Picking 2 Final Powers

[drgantz]

My toon just levelled to 50, and I'm going to respec, but can't choose 2 Final Powers.
The toon is StJ/SR.  I choose all the StJ and SR powers, except Elude, because I've heard that Elude isn't practical.
I also have Combat Jump, Hasten and 3  powers from the Body Mastery Epic Pool.
I didn't choose a travel power.  I thought of Super Jump, but didn't because it is outside of conception for a Natural Stalker.
I've thought of dropping Placate or Hasten and taking Kick, Toughen and Weave but didn't because End costs would be high.
Does anyone have any suggestions?

[aethereal]

Drop placate and take kick, tough, and weave.

[tidge]

21 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Drop placate and take kick, tough, and weave.

SR doesn't need Weave. If more defense is needed, a better choice would be to try to scrounge a 2nd slot for Tough and drop the two Global +Def IOs in it... I'm not sure a SR Stalker has anyplace else to put them. You won't have to even toggle Tough to get the bonuses.

Edited October 7, 2020 by tidge

[aethereal]

56 minutes ago, tidge said:

SR doesn't need Weave. If more defense is needed, a better choice would be to try to scrounge a 2nd slot for Tough and drop the two Global +Def IOs in it... I'm not sure a SR Stalker has anyplace else to put them. You won't have to even toggle Tough to get the bonuses.

If the OP has softcap or a bit more without weave, then by all means skip weave.  If not, get weave.

[drgantz]

Thank you for all of your responses.
I've read some posts that placate isn't practical, and some others that it can be a good Oh Crap button.  I've never used it while levelling to 50 so I might get rid of it.
Since a Stalker has less defense than a Scrapper, Weave will probably be useful.  My big fear is using too much endurance.

[Outrider_01]

 

34 minutes ago, drgantz said:

Since a Stalker has less defense than a Scrapper, Weave will probably be useful.  My big fear is using too much endurance.

Actual Defense percentages?

Scrapper: 19.5% Melee 19.5% Ranged, 19.5% AoE

Stalker: 19.5 Melee% 19.5% Ranged, 21.4% AoE

Hide turned off, Stalker wins out with 1.88% more AoE.  Other wise Hide blows it up over 60% to protect against splash damage.

And if you build to 45% soft cap, it doesn't matter.

 

As for endurance, once IOs and incarnate finalized your build don't worry unless you are rocking +2 consumption without incarnate.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Outrider_01

[Gulbasaur]

8 hours ago, drgantz said:

My toon just levelled to 50, and I'm going to respec, but can't choose 2 Final Powers.
The toon is StJ/SR.  I choose all the StJ and SR powers, except Elude, because I've heard that Elude isn't practical.
I also have Combat Jump, Hasten and 3  powers from the Body Mastery Epic Pool.
I didn't choose a travel power.  I thought of Super Jump, but didn't because it is outside of conception for a Natural Stalker.
I've thought of dropping Placate or Hasten and taking Kick, Toughen and Weave but didn't because End costs would be high.
Does anyone have any suggestions?

Placate can be more or less replaced by the Chance to Hide ATO - put it in your Assassin's Strike power and it will hide you in combat, allowing you to double-stack your criticals. I don't take it.

 

I think Tough and Weave are a bit of a trap, unless you are having trouble surviving. Do they solve a problem you have or are they just insurance?

 

Personally, I think Recall Friend is always a good choice as a level 49 one-slot wonder, particularly if you team with lowbies at all. The P2W versions are great but sometimes actually being able to stealth in and airdrop a tanker is really handy.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Gulbasaur

[drgantz]

Recall  Friend is a good power, but outside conception for my Natural Stalker.  In addition, the toon will use Ninja Run as the travel power, so will usually arrive last, so RF won't be that practical anyway.
I've thought of Super Jump, but think that would also be outside conception.  I've thought of saying that the toon had a teacher who taught ancient secrets and learned to jump.

[tidge]

This is an important consideration:

 

6 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

I think Tough and Weave are a bit of a trap, unless you are having trouble surviving. Do they solve a problem you have or are they just insurance?

I have Kick/Tough as my last two powers (SR Stalker) ONLY to get the Global +Def IOs.

 

If you have room for a 4th power pool, there are some powers you can take to leverage IOs. Here are a few of 'off-brand' choices:

 

1) Medicine -> Aid Other  - I believe you can put the Preventive Medicine +Absorb proc here and it should trigger without ever using the power (and if you Exemplar below the range where the power choice is available, to the lowest level of the IO) Sorcery Spirit Ward should act the same way.

 

2) Concealment -> most powers : can slot LotG Global +Recharge

 

3) Force of Will -> Weaken Resolve : Not as good as it once was, probably not as useful for a Stalker. I have this on one of my "team" Fortunata builds for AV/GMs.

 

 

[Gulbasaur]

3 hours ago, drgantz said:

Recall  Friend is a good power, but outside conception for my Natural Stalker.  In addition, the toon will use Ninja Run as the travel power, so will usually arrive last, so RF won't be that practical anyway.

I've been ninja-running my way round Praetoria recently on my stalker. It gives you a lot more appreciation for zone design and also it's fun to boing from roof to roof. I've got the jump pack for those rare occasions where I need more lift. Paragon City has better windows and ledges, though. 

 

The piston boots costume piece has a special animation on jumping, so you could pass them off as assistive technology. The rocket boots do something similar for flight with little jets of fire shooting out the bottom. 

 

I did pick up the void skiff for the P2W vendor for when I have to deal with Grandville (you can technically navigate it without superjump or flight, but it's so convoluted that I just don't want to) on my Science (or Technology? Can't recall) rad/rad stalker - my rationale is that I can overload my suit to produce a hard-light construct that allows for flight but not much else, which explains why all the toggles drop. 

 

All natural/tech choices - the medicine pool works well on a high-defence build because you're less likely to be interrupted. Experimentation is pretty tech-based and Toxic Dart can crit from Hidden.

 

The upper-tier Leadership powers are actually both pretty good - Vengeance is an excellent "oh no, it's all going wrong" power and does save the day when a team gets overwhelmed and the other one is a decent enough endurance boost on a stupid timer. They're both good one-slot wonders, too. 

[StrikerFox]

I went the Tough and Weave route. Weave and the def unique IOs adds around +11% def, and allows us to slot attacks for more damage rather chasing sets for random def bonuses. If you pvp, Stealth is pretty decent. Hide + Stealth + Celerity unique makes Stalkers really hard to see.