Which primaries are good for sustained DPS?

[MalphiteMeIRL]

I'm pretty new to the stalker AT as a whole. Which are some of the primaries that have good sustained DPS? Is it mostly the same sets as scrappers/brutes?

[Dixa]

all are good sustained dps if you build around them.

 

it's hard to beat street justice though. really, really hard. plus it feels weighty and looks cool as hell.

[JStacy337]

I'm running a KM/EA Stalker and the DPS is very sustainable with little to no End hogs, so long as you know what you'll be fighting against.  */EA is also a plus as its Status toggle grants a +20% Recharge bonus to all powers while activated

[Koda651]

Dark Melee has always been strong.  I second the vote for Street Justice, though; it hits like a truck, has really great sound and animations, and its combo system interplays VERY nicely with the Assassin's Focus mechanic.

[FUBARczar]

Yeah my main stalker way back when was a Street Justice/Ice Armor, it was great!

 

I'd say pick your flavor:

Street Justice

Psionic

Dark or Energy Melee (but I would only use it with Shield, Fire or Radiation secondaries which have AoE attacks in them)

Ice

Dual Blades

Staff Fighting

[MalphiteMeIRL]

Sounds like StJ is pretty good, I think I'll try out that and broadsword. (The fact that this got proliferated is hilarious to me)

 

Thanks a ton for the info everyone :)

[MalphiteMeIRL]

Figured I'd do an update instead of making a new thread all together. I've narrowed it down to Dark/Shield and StJ/Shield. How is dark melee on stalkers since they don't get soul drain?

[Dixa]

Figured I'd do an update instead of making a new thread all together. I've narrowed it down to Dark/Shield and StJ/Shield. How is dark melee on stalkers since they don't get soul drain?

 

you really aren't going to top street justice. not only does it have an aoe and a small cone that do great damage and recharge fast, it's tier 9 hits harder than assassins strike.

 

Your strike Infernal with your Crushing Uppercut for 580.2 points of smashing damage!

You hold Infernal with your Crushing Uppercut!

You knocked Infernal from their feet!

Your target takes 108.93 points of bonus smashing damage!

Your Doublehit hits for 253.32 points of Energy damage!

 

when it crit

 

Your strike Infernal with your Crushing Uppercut for 474.8 points of smashing damage!

You hold Infernal with your Crushing Uppercut!

You knocked Infernal from their feet!

You land a critical hit with your Crushing Uppercut for an extra 379.84 points of Smashing damage!

Your target takes 89.14 points of bonus smashing damage!

Your Doublehit hits for 207.3 points of Energy damage!

 

I just don't think it's possible to top street justice on stalkers for single target, and for aoe it's really not far behind the other sets with how fast spinning strike and sweeping cross recharge.

[marcussmythe]

It would be interesting to see what EM would do if it lost its 'no/reduced crits' flag.  I contemplated an EM Stalker (due to my love for the set back when it was good), but then saw that no-crit ET clause and walked on.

[00Troy00]

On 6/13/2019 at 9:30 AM, marcussmythe said:

It would be interesting to see what EM would do if it lost its 'no/reduced crits' flag.  I contemplated an EM Stalker (due to my love for the set back when it was good), but then saw that no-crit ET clause and walked on.

What was the rationale for taking it away?

 

Did other power sets lost it too?

 

I admit, Energy was on my short list for a smaller primary, but maybe it shouldn't be.

[Maelwys]

Necro, but IIRC EM used to be so far in front of the others mainly due to Energy Transfer's animation time.

 

The Devs never really considered animation time in the original balance passes. So whenever EM Stalkers first came on the scene, Build Up plus an "invisible assassin's strike crit" followed up immediately by a ridiculously fast animating ET meant that they were two-shotting everything, including other Player Characters in PVP zones. I used to run one. It was fun for the first 5 mins until everyone but Teleport-Foe-Totting-Turtling-Traps-MMs fled the zone.

 

It took a long time for EM to be ported to Scrappers because of the perception around how strong the Spike Damage-per-Animation of ET was. The solution they eventually settled on was to make Scrapper Critical hits not double the damage but do other things (negate the health penalty of ET, and only partially affect TF). After that over the years came more animation tweaks to EM and eventually the current "combo mode" where you can get 'fast' ET again providing you jump through a few hoops first.

 

Compared to whenever it first arrived, current EM has substantially better AoE damage and nearly as good ST damage. So IMO they've actually done pretty well with balancing it out.

[Crysis]

Necro again, but I’d parked my StJ/Shield stalker in low forties forever and just pulled her back out to play again.  There are obviously some enemies who are resistant to Smashing damage, but overall, she’s a TON of fun.  You want big oversized spawns to take advantage of the +DMG from Against All Odds, and I can highly recommend Soul Mastery PPP for ShadowMeld.  With high +Recharge, you almost never have to stop to regen health because you just keep cycling between Shadowmeld when pulling together a huge spawn and then its up again for the next one.  

 

I routinely would run the first two missions of the ITF on solo to grind out my Incarnate levels quickly.  

 

Very potent combo, and looks great also!