Stalker Epic Pools: A Light Comparison

[r0y]

So I was noticing that Mids does not seem to have correct information on the Epic Snipes (at least for stalkers).  So I went in game and did the info on:

[Mu Mastery.Zapp]  vs  [Soul Mastery.Moonbeam]  vs  [Mace Mastery.Mace Beam]

 

Here's what I got:

 

Is the 5% chance for another 98.99 in error on Moonbeam?  They all do 197.7 (mace is split between smash/energy), then should do another 98.99, but Moonbeam has only a 5% while the others are 100%?

 

And I am not sure what the "special" energy damage is in Mace Beam for the crit/placate damage.  Has anyone used Mace Beam?

 

In short, Mu / Soul / Mace all have similar load-outs:  1) a ST blast, 2) a snipe, 3) something unique, 4) a hold, and 5) a Pet.

 

1. Mu Mastery:  it's all energy which (I believe) is still less resisted than smashing/lethal.  But not as much as Negative.  The unique is Ball Lightning, a great TAoE power!  Takes slots, though: More=Better.
2. Soul Mastery:  it's all negative energy which is the least-resisted of the bunch.  The unique is Shadowmeld.  Not something you want to rely on, but it's a great 1-slot power that helps absorb Alphas strikes.  I'd put a single LotG recharge in it.
3. Mace Mastery:  it splits it's damage between smashing and energy, which might be useful (e.g. vs. robots).  The unique is Disruptor Blast, a TAoE power, like Mu Mastery (but smash/energy), more=better for slots.
4. Leviathan Mastery:  is not a typical load-out like the other three villain epics.  It gets a ST Blast (lethal damage), a PBAoE (smashing) that carries the set (whole reason people would take it), Hibernate (let's be honest, if you need this at this level, you're not doing too well), a cool-looking hold (lethal), and a pet.  Unless you only need one power and can 6-slot it with procs (Water Spout), I'd skip it.

 

I usually take Soul Mastery, as I like the snipe (until I found out it's gimped) and use Shadow Meld as a light-RP power (lol) and a LotG mule.  I often don't have a lot of slots by the 40's, so I can't invest too many slots in the powers, and there is a lot of proc-damage opportunity in most of them.

Edited June 4, 2020 by r0y

[Frostweaver]

MY decision is guided by procs... which is more important. an extra heal? (mu) or an extra FF +recharge? (mace). The knockback is not worth converting, although the drawing animation is irritating it's often worth juggling in a fight for the extra recharge.
Both of them proc monster well, and if you cap damage as well, they are an incredibly brutal way to 'introduce yourself' to a hard target.

[Microcosm]

I think you underestimate hibernate. It is one of the best panic buttons in the game, since it phases you, allowing you to return to hidden and shake off any debuffs, while healing you and restoring end. Most builds will hit something in the game that they aren't equipped to handle, and hibernate can give you breathing room. It's also a one slot wonder for the preventive medicine unique.

[Omega-202]

Did you make sure you made the comparison with the same combat status?  

 

Because to me, it looks like you took the Moonbeam screenshot when it was in "fast snipe" mode (hence the lower damage and lower crit chance) and the other two in "sniper mode" when you're out of combat/Hidden (higher damage, guaranteed critical sniper shot when Hidden).  

[Frostweaver]

5 hours ago, Microcosm said:

I think you underestimate hibernate. It is one of the best panic buttons in the game, since it phases you, allowing you to return to hidden and shake off any debuffs, while healing you and restoring end. Most builds will hit something in the game that they aren't equipped to handle, and hibernate can give you breathing room. It's also a one slot wonder for the preventive medicine unique.

I agree. I love ice, and hibernate is one of the reasons. It is just as amazing when soloing an LRSF as it is when soloing an ITF.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Frostweaver

[Croax]

When i see the talk about Epic Pools, Slots, Procs and on some other occasions the Talk about Stalkers 'Loosing the Endurance fix in comparison to Scrappers' (Willpower, Regen, Ninja), i want to ask why people underestimate the Body Mastery?

 

You can just get Supperior Conditioning and Physical Perfection, slot some Performance Shifter Proc into it and have no Endurance Problems anymore beginning at lvl 35. You can use all the slots on other Powers and still get good use out of it. With the new Power Transfer Proc you can also get solid passive healing out of this powers. Powersets like /Invul would love fixing endurance and getting some free heals. In some of this cases you even can free up the Destiny slot, because ypu would not need the Endurance or the Recharge anymore.

 

I do Understand that having a snipe is a big deal for some Primaries like Elec/ or Spines/ but in my opinion a build should be allready planed at ~80% Then looking at the Epics. In most cases i would just need something very specific, For example looking for 5% E/N Defense. Then picking up a snipe with 5 slots of Winters Bite is a obvious choice.

 

And i once did an extended testing of Zapp and Moonbeam and they ended up beeing pretty much the same. This is due a fix that Homecoming team applied last year to make all epic pools use the melee damage multiplier on Stalkers to bring the Epics more in line to each other. This change never made it to Mids.

[tidge]

I think Body Mastery is a fine choice. I also agree with @Croax about trying to have as solid a build as possible before Epic/Patron pools are considered. Some builds need Epic/Patron less than others, mileage varies.

 

I was going to post this in a different thread re: 'Having too many attacks; why bother with a Snipe?'.

 

Aside from getting the bonus potential damage from the Snipe (+ToHit, Hidden status, slow Snipe bonus, %Damage):

• For my Stalker the (fast) Snipe 'flows' better in my attack chain
• Runners! (I especially don't like adjusting tactics when I've gone back into Hidden while chasing down the last runner from a spawn)
• Pulling (heresy perhaps, but sometimes teams require it)

For high DPS characters (Stalkers, Scrappers) I prefer Soul Mastery over Mu Mastery mostly because I personally devalue (most) relatively low-damage attacks, immobilize and holds... my feeling is mostly motivated by worrying about investing 'too many' slots in level 35+ powers. Soul's second pick of Shadow Meld is a fine mule for Defense IOs (generally LotG +Recharge).

[Zeraphia]

Interesting responses here, I don't even think of Shadow Meld even as an LotG mule sometimes, I think of it for Stalkers as the extremely cheap "battle opener" that basically gives me Elude from SR for Scrappers and combined with a high-resistance secondary... it just takes the cake. If I can Hide, break it when I want to, then "open" with an AS with Shadow Meld on, I'm just flat out unkillable, it won't take long before whatever it is is dead and I'm sitting there with way over the softcap to all damage. Shadow Meld is one of my favorite PPP picks ever, and I use it constantly on my TW/Bio Scrapper as well to open fights. It is a long animation, but that animation still lets you travel while putting it on. Further, Moonbeam is also the least resisted of all the snipers, so it's a pretty easy pick for me as to which I'm going to end up using.

[Omega-202]

Maybe it's because I rarely choose armor sets that are +def deficient, but I personally don't see the appeal to Shadow Meld.  For Energy, Shield, SR, Invuln, Ninjitsu and Ice you should be beyond, at or very near the defense caps for most things when you add on Weave, CJ and IO bonuses.  Not to mention that you can take Barrier.  For the other armor sets...sure take Meld to fill the gap, but I think there is a larger debate about whether Stalker armor sets lacking any kind of +def are less effective due to how strong defense is compared to resistance and healing.  

 

For the endgame meta that we currently have, AoE damage is king and to me that means Stalkers should take something that helps them make up for their lack of AoE damage.  And that means grabbing Mu or Blaze for Ball Lightning or Fireball.  The amount of damage you can do with a Gaussian procced BU > BL or FB from hide on a full spawn is pretty ridiculous.  

[Tiklandian]

6 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

Interesting responses here, I don't even think of Shadow Meld even as an LotG mule sometimes, I think of it for Stalkers as the extremely cheap "battle opener" that basically gives me Elude from SR for Scrappers and combined with a high-resistance secondary... it just takes the cake. If I can Hide, break it when I want to, then "open" with an AS with Shadow Meld on, I'm just flat out unkillable, it won't take long before whatever it is is dead and I'm sitting there with way over the softcap to all damage. Shadow Meld is one of my favorite PPP picks ever, and I use it constantly on my TW/Bio Scrapper as well to open fights. It is a long animation, but that animation still lets you travel while putting it on. Further, Moonbeam is also the least resisted of all the snipers, so it's a pretty easy pick for me as to which I'm going to end up using.

 

Shadowmeld is indeed very awesome so far. But I feel stalker kinda needs the extra AOE too at times and Mu has that as well as a snipe, what do you use for AOE?

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Tiklandian

[Frostweaver]

On 6/8/2020 at 1:40 PM, Tiklandian said:

 

Shadowmeld is indeed very awesome so far. But I feel stalker kinda needs the extra AOE too at times and Mu has that as well as a snipe, what do you use for AOE?

 

Rise of the Phoenix 🙂

[tidge]

On 6/8/2020 at 3:40 PM, Tiklandian said:

 

Shadowmeld is indeed very awesome so far. But I feel stalker kinda needs the extra AOE too at times and Mu has that as well as a snipe, what do you use for AOE?

 

Generally: I don't play my Stalker like a Scrapper/Blapper because the offensive tools are different (although I play Spines/Bio, so AoE is available) but if you have gotten to level 50 with limited AoE, then I think the Judgement incarnate is where you need to look for a customizable AOE choice.

[Omega-202]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

Generally: I don't play my Stalker like a Scrapper/Blapper because the offensive tools are different (although I play Spines/Bio, so AoE is available) but if you have gotten to level 50 with limited AoE, then I think the Judgement incarnate is where you need to look for a customizable AOE choice.

There's a pretty huge difference between Judgement powers which are usable every few minutes and FB or BL which can be used every 10 seconds or so.  

 

And generally, although this is more a philosophical point, the idea isn't that taking AoEs makes you "play like a X".  There is so much bleed over between ATs that the concept is meaningless to me.  If you're looking at it from a purely efficiency min/max point of view, all ATs and builds have certain goals and benchmarks to aim for in the present meta, and a big one is "provide solid AoE damage".  To me, any build worth its salt should be able to provide that.  

[tidge]

35 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

There's a pretty huge difference between Judgement powers which are usable every few minutes and FB or BL which can be used every 10 seconds or so.  

 

And generally, although this is more a philosophical point, the idea isn't that taking AoEs makes you "play like a X".  There is so much bleed over between ATs that the concept is meaningless to me.  If you're looking at it from a purely efficiency min/max point of view, all ATs and builds have certain goals and benchmarks to aim for in the present meta, and a big one is "provide solid AoE damage".  To me, any build worth its salt should be able to provide that.  

Thanks for criticizing my (explicitly expressed) personal play choices and trying to make some bigger point about how I've got it wrong. Not.

 

I didn't describe how I 'play like an X', and since you didn't ask me what *I* meant, I'll elaborate my melee choices: I don't wade Stalkers into large spawns (unless teaming); Tanks and Scraps I will jump in (I don't really play Brutes). Blappers blap.

 

For me, the main difference among the melee classes is the *desire* to have aggro. My Tanks want it; my Scappers accept (and often seek) it. My Stalker is designed to murder the opposition, not occupy their time. Dominators have everything locked down, Blasters have KOed everything. I happen to have a Spines/Bio Stalker because I wanted a Stalker that has AoE capabilities when teaming... but even so, when solo *I* don't bother with the x8 setting like I do with my VEAT, Blaster, Dominator or Bots MM... It's just not how I want to play my Stalker... even though I have explicitly chosen a primary and secondary that lets me do exactly that! (*1)

 

With that being written, the missing piece for this conversation may be "what does this have to do with AoE?" If a player "feels that AoE" is missing, and their primary and secondary sets aren't providing it...given that they are already chosen an AT... Interface (every 2 mins) is better than nothing. They can pick PBAoE or targeted AoE. It's not a secret what types of attacks are available in any AT's primary/secondary before starting with the character.

 

(*1) More about my play preferences: Some toons I like to solo against a huge number of opponents at once. It feels thematic and the rewards are improved with volume. When I do play this way, it is very rare that I will solo against large numbers of opponents until my toon is beyond lvl 32. Before then, some toons don't have the tools to survive against large numbers of opponents, some toons don't have the tools to quickly defeat a large number of opponents. Since (many) stalkers aren't going to get the AoE to quickly defeat a large numebr of opponents... my play style while levelling was to focus on survivability of the Stalker by Killing the highest threat first, and then focus on the minions, which is a perpendicular strategy to most AoE classes' approach of 'nuke the masses and clean up the bosses'.

Edited June 10, 2020 by tidge

[Omega-202]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

Thanks for criticizing my (explicitly expressed) personal play choices and trying to make some bigger point about how I've got it wrong. Not.

Cool.  Shoot me for discussing the pros and cons of Epic pool choices for Stalkers in a thread about Epic pool choices for Stalkers.

 

You don't have to take every time someone diasgrees with you and interpret it as a personal attack.  

Edited June 10, 2020 by Omega-202