Street Justice - opinions on secondary?

[Force Redux]

Hi gang,

 

Looking for opinions. I really like Street Justice's animations and it's a solid performer. I want a no-nonsense secondary, and I am pretty familiar with them from experience and mechanically, but would love some feedback on your experiences to help me get off the fence!

 

Desired parameters:

1. Ease of use. I love bio, but I don't want to be rotating clickies too often

2. I won't take Fighting Pool, so no Weave/Tough

3. I don't take Sorcery Pool, either. Concept reasons. 

3. Would  prefer to avoid Leadership (sets with -Percep/Tohit debuff resists are great then). 

4. I'm okay getting/using Winter sets for slow resist. 

 

Here are are the contenders:

1. Super Reflexes. Has perception/defense debuff resists, immune to slows easily, +recharge, and is generally hands off. Does take a bit to build up to AOE defense a bit later in the levels. Lots of slots left over for other stuff. 

2. Ninjutsu. Gets it's Defense MUCH earlier. Has some nifty tools too (I like Caltrops, Smoke Bomb, etc., so I would use them). Useful T9. Heal - yes, it's clicky. That's okay. It's a only one. Much less DDR. Protection vs. Confuse/Fear. Toxic/Psi resist. Perception resist, too (so no need to take Tactics). No native slow resists. 

3. Willpower. Has a little of everything, but lacks native slow resist and DDR. Kind of a lower performer.

4. Energy Armor. Typed defence, decent DDR, many perks... 

 

Anything I'm overlooking? Thoughts? Experiences? Raves? Pans?

 

Thanks! 🙂

Edited August 14 by Force Redux

[Lockpick]

I like defensive builds and I like set and forget secondaries, so SR and EA would be my first choices in your list.  Unfortunately, I don't like click Mez protection, because you can't use Hasten on Auto, so I would be going EA.  

 

I have the following Street Justice Stalkers at Level 50 with full incarnates and all have soft-cap defense.

 

Street Justice / SR - My 1st Stalker to 50.

Street Justice / Invuln - Don't sleep on Inv because you can soft-cap most positions (except Tox and Psi) and get high resists.

Street Justice / EA

Street Justice / SD

 

These were all played (not power-leveled), so I have some experience with the sets (16 L50 Stalkers).  EA was my smoothest play through by far mainly due to the Endurance mitigation from Energize and Energy Drain.  All these builds suck End and I pretty much took Energy Mastery on all of them.

 

I actually was planning on making another StJ / EA when I came to the forums and saw your post.

 

I won't say you are nerfing your character by skipping the Fighting pool, but it might be hard to hit soft-cap without it.

 

[Triumphant]

StJ/SR is a much beloved combo that I play on both brutes and scrappers, so I can certainly recommend this combination.  I auto-fire mez protect power and manually fire hasten, which isn't a big deal to me but, as Lockpick noted, it's quite annoying to many players, so ymmv.

I must agree with Lockpick though, you are going to want fighting pool to hit defense softcaps, so I can't recommend skipping that one either (regardless of your powerset choices).  I know people hate paying the crosspunch/kick tax, but it's more than worth sacrificing one power to get access to the toughness and maneuvers, trust me.  And crosspunch gives you another decent AOE in your stable of attacks (situationally useful, but still).

[Championess]

I'd probably do Ninjitsu, Shield or EA.

 

Ninjitsu lets you pick less of the powers and ride the t9 more. You can get away with 6 power picks in the armor.

 

Shield gets you good defense and resists plus a real good aoe attack, you'll end up picking most of the powers though and it lacks a heal. 

 

Energy Aura is the best of both except you don't get an aoe attack to supplement into your chain.  You'll probably still want to take at least 8 of the powers.

 

And yeah top choice would be Bio.

[Force Redux]

Thanks gang!

I've been taking a SR, EA and Ninja into the mid thirties to get a feel...

 

I've got a lot of winter's sets and other sets to bump defense, and I seem to be okay hitting cap on mids when I can slot everything...

 

[Force Redux]

I have a bio/spines stalker... pretty effective, but I wanted to try different sets. 

 

Honestly I have Ninja on sentinel and Sr in sentinel and I like them both best there, I'm think I'm leaning mostly towards EA

[Lockpick]

15 hours ago, Championess said:

I'd probably do Ninjitsu, Shield or EA.

 

Ninjitsu lets you pick less of the powers and ride the t9 more. You can get away with 6 power picks in the armor.

 

Shield gets you good defense and resists plus a real good aoe attack, you'll end up picking most of the powers though and it lacks a heal. 

 

Energy Aura is the best of both except you don't get an aoe attack to supplement into your chain.  You'll probably still want to take at least 8 of the powers.

 

And yeah top choice would be Bio.

 

Some good points here especially with regards to Ninjitsu having fewer must take powers.  I'm playing a StJ/Ninitsu now (only L13), but my build has me skipping Caltrops and Smoke Flash.  I'm actually planning to take Placate on this guy because I have extra powers available.

 

Ninjitsu does have the KB hole you need to solve, but it is an easy fix.

[Force Redux]

I'm a fan of any secondary that provides perception/to hit debuff protection (like ninjitsu) because those Arachnos night widows and others who love to use smoke grenade... Over and over lol... It means not having to grab and run tactics.

 

Edited August 16 by Force Redux

[The Trouble]

I absolutely love Ninjitsu with Street Justice.  There's no better pairing if you want to feel like a Dark Knight of your own making.   I took every power from the secondary due to the Rule of Cool, but I agree that many powers are skippable if you wish to chase other concepts and stats.

 

I got my guy to 100% slow resist, 7 knockback protection, and soft-capped all positionals (although I did include the Fighting pool).  I also got Spinning Strike and Crushing Uppercut both decently proc-bombed.  There's a lot of wiggle room with Ninjitsu!

[Force Redux]

Ty @The Trouble; I have three flavors of my stalker progressing, /ninjitsu, /EA, and /SR - they all seem viable so far!

[Warshades]

On 8/13/2025 at 11:53 PM, Force Redux said:

Anything I'm overlooking? Thoughts? Experiences? Raves? Pans?

 

Stone armor is very fun! Not sure if it would fit your concept reasons, but it's a legitimately tough stalker armor set that also provides excellent offensive buffs through Brimstone and Minerals giving extra damage and recharge. Also gets good mez protection with Rooted, not the best DDR but going with ageless radial can help there.

 

I don't have a StJ build that I've played on a stalker, but will post my EM/stone that I use along with a quick StJ/stone that I made while trying to avoid tough/weave. It's a bit more offense focused with procs. I do like taking Adrenal Booster on stalkers to further boost the damage, but giving up on experimentation pool would give you more power picks for CJ and/or maneuvers to more easily soft cap e/n defense without going tough/weave route, which is a bit below 45% in my EM/stone build. Without tough/weave it's a bit harder to soft cap s/l/e/n (still doable if you slot some Winter Sets that gives s/l/e/n 5% typed defense).

 

Just an offer for another contender secondary if you want to try StJ/stone.

Stalker (Energy Melee - Stone Armor)6.mbd Stalker (Street Justice - Stone Armor).mbd

[Force Redux]

Mechanically I love Stone armor. I wish I could take it. But those visuals even when set to Crystal with dark colors still don't drive with my aesthetic... 

 

... Sad panda. Sad sad Stone panda 🐼😐

[Force Redux]

I think I found a costume I can convince works with stone armor VFX. I'll give it a spin.