Yomo Kimyata

It is my understanding (which is certainly not infallible) that a few episodes back they added a hidden accuracy check on damage procs for powers that are auto-hit. Non-damage procs should be auto-hit, which is one of the reasons I slot them over damage procs. I'm looking at Caltrops from the Scrapper epic pool Weapon Mastery, and a pure accuracy IO or SO cannot be slotted. You can, however, slot IOs that enhance accuracy as long as they also enhance one of the other core characteristics, like damage or recharge.

I don't ever parse combat logs because, well, it's a huge pain in the butt and I just don't care that much. That said, my "optimal" slotting for Caltrops is 2x Superior Frozen Blast (A/D/R and R/proc) for the slow resist, 2x Ragnarok (D/R +5 and chance for knockdown proc) for the end recovery, 2x Annihilation (-res proc and D/R) for the extra endurance. Accuracy doesn't count (unless you are putting in damage procs), but damage and recharge do. Sometimes I slot for slow, but rarely. In theory it rechecks for procs every ten seconds, or so I've been led to believe, but I'm mostly concerned with the initial placement and the flopping from the Ragnorak proc is evident. My minimum slotting would be the Ragnorak proc and the Annihilation proc.

It depends on the level of the set. Air Burst is the only Ranged AoE set from level 10-19, so it will not give you the option to convert by set type. If you are converting with attuned sets, even though there is no visible level, there is an internal level. I'm not entirely clear on how the internal level changes, but it can reset randomly to any level in the range of the set.

I'd think it would be two very different experiences, so run both! Both Staff and Electric in my opinion, are their best selves in Stalker form. @BuiltDifferent5's post got me to pull out my Staff/Bio and damn that's a good build. Staff/Stone would be interesting, especially if you stayed in full stone costume! Yes, Brimstone will help with damage. My only issues with this build might be that Earth's Embrace is more of a +hp power than a heal, and that Geode gets broken down a lot more quickly than I might like when you are going all out. I do like staff a lot though, and Guarded Spin helps a bit (although Stone is typed and Guarded is mostly useful in positional). This might be a case though where you might miss Form of Soul or whichever one cuts endurance -- Stone Armor is a harsh endurance mistress until you get your build right. Electric/Shield is a fan favorite, but I think that's mostly due to double telenukes. Historically, I don't love them, but nowadays I use macros to set up a telenuke on me, a telenuke on my target, or go traditional location. It speeds things up a lot. Not breaking Hide feels cheaty to me! I love Chain Induction (use Kinetic Combat knockdown!) I wish you could pick Staff/Shield! Although Electric/Stone...

As per your request in your message, here is my current build for my Staff/Bio stalker. It's probably overbuilt, to be honest: https://www.midsreborn.com/builds/download.php?uc=1724&c=757&a=1514&f=HEX&dc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

I love making themed SGs. I probably would have gone different directions in defining War, Pestilence, etc., but +1 for the work! I assume you mean "Death by endurance drain"!

@AboveTheChemistwrites the textbook.

Between better knowledge of the mechanics of the game (all hail Uberguy) and the continuous tools given to us by the HC devs, I, for one, tend to take care of myself. I carry wakies and breakies and if I screw up on a team I find it hard to believe anyone else would even notice.

I'm quite sure they work the same as non-superior. Try it and report back!

I've played a lot of different powers in HC, but I tend to draw the line at playing things I don't enjoy the look or feel of. Flipping animations, for example, or fire/ice swords. I also have a bit of an issue with secondaries that make you translucent/invisible, because I generally try to make a costume that I like the look and feel of. So as a result, I've done things like make Ice Melee characters without swords (very doable for a scrapper). The other day, I was playing a spines/electric brute and decided to pick up Ripper to see if I hated it as much as I remembered. I did, but I also realized that when I was fighting big mobs, I really couldn't see my character anyway, so why get uptight about the animation. And that got me thinking. Don't like fire swords? Great, use a secondary where you won't have to look at them. So I've decided to work on a Fire/Energy scrapper, killing two birds with one stone as I will maneuver an indistinct blob through the game. The problem, or course, is that I know very little about the Fire primary. Enlighten me!

Narc

@macskull, thanks for putting this together. It corroborates some of my observations. I strongly suspect that the number of active users is less than that, since there still are a bunch of dual/triple boxers out there, but my estimation of 1-2k consistent active users feels pretty solid. It's a village, and I think a high percentage of that village uses these forums. And we all know Excelsior is too crowded; no one goes there anymore!

For a scrapper, remember your resistance tops out at 75%. You're going to go way over that on Energy, and you don't need to put in a lot of effort to get smashing and lethal there (I'm looking at Mids and with just Tough and Charged Armor [and a few IOs like Shield Wall proc, etc.] 4-slotted with Unbreakable Guard I'm at 67.1%). Yes, higher than 75% will help your debuff resistance resistance, but that's a fringe case. So I find that focusing on positional defense is a good priority once you are satisfied with your resistances and heals.

Close. Very close.

Maybe he needed a bigger stake in the game?

Just imagine if tankers got AR -- the devs would make it 720 degree arc and range of 800 yards!

You can make a very effective Ice Melee without ice swords (except for stalkers). You cannot make a very effective Fire Melee without fire swords. You can make an effective Stone Melee without stone mallets (and there are also alternate animations without the mallet, yay!) You cannot make a very effective Psionic Melee without swords. Now, this is simply my opinion, and blah blah blah, but Psi Blade and Greater Psi Blade are really important in my eyes (not so much Psi Blade Sweep). On the plus side, you can play around with the coloring options and try to find as neutral a color as possible (I use Bright as the coloring option, and then choose a dark color).

Agree. I think they were designed as a parody, but I have zero doubt that if things in real life were more like Paragon that these billboards would be all over the place. I accept it as historical parody and I'm moving on.

Top. Men.

I can't wait until people start complaining about how enemy mobs now get this. Enemy mobs DO get this, right? Right?

It's auto-hit, but if you have damage procs in there, they do an accuracy check. Would the lyso's accuracy affect that? Me dunno.

I'm going to arbitrarily distinguish between cornering a market (which I would consider controlling a market and making a profit) and manipulating a market (which I'd consider changing the price points for a short- or even intermediate- term period of time, and profit is not a concern. It's really easy and low-cost to manipulate a market. Let's look at common salvage. If you want to set the minimum price of common salvage at 5,000 (half the seeded value and significantly higher than it trades now), that's easy. Take one of your lvl 50 characters and bid 5,000 on 200 sets of ten (assuming you have 200 market slots on that one character). That costs you 10mm inf, which is a trivial amount of money if you have a 50. Not a single inanimate carbon rod will trade for less than 5,000 inf for as long as your bids are still active. Now, the problem is that you are soon going to own 2,000 pieces of salvage, and good luck to you trying to sell it for more than 5,555 inf a piece (which is your break even point). Cornering a market is difficult and time intensive, and for most things impossible. Let's say I wanted to set the price of Trap of the Hunter procs at 10mm. First, I would have to buy up all those in the /AH for less than my target price. That's not hard. But now I have to defend the market and put in bids for what I want the minimum price to be. Now it's a question of supply and demand. The demand is limited to those who want to buy a TotH proc NAO. The supply is limited to those who get TotH proc recipes and craft them, to those with other TotH recipes and IOs and are willing to convert them into the proc, to those with other Immobilize recipes or IOs from level 20-50 and are willing to convert them to the set and then the proc, to those with other IO recipes or IOs, uncommon or rare, and are willing to convert them into the category, the set, and the piece, to those who are willing to swap merits for recipes, etc., etc. The supply is in theory unlimited, thank you converters and pooling. Now there are some things in the /AH that are harder to create than others (and some you can't create them at all), but for the most part, cornering a market requires putting in a lot of effort and making your profit margin so small (or negative!) that no other budding capitalist wants to make a profit or even wants to rain on your parade.

Doing what you enjoy is (to me) the paramount rule in this game. I enjoy leveling quickly (if I choose to do that on that character) and I enjoy *some* level of challenge. Every single alt I make starts out at +1/x1. Recently I started leveling a Stone/SS tank, and I put it at +2/x8 out of the box. Was that tedious in the beginning? Heck yeah. As you say, SS lacks AoE until Foot Stomp. But it was fun because I had to play strategically because I'd get several bosses in each mob at a time when three minions could take me out if I'm not careful. At early levels, x8 has you levelling 2-4 times in a single mission, so that's interesting as well! As far as raising your difficulty, on a melee character I'm generally at x3 in early teens, x5 in mid 20s, x8 by low 30s. That's going to have the biggest effect on how quickly you level. I usually try to avoid +4 until I'm at 50, since +5 mobs (half the time that's how they spawn, I believe) can be a pita unless you are slotted for accuracy. But if you enjoy being Andre the Giant against a large number of toddlers, have at it and run -1/x8! I can see how that could be fun. Do what you enjoy, no one is judging you except you!

Nope. You only get the reward the first time and your reward is based on where your character is at the time. I wait until I have my alpha open before running a WST.