Ratch_

Hm, idk - I could see it happening. I don't see fold space getting the same treatment but letting a control power do it's thing doesn't seem like a farfetched changed in my opinion. It'd be a nice improvement for grav control.

Okay, i did a few more runs tonight with some...fairly nonstandard combos. First up: Blastshade. This is a Energy/Dark/Soul blaster with no slotted KB->KD ios, and Dark Pit has been slotted with Stupefy set so it also has a 90% chance 6.25 kb. To boil down the character, it's as close as I could get to being a warshade without being a warshade. It's using two sets which I don't regard as very highly effective in comparison to other combos with outputting damage but I did get some suprisingly (happy) results. It's no fire/fire, but with all the KB/Stun the game really does feel like your playground. Teaming not recommended...the amount of KB you do is uhhh...not okay xD. Energy/Dark/Soul blaster (defensive amplifier) I was honestly surprised to be getting fairly avg. scrapper times...maybe I am underestimating those sets. Particularly soul drain. Next up: Time to take a stalker around for a few runs..also with a primary I know many aren't too fond of. Fire Melee. Fire/Ice/Fire Stalker Honestly...i do have some thoughts on why stalkers have such a hard time getting close to scrapper times. I hear a lot about how stalkers are just better from having been around the discord for a bit but from seeing some data in here and from testing that I've done with them I would still prefer a scrapper for solo/smaller teams. I went fire melee because FSC is notoriously amazing on scrappers, and having just done a fire/fire and a fire/bio scrapper - this seemed like a decent option to get some valuable data to compare against. Fireball...is well, fireball <3. BUUUTT, the one thing that is really holding back the stalker is the 10s lockout on that ATO chance to re-hide. Seriously. What made the scrapper so effective at this was getting insanely high crit chances on AoE attacks with a high cycle rate. A stalker gets 2 reliable chances, 1 at opening cuz they are hidden and another once they get the proc. The issue is that at opening they won't always be grouped around for full target saturation, and if on mission start you won't have your Chance for Build Up proc up and running because for *some* reason you have to use that power per zone.... why? There is the issue of no taunt as well, but in all honesty with chilling embrace being heavily slotted for slow there weren't too many issues, YMMV. All in all, the two melee ATs fit in damage roles but their strengths are still clearly defined. I would imagine in a full team saturation that a stalker could arguably be doing more due to just base higher crit chance (30%) without needing any sort of reliance on a proc activation.

Yea, I've ran it on quills for awhile. The way it works is procs in toggles will run a check every 10s. So for quills, when you factor in Superior Critical Strikes is a 3.5ppm proc and quills has a radius of 8ft = the outcome will be ~30% proc chance on every target hit. This check however will only occur once every 10s. It's wasn't bad in practice when I ran it like that for awhile, but the lower cycle rate of proc chance would just mean that throw spines would do it better. The only pro of it being in quills is that it doesn't take any additional activation time from you. So you could easily get 3 attacks in that crit strikes period....but that benefit falls apart if you don't keep an internal clock going on in your mind of when that next 10s proc check period is coming up. Edit: Slight misreading of your post..the crit strikes proc last for a duration (~3.25s) and all primary+epic attacks will get the benefit of the additional crit chance. Quills won't eat up your chances at all since there isn't a max per say of how many things can benefit from critical strikes. It's just a matter of getting however many attacks that you can within that short time window. Quills does get that benefit, from my testing only primary and epic attacks can benefit from that proc. Of the pool power attacks I've tested, they don't seem to get the benefit.

I ran with a maxed out Spines/Ice scrapper for awhile..and i'm afraid i haven't found a fantastic spot for that critical strikes ATO. With the powers i took from spines: Barb Swipe, Lunge, Quills, Ripper, Throw Spines - each attack never really felt great with that proc. If impale got a buff then that would be the perfect place imo with it's slightly higher recharge rate and it being a ST attack would really give it a better rotation. I personally ended just putting it into Ripper since it was an attack I would always use, regardless if i just needed ST or AoE, and it also offered a decent proc rate. Throw Spines felt really reliable but it wasn't useful or reliable on an AV (ST only situations). If that doesn't bother you at all, then I would say throw Spines is a really solid spot as well. Edit: Spines could definitely go the route that Katana does and put it into Barb Swipe like some put it into Gambler's Cut. It wouldn't be reliable, but in my experience you use barb swipe all the time. I like the consistency of it in Ripper since I like crit'ing on my throw spines but Barb Swipe honestly could be an option.

I've been a bit weary at making a broad statement such as this since it leaves me open to being wrong to exceptions but here would be a general rule of thumb about this and DoTs that crit. If a power with a DoT does a big chunk of it's damage at the start then more than likely it's DoT won't be included with the crit damage. If it's all DoT then it'll be summed and added onto the power as a big instance of damage. potentially barring exceptions, i don't know all the powers in the game 🙂

The total damage dealt in those hits would be added up and tacked on as a single instance of damage on a crit. https://cod.cohcb.com/html/power.html?power=scrapper_melee.staff_fighting.innocuous_strikes&at=scrapper Breakdown: 20.7704 points of Smashing damage (all affected targets) every 0.4s for 1.7s (100% chance) -> On a crit: 20.7704 points of Smashing damage (all affected targets) every 0.4s for 1.7s (100% chance) + 103.8521 points of Smashing damage (all affected targets) (5-10% chance)

Eh, it's whatever makes you happy. I've seen plenty love all ranged blasters before - usually going atomic, devices, or energy manip as their secondaries. You do end up missing a lot of powers but it can leave your build with quite a bit of room for some interesting takes. From a numbers perspective, your best DPA attacks will come from a mix of melee and ranged - so in that sense you could say you are doing it wrong if you are only wanting to put out as much damage as possible. If you wanna be an all ranged blaster that uses dark manipulation for the secondary, then I would suggest maybe you're doing it wrong haha 🙂 The design for that secondary really won't bring any benefits unless you are close. For the most part though, Blasters have enough attacks at their disposal to allow for both playstyles while still being effective and that's why I love them.

Ragnarock to me will always be a giant banana resting on a rock

Secondary Powers for scrappers can not crit. Someone would have to provide some insight if lightning rod from electric melee crits but as far as I know a psuedopet can 100% crit as long as it's coded to do so. Irradiated Ground from rad melee is a pseudopet that can crit. Sorry, but I haven't actually done electric melee on a scrapper yet - hopefully someone else can pop in here and answer if lightning rod can crit. For more clarity: Primary + Pool + Epic powers can crit, but pool powers from my testing don't seem to benefit from the +50% critical strikes ATO.

It's a mix of it depends. For the most part, powers that have DoT as it's damage will work normally but the crit damage occurs as the summation of the whole DoT in one instance of damage. So for example, incinerate from Fiery Melee will just apply it's original DoT on top of a big instance of Crit Damage. If incin does 25 fire damage over 5 seconds, then it'll do 25 fire damage over 5 seconds plus 25 damage on the initial hit if it crits. The exceptions are powers that have DoTs that are outside of the damage formula. Greater Fire Sword for example has a 80% chance for additional fire damage. This DoT is not included as part of the powers original damage as DoTs tacked on this way exist outside of the damage formula. So an example of how this would work: Greater Fire Sword say does 15 lethal and 20 fire damage. 80% chance for 5 ticks of 4 fire damage. On a crit it'll just be 35 fire damage (the 15 + 20 combined) and still the 80% for 5 ticks of fire damage.

It definitely is wishful thinking. Maybe one day though 🙂 To me it is more fitting of a power to become the sustain over Touch. The sustain just feels tacked onto Touch while at least with dark consumption there is some resemblance of sustain already having existed on the power. I can see for consistency's sake Death Shroud just becoming the sustain power but Dark sets to me have always run a bit different and I enjoy keeping them on the more unique side of things

I got a energy/dark/soul blaster that let's me essentially play a warshade but on a blaster 🙂 Dark manipulation isn't the strongest secondary imo, and for the most part elec manip just does it better since I personally think Build Up is more valuable for blasters...but I would be lying if i said dark wasn't a damn good aesthetic. Soul Noir costume selection for the win. Edit: I should probably shout out Smite, that power is love. Dark Manip is a weird secondary but i find it damn good fun. It would have been amazing if the sustain got put onto dark consumption and performed similarly to drain psyche.

Took a fire/bio/fire scrapper for a few runs and then proceeded to try out my fire/fire/soul blaster (alpha slotted only). fire/bio/fire scrapper fire/fire/soul blaster (alpha only, defense amplifier) I could probably get 3:30 on this blaster after getting the rest of my incarnates. As a side note, i'm not sure how many people slot slow in hot feet but I highly recommend you do. For example, my build uses intution radial for the damage, range, slow and my hot feet has a +5 slow enhancement in there. It is a godsend. Seriously. I also picked up oppressive gloom for my blaster, effectively turning all minions into slow walking dummies (-130% runspeed + stun = immobilized essentially) so this saves sooo much time since the runners you have are practically non existent. Not only that, the combo saves you lots of hp because of less attacks coming your way. My blaster did not use any inspirations outside of yellows and an occasional blue (since I was lacking my ageless radial).

Only certain scrapper secondaries having taunt auras

I was playing a lot with my fire/fire/soul blaster today and I had the thought, I like burn, fire sword circle, and fireball...but what if they could crit? And here are those results (if fiery aura has a taunt aura for scrapper these times could easily get cut down to ~4:30) - the amount of damage you do is very satisfying. Fire/Fire/Fire scrapper (avg. 5:42) I really can not understate just how much extra time is spent chasing after a runner or two. Werewolf bosses really are hell on CoH. I would like to avoid guerilla warfare plz. Just stay right next to me and let the fire embrace your heart

I find all the bosses to really slow down AoE heavy sets like spines. I can agree that 4/8 does have a pretty decent lean to having good AoE, but a good ST can still definitely show in this test. I'm curious if changing to an AV at the end would devolve into only certain archetypes/set combos being able to out dps an AVs regen solo, while as it is currently I feel all combos would be able to reasonably make it through.

I've been doing some trapdoor test ever since kanil told me about it a few months ago. Here are some of my results (fire/fire blaster did use defense amplifier) everything else followed said rules. Trapdoor is an EB, not an AV. 4/8, solo bosses, yellows only with allowed incarnates. Fire/Fire/Fire Blaster (exclosure -> ageless core with defense amplifier for mez protection) Fire/Mental/Mu blaster (clairon - no defense amplifier) Spines/Bio/Mu Scrapper Dm/Bio/Fire Scrapper I've got 2 doms ready to test and I'll report those later once I get some tests under my belt.

Got a build?

Entropic Aura has a -16% recharge on target baked into the ability but it's being applied on self. Tested on a scrapper. Occurs on both beta server and live server

Rad Melee attacks seem to be applying critical damage correctly, however there is no [Critical Hit] text in the combat logs or on the floaters. The image uploaded below is an example of a critical hit, it just needs the [Critical Hit] tagged onto the combat log and onto the floaters

I can confirm that you can get an attack chain of Seismic Smash, Stone Mallet, and Heavy Mallet - regardless of the AT, but you will need a ridiculous amount of recharge for that to be the case. I would recommend deciding some other action to use so that you can do Seismic Smash -> Stone. Mallet -> Heavy Mallet -> Stone Mallet -> Other Action (Reconstruction or Fault as examples). Fault to me was extremely valuable only because Tremor takes forever to cast (a whopping 3.3s)...and regen loves having sets that mitigate damage so stone is a valuable pairing. Building slow/-rech is difficult because it's going to disrupt full set bonuses. You will need to slot the unique winters gift and also have 6 15% slow resist bonuses from the winter sets. Splitting up blistering cold by sets of 2 is a fairly easy way to get some. But it will be a super tough time in getting a full build that have the def/res/hp/rech and -rech resistance that'll be good. Not impossible, but most likely very tough. Main priorities are probably going to be Max HP/Rech/-Rech Resist. Defense and resist are great to squeeze in whenever possible. Something I've done on my claws/fire brute is shaving off some recharge and relying on Force Feedback procs for +recharge as well. Getting to ~150% global recharge and getting FF +rech will let you perma hasten. Gives the build some more room for other bonuses such as the amazing -rech resistance

I like the direction and organization of your post. Only thing I would like to see happen is for some kind of benefit for critting on Touch of Fear. It doesn't have to be in the form of extra damage, but some benefit would be cool like how it was handled with energy melee in returning life on a crit or getting an additional stack of energy focus. What the benefit would be I am not sure, but as a theme of dark I wouldn't mind having a 28% damage boost on crit'ed targets and then receiving a heal (mimicing life being siphoned out of them)

Adjust the language in the description of Touch of the Beyond to accurately describe the power buff granted to the player. In addition the terrorize protection only last for 0.75s, is this supposed to be extended to last for the full duration of 2mins?