Lazarillo

In fairness, one of the most notable "Hexing" superheroes out in the comics world is of the Mutant origin (when they don't randomly retcon that from time to time, at least, I guess). That said, perhaps "Entropics" would work. It's a neat set, regardless, though I think a lot of the OP's idea of using "stacks" from powers to produce effects should just, like, be power effects, instead, should such a thing be produced.

It is, as someone pointed out to me, basically the same base duration as the other mid-tier hard controls from other sets. Stuff like Stalagmites, Confounding Chant, Synaptic Overload, or Heart of Darkness, all last about as long as Seeds does now. Honestly, this seems relatively like parity, to me. And its Recharge, even when at the max that the Adaptive Recharge gives it, is still slightly less than many of those comparable powers. It's honestly a pretty fair change, better than a lot of the alternative, and rather than what the far-more-gutted versions of the power looked like, this pretty much puts it in parity, which is what sets should generally kinda strive for.

Any server is this, if you choose to play it this way.

This was originally going to be a complaint specifically about Psi Armor, but I went to confirm that it was the only set that didn't have No FX for Hide and it turns out it's not quite. Bio Armor, Electric Armor, Energy Aura, Fiery Aura, Psionic Armor and Radiation Armor all lack a no/minimal FX option. For none of these sets is there anything actually thematic in the power appearance. All of them use the default squiggly lines that look like a mess, particularly over a character that's already invisible. So it's clearly not the case that these are meaningfully tied to the powersets themselves in any way. Every set should be able to eschew the squiggles. Give the same minimal/no FX option that every other Stalker gets, that turns the character transparent while hidden without using the same VFX that's default to the other sets, but which the other sets can opt out of.

Yeah, that's kinda what it seemed but it was also looking, or maybe I'm just hoping, that with other changes this Page, and the existing of Hypnotizing Lights, it might be less of a loss. But thanks, I do appreciate the insight.

I mostly ignored the set in Beta, but looking again, this Pyro/Time combo seems pretty keen. Question as far as skipping powers goes...particularly with the "Deep Sleep" addition, how badly is it of a self-handicap to take Hypnotizing Lights but skip Brilliant Barrage? I suspect this is would be considered kind of a bad idea but the latter power just seems kinda janky to use, and I worry that it'd be too easy to "waste" by applying both statuses to multiple targets, or something.

Sounds like you should just skip the middle man and wreck both groups yourself. HC's track record with original arcs, honestly, has pretty much turned me off to making further attempts. The very first two (I think it was the first, the level 25 Rogue and Vigilante arcs) were good and all the rest have been overcomplicated, letdowns, or overcomplicated letdowns. And the kinda feeble reassurance on this one doesn't really make it sound better.

I mean, look at Magneto and the Joker and we've seen what villains do to nazis, but devs seemed to think being the 5th Column's obedient toady was acceptable for redsiders of any and all stripes, so having people in the blueside spectrum thinking that working with them is okay is just the next step in the "no, guys, you should really think these guys are cool" approach that the writers seem to want to be taking lately.

I rolled my new /Regen Stalker with Energy/, just 'cause it felt like the best combination conceptually, and there's no animation jank with AS (if not for that latter problem, I could see Spines working rather well conceptually, too).

Does it? Or should that not be counted as an inherent leg up that all Tankers get that not all Scrappers have access to?

That honestly sounds about right based on them to me, just with the caveat that having played winged characters and thus noted how low the theshold is for what the game engine considers to be repeatedly hopping up and down really is. In practice, the changes to Grounded's KB protection are not going to be meaningful from Live. This isn't inherently a bad thing. IMO, Electric Armor was already in a pretty decent spot and now it's getting buffed? I ain't complaining. But I'm also not gonna change my habit of sticking a -KB IO on my Elec Armor characters as the only really meaningful way to handle "drive by" KB when they're in transit. (One generally being enough, cause the big stuff mostly only comes when I'm toe to toe with something and not moving anyway. But if you're really curious, I guess, maybe actually try testing the effect on a winged character, specifically, so you can bear in mind that when wings are moving Grounded protection is probably not kicking on.

The skippable power got changed to another power that's still gettin' skipped. But really no "Minimal FX" options, even for Hide, still?

While we're on the subject of this, anything that can maybe be done for that one building that's been burning ever since I did the intro to Mercy Isle arc back in 2019?

I get that's the argument. The counterpoint is "not everything has to be an offensive boost for overall parity to exist". Ninjutsu is much the same. It's pretty disingenuous to call it a lesser version of /SR for Stalkers just because it doesn't have the extra damage Scrappers and Sentinels get, when Ninjutsu also gets a frackton of active mitigation tools that can combine with things like set bonuses and the like to do what /SR can and more, in a lot of cases, as a defensive set. Stalker Hide gets things that Scrapper Mask Presence does not. The idea that inherently must also give an additional offensive buff, specifically, in that or some other power is missing the point that the sets remain equitable for their respective ATs.

In that case, if you're looking for something that the Stalker power does that the Scrapper power doesn't, it's the "you (mostly) can't get hit while stealthed" that the Stalker gets and the Scrapper doesn't.