Staff/ Stalker General Thread

[Muse]

Hello all,

 

I thought I would make a central thread for talking about staff/ stalkers generally. While I will provide my thoughts on staff/, I thought that making a full blown guide might not be the best because I would rather have a central repository for talking about the staff/ primary. I want to see if this method of providing tips and guidance to new players might be a little better for the community.

 

I am a staff/dark stalker, fully IOd and incarnated. I did not play a staff/ stalker on live, so I don't have a great amount of time playing it, but obviously over the past few weeks I have poured a significant amount of time into staff/. I can't really compare it to other stalkers, so maybe other people can come in and share that knowledge, as well as challenge or add on to my thoughts on the powerset. I would be more than happy to add on to the OP as different opinions or resources are presented.

 

Perfection of Body

 

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Staff_Fighting

 

For other ATs, the main feature behind staff fighting are the forms. I won't get into it too much, because power proliferation removes this feature from stalkers to make room for Assassin's Staff and Build Up. So, for our purposes, Perfection of Body is the main mechanic that you have to worry about for staff fighting.

 

Perfection of Body is a combo mechanic that builds up when you use some of your powers. Specifically, it builds up when you use Mercurial Blow, Precise Strike, Guarded Spin, and Serpent's Reach, up to three stacks of Perfection of Body. Perfection of Body releases and adds additional effects when you use Eye of the Storm and Sky Splitter when you use those attacks with three stacks of Perfection of Body. If you use EotS or SS without three stacks of Perfection of Body, EotS and SS just add a stack of Perfection of Body. Each stack of Perfection of Body adds a 15% damage bonus.

 

When you have three stacks of Perfection of Body and use Sky Splitter, Sky Splitter will gain additional Smashing Damage and provide you additional resistance.

 

When you have three stacks of Perfection of Body and use Eye of the Storm, Eye of the Storm will gain additional Smashing Damage and debuff resistance for the enemy.

 

The easiest way to think about the mechanic is that you use your lower tier attacks to build up and improve your higher tier attacks.

 

Tips

-You basically have two separate avenues when you are fighting, ST and AOE. When you want to do large ST damage, you can use SS. When you want to do large AOE damage, use EotS.

 

A basic combo is Mercurial Blow-->Precise Strike-->Assassin's Staff--> Sky Splitter for Single Target.

A basic combo is Precise Strike-->Guarded Spin-->Assassin's Staff-->EotS for an AOE combo.

 

-Guarded Spin adds Melee and Lethal defense. You can substitute Mercurial Blow with Guarded Spin if you want to add to your defense.

 

-Technically, rotating between Mercurial Blow, Precise Strike, and Assassin's Staff without releasing Perfection of Body is the highest DPS because of the damage bonus Perfection of Body provides. However, you should keep in mind that 1) SS and EotS provide additional utility in terms of resistance buffs and debuffs and 2) using SS and EotS allows you to defeat enemies with burst damage, which can help your longevity.

 

-AS generally is central to your play, but how you use it can be different depending on your circumstances. So before the changes to stalkers, the basic play was to try to get as many hidden Assassin's Strikes as possible through placates and running and hiding. But now, you build up Assassin's Focuses (which is different than Perfection of Body) when you use your primary powers. Each stack of Assassin's Focus gives a 33% chance to crit with AS, up to 100%. Now, the basic play is to try to build up those AFs and then crit with AS.

 

However, the option to use AS while hidden is still available. So the question is, when should you bother to use AS while hidden and when should you just not worry about it. The basic problem is that using AS while hidden takes a long time and by the time you actually get it off, your team might have partially damaged your target which means you don't get the full damage of AS, or worse, might have eliminated your target entirely.

 

So, how you use AS changes depending on what is happening. If you are solo, obviously using a hidden AS is ok. If you are on a slow team that takes its time between groups, you can disengage from a group of enemies early and set yourself to AS a tricky enemy like a Quantum or Sapper. But if you are on a team that is steam rolling, my advice is to just forego the hidden AS, because its more trouble than its worth.

 

-Placate and Serpent’s Reach are the two skippable powers in staff. Placate is more skippable. With the advent of the stalker changes, it is not used as commonly anymore and is probably a detriment to a stalker’s dps. It is useful when you are soloing an elite boss or some other difficult enemy for giving yourself a little breathing room before you get back in the fight, but is not necessary. I have probably used it three times in my entire career on my staff stalker.

 

Serpent’s Reach is a lot more useful, but probably won’t be in your usual rotation. It’s a ranged attack, and is very proficient at chasing down runners. I wouldn’t skip it by default, but if you have a compelling reason to get rid of a power, SR is one that you could get rid of.

 

Comparison to other Powersets

I don't know enough about stalkers to fill this in, so I will wait for those more knowledgeable.

 

I have read, however, that staff tends to be lower dps than other stalker powers, with people often ranking it in the bottom half of the power sets. It is presumably offset by the utility found in Perfection of Body, SS, EotS, and GS.

 

FAQ

To be filled in later.

 

To new people: What would you like to see in the OP? What questions do you have about staff/

 

To veterans: What can I add to make this an appropriate repository of information?

 

 

 

 

[chivasc]

Thanks for this! I am a new staff stalker and was wondering how this works. Doing Staff/Bio currently...seems good. Wasn't sure whether to do Brute, Scrapper, or stalker but chose stalker for a change up.

[Muse]

Thanks for this! I am a new staff stalker and was wondering how this works. Doing Staff/Bio currently...seems good. Wasn't sure whether to do Brute, Scrapper, or stalker but chose stalker for a change up.

 

From what I’ve read up on a staff, people recommend either playing it as a tank, because the form system offers them additional utility and survivability, or a stalker, because stalkers gets BU and AS. I’ve heard great things about bio, so you should be in good hands. Just remember that you can use GS for a little extra defense to bump up bio.

[Saikochoro]

Since stalkers don’t get staff mastery I thought they didn’t have perfection.  I may not have looked at the wiki article close enough. I guess it does still say “consumes perfection” on the two powers.  Or is it just by default form of the body for stalkers? If that’s the case, then that is fine with me as that is the form I’d generally be in anyway.

 

I was thinking of doing a staff/bio stalker. If each stack of perfection gives 15% bonus and offensive stance giving a +32% damage bonus (at least that’s what it says on my scrapper) it should pump out some pretty good damage.

 

I like the look of the staff and like that it has some decent AoE and ST damage options. I’m sure it wouldn’t be able to farm like a brute or anything, but if built right hopefully it could still handle some bigger and higher level mobs.

 

What would you think of the combo?

[Microcosm]

I had a staff ice on live and it was great. One of the combos  I am redoing now. I always told people to go stalker with it because they got assassin's strike to round out the set better and automatically had the body form active anyway. You lose access to the least useful of the aoes for the best sigle target attack in the game.

[itaalh]

Since stalkers don’t get staff mastery I thought they didn’t have perfection.  I may not have looked at the wiki article close enough. I guess it does still say “consumes perfection” on the two powers.  Or is it just by default form of the body for stalkers? If that’s the case, then that is fine with me as that is the form I’d generally be in anyway.

 

I was thinking of doing a staff/bio stalker. If each stack of perfection gives 15% bonus and offensive stance giving a +32% damage bonus (at least that’s what it says on my scrapper) it should pump out some pretty good damage.

 

I like the look of the staff and like that it has some decent AoE and ST damage options. I’m sure it wouldn’t be able to farm like a brute or anything, but if built right hopefully it could still handle some bigger and higher level mobs.

 

What would you think of the combo?

I’m pretty sure it’s 25% with stalker

[Muse]

Since stalkers don’t get staff mastery I thought they didn’t have perfection.  I may not have looked at the wiki article close enough. I guess it does still say “consumes perfection” on the two powers.  Or is it just by default form of the body for stalkers? If that’s the case, then that is fine with me as that is the form I’d generally be in anyway.

 

I was thinking of doing a staff/bio stalker. If each stack of perfection gives 15% bonus and offensive stance giving a +32% damage bonus (at least that’s what it says on my scrapper) it should pump out some pretty good damage.

 

I like the look of the staff and like that it has some decent AoE and ST damage options. I’m sure it wouldn’t be able to farm like a brute or anything, but if built right hopefully it could still handle some bigger and higher level mobs.

 

What would you think of the combo?

 

/bio is always good. I think the only secondaries that I wouldn’t recommend are secondaries that can get above 35% melee def on their own because that makes Guarded Spin loses some utility.

[That Ninja]

I don't know if you have any, but maybe some build examples could be helpful to new people like me. I wrote off stalkers for years and never got to try staff melee so I'm pretty lost in how to go about starting one.

[Muse]

Sure. I will post my build and walk you through it. I think people are probably better number crunchers than me though and would be better at min maxing, but I like to think that I'm fairly good at building character I like to play and that are fairly powerful. Just a note, my def isn't as high as this build says it is, because Pines assumes that you are hidden at all times.

 

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.962

http://www.cohplanner.com/

 

Death Shepherd: Level 50 Magic Stalker

Primary Power Set: Staff Fighting

Secondary Power Set: Dark Armor

Power Pool: Speed

Power Pool: Fighting

Power Pool: Leaping

Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

 

Villain Profile:

------------

Level 1: Mercurial Blow

(A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage

(7) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance

(7) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge

(9) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge

(9) Achilles' Heel - Chance for Res Debuff

(31) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge

 

 

Level 1: Hide

(A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed

(3) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All)

(3) Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage

 

 

Level 2: Precise Strike

(A) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage

(34) Mako's Bite - Damage/Endurance

(34) Mako's Bite - Damage/Recharge

(36) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge

(36) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge

 

 

Level 4: Dark Embrace

(A) Gladiator's Armor - Recharge/Resist

(5) Gladiator's Armor - Resistance/Rech/End

(5) Gladiator's Armor - End/Resist

(36) Gladiator's Armor - Resistance

(37) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All)

(37) Gladiator's Armor - Recharge/Endurance

 

 

Level 6: Assassin's Staff

(A) Superior Stalker's Guile - Recharge/Chance to Hide

(11) Superior Stalker's Guile - Damage/Recharge

(11) Superior Stalker's Guile - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge

(13) Superior Stalker's Guile - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge

(13) Superior Stalker's Guile - Damage/Endurance/Recharge

 

 

Level 8: Build Up

(A) Recharge Reduction IO

(19) Recharge Reduction IO

 

 

Level 10: Super Speed

(A) Blessing of the Zephyr - Knockback Reduction (4 points)

 

 

Level 12: Placate

(A) Recharge Reduction IO

(27) Recharge Reduction IO

 

 

Level 14: Murky Cloud

(A) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance

(15) Aegis - Resistance/Recharge

(15) Aegis - Endurance/Recharge

(37) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge

(39) Aegis - Resistance

(39) Aegis - Psionic/Status Resistance

 

 

Level 16: Obsidian Shield

(A) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance

(17) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance

(17) Unbreakable Guard - Resistance/Endurance/RechargeTime

(19) Unbreakable Guard - +Max HP

 

 

Level 18: Eye of the Storm

(A) Obliteration - Damage

(21) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge

(27) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge

(29) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge

(29) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge

 

 

Level 20: Dark Regeneration

(A) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery

(21) Numina's Convalesence - Heal/Endurance

(23) Numina's Convalesence - Heal/Recharge

(23) Numina's Convalesence - Heal/Endurance/Recharge

(25) Numina's Convalesence - Heal

(42) Numina's Convalesence - Endurance/Recharge

 

 

Level 22: Guarded Spin

(A) Obliteration - Damage

(25) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge

(40) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge

(40) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge

(40) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge

(42) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage

 

 

Level 24: Kick

(A) Empty

 

 

Level 26: Serpent's Reach

(A) Devastation - Accuracy/Damage

(31) Devastation - Damage/Endurance

(31) Devastation - Damage/Recharge

(42) Devastation - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge

(50) Devastation - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge

 

 

Level 28: Tough

(A) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance

(46) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Recharge

(48) Titanium Coating - Endurance/Recharge

(48) Titanium Coating - Resistance

(48) Titanium Coating - Endurance

(50) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge

 

 

Level 30: Weave

(A) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Recharge

(43) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Endurance

(43) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Endurance/Recharge

(43) Gift of the Ancients - Defense

(45) Gift of the Ancients - Endurance/Recharge

 

 

Level 32: Sky Splitter

(A) Superior Assassin's Mark - Accuracy/Damage

(33) Superior Assassin's Mark - Damage/RechargeTime

(33) Superior Assassin's Mark - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime

(33) Superior Assassin's Mark - Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime

(34) Superior Assassin's Mark - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime

(50) Superior Assassin's Mark - RechargeTime/Rchg Build Up

 

 

Level 35: Combat Jumping

(A) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Endurance

(39) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Endurance/Recharge

(45) Gift of the Ancients - Defense/Recharge

(45) Gift of the Ancients - Endurance/Recharge

(46) Gift of the Ancients - Defense

 

 

Level 38: Oppressive Gloom

(A) Accuracy IO

 

 

Level 41: Soul Transfer

(A) Recharge Reduction IO

 

 

Level 44: Shadow Dweller

(A) Defense Buff IO

(46) Defense Buff IO

 

 

Level 47: Superior Conditioning

(A) Endurance Modification IO

 

 

Level 49: Physical Perfection

(A) Endurance Modification IO

 

 

Level 1: Assassination

Level 1: Brawl

(A) Empty

 

 

Level 1: Prestige Power Dash

(A) Empty

 

 

Level 1: Prestige Power Slide

(A) Empty

 

 

Level 1: Prestige Power Quick

(A) Empty

 

 

Level 1: Prestige Power Rush

(A) Empty

 

 

Level 1: Prestige Power Surge

(A) Empty

 

 

Level 1: Sprint

(A) Empty

 

 

Level 2: Rest

(A) Empty

 

 

Level 4: Ninja Run

Level 2: Swift

(A) Empty

 

 

Level 2: Health

(A) Empty

 

 

Level 2: Hurdle

(A) Empty

 

 

Level 2: Stamina

(A) Endurance Modification IO

 

 

Level 1: Combo Level 1

Level 1: Combo Level 2

Level 1: Combo Level 3

Level 50: Musculature Core Paragon

------------

 

I think how you build your stalker is going to rely more on your secondary than anything else, but let's go through my thought process.

 

1) First step is to fill out your powers with the things you want and need. I obviously can't tell you what you personally need unless you are a staff/dark, but for staff in particular, you will was MB, PS, AS, SS, GS, and EotS. Figure out what you are getting from your secondary and your power pools. You are going to have powers slots left over. Those empty power slots are what you are going to use to beef up your defenses and use as set mules.

 

2) Slot basic IO in your toggles, defensive powers, and your long recharge powers. This will identify what your end consumption is like, what your defensive holes are, and how much recharge you need. When I IO slotted my staff/dark, I realized a couple of things: 1) Heavy end consumption 2) No knockback protection 3) No defensive holes  but no defensive strengths other than psy and 4) My long recharge power was dark regeneration.

 

I found that when I slot IOs, end recovery is a common set bonus for two-three IO slots. So I didn't specifically go out of my way to slot for end recovery. I did, however, focus on those set bonuses first in game when I was slotting out my character. The knockback protection is fairly easy to get. The real question was what I was going to do about the defensive holes and how much I was going to focus on recharge. I've found that the more you focus on recharge, the less defense you get, and vice versa.

 

I eventually settled on focusing on defense. I reasoned that if I had enough defense, I wouldn't need Dark Regeneration to recharge as much. That's not to say I entirely ignored recharge. I actually made sure that I had enough recharge to get through my attack chain (which was MB>PS>AS>SS>PS>GS>AS>EotS) before I did anything else, but that didn't require much more than the Stalker ATOs.

 

But that leaves the question of how to focus on defense. Because again, any defense you focus on incurs an opportunity cost of not being able to focus on other types of defense. I landed on focusing on melee defense, with maybe meandering over and capping S/L and Psy resist for fun if I could. The reason for it was 1) I'm a stalker so duh melee and 2) GS gave a decent amount of melee defense, so I might as well capitalize on it.

 

3) Fill out those empty power slots with what can help you reach your goals. Usually, this means Hasten, Tough, and Weave. For this build, because I didn't need recharge, I skipped Hasten. This is sacrilege to alot of players but I sincerely can't figure out how hasten would help me in this build considering I don't have enough to perma it and I am not inclined to. There might be a few power slots left over, and that's ok.

 

4) The first thing I have to think about is what procs I want. This is fairly easy.

 

First, Blessing of the Zypher is a no brainer. Essentially free knockback protection is your travel power.

 

I would highly recommend the Stalker ATOs (they are the enhancements in Assassin's Staff and Sky Splitter). The Stalker ATOs both have great procs and great set bonuses (like 10% recharge and 4% damage bonu) Stalker's Guile's proc gives you a chance to hide. I put that proc in AS because when I'm in the middle of battle, I don't want to rehide  +  AS with all of the stalker changes, since that reduces my DPS and flow. So I put hide in the one power I don't want to use in hide mid-battle, AS. This works nicely in Staff, because usually AS is going to come before Sky Splitter or Eye of the Storm. Using those moves in hide gives you a auto critical on those moves without the long windup with AS. So, because I want both the proc and the set bonuses, I fill AS with Stalker's Guile.

 

 

For Assassin's Mark, I actually probably if I was building again (I could do this right now through respec but effort) put it in MB or PS because the AM proc is global and can happen on any attack. The AM proc is a chance to recharge build up, so for every attack, your build up could just magically come up again, which is incredibly nice.

 

5) Set bonuses. I wish I could give you more insight, but I really can't. It comes down to fiddling around in Pine's for a good while. You eventually just remember which sets you want and which you don't by making enough builds, but the first few times you'll just be bumbling around.

 

I usually like slotting my bread and butter powers first with the best IO sets. I don't know if this is best practice, but it makes me feel better and that's all that really matters and gives me a good starting spot. It also makes sure that I'm not skimping on the actually enhancement benefits from the IO sets like you might when you frankenslot.

 

Don't forget you can use power slots left over to get powers to use as set mules. You can open up alot of possibilities this way, especially with things like holds that can have some great set bonuses.

 

I don't know if that is helpful at all. If you have any specific questions, I will try to help, although I'm by no means an authority.

 

 

 

 

 

[That Ninja]

That is very helpful, thank you. I've been seeing conversations here and other places about the usefulness of placate since the stalker changes allowing you to AS after a string of attacks. Do you have any say about this?

[Muse]

That is very helpful, thank you. I've been seeing conversations here and other places about the usefulness of placate since the stalker changes allowing you to AS after a string of attacks. Do you have any say about this?

 

I think if you solo a lot, it is invaluable, but not as a offensive tool as it once was. In fact, because of the way your AS/staff stacks work, it might kill your dps from your stacks disappearing. But it gives you breathing room. So instead of thinking of it as a set up tool for another hidden AS, it’s a way to get someone from attacking you.

 

You can also do it in a team setting, but in a team setting, you have a lot of people beating on you, so it’s not as good. You can presumably use placate to get a critical for a non AS move, but it’s unnecessary with the changes.

[That Ninja]

Do you think hasten would be good for staff or is the recharge good enough while IO'd?

[Muse]

Do you think hasten would be good for staff or is the recharge good enough while IO'd?

 

Staff is a combo driven powerset, so recharge has a lot of diminishing returns since you’ll be using your lower tier powers to power up your higher tier powers instead of just using your higher tier powers on cool down. That means extra recharge gets wasted if your t9 powers are up while you are building your combo.

 

Maybe when leveling hasten is good, but in my opinion, in the end game, hasten isn’t optimal unless you perma it since you can get the 70% recharge bonus from IOs without sacrificing a power slot. So the question is do you need perma hasten for staff, and my answer is you don’t, since at a certain point your powers will recharge when you need them.

 

That’s not to say we don’t have any reason to take hasten. For example, for regen it’s a necessity since it is click heavy. It’s going to depend a lot on your secondary.

[Microcosm]

Do you think hasten would be good for staff or is the recharge good enough while IO'd?

 

If you want to squeeze into higher damaging attack chains you will need hasten at some point. Talking AS SR PS MB; AS needs to be down to 4.488 seconds to do that seamlessly, which is going to be next to impossible without hasten (might actually be impossible without it without totally gimping yourself). But that's one of the highest damage chains achievable, so if you're ok with a little less damage, you'll be fine.

[scran]

Whats the main reason for using mercurial over reach for the single target rotation? the dpa on reach seems to be higher even if the animation is longer.

[earthaddy]

Bumping this for my usual stupid questions regarding yet another alt that sounds like a fun Idea. I haven't started a stalker, of any kind, ever. But I love the look and feel of the staff animations, and I got a Brute staff/electric at level 23 and was thinking, maybe before I spend a couple of million fitting him with generic IOs I should look at how staff is on other ATs. I hear it's good on stalkers.

 

One thing I noticed on the brute, unless in the endurance stance, I'm sucking wind pretty fast with stamina just slotted with DOs atm. Haven't got to the /electric stamina powers yet. Stalker doesn't get the endurance stance. So how bad are the endurance woes?

 

I don't know what secondary would be good with a staff stalker. Let's be honest here. I don't know what secondary would be good with anything. I'm pretty sure I don't want bio. The stance dancing probably requires more attention than I'm willing to pay. The 25% damage stance sounds awesome and all, but the next thing I know I'd probably be face down because I was busy watching my guy breakdance and twirl his stick. And defensive stance gets a penalty to damage ...right? Efficient stance sounds awesome too, but how is the defense in that stance? How does it compare to other sets while in that stance?

 

Anyway, this isn't a thread about bio, not specifically. What are good secondaries for staff on a Stalker? I was thinking maybe SR for the +recharge and not getting hit, but staff has attacks that give defense boost, I guess. Is that redundant? Something light on endurance use might be nice. I don't know, looking for suggestions and reasoning.

 

Also, I'm taking the ranged attack. I don't care what anybody says about optimal this or min-maxed that. I had a claws scrapper on live and that ranged attack was awesome. Though it did have a faster animation, but that's not the only reason it was awesome. I might also look at a claws stalker, but staff is so fun to watch.

[oldskool]

I don't know what secondary would be good with a staff stalker.

 

All of them can work.  Also, try not to gauge the potential of a any AT on just dual origins.  Endurance is going to be a struggle until you can socket higher quality enhancements in Stamina at 22+.  This always true of very active sets.  It wouldn't hurt to put an endurance reduction in your attacks either.  Actively using Assassin's Staff will chew through your blue bar pretty quick. 

 

I'm fond of defense sets for PvE gameplay, but if you want to PvP at all consider a resistance set.  Super Reflexes is tried and true.  It is very solid.  You don't need defense benefit from Guarded Spin but it will help you out in the low levels. 

 

Energy Aura is also good and it has a lot of endurance management down the road.  My Staff Stalker uses Ninjutsu, but that is mostly because I wanted it. 

 

As to Bio Armor, it is also an option if you like.  It requires more investment than anyone honestly gives it credit and the entire gimmick of stance dancing goes the way of the dinosaur outside of the low levels.  Once you shore up the endurance issues and survival issues you'll more than likely remain in the offensive mode 24/7. 

 

Anyway, for less of a headache in both expense and general gameplay Super Reflexes or Energy Aura are something I'd recommend. 

 

As to Serpent's Reach, take it.  It's better than this thread was giving it credit.

[earthaddy]

Yeah, I wasn't judging the brute badly based on the endurance. In fact, I quite like the staff brute so far. I'm an idiot and unfamiliar with the new stuff, but I have enough experience from playing back in the day to know that the endurance problems were temporary. I just noticed it did seem like a pretty endurance heavy primary, regardless. But that may have been compounded by chasing rage.

 

Ninjitsu also looks like fun. But unless it's different on the stalker version, I'm not too fond of clicky mez protection, but if it's easy to get perma on autofire, it might be worth a look. I've never tried a defensive set, despite a bunch of brutes and scrappers played to various levels, and would kind of like to give it a go. SR might be the thing, less clicking  on defensive stuff, more staff twirling. Plus 20% recharge. 

[Dixa]

I believe offensive adaptation with the multi hit staff aoe's adds it's damage to each damage tick.

 

something to consider.

[earthaddy]

So I ended up starting a staff/SR guy last night, and with a few DFBs followed by a run through Positron 1 and 2, I hit level 25. And while it does feel strong, endurance is a pretty big issue even after slotting up with IOs. I have end reducers in the toggles, I 3-slotted stamina and have end reductions in all but the first 2 attacks, and lack of slots is the only reason those don't have end reducers. I'm kinda thinking maybe I should have gone with a defensive set with an endurance power. Anybody have any suggestions for more endurance?  If not, I might reroll it to Ninjitsu.

 

It might be partially that I've been playing a lot of blasters and Sentinels, and they both have end powers in all the secondaries. I kinda play like a brute, no matter what AT I'm on. I like to keep pushing to the next group, not stopping to wait after a 2 or 3 fights. It is feeling very strong though. Which is nice.

[oldskool]

So I ended up starting a staff/SR guy last night, and with a few DFBs followed by a run through Positron 1 and 2, I hit level 25. And while it does feel strong, endurance is a pretty big issue even after slotting up with IOs. I have end reducers in the toggles, I 3-slotted stamina and have end reductions in all but the first 2 attacks, and lack of slots is the only reason those don't have end reducers. I'm kinda thinking maybe I should have gone with a defensive set with an endurance power. Anybody have any suggestions for more endurance?  If not, I might reroll it to Ninjitsu.

 

It might be partially that I've been playing a lot of blasters and Sentinels, and they both have end powers in all the secondaries. I kinda play like a brute, no matter what AT I'm on. I like to keep pushing to the next group, not stopping to wait after a 2 or 3 fights. It is feeling very strong though. Which is nice.

 

Maybe your expectations at level 25 are still a little high?  I don't me to sound snarky, but endurance requires management for awhile.  Accuracy is also going to be the bane of your existence as every whiff sucks off endurance but prolongs combat. 

 

What are you doing for attacks?  Can you pace yourself a little to conserve some energy?  I often hold back while leveling up unless I have inspirations or buffs to fall back on.  I see no reason to dump all your end on trivial fights either.  Once your character is fleshed out with IO's, by all means go ham all the things, but until then maybe slow down?

 

 

[earthaddy]

Well, my expectations probably are a little high after playing a few blasters with basically endless endurance. And my understanding is that Stalkers may be a little bit more endurance heavy in general. But typically I expect to have endurance problems until I slot stamina with generic IOs and put generic IO end reducers in my toggles and attacks. Which I've done. If I have to wait until I can drop a billion isk on a build before it plays fast and furious, I'm not sure I'll stick with it.

 

Accuracy hasn't  been too much of an issue so far. I do have an accuracy IO in each attack, but that's it. Hopefully mobs with debuffs will wiff.

[Justisaur]

So I ended up starting a staff/SR guy last night, and with a few DFBs followed by a run through Positron 1 and 2, I hit level 25. And while it does feel strong, endurance is a pretty big issue even after slotting up with IOs. I have end reducers in the toggles, I 3-slotted stamina and have end reductions in all but the first 2 attacks, and lack of slots is the only reason those don't have end reducers. I'm kinda thinking maybe I should have gone with a defensive set with an endurance power. Anybody have any suggestions for more endurance?  If not, I might reroll it to Ninjitsu.

 

It might be partially that I've been playing a lot of blasters and Sentinels, and they both have end powers in all the secondaries. I kinda play like a brute, no matter what AT I'm on. I like to keep pushing to the next group, not stopping to wait after a 2 or 3 fights. It is feeling very strong though. Which is nice.

 

Ninjitsu's only +End power is a very long recharge 1000 seconds, lasts 3 minutes, and crashes leaving you with no end and no recovery for 20 seconds, which seems really really bad to me as that'll drop your defense toggles, but perhaps it'll work for you.

 

Energy which is a def set would probably be far better than that with a heal/56% end discount for 30 seconds on a 2 minute cooldown, and a PbAoE which gives you end and a small amount of defense to all on a 1 min cooldown.  Both of which should be able to be made much shorter with recharge/hasten.

[earthaddy]

Thanks, that's a thought I will look into that oldskool mentioned earlier. I'm probably gonna stick with SR for a while and see how it goes. It truly does feel strong, and my defense isn't even slotted for crap yet. I'll see if I can manage the endurance a little better and see how it goes before I give up on it. One evening's worth of play isn't really giving it a fair shot. And most of that was grouped up and plowing through TFs. Soloing only for a few missions after I dropped in some enhancements. I put it on +0/+3 and I was wrecking stuff extremely fast, which at that level seems pretty strong, to me at least. I'd crank it higher, but the endurance seems to be the bottleneck. Once I get a few more slots in my defense, I'll crank it up more. I probably just gotta work on not throwing everything at every fight and being smarter about endurance.

 

But looking at energy aura, it does look like it might lend itself to my antics. Thanks for the suggestion.

[OccamsGrenade]

On 6/19/2019 at 2:31 PM, earthaddy said:

Well, my expectations probably are a little high after playing a few blasters with basically endless endurance. And my understanding is that Stalkers may be a little bit more endurance heavy in general. But typically I expect to have endurance problems until I slot stamina with generic IOs and put generic IO end reducers in my toggles and attacks. Which I've done. If I have to wait until I can drop a billion isk on a build before it plays fast and furious, I'm not sure I'll stick with it.

 

Accuracy hasn't  been too much of an issue so far. I do have an accuracy IO in each attack, but that's it. Hopefully mobs with debuffs will wiff.

I was going to talk the subject but this popped out at me: "...a billion isk..."  How did you get here capsuleer?  Wormhole?  Dog gone, can't go anywhere in the gaming world without bumping into a fellow refugee or a "taken a breaker" from New Eden.