InvaderStych

I have a DP/Bio sentinel that I should probably give another chance - Praetorian concept: Former Cop from some random Devoured city elsewhere who is only half-Devoured out of sheer will-power and the quest for justice that would culminate in taking out Cole if I ever get around to playing it again. /Bio is the hardest for me to concept for, and to look at. The minimal graphics are okay, but the clicks still cover you in boogers, briefly, which still burns my eyes. I've seen some amazing looks done with /Bio in game, but the set escapes me in the CC. One guy had a Space Warrior from the Lovecraftian Beyond thing going on in shades of Red/Black that looked great with the costume pieces in use, for example. I've still not gotten far with one.

Gah, totally forgot Energize existed. 🤣 I did, though, wake up this morning and wonder why an /NRG build needed to dip into Body Mastery. Usually it carries endurance on its own between Energize and Drain. I bet Endo issues could be sorted out and Body could be swapped for something else like Soul, Mu, or something more thematic for the OP's original concept goals. So there is that. 🤷‍♂️

/Bio is the default if you want the maximum increase in dps over time from your armor set. /NRG is one of the strongest armor sets available to scrappers in terms of raw protective ability. Let that make the call for you in terms of re-rolling if you're looking purely at performance. Concept is King, imo, and if /NRG is a better concept fit, and you are enjoying the toon, then I vote for keeping it. Some notes on your build: Take those Procs out of Entropic Aura and slot it for EndRdx in some way. Boost all of your EndRdx and EndMod IOs (the ones that enhance the stat, not the Proc from Perf Shifter) to +5 for maximum results. Physical Perfection offers 1/2 the Recovery of Stamina, and you'll hardly notice losing the second +speed bonus from the Perf Shifter set in there. I'd take that slot out of PP and either use it to get better slotting in Power Shield, or put another single aspect EndMod IO in Stamina for better return on the slot. Musculature Radial will give a boost to both Stamina and PP's endmod numbers, but you might have other options for an Alpha slot. You shouldn't really need the extra knockback protection from the BotZ in Fly, and with Afterburner you don't really need to slot it for speed either. Unless you're trying to use it during combat - in which case you are better off with Hover and EvM. I'd move one slot out of Fly to someplace else, and put a Winter's Gift Recharge/Slow resistance piece in there. 5 pieces of Red Fortune (I think that is the one with the recharge bonus for the 5th piece) and one more LotG +Rech in Kinetic Shield would get you a bit more recharge than you are doing from the Reactive Defenses, and you can move the Scaling Resist piece elsewhere with slots you freed up from either Entropic or PP. Which brings me back to the Perfect Zinger and TI:Stun proc. If you want these effects, Energy Drain is probably a better place for them. Procs in auras will only roll once every 10s, and their proc rate is pretty low. ED without slotted recharge should trigger them almost every time the power is used. Didn't really go over your bonus choices, as I only took a quick look, but raw defense and resist numbers are pretty good. I'm not an expert on /NRG though. For that you want to search for posts by @Linea, who most likely knows the set better than anyone around. Edit: Swap Teleport Target for Combat Teleport, load up some binds (there's a great thread in General right now about CT binds) and thank me later. Slot CT with at least the +Perception piece from the newer Warp set. If you have room for 3 slots, then it's that piece, the range piece, and the endrdx piece that you want.

Thanks, but credit where it is due: Your tech and bind guides (and posts during Page 3's revamp of the Teleport Pool) were instrumental in me figuring out a set that works for me and switching me from ugly skinless macros to cleaner binds and proper skins on the few macro buttons I have left. Those are usually for opening a window and triggering an idle emote at the same time and other similarly silly stuff. The shift-WASD stuff goes all the way back to Page 3 Beta when CT was new, pulled them direct from a thread. I could probably pull the poster's name from my notes, lol. In complete honesty it was CT that got me into keybinds in the first place. 🤣 The thumb buttons, use cases, and FoV change are all me though. 😉 Still, when it comes to binds, macros, or pop-menus I sit at the feet of the giants like yourself whose shoulders I am not yet fit to stand upon. 🍻

Yeah, 100 is going to be way too far for any interior map unless one is moving down a very long hallway or corridor. Maybe some of the big rooms as well. Cave maps? Forget it. Doesn't really impact mobility to over-shoot though. At 35 - what I think are in-game feet but I've never measured it - I'll still hit walls going right or left. I actually don't use those keys near as often as the ones that are targeted to "cursor." Which teleports you to wherever the mouse pointer is located. That is extremely useful. I keep the shift binds though as they are sometimes handy for quick moves to get out of a patch or reposition for a cone. The shift-WASD macros are very useful for certain powers though. Particularly Savage Leap, which gets a bonus when used from range. Vorpal Judgment is another one that benefits from using the shift-S macro to quickly reposition some distance backwards. I used these keys a lot on my Fire/Martial blaster. Burst of Speed into a mob, drop a couple AoEs, then shift-port a few feet out of the scrum and commence blasting. Target port back in and drop some kicks to the face of whatever is left standing. Been a while since I played that toon; it really needs a build and bind cleanup, lol. Really though, it is about those "cursor" targets. It does the same thing as using LSHIFT+LBUTTON which because of the way the left mouse button is parsed has the affect of using "cursor" as your target in the macro, but is less accurate. LSHIFT+LBUTTON can also get triggered more easily when navigating menus or other things. I have found targeting to "cursor" to be much more reliable and less "interference" than using the older LSHIFT+LBUTTON. My binds/macros have evolved quite a bit over time, and lately the target to "cursor" macros get the most use for general movement/positioning. Well, almost everything. 😉 Combat Teleport was, for me personally, love at first BAMF!. In the age old question of "if you could only have one superpower what would it be," my answer has always been Teleportation. I know not every concept needs to be a Teleporter, I respect that. But it is my all time favorite superpower, so most of mine do. 😉 The big game-changer for using CT is to widen out from the default FoV settings. Simply unchecking the "default" box set up a very wide FoV that lets me see features on the field much more clearly. So easy to move from the lower floor of a room to a mezzanine, catwalk, or the top of a shipping container by using the targeted cursor macro. In an office or council base, if you can see something through a window and target it, you can use the location target bind to teleport right into its face. Combat Teleport is the closest thing to a wall hack that exists in The Cities. Remember, if you can select it as a target, you can macro-teleport right to it. This works with both CT and Full Teleport. This works on enemies, teammates, contacts, and most destructible objectives. There are a handful of things/places where CT doesn't work. Prison/Vault doors, for example. Most things that cannot be teleported in themselves were unable to be teleported-to, and not all of them were fixed. Got a ninja on the team bee-lining to the objective? Keep them targeted and if you are within a 300' path you can teleport directly to their location. That is with proper teleport. Fully slotted CT maxes out at about 145' of range and the power does not accept global range buffs. Got a tank that you want to support as melee range dps? Target them and Bamf! Got a teammate who is about to eat floor because they've got too much aggro? Target them and BAMF! to the rescue. Also - Combat Teleport makes friendly rescue NPCs sprint from your previous location to your new one. Rather than moving at the speed of a walk to follow you to the door and constantly getting out of your follow range, something about CT makes them sprint from point to point. If you solo a lot, CT makes friendly rescues so much easier. Even on teams with a rescue mission this trick is great. This does not work Redside where you are kidnapping hostile non-combat NPCs. Those do not *want* to follow you by design, so getting them to sprint with CT doesn't work. Also of note: Macros/Binds that work for CT/Teleport also work for Translocation (Sorcery:Mystic Flight) and Jaunt (Experimentation:Speed of Sound). Finally: Contrary to semi-popular belief, CT is not a good place to slot a Gaussian's. Really only do this if you've nowhere else to put one. At 1PPM with CTs numbers it fires too rarely to be of value against other options, imo. It is, however, an excellent place to slot an RR +Perception piece. (or whichever set has it, I always forget) as that one is a Proc120 and will always activate and give the 2min duration buff on every click of CT. The newer Warp set has a similar +perception piece, some decent bonuses, and good enhancement values for the power, so I tend to use that these days. I play in melee range 99% of the time no matter what I am on. My blasters, save for one, are all blappers. I run more Scrappers/Stalkers than I do any other AT. I don't think CT will end up on my Time/Ice defender, and I haven't yet found it to be more than a utility tool for the handful of Sentinels I've leveled. For a purely ranged character I am not sure there is as much utility, but ymmv. Particularly for flying ranged toons. That said, my Beam/Devices blaster doesn't run it, and I don't think I'll run it on the Time/Ice defender. Both of those are fliers and the blaster is built for range. Haven't decided on Sentinels. I don't have any Controllers or MMs, but I have fiddled with it on a few low level Doms. I do have a couple scrappers with both Hover/EvM and CT for maximum mobility and going toe-to-toe with flying AVs, but the builds lose some durability numbers to get there. Here's the thing. As amazing as Combat Teleport is, it is still slower and more "dangerous" than old-school Blaster Jousting. If you are already very practiced in how to do this properly then CT is going to feel slow because of the rooting. The jousting method of activating an attack while moving past or jumping through/out-of a mob with attacks that don't root in order to prevent them from queuing up a melee attack on you is not as reliable with CT, regardless of the keystroke used, because you are rooted for 0.3s which is usually enough time for critters to activate their counter attack. That said, one of the best games on my stalker is using CT to stay ahead of the team (or just ahead of the lead tank) to get to a hard target in the next spawn with enough time to trigger AS from Hidden and have it land just as the tank/team is drawing the mob's aggro. Takes a lot of effort and attention to move that fast though, and I'm not always feeling that frisky, lol. EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot. Teleport comes with that whole "brief period of hovering until you activate something." The time period is long enough for a ground-pounding character to Teleport (full teleport, not CT, I have both of them bound for getting to targets out of CTs range) via targeted bind/macro to a target that is hovering out of melee range and float there long enough to take a swing. This also works for long AS from Hidden, because the hover period of Teleport is plenty long to do so. What aspects are causing you trouble? Happy to make suggestions if I can.

Must be something about verging on 50 (hitting that benchmark this year myself) that brings out our loquacious and verbose nature because I totally resemble this remark. 🤣 Of course economical word count was never my strong suit in the first place.

A bit too much RL aggro for a proper update, but as I have referenced this thread a couple times now in other threads I figure I should drop a mildly changed build. Mostly swapped a few pieces between Stone Skin and Minerals in order to take better advantage of boosting to +5 in Stone Skin. Also reclaimed a couple of slots out of Health and Crystal Armor and moved them to the Blaze mastery attacks. Yes, I know I could get more single target damage with a proc-bombed Char in place of FS in the rotation, but I wanted the blast and I wanted it slotted. 😉 The Decimation - %BU in Char is rarely used and mostly experimental. I don't think it helps even in long engagements when it triggers, but it is interesting to try. For whatever reason, my Mids won't boost properly. In game pretty much anything that enhances a stat is boosted to +5 because it is satisfying. 😉 Build: Block:

I don't have a Scrapper or Brute build for /Stone, but I did run several versions of it during the Beta when it was re-vamped and again when it was ported over to Sentinels. My /Stone is a Stalker, and if you're interested I think the thread I've not updated in a while is still on the first page of the Stalker sub and has an older draft of my post-50 build within. Having the aura would mean slotting very differently though. Brimstone is a key feature of the set: when it is up each attack has a chance to trigger a fire damage DoT that will cancel on miss for up to 3 ticks total. While the proc itself ignores damage boosts, the Brute version is written to receive a buff from the Fury meter whereas the Scrapper/Stalker versions have a chance for the DoT to Critical Hit for the full value of all three ticks. In practice the damage between archetypes is fairly closely balanced, but I haven't really explored the Brute or Tanker versions of the set all that much. Earth's Embrace is a big fat +HP power that doesn't need slotting unless you want bonuses from a heal set there. On a Brute you'd have the advantage of the higher HP cap and might want more slots than my Stalker which gets away with the default slot. 4pcs Shield Wall and an LOTG +rech is a good start for slotting the defense toggles, Crystal Armor is also a +recovery power and should be slotted with an extra Perf Shifter +Endurance. Brute's Epic with Superior Conditioning might be a good way to mitigate the considerable endurance costs on the set, unless one was going soul for Gloom or elsewhere for concept. Mud Pots does have a slow, but it is marginal at best and slows are heavily resisted by some critters. Many are flat out immune to it like Wolves. Brute's inherent taunt would help keep things in your dmg aura and the aura is boosted by Fury whereas on a Scrapper Brimstone is the only power in any secondary which is coded for critical hits. Meaning no crits in Mud Pots but a Scrapper can crit with either Quills or Irrad. Ground because they are in primaries. Mud Pots will not trigger Brimstone, nor will any other aura. Lots of advantages on the Brute side with /Stone, but they swing the other way (imo) with Katana. Because of SD and GD, Katana is perfectly suited for the Scrapper SCS +50% piece and takes amazing advantage of it. Attack speed isn't as much of a factor for generating fury as it used to be during Retail, so while Katana is awesome on a Brute there's no specific mechanical quirk or advantage to it. Of course with /Stone you'd have the defensive tools available to be able to skip DA, which means not taking a DPS hit when you need to use it. You could still use it, but it would only benefit Lethal defense, as your melee numbers on a typed defense armor aren't going to be high enough of a base to make stacking DA very worthwhile.

This is as it should be! 🤣

These are not entirely what you are seeking (no up macro), but can easily be modified to what your needs and include some useful ones as well if you are running Bamf!Melee. By the looks of your bind request you're on something where a GTFO button is what you want. You can modify the left, right, back, and forward commands to your desired key and distance. Buttons 4 and 5 are the thumb buttons on my mouse. Mousechord is both the L and R main mouse buttons clicked together. For teleport Button 5 can be largely ignored in the following bind file, as I place different clicks there depending on the toon. My current "standard" Combat Teleport/Teleport bind set. Not all my toons are setup like this, some because they are older and others because they have additional powers like Burst of Speed. BUTTON4 "powexec_location target combat teleport" SHIFT+BUTTON4 "powexec_location target teleport" BUTTON5 "powexec_alt2slot 9" SHIFT+A "powexec_location left:35 combat teleport" SHIFT+D "powexec_location right:35 combat teleport" SHIFT+S "powexec_location back:35 combat teleport" SHIFT+W "powexec_location forward:35 combat teleport" I "powexec_location camera:max teleport" MOUSECHORD "powexec_location cursor combat teleport" SHIFT+MOUSECHORD "powexec_location cursor teleport"

So much this. I don't understand this fiction that people either use SOs exclusively or they build with IOs exclusively, and that only the former group levels slowly through regular game-play. I use SOs while leveling because I am lazy, and I pepper in IOs as I go because some are known "always use" pieces, or I get an idea of what the final build should look like as I go along. I level everything slowly, about 50/50 solo/team, because I enjoy it and it gives me insights for what I might do to max out whatever looney concept combo I am working on. This idea that leveling through "normal/standard/linear/whatever you want to call it" game-play and developing a maxed out final build for post-50 content are mutually exclusive is just nonsense. The irony here is that I've nothing against /Regen, I already know what it can do when maxed and what it is like to level. I had the Brute version during Retail from the moment it was ported. 😉

Since we're talking Stalker power selection: My rational side knows that a Stalker's melee damage mod means that Hybrid Core +dmg is the numerically superior option over time, but my creative side keeps reminding me that Double-Hit triggers out of the gate - particularly with AS or an AoE out of Hidden - in an alpha strike when the +dmg from Core wouldn't have time to have stacked. Asking for a Stalker with each at T3 and an inability to commit to a T4. 🤣

Let's be clear: /Stone armor is the business everywhere it is available. 😉 Edit: That is to say that I don't think it necessarily "better" on one over the other, but it plays slightly differently and I found it more fun on the Stalker As to Stalkers: It's already been touched upon, but the exchange of Mud Pots for Hide is bigger than it looks. MP is a fairly big endurance sink, and if I have an aura it becomes a sink for slots as well. Dropping that for Hide means a more endurance efficient version of the armor set, and Hide really only needs one extra slot: 1x LotG +Rech, and 1 Kismet +ToHit are the way to go there, some builds could probably put the LotG elsewhere depending on slotting. So instead of dropping 4 or 5 slots into MP, I drop 1 into Hide and run it for zero endurance cost. Important note here: All of the toggles in the armor have the same endurance costs for Stalker/Scrapper, so the discount from dropping MP is significant. Those Tasty Brimstone Criticals: Seriously, this is the greatest gift to Stalkers/Scrappers since the release of Combat Teleport. A power in the secondary that actually generates critical hits. I *think* it is a 50% chance to critical from Hidden, but when I go back to look at CoD I can't find where I figured that out. For scrappers the Crit chance is boosted by ATOs, and on Stalkers it conforms to the whole "on-demand critical hits" vibe with the ATO that triggers Hidden. It is important to remember that Brimstone is a 3-tick "Cancel On Miss" DoT, but unlike others of its ilk, the damage of the critical hit is for the full value of all 3 ticks, even if only 1 hits and the subsequent two miss/cancel. @Bopper and I chatted about this a while back and the damage increase (I don't remember the exact value) is quite nice. Of course this works identically on a Scrapper under the hood, but it feels more predictable/controllable with a Stalker. For example, the damage it adds to AS feels significant and if you're going to Crit with AS you're probably going to with the Brimstone proc. Finally, it is absolutely hilarious to see the screen fill up with CRITICAL! when Brimstone crits on a saturated Judgment strike. It's meme-level damage, but it's one hell of a meme. No really, I think 3 ticks + a crit adds around 12pts to a Judgment strike because it is neutered by Area Factor. But it is one of the most hilarious things I've had a toon do in quite a while. I'll try to get a screen shot next time I am on the toon, if I remember. 😛 Miscellaneous Debris: Coming from Scrappers, it is interesting to be on a team with heavy melee DPS and lower threat value than I am used to generating. Doubly so underneath heavy, layered defenses and sitting at the HP cap. EE caps a Stalker with a single H/E/R piece in the default slot. I don't think it takes much to cap a Scrapper either. Some numbers, a more skilled builder could likely do better. Double Edit: Mids is set to Attacked/Attacking so those are combat numbers. I usually over-cap to soak a debuff or two, and could probably iCap s/l if I wanted to dial back elsewhere. Recharge Debuff resistance is at 80%. Endurance usage is slightly lower in game; for some reason my Mids won't let me Boost properly. Toon in game is fully boosted to the point of OCD satisfaction over numerical effect. Anything with hard hitting attacks and slightly longer activation times will make the most of Brimstone. Savage Leap and Lightning Rod will not trigger Brimstone, fwiw. I went Fire/Stone/Blaze, but I'd lay odds on Energy Melee hitting harder. I suppose I should update my thread on this one of these days. 🤣

Stalker Stone Armor is a revelation. Struggled to find a good fit for /Stone; turned out the answer was Stalker.

Sounds like we're talking Cloak of Fear here? Is there a Soul Noir option for it? iirc that removes the skull effects? ... there should be if there isn't ...

Obviously. 🤣 But it is the solution. 😉

Powers window in the GUI: Instead of two short columns and one stupidly long one with every temp, prestige, pool, and kitchen sink power in the last column, how about spreading them amongst the three columns. Perhaps Pools and Epics could go underneath Primary/Secondary instead of stacked under column 3?

c o m b a t t e l e p o r t 😉 Some (maybe all) powers that are based on # mobs in range can notify mobs even if the power doesn't effect them. Hybrid Melee Core does this. Only the Radial (defense) side has the actual taunt. Core notifies though, which means it breaks Hidden. Discovered this at T3 on my Fire/Stone/Blaze stalker. I can't think of anything in /SR that would qualify for that, but I am not overly familiar with the set's inner workings.

x2. The wind-up on AS from Hidden sounds like a rattlesnake.

So, now Kevin Bacon can say he's one degree of separation from Kevin Bacon.

So, are folks really claiming they're routinely taking down +4 AVs with an x8 spawn size on even level SO builds with no incarnate powers, no temp powers (meaning no daggers, etc), no base empowerment or other player buffs, and not chewing down an Ultimate or any other Inspiration in the process while totally solo? Because that's what I'm extrapolating from this thread.

Perfect Zinger %Chance for Emotional Damage. 🤣

Thx for the link previously. Lumi already mentioned what I would have said about that thread: what she was experience is mob AI behavior when they just start running across a map as far as possible. I've seen mobs on zone maps run so far away they evaporate from my target window (become no longer targeted). I've chased runners in mission maps all the way back to the door. But that's a separate thing from Taunt/Threat which I *think* relates to the kAfraid (not to be confused with Terrorized which is the result of a Fear Mez) attribute. While Lumi's thread isn't really about Taunt/Threat, necessarily, I'm not ready to discount what you are seeing regarding it. I play a ton of scrappers, and can easily pull an AVs attention with most of them. Since I have no idea what the Tank may or may not be doing (can't always tell who is using what) I generally just shrug it off unless I see something highly unusual, like 2 Tanks unable to keep an AV's attention off my /SD scrapper, for example. So, there might be some "there" there, but getting solid empirical evidence of it might be quite difficult. Figuring out which side of the equation (taunt/threat or mob ai/kAfraid) even more so.

We do? If something broke it after early 2020, I don't recall hearing about it. Can I get a link or a reference here? The weirdest Taunt/Threat thing I've seen was on a 2* ITF where neither of the tanks on the team could not stop Rommy from deciding to chase my /SD scrapper every time I peeled off to take out a shield squid. I think that was more because the two of them couldn't agree on where to pull Rommy to in the first place, and kept Taunt-dragging him back and forth between two spots until one of them got frustrated and quit.

Can Confirm. Fire/Stone/Blaze stalker build, mostly without Procs, has been very good. If I proc'd out Char and used it in my chain it might be even more insane for single target than it is. Which reminds me, we should set some parameters here maybe? External Buffs: - Recharge Cap - Damage Cap - Survival a Given. Does that sound about right? Personal Buffs: - Accuracy/Damage at the ED Cap? - Assume Recovery/Endurance a non-issue? - Proc Bombs on the table or too random?