Martial Arts vs. Street Justice

[Redletter]

I've been messing around with a SJ stalker, I had been looking to really play with it and on a brute it was fun but unimpressive for me, and the good people on Excelsior pointed me the stalker and so far I LOVE the change. Going from Assassin's strike, straight into the uppercut, into heavy blow or spinning strike, or whatever else I wanna do? It looks so rad.

 

Likewise, I played a bit of Martial Arts on a scrapper and, while it looks nice, Im not critting as much as Id like. The stalker's mechanics help put some social distance between me and RNG and im all about that, but I havent tried it yet on the stalker and, probably most importantly, the animations on its version of Assassin's strike dont thrill me (the double punch is on like, a whole bunch of stuff and the palm strike, while cooler, isnt really what id want from this kick focused set).

 

Which brings me to my new conundrum. Im working on a Tsu themed character, and while martial arts is certainly more FITTING, I dont know how it plays compared to Street Justice, which also would thematically fit the character as theyre not personally a member of the tsu, just kinda tsu adjacent.

 

Would you call them comparable? Like, I know MOST primaries are MOSTLY interchangable at a certain point, but Id like some imput from you stalking masters (Stamasters? Mastalks? Hmm...) about how they compare. I feel like, just by it's nature, Street Justice combos (pun half intended) more naturally than MA? But If MA just hits like a bus, I can cope with NOT double uppercutting a rikti monkey to the moon.

[Croax]

Do not play MA on a Stalker, if you can avoid it.

StJ is very strong and solid. So that is a very good option.

But if you are looking for a Tsoo Themed toon, you could try out Kinetic Melee. It looks natural enough and has some ok tricks in its sleeves. Burst will allways crit out of Hide which is very satisfying to play around.

And you skip the t9 and do not use the ranged attack. Instead you go for a very fast attack chain with the first 3 melee attacks + Assassin Strike. You got your attack chain running at lvl 8. For me it was a little bit boring overall but i liked to do Burst as a opener and again after the Assassin Strike Hide proc. You will need a bit of recharge and endurance can be a problem, so Energy Aura is a perfect fit. I can see some other Armor sets working well with it too but your Tsoo Theme could be limiting in that case. Because Stone, Bio, Ice, SR, Elec can all work well with KM but have unfitting visuals.

[UltraAlt]

8 hours ago, Redletter said:

stalking masters (Stamasters? Mastalks? Hmm...)

 

Assassins

 

8 hours ago, Redletter said:

Im working on a Tsu themed character

 

Tsoo

 

8 hours ago, Redletter said:

while martial arts is certainly more FITTING, I dont know how it plays compared to Street Justice

 

Martial arts will play about the same (but with different animations) as long as you pick the same secondary.

[carroto]

My only issue with MA on a Stalker is the complete lack of AoE.  If you're okay with that then I'd say go for it.  There's something magical about kicking a mob and sending them flying.  I doubt I could ever get tired of it.

[Without_Pause]

MA is oddly enough best on a Brute or Tank since the T2 adds def. On a Stalker, it has no AoE until you get to epics. StJ is legit top tier for a Stalker. 

[Linea]

On 12/14/2021 at 12:48 PM, Without_Pause said:

StJ is legit top tier for a Stalker. 

I rate StJ best overall for Stalkers.  The other bests are likely:  EnM for ST Damage, and Electric/SD/Snipe for AoE.

[Without_Pause]

I'm still working on leveling Ice, but I think it is in the conversation. Ice Patch works with its default slot. It is a pet so it won't break Hide. Frozen Aura's sleep is great for a Stalker since it pushes combat towards one-on-one battles which Stalkers specialize at. It offers a hold which can eliminate a troublesome target if need be. You can skip the unloved T1, and the other hated attack that is GIS is changed into AS, so there is a gain in conversation. It is easily the best version of Ice. Ice is also hardly resisted and my Tank has enjoyed that in his solo leveling compared to Kat. Again, it is early, and my slotting is patchwork currently, but I like what I am seeing from the set. Once the Winter Event is over and I'm not hording Winter Packs, I'll pop a respec on the build and clean up the IOs. 

[StriderIV]

11 hours ago, Linea said:

I rate StJ best overall for Stalkers.  The other bests are likely:  EnM for ST Damage, and Electric/SD/Snipe for AoE.

What secondary would you pair with a StJ stalker? I have an EM/EA that hits like a truck, but would be interested in a StJ build 

[Without_Pause]

EA, Stone, or Shield. I assume Stone based on early returns from others.

[Haijinx]

You can do a MA/Nin Scrapper gaining an extra crit bonus, but keeping the full MA set.

 

[Chelsea Rorec]

I've never had a problem with MA on a stalker.

Helpfull hint.

Slot cobra strike for damage.

It is more damage than eagles claw and 1 shots from hide with a fast animation.

Storm Kick 54.74 (touch of death)

Crane Kick 50.97 (mako's set)

Cobra Strike 48.88 (touch of death)

Eagel Claw 48.76 (assassins mark)

 

Any one of those will one shot from hide.

MA isn't a bad set overall.

Edited December 17, 2021 by Chelsea Rorec

[Shred Monkey]

I like a lot about stalker MA... it has great attacks for using procs and for building up charges to make assassin's quick strike crit.  However, every time I ran the numbers, I got more DPS out of Street Justice.  Mostly because Crushing Uppercut just hits so darned hard.  I like MA more on a tank, because of the AoE and defense numbers, and it's just fun to do an "all kicks" build.  But there's nothing wrong with the stalker version.

 

 

[Without_Pause]

3 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

But there's nothing wrong with the stalker version.

 

 

It lacks AoE.  If Stalkers had better ways to gain AoE damage via their secondary it would be a lesser issue, but forcing players to get an AoE via their epic might not be ideal and it is a long wait or skipping on an MA attack to pick up Cross Punch. There's no reason why a melee set which defaults to quick animating attacks sans EC should be given seven ST attacks. Even a leveling build with EM and I can really only use four. End game builds for some sets can use three. But here's seven options for MA! I'm glad a number of Stalker sets got converted over well, but some of the conversions are mind numbingly stupid. See Claws.

 

Not a super fan of the EM's conversion either, but if it kept WH, it would be EXTREMELY difficult to not default roll EM for a Stalker. Not a fan of it's speed, but EM hits ridiculously hard. 

[StriderIV]

14 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

EA, Stone, or Shield. I assume Stone based on early returns from others.

StJ/Stone sounds like a big pretty crushing stalker haha

[Glubba]

On 12/16/2021 at 1:22 PM, Without_Pause said:

Once the Winter Event is over and I'm not hording Winter Packs, I'll pop a respec on the build and clean up the IOs. 

Would love to see this. I have a 30 something ice stalker that I love. Would love to see your finished take on the build.

[Without_Pause]

11 hours ago, Glubba said:

Would love to see this. I have a 30 something ice stalker that I love. Would love to see your finished take on the build.

That currently means for a level 22ish character where I am dumping uncommons and such I used to get to there. We are talking sets you can add at 7 and might have three of them in the whole set. I have used Croax's build before for my StJ/ea so this one will be highly like his except going for a bit more recharge in a spot versus the additional end recovery. I'll change more if I see it, but Croax's looked good at initial pass. I do need to go back and see what I might change on the StJ/ea build. I know more now versus when I default copied builds. Granted, I did tweak one build(Claws/wp brute) I saw in spots since there literally was no advantage to keep the slotting as is versus making some changes. Something like three slots total. The two slots from a set gave a bonus. If you switched the set to the same as the first slot, you got the same bonus as the previous set and a bonus for three slots. 

[tidge]

On 12/14/2021 at 12:48 PM, Without_Pause said:

MA is oddly enough best on a Brute or Tank since the T2 adds def. On a Stalker, it has no AoE until you get to epics. StJ is legit top tier for a Stalker. 

 

I haven't tried Martial Arts, but I reworked a StJ/Willpower Scrapper as a Stalker and I find the Stalker to be the better of the two builds for 99% of content I've tried. The 1% is due to escort missions in which I have to turn off Hide. This is not usually a big deal, but the auto-Hide Stalker ATO still comes into play.

 

The main differences that I (non-scientifically) observe about StJ on Stalker as opposed to Scrapper:

• On the Stalker, I am very rarely thinking about combos (which I find to be a mixed bag)... so I don't sweat trying to have an optimized attack chain.
• The Stalker ATO seem to work much better at improving DPS.

[Without_Pause]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

 

I haven't tried Martial Arts, but I reworked a StJ/Willpower Scrapper as a Stalker and I find the Stalker to be the better of the two builds for 99% of content I've tried. The 1% is due to escort missions in which I have to turn off Hide. This is not usually a big deal, but the auto-Hide Stalker ATO still comes into play.

 

The main differences that I (non-scientifically) observe about StJ on Stalker as opposed to Scrapper:

• On the Stalker, I am very rarely thinking about combos (which I find to be a mixed bag)... so I don't sweat trying to have an optimized attack chain.
• The Stalker ATO seem to work much better at improving DPS.

The other main difference is StJ traded a middle ground ST attack for AS and thus it did well in getting converted over. 

Edited December 28, 2021 by Without_Pause

[Redletter]

So i meade both on the beta server to test how they play toward the end of their lives, and then on real servers to see what leveling is like without all the fun IOs.

 

As i suspected, at the END of their lives, MA and StJ play roughly the same, but Stj hits harder and has native aoe options while MA has eeeeeever so slightly faster recharge and cheaper costs. With both using SR as the secondary, they could go into dark astoria and solo without much difficulty (though, this would be a character with probably well over 20bil inf spent on them if i were to try and make it outside the freebie zone).

 

During leveling though was a totally different story.

 

In the start, theyre virtually identical. StJ feels nicer since it's animations are dope, and the knockdown on heavy blow, while rare, can and WILL save your ass when you least expect it. Especially since I slotted it with the P2W chance for knockdown. It's generally cheaper early powers really help keep you swinging before needing to chew a blue - which means you can use those blues youd be chewing on reds, or greens, or purples. MA on the other hand has sick kicks that do a bit more damage, which is really nice since StJ's big problem for early levels is that'd id hit a guy with that elbow, and he'd still be up for a couple of brawls - even from stealth sometimes the elbow doesnt kill. MA on the other foot could kick a thug in the teeth, then i hit him with brawl and he's out, and if its a crit that foot will take his jaw off in one. Also, I know it'd minor, but youll miss more elbows than you do kicks, and theres times where i missed a thug three or four times in a row with stj, where i hadnt with MA. I know it's a dice roll, but that miniscule added accuracy, combined with the defense debuff, helps make sure in prolonged fights that you keep landing your hits.

 

Once you get the Assassin's Strike though, things take a HUGE change though because of how StJ's assassin's strike works. THAT thing is literally built different. Because you can hit AssStrike, then hit your cross to lay out every idiot in a cone, so you REALLY get some nice crowd control in the form of the stun and knockdown chance. At this point I had moved the p2w enhancement over to cross specifically to try and get at least SOME kind of CC out of it, which tended to compliment the occaisonal fear AssStrike would give me. Meanwhile MA has no such luck.

 

MA's lack of AoE doesnt bug me as much as it seems to bother other people. Like, im a stalker, if I wanted to AoE i'd be a tanker, ya know? AoE is a nice side benefit of some of these sets, but i dont care if a set has it or not. However, it DOES mean that StJ didnt really need to do the "stalker shuffle" (wherein I find the biggest good, turn his skull into jelly, then run away until im told im hidden again) as often as MA did. With MA i started seeking groups way more often, and it led to fun moments where i'd say "hey team, can I run ahead and assassin's strike the boss of the area and see if I kill him? I will almost absolutely certainly die doing this, and there's no guarentee ill kill him, but I wanna see if Im that powerful yet." and MOST people would let me do that once or twice a TF! MA really excelled at that, and in the right groups MA was GREAT! Like, in groups where people were ACTIVELY taking the agro off me, it meant I could kick goons in the temple, and get more bang for my dwindling endurance than the aoe's stj was offering me.

 

Things change again once you get to 18-20 . MA pulls ahead here because cobra strike is pretty bonkers. Spinning Strike, while stupidly cool, just cant compete, at least for me. The cooldown is SO long and it's such a SMALL aoe. 10 targets total is nice, but as I said before, stj was preforming well solo, so me being THAT surounded made for a bad situation for me. THIS was when i started seeking more teams, because Spinning Strike became really welcome on teams. Once again, having a person who would make themselves the target of the wrath of goons freed me up to gamble with StJ's various CC effects, which in turn help them by keeping them safer AND dealing big chunks of damage. MEanwhile, MA could now solo pretty well since dropping Cobra strike to a lower CD basically meant it replaced Crippling Axe Kick in my rotation and that stun popped off far more often than I thought it would. This REALLY helped keep me safe by just taking an enemy out of the fight, and since the stun lasts long enough for the kick to come back up I could basically spread it around. Again, the endurance drain sucks, but it's not NEARLY as bad as StJ which is now guzzling nearly half my bar. It was at this point I resepec'd, and for the first time the two builds took divergent paths.

 

StJ dropped super speed entirely (for now) and picked up brawling (replaced super speed and hasten, with boxing and tough) while MA stayed on it's path. Hasten wouldnt be on the final 50 build, but for now it was a nice ability to have when i just REALLY needed more of my powers.

 

36 is where theyre both at right now, and theyve both just respec'd. The reason for this is because MA got Crane Kick which is just a mildly more expensive cobra strike, but there's enough slots now to put crippling axe kick back into the rotation. Slotted MOST of these out with endurance reduction, with the only exception being Eagles Claw, which ive just been stacking damage onto. It isnt terribly expensive for the damage it deals, and 16secs isnt too long to wait, since all my other attacks are doing reasonable damage.

 

Meanwhile. StJ now has 

 

!!CRUSHING UPPERCUT!!

 

Which immediately got 6 slotted, even though I have nothing to put there. Because, theres FEW things in this game cooler than hitting an stj AssStrike then, immediately going into a crushing uppercut. Those TWO powers make up 70% of my attacks in a fight. On occaison ill throw out a shin breaker to lower some idiot's defense just long enough for assassin's strike to come back up then I slug that selfsame idiot in the jaw, which leaves me with 3 combo in the meter for a crushing uppercut that'll express mail a goon's ass to mars.

 

Ultimately, martial arts has been really CONSISTENT. Like, from start to finish, playing the game like a game, MA kicks a lot of ass. It kinda requires you to remember to PLAY your stalker AS a stalker. Sometimes, I really JUST needed to run my ass away, wait till im hidden, then run back to hop into the fight again. MEanwhile, StJ NEVER required me to game it out like that. Even when soloing got rough, the stj would naaaaaaarrowly edge through, especially once I ditched Super Speed entirely in favor of Fighting.

 

Thanks to all of you ninjas, I really appreciate the learning experience!

 

But really it just goes to StJ. Style beats consistency literally EVERY time.