Croax's Tier List and Build Collection

[Microcosm]

My mistake on Shield Wall, going off memory. If you aren't factoring in pools/patrons etc., then I would have to agree with the assessment as resist sets would generally not be able to keep up with defense cascades, but that also lowers bio's value, for example, as the tohit it provides boosts snipes' damage, etc. I don't look at it in a vacuum like that, which is the whole reason I even use Rad on a Stalker when Elec has superior resists: Rad can add AoEs to some sets that are ok but need more AoE. Looking for good primary/secondary pairings and the max I can get out of them are what appeal to me, so that includes pools, patrons, sometimes incarnates and sometimes even inspiration tray strategies. If I were going to look at it from "just the set and IOs", I would recommend no one ever touch bio under any circumstance.

[KnaveOfSwords]

In case this is useful to anyone else, I did some basic tabulation of pool and ancillary powers across the builds Croax did in this thread.  (Note: I just counted these numbers, I don't have the experience to say how much role subjective biases - or just shortcuts due to the massive size of this endeavor - play in them)

• Fighting, Leaping, and Speed appears in all 246 builds.
• Leadership appears in 194 builds.
• 31 builds have Experimentation, comprised of all */Dark Armor, with the remainder being divided between */Ninjutsu and */Super Reflexes.
• 0 builds featured any of the other pools, leaving 21 with room for a 4th pool (though presumably not with empty slots to plug one into).
• Soul Mastery was taken for all 18 */Regeneration builds, and only those builds.
• 132 builds used Body Mastery.
• The remaining 96 builds use Mu Mastery.

I haven't read through the builds to see look for variation in what powers were taken from each pool.

[Clave Dark 5]

14 hours ago, KnaveOfSwords said:

• Fighting, Leaping, and Speed appears in all 246 builds.
• Leadership appears in 194 builds.

For all our talk about how the game helps us avoid just using cookie-cutter builds, well, yeah, nearly everyone relies on these two, they're crutches.  Kind of a pet peeve of mine, as I hate wasting a power pick for Boxing, and having to take End-heavy toggles that I can't afford to run half the time.  OK, rant over!  😃

[dreathor]

I'm using the Electrical Melee/Shield Defense build and have everything but incarnates. Is ageless the answer to my endurance problems? Running everything but Grant Cover and I run out of end FAST. 

[Croax]

Yes, ageless is the answer. you can also use recovery serum and use blue inspirations in lower levels but that combo is very endurance hungry.

[FUBARczar]

Primaries:

Electrical is B tier, it's ST is still low as it lacks a strong ST attack outside of what every set gets, AS and Snipe.

 

Claws is probably C tier but the bigger loss than Spin is replacing follow up with build up, and the change in Eviscerate from a 90° Cone to ST.

 

Radiation maybe should drop one tier it's just disappointing.

[FUBARczar]

Secondaries: 

Shield, SR and Invln are better than everything in B and are  arguably A tier.

 

SD is sturdy, buffs team,  has a dmg buff and adds a good AoE attack.

 

SR is the most build flexible powerset.  Built right SR is A tier.

 

Invulnerability is tanky just like the set's roots are.

 

Stalker Ninjitsu needs to drop a tier.  It is a paper thin armor set.  I would easily take WP, radiation or dark over Ninjitsu any day.   Ninjitsu definitely needs the scrapper/sentinel version. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by FUBARczar
Clarity

[FUBARczar]

On 11/27/2021 at 1:59 AM, Hjarki said:

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.

 

Until they Rularuu us , then ITF >>Shadow Shard 

 

Especially with the hardmode ITF that didn't exist back when you posted.

 

Otherwise, 👍

 

[Without_Pause]

On 8/27/2022 at 6:06 AM, FUBARczar said:

Claws is probably C tier but the bigger loss than Spin is replacing follow up with build up, and the change in Eviscerate from a 90° Cone to ST.

This sounds like terrible reasoning for moving Claws to C. "You think removing its best attack is bad? Well, here's two other reasons why its conversion sucks." I love Claws. Money would need to be involved for me to play the Stalker version.

[FUBARczar]

6 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

This sounds like terrible reasoning for moving Claws to C. "You think removing its best attack is bad? Well, here's two other reasons why its conversion sucks." I love Claws. Money would need to be involved for me to play the Stalker version.

I was thinking that Shockwave is that good, but fine,  Just Move spine and MA down one 

[drgantz]

Someone should sticky this.  It is awesome!

[drgantz]

Bumping this post because it is important.

[Without_Pause]

I also found this thread fairly informative although as always, any data which is based on pylon and Trapdoor testing should be taken with a grain of salt as they use non-general gaming builds.

 

 

[Kaika]

Well since this post has been bumped I want to make a argument about something that has been bugging me for a while about this tier list, I have some small gripes about the positioning of some power sets but one has been bugging me quite a bit.

 

Rad Armor should be A tier

 

It seems to get put into C teir just due to the fact that "It's a resistance based set" but I don't think that's fair to this set at all. First of all Stalker is a DPS focused class, and while dead DPS deal no damage, it should really not be your first priority when judging a secondary, Rad has MASSIVE offensive benefits that really are not being accounted for in this tier list, which seems more important to me for a AT specializing in damage. Even ignoring that, Rad is a VERY survivable set on stalker, its not JUST resistance, it's also alot of Absorb, and regen, and you can reach S/L def caps with IOs giving it EXTREMELY high survivability. But too be more direct to the point of why I think Rad armor is a A tier set is how much AoE damage it can add to character, and how that AoE can allow the BU reset proc to shoot you to the damage cap while solo. Radiation therapy, if proced out, hits hard enough to be a DPS gain on single target, let alone at it's target cap, which is VERY easy to hit due to it's massive 15 yard range. Ground Zero Just adds to this, and while it's DPA isn't anything to write home about it's massive 30 target cap IS. Which brings us to what I think truly makes this set shine, "Assassin's Mark: Chance for build up", while I don't entirely know how the math works, the chance for it too proc is magnified with the amount of targets hit, meaning AoEs like ground zero and radiation therapy proc it almost everytime they are used in larger groups. This can legitimately and fairly regularly bring you to DPS cap in normal content solo. That's not even going to the utility of things like meltdown, which normally caps your Resistance to everything 50% of the time, or the fact that rad is one of the few stalker sets with a massive amount of +recovery in things like gamma boost and particle shielding, making it one of the only stalker sets that has little to no endurance issues. Oh and it also has a decent bit of -regen in Radiation therapy just in-case you needed more reason.

 

 

While I find most of the other residence of the secondary C tier belong there, in my experience radiation armor is up there with Bio and often better in most average missions just due to it's AoE presence.

[Zect]

On 8/22/2023 at 1:41 PM, Riot Siren said:

It seems to get put into C teir just due to the fact that "It's a resistance based set" but I don't think that's fair to this set at all. First of all Stalker is a DPS focused class, and while dead DPS deal no damage, it should really not be your first priority when judging a secondary, Rad has MASSIVE offensive benefits that really are not being accounted for in this tier list, which seems more important to me for a AT specializing in damage. Even ignoring that, Rad is a VERY survivable set on stalker, its not JUST resistance, it's also alot of Absorb, and regen, and you can reach S/L def caps with IOs giving it EXTREMELY high survivability. But too be more direct to the point of why I think Rad armor is a A tier set is how much AoE damage it can add to character, and how that AoE can allow the BU reset proc to shoot you to the damage cap while solo. Radiation therapy, if proced out, hits hard enough to be a DPS gain on single target, let alone at it's target cap, which is VERY easy to hit due to it's massive 15 yard range. Ground Zero Just adds to this, and while it's DPA isn't anything to write home about it's massive 30 target cap IS. Which brings us to what I think truly makes this set shine, "Assassin's Mark: Chance for build up", while I don't entirely know how the math works, the chance for it too proc is magnified with the amount of targets hit, meaning AoEs like ground zero and radiation therapy proc it almost everytime they are used in larger groups. This can legitimately and fairly regularly bring you to DPS cap in normal content solo. That's not even going to the utility of things like meltdown, which normally caps your Resistance to everything 50% of the time, or the fact that rad is one of the few stalker sets with a massive amount of +recovery in things like gamma boost and particle shielding, making it one of the only stalker sets that has little to no endurance issues. Oh and it also has a decent bit of -regen in Radiation therapy just in-case you needed more reason.

 

Fwiw, I agree with you; rad is really strong on all 4 armored AT's (and flat-out nerf-worthy on the 90% res cap ones). Even the defensive weakness is probably somewhat overestimated in the modern meta where the game is overflowing in +def buffs. Drive your /rad stalker to an itrial or 4* anything, and see how long you can go without being incarnate-softcapped, lol.

 

Incidentally, I must say that I'm impressed. Every large build compilation on the forums I have encountered until now is garbage. This is the only one I have seen so far where the builds seem to be designed by someone with an overall competent grasp of their AT and powerset mechanics, the invention system, and build design principles; and who is not engaging in mids-warrioring (ie building for what looks pretty in mids, not what works in the game), nor doing dishonest shit like toggling on incarnate powers or setting invincibility to 10 targets to give a misleading impression of build capabilities.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Zect

[TCUFROGS]

Great guide, but unfortunately the majority of your builds don't work in Mids anymore.

[Without_Pause]

34 minutes ago, TCUFROGS said:

Great guide, but unfortunately the majority of your builds don't work in Mids anymore.

I just went and clicked on the data links for three builds and they all loaded fine. I have the most recent versions of Mid's.

[HiddenWings]

I realize this list is a little old, but none of these seem to contain Placate. My assumption is that because they all contain Stalker's Guile it's not necessary, but is that a useful power to have before you start getting sets?

[Grimm2]

This was made before Placate was more recently buffed. It was single- target and a slower cast time. NuPlacate is actually quite useful even in an endgame build, as I believe @nihilii has demonstrated. 

[nihilii]

It was not me: @Frosticus is the one who posted amazing Placate gameplay videos!

[Grimm2]

Thanks for the correction! You, him, and others are total MVPs that have helped me so much with what you share. Thank you! 

[Tonio]

I realize these builds are old, but I'm finding them *very* useful.

 

I am, though, struggling a bit with the Savage Melee attack chain.  I haven't finished equipping everything, but is Savage Leap fast enough (recharge-wise) to be used in every rotation?

[Vermithrix]

Just finished building the Elec/Bio build listed on this page and I gotta say, its incredible. Solo +4x8 with ease. Most fun character I have played. Use Barrier and Seer pets to fill Psi problem. 

 

Really great build. Thanks for the post if you are still around OP ;)