Staff Fighting Stalker: Secondary Suggestion?

[BuiltDifferent5]

So I want to pull the trigger on my first Stalker!

 

Staff Fighting seems great. A good +Def power, quasi ranged move, and it picks up another hard hitting ST attack + all the AOE it already provides. Seems made for a Stalker that likes to scrap it out.

Also, and correct me if I’m wrong, it seems to have benefited from the new redraw changes?

 

All that being said, I’m torn on what secondary to choose! Bio, Invuln, Rad, Energy and maybe Elec?

 

Bio seems to be the all in offensive choice, which might make sense on a Stalker. EnA, Rad and Elec all seem to have a good means for endurance recovery. Invuln I just hear has it’s absolute best version on a Stalker?

 

Anyways, I’m open to suggestions on any secondary! What would you pair with Staff on a Stalker, and why?

[StriderIV]

I have a DA/Staff Tanker, but hear that Staff is great on Stalkers for the reasons you stated.

 

I’d probably lean Bio Armor just to go for even more damage. Staff/Elec sounds cool though.

 

I think someone had a thread where it showed how all the secondaries looked fully built out on Stalkers? Not sure where it is.

[BazookaTwo]

Staff/bio is a winner

[BuiltDifferent5]

1 hour ago, BazookaTwo said:

Staff/bio is a winner

This does seem to be a great combo. I was thinking Staff/Invuln would be super survivable… Staff/Bio might just be survivable ENOUGH while bringing really good damage.

 

@Croax I summon thee!

Edited April 29, 2023 by BuiltDifferent5

[SeraphimKensai]

I play a bio/staff tanker and that's a great combo. Otherwise I have a staff/Invuln stalker and it might as well be a tanker because I don't think it's ever died.

 

Either way you go they both work well.

[BuiltDifferent5]

35 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I play a bio/staff tanker and that's a great combo. Otherwise I have a staff/Invuln stalker and it might as well be a tanker because I don't think it's ever died.

 

Either way you go they both work well.

Yeah, I feel like Staff/Invuln would be silly sturdy. How do you feel the damage is, since Invuln doesn’t really ramp Staff’s damage or have AOE’s or anything 

[SeraphimKensai]

Just now, BuiltDifferent5 said:

Yeah, I feel like Staff/Invuln would be silly sturdy. How do you feel the damage is, since Invuln doesn’t really ramp Staff’s damage or have AOE’s or anything 

At the end of the day, its a stalker so its still doing reasonable melee damage. Other sets can come out ahead in damage, but staff is still playable.

[Evercent]

I have a Staff/Elec stalker that's a blast to play. You get some great Def, endurance mitigation, and an amazing T9 on elec.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Evercent

[BuiltDifferent5]

1 hour ago, Evercent said:

I have a Staff/Elec stalker that's a blast to play. You get some great Def, endurance mitigation, and an amazing T9 on elec.

Elec seems really cool stylistically. Idk if I’d take the T9, but it seems really solid across the board.

[Croax]

Hi @BuiltDifferent5,

 

if you want to play Staff then you should more consider what you expect of your gameplay then to min max any numbers, since you will not be doing crazy pylon times with this.

 

If you want to just spam attacks, you can consider a more passive Secondary that don't interact much with you attacks like EnA, invul or Electric Armor. While invul will protect you better, elec offers Endurance. Here you can choose what fits your playstyle more. Ofc you can go with Energy Aura and have the best of both worlds.

 

If you are ok, with managing your green an blue bar with clicks and are 'more aware' of your surrroundings then you can consider Bio or Rad Armor since they have AoE Powers that can be nice proc bombs. But will need you to use these Powers. This will increase your AoE potential even if Staff has some ok area attacks. Especially in groups and if you like to play with a high mob count f.e. +2/8 then these will do you a better job. This two Secondaries can be more tanky then you would expect.

 

You can find all example builds for Stalkers in the tier list i made a while ago (link in the signature). Even if not everything is up to date, it should be a good suggestion where you can start yourt build. Please read the explanation of secondaries keeping you alive or making you unkillable that theory will allways aply even in other games.

 

Cya!

Croax

[Nemu]

Be a cool person and pair staff with fire armor.

 

Double build up burn crit is hot.

[Gobbledigook]

Staff/Ice Armor.

 

Slow aura and debuff damage. Slow/-recharge immune. Endurance/defence clicky. Max Health/heal. Awesome T9. +resists from staff. Slot FF procs in Staff.

 

Can't be bad 😛

[StrikerFox]

Stone Armor is a great all rounder. Pretty easy to softcap to S/L/E/N/P with some DDR. Good resists VS F/C/T. Easy to cap HP, high regen. Go the Superior Conditioning/Physical Perfection route and can probably get an equivalent to 65 hp/s regeneration. Good status protection. 

 

Staff doesn't really need Hasten to run a top attack chain (PS-MB-AS-SR-repeat). Hasten doesn't benefit Stone Armor much. A Hastenless Staff/SA build is totally viable. SA's main drawback is the clunky costume pieces. Also Guarded Spin would benefit a resist secondary more but wouldn't make it any less fun.

[BuiltDifferent5]

2 hours ago, StrikerFox said:

Stone Armor is a great all rounder. Pretty easy to softcap to S/L/E/N/P with some DDR. Good resists VS F/C/T. Easy to cap HP, high regen. Go the Superior Conditioning/Physical Perfection route and can probably get an equivalent to 65 hp/s regeneration. Good status protection. 

 

Staff doesn't really need Hasten to run a top attack chain (PS-MB-AS-SR-repeat). Hasten doesn't benefit Stone Armor much. A Hastenless Staff/SA build is totally viable. SA's main drawback is the clunky costume pieces. Also Guarded Spin would benefit a resist secondary more but wouldn't make it any less fun.

Dude, I LOVE what it looks like Stone Armor can do… I just don’t know if I can make the costume pieces work 😕 maybe if only they had an even more minimal FX option like Bio, or even a no FX lol. It’s the shoulder pad ones that really cause a problem.

[BuiltDifferent5]

7 hours ago, Gobbledigook said:

Staff/Ice Armor.

 

Slow aura and debuff damage. Slow/-recharge immune. Endurance/defence clicky. Max Health/heal. Awesome T9. +resists from staff. Slot FF procs in Staff.

 

Can't be bad 😛

TRUE. So I’ve ran an /Ice Scrapper before, which was the reason I was saying away from it…. But it does sound great 😂

[BuiltDifferent5]

11 hours ago, Croax said:

Hi @BuiltDifferent5,

 

if you want to play Staff then you should more consider what you expect of your gameplay then to min max any numbers, since you will not be doing crazy pylon times with this.

 

If you want to just spam attacks, you can consider a more passive Secondary that don't interact much with you attacks like EnA, invul or Electric Armor. While invul will protect you better, elec offers Endurance. Here you can choose what fits your playstyle more. Ofc you can go with Energy Aura and have the best of both worlds.

 

If you are ok, with managing your green an blue bar with clicks and are 'more aware' of your surrroundings then you can consider Bio or Rad Armor since they have AoE Powers that can be nice proc bombs. But will need you to use these Powers. This will increase your AoE potential even if Staff has some ok area attacks. Especially in groups and if you like to play with a high mob count f.e. +2/8 then these will do you a better job. This two Secondaries can be more tanky then you would expect.

 

You can find all example builds for Stalkers in the tier list i made a while ago (link in the signature). Even if not everything is up to date, it should be a good suggestion where you can start yourt build. Please read the explanation of secondaries keeping you alive or making you unkillable that theory will allways aply even in other games.

 

Cya!

Croax

I’m wondering with the redraw changes this patch, if the clicky armors are better now since it’s not as big of a deal.

 

Invuln and Energy Aura seem the toughest. How is the new Stone?

[BuiltDifferent5]

13 minutes ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

TRUE. So I’ve ran an /Ice Scrapper before, which was the reason I was saying away from it…. But it does sound great 😂

 

8 hours ago, Gobbledigook said:

Staff/Ice Armor.

 

Slow aura and debuff damage. Slow/-recharge immune. Endurance/defence clicky. Max Health/heal. Awesome T9. +resists from staff. Slot FF procs in Staff.

 

Can't be bad 😛

I bet with the Sky Splitter combo finisher, you can max a TON of your resists. Probably all with Icy Bastion going.

[Croax]

1 hour ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

How is the new Stone?

Good but Ugly.

[Gobbledigook]

2 hours ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

 

I bet with the Sky Splitter combo finisher, you can max a TON of your resists. Probably all with Icy Bastion going.

It will help boost those resists until IB is up or/+ rune of Protection.

[BuiltDifferent5]

14 minutes ago, Gobbledigook said:

It will help boost those resists until IB is up or/+ rune of Protection.

Yeah. Only thing it is really missing is a +dmg boost, but it could arguably be the tankiest Stalker lol

[Gobbledigook]

8 minutes ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

Yeah. Only thing it is really missing is a +dmg boost, but it could arguably be the tankiest Stalker lol

+damage is nice when you are alive. Naturally tougher sets can allow more aggressive proc slotting.

 

Bio is probably the best for that extra damage though, it just depends on what you want.

 

EnA is a very good choice also. They can all be made to work well though.

 

 

 

 

[BazookaTwo]

On 4/30/2023 at 4:53 AM, BazookaTwo said:

Staff/bio is a winner

 

I take that back. I just relogged my staff stalker and she is staff/energy 

[BuiltDifferent5]

4 hours ago, BazookaTwo said:

 

I take that back. I just relogged my staff stalker and she is staff/energy 

Yeah, Energy Aura seems to be one of the most popular choices across the board.

[SeraphimKensai]

8 minutes ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

Yeah, Energy Aura seems to be one of the most popular choices across the board.

That's because a well built/slotted energy aura stalker can be made to have nigh incarnate level typed defensive softcaps to a majority of the incoming damage you'll commonly see in the game. @Bopper has a zero point energy em/energy aura stalker build out here on the forums that you can see what I'm talking about if you search for it.

 

That said although playing a toon like that is fun (I have a similarly built EM/EnAura stalker with a few differences that has similar defense values), it potentially could be defensive overkill if you wanted a more offensive based secondary to pair with Staff.

 

Another option to consider is a Radiation Armor stalker for an offensive armor base. With that powerset you can proc bomb out Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero for a couple of pbaoe mini nukes and meltdown gives an increase in damage while it's up as well. You can cycle things like Meltdown, Rune of Protection, and Melee Hybrid to ensure your resistances are capped as well. Factoring in hide and barrier, you can largely control when you engage mobs as well so you can be very sturdy as well.

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

As per your request in your message, here is my current build for my Staff/Bio stalker.  It's probably overbuilt, to be honest:

 

https://www.midsreborn.com/builds/download.php?uc=1724&c=757&a=1514&f=HEX&dc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