Lazarillo

Huh, sure enough. I'mma chalk that up to Bio Armor never really getting a balance pass on HC despite being unfinished/still in beta stages, when the game originally closed down. If you were to go over the set carefully, there's probably a lot that's kind of outta whack with it. (Also note that, personally, I would certainly like Scrappers to get taunt effects more universally applied; I'm not in disagreement with you, per se. But the "rule" does seem to be there, whether it's a useful one or not.)

All of those sets have damage auras, though, either in the powers with the debuffs (Elec and Stone) or elsewhere (Ice and Dark). I suppose that could be seen as a little bit unfair under my initial description. To be honest? I coulda sworn Invincibility did have a debuff component, but I checked and was remembering wrong, apparently. However, it still generally qualifies under the "has an aura, but no damage aura" rule. As for EA, yeah, it's janky, and I'm not a fan of EA for that reason. I was opposed even way back when Castle originally introduced it, for the very same "wait, Stealth and a taunt aura in the same set? What?" reasoning you mentioned. But it still counts, 'cause again, no damage.

Remove the lockout on Frenzy stacks. Savage is not so utterly amazing that not punishing players for using it in its intended fashion will break the game. You get to keep Savage as you like it, everyone else gets a small buff and less janky mechanics. Win-win?

Sets with an aura that do buffs/debuffs, get taunts. Sets with an aura that does damage, don't. Sets with no "aura" powers in the first place got auras tacked on for Brutes and Tanks specifically. As to why there isn't just a default expectation that every set has an aura in the first place (if that's more what your question meant), I'd imagine it's a combination of "concept" and "balance".

Procs now have a 100% activation rate, but you can only have one proc per power. A man can dream...

Cremate being more or less a guaranteed KD now is a benefit I don't think enough people are appreciating. It's pretty grand for both offense and defense, since a target flopping around can't hit back, nor, say, pop Elude and stall a fight for long periods of time.

Cimerora has a workaround "free" instant-teleport, just queue yourself for an ITF, make sure the box is checked that lets you queue solo, and you'll pop right over to Lightning McThunderHelmet in 10 seconds or so.

As a note, in terms of overall powers and at least what can be slotted and such, Dark Control is almost identical to Illusion. I used that to get a pretty solid plan for my Illusion/Dark.

Curious where people would put the proc in Fiery Melee? After the update, I'm thinking Cremate, to have a higher chance to crit a boss that's been knocked down and can't do anything about the incoming damage.

Only for about a week or so. Once you hit the 20s, certain higher-tiered primary/secondary powers start becoming available, too.

I dig Dominators, but I do agre they feel a little overly reliant on Incarnates and Perma-Hasten and such, to the point that I lose some enthusiasm for them because it feels like they only "work" at 50. There's so very little room in what an "ideal" Dom build looks like, due to the very binary nature of Permadom. There's also the weird way Dominators kinda interplay with alignment more than any other AT, since by being a pure villain, they can instant-charge their bar once every few minutes in case of slip-ups (or before starting off). So to get the "most" out of the AT, you also end up locking yourself redside. Personally, the idea I've had is to make it work a little more like this: 1. The Domination bar builds and empties just the same as it does currently. 2. Rather than a click activation, the benefits of Domination automatically apply whenever the bar is at 90% or higher. 3. The click-Domination instead now auto-fills the bar to 100%, and can be used any time. The thought here is that rather than having to constantly babysit the click powers, Dominators could maintain their empowered state simply by continuing to fight. With the Domination bar emptying more slowly than, say, Fury, this even gives a little time to move between mobs without the ability falling off. The click-on ability from Domination itself would mean Dominators didn't have to work up to the power, but this would likely have to be compensated for in some way, perhaps by making it so that the click power no longer benefited from Recharge buffs? Too strong? Not strong enough? Finicky in ways that would make it unfeasabile?

I have a Bane Spider who I did this with. It's exceptionally good at crunching things. Lotsa fun. For reference, +42% damage from set bonuses, +30% from stacked Assault powers, +10% from Assault Hybrid passive, and an average around +120% from enhancements/Alpha, so everything does triple base damage, and hitting Build Up basically puts it at the damage cap. Is it minmaxed to the (min)max? Eh, probably not. Prochounds could probably do something that's better on paper. But I'll take a reliable crunch every time.

Heat haze creates mirages.

When the solution to every AT imbalance is "buff damage", it stops being a solution.

It presumably can be done, as the Rebirth community did pretty much this very thing with Kheldians in a recent update. Whether HC feels it is an acceptable solution, or even that Kheldians "need" solving is a bit of a different argument. Granted, HC's code base is also a little different, but there's reason enough to assume it could be done, even if should or would is not so easy to assume.

I have an AE mission I did for this theme, wayyyyyyyyy back when AE was brand new. I still have it saved, but it came off in kinda poor taste in retrospect (the enemies were the "babies" in question, and the candy was Doctor Aeon's latest super serum), so I never felt up to republishing it when the game came back.

I tested it a bit and it generally works out as a net buff. The base numbers were set so that they were very slightly lower than before the patch, to the point if you use just the default slot for resistance/healing (depending on the upgrade), it's more than your pets would've had before. Same thing with the personal attacks. If you continue to go without using them, you won't be any worse off than before; in fact, you'll still benefit from the overall pet buffs. But you now have additional motivation to take the other attacks. So basically, builds are not any tighter than before, but you might personally be able to work in different priorities.

What bad guys are you fighting? Some (Clockwork are a notable example) have KB weaknesses that will cause enemies to get thrown even when you just do knockdown. Looking at the numbers, it's still all KD only, and I know from my testing of the set, I didn't see any unexpected KB.

Does this count as necroposting?

It's funny you mention M. Reison, because despite his extreme HP values, he actually has much, much lower Regen than any other AV-like entity in the game. This is, ostensibly, why he has his own enemy class, because the old school devs specifically were kind of tired of the whole "bring -Regen to fight AVs" assumption, and thus, his toughness is based around simply having a ridiculous base HP pool and high resistances. -Regen by contrast actually does quite little to him, relatively speaking, by design at least.

It also got the 100% KD chance on Cremate, unless I missed that getting rolled back, too? Assuming I didn't miss something, this is actually pretty big, especially with the speedier GFS, since it makes for a quicker two-hit coup de grace that significantly reduces the chances of bosses firing (no pun intended) godmode powers and such, and honestly, I'll take that. Granted, I agree that more love for Fire Breath in this would've been nice too.

This right here. Poppa needs a new "natural" set.

Interesting. Maybe the issues I previously saw were a bug, or were stealthily "fixed" in some other way. At some point I'll have to try again. ...maybe if level ranges in Praetoria overall get an overhaul? Speaking of the topic itself...😅

Last I checked, Praetorians can talk to the primal contacts if they happen upon them in the underground, but their Praetorian-based transition dialogue and the ability to get to them using the "Find Contact" button is no longer available. Both of which were the case before the game's original closure. Granted, even with that, you still run into issues in First Ward like Katie Douglas hating your Resistance Warden. But it was a little more smooth.

Then congratulations on doing what any other set could probably do without having to pay a penalty to achieve mediocrity, I guess?