Stalker newb question EM/DA

[TinyBolt]

Hi everyone, I felt like I never gave stalkers a fair shake back when the game was originally around. I rolled a electric melee/dark armor stalker.

 

Are there are any powers I should absolutely avoid as a stalker? I'm guessing I should be focusing on single target attacks and avoid the AoE capabilities of EM. I'm usually all about AoEs since I do support and if I melee, I play brutes. So my guiding philosophy was going to be "Just do the opposite of how you normally play" but any additional tips would be cool beans.

[Vanden]

Contrary to there being powers to absolutely avoid, I always felt that Stalkers have possibly the worst case of "gotta take everything!" of all the archetypes. I was never even able to get a Stalker out of low levels until they made Fitness inherent because I just couldn't find a build that didn't feel like it was missing something essential until the 30s or so.

[StrikerFox]

I would avoid Placate and Thunder Strike from ElM; avoid Soul Transfer from DA.

 

Placate is detrimental to a Stalker's dps. Deliberately going into hide, slows Assassin Strike and slows building stacks of Assassin's Focus. I find it counterproductive.

 

Thunder Strike's cast time is too long. When teaming, a lot of stuff gets killed in 3.5 seconds. Often it will be a wasted move.

 

I don't like the idea of Soul Transfer. Needing to die to make it usable. Create an uber build so that it's never needed.

 

I like to min/max builds and found ElM/DA impossible to get to where i wanted it to be. You might be able to with the changes i24/25 brings to the game.

[Tzu]

I find Placate useful. However, StrikerFox is absolutely right about it slowing down Assassin Strike. For me, its best use is triggering hide to allow your most powerful attack *other* than Assassin Strike to automatically crit.