Maelwys

AFAIK the bulk of the benefit comes from the power's inherent 25% chance for "Rising Tide" Cold damage (which applies to every. single. attack. made on the affected target, regardless of whether it's from a player/pet/pseudopet... 🤩 ) so it's an absolutely crazy source of additional damage on teams or for soloing pet builds (especially MMs) but I haven't noticed it triggering "IO damage procs" particularly well/frequently (e.g. about as much as any other large-radius toggle)?

Fair enough. Just as long as you're aware that the term %damage could easily be misinterpreted as "percentage of additional damage enhancement" rather than "percentage chance for additional damage" by the newbies! 😉 These days I generally try to use "aspect" as a catchall term whenever I'm referring to enhancing one of the base stats of a power; since as far as I'm aware that's how the devs have always referred to it under the hood. (So an Acc/Dam HO buffs both "Accuracy Aspect" and "Damage Aspect", etc). But it's soooo easy to unconsciously slip into unintelligible shorthand and OMGWTFBBQ acronym soup...

Just a thought... but I strongly suspect that using "%damage" as shorthand for "damage procs" might be rather confusing for anyone who doesn't understand all the ins-and-outs of this stuff yet... because it's not procs but instead regular Damage Aspect-boosting Enhancements that affect the damage percentages within the Enhancements display. I think @Carnifax is on the right lines with their recommendation for Ice Blast or Water Blast - both those get lots of Proc opportunities (due to their attack secondary effects allowing the slotting of procs from non-standard IO sets) plus at least one "Rain" power (which work very well with Scourge because they check enemy HP on every tick). Fire Blast also gets a rain power; but its attacks don't get access to any procs outside of the regular Ranged Damage or AoE Damage sets (not that "Blaze" needs any help to deal sky-high damage, but still!) I wholeheartedly agree with this statement! 😁 My own personal observations on Marine's powers: T1 Shoal Rush is a large AoE that can get both accuracy pieces and several %damage. IMO Shoal Rush is by far the most skippable power in Marine Affinity at present; providing you have other opportunities to slot the Achilles' Heel proc. However it's not a bad power by any stretch so if you have room for it, great. T2 Soothing Wave - This just wants Healing aspect enhancement and possibly some Endurance reduction. You can get by with just the base slot if needed; but I typically 2 or 3-slot it. The main thing to remember is that it's a cone heal which does NOT automatically cause you to face towards anything before it triggers. So if you want to use it to heal a particular ally; you'll want to "/face" them first (including "$$face" within your targeting keybind can help here!) T3 Toroidal Bubble is a good mule for useful pieces, and it comes early. I don't think there are many useful procs you can stick in Toroidal. However it's indeed a great place to put the Steadfast and Gladiator's Armor +Def Globals. ED-cap it for +Res and maybe stick a +EndMod in there too if you regularly exemplar low enough to lose access to Power of the Depths. T4 Whitecap is a fun PBAoE attack power that can also take Accuracy/Enurance pieces and many %damage options. As mentioned in my earlier post, Whitecap is absolutely brilliant when procced up. I'd go with: 1x Accuracy (or Acc/EndRed) + 3-4x Damage Procs + 0-1x Force Feedback Proc + Fury of the Gladiator -Res Proc. T5 Tidepool shouldn't be slotted except maybe for Endurance Reduction. Stick with the Base slot and some combination of Endurance and/or Slow. IIRC slotting Accuracy does pretty much nothing. T6 Brine will mesh well with all sources of damage, including Scourge. Brine needs Accuracy; if you have any spare slots then go with buffing its Healing Aspect and Recharge Rate. The main purpose of the power is inflicting -Res; which doesn't stack; but the -MaxHP debuff is a FLAT value (so it'll all but delete most low-rank critters you use it on) and will stack with multiple applications. T7 Shifting Tides is a surprisingly good AoE %damage power (when spawn sizes are increased) Shifting Tides doesn't proc very well since it's a Toggle; so IMO this one is best used for muling some set bonuses unless you really don't need them. T8 and T9 Barrier Reef and Power of the Depths are solid. Barrier Reef wants ED-capped Defense and Healing aspect... but it can also take a LotG +7.5% Global Recharge IO and is an absolutely fantastic place to stick a Panacea Proc (because its effects will apply to every ally buffed by the Reef)... so optimal slotting is something like LotG + Def/EndRed + Def + 2x Heal + Panacea. Power of the Depths just wants ED-capped Healing and Recharge Aspect; so is typically the best place to put a 6-piece Preventive Medicine set.

A lot of powers on a lot of ATs will gain more "additional average damage" from slotting a damage proc than from slotting a regular damage Common/Set IO. Whitecap from the Marine Affinity set is a very good example of this - whilst it deals damage; the base damage is so poor that focusing on enhancing it is practically worthless... but it takes multiple flavours of damage procs. Fully enhanced for damage aspect Whitecap deals ~20 damage. With procs? >250-300 easy. The only times I won't intentionally veer towards damage procs is if the power in question has such poor proc activation chances that the above is not the case (typically in these cases the power is coded as a "toggle" or has extremely fast base recharge) or if I desperately need to slot more IOs in an attack than is "locally optimal" (for example: when I'm pursuing a particular set bonus that requires slotting multiple pieces of a Set which doesn't contain any procs). Much of my build-poking stems from trying to coax as much average damage (via both procs and damage aspect slotting) out of my attack chain as possible whilst maintaining a 95% hit chance on +3 enemies and whatever level of damage mitigation and recovery I decide the toon "needs".

Looks like a Gaussian in Tactics.... maybe they solely run full team/league content? If not, 100% dump Leadership + pickup Aim (move the Gaussian there) pronto. Also move the Stealth Io from Superspeed to Sprint and stick a Winter's Gift unique in it instead.

Assuming you're constantly keeping a sufficiently high number of critters around you it really doesn't matter what rank those critters are. Hitting 5/10/16 mobs with an AoE is always going to work out faster than punching them down one by one. Perhaps if you're OCD about completely finishing off each spawn before leaping/combatTP-ing into the next one (or five)...? I tend to meteor farm; where mob density is best described as "stratospheric"... 😜

Healing isn't mitigation. Heals don't absorb or avoid or otherwise reduce the damage that a character takes from an incoming attack. Instead they just RESTORE (some of) that character's Hitpoints after the (full) damage has already been taken. There are some very niche interactions with the anti-one-shot code; but by and large if a character has 1000 Current HP and an attack hits them for 1001 damage then no amount of healing is going to "mitigate" that and save them from faceplanting. And likewise; if a character can heal an average of 50 HP/Second and is taking an average of 49 HP/Sec then they'll be fine indefinitely (outside of the aforementioned high spike damage)... but if they're instead taking 51 HP/Second then eventually they are going to faceplant (see /Regen Scrappers of old; aside from that whole meme about constant nerfs there's another one about them being either at 100% health or Dead but never in between!) Realistically if you're fighting something that can deal noteworthy damage then DEFENSE or RESISTANCE is what is going to save you; rather than high levels of healing. Healing will certainly keep you topped up... but you need far; far less of it if your target has noteworthy amounts of Resistance and/or Defence. Read up on some old threads about the Immortality Line and you'll see this in action. Due to this it's not any of Empathy's Heals but instead Fortitude that is the most powerful tool in Empathy's belt. Unfortunately Fortitude is drastically limited in effectiveness until you get sufficient +Recharge to keep it up on most/all of your team (and Power Boost/Radial Clarion to increase its Defense values!) Making Fortitude AoE would at least reduce the need for every single good Empath out there to hyperfocus on global +Recharge; and adding some +ABSORB to Empathy's other abilities would give some extra headroom whenever your team are suffering from occasional extreme spikes of damage.

I suspect that offensively TitanWeapons or perhaps IceMelee are going to clinch it for working better on a Scrapper due to hefty Single Target damage plus solid ATO opportunities. For Secondary... it's hard to look past the Defensive Powersets. Their 75% hardcap hurts Scrappers far more on the Resistance sets. Maybe Shield Defense due to Scrappers getting decent raw numbers from Shield Charge (even though it can't Crit) and a greater comparative damage increase compared to Brutes from Against All Odds buffage? Ice Armor on Scrappers also gets Icy Bastion instead of Hibernate.

That's the one. The power with the Repel in it is from the FF powerset - Repulsion Field. It inflicts Repel and knockback every 0.25s; but it doesn't cost you any extra endurance for each enemy shunted back unless you're in PVP. (However it's worth pointing out that slotting KB>KD in it actually reduces the Repel chance from 100% to 0% and so DOES have a benefit here). Sonic Dispersion Repulsion on the other hand is completely different, and functionally identical to Repel from the Kinetics powerset except that it's centred on an ally; not on you. Neither of those powers actually inflict the repel effect on foes (despite the name!) but instead they inflict Knockback every 0.5s and charge you 1 additional Endurance for each enemy that gets knocked back. Slotting a KB>KD IO in them vastly reduces the activation chance of the knock effect; making it a "10% chance for Knockdown" every 0.5 seconds instead of a "100% chance for Knockback". Which whenever you or a squishy teammate are standing in the middle of a big mob of enemies can occasionally be useful; and it also lowers the endurance drain from "completely unbearable" to "just about manageable with some assistance from Transference/Ageless/etc". FF's Repulsion Field with a KB>KD IO is almost always going to be the better power in every respect - more than double the radius, no additional endurance cost and pulses twice as often... but Sonic Repulsion is not completely useless. Sonic Cage however...? All using that does these days is aggro your teammates.

I'd great fun on live with an Illusion/Empathy Controller. Building for Perma Phantom Army also resulted in Perma Adrenaline Boost, 5-6+ simultaneous Fortitudes and considerable uptime on the Auras. I took Power Boost which meant no Patron pet, but the PA plus Phantasm plus Confused enemies worked out grand for soloing. If I was to redo it again I might be more tempted by Arsenal Control these days. Much better damage output and control; and throwing a Power Boosted Fortitude on the Tri-Cannon combined with either Radial Clarion or Maneuvers + a Pet IO or two should get it to both the Res Hardcap and Def Softcap...

Short answer: a Tanker. Longer answer: look here - Depending on what form of farming you're after (Active or Passive) a Brute isn't too far off. But only a few Brute setups can actually survive Passive Farming on +4x8 nowadays without making large build concessions (in terms of trading damage output for survivability)... it's basically a shortlist of one secondary: non-Granite /Stone.

Also AoE Mez protection that doesn't require attention; and Liquefy's uptime can be pretty decent now. But Sonic Cage is still less than useless. And Sonic Dispersion Repulsion is often dubious even with a KB>KD IO in it.

No matter where he goes, there he is.

Shield Defense for Grant Cover and Against All Odds. Likely paired with Dark Melee (-ToHit) or Ice Melee (-Rech and IcePatch). Soul Mastery for More -ToHit. Or a VEAT Night Widow/Crab...

Pirate themed /Marine MM: (Ninjas/, Mercs/ or Thugs/ seemed the best fit, went with Mercs/ in the end for the DUST Cannon!)

Stone Armor can hit 90% Fire Resistance pretty trivially even outside of Granite Form via Brimstone Armor plus a few set bonuses from Purple or Winter sets. Its ramping up all the positional defenses to 45%+ whilst maintaining a decent number of damage procs in your AoEs that starts being a real balancing act. See the build in this post as an example of an all rounder tank build that can also AFK AE Fire farm.

To be fair, it's 5 times out of every 100 casts. ('cause ignoring the Hit Chance formula would be illogical...) 😉 It's been pointed out that Pain Domination has everything you'd want from Empathy healingwise. But Pain ALSO provides AoE +Resistance/ToHit/Dmg buffs and an AoE -Res debuff. That should really make the performance disparity obvious by itself.

This. Heals are a Cure, and Prevention is better than Cure. Other than Fortitude, the Empathy powerset is all about reacting to damage that has already been taken. Fortitude is an excellent buff but is limited by being Single Target. Even with the best recharge slotting (something only available at Lv50) you're going to struggle to keep the entire team Fort'ed up... and you'll have to pick and choose who gets their Fortitudes buffed by Power Boost (and Clarion Radial). Empathy's heals are very noticeable to other players because they make your green bar go up. But performancewise unless your entire team is already at the Resistance and Defense caps bringing a different support powerset will always outperform Empathy. And often Marine or Nature will beat it there too. I have a lot of nostalgia love for Empathy, but these days the set's real world performance is pants and it absolutely needs a buff.

Unrelenting from the Presence Pool too.

Yeah. Because on a Tanker Innocuous Strikes gets double buffed by Gauntlet (90ft cone/5 targets --> 135ft Cone/10 Targets!) and more importantly it helps generate Form of the Body stacks for Eye of the Storm. With sufficient Recharge (from Force Feedback!) you can just about chain GS > IS > GS > EoTS... but trading a GS for Serpent's Reach makes it a bit easier to juggle and can trigger Decimation procs:

It's certainly powerful combo; lots of AoE and -Res and Guarded Spin makes up for Bio's few shortcomings. Using too many click powers outside of Staff's combo mechanic can actually slow you down though. Comboed Eye of the Storm spam (with Force Feedback and -Res Procs) is what keeps you ticking whenever you're mindlessly AOEing... and if you're fighting something tough then you'll want to keep a comboed Sky Splitter (and 1-2 stacks of Guarded Spin) going. The optimal chain can just about cope with about one extra power activation (e.g. a single Epic blast) but personally I did without. I'd aim for 45% to F/C/E/N typed defense and within one SMoT Proc of the S/L Resistance Hardcap. Getting your baseline melee positional defense up high enough that one copy of Guarded Spin softcaps it should be pretty straightforward too. Bear in mind that Bio has no DDR, but being able to stack a second copy of Guarded Spin on demand will compensate for that in most everything short of 4* content. Also... swap Precise Strike for Mercurial Blow (that's where the Achilles Heel Proc goes!) 😉

The set itself looks like it has a lot of "Recharge" in it and the low-tier set bonuses are rubbish; so it's not going to lend itself to proccing/frankenslotting. That "Chance for Confuse" proc is only 2.5PPM and I assume it'll be Mag 2 base with a "chance for another +1 Mag" that increases in likelihood depending on the number of Cupid's Crush enhancements slotted up to a maximum of 20% (which is a self-defeating mechanic with all that local recharge lowering the initial proc activation chance!) The set bonuses however look pretty decent; and that 6-piece recharge bonus will be excellent on mule attacks that aren't already purpled out...

When you say "AE Farms" do you mean ACTIVE FARMING (when you stay behind the wheel and activate powers/clicky defenses) or PASSIVE "AFK" FARMING (when you just enter the mission, stick one PBAoE attack on autofire + then come back 5-10mins later)? Those two goals each need very different types of builds to be effective. Active farmers don't need much regeneration and can get away with uncapped defense/resistance; because you'll be there to pop inspirations. They also often don't bother with multiple damage auras; but they do want lots of AoE powers; all crammed full of -res and damage procs. Passive farmers absolutely require 90% Resistance and 45% Defense and >35 HP/Sec regeneration. And they'll generally want two damage auras and one decent high-radius and high-target-cap PBAoE that can be procbombed and set to Autofire. After that it's a case of cramming in as much global +Damage and +Recharge as you can. Stone Armor Brutes have a major advantage over Stone Armor Tankers: Brimstone Armor. The additional "damage procs" granted via Brimstone Armor are coded to benefit from Fury. "Quills" from Spines also doesn't benefit from Tanker Gauntlet. IMO a Graniteless Spines/Stone Brute probably lends itself best to AFK AE "Fire-farming" with Spine Burst set to Autofire. You'll find some similar example setups in this thread. Personally I use a RadMelee/Stone Brute (Atom Smasher can slot the Achilles' Heel -res proc and will farm a little faster) but there's not a huge amount of difference.