Croax's Tier List and Build Collection

[ZemX]

Never read your old posts.... 🤪

 

On 6/3/2021 at 1:00 PM, ZemX said:

On top of that, it's hitting for only about a third of what Shield Charge does by itself to the outermost enemies (it does more just around the point of impact).  So something less than 33% more damage total on 18% of the hits? 

 

For this I was looking at the actual combat log and comparing the damage done by the proc to the damage done by my damage enhanced shield charge.  It's more proper to compare the damage a proc does to the base damage of a power.   In the case of Shield Charge on a Stalker, the base damage to most enemies if 100 at level 50, with an extra 41 in a 5ft inner radius around the point of impact.  But just looking at the damage done to most enemies in the 20ft radius of the power, the Obliteration proc I was talking about would do 71 damage, which is 71% of the base damage... not 33%.  So 71% multiplied by the 18% is 12.8% damage.  Still not great.

 

The reason to look at this way is it more directly compares the damage added by a proc to the damage added by, say, a damage enhancement IO.  Because you are giving up slots, potentially, in a power to put in procs, you might be trading off damage from enhancements.  In the above example where I am six-slotting Obliteration, however, I am at the ED cap for damage.  I wouldn't have been able to add even 12.8% more damage with that last slot, so the proc does result in more damage.  It's just not a lot more.  So the comparison to do in my case is to weigh that six-slot bonus vs the damage vs wherever else in my build I might use that one slot to get something better.

 

Sometimes people will put an FF:+rech IO in Shield Charge because it's a proc buff that doesn't stack.  If it fires even once out of all the targets you hit, you get the same benefit as if it hit all of them.  So you take 100% minus the proc chance and raise it to the power of the number of targets you hit.  That's the odds you hit nobody.  100% minus that is the odds you hit one or more.   Now, it's a 2PPM proc, so doing the math works out to 10% proc chance per target.  0.9 raised to the power 16 (target cap) is 0.185... or an 81.5% chance you get that FF recharge bonus whenever you use Shield Charge.   Of course, it only lasts 5 seconds.  But the strategy with FF:Rech is often to put it wherever you can in the hopes it procs as often as possible.  So you may think it's worth it.  Depends on where else you can slot it.  

 

Also in #Corrections.... 

 

On 6/3/2021 at 1:24 PM, ZemX said:

Only thing to remember with the Assassin's Mark proc is that while you can put it anywhere and it still gives all your attacks a chance to recharge Build Up, it also follows the same rules as any IO when it comes to exemplaring.

 

That is, its benefit will disappear if you don't have access to the power it's slotted in. 

 

Now I think of it... I don't know if this is true.  What I'm saying here about procs only applies to procs that have a %chance to fire when the power is used.  IOs that represent set bonuses or other global benefits still give those benefits even when the power they are slotted in becomes inactive due to exemplaring provided one does not exemplar more than 3 levels below the level of the IO in question (or the minimum level of the set if it is attuned).  Assassin's Mark might be such a global benefit.  I've never slotted it in a high level power and tested it with exemplaring.  Maybe someone else here has and can say.  Otherwise if I think of it some time I am in-game I may try a quick test (at the cost of a few unslotters... for science!)

 

[Croax]

With the Assassins Mark IO it is true that you have to use the power at least once to make it work. if you exemplar down where you do not have that power you will loose the benefit of it.

[Chelsea Rorec]

On 9/20/2021 at 6:43 AM, Without_Pause said:

At least we know who pees in their neighbor's pool.

I didn't attack anyone so why are you attacking me with that comment ?

 

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Maybe don't dump on the person who literally wrote a beginner's guide to be a stalker, and then now has gone and made a list of every possible Stalker build with full slotting and gave a listing of what they feel are the best primaries and secondaries based on their experience and giving logical reasons for it.

He stated he is giving his opinion because everyone has an opinion and is free to voice that opinion yes ?

 

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You complain about lacking data and then provide none yourself or even logical reasoning for why his choices were wrong.

I didn't say he was wrong i said i disagree with his choices..BIG difference.

 

Because everyone has an opinion everyones opinions on what they think is the best sets would be different.

Making a list of what i think the best sets are would be a waste of my time as there would always be someone who disagrees and discussions like that always devolve into arguments so starting a "guide" with an opinion on what the best sets are is not the best way to go about things.

Maybe a break down on what the sets do and let people deside themselves what sets they enjoy the most would be better.

As for the builds. They are a great starting point but lack experience in some of the builds.(the op even states hes go no experience with certain sets) So you take them at face value.

A little bit more research maybe for the builds ?

 

 

[Wobegone]

Uff da.  

 

I really appreciate all the work you've done Croax.  While I may have a quibble here and there, there was nothing so egregious as to even comment.  At the very least you provided valuable insight and a solid foundation for build ideas, all of which I found helpful.  One of great things about this game is there are a number of ways to successfully build a character.  Really helped me start playing Stalkers.  

 

 

[Without_Pause]

Agreed. I think the listings are quite close to what I would pick outside I might have minor quibbles, I'm not sure anything gets moved to a lower ranking. EM would feel better if it kept WH. No attack set needs that many ST attacks, IMO. More so when end game builds trend towards using three ST attacks. I still get confused on the design decisions for stalkers and AoE. Hopefully the dev behind Claws not having Spin isn't in game development anymore. 

Edited September 25, 2021 by Without_Pause

[Ethereal Star]

I think Staff fighting is one of the strongest primaries for a stalker.  To give it a C and put it on par with ninja blade feels horribly wrong...  I might even put it on par with the others in A but at the very least, it's deserving of a B don't you think?  Staff in fact works better with stalkers than it does with most other archetypes.  It is one of the sets where one of its weakest attacks gets replaced with one of its strongest, and it has the best buff passively built in instead of the form switching thing other staff fighters have.  That said, staff fighting as a powerset is lacking in some ways so I can understand some of where you are coming from.  The animations are a little long, but its synergy with stalkers is very good and quite a bit underrated, I think.

 

I also think you are a bit biased against resistance sets for stalkers.  That's okay of course, but they can be very strong for them.  You don't have to have defense sets to be effective as a stalker.  Fire and Electric both are very strong, and deserve better than a C at the very least.  I used to think similarly but after actually using the resistance sets I've seen how well they can compliment stalkers.  Perhaps it's specific content that makes defense really shine for stalkers to a dramatic degree (or makes resistance really bad) but I haven't run into it yet...

 

Likewise, I kind of feel like you may be giving too much respect to ninjitsu, which does not have a lot of strong powers and severely lacks defense debuff resistance.  Its heal is nice at least, and it can provide standard defense capping but... what else can it do?  Toss out some caltrops, put down a relatively useless smoke grenade?  I really don't feel like ninjitsu is good at all.  Putting it on the same tier as shield defense feels wrong, since it basically does everything it does better and then some.  (to be fair, I'd honestly put Shield Defense at A for that matter, but that's just me!)

 

All of this said your post is interesting!  Thank you for sharing it ^^ I think your post is insightful and helpful, I have some disagreements on how you sorted them and why but this is a valuable resource even so to new stalkers!  I didn't look at your builds (and I don't like using premade builds for that matter), but wow at the work you did!!  You clearly poured your heart into that, and I really like that!  Stalkers don't get a lot of love so it's nice to see a thread like this!

Edited September 25, 2021 by Ethereal Star
cleaned up my post a little bit!

[Without_Pause]

Take two builds. One is resist based and the other is defense based. They both over time average out taking in 40 points of damage/sec. Which one is better? The defensive one is. The reason is even though the resist one is taking in small amounts of damage over that time frame, it is also taking in more of those hits. Also, more end drain. More slows. More -recharge. A defensive based set is taking in less of them and gives the player more time to recover from said attacks. Now, if the resist based set has some sort of advantage to help mitigate further damage, then that would help. The problem is Stalkers having lower HP and lower resist caps compared to other ATs. One way for the resist sets to be better is to improve an advantage to offensive numbers like using a damage aura, but Stalkers don't get those and added offense isn't unique to resist sets, see Shield. Plus, good luck with -def when you do add in def to a resist based set.

[aethereal]

2 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Take two builds. One is resist based and the other is defense based. They both over time average out taking in 40 points of damage/sec. Which one is better? The defensive one is. The reason is even though the resist one is taking in small amounts of damage over that time frame, it is also taking in more of those hits. Also, more end drain. More slows. More -recharge. A defensive based set is taking in less of them and gives the player more time to recover from said attacks. Now, if the resist based set has some sort of advantage to help mitigate further damage, then that would help. The problem is Stalkers having lower HP and lower resist caps compared to other ATs. One way for the resist sets to be better is to improve an advantage to offensive numbers like using a damage aura, but Stalkers don't get those and added offense isn't unique to resist sets, see Shield. Plus, good luck with -def when you do add in def to a resist based set.

 

Well, if you take X dam/sec in the long run with a resist set, you take X dam/sec in the short run.  With a defense set, sometimes you take less than X dam/sec and sometimes you take more.  This is a significant problem!  Like, for example, I was soloing Infernal with my Ninjutsu scrapper the other day.  I was fine with the expected damage in.  He'd hit me sometimes, and I'd heal, and that would be that.  But about once per run at him, he'd do something where he'd hit and then get another lucky hit in again and my heal would be on cooldown and oh shit I need to run and sweat and worry until I could get back to good.  That wouldn't have happened if I had had the same overall mitigation with a resist set.

 

Now, don't get me wrong, I think defense sets are better for scrappers/stalkers than resist sets, mainly because you cap out at mitigating 90% of expected damage in with defense vs 75% of expected damage in with resist, but also of course the stuff you said about dodging debuffs and mezzes.  Lower HP doesn't actually strike me as a good side of defense sets -- the weakness of defense is spike damage due to random variation, so having low HP would be better for resist sets, which take their damage steadily, not in spikes.  But the cap is really dispositive if you're building for performance.

[Without_Pause]

The favoritism towards capping def over capping resist is a good tell what the player base thinks is the one to focus on. But yes, a steady stream of damage can be easier to deal with than an occasional oh crap amount of damage. I wouldn't mind trying a resist set on a stalker, but those sets work so much better on the sturdier melee types, I pick those instead.

[DreadShinobi]

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

The favoritism towards capping def over capping resist is a good tell what the player base thinks is the one to focus on. But yes, a steady stream of damage can be easier to deal with than an occasional oh crap amount of damage. I wouldn't mind trying a resist set on a stalker, but those sets work so much better on the sturdier melee types, I pick those instead.

It isn't as simple as def vs resist favoritism. 

1)Higher tier stalker sets typically increase offensive output. Directly - Bio Armor, Shield Defense, or indirectly via build flexibility - EA, SR.

2)A resist based set such as dark armor, fiery aura, and electric armor can be impressively bulky with an IO build that provides S/L defense - but S/L stacked defense is a significant build investment that detracts from point 1.

3) Elec, Fiery, and Dark armors each lost important parts of their kit for hide - their damage auras. For brutes and tanks these are also their taunt auras, and big surprise here, scrappers don't get a taunt aura on these sets either and they are also massively less favorable for scrappers compared to sets that provide them a taunt aura. This is especially relevant to fiery aura.

4) Dark Armor wants to have as large a HP pool as possible to leverage Dark Regeneration healing, stalkers are stuck at the bottom here.

5) Fiery Aura received one of greatest injustices ever in a powerset proliferation and lost fiery embrace for cauterizing blaze.

6)Like Ninjitsu - Fiery Aura and Dark Armor also have a kb protection hole to plug, and Elec Armor has partial protection. Slot tax is fun.

 

edit: resist cap is much smaller a point than people make it out to be.

Edited September 27, 2021 by DreadShinobi

[Khrystina]

@Croax, I hope you're going to re-visit the attacks in light of the changes that are coming to Dual Blades...?

[Cancrusher]

I honestly haven't played Stalkers very much, but this is a very thorough breakdown and evaluation of the At and its power sets.  Thanks for posting this! 👍

[Croax]

Hi @Khrystina, I have seen the changes to Dual Blades.

It is good that the combo system is now better to use.

But tbh the combo system was something that i completly ignored and just went from time to time like "hey that was a sweep combo, lol".

The planed changes do not justify any reevaluation of the powerset in my ranking.

[ScarySai]

Were I to make a list, it'd look something more like this. I find it strange to omit the obvious candidates for S tier in a tier list, that's the entire point of a tier list.

 

DB is top tier when built well, but is rougher before that point. KM is actually quite good for stalker, but limited by lacking a consistently hard hitting chain. 

 

 

Energy aura is just the best stalker secondary set, hands down. There isn't much debating this, it lets you get away with so much nonsense, and only gets better with IOs. Shield is also very strong once you tame it's endurance. Stalker bio isn't the same beast that scrapper bio is, I'd honestly put invuln over it if it wasn't for the raw potential of a buffed bio stalker.

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by ScarySai

[Sabrehawk]

9 hours ago, ScarySai said:

Were I to make a list, it'd look something more like this. I find it strange to omit the obvious candidates for S tier in a tier list, that's the entire point of a tier list.

 

DB is top tier when built well, but is rougher before that point. KM is actually quite good for stalker, but limited by lacking a consistently hard hitting chain. 

 

 

Energy aura is just the best stalker secondary set, hands down. There isn't much debating this, it lets you get away with so much nonsense, and only gets better with IOs. Shield is also very strong once you tame it's endurance. Stalker bio isn't the same beast that scrapper bio is, I'd honestly put invuln over it if it wasn't for the raw potential of a buffed bio stalker.

 

 

I much appreciate the tier list. And I had no idea Kinetic Melee could perform anywhere close to the level of DB. I love my DB toon so maybe it is time to stop procrastinating on my KM.

[ScarySai]

20 hours ago, Sabrehawk said:

 

I much appreciate the tier list. And I had no idea Kinetic Melee could perform anywhere close to the level of DB. I love my DB toon so maybe it is time to stop procrastinating on my KM.

 

KM stalker is a bit slept on. It's limited by it's later attacks being so poor, so it'll likely never touch db's POTENTIAL at max recharge on a single target, barring a buff. Still, autocrit burst from hide and having your entire, very fast attack chain by level eight makes it not only competitive, but probably the best exemping stalker. Try KM/Energy if you haven't yet.

 

Optimal KM Chain before epics: AS>Smashing>Body>Quick

 

AoE by slapping burst from hide or when you get a proc.

Edited November 26, 2021 by ScarySai

[Without_Pause]

KM's animations are still a bit slow for the damage though. Every time I make another one, it doesn't take long before it gets rerolled. 

 

Currently running around with low level Elec, Dark, and Ice to try to see what those are like in the end but distracted by alts. The sound effects for Ice are a bit off putting for a Stalker. My continued experience with Shield across all ATs is that it blooms late and is rather helped by end game building. I would need to retry Ice and I haven't done Nin, but Shield is the weakest def based set pre level 50 so far. If I liked Shield more, I think a Ice/shield Stalker would be great. I have tried Psionic on a brute and until Insight is fixed, that's a tier below where it needs to be. Trying other armors on other ATs. I can confirm Bio is great for offense, but lesser on being sturdy and that's on a Brute.

[Croax]

So at very first thank you @ScarySai for posting your version of the Tier List!

 

I like how we see some things same but still different.

Let me explain you quick what i was thinking of the tiers:

 

S Tier - Play only this

A Tier - Good Stuff

B Tier - OK Powers

C Tier - Not so good

D Tier - Do not play this

 

A Good Example of a S Tier is the former Titan Weapon for Scrappers which was so overwhelmingly good that it exceled in Single Target and AoE while having Knockdown control over the enemys all the time. Going for sub 1 minute pylon times no other melee AT could reach.

 

I think there is no such thing on Stalkers. Energy Melee has poor AoE Damage and reduced crits, Street Justice is carried by 3 combo point CU and for a lot of players the whole combo system is exhausting. Also StJ has bad AoE. Elec has bad Single Target without a snipe and Ice has a little bit of all the problems but is still good enough on all the fields. And all of them have really severe endurance issues....Ok all Primaries do have that problem...

But my point is: In my book there is no single Primary powerset that shines above all others.

 

And i have made a point allocation system with values for: Single Target Damage, Area Damage, Damage Type, Does it need a snipe, skipabale powers, utility and my obscure number for "build potential" which is more for IO builds optimization while on mids and looking for set bonuses. It sucks to have 5 melee powers and not a mixture of PBAoE, Target AoE, Ranged or whatever. That is how i created my list.

 

And one very important point is Damage Type! A Lot of people ignore this because they go unga bunga on a pylon (20% resist to all damage types) and came back to tell how good they can devestate the immovable object, while doing it with half their toggles turned off to save endurance, use bad damage type which will be resisted a lot and use double -resist IOs while telling that the damage is only going to skyrocket in team situations. while Energy Melee reaches better times with superiour damage type and no -resist IO. There is a very good post from Galaxy Brain in his standard enviroment damage testing. where he explaines all that stuff. i will put a link down below but just to summerize it: Toxic, Smashing and Lethal are very bad and Negative, Fire, Energy and Cold is good. Psy is kind of great and bad at the same time.

 

BUT

 

if i was to ignore my definition of Tiers and simply see the category as best to worse, than we might see some similarities while i would have to admit i do not understand some of your choices. I will not talk about powers that rank one tier higher or lower because that is purely preferance. Let me ask about these Powers:

 

Dark Melee - No love for our Dark Melee friends? I think you have forgotten something.

Savage Melee - Hemorrage has been nerfed and is a shadow of its former self. Only the Jump attack procced out is carrying the set, which i do not like tbh. Also the damage type is lethal, which is bad as we know. I think it is ranked far too high.

Fiery Melee - i think putting it on the same level as claws, spines and martial arts is not fair. Fiery Melee is not that bad. 

Shield - It is not nearly as good as energy aura. it has severe endurance issues, no heal, the inferiour click mez, which needs you to use it frequently, it is one of the hardest, if not the hardest defense set to cap, which costs a lot of set bonuses. it is still good but not that good.

 

The other choices you made, i can understand that and liked to see how you rank the Powersets. i would love to see some more of this, even if there are enough people talking about "one single persons opinion". 

 

Oh and here is the Link to Galaxy brains post with the Damage Types it should be on the fifth page almost the last post. it is a good read. i still use his office maps when i want to try out new things:

 

[Without_Pause]

S Tier sounds more like a set which needs to be nerfed. I wouldn't say StJ has bad AoE. It has two AoE powers which is rather normal overall and certainly for a Stalker. Dark is a tier below StJ for me. If Dark ever switched Shadow Maul to Engulfing Darkness, then we can talk about moving it up. 

[Hjarki]

The problem I have with these sorts of 'tier' lists is that I don't get the impression that anyone - myself included - really understands the builds well enough to make these sorts of comparisons. Moreover, it doesn't appear that the lists are based on doing the work - actually figuring out what should be best and then playing it. For example, Stalker rotations are notoriously tricky due to the interactions with the ATO and the 10 sec window. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if people weren't just saying "X > Y" but telling us what rotation they're using for X and Y to make that call.

 

On the armor sets, you see a lot of the same issues. One thing I've noticed for a lot of players with armor sets is that they have an ITF > Shadow Shard bias. That is, they'll highly rate sets that are victimized the moment they face Psi damage over sets that struggle against -def debuffs. Yet both types of content are in the game. Supplemental features of sets are often overlooked - consider how common it is to extol the damage-boosting abilities of Bio but players will give you a blank look when you point out the damage boosting potential of Radiation or Super Reflexes (both grant recharge bonuses). Even pure utility can matter. A Stalker can breeze through missions and teleport the entire group to the end. A Shield Stalker can do this almost on top of a spawn due to their ability to cloak a team.

 

Synergies also make a difference. That Shield Stalker may has its virtues, but if you attach it to set that requires enormous recharge/end like Electric, you're going to need to fiix a lot of problems with IIncarnate powers - a decision that may come to haunt you when you drop a few levels to do older content or run a no Incarnates challenge. But that same primary may work just fine with a set like Energy Aura that fixes those issuses.

 

[Without_Pause]

It is easier than ever to get a build to 50, and see how it works even with just SOs. Hell, it is even quicker on Beta. I just don't think that many people take each primary and secondary to 50 on Stalker. Also, I don't think it takes much to figure out Claws without Spin is going to be hurting. Granted, I have taken Claws to 50 twice. So while I haven't played it as a Stalker, yeah, it's not going to be good. I mean, people do pylon and Trapdoor tests to show how well a set does. We can see how the Stalker versions of sets fair after conversion. I think synergies are a bit baked in. It is partly why Dark would be a second tier set for me. It isn't first tier partly because I freaking loath Shadow Maul. Incarnates patches Shield incredibly well, but I don't think it is that crippling to play before hitting 50. 

[DreadShinobi]

On 11/24/2021 at 4:15 PM, ScarySai said:

Were I to make a list, it'd look something more like this. I find it strange to omit the obvious candidates for S tier in a tier list, that's the entire point of a tier list.

Energy aura is just the best stalker secondary set, hands down. There isn't much debating this, it lets you get away with so much nonsense, and only gets better with IOs. Shield is also very strong once you tame it's endurance. Stalker bio isn't the same beast that scrapper bio is, I'd honestly put invuln over it if it wasn't for the raw potential of a buffed bio stalker.

 

 

I am still patiently waiting for the rest of the world to realize stalker energy aura is the definition of an S tier powerset pick. It doesn't need to be broken or in need of adjustments like titan weapons to be an S tier set. S tier just means it is a cut above everything in A tier, which Energy Aura is. Energy Aura [with IOs and compared to everything else with IOs] is just so ridiculously and miraculously well balanced and self sufficient within the confines of its own set that you can get away with some insanely offensive stalker builds that do not sacrifice durability. It literally doesn't make sense for shield to be in the same tier as EA. 

[Riverdusk]

Looking at our new secondary choice , I have to say stone armor looks pretty crazy good.  On paper at least I found it fairly easy to cap all defenses except fire/cold/toxic.  Fire/cold is easy to cap on resistance instead and toxic resistance is also solid.  Also ridiculously easy to cap hps on it (actually hard not to overcap since I like the idea of putting a full preventive medicine set in earth's embrace).  One of the few builds I've made recently that doesn't need that unbreakable +7.5% hp IO.

 

Stone also has a recharge buff (although slightly less than energy/SR, 15 compared to 20), a recovery buff, and it also actually has psi defense.  It also has a damage buff with brimstones fire proc although haven't seen it in action yet to see how good that is, but anything helps.

 

Probably the biggest con is actually wanting to take every power (whereas it is easy to get away with only taking 7 of energy aura).  But to me it evens out because I don't have to take leadership pool to grab tactics for the +perc and confuse protection as stone armor has that built in.

 

Leveling an ice/stone stalker now and we'll see how it does in real play (I'm slow so will take a while), but it is looking awful strong to me,  unless I'm missing something.

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, Riverdusk said:

Stone also has a recharge buff (although slightly less than energy/SR, 15 compared to 20), a recovery buff, and it also actually has psi defense.  It also has a damage buff with brimstones fire proc although haven't seen it in action yet to see how good that is, but anything helps.

Also throw in the +Max HP. I will need to update my Mids for Stalker Stone Armor to see what's possible, but I imagine you will be able to Resistance Cap F/C/T and softcap defense for S/L/E/N/P. It will be a little endurance heavy with 7 toggles running, but I'm thinking of using Geode as an in-combat version of Rest and probably just mule preventative medicine proc in it.

[Croax]

I am Waiting for that mids update too Bopper. I will spend a few hours with all the new combinations.