beradical

FWIW, this is the build I settled on, slightly modified version of @DreadShinobi's build. I decided to add Rain of Fire, it's nice for exempting, but it also gives a complete AoE attack chain, and I find I use all 6 AoEs (including Judgement) frequently during the mob cleanup parts of TFs/trials. The high rech also allows me to cycle BB, B & either FS or Ring of Fire, giving me very high dmg complete attack chains for AoE, ST ranged & ST melee without any gaps. This is easily my favorite toon, and build, and quickly has become my main -- there is no waste, every power is used or needed for a set piece/bonus. The synergy is fantastic, since my goals were max dmg and strong survivability, both achieved with high rech sets which tend to have resist. Building for soft-cap was often def or rech, or req'd unused powers like boxing. The only ugly part is using non-attuned Defiant Barrage since 10% rech capped, but the losses are minimal. I bound RoP to F but put on auto (easy to undo when I want manual ctrl), bound Hasten to w+forward, and Ageless+rbutton+mouse_look since casting doesn't interfere with looking (as opposed to a movement key). This keeps all 3 cast as soon as they are available, with minimal interruption, and let's me focus on damage. The only time I'm not doing damage is when I'm hitting Aim+BU and about to do even more damage.

Mu definitely dies fast. You can control him once you drop the Lore's and get the pet menu, but still not big value. So then I was toying with the idea of NOT attuning the Defiant Barrage ATO set, dropping it to 7.5% rech, and status resist proc is unaffected, rest of the set losses are minor. But then I could take RoF w Ragnarok, giving a nice boost to rech, more resists, and a low level AoE for exempting TFs... but this idea is really solid, a couple extra slots would be great, plus this toon would then have a ranged, melee and hold - ready to solo weakened hami in LGTF 😃

Yeah, it's my biggest complaint about Fire - the radius' are pretty small. Anything less than 25ft and you will often not hit every mob in a group. Fireball's 15ft is not enough, certainly not EF's 10ft or Burn's 8ft. RoF, Inf & Judgement are the best for radius. But where Fire lacks radius, it gets speed. FB & EF have like 1s cast times, and can be spammed with Ageless. As opposed to RoF's 2, Inf's 3 (and why I insist on Pyronic for this build). That is why I always opened with RoF to hit every mob and slow them, because the 2s cast time didn't matter to start -- but also why I tended to avoid using it mid-battle. I wouldn't fault anyone for dropping Summon Adept and taking Rain of Fire instead - but you lose valuable set bonuses because you can't take Ragnarok (already at 10% rech cap), and nothing else gives def, rech & dmg. *Edit -- I might have lost some actual AoE dmg with this respec, losing RoF, and relying on 3 small radius attacks. But it hits very hard within that 8ft radius, because RoF's 2s ct lowers it's DPA, and the rech lets you spam the 3 higher DPA small radius attacks. I like this style, focus on AV/EB/B and everyone else melts. On a team taunting mobs in it will shine. ST went way up. I just laid a serious beat down on scrappy, no inspirations, and the ST increase is noticeable. Also, Mu isn't good solo, lmao, Scrappy ignored me and left melee to run over and one shot the Mu. On a team holding aggro I imagine he'll be a nice addition to dmg.

I ran LGTF, Apex & Tin Mage, using my S/L/R soft-cap build, and did fine. I still get 1 or 2-shotted occasionally, got held speeding through Rikti mobs a few times, def debuff hurts bad, but I was still first to each fight, scrappers and brutes had to fight me for aggro, and I did great. Until final battle in TM and died like 3 times in a row, between the 4 AVs on a 6 man team, scrapper had no taunt, I suspect I was pulling aggro due to my AoEs. The problem was it only took 2 hits or so to kill me, and I completely wasted demonic aura popping it at low health. I didn't have much time to react once a hit got through. So for a baseline I ran a S&L Farm at x2+8 and struggled immensely, dropping to x1 and even x0+8. It wasn't pretty, but I could manage at 0 or 1 because I kill enough that I could keep the inspirations coming. So I decided to roll @DreadShinobi build (very slightly modified), convinced it would be hell, and ran an ITF. Hahahaha. Ahhaaha. It's so effing stupid. I just steamrolled that TF. This build has synergy, the rech lets me kill faster to stay alive. I don't get 1 or 2-shotted, so I have time to pop an insp. I don't need toggles, most resist comes from sets. Yesterday I would have told you that Rain of Fire was one of my favorite powers, now I don't even miss it. AoE dmg went up, I can spam EF, FB and Burn which have fast cast times, and EF solves my runner problem. My ST dmg went up cycling BB, B & FS, or BB, B & RingFire if ranged; I have RoP running more than I don't, with Demonic Aura to cover gaps. With Mu Adept + BP Lore, the 4 of us wrecked Requim while group was still focused on Rom & computer. So then I ran a S&L Farm at x2+8 and wiped the floor with them, maybe faster than my Spines/Fire Brute? It was a lot harder, had to rely on inspirations to stay alive, but it was absurdly fun. @ x4+8 I died a few times, but as long as I kept it to one group at a time I could manage. I can't wait to run some more team-centric TFs with this build - ITF is kinda scattered as everyone sprints through the objectives. But in most TFs we're more clumped, where the ubiquitous Maneuvers will be noticeable since I'm not soft-capped, as will common -ToHit debuffs and a light heal. I think this is going to be a very sturdy melee build for most trials and TFs. And when I'm not near teammates, a purple does wonders.

Indeed I am! And yeah, I'll run the occasional WSF but mostly 50+ content, and when it's quiet I like to run solo TFs. Which means my goal for every toon is the same - balancing max killing with survivability without depending on team buffs, but unlike solo purists, I love my inspirations, temps, lores etc. I'll happily drop 20 million for 8 hours of softcap. I was really surprised at how difficult specing and surviving on a Blaster is! My Kin and Radfender have better def/res toggles + monster de/buffs, and are relatively easy to spec and solo -- they just kill slower. This is why he has quickly become my favorite to play, especially the /Fire which challenges me to stay alive in melee as much as possible. When I die on my stalkers I look through the combat logs and try to figure out what the hell went wrong. But this blaster dies and I think, I must have been doing something right.

Really nice build @Onlyasandwich -- I remember the days when I valued purps. Now I have racks full collecting dust in my SG base. I find myself using winter sets more often these days, which don't drop, and still don't provide +rech. I hate using 5 or 6 slots for 1 desired bonus. We need sets with big +rech & +def, like the confuse set, I need a set list that let's you search for 2 or more bonuses, not just 1 like Set Bonus Finder in Mids. Procs are awesome on certain sets -- they made a monster difference on that fire/storm troller you helped me build. But I don't know how well these fast attacks would proc, and wouldn't benefit from the 2 BUs anyways, right? I looked through the other secondaries, I actually just rolled fire assuming it would be the damage king. Unless I'm missing something big, it looks like the best dps is high rech to cycle through BB, Blase and a 3rd attack -- it looks like most sets have a ST bigger than Burn for that 3rd attack, but even then it looks like maybe 300 DPA instead of 230 w Burn, losing the 2 dmg/slow/kd toggles. Slightly better, but not much, on paper -- I've never played any other set so no actual experience. But it looks like Fire/Fire is a solid top-performing AoE & ST powerset, again, assuming you have sufficiently high rech. Is that what you were alluding to earlier when you said it's moot if you have enough rech to chain Blazing Bolt and Blaze?

Now we're cooking with gas. Once again you have all been super helpful, very much appreciated. And I love that you all have very different build styles, I always make all of my toon builds look exactly the same, so I really need to see different options to develop my building skills. Seeing these builds is really helpful. @DreadShinobi my first ~10 toons were all stalkers, and I got stuck in my mind that def is the way to go, because then I can focus on rech and dmg and accept the rare dirt nap when a couple hits roll +95% in a row. I am in love w/SD because it gives some resists, but still focuses on easy positional soft-cap. So your build looks shocking to me at first because I never learned to play and trust resists, especially with no heal. And while I love Rune of Protection as a break free on a lot of my squishies, I have recently been getting schooled in Scrapper forum on it's value as a no-crash mini-godmode on stalkers and scrappers. Your build is fantastic, I love the recharge while still keeping solid +dmg, in theory I see a strong synergy where you accept but slow incoming dmg with resists and dish it out quickly -- killing as the ultimate mitigation. I assume this build will get less surprise one-shot deaths? I also wonder if resist > def for my melee-centric approach, since I can't joust in and out, I'm too PBAoE based so I really have to camp and hug AVs? Damn it, I asked my SG group and everyone was confident that FIre was more common than Energy, so it's been my focus. This is good to know. @Nemu TY, this is what I was originally envisioning and tried to build myself -- As stated above, the E/N/R def + S/L/F/C res is a classic and worked well for me with other toons, I'm just not quite skilled enough to figure it out with this toon, and I can see why. It takes some unique slotting and sets, clearly you've one this before. I've looked at Knockout Blow before and written it off as meh - DPA isn't great - and I wasn't confident it would hold an AV, but with the procs you have it's value is much greater. For my own knowledge, which secondaries would do more damage than /Fire? Because if something will dish out more total AoE + ST dmg I will be rolling it shortly 😃

I actually think Cold Mastery looks really solid - I don't know what a 3rd slow would do - make mobs slower? or just slow for longer? The def/res toggle and heal are really nice:

Not at all, to both fronts: This toon exempts down better than any of my others, it is an SBB beast - but it is strong at lvl 6 w 2 AoE and 2 ST attacks. Top performer by lvl 18. I have honestly never used consume lol. It is useful for the rare times your endurance gets sapped, but not needed. Cauterizing Aura is amazing, unslotted adds 50% recovery, plus regen and minor dot (plus kd w/proc) -- I always run with super speed on! I took Ageless for rech (it just dawned on me I should have gone radial for debuff resist...dont need the recovery. crappers) AoE attack chain: Open with Rain of Fire for the wide AoE slow: 25 ft AoE DoT for 358 over 2s = 179 DPA Then Fire Ball as I close in: 15 ft AoE for 212 = 212 DPA Once in the group, Inferno if its up: 25 ft PBAoE for 1227 = 409 DPA Then Burn 8 ft PBAoE DoT for 446 = 223 DPA Then Judgement if up and necessary, then switch to ST for Bosses and up: Blazing Bolt, ST for 911 = 684 DPA Blaze, ST for 483 = 483 DPA Toggle: Cauterizing Aura, 8 ft PBAoE for 34 dmg (every 2s?) Toggle: Hot Feet, 20 ft PBAoE slow for 48 dmg (every 2s?) For AV: Open with Rain of Fire for the wide AoE slow: 25 ft AoE DoT for 358 = 179 DPA Run and hug AV for PBAoEs and toggles. BB > Blaze > Burn > BB > Blaze > Build Up > Aim > BB > B > Burn > Inferno if I'm not worried about 3s animation lock death -or- RoF if AV needs more slow. Note that BB, Blaze & Burn have lightning fast rech. Ring of Fire is 237 DPA, but I like Burn for multi-target - Nictus+Rom, NS+Seige, etc. Never really use Flares or Ring of Fire except when mezzed (weird blaster perk), but comparable ST DPA to Burn. [Can we propose making lvl 1 powers skippable for i28?] Fire Ball and Rain of Fire are fine, nothing great, though the slow from RoF is really really helpful. Inferno is solid, but the long cast time and rech limit its consistency. But the DPA is still high, otherwise it'd be the first to go. Notice everything is in the 1 - 2s cast time, except Inferno. That is key to the success and high dps, and why I skipped Combustion, Fire Sword Circle and Fire Breath. Plus Blaster's get higher base damage for ranged attacks, so even though I'm always parked in melee I use the ranged. Fire Pool didn't have much, Bonfire is 3s ct, Melt Armor takes 2 dmg procs and might be useful for -10 res? Charged Armor + Electrifying Fences could be nice, it's fast and works wonders on my fire farmer. I'm most intrigued by Cold -- it has another slow toggle to stop runners, a nice Def + Res toggle and a heal/absorb shield. I am going to have to play around with this some more.

I suspect the best overall strategy is what @Krazie Ivanwas referring to above, getting a solid mix of def and res -- I'd love to get soft-capped E/N/R def + solid S/L/F/C res, since I've found the mezzes, energy and psi dmg often come in ranged. Fire/Fire/Fire was my original intent, with Pyronic and Reactive, I just couldn't find a way to build all of that, so I settled on the S/L/R def options in the OP. If you can work some magic please let me know! Fire should lend itself well to that strategy, and Bonfire is a nice power to deal with the very problematic runners with a kb>kd proc, maybe a +rech for extra awesomeness. As was suggested by a knowledgeable SG leader, I put KD procs in both damage toggles and it helped a lot in conjunction with the 2 slows. I just ran ITF and minions, LTs and Bosses regularly fell down, no impact on EBs or AVs, but they are all slowed. I think in many ways slow is the superior CC power because I find it consistently lands on EB/AVs.

Interesting, since the changes don't affect area, presumably Savage Leap won't be impacted. I'm guessing Core vs Radial comes down to whether you want that bigger opening burst that SL + Radial can deliver, or overall dps on a fast AoE set + Core can leverage. Over the course of multiple TFs and Trials, some hitting damage cap and some not, I bet the overall differences are fairly negligible, and who doesn't want to open with a heavy hitting SL. Thank you for this information @InvaderStych

So if I'm reading that entire thread correctly, the unique mechanics of how the teleport works seems to give Savage Leap a chance to double proc, which in turn means that Assault Radial can also double proc. Which is awesome. The question you ended on is whether that is worth it, considering a Stalker's high damage tend and the sets AoE heavy powers both lean towards Assault Core. I had this exact dilemma with the Elec/Shield Stalker this toon is replacing - I could easily cap the 5 stacks of Assault Core, consistently, but the telenukes and chain induction didn't benefit from that, only base damage hit other mobs. And AS was heavily proc'd, so the proc dmg wouldn't scale. Plus Elec attacks were generally slow rech & cast time so work well with procs. So I ended up going with radial. For this one, I was assuming I'd go radial, but now I'm looking at some alternative spec'ing options using less procs, which would lend itself to Core, considering Sav attacks are fast, dmg cap is high, and there is plenty of AoE to keep stacks high. Who knows, Both Savage and Hybrid Assault are basically black magic to me.

Ok got it. TY for explaining, I'm slowly understanding the mechanics of savage...sounds like I have been wasting a lot of frenzy and endurance not stacking the attacks up right.

Again, ty so much. I will go through this in detail tonight. Having been nuked by nictus and BP and other def-debuffers, even with AD double stacked, I see the value in pumping up the resists more, and having the +resist powers.

I didn't forget, I knew knew in the first place. Let me explore the items I can place in my SG base. That would be pretty cool.

Here is my current build, I definitely went for max dmg via procs with some def and rech squeezed in, and my underslotting end redux on the toggles might be the problem. That said, this is fairly typical of a build for me which Ageless T4 usually fixes. I also haven't added any boosters yet, which will add a touch more to end redux and soft cap my defenses.

There are some ATs I just dont get, and some I feel didnt age well into today's mature end-game. But the Blaster is one of the better ATs, where the developers were able to craft powersets that have solid baselines, but can be exceptional through skillful gameplay. Many of the elite melee sets score well by using mechanics such as combos, finishers, frenzy, momentum, etc which are more busy and complex than straight button mashing, but yield greater results. Blasters become elite by skillful gameplay leveraging the best of their ranged and melee. Of course you should play your toons how you want, but I fricken love my blaster because of the melee - he has a fantastic array of melee, ranged, ST, TAoe, PBAoe, location AoEs and dmg toggles. All of these allow me to craft specific solutions to various challenges, and create combinations of ludicrous damage output. Higher challenges will always yield higher rewards. And if this toon were ranged only, I personally would not find it nearly as fun and enjoyable. If some of you find yourself struggling in melee or feeling esp squishy, try prioritizing soft-caps first, then flesh out the rest of your build needs. The Scorpion Shield makes it really easy to cap S/L/R and that is all I need to rarely die, and only occasionally take mid-battle naps. The reason we get mezzed so much is honestly, we just need a break from carrying the load of the whole damn team pewing away with their mediocre damage.

Thank you so much @SaikochoroI like the build a lot. I'll go through and unpack it more tomorrow, but I have to say I like the recharge. It's also refreshing to have a build w/o winter sets ugh. I have like 80 various purps in SG storage, but no winters sets, so all in all this will be super affordable. At first glance I love the utility of the damaging buffs, Siphon Life hits hard, and Dark Consumption and Soul Drain add solid AoE dmg. Interesting use of Sorcery on a melee. I've only taken it on squishies for the mez - but it looks like you're using it as a crashless godmode, which is clever. You could certainly fit OwtS in the build and have perma godmode, using DC to mitigate the crash, but why bother, really. You only need it for certain scenarios. Your use of the T1 attack to mule the global crit is a nice touch.

Wait, you're opening with Savage Leap? I've been opening with Ball Lighting for the crits. Does SL crit from hide? I played around on 1 mish hitting groups with each AoE from hide and only BL seemed to crit, I didn't see any crit text from Savage Leap, Shield Charge or Judgement.

Well, I just ran back to back to back ITFs with my Sav/Shld Stalker, Fire/Fire Blaster and Fire/Kin Corr. Running the Corr last, it was certainly underwhelming, but with fulcrum shift maxed and scourge in full force, he can still put out some monster dps, esp for a support toon. To my surprise the Stalker really shined, Savage Leap rech is so fast you can use it all the time. His ST is really solid once settled on his target. Hemorrhage from hide with 5 stacks is a beast, plus AS and snipe. That 1-2-3 combo hits harder than my Blasters big 1-2 combo of Blazing Bolt + Blaze. The difference is the Blaster focuses on the AV and everyone else just magically disappears while I keep all 4 PBAoE dots rolling and it slowly accumulates into just insane melee dps. I haven't worked out how to optimize frenzy yet, especially with Rending Flurry, still can't reliably get it frenzied when I want it. I'm using Savage Leap in ST fights for the +3 frenzy which works really well, but the entire set is just outrageously endurance heavy and I consistently detoggle. Agility is only T2 so hopefully will improve at T4, but if not I'll try Hybrid Support for the passive End Redux, at least it still gives a +dmg +acc boost. Hopefully I can fix it and go Assault - QUESTION - would I go Core (stacking dmg boost) or Radial (double hit)? Lastly, there is no question, none of my toons makes mobs run like my Blaster. Extremely frustrating. I think it has to be Rain of Fire, Hot Feet and/or Burn - I suspect they are running from the area of effect, not me, because it isn't only when health is low. Mother F'ing Romulus would not hold still in either fight, and I don't consider him all that squirmy. I went Mace for SS, so I might need to make room for Web Env for the AoE immob. So a massive thank you to all of you. When I rolled the blaster I had no idea he'd ruin me, and make all other toons feel weak and boring. But this Sav/Shld is a ton of fun, and I feel like he makes a noticeable contribution to an 8-person team. He is someone I will consistently want to break out and play.

@SaikochoroI don't suppose you'd have a DM/Shld build for me to look at? I realize some of it will change with the upcoming update, but it would help me get a headstart now.

That alone is reason to love shield, but then you can stack AD, + max health, and the AoE and +dmg from AAOs are really just icing at that point. I must say DM sounds exciting, I look forward to the DM update hitting live. In the meantime, Sav Melee is definitely weird. At first I thought something was broken because the damage was quite low, but I just needed to get used to the DoTs. I lose a ton of damage, by not switching target or teammates dropping mobs before all ticks go off. In theory the damage is awesome, but in reality it requires specific conditions to become exceptional. But Savage is insanely fast, has unique mechanics which make it busy (for a set which already has 9 attacks), challenging and very fun. As I get used to the range, timing and order of the attacks and frenzy stacks I will get better, and then the damage should rise. So far I'm not seeing a huge difference in AoE damage, but definitely the sheer speed of Savage, which feels like Elec met a Kin. Elec does great damage, and it's all burst, but super slow cast times. Which is weird cause electricity and ions should be super fast, right?? The game changer is the mid-tier powers - Rending Flurry is a huge improvement over Thunderstrike, as is Hemorrhage over Chain Induction, so a much bigger hit after the hide proc. Edit - let me add, what i LOVE about this set's high DoTs is that runners usually don't get far before dying on their own. No chasing required. That's a big advantage of dots, not to be understated for a melee toon.

So you are all collectively saying that the grass isn't greener on the scrapper side. Well, based on the feedback, I rolled a Sav/Shld Stalker and PL'd to 50, unlocked incarnates and fully enhanced. Not too shabby for a day's "work". I am going to roll a tougher offtank for my arsenal, but I decided I wanted to try out some various powersets first. I need to see Tanker's AoE for myself, I'm still super suspicious. I actually rolled and PL'd a WM/Bio scrapper yesterday, but then this fricken @ZorkNemesismentioned Dark, and I have never played that set on anything. I love the aesthetics and concept, but on paper it always looked meh. But now I think I should try it out on Beta as well, pit against Tanker and WM/Bio and see which I like. If Dark can hold a candle to the other sets I might roll a Dark Scrapper once it goes live. Until then I'm gonna see first hand what the hype about Sav/Shld is, and maybe it will really help me love Stalker again. No offense to my once loved Elec/Shld and StJ/SR, but I kinda need both AoE & ST.

Fascinating. In my personal opinion, every toon needs a decent amount of AoE considering most of the game is mob cleanup duty. And collectively, when everyone has decent to great AoE, even tough AV fights are improved, since AVs are rarely alone. These days it's pretty common to see all the AVs drop around the same time in a LRSF/MLTF, so much so it can be hard to ensure Rom drops before the Nictus, or Diab without accidentally killing the 2 heroes. And that's a good thing imo. IOs and incarnates radically changed the game, allowing any toon to build for damage, toughness, etc, even old slow sets can become proc monsters. But there are certain things you cannot change, where ATs (and thus ATOs) factor in. So things like base crit chance & larger AoE radius are quite significant. Nothing worse than a high damage AoE with a 7 or 8 radius...It's like having a cigarette and no lighter - far worse than just being out of smokes.

No snark intended, you all have been so kind with advice, I'm just trying to understand -- why would you sacrifice damage for survivability? Wouldn't a brute still do more damage, and short of hami, tank anything? Glad to hear tank damage got buffed, but it still sounds like a relatively low value AT. Wouldn't you still rather have a high dmg scrapper on your TF most of the time? What I'd be interested in is a tanker that has rad/poison defender level aoe buffs/debuffs, so he can march in, taunt and hold aggro, and then debuff the AV or group to hell. Does that exist?