Trying to decide my next melee character?

[JnEricsonx]

Gonna be Martial Arts or Street Justice-never used either.  After that, I can't decide between Scrapper, Brute, or Stalker?  Though at this point apparently Stalker>Scrapper from what I keep being told.

[aethereal]

I wouldn't do a martial arts stalker, with literally no aoe in your primary.  Street Justice is good on Stalkers, arguably its best iteration, for the usual reason: sets with one really good ST attack and a bunch of kind of mediocre stuff welcome assassin's strike.

 

I think the most interesting thing about martial arts is the defense bonus that tankers and brutes get with it, making it possible to have very durable builds with resistance or hybrid armor sets.  If you're pairing it with a defense armor set then it just seems like a kind of outdated melee set?  Pretty, though.  Like the animations.

Edited September 26, 2021 by aethereal

[skoryy]

Think less of which performs better and more of which looks and sounds more fun.  Aside from MA stalkers and their lack of AoE, they're all good combos.

[KC4800]

SJ/WP is a great combo for a scrapper.

[Techwright]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

I wouldn't do a martial arts stalker, with literally no aoe in your primary. 

Huh.  I never noticed that before.  Not that I have a stalker or anything.  I've got a MA scrapper, and Dragon's Tail is a critical part of his design.  I wonder what the developer thinking was that swapped out Dragon's Tail rather than the lightweight Stormkick?

[aethereal]

20 minutes ago, Techwright said:

Huh.  I never noticed that before.  Not that I have a stalker or anything.  I've got a MA scrapper, and Dragon's Tail is a critical part of his design.  I wonder what the developer thinking was that swapped out Dragon's Tail rather than the lightweight Stormkick?

 

With some exceptions, Stalkers usually lose an AoE for AS.  The idea is you lose something you miss, not your worst attack.

[Ironblade]

Both are fun sets.  I took MA to 50 on a scrapper and SJ to 50 on a tank.  I've only ever taken one stalker to 50 because they always lose something to get Hide.

 

Without having some idea of your play style and what you enjoy, it's hard to make a recommendation.  Although I guess scrappers, stalkers and brutes are really quite similar.

[aethereal]

2 hours ago, Ironblade said:

Both are fun sets.  I took MA to 50 on a scrapper and SJ to 50 on a tank.  I've only ever taken one stalker to 50 because they always lose something to get Hide.

 

They don't!  Invulnerability, for example, loses nothing to get hide.  It does get a static, rather than scaling +to-hit/def toggle, but it's not in trade for hide -- it's just that Stalkers don't get scaling auras.

 

Super reflexes, I believe, loses literally nothing on Stalkers.  The lost auto power just gets folded into evasion.

[ninja surprise]

14 hours ago, JnEricsonx said:

Gonna be Martial Arts or Street Justice-never used either.  After that, I can't decide between Scrapper, Brute, or Stalker?  Though at this point apparently Stalker>Scrapper from what I keep being told.

 

That's only 6 combos, try them all!

Then you'll notice differences between the combos, how rugged each feels, how much aggro each gets, and whether you think it's fun.

For example, I prefer Scrappers out of those three.

Stalkers can do a good burst, but minimal AoE and no taunt effect means chasing down every single foe to punch it. With the Stalker ATOs though you can reliably do fantastic damage.

Brutes are aggro magnets but always have to ramp up damage. So every time you enter a spawn and punch the boss it turns around like "who tapped me on the shoulder?"

Scrappers, especially with the Scrapper ATOs increasing Crit frequency, can often crit on demand, are always at max damage, and are tough enough to take on x8 spawns.

[Neiska]

Petless mastermind that uses Whips.

Or your AT of choice that only uses Boxing, Kick, Crosspunch, Spring Attack. See how good you can make a character that only uses the nonstandard pool attacks.

[Without_Pause]

StJ/ea is fantastic on a Stalker.

[Hew]

StJ on scrapper or stalker, on premise that you max out crushing uppercut damage at any time, rather than worrying about fury (yes yes, cue the imalwaysatmaxfury crowd), or pretty bleh aoe on a tank. Dat crushing uppercut tho...

[Erratic1]

On 9/26/2021 at 4:47 PM, ninja surprise said:

Stalkers can do a good burst, but minimal AoE and no taunt effect means chasing down every single foe to punch it. With the Stalker ATOs though you can reliably do fantastic damage.

 

Both Scrappers and Stalkers get Sweeping Cross and Spinning Strike (so too Brutes and Tankers) the only AoEs in Street Justice. Stalkers lose Rib Cracker. 

 

FWIW my Stj/Nin is a scrapper but I suppose once could accuse him of being a faux-stalker since I put Celerity: +Stealth in Sprint and he's undetectable with Shinobi-Iri running on top of getting a 65% chance to crit from stealth.

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Erratic1
Fixed spelling of sprint

[0th Power]

With stalkers, you cant see your costume. FWIW

[Lusiphur Malache]

I had fun with my SJ/SR stalker.  Runners are definitely a problem when hidden, can turn off hide, but then you're just a scrapper without crit.  Any reason you are choosing between martial and street justice, lot of good sets to choose from. 

[Xeres]

I have a Street Justice brute and a Martial Arts scrapper.  I don't have numbers to say which does more damage or anything like that but it feels like my MA scrapper does more, probably because of the ATOs and being a scrapper.

 

Visually, both are what they seems to be.  StJ seems like a more practical fighting style where MA is a little more acrobatic (although you can change that a little with alternate animations).

 

My fav character I have is the MA/WP scrapper because I am a big fan of the MA animations and status effects.

[roleki]

16 minutes ago, Xeres said:

My fav character I have is the MA/WP scrapper because I am a big fan of the MA animations and status effects.

 

I love my MA/WP scrapper, it's the most unassuming badass... looks like crap in Mids, has only like 7 clickable powers, but somehow survives everything and manages to look good doing it.   

[Without_Pause]

On 9/26/2021 at 3:33 AM, JnEricsonx said:

Gonna be Martial Arts or Street Justice-never used either.  After that, I can't decide between Scrapper, Brute, or Stalker?  Though at this point apparently Stalker>Scrapper from what I keep being told.

Stalkers:

More control over crits.

Innate ability to ghost missions, see merit and Incarnate component farming.

Scrappers:

Mildly sturdier

AoE in terms of primary and secondary since scrappers can get a damage aura.

 

With ATOs factored in, they are rather comparable, Another strike against MA as a stalker is the lack of adding AoE via the secondary unless you go /sd, but you would still be just at Shield Charge as your AoE. MA on a brute with a damage aura is much better option. As mentioned, MA on a brute can lead to a rather sturdy brute.

[Sailboat]

I'm fond of the classic MA/SR pairing.  I add (and slot up) Cross Punch from the Fighting Pool for more AOe.  It's not bad slotted up and you're already taking the pool on most SR builds (to get Tough for slotting the two +3% global Defense IOs, which can only go into a Resistance power, which SR otherwise lacks).  Lack of AoE options is an issue with Martial Arts.

[ZemX]

On 9/26/2021 at 2:01 PM, aethereal said:

it's just that Stalkers don't get scaling auras.

 

Shield Defense Stalkers get a scaling damage buff in Against All Odds.

 

It's really more of an old-think vs. new-think thing.  The original power sets reflect the old idea that Stalkers were nothing more than melee assassins who should strike from the shadows and then go back to the shadows to do it again.   It was a bad idea and it made Stalkers the least played standard AT in the whole game.  Issue 22 made Stalkers much more akin to stealthy scrappers than the one-trick ponies they were originally designed to be.  It was a change the acknowledged how the game was being played and made Stalkers useful playing it that way.

 

Newer powersets and ones like Shield Defense that were proliferated to the AT much later have things the original design assumed would never apply to Stalkers... for example, being surrounded by enemies.  Hence OG Stalker sets lost AoEs and didn't get things intended for the sturdier melee sets that were expected to scrap or tank toe-to-toe with multiple foes.

 

Ice Melee is a good example of a set that was proliferated late enough to benefit from the newer thinking about Stalkers.  Instead of losing an AoE, it trades the terribly bad Greater Ice Sword for the terribly good Assassin Strike.  It's honestly a better set on Stalkers than it is on Scrappers because of that.

[Xeres]

2 hours ago, Sailboat said:

I'm fond of the classic MA/SR pairing.  I add (and slot up) Cross Punch from the Fighting Pool for more AOe.  It's not bad slotted up and you're already taking the pool on most SR builds (to get Tough for slotting the two +3% global Defense IOs, which can only go into a Resistance power, which SR otherwise lacks).  Lack of AoE options is an issue with Martial Arts.

 

I have Cross Punch on my char (with kick and brawl) and it does more damage than Dragon's Tail.  The cone is rather small but yeah, MA's AOE is Dragon's Tail.