheM-Acc/ActRdx/Rng(43), StnoftheM-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(46), Dcm-Build%(50)
Level 41: Shadow Meld -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A)
Level 44: Kuji-In Retsu -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A)
Level 47: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 49: Vengeance -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A)
Level 1: Assassination 
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run 
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrc-Rcvry+(A), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(3), Pnc-Heal/+End(5)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A), PrfShf-EndMod(3), EndMod-I(5)
Level 50: Ion Core Final Judgement 
Level 50: Longbow Core Superior Ally 
Level 50: Ageless Core Epiphany 
Level 50: Assault Core Embodiment 
Level 50: Reactive Core Flawless Interface 
Level 50: Musculature Core Paragon 
------------

 

[bottle2k]

Outstanding read!! Well done!!

[EmperorSteele]

This was a very thorough, yet simple guide that was easy to read. Thanks for all the work you put in!

I would like to suggest one edit: When you say "All Attacks in this game are either melee, ranged or area ", perhaps you should change that to "Most" or "Almost all". It may be pedantic, but there ARE a small number of exceptions (usually psionic attacks and certain unavoidable AV attacks), and that probably deserves to be mentioned so that new players don't get caught unaware.

Otherwise, as I said, you did a great job here, and now I'm itching to roll one of these...