Riverdusk

Another one to look at in this vein if you want to go a slightly different route is an ice/psi dominator. You still get the huge stacking -recharges (although less on the -movement), but it still floors mob recharge, gives you the damage you lack otherwise, and drain psyche gives you the endurance to power it all as well as a "heal" in a way with its huge +regen.

In character creation screen under illusion powers click on the green exclamation mark in the upper right, then click on the little + sign next to "cloak of fear" and "terrify", it gives the numbers. You may have to scroll the power info screen down for the click on the + to work sometimes (at least I do) or even click on the first in the list 'translucency' and then scroll down before clicking the +. It can be fiddly for some reason. Or much easier, in game once you have the power, go to enhancement management screen, click on show detailed info, and do the same. Or even before you have the power in game you can try to type the name of the power in brackets [spectral terror] and then click on the link created and go to detailed info and once again click on the + I trust in game more than hero planners. But there are a few powers this won't work on, usually the ones with variable damage under different circumstances (snipes, cross punch).

Personally I think gravity is the only one that seems to strongly suggest controller is better. Otherwise it's whichever fits your fancy. Plant for instance to me I actually prefer on a dom. Plant is great for AoE damage but painfully bad for single target in my experience. You can take the sorcery bolt power now a days, but it isn't the greatest. Dom's assault gives you very strong single target. Also, once you get perma dom, a 6 magnitude aoe confuse power (seeds) that is up probably around every 20 seconds or less that lets you reliably perma confuse a whole group including bosses? You instantly shut down the entire group. You can do that on a dom, not so easy to pull that off on a controller.

My default throw it in there IO for a travel power is always Winter's Gift 20% slow resistance myself. It protects against both slows to movement and to recharge. Especially the -recharge debuff can be a serious killer when you get hit by them. Personally I'd suggest that over a bit of extra kb protection.

I was going to say if you did want to keep taunt the power pool version provoke is (sadly) actually more useful. There is also the option of taking the melee hybrid incarnate ability that has a taunt aura included.

Well, for me (at least back in the day), I didn't have to spend potential playtime planning my builds. I'd use my slow/downtime at work to come up with new builds. 😀 I'd usually do it using nothing but a spreadsheet as well, no fancy build planners. I still do it this way mostly, I find it more flexible/customizable than any build planner and makes it feel like I really understand all the stats better. I'm one that finds that sort of stuff fun though (as well as the auction house, to a degree). I know a lot don't find any of that fun, just like I don't find AE farms fun. You are right that for a vast majority of the game, it doesn't make a huge difference. I wouldn't worry about it. Probably the most important IO's are just all the ones that help with endurance on the more endurance hungry characters. That is where I really notice the biggest difference. It is easy enough to throw those few IO's into any build.

I believe it is. Per paragonwiki recipe drop rate for pool A which includes purples: Minion 2.666667% Lieutenant/Sniper 5.333333% Boss/Elite Boss 7.999999% Archvillaineither 100% or 0%, depending on the AV Those are the drop rates for ANY recipe please note. Then there is a slight chance from that it might be purple. Note that level doesn't matter, only rank. So, if you really want purples specifically there is no reason to pump it up to +4/x8. Be better off with 0/x8 or even -1/x8 so you kill faster. But yes, probably turn on bosses. https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Recipe#Pool_A_.28Enemy_Defeat.29

Yep, have to disagree with the whole "speed of normal content is a slog" thing, especially with the x2 exp boosters. I'm another one of those ones that pretends AE doesn't even exist, I never use it. I rarely even do DFB and I start new characters all the time. My normal progression is every 5 levels do the radio missions until I I get to do the bank for the badge and free temp power, then try to at least get the cell phone of every contact in the range (which usually only takes 1 mission from them). I'll try to squeeze an actual arc in there when I can. I guess my thing is all about "collecting" contacts (and doing banks). This is all blue side and solo. Even just doing only that I usually find myself blowing through those 5 levels and on to the next bank. I rarely get beyond "colleague" on any contacts. I'd definitely have to get rid of the exp booster if I wanted to make more of those colleagues into "friends". I don't see any need to boost exp for normal content at all. I do like some of the ideas of getting rid of the security chief ones, cutting down on hunt ones, shortening some. I'd rather see other kinds of rewards added instead of exp if anything (merits, better drops, etc.)

For future reference anyway, there is also a +20% recharge buff available from a supergroup base buff table. For 3 pieces of cheap salvage and good for 1.5 hours. I use it regularly on almost all my characters now a days.

Been trying out a dark melee/ice and so far (although only lvl 22) I've been impressed. A little surprised that ice armor is the least popular scrapper secondary (and least popular by a LOT).

Good point.

Swapping out fly for CJ or hover is what I'd do. Part of what makes Ninjitsu nice is that sprint+Shinobi-Iri+Ninja run = a pretty good travel power. The rare times you need to fly a long distance you can use a temp jet pack or rocket board or something, say in a place like the shadow shard. Which is what super jumpers/super speeders have to do anyway. But if you really want fly, not a big deal. Yes, put Celerity + stealth in your sprint or a prestige sprint and turn that on with Shinobi-Iri and as long as both are toggled on you'll have full stealth to where anything without extra +perc won't be able to see you even if you stand right next to them.

Or if you want to basically overcome their lower damage problem, go mercs/storm. You'll probably end up doing more damage than any other non-storm MM even while using mercs. Storm is actually decent defensively as well, but not quite as safe as something like /dark or /time generally.

Nice tip, lack of a taunt aura is what really puts me off a lot of the scrapper armor sets (although as said you could take provoke, but that's an extra power pick and an extra cast/animation time). For some reason I didn't even think about the incarnate power that has one. Side note: I do wish the scrapper taunt in their primary sets was an AoE so it would be auto hit and we wouldn't have to waste a pool pick on it, if we DID want an active taunt that would make it more useful.

Combat jumping stacks just fine with Shinobi-Iri on the scrapper I ran this combo on. Unless you mean you are trying to throw ninja run in there too, combat jump and ninja run won't work together. But with this combo I treat ninja run as my "travel power" and run that and Shinobi-Iri when I'm traveling and then combat jump and Shinobi-Iri when I'm fighting. I'd be surprised if hover worked any different. Honestly I'd do that over taking fly, but that's a preference thing. As to the stealth question, Shinobi-Iri only gives 35ft of stealth in pve, same as a steatlh IO, so I'd think you'd still need to throw a stealth IO in sprint, along with Shinobi-Iri, to have full "invisibility".

1hr = 2 days actually. It is a new midnight (normally) at :00 and :30 of every real life hour. https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Time

Can answer one real quick. Recharge slotting in pets only affects the recharge of the summon power. Pets/pet attacks are not affected by +recharge (that also goes to +recharge buffs like speed boost, they'll get the +speed but not the +recharge). They are also immune to -recharge debuffs as a silver lining, but again are still affected by slows to movement (as you'll see when they get hit by something like caltrops). Endurance reduction does affect both the summon power and the pets. I definitely notice the difference in some of my pets running out of endurance with and without endurance slotting. It greatly depends on the pet though, some tend to use a lot of end and others not so much. For example, from my memory for necro pets it isn't too much an issue, whereas all 5 of my thugs seem to be heavy end users, and for bots it was mostly an issue with the two protector bots. I'm not as familiar with demons, but it is pretty easy to watch and figure out for yourself which need help in that area.

I definitely suggest some of those procs, especially if you aren't a fan of knockback. Best early level mitigation I had was spamming gale, which was probably my most used power early on (and I still use it a lot now, even more than hurricane). That proc in gale means you can freely spam it even in the open and in groups. Hurricane does take that proc as well, but it only mitigates the knockback, the repel is still there, so you still push them back as well as knocking them down. I'm still undecided on even putting one there as often I'll only use hurricane now as more of an "emergency" button, not something I use all the time. Using it with the knockback can be useful as it more often ragdolls things which can sometimes lead to them being taken out of the fight for a long time. That one is a preference thing. That proc in tornado is a must imho. In lightning storm it is nice, but not quite as mandatory since its knockback isn't as high of a mag, so if you are fighting +3's say, it'll probably just do knockdown even without the proc. I haven't calculated the exact numbers though. I went ahead and put one in so I can team without worrying about it.

With Ninja maybe....? Never tried ninja/storm myself. Not sure why you'd think thugs die easily with /storm. Lvl 45 now on that one and not quite there yet, but my thugs/storm pets will soon enough have soft capped defenses (46% to melee and ranged, 61% to aoe by my calculations) and that is without any incarnate extras (I did have to sacrifice some proc slotting in enforcers so I could slot defense there, pre-incarnate at least). I couldn't actually find a way to even get close to soft capping on a necro/storm when I tried to build one. Necro do get extra tohit debufing, but that isn't always as reliable/easy as just soft capping them. That debuffing doesn't always hit the right targets and then against AV's is severely reduced in effectiveness. I feel like necro is actually a step down in defense and with them would rather go with something safer like necro/dark or necro/time. I actually want to try a necro/dark sometime. I'm still not the best MM player so sometimes things get spread out and pets do die (especially that darn arsonist), but that's kind of a danger for almost any MM. Yes even more so for storm as it has so many powers that cause enemies to run (which is why I definitely am not a fan of illusion/storm which has zero access to immobilizes). But as long as I can keep things fairly tightly packed my thugs already feel almost indestructible.

I'd probably go mercs/storm for your mercs. Gives them probably the most damage help you can give them and some hefty -res help.

Haven't seen anyone mention this one, there is also a Supergroup base buff you can get for +perc. Usually SG buffs last for 1.5 hours each in exchange for a few pieces of cheap salvage. Also super easy to pop into a base now with the slash command to get it done. I believe the SG buff is the same +20% perc that the rectified recticle IO gives. That may not always be enough on its own? If not combine the two that gives +40% which should be enough I'd think.

One tip on using shadow maul, take a little step back before activating it. With a tiny bit of range it'll more easily hit more than 1 target as the cone gets slightly wider at the edge of its range(like most melee it has a 7ft range). It takes some practice, but it gets pretty easy to regularly hit at least 2 and if you can hit 2 with it, it is worth using from a dps/dpa standpoint.

Ice armor does have a minimal fx option, unless you mean even at minimal it is still too much (it does still have some fx to it even at minimal, but doesn't turn you into a total ice cube anyway).

Yep, once you get the incarnate boosts, I'd think most MM's should be able to do it, although speed of doing so might vary depending on powers/build of course.

I'd say softcap defense is nice, but not vital, unless you plan to tankermind. Since I don't see provoke in your build I'm assuming you aren't going for that. Keep in mind that in bodyguard mode you have really good resistances when needed, which helps a lot.