Arbegla

I have a fire/fire/fire perma dom, and even running some leadership toggles, plus hot feet she doesn't run outta endurance. Granted, Consume fills the gaps that Domination might have, and flashfires every ~15 seconds means she hardly gets hit, but its fun times.

Definitely. That could help clear things up a lot. Would just Hover and Combat Jumping have the 'disclaimer'? I'm not sure what other powers come to mind, though if you can stack Mighty Leap and Super Jump I guess that would need it as well.

I get where you're coming from. Its intuitive to me, even without the patch notes, so I'm honestly just trying to understand why it isn't to you, and others. And you really wouldn't be able to notice unless your monitoring your travel speeds specifically and seeing the buff from one power be overwritten by the buff from another, and really, only Combat Jumping's +jump buff and the +jump buff from other 'travel' powers, and Hovers +fly and the +fly buff from other travel powers (though I think you can actually stack hover and Evasive Maneuvers together..) comes to mind here, I can't really think of any other powers that interacted that way before, Heck, you can enable Super Speed, and Combat Jumping (or Super Jump) at the same time already, because they give difference buffs.

Call me crazy but the patch notes seem to clear it up nicely. What isn't intuitive about that?

My first thought looking over the build is where is Seeker Drones, and Caltrops. Caltrops is a HUGE proc magnet, and if you can keep the mobs inside the caltrops, it deals a TON of continual damage. The fear aspect is really nice as well, and I think you can actually put two knockdown procs in it, giving you a form of AoE pseudo control, as you basically have popcorn mobs. Seeker Drones are very underrated, but especially on a Defender, they are amazing. The debuffs stack, so while the values might not seem too great, remember that you get two of them, so its effectively double. Also, there is some really neat interactions with -resistance (from Acid Mortar) and -damage (from Seeker Drones) that not many people know about. Basically -resistance will increase the effectiveness of -damage, so your acid mortar is making your Seeker Drones more effective overall. Even as a 1 slot wonder, Seeker Drones are very valuable overall.

But it's not like that at all, you actually jump higher with Super Jump then with Combat Jumping. Its more like a replacement value, instead of an additional value.

Short answer is yes, Because Super Jump and Ninja run provide more +jump then Combat Jumping, it 'overrides' that effect, but you do retain the other benefits of combat jumping.

I would argue that it really depends on your Armor set if 'Taunt' is required or not. All of the armor sets get a 'Taunt Aura' either in the form of your damage aura (think Fire Armor, Dark Armor, Elec Armor, etc) or in the form of 'This power scales with mobs in range' like Rise to the Challenge in Willpower, and Invincibility in Invuln. The Damage auras produce more 'threat' then the non-damage ones due to the threat equation, but if you hit with a debuff, you produce decent 'threat' as well. With your taunt aura, you're able to hold threat on most things pretty easily, so Taunt isn't required at all. Now, for armor sets that don't have a damage aura AND don't have a debuff attached to their taunt aura (I think SR, Regen, there might be more) it'll be harder to hold threat, so you might notice that Taunt helps you keep threat on your targets, especially in an AoE setting. Brutes also get 'Poke-voke' which means that all of their attacks have a 'Taunt' effect, increasing their threat multiplier as they hit things. the Tanker version is 'Punch-voke' which basically gives all of their attacks an AoE based threat multiplier. YMMV though.

Looking over those stats, I see a bit more then just a straght defense vs resistance argument. Your Defense 'build' has more Regeneration, and more Recharge. With your /MC secondary, you already have some +absorb, and additional regen helps a lot when you have an absorb shield to soak your damage. You will also have your heal recharge faster with your defense build. My personal preference is layered mitigation, which it looks like your defense build has more of then your resistance build. For more blasters, especially ones that like to live in Melee, S/L defense is your best bet, so I would stick with that, and then focus on other mitigation tools, heals, regen, absorb, etc. That way when the hits do land, and they will, you can bounce back quickly. As long as you're not 1 or 2 shot, you should be fine.

@Faultline Is there a way to default the visual effect for Stealth be the Invisibility visual effect, as it does render you basically 'Invisible' if its not suppressed, and then have the normal Stealth visual effect happen if you're suppressed? I think that is how the visual effect of Invisibility worked before, and that might go a long way to helping people understand when they are actually being suppressed or not. The OAS change to an Out of Combat change is an overall buff, it just seems weird because the visuals don't line up, and the triggers for "Out of Combat" aren't as well defined. I suspect the patch to Stealth is going to be released soon, as its simply something that wasn't tested very well in the Beta, which is understandable, as Invisibility was normally taken just as a LoTG Mule, and not actually used that often, but Stealth was taken, AND used a lot.

*summons the dark fairy Prestige Pet, immediately gets suppressed*

I think the big issue is how do they balance removing the only affecting self, with the additional defense and stealth that Invisibility gave you (before, when you had it toggled, your leadership toggles didn't affect anyone but you, and now the leadership toggles work with Stealth toggled on.) From a 'Does it work like it did before?' perspective, the answer is Yes, kinda. Because Invis suppressed when you were attacked, but you couldn't affect anything else (so it didn't really suppress when you attacked, you just couldn't attack)

I can't get in game right now (currently at work) but I think you can right click the upgrade and one of the options there will show you what powers it grants to your pets. That should tell you the animation time and such.

I'm on Torchbearer these days, but I can move around. I haven't been into PvP much since, oh.. i13? Still not a fan of those changes.

the Beta Server Threads mostly, but you can also check by looking at the mercs powers themselves in game.

Honestly, I'd love for something LRM rocket, or a thrown 'bomb' instead of mines. Especially for Time Bomb. Let me throw the thing into a group.

Short answer is Yes.

My big concern is tanking hard targets solo, like EBs/AVs/GMs, etc. But even with provoke, I'm not sure I have enough true 'attacks' for provoke to actually matter overall. I'll have to test it out i guess. Though the additional mitigation I'll have from Spirit Ward should offset the pets pulling more aggro on themselves.

While I do understand why you would seem them as underwhelming, the debuff is actually really easy to perma, as it lasts for quite some time (I think 30 seconds?) and even with SO slotting, you can get the Seekers to recharge that fast. I do agree that Trip Mine, Time Bomb, and Detonator need to be looked at, as they are very easily skippable powers.

While true, are they affected by recharge enhancements in PvP zones? Or do they just ignore them completely? (the patch notes aren't very clear if there is a difference in how Recharge works in PvP, plus even the PvP recharge values are MUCH shorter than before the change)

I know that @Faultlinedid some database scrubbing, and had some hard numbers on how often that specific ATO was slotted in those powers. It was something like less than 10% of the slotting was used for just those 4 powers (with Tornado having the least amount..) I get the "We don't want to force a respec, or break builds" aspect, but maybe a re-budget of the enhancement values would be in order, so we're not hitting ED values on Recharge, when that aspect simply isn't used in so many powers now.

But even then, its only 4 powers out of all of the Mastermind Primary and Secondary powers (Gang War, Hell on Earth, Soul Extraction, and Tornado). Not a very useful ATO when it really only benefits 4 powers with its Recharge. (and don't get me started on the +damage set bonus with a two piece.. ugh)

Hi Killo, I remember you from UJL back in the day. Hope things are getting better.

So I haven't tested it out, but the Prestige runs can not be slotted with anything, so while Infiltration might have the same 'base' values, it can be enhanced to be much better.

There is a customization option that lets it make you invisible again.