Jibikao

Oh my, your build looks very expensive with several PvP and purple sets and Shield Wall and Gladiator's +3% unique? How do you afford all that? None of my toons are slotted with full or almost full purple sets. LOL The most I've done is to put two chance for smashing and negative in Fortunata's hold attack. She does have one full set of purple confuse set but that set is like 10% price of melee, range and pbaoe purple sets' price.

By the way, I see you put chance for smashing from Gladiator. Isn't that just 20% minor damage proc in pve like Mako's chance for lethal? I mean if all you want is a damage proc, isn't Gladiator like 100x more expensive than Mako's proc?

Well, from my experience, 1000 Cuts is good. Unless you are only hitting one target, 1K Cuts has 10' reach and much wider cone (much bigger than Shadow Maul) and it has 100% knock down. It is a very good attack that should be used in team play.

The numbers they are talking about here is mainly for the highest Single Target damage possible. Personally, I will not slot Ablating with that much -recharge to get down to the lowest recharge because Ablating procs in Pbaoe style. It is the weirdest single target attack because when proc happens, it checks all mobs around you (about 10' radius)!

If I plan to freaking slot dual blade, I will put Purple Chance for Negative and maybe Chance to debuff resistance in Ablating. The rest of the slots can be a mixed of acc/damage/recharge/end. If I want to be fancy about it, I'll put maybe 3-4 procs in Ablating and use Power slice/Vengeful. I've tested it by putting Chance for Knockdown in Ablating. You'll have a mini-sweep combo right there!

People don't include Vengeful strike in top ST attack but in normal gameplay, it is a cheap way to knock down bosses. You can technically use Vengeful, and then 1K Cuts for two knock downs.

But don't you get aggro right away when caltrops hit? I know I can que up an attack after lightning rod hits because it has knock down. I've even timed it with an assassin strike if it's only one target and knock down happens.

For Stalker? Oh that's good to know. When I learned that Ablating can trigger pbaoe procs (maybe 8 months ago?), I took my old toon out and I didn't see the -defense set assigned to Ablating. Maybe I was looking at the wrong power. There is even more reason to use Ablating then!

Attack Vital on Stalker is only single target. Attack Vital for brute/scrapper is cone.

That's the problem with db. Attack Vital is the extra damage combo for Stalker and yet it ties to 3 of the worst dpa attacks. With enough charge, you really don't need to do attack vital. And then you have Sweep combo and empower combo tie Build Up which means you can only choose one.

Weaken combo is tied with power slice but I guess that's the most skippable combo.

You are right, the unhidden Assassin Strike is the best single target attack for the set.

I think I may toy with procs in Ablating. I want to add chance for knock down and chance for negative damage. hehe

I made a mistake thinking that it's activation time that determines Focus but it is recharge time. From my testing, if you use an attack with at least 10s recharge, you seem to be getting Focus almost 100% of the time (as long as you don't miss).

The worst Focus gaining attack is Gambler's cut! I missed two Focus twice. That makes me change my attack chain. I include Flashing Steel instead since it has longer recharge.

I was looking at dual blade combos and I think the "weird" thing for stalker is that to get attack vital, you need to take the first two tier attacks, and yet, power, nimble and vengeful have weaker dps (cheaper on endurance usage).

My first told db, I skipped Ablating but I mainly opened the battle with BU + 1K Cuts. It's an easy to kill off minions and if there is a boss, I use Empowered combo. But Ablating is the better attack to use! It has 2nd highest dpa (behind sweeping) and it can trigger pbaoe procs (which I only found out recently).

And with enough recharge, you barely need to cycle power/nimble. You can simply do Ablating, Sweeping, Ablating (or vengeful) + AS and repeat.

Like I said, it seems like you can perform better without combos and I don't think that should be the case. Another thing I find it annoying is how Dual Blade has sequence and if you skip it, the combo breaks. For example, I wanted to open the battle with: BU + 1Kcut + AS + Ablating for Sweep Combo finisher but as soon as I use 1kcuts, Sweep combo sequence ends. I didn't want to use BU + AS + Ablating because that would put me in "slow mode" hehe (meaning I need to set up AS before the fight).

I was suggesting in the beta forum that epic/patron should generate Focus as well. The reason is that MA doesn't have aoe and on a large team, I usually start with BU + aoe (I tested Weapon mastery and throwing stars can now critical!!!) and then go in to finish off bosses. I feel MA/EM are at even greater disadvantage for large teamplay.

My old 50 Claw is on my twin brother's account and I don't feel like activating it just to test it (although isn't it free now? Maybe I can try later).

I thought about Claw. I think the new change will help it a lot because Claw lacks a good hard hitter like Spines. I already tested Spines and the new buff is wonderful because I can finally finish off a boss with critical AS without using Placate + AS + interrupted!.

Several things on my wish list:

1. Lower AS's endurance cost. Yes, I know that's the price you pay for having such awesome ST attack but if the goal is to turn Stalker into an even better ST damage dealer than Scrapper/Brute, then Stalker needs to be able to sustain that dps. I feel adding AS into attack chain costs a lot more endurance than I imagined. Set bonuses will definitely be needed for long fights.

2. Re-order Empower combo in Dual Blade so it's not tied with BU. I don't know how but it's annoying that I can only choose one of them. One thing I don't understand is that BU is already a damage buff, so why making another damage buff Empower to tie with Build Up? It's been a long time since I play Dual Blade. What's the damage + in Empower? I think it's 20% for 20s? Does it give +tohit buff as well? If Empower gives +tohit, then they should really re-order Empower because it makes less sense to tie two buffs together.

3. Add something to MA and EM. They already excel in ST damage and the additional of AS is nice but it has less impact on the overall performance. The new AS just makes you want to drop one of the early attacks (like energy punch or thunder kick or even crane kick).

Yeah I agree. At first I was thinking "mmm, my lowbie Stalker is so going to own with the new Assassin Strike" but then after playing him for about an hour, I realize that without good recharge, I am not going to own that hard. At lvl 7, it is still better to start the fight with hidden Assassin Strike.

Focus doesn't happen all the time. It says the chance of happening depends on what type of attack you are using. Longer activation time attacks have higher chance to get Focus.

I've been playing my lvl 7 SJ and I don't always get 3 stacks of Focus. The duration is kinda short too.

We still need to test more. I have a feeling cone/aoe attacks have less chance to get Focus. I was using Sweeping Cross to open the battle on two Longbows that stood close but I didn't get one Focus. It seems to generate Focus less often than the ST attacks and hitting more attacks doesn't seem to increase your chance. Or it could be just very bad luck but Focus definitely doesn't happen all the time.

This means your "dream" combo may not critical all the time.

I was looking at the numbers when I created Gravity/Dark dominator. Propel's listed damage, I believe, includes Impact which makes it a pretty hard hitting range attack. I compare Propel with Energy's Power Blast (10s attack) and if I remember correctly, Propel's damage is as good as a 10s attack with Impact. This should be a big buff for Controller.

I do notice Impact damage. I kinda like it. I just haven't come up a dominator build that can take advantage of Propel/Lift. Maybe Gravity/Earth? Since /Earth has even more terrible range attacks.

I don't think it would work that well. Ninja themselves have no resistance at all (Oni may have a tiny bit of fire resistance). The shield only gives them about 23% resistance and with one pet unique, that's 33% resistance. That's not enough for survival. You'll be locked in "healing" mode all the time.

Now, if you have a friend who can run /thermal with you, then it should work well.