WildStar Stalker Tank Guide

WildStar Stalker Tank Guide by Pimp

A lot of people say that deflect is the primary stat for Stalker tanks, well I learned the hard way that it’s not. The main stat that you want for stalker tanks is armor/resistance. Armor evenly increases physical, technology, and magic resistance. But the main damage you take (if you can dodge telegraphs properly) is physical. When putting runes in, you will get more bang for your buck if you slot for physical resistance. Because you mostly take Physical Damage and you get more physical resistance from the physical resistance runes than the armor runes, I highly recommend going for physical resistance.  Because of this I base my stats on the following:

Stats

1. Physical Resistance is your primary stat, you want to focus on getting as high as you can. This will keep you from being that squishy stalker tank that everyone hates.

2. Armor is the next best thing as it increases all three resistances (including physical). It also is possible to craft gear for armor (unlike physical resistance) so this allows for a more flexible gear choice.

3. Deflect Crit is probably the stat you are looking for if your health is flying up and down randomly. This is because the mobs are deflecting you sometimes (likely because of your high deflect rate from another guide) and other times are criting you for multiple times the amount of the base attack. This inconsistency is hell for healers and will make it easier on both of you if you avoid this situation at all costs.

4. Support Power/Tech Support power and Tech is much like Physical Resistance and Armor, as pure Support Power gives more for your moneys worth than Tech, but items tend to have tech more often than Support Power (minus weapons, and some other slots). ANYWAYS, go for support power until you hit around 1500. I have about 1550 SP at the moment and have no problem with mitigation or holding aggro (unless I zone/tab out of course :P). If you need a bit more you always can get more, but this is cutting into your Physical Resistance/Armor budget, and even  though your nano field may heal you for a couple more hit points, you are going to end up taking more than that from the missing armor.

5. Insight Good alternative for deflect, decent stat to have on gear, more useful than grit, but pure Deflect Crit Rating is better to have.

6. Shield Good when used with Empowered Attack Mastery. Can also be used with AMPs and Rune sets to cut the reboot time of your shield down to almost instant (I will cover this later in the Rune Section)

7. Health/Grit Obvious, need a decent amount, but this stat is sort of useless because if you are stacking health and do not have any armor/resistance/etc, you will get hammered down in no time. Around 30k works fine for me.

8. Deflect Most overrated stat in Wildstar in my opinion. Can be good to proc certain skills, such as decimate, but in the long run isn’t worth it. Also, this build doesn’t use any skills that requires a deflect to proc.

http://ws-base.com/builds/11210-Pimp_s_Stalker_Tank

Couple notes about this build 

• This build has extra AMP points from EP. “Don’t Call It a Comeback” and “Balanced” are optional and can be switched out in various places.
• Strikethrough and Crit is used to proc punish, Do not get gear to get strikethrough/crit, it’s not worth it and these AMP points are sufficient.
• Stagger, Collapse, and Pounce are all optional, I sometimes switch out Pounce with Razor Disk or Preparation (more will be in the Skills section)
• May go into more detail about AMPs later but most of them are pretty obvious why you may need them. If you have any questions just post below and I will be happy to answer.

Skills

Whiplash (T4) is a filler, generates a pretty good amount of threat. Spam this with nano field.

Nano Field (T8) Amazing self healing, also increases the healer’s incoming heals to you when active.

Steadfast (T8) Great mitigation, I put at tier 8 to have 2 seconds of near invincibility. This gives you and the healer time to shoot your health back up to the top quickly. Also extremely short cooldown for how amazing it is.

Razor Storm Good to grab your threat back if someone gets more threat than you (common with SpellSlingers and their spellsurge burst).

Punish Pretty crucial skill to have, restores suit power for more nano fieldin’!!

Stagger Useful CC, Interrupts (1 IA)

Collapse Useful CC, organizing monsters w/ the pull. Pull (1 IA)

Pounce One of my favorite skills, great for dodging, pulling, and oh shit moments when you need to get away or pull something far away.

Razor Disk I like this for the 10% armor reduction, helps burn mobs quicker if interrupts or pounce isn’t needed.

Preparation Good if you spec into Tier 4 for the self heals, recommended if healer is having problems keeping you alive. (Also increases Deflect/Crit)

I don’t use Decimate, Frenzy, or Reaver because I feel none of them are needed with this rotation. The Support Power buff is nice from Decimate but just not worth the T8 skill points to me. Maybe once I get the bonus Ability Points from EP I will look into it, but right now it’s just not worth it. I don’t use Frenzy because I get more threat from spamming Nano Field and Whiplash than I would from using Frenzy. Reaver may be used for certain fights that have a lot of spawns that need a taunt to grab from a decent distance, but I have found pounce to suffice thus far. Tactical Retreat at Tier 4 is the only CC break stalkers have currently, and I strongly recommend avoiding this at all cost because Tactical Retreat drops all threat, so unless you want to be chasing after all the monsters you just lost threat to that is wrecking your entire team, don’t use it. Also, seems to be a waste of Ability Points to me, unless you are in absolute need of a CC break. :)