Ratch_

Something of note, with 170% global recharge (pretty common for those chasing perma levels of hasten) and 95% recharge slotted in Icy Bastion it has 30s uptime and 52s downtime. If Hibernate was added 30s of Regen/Recov then it would have a 30s uptime with a 90s downtime. Just some food for thought, and this doesn't even consider that Icy Bastion provides 37.% resistance to all types with the exception of Psionic.

Pending t9 armor set reworks, and having seen the drastic experiences in Icy Bastion vs Hibernate...well I am very jealous that a tanker and brute does not get Icy Bastion. So I got to thinking and had this idea on what could be a small, yet simple improvement while also not changing the power in it's entirety. Afterall, being encased in a block of ice is pretty unique. The power I looked to for inspiration was none other than Reaction Time. The sustain in Martial Combat for Blasters. This power has a small feature of when disabled (detoggled), you will receive a boost to recharge rate and move speed. What if we applied this same style of tech to hibernate? The idea is that you activate Hibernate like normal, no behavior is changed here. When you detoggle the power, then some of the regen and recovery will permeate from the power for 30s ableit at a lower amount. Using Icy Bastion as a reference I was thinking numbers along the line of Hibernate (toggled) -> +1000% Regeneration / +400% Recovery - On detoggle -> +400% Regeneration / +200% Recovery for 30s. This would let you quickly toggle and detoggle the power so it's still useful in circumstances that you don't need to absolutely just withdraw from combat, while also still providing that option. Even though the base recharge of this power is 120s, you can't get it perma because you have to wait out the noPhase time of 120s. Thoughts?

I kinda like the idea of moving the taunt aura aspect into confront - just make that power a small endurance cost toggle that has a 8ft radius mag 3 x second taunt. This would make it available to all scrappers, while still being optional for those that don't want to have it. It would require another power pick, which bites, but still seems like a fair possibility?

All scrapper epics I've looked at don't inherit the damage proc from fiery embrace either.

It's not directly nerfing any form of damage, but taunt as a mechanic lets you confirm damage and lowers the amount of delay between using damage abilities since you don't need to waste time chasing. It allows you to tap into your full DPS potential, including the likelihood of keeping targets close for AoE. More targets hit = more damage done. BrandX isn't wrong, as not having a taunt aura isn't going to mean you aren't viable. Hell, in teams a majority of the time whether you can taunt or not won't matter one bit. However, there is no denying at how effective taunt is at allowing you to do more damage.

Okay, I put together two videos to show as an example how effective taunt is as a mechanic in regards to improving Damage. To break this down we are using a mission titled "Track Down Trapdoor" which always has spawns at the exact same place and an EB at the end of the mission. Timer starts as soon as I take off (start at second 3 in both videos) and timer ends as soon as Trapdoor highlights blue. There is blind and -toHit in this map, so I am using super insp (giant yellows) to mitigate as much as possible any variation so that I always have a 95% chance to hit. Also, the runs are exactly the same, with the second run utilizing Melee Radial Embodiment. This hybrid does absolutely nothing in increasing damage and the +def/+regen has very little benefit in this metric of clear time. What this hybrid does have though is a taunt aura. I cleared this map in ~5:25 on the run without the hybrid toggled and then I cleared this map in ~4:45 with the hybrid toggled on. Keep in mind, I only had taunt from this hybrid running for 2 minutes before shutting off and it came back up again when I fought Trapdoor. You can clearly see the difference in effectiveness when it comes to clearing enemies out when you have the taunt running vs. not having a taunt at all.

Gonna avoid all the discussion over the stalker's balance in the meta, however.. Tweaking the numbers on slow AS so it's more viable is a good suggestion. I'm all for players having more options and if this could be tweaked up so it can offer the slower playstyle while also being rewarding in the dps performance metric this is an all around good change. Blaster slow snipes are all standardized to do 281.5 damage as a reference while Stalker slow AS are all standardized to do 389.3 damage. Varying animations times though. Having the assassin's focus stacks refresh on hit is something I like too, and would be a hell of a much appreciated QoL change.

This could be really cool but I don't know if would really change anything. I've been in a few situations where I'm recruiting for a speedy TF to then be asked assertively in the middle of the run to slow down for something badge related. (Slow killing Neuron in TinPex for clone badge comes to mind). I usually just adhere and compensate by voicing to the team to do the badge aspect since it's a team effort/game, but I can be slightly annoyed from it when it occurs occasionally since finishing as quickly as possible were my initial intentions.

Try Romulus and Director 11. (Also, it's cool you use regen. I love that powerset)

All the scrapper taunt auras are super inconsistent, with things like Bio, Rad, Invuln, and Shiled having roughly a 13-14 second mag 3 taunt and others like Energy Aura & Willpower only have a 1-3 second mag 3 taunt. I am 100% with you in normalizing the playing field because I am getting pretty tired of feeling pigeon holed into a taunt aura secondary because of just how much that factor plays in being a force multiplier for damage. My problem with the argument or stance for removing taunt auras as a whole is that playing without it is NOT fun. It's hell chasing enemies around on a melee focused AT. This becomes excruciatingly noticeable when you take said scrapper and attempt soloing an AV. Watching them run from you regenerating away all the damage you just did feels horrible because this means the DPS check is now that much higher 😞 The proposed solution to that problem is supposed to be confront?.... The other half of this is what about the inverse with Scrappers compared with a blaster? These ATs are unique in that they both share having the highest damage scale, however the added existence of Sustains and Crashless Nukes far over step on the toes of melee Damage ATs. The taunt aura is how a Scrapper can keep up. Blaster's don't get taunt auras, but they make up for that with the added ability in most manipulation secondaries having a form of soft control, larger radius AoEs, and good ranged capabilities. Blaster's also do get more max targets on a majority of their AoEs which I like a lot, because scrappers can crit. It's a really nice tradeoff and a balancing factor. Scrapper's are first and foremost a damage AT, removing taunt across the board is a massive nerf to damage. Could there be a compensation for the change (if it happens) that a Scrapper could get in place of taunt that would let them confirm damage?

For context: Whether this is working as intended or not I am not entirely sure but gist of it is: Performance Shifter - Chance for +Endurance Power Transfer - Chance for Heal Both would proc on the power every 10s. Damage procs would proc on targets every 10s. However, now it seems there were changes to how the power Interacts with the self so the Performance Shifter & Power Transfer proc now only interacts on foes since it doesn't target self anymore. I would please like for this interaction to make a return to how it would proc on self rather than requiring enemy saturation. The cherry on top would be if these self targeting procs could exclude the area modifier of the power which lowers the overall proc chances but I am okay if this isn't desired or possible. Thanks

Is this how it will work for the forseeable future or could we bug this to be changed to how it used to work...in terms of interaction with those procs specifically.

Okay, updating this ticket with some new findings. I learned that the procs in this power will use the AoE formula, so Perf Shifter and PT will have a considerably lower chance due to this. Something to keep in mind, and I went ahead and stood next to a group of enemies several times and then bam: Power Transfer and Performance Shifter procs started to spill into the combat log. Perf shifter only has like a 13% chance to proc every 10s, but it seems to ONLY proc when you're hitting enemies. I did the idle test again for 30 minutes and never saw either proc in the combat log. Went back into a group of enemies and just stood there letting the aura tick. Sure enough I would see the procs go off. At this point I'm honestly not sure if this is a bug or if it is WAI. Sadly, I can only go off of memory but I remember that perf shifter and power transfer would just proc on their own without the need of enemies. If others can chime in maybe we can collectively determine if there is any merit to that memory of mine - and whether something has actually changed in this power. Thanks all.

Blaster > Fire Manipulation > Cauterizing Aura. I know for a fact this used to work. Noticed I was running out of endurance on my blaster which never used to happen...so I made sure the only Perf Shifter and Power Transfer proc in my build was in cauterizing aura. I've sat here watching the combat log for a good 10 minutes. Not a single proc. Tested on live.

Could you add sting of the manticore Chance for Toxic Damage to the list of options for snipes?

I've only very briefly played with old TW, so I don't have the best insight but the AoE feels rather gutted in comparison to my experience with old TW. Namely Arc of Destruction really got the nerf bat imo. Still a very fun set that really does reward attack string knowledge and quick decisions to adjusting the string depending on recharge buffs/debuffs. End is much much more sustainable however.

Don't know if I've seen anyone post a TW/BIO scrapper pylon time video post nerf, so here's what I got on a good run. Wouldn't say it's as fast as EM despite this time being close to the video I posted of EM, however new TW still has very excellent ST dps. Shout out to Kanil for helping me out with the string, slow RAs were key to getting faster times. Edit: I think i can get a faster time with CB proc'd out rotation. Gonna gather a build up and run it tonight.

Now that videos are enabled I decided to go back and hit a couple pylons.

This 100%. Maybe a few other members here could pitch in for the community effort and just divide the pages up to make it less of a burden for a single individual. It would be nice to have a video for each run as well

Claws/Inv Scrapper - for something that did really quite well in trapdoor runs and general mission clearing the pylon times i found were really surprisingly poor. I even compared to many other stalker sets in terms of dps and claws is below some of the notable kings (em, stj, ice, dbs) but other than that claws is above plenty or super comparable to other options in terms of ST dps. Over quite a few runs I was only getting sub 3m times, yeesh. And with how button mashy it is to pylon test with this stalker it is by all means waaayyyy tooo muucchh work for not enough payoff. My fingers hurt. The slowest attack in the chain is 1.33s.... Something that's been on my mind: I tried looking for some scrapper claws/bio cousin times in this thread but I didn't see any. What kinda numbers are claws/bio scrappers putting up on pylons?

I was looking around to see if I could make a melee AT that also had plenty of range and the cards aligned for me to try something quite different. Honestly, it feels very fast, frantic, and impactful. Claws/Inv/Mu Stalker (about 5m30s) And yes, I got some tunnel vision there and mistook for that second mu from above being my mu pet lmfAO. It happens

Just did a few trapdoor runs with one of (might actually be) my favorite character(s) in the game, Fire/Fire/Fire dominator - aka Fire Control with Fire Blast 🙂 Trapdoor Run: Roughly 5:30-5:40 range pretty consistently. I wasted some time in that vid chasing a dead werewolf 🙄

I did not, mainly due to being unsure of how to proc slot TF in regards to utilizing the Crit Strikes proc, but even moreso to just not certain what a sustained attack string would look like for that. I could probably figure out the slotting easy enough. For the string I'm assuming something like: TF -> BS -> Snipe -> ET -> BS -> TF (double energy store) TF -> ET -> Snipe -> BS -> EP -> ET -> TF I only worry about slotting it in TF since EM gets a massive amount of damage out of double fast ET and with this slot location TF wouldn't be able to benefit from the extra crit chance.

Got really curious about Crit strikes locations in EM and there was some curiosity from others in the discord for me to run some tests and check the pylon time differences between crit strikes in ET or BS. Unsure of how to build a string for TF crit strikes but I think we can just reference nihilli's post for that. All these runs used t4 musc core, t4 degen radial, t4 ageless core, t4 assault radial hybrid (off). 15 runs with each build. (EM/BIO/SOUL) > Recorded Time || Time in seconds Crit Strikes in ET Crit Strikes in BS The overall conclusion I'm drawing is that EM is badass and does some pretty absurd amounts of damage.... Note: if I ended up converting the mm:ss format incorrectly anywhere, please let me know and i can update the averages accordingly. Also, thanks @Monos King for hanging out with me! haha 🙂

I don't know if SR would be the right secondary for this since your lack of a heal will start to hurt a lot when you finally get to the fight against Rom. Those autohit nictus will be a real challenge for SR, not impossible without good preparation - but potentially a different secondary would be more comfortable overall. I've actually done this before on a claws/fire brute. There is definitely something to be said in high damage being extremely useful against cims due to their insane cascading defense. There will also be some parts during this TF (namely the kheldian ambushes) where just having a barrier incarnate ready to go and a lot of damage to back it up proved to be extremely effective. I can see claws/sr cruising through quite a bit of the mobs, but just having difficulty in the final fight.