twozerofoxtrot

It really depends on my theory of play for a character, end usage, and what power selection allows. However, for the characters that do employ SoS, I greatly enjoy Jaunt. It has a longer range, puts you in range faster than CTP despite the overall animation time being .33 sec slower than CTP, and for what it's worth I think it just looks cooler. Really, the biggest slight against Jaunt is that every single power in the Experimentation pool blows. You're literally picking the entire pool just to have combined groundspeed and rapid repositioning on demand. Even the T4 and T5 unlocks are underwhelming for the buy in to access them. Compare that with Teleport pool and it's a lockout. The only power that's niche is Team Teleport, but even that has some decent applications for MMs. Every other power is an all-star after the Travel Pool updates. The Teleport animation proliferation also helps sell it. And for ground mobility between fights? SMART vendor runs work just fine.

There was a player named @Voltak who, despite their unique formating and discussion style had really solid show-and-tell guides for how to conquer challenging content solo or in small yeams with Doms. Recommend searching for their posts and reading through them if you're interested in master classes. This is the last one I could find. Another player who tackles tough challenges on Doms and shows how but is still present is @Frosticus. Search for their posts as well, and take the opportunity to ask questions since they're still active.

What Snarky said isn't totally accurate. Some powers have a higher end cost (I hesitate to say "normal") but there is a suite of attack powers NPCs have available that as he said, will have so low a cost as to make End Drain inconsequential for those powers. So what can you do with End Drain? You can stop certain powers that are very annoying from going off like Unstoppable, Fake Nem Bubbles, or Crey Moment of Glory. Possibly Vengeance too, but I haven't tested. You should be able to detoggle certain debuff, such as Rad toggle debuffs (except most AV/Heroes that use this have insane End Drain Resist) or things like Tsoo Hurricane or Nerva Ghost -ToHit puddle. You can set yourself for more frequent "Shocked" mini crits with Elec Blast. But... yeah. That's all pretty low return on investment for a dedicated sapper build. And most of those effects you can get with a Dom high on Domination.

Another vote for Brute. Nothing more to add than what was already put forward, except maybe that it's easier to level a stone/stone Brute on a budget than it is a scrapper because you're not as tied to your ATO enhancements to unlock your full damage potential.

Hot take but it's not FF that's the problem, it's BR. Your TTK is suffering because you're using a slow, single-target focused set at low and mid levels. Go Fire/FF, Water/FF, or Elec/FF and report back.

Not just Singularity, but Wormhole and the Trip Mine all have substantial knockback that needs to be turned into knockdown for this to work. Definitely add KB > KD to Wormhole, and if budget allows 5-slot Absolute Amazement as well (skip the proc) to get a ton of stun + really good recharge bonus (as @Carnifax correctly mentions, it is important. Definitely add KB > KD to Singularity. This will not impact its area control. Will not. Due to Singularity's reversed repel that draws enemies towards the center, mobs are constantly being hoovered away from you and often locked up by Singy's holds or just thrown on their butts. Grav is my favorite control set. I have it on quite a few combos (including this exact one!) and Singularity always requires at a minimum KB > KD to work well. Otherwise it is a total goat rope. Finally, add specifically Overwhelming Force's KB > KD to Trip Mine. If you only slot one enhancement into this power, it should be this. Personally, I disagree with Carnifax's suggestion to pick up Poison Ray and proc it. Generally speaking it's not bad advice, but unless you're trying to explicitly make -Res debuff your gimmick on this character, then it's not really worth the power or slot investment. And as you've hinted at in your first post, you're feeling tight on slots and powers. Acid Mortar can constantly stack debuffs in a wide area while you do other things. And you will be busy with a Grav/Traps. Also I personally value putting procs in Gravity Distortion over other powers. You can get a lot of consistent single target damage this way, have a lot of damage procs from the Hold sets to choose from, and a lot of them are going to be working for you at lower levels. Can you get big booms out of a proc'd poison trap? Yes. Can you do it every 3 seconds? Probably not. Finally I think the single best pool power for Gravity is Teleport Target. Similar but different logic than Carnifax put forth for Fold Space and Traps; you absolutely want to be able to control exactly where your Singularity is. I always make a macro (or bind) that goes like this: /macro ToMe "$$powexeclocation me teleport target$$Petselectname Singularity" Press this macro once to select your Singy, then again to teleport it right on top of you. The design of the macro can be adjusted to teleport it a certain distance in front of you, above, behind, or even if your Singy has a different name than the default.

Not sure about Esc but Enter key can be bound to this function. It might also activate your dialog box, though. I have this bound to Y key myself. It would probably work with /bind enter "dialog_yes$$startchat"

Kudos to you for being brave enough to put yourself out there again and look for RP buddies after having a bad experience. Unfortunately these forums aren't really a great place for doing that. Not that people here are malicious or anything, it's just sort of not a common occurrence. You might have better luck via Discord or in-game participating in character at various social RP bases (ie clubs, parties, etc). Even if you're shy setting something up in-game, you're more likely to be visible to the kind of writing buddies you're interested in playing with than here.

Until someone posts a build that meets your requirements (I would but my builds are all expensive) I'll offer some general tips to help along your leveling journey. 1) Respecs are plentiful, so don't fear making mistakes or even completely changing your build at different levels. A free respec is granted every 10 levels, they are very inexpensive to purchase as a recipe and craft from the AH, and finally there is certain content that will offer respecs as a reward. 2) Make liberal use of the 5 unique damage enhancements from the START Vendor, listed under the "Prestige enhancement" category. They're totally free, and do not trigger enhancement diversity penalties between each other. If you're sort something good or intentional to put in a damage power, put these in and slot over them at your leisure. You can always go back and get more free! 3) Right now is the mapserver event, or "MS" in chat parlance. This large group open world content will very quickly generate exp and wealth for your character. Something to consider on your first toon, which will serve as the platform for your future game economy. If you elect to try this content, quickly move to the zone people are advertising it in and get in the league, but be warned. It can get a little wacky.

I just use em up. Free candy. Can't sell them so zero opportunity cost to just consuming if you want to make space.

Don't use them, then? Seems like a weird take to deny others fun just because you don't want it for yourself. Personally I don't see the issue:

Better base building tools (has been mentioned but worth repeating) Optic Blast alt customization for Beam rifle (literally all the animations already exist for this, it's just a time/effort thing) Freakshow Customization parts (it's been out there for a years, HC is the official license holder, time to use it) Super Strength for Blasters (my meme dream)

A lot of the folks who haunt the ELTFs channel know the drill, and I think getting a 90 minute time is fairly doable with zerging if everyone is locked in. It certainly helps if there is a character with teleport or a maxed flyspeed and Incan on the team.

You can significantly unfluence the reliability of Scrapper crits through their ATOs; strategic placement of the Critical Strikes proc in particular. Onces you have both Superior ATOs (the 6th one in the set) slotted properly, Crits should feel far less rare, and in particular melee sets can become nearly guaranteed. This is a good way of framing the discussion (though Blasters will always objectively do more so long as they are able to attack). Another way of looking at it is what tools particular sets bring to the table. Scrappers can't affect AV regen like a /Mental Blaster can with Drain Psyche. And no Blaster gets a Taunt Aura to stymie runners. These things all have their place in the time to kill calculus.