Riverdusk

And right now the 75% resistance cap gives a strong incentive against building scrappers of certain sets. Two sides to that sword. You want AT balance then brutes running resistance heavy sets shouldn't be able to do almost the same damage as a scrapper and yet be more than 2.5 times as survivable (10% damage after resistance cap + extra hps vs 25% damage with lower hps). Now that is an imbalance.

Not sure how well scrappers would do with 75% fire resist. I never farm though, so maybe it could be pulled off. Might also be able to do it already the old school way and go with ice/fire, them flopping on an ice patch tends to keep things from running off as well as attacking less. Don't see too many bothering with that even now though.

You can also get stealth from the SG buff table for 90 minutes at a time for the usual 3 pieces of cheap salvage from level 1. Although you can't turn off unless you go into your powers and delete it early. So, not great if you need to lead hostages out. Still it can be handy for early levels. But overall I'm with the crowd that says this didn't sound that bad. On the rescue hostages mission especially I cringe a bit when people try to "stealth" that one. It tends to get messy as random groups are aggroed and then left behind to zap other teammates who may not be able to handle it, or teammates end up having to just door sit, which is not a fun time for most people.

Which is one thing I've always said would be fine. Just make the scrapper taunt auras all weak ones. As long as they are strong enough to prevent 10 critters all deciding to high tail it to the 4 corners of the universe at the drop of a hat. I've played both energy aura and willpower scrappers and the level of their taunt has always felt perfectly fine for a scrapper's needs. In fact if a brute or tank join the team I'm happy to let them out taunt me. I just hug the tank and smash.

And bio with its +res per enemy aura. All the scrapper secondary's that have taunt auras now tend to have them for good reason.

Yep, many brute armor sets can reach that on at least some damage types. So against those types a scrapper is doing slightly more damage, and yet taking 250%! of the damage (25% vs. 10%) of a brute is in return. Not a very good damage/survivability tradeoff imo (which is why I avoid heavy resistance armors on scrappers entirely). I don't see too many electric armor scrappers around for instance. Also ends up making even the somewhat useful tier 9's (like willpower and shield have) kinda useless on a scrapper, not so much on a brute/tanker. I can get to 70%+ s/l resistance with those sets and then I have a tier 9 that gives me a whole extra 5%? Oh boy! Not really worth a power pick. On a brute/tank it is getting you to that 90%, whole different story. Then we go into a brute having more hps (and therefor also regen) than a scrapper by a pretty good margin. Totally agree, Brutes have plenty of "advantages" over a scrapper already in different ways beyond just a taunt aura. If some people think brutes got shortchanged vs. tanks, okay, but don't start rolling it downhill against scrappers please.

On the taunt aura issue, the main issues I have with scrappers and taunt auras are: 1. That a pool power taunt (provoke) is more useful than the scrapper primary power taunt (confront). 2. That dealing with runners is a huge QoL issue for me (and I think many others). It isn't even about "power", it is about runners in this game being a PITA (and UNFUN) to deal with while playing a melee class. I don't have nearly the same issue on stalkers because honestly usually on stalkers the thing I'm attacking is dead before it has a chance to even think of running. 😉 It is a very different playstyle having that huge burst damage available. One of the main keys that triggers the run script seems to be a "low hp state". Something you get a lot more often when playing a scrapper than a stalker in my experience. If I want a damage melee without a taunt aura I just play a stalker, who has better ability to deal with the issue. If scrappers lost their taunt auras all my scrappers would just be rerolled into stalkers instead honestly.

I always put a kb to kd IO on phantasm, he's decent with that. 4 expedited reinforcement (yay recharge bonus), overwhelming force kb to kd, and explosive strike proc is my favored phantasm slotting. Jack Frost I think is underrated. He is decently tanky now and hits pretty hard (although still very single target oriented). He has 25 base defense (throw in the two +5 def pet IO's and maneuvers and he's close to 40% defense, then barrier on top will pretty much soft cap him even without any secondary help so even doms I think can make use of him). Flytrap I find fairly underwhelming (although throwing an Achilles heel -res proc in him I find nice on my plant/dark that doesn't have any real -def powers besides him).

Pretty sure superior invisibility takes you to the stealth cap all on its own, so putting a stealth proc in the build with that would be a waste. Either one alone will also take you to the min threat level cap (which is 0), so taking both for that reason is also a waste. I did take both on my illusion/traps though, for the extra LoTG slot and as a way to invis all my trap "pets" (especially force field generator) so that I can sneak around without having to dismiss it. I don't care for group invis by itself just because it is too easy (for me) to mistime when it is going to drop and then suddenly everything is shooting at you at just the wrong moment. On an illusion/dark or /storm or /cold I'd just go with the secondary stealth and a stealth IO like normal, and maybe pick up GI.

No water jet makes me sad. 🙂

The proposed set bonuses stink, but I could see using 1 or 2 pieces being useful in certain powers. Although taking a look at the actual enhancement choices not a fan of them really either (looking at it for something like steamy mist/shadowfall/arctic air). Would be much more useful to have a resistance/defense one or a resistance/defense/endurance as a choice. Proposed set definitely looks fine tuned just for stone tanks.

For those that still want to use the auction house, but not use it as an easy way to get rich, maybe the rule should be "no use of converters". Could probably still find tricks of buying low and selling high of certain things, but converters are the main culprit right?

Ice's sleep (flash freeze) is ranged. Maybe you are confusing it with the hold. Flash freeze has a 60 foot range and takes ranged aoe damage sets, not melee. Hence why I said it actually is one of the few sets I found use for it. One issue I have though is that sometimes mobs still do get off a shot before the sleep takes effect because it does damage and so the sleep isn't immediate. Also because the range is only 60 feet. I find to make it safer to use it helps to slot range which is a knock against it as that's more slots. It'd be nicer if the base range was set to 80 feet. It'd also be nice if it had the same recharge as some of the other sleeps (45 seconds rather than 90). Those two changes at least would be a slight improvement anyway.

Only one I really think is still of use is electric control's. At the least I think they should all work like electric control's and be a pulse that can re-sleep beyond the initial cast. Only other one I think I'd take would be the one in ice control as ice can be somewhat lacking in alpha mitigation. You could use it to then safely run in until arctic air takes hold. That'd be more a solo thing though, and who solo's ice controllers? 😉 And I think in ice control's case it more points out the help that set needs in other ways.

Bot/Storm MM is also a good bet as then you have a bunch of pets that each can also do knockback.

I love plasmatic taser. 50,000 inf for 240 charges at a time is a steal. For some of my characters (controllers come to mind) it is pretty good even at high levels as the knockback is controllable for them and they otherwise can have skimpy aoe damage. Basically getting energy torrent for virtually free.

Epic pool versions of energy torrent don't do knockback, they are low enough mag to naturally only do knockdown, so don't waste a slot with a kb to kd converter on them.

That might be because until recently the katana was usually invisible to other players. 😁 Half kidding, but that was a weird graphics bug that was recently fixed, at least pretty sure it finally was fixed. Kind of a pain to test as I don't usually dual box. Guess I'm the only one that prefers katana. For me I found db more boring because I did feel like I had to use attack vitals all the time. It also gave me a bit of what I call "sound fatigue" hearing the same sound loop playing over and over from doing the same powers in the same order over and over. Same issue I have with gravity control. For some reason katana doesn't give me that, probably because the sounds I feel are short and crisp in comparison. But I know that is probably just a weird personal thing.

War Mace/Energy Aura - so that you can be strong and pretty Dark Melee/Shield - has become a classic combo that synergizes well Both have good overall damage, healing, good defenses, a base of resistances to work with, endurance management tools, and taunt auras. I've found both solid.

Those would be fun difficulty options. As to the original poster, upon reading the follow-up post made back in January it seems a bit hopeless as they still seemed fixated that controllers only opening options and main purposes were immobilizing and sleeping despite being told many times that is a minor part (and in some powersets zero part) of being a controller.

My first thought with those criteria was trick arrow, but dark is definitely amazing, especially on controllers. Fade isn't as annoying now graphically so I rolled up a plant/dark controller and it can pretty much do it all. Damage, controls, buffs, debuffs, healing, but none of it is really micro management type as it is all aoe. It is one of my favorite characters.

You could drop both pretty easily on that build and have 2 slots to play with. On my characters like that who don't really need the endurance or regen I tend to just stick a panacea in health and leave it at that. Preventive medicine absorb piece is definitely good as well though as @Vanden mentioned, if you don't already have it. I tend to actually 6 slot preventive where I can though in an actual heal power, it has great bonuses (especially that 6th slot). I feel like it is as close as you can get to a purple heal set.

Could also eventually try throwing spectral interface on top for another immob chance. And of course for /dark there's also the lucky chance dark servant will tentacle things. 😀

Just in case anyone reads through the old posts, want to say that soul drain now does also boost toxic. Not currently running one, but I noticed the description on the power changed to "all damage" and tested it to make sure. Not sure when it changed (never saw a patch note, but could have missed it). Good news for the dm/bio combo.

I'd imagine it works pretty well when on a team where things are already being immobilized/held by others and then you can just spray it. I have a feeling I'll end up agreeing with you for when I'm the one having to do the immobilizing/holding. In those cases your effective cast time for the power is actually the time it takes to get two powers off (back to 4+ seconds easily) which is a really long animation time. I might keep it for just those teams though.