InvaderStych

/Stone on Stalkers is the figurative Business. EE is weird, I sort of think the numbers need a tune. You hit well over the HP cap with it barely enhanced after accolades, but the heal is of very low value at that level of enhancement. It is more of a +HP/Toxic Resist power than Heal. Which, I guess maybe that is what it always was? Only played /Stone experimentally during the revamp before this character. Good Regen, Good Recovery, Mag 30 Confuse Protection, and Brimstone DoT damage getting fat Critical Hits. Highly recommend having at least one.

It needs the Brimstone Treatment. All "Cancel On Miss" DoTs are not included in damage calcs for Critical Hits. Except Brimstone. Brimstone Armor's Proc is chance for 3 tics of fire damage over time, with a 20% miss chance on each tic. A miss cancels subsequent tics. (Lots of DoTs are written this way). Brimstone is the only exception to this of which I am aware. On a Stalker/Scrapper Brimstone will Critical, and when it does it so for the full value of all 3 tics, even if only one of them was successful. (Edit: Fun Fact - On a Stalker coming out of Hide, Brimstone's DoT gets the same 50% chance to Crit as a standard AoE.) This needs to be done for Savage. Include the full value of Cancel On Miss DoTs into the Critical hits. If it can be done for Brimstone, it can be done for Savage. Next, and at long last, ALL attacks/damage dealing powers in Stalker/Scrapper armor sets should be granted Critical Hits as well. Those powers have been buffed by Fury for Brutes from Day One, and were recently buffed for Tanks via the increase in their AoE size and target caps. Meanwhile Scrappers/Stalkers are over here like, "Hey, guys, aren't you forgetting something?"

Saturated AAO + Insight + GPB + Critical Hit = Target Eraser.

Not the dmg auras. Toggles that confer a benefit per mob (or are a debuff, or both) in range have a taunt in them: Invuln (Invincibility?), Shield (AAO), Rad (Beta Decay), uh ... 2 or 3 others. AAO for example: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=scrapper_defense.shield_defense.against_all_odds&at=scrapper

Thusly: lshift+w "powexec_location forward:40 combat teleport" lshift+a "powexec_location left:35 combat teleport" lshift+s "powexec_location back:40 combat teleport" lshift+d "powexec_location right:35 combat teleport" Use as is for a bind file, preface with /bind to enter manually in game. I *think* the numbers correspond in-game feet, but I am not 100% certain. camera:max ... is also a valid location.

Welcome Home. My suggestion is to start here. Or with a Sentinel (more on that below). Don't worry about movement, running, positioning. They'll come back to you as you play. The new-ish pool power Combat Teleport does wonders to elevate the positioning game for melee. Read around on the forums for more info - there's a decent thread going on in the Stalker section at the moment about the wonders of Bamf Melee. Take Willpower as your secondary, Brute will be slightly more durable, Scrapper will do more damage - but with these ATs no one will have any expectations of you on teams other than bringing big orange damage numbers to the table. With a Tank you may run into folks who expect you to manage aggro/control battlefield placement, and/or herd adds and runners into the scrum. Brute is easy mode. Willpower is also easy mode. A "fire and forget" armor, no clicks to worry about, decent recovery and regen. Lets you get back into the game with a minimal number of powers to activate and lets you concentrate on re-acquainting yourself. Sentinels are basically Ranged with Armor. They can play in melee (their ranges are shorter than blasters anyway), and might be a good way to get back into the swing of things without worrying so much about placement, mobs with random zoomies, etc. Willpower is also available for Sents. Any primary for either Brute or Sentinel would do the trick nicely. I went Savage/WP for my first 50 upon discovering HC. Worked a treat for a refresher course.

So, I love vintage Toyota Landcruisers. Was even fortunate enough to own one for several years. I also love analogies, so don't worry, this post will become relevant to the thread shortly. This is a faithfully restored, but otherwise all original 1982 FJ-40. It is a piece of automotive history that someone has spent time and effort to ensure remains true to the original: Here's the thing. They were amazing, ground-breaking trucks that took the Land Rover idea and made a truck that actually worked.1 But they are also slow, contain engines that couldn't pull the skin off a custard, uncomfortable, cold in the winter, hot in the summer, loud, and on a long road trip will fold you into knots so uncomfortable that the people who figured out "stress positions" useful for torture could take a few lessons. This is a 1976 "Resto-Mod" FJ-40. It has upgraded (comfortable) seats, a Cummins Diesel swap, better suspension, better transmission, an insulated/sound-dampened interior, upgraded hardware, fittings, instruments, better roll cage, better bumpers, better wheels, etc, etc etc. It is a superior vehicle by every measure relevant to actually using and enjoying a vehicle. I'd be happy to own either, but guess which one I would rather drive? Yup, the Resto-Mod. Homecoming is a Resto-Mod. Faithful to the spirit of the original while improving upon what was wrong/inadequate with it at the same time. My Opinion: A true "Vanilla" server that faithfully stuck to the state of the game during Retail would not be nearly as fun as nostalgia would lead one to believe. This is of course, subjective. Some folks absolutely hate Resto-Mod Vehicles, and I respect that. What I don't respect is someone who comes into a forum for Resto-Mods and proverbially s#$%'s on everyone's parade because they don't like Resto-Mods. How about just letting us drive our Resto-Mod? 🍻 1 - Yeah, shots fired at the LandRover faithful. Come at me. Even James May will admit - and has done so on camera - that if you want to merely "go into the Outback, take a Land Rover, but if you want to get home again, take a Land Cruiser."

Here's the thing. Interface effects stack collectively, and have a stack limit of 4 for the effect and 8 for the DoT (iirc). "Everyone" takes Degenerative or Reactive with outlier exceptions. On a full team it is not that big of a deal. 8 Reactives are still doing a full stack of DoT, and the team is only missing out on 1/2 of potential debuff effects. 4 Reactives and 4 Degeneratives would be a better composition in that case. Where it gets hairy is on a League. Very easy to hit those stack limits. To that end I've been looking towards variety in Interface. Let's also talk Gravitic. If a build is already leveraging -spd/-rech in any way at all, it is worth carrying the ... er ... Core side, iirc, I'd have to look at my toon again as one of your Interface options. It is very effective. Spectral, on the other hand, well, too early to tell. Early on it seems to be either broken or too unreliable to actually immobilize anything. Mag 2 stacking should do it, but with the 5% chance I've currently slotted (and it looks like the graphic effect is there when the DoT hits so difficult to measure if it is just one or both taking effect) it is highly unlikely to stack at the moment. (see double edit below) Spectral on this toon was more about damage type than secondary effect though. And that is another consideration. Minor Toxic sounds great, but critters resist Toxic a great deal more than we tend to think. Edit: I know that being concerned about interface stacking limits on a full league is picking at the infinitesimally smallest of nits. Sometimes when I learn a thing my brain won't let me un-learn it and the knowledge gives me a twitch when I ignore it. 🤣 Double Edit: Hmm. So it does work.

All this time I thought it was just a bastardization of the literary definition of meta, or the data-related usage. Information about the Information as it were. So it was the game that was about the game. A thing that is about itself. There's a great XKCD about Meta, but I've probably posted it before. 🤣 Never considered defining that with an acronym, but it is basically the same thing. 🤣 This bit is very interesting, and hopefully @Ston won't mind elaborating a bit. Trying to justify something other than Musc Radial on a Fire/Stone/Blaze Stalker that could use the EndMod buff along with the extra damage. Vigor Core is interesting for the not just the extreme accuracy, but also the EndRdx as well as the Heal/Absorb enhancing EE and Rooted. So, if I am not using a ton of Procs (future-proofing, mostly) is Vigor still worth consideration? If not Vigor, other suggestions besides Musc Radial for Alpha on this combo?

Alright. Interesting thing I just did on my latest toon. I've been using BUTTON4 (mouse thumb button) for targeted combat teleport as my standard from the beginning. Recently confirmed that one can combine a <shift> key with a mouse button for an alternate effect, so I started (effectively - in game CT is a macro and T is a bind) using this: bind BUTTON4 powexec_location target Combat Teleport bind LSHIFT+BUTTON4 powexec_location target Teleport So, anything that is out of range for CT (Particularly Allies/Friendlies/NPC Contacts/Etc) gets the alternate keystroke. I use the same pattern with MOUSECHORD for "cursor" targeted binds. A variation from LSHIFT+LBUTTON but it seems to work for this toon.

Interesting stuff. Leaning towards Time/Ice on a Defender, which would be my first Defender, lol. Despite strong support for Fire/Time on a Corr, those Farsight Defender numbers are very appealing. Might go Corr on this, I'll have to think about pros/cons/goals. Sort of already have the name/look in my pocket, just trying to find a config for it. "Feels" like a Defender though, so there is always that. 😄 Good notes on MMs and Controllers too, hadn't considered the latter. I'll make an MM eventually (haven't since Retail), but not for a while yet. Got this and other ideas in the pipeline first, lol. Temp selection is the ST "shield" buff, yeah? Ever run into teams expecting you to have/use it? Is the expectation less on a Corr than a Def? I'd probably eventually learn to remember to keep it on teammates, but I tend to play more direct-action (read, melee and blasters) toons so I'd be in uncharted territory, lol. Ah, yes, thanks. I've only played the Blaster version, and not much. Looks like I'll want to have/use it for the Def (or Corr) version. Might open different versions of Power Boost in CoD and see if there are clues to which one does what behavior. Entirely possible they are very different. Pool powers are a hot mess behind the curtain.

Short update after hitting 50. Why Stone Armor on a Stalker? Brimstone, mostly. On a Stalker/Scrapper it has a chance to Critical! which I wanted to play with. Stalkers drop Mud Pots, so I don't feel beholden to the No Taunt + Damage Aura dilemma. Finally, Brimstone, like most Stalker AoE attacks gets a 50% chance to crit out of Hide. Works a treat, as I had hoped it would. Longer update later about leveling process and the whole topic of "Slotting with SOs and Key IO Uniques/Globals/Etc While Leveling" to follow later. Some tweaks to the draft build for the 50 respec. I found I wanted the extra +recovery pieces in Health and the extra slot in Stamina. Devours endurance even before adding Weave in game. Might balance out with +EndMod from Musc Radial giving me back a slot or two for elsewhere. Particularly getting back a little of the F/C defense. Earth's Embrace is wacky. The heal and +hp numbers could be flipped on a Stalker - way over HP cap while barely slotting it. Going Heal/Rech only gets it a couple seconds sooner. | Copy & Paste this data into Mids Reborn : Hero Designer to view the build | |-------------------------------------------------------------------| |MxDz;1666;733;1466;HEX;| |78DA6594494F535114C7FFAFBD8FA1509927CB540A16AD148A7E0007248A3421C1B| |833CD131FA55ADBA6ED0210A31BF78A1A3738C744D4A5D3D6BD268EDFC10D68A231| |7161EAE19D77E0526EF2DADF3BF339F7DE179F1FABFDF07EF2100CFFD1B4552824A| |68B56FA829D37E3563235838D55494F872B4EC4EDB46D47C753767E8139209A317B| |D6CE14ECE874319BB11387F317B379D44E65B3E9E8A46DE5529964A3F3728A9C72D| |97CD12AA6B219BF231A4F25E78A64E073DEA673B67DAEF1582E35133D92B616ED44| |DC2A14295D3B9511A267214C3F06649514304F4F4CC1834506852581CB0CB578E70| |19A142A22DBBD09FFD17F97C23EB4188E6D2599189A896960DCEB2638CEB0072718| |C298103829E086A9A2305EBD4E2F7EB34923FE0AAC3334E317C330DA0CA79A45EAD| |2DC2AB4649A9885635281A4C01C43155202E7197CB8E671E05298F76F334C253E7A| |DD897C62D885CF025F18EAF155E01B4335F552ADF5826AF4B0668912D468751A358| |8700D7BB1CA35B452017EDDD92F23F29169DDD6A84B9E3A844D802615C4778EDF8F| |3577E414A5418BE26940C07434BDE812E866A8A1B84DFA0E36C90E36CB0E76CB0E7| |6CB0EF6E38F72E10E177E857A6BD187D782153669C55D817B0CEDB82FF080218687| |EED9A36ADAF4CADB3062B8231A1538C870955276E8293B709DA3ECC60D8165864ED| |C14B8A5DC5E6E33F82965403FE501D47382CD53EEA179766999E8A5440B5E92F7E8| |C7B647AA0D4AB5411C30DC6B1093FB30CAA0C8BB4FF7EE93C98764F221997C48263| |F2C353DF20303FA4919C00AFD87151E9366508F3B88A7CA6D68956108CF049E2B37| |EE0B8627E41DD17A5511BC64CD7EBC12782DF046C2BC65E8A39EA27A555139E261D| |28CE89A1104B8A58082BE4AA5CE328123A4714FAAEDDFA38DC07C05A694AE208DC1| |1E6BBE1D1E435CCEFA4ECD206B7E9469E87C07BDEE9762C270261CC369DE849F3B6| |DDD8BD12B172386658629B28D69B6A5B3E502AB5C70A65CF01FF668CA72| |-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Tell me about Time Manip, if you would be so kind dear reader. What's your favorite AT for it, and why? Delayed? That T1 immob, necessary for the effect? Should I care about the effect? Any skips in the set? Stand-out combos?

You know, now that you mention it I am not really sure. I think I mostly run into DE during the Unity Plague arc (for those sweet RMs), which is before 39. I rarely encounter them after 40 by sheer coincidence I guess. 🤷‍♂️

I thought this thread was going to be about those Quartz and Cairn emenator things, because those are really the only thing I hate about DE. 😄

Yeah. This. Out of curiosity in the other direction, anything for a Sentinel that does pair with with Ice Blast?

The smeary-diagonal "action lines" just before the kicks (which are definitely from Vorpal) are from Burst of Speed as well. Kinda looks like they made a single target BoS clone with Vorpal's kicks.

I think I currently have ~20 filled character slots; about 7 or 8 of those are parked experiments that are basically either storage or waiting for me to be in the mood to develop them again. This number does not count innumerable toons started and deleted after I decided they were not as fun as I had theorized. This rarely, almost never happens if I go into the CC with a character concept already in mind, but occasionally happens to the experiments that get a concept on the fly. 1 is the first toon I took to 50 on HC, but I don't play that one much anymore. 3 were sort of rotating "mains" for a while - two Scrappers and then my Fire/Martial Blaster took over "main" duties for a very long time. These I consider to be "fully kitted out" (T4'd), but never really "finished." I'll grab one of these three when the SG gets together if my current "experiment" is not up to snuff for the run. Bulk of the remainder either experiments I'm more like to return to, or toons made from a per-concieved concept rather than one made on the fly in the CC. Last one is my latest Stalker; I finally found a forever home for the revamped Stone Armor. Generally I focus on a single toon at a time and deep dive into the abilities to see if my theory about a given combo plays out. I'll do this while leveling, and probably level much more slowly than the average Forum Bear. Stalker is going to make it to the T4 realm eventually. Sitting at 45, or maybe 46? (Haven't logged in for a few days ... NYE holiday). That may or may not happen after I take a good long look at my Fire/Martial, respec, clean up trays, clean up binds/macros, and see if I can still maintain the pace that toon can carry despite not playing as often as I have in the past because of [Sytch needs to get his shit together Reasons].

I had a similar issue and used this method for the fix. When connected to my external monitor (not 4K) Mids would display normally. When using just the laptop screen (4K) it would display as described in the OP. Any build or opening from scratch. Method in the post I quoted cleared it right up.

I am not overly familiar with Oil Slick, but my gut feeling is no. In a straight-forward attack (blasts, melee, etc) proc rolls are simultaneous with the attack. If you check combat logs with time stamps on you will note that all damage is applied at the same time. There are some exceptions to this sort of thing. Easiest examples are the powers Savage Leap and Mass Levitate. Each of these have a delay before damage is applied. (Leap is two powers, the second has an activation time of 0, but it is the one that applies damage). Placing a -Res piece in these will roll for the proc chance before damage is applied so those two powers are affected by their own -Res piece. Oil slick is a pseudo-pet, so if it written such that the pet rolls for the proc then no it won't light itself as it won't make the roll until the p-pet "attacks." If the power that summons the p-pet rolls the damage proc, then it might. Gut feeling is that it doesn't though. Since there is no actual attack roll until the Slick is ignited, most likely procs in the power are rolled on ignition and damage applied to targets. And here comes someone who's tried it in game to correct me in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... 🤣

Got introduced to this one at a friend's New Years' gathering. Instant hit: https://doomlings.com/pages/how-to-play

Absolutely. I might do a mix of solo/team stuff, but my soloing is mostly because I want to slow-level something to 50 and work out the nuances. My latest stalker solo'd Posi 1 as I mentioned, but the rest of TFC for him was all PUGs and all excellent. Completely agree. I've more complaints about Synapse (boring slog) than I do about Posi 1, but it is so basically simple to solo on most of the toons I'd usually play (or while using summons and temps if one is inclined) that it's likely to become part of my early leveling process for a while. If I remember. 🤣

My first toon was a BS/Dark Scrapper, Issue 0. I can relate.

"Clone" characters don't get exact copies of the powersets of the PC toon being cloned. Most noticeable with my Psi Melee scrapper with the Hostless posession in HM-ITF, which results in a "clone" that uses Psi Blasts. When I reported it Beta I was told, briefly and without much detail that they're never 1:1 with the powers available to the clones. Also, why are you guys pugging Posi 1? Just solo it. There's no AVs until Posi 2 anyway, or I am remembering wrong, but with AVs off it is totally a solo-able event. Save yourself the trouble and pug up for Posi 2.