Maelwys

Reactive for the -Res is generally more useful in PVE content, with the -MaxHP from Degenerative pulling ahead on tougher targets like AVs/GMs that have substantially higher HP. However... a lot of folk run Reactive so I see more cases where its Debuff is maxed out and my copy makes no difference. And for Elec/Shield Stalkers my gut is that Degenerative can help more than usual because you're tending to open the fight with two big AoEs. During a Shield Charge/Lightning Rod Alpha Strike, your interface proc will get two opportunities to kick in. If Reactive kicked in on the first hit, only the second attack gets the -res benefit. If Reactive kicked in on the second hit, neither of the attacks gets the -res benefit. But if Degenerative kicks in on either of those two hits... then you will still get the full benefit of its -MaxHP effect. On top of any Proc damage. Which may cause things to die that would have been left on a sliver of health. So I tend to come down on the side of Degenerative (even just for the sake of being a better AV/GM killer!)

The only other thing that's now popping into my head is that neither Lightning Rod nor Shield Charge utilize offensive procs well on Stalkers; because they're effectively pseudopet summons (I believe Tankers are the only AT that differ here due to their Lightning Rod not being coded as "CreateEntity" but instead "ExecutePower"). So if you're looking for a good place to stick that 5-piece Winter Set; perhaps try Shield Charge. A self-affecting proc like a Force Feedback Proc in the 6th Slot will work just fine though. Taking Jacob's Ladder will give a higher ST Damage (especially with the -res proc going off more often); but taking Thunderstrike will likely result in better AoE coverage given how tricky it is to position narrow melee cones properly... and if you Procbomb Thunderstrike the full proc damage will apply to the secondary "splash" targets. So all things considered I'd probably lean towards something like the below (which doesn't require a Kismet or Maneuvers; and may even be able to forgo Ageless). Stalker - Electric_SD IOed (TS).mbd

Looks very similar slotting and power selection to mine actually - I skipped Maneuvers in favour of OwtS; took Jacob's Ladder instead of Thunderstrike (although it's also using 5x Winters + a FoTG -res proc!) and leaned a little more into +Regen than Resistances but otherwise almost identical. My Kismet is sitting in Combat Jumping rather than Grant Cover (parts of Grant Cover affect you; but I haven't tested if that includes a Kismet 120sProc activation) since I didn't need the extra +Def aspect in CJ to hit the softcaps. About the only thing that might be worth considering is that I didn't slot a full ATO set in Assassin's Shock - forgoing some local recharge aspect in favour of a Hecatomb and Touch of Death Proc. IIRC when I worked out my attack chain the additional global recharge really wasn't doing much for me.

Maybe try this: Darktech Robot-Dark MM mk 3m.mbd Shuffled a few slots around, +5'ed some IOs, got some more raw recovery aspect and picked up your Accolades. (Also fixed the lack of ED-capped +Res aspect in Equip Robot and amended the 4th slot in the Protector Bots to the +Res Aura) If you're intending to be running Fly over Group Fly then the slotting of those two can be swapped; but I typically only toggle on Fly to pop Afterburner.

Aye but it's 5PPM; so always seems a shame not to put it in the lower recharge powers. But all's good as long as it's not the Energy Font... 😜

Heys again Neiska! The only pet that wants KB>KD now is the AssBot (purely for the regular non-incendiary missiles). Regarding the Protector Bot bubbles - yeah it's 13% base now; so take your slotting, add 1 and multiply it by 13% (13%*1.3188=17.1444%) - whilst they no longer double-stack on the Drones and AssBot; having them affect the Protector Bots is handy as is the fact that Protector Bots themselves don't get tied up in indefinitely recasting their bubbles every few seconds. And there are shenanigans to be had with things like Power Boost and Clarion Radial Destiny whenever you realise that it counts as a boostable long-duration defence buff. Regarding Endurance... Drones are nearly self-sufficient; but Protector Bots and AssBot (despite having 50% uptime on Conserve Power) both want as much Endurance Reduction as you can give them. The Bots/ MM I play most often has 33% in Drones, 86% in Protector Bots and 42% in AssBot and all but the Drones will eventually run dry. Whilst Dark doens't get any allied +Recovery/Endurance tools the Panacea Proc works in Twilight Grasp; which might help a smidge over time. Talons Radial all the way. Banished Pantheon Radial can output a fair amount of damage and -res debuffs providing that you can keep the boss alive... but Talons are far better at AoE damage mitigation and improving your (multiple!) heals; and the Talon Boss's "Seasonal Shift" AoE ability has an insanely high target cap. Battle Drones yes, Protector Bots no. Ideally stick an Explosive Strike proc in the Drones and Assbot. This is my default "trying to maximise damage whilst fitting in the four most important aura IOs" slotting: (Dam and Acc/End ATOs) - Endred is ~33%. (Acc/Dam/End and Dam/End ATOs; plus a LotG +Rech) - EndRed is ~60%. (Acc/Dam and End/Aura ATOs) - EndRed is ~23%. Unfortunately that still leaves the Assault Bot and Protector Bots a bit underslotted for Endurance Reduction, but they'll last a reasonable amount of time before running dry. However if you're taking Musculature Alpha and are slotting Tactics for +ToHit (as many MMs do!) then you can get away with swapping the Acc/Dam HO in the Protector Bot and Assault Bot for a Lv50+5 Acc/Dam/EndRed, which largely solves the issue. Fitting in ED-Capped Defense aspect in the Protector Bots is very tricky - something has to give... (Acc/Dam and End/Aura ATOs) - EndRed is ~23%. (Acc/Dam/End and Dam/End ATOs plus a Lv50+5 Acc/Dam/End Set IO. LoTGs are Def and +Rech) - EndRed is ~85%. (Dam and Acc/End ATOs) - Endred is ~33%. ...and in this case it's the Assbot's Accuracy and Damage aspect. With Musculature Core Alpha and Tactics it's just about OK if you're not up against enemies with Defence buffs. I'll also back up a lot of what @StrikerFox wrote above regarding other slotting tweaks; however it might be worth pointing out that /Dark really only benefits minimally from Global Recharge - it wants to get the Dark Servant Perma (which the OP's build has already!) and multiple copies of Tar Patch out (having two out constantly is nice for taking down AVs/GMs... but as long as you've got one up for every group or even every other group in "regular content" it's fine!)

Positron's Blast, Bombardment, Javelin Volley and Cloud Senses make 4... are you sticking an ATO in for the 5th? (It has low base accuracy and can take up to 58.02% local recharge aspect before 3.5PPM procs get negatively impacted; so I lean towards 4x procs + 2x Acc/Stun/Rechs!)

Boxing and Kick are primarily there as prerequisites + to ramp up Cross Punch's damage; if you drop one of them you'd also need to take Tough or drop Weave. If you want to swap Boxing with Tough (drop Unstoppable + move its global to Tough) to try + fit a better ST attack in; go for it. But the power pool selections are already set here so you're really just left with Kick (switch its place with Boxing and potentially swap the last slot out for another Force Feedback Proc) and Jab (very "Meh"). Or just drop the notion entirely and use those slots elsewhere and/or pick up Hand Clap (for example). Honestly the only attacks you'll actually end up using at higher levels on SS are Haymaker, KO Blow, Cross Punch and Foot Stomp (and with FF Procs going you can sometimes even forgo Haymaker). Rotating these in the above build provides consistent +Recharge, +Absorb and SMoT procs in addition to inflicting Knockdown, Hold and the very occasional Stun. So Boxing and Punch are both relegated to the role of "filler" attacks at lower levels or on those few occasions where using Footstomp is irrelevant... but I'd sooner use Boxing than Punch there due to its slightly better DPA and the (remote) chance to Stun-Stack with Cross Punch.

I get the jeebies taking Alphas with Recharge Aspect unless the toon isn't proccing their attacks out. Boxing is a bit pants, yes, but with the base damage and utility boosts from taking both Kick and Cross Punch IIRC it becomes roughly on par with Punch; and having an extra ST attack at very low levels is situationally useful to fill a gap when exemplaring. OF's knockdown Proc has a little synergy with the other powers and its set bonuses, whilst comparatively underwhelming, are all useful for this build and got the toon's defence totals perfectly even (which my OCD really appreciates! 😁). The contents of its 6th slot might look rather funky too... but there isn't much recharge aspect in the power so a 4.5 PPM purple damage proc activates reasonably well despite its low base recharge (~21.5% chance); and since all the other ST attacks in the build are crammed full there really wasn't a better place to put it. All that said, I think this toon (albeit a version with SJ instead of Fly) is the only one in my stable which uses more than one OF enhancement. Leaning into Knockdown is a bit of a throwback too - back on live it even had Air Superiority for a while!

As a visual example: here's an Energy Melee/Rad Armor Scrapper who I enjoy playing in regular content and occasionally bring Active S/L AE Farming at +4x8. The defense numbers you see below are with Shadow Meld Active; which has roughly 50% uptime. Without it, he's at a smidge under 15% S/L Defense. His build is not focused on mitigation but instead on Damage Output via Procs and enough Global Recharge to create a high-DPA seamless attack chain. Scrappers only have a resistance cap of 75%; and their Maximum HP is also lower than Brutes/Tankers (this toon only clocks in at ~2008!) so you don't see them used much in AE farming. However whilst he definitely can't claim to kill as many things as quickly as an optimised Tanker, his procced Radiation Therapy, Ground Zero and Whirling Hands can still make short work of Minions and LTs whilst he focuses on the Bosses with EM's high Single Target burst damage - and the resulting mob killing rate is fast enough that enough Inspirations come in to keep him alive between Shadowmeld recasts (alongside occasional uses of Void Radial Judgement; and Barrier Destiny for emergencies!)

You just about have sufficiently high passive regeneration providing that you have all your +HP/Endurance Accolades and Particle Shielding is active. However without Meltdown running your highest resistance figure (Smashing/Lethal) is only at 78.5%. It should be 90%. And your Highest Defence figure (Smashing/Lethal) is a smidge shy of 31% without Melee Radial Embodiment running. It should be 45%. Whilst the -ToHit debuffs from Beta Decay and Dark Obliteration can help a bit, they'll only affect the foes they can hit. On a typical farming map there will be several times that number shooting at you. Unfortunately you're also not outputting anywhere near enough AoE damage to defeat foes quickly enough to allow you to keep yourself afloat via Inspirations; so as-is, I suspect the only way that build will survive in a +4x8 Asteroid map is if it's a S/L farm and you're keeping at least 10 foes within 10ft of you with Melee Radial Embodiment running. If you want to farm at that sort of pace; then pick a single common Damage type (like Smashing/Lethal; or Fire) and get its Resistance to 90% and its Defense to 45%. Alternatively; pick lots of high-DPA AoE attacks; load them up with Procs; then use temp powers and inspirations to keep yourself upright whilst you slaughter everything much faster. Rad Melee unfortunately does not overly lend itself to this type of play... but Radiation Armor does. I'd recommend proccing the crap out of Ground Zero and Radiation Therapy at a bare minimum, swapping to Mu Mastery (for Electrifying Fences and Ball Lightning - procbomb both of them!) and taking T4 Incarnates that help (e.g. Void Radial Judgement, Barrier Destiny; Reactive Radial Interface, Assault Radial Hybrid; Banished Pantheon Radial Lore; and either Musculature, Vigor or Nerve Alpha).

AFAIK the way it functions currently is that a target affected by Shifting Tides can get that Cold Damage triggered on them once every 0.1 seconds. And every single attack made by all entities attacking that target will trigger a separate opportunity for this damage to activate. So "the more things attacking and the more attacks being made, the better". That cold damage is affected by damage boosts (like slotting damage enhancement aspect into Shifting Tides, and any buffs like Red Insps and Tide Pool and Fulcrum Shift) and -resistance debuffs (Whitecap, Brine, -res IO procs)... but the Shifting Tide power itself counts as a wide radius toggle for the purposes of proc IOs; so slotting damage procs into it will have very little benefit. Go with capped ED damage instead. [Edit: pipped to the post by @Auroxis who summed it up better anyway!]

That one works as a set bonus; it's a 5% chance for ANY attack to recharge Build Up; not just the attack that it's slotted in. And no, it's a flat 5% chance not a PPM-linked chance so recharge rate has zero effect. Though IIRC you may need to use the attack it's slotted in once per map before the set bonus will actually kick in and start operating.

Yeah unfortunately Mids has a consistent bug where if you load an Invulnerability build that already has Invincibility toggled on + set to X targets then it often won't actually include it in the defense totals. To get it working again you need to drop the target count to zero, turn Invincibility off and back on again, then finally up the target count to 1 again. It's annoying so I tend to set Invincibility to 0 targets and detoggle it before I hit the save button on my builds! Don't worry about database mismatches, I poke at the backend of my copy of Mids a lot (re-fixing things like Protector Bot Bubbles) but it won't affect the values.

Assault Radial Hybrid (the one with the "chance for Double Hit") always gives the same boost regardless of your damage scalar... which means that it'll end up providing more proportional benefit to you the lower your current AT's "base damage" is. So if your AT's melee damage scalar is considerably higher than 1.0 (Scrappers are 1.125) then using Assault Core Hybrid will be better; and if your AT damage scalar is considerably lower than 1.0 (Brutes are 0.75) then using Assault Radial Hybrid will be better. Tankers are very slightly weighted in favour of Radial (0.95) - so it really comes down to if you prefer spiky or consistent damage... IMO if you're farming lots of EBs (which will smooth out the spikes!) or if you're at the damage cap (via chugging Insps or Fulcrum Shift) then go for Radial; but otherwise chances are that many of its additional damage spikes will end up doing a lot of "overkill" damage on lower-tier foes like minions and LTs. (Also FWIW Stalkers have a scalar of 1.0; but realistically should always go for Radial because their ATOs plus a Gaussian Proc in Build Up means they'll often be at the damage cap even when soloing. If that wasn't the case then running Core would work out a bit better for them because Radial's damage proc doesn't scale with Critical Hits)

I'm pretty sure he was played by Phil Harris.

FWIW, I've rejigged my "all rounder" AFK-Farming RadMelee/StoneArmor Brute build into a StoneArmor/RadMelee Tanker build to try + provide another example: zTanker (Stone Armor - Radiation Melee).mbd Looks like it's clocking in at ~2.2 End/Sec Net Recovery and a passive regeneration of ~45 HP/Sec without Earth's Embrace running. It's worth noting that Atom Smasher on Autofire slotted as it is above (procbombed) will be dealing an average of 34.585 Dmg/Sec (38.778 with Assault Core Hybrid active). If instead it was slotted with a 5 piece Armageddon Set (ED-capped for both local recharge aspect and damage; and with a smidge more global recharge) then it'd be dealing an average of 34.933 Dmg/Sec (37.208 with Assault Core Hybrid active). So there's really not much in it there between procbombing and ED-capping recharge + damage aspect... unless you're also combining + popping red insps (or being Fulcrum Shifted!) in which case the Procbombed version will start pulling much further ahead.

Be careful of running that one as-is, since it looks very endurance heavy. According to Mids it's getting a Net recovery rate of 0.17 End/Sec but it'll require at least 0.91 End/Sec with Atom Smasher set to Autofire (assuming no non essential toggles running like Travel Powers/Sprint/Tough/etc). The Panacea and Performance Shifter Procs will be adding an average of 1.1 End/Sec over time; so It should just about be OK as long as you get all your +MaxEndurance accolades... but don't go fighting any foes with electrical attacks let alone active endurance drains or recovery debuffs. Definitely level it up as a different more regular build first (lots more attacks; Hasten; no leadership pool) and then respec into it at level 50 for AFK farming. Some ideas here for regular builds; though for anything I'm levelling quickly + don't overly care about I typically just use a few choice Global/Proc IOs (like a Panacea and some LotGs) and slot the rest with either SOs or Common Crafted IOs with or a little bit of junky frankenslotting that all get NPC-vendored or sold on the AH for 1 inf each after the respec.

Once you've it built (see here for how!) the easiest places to see its performance in action will be Monster Island (North of Portal Corp in Peregrine Island) for seeing how it copes vs monsters and/or large amounts of Smashing and Lethal damage... and the far North of the Rikti War Zone for groups of mixed damage Lv54 foes. Then soloing an ITF might be a good idea to see how it copes versus Defence Debuffs. Finally you can also check Architect Entertainment for any of the popular "Farming" maps (It'll cope just fine vs Smashing and Lethal damage critters without using any clicks) or even some of the 801 series if you really want to push things.

You're welcome 😉 (Pilot the MM, since you'll want to 'goto' and buff the pets with ID and Speed Boost a lot whilst spamming Fulcrum, Fireball, Bonfire and Transfusion. Set the VEAT autofollowing the MM [with Group Fly disabled on them via Null the Gull] with either frenzy or Venom Grenade on autofire and all their toggles running. Resummon the VEAT's pets when their timer's up; alternate Support Hybrids; and try not to blink!)

Musculature (or Intuition Radial) tends to be the goto Alpha(s) because of the Damage Enhancement boost which partially ignores the Enhancement Diversification limits. However the rest of that build and its currently selected Incarnate choices is actually more defensive than offensive driven: Melee Hybrid, Rebirth Destiny, etc. and Energy Mastery for Focused Accuracy (the ToHit Debuff resistance it grants plus Rage means you have options when you're under heavy debuffage from a roomful of CoT ghosts etc). Whilst KO Blow, Footstomp and Cross Punch do have some damage Procs (as they're the most important attacks) there are defensive related procs and set bonuses mixed in there too. Regarding endurance management... without Fly or Focused Accuracy active (and you really shouldn't be leaving them toggled on constantly anyway) you'll note it has a Net recovery of just over 2.5 Endurance per Second. For most toons anything over 2 is plenty. However since the toon doesn't rely on Barrier Core Destiny to get its mitigation capped you could certainly choose to run Ageless if you wanted to. INVs tend to gravitate towards Ageless Radial Destiny in harder content for its Defense Debuff Resistance anyway. Unstoppable is a mule power, yes. The crash is pointlessly crippling for the benefit it grants especially since you'll be able to sit at the Resistance hardcaps to everything (including Psionic!) without it via Superior Might of Tanker Procs plus Melee Core Hybrid. It can very occasionally be situationally useful for its non-toggle-based Mez protection; but carrying a big breakfree inspiration does the same job better. I used to be a big fan of using Unstoppable way back when before inventions were a thing (managing to time Dull Pain to help pick yourself up from the crash came with bragging rights!) but these days it's really just there to contain an extra global.

Typically in an AE farm the aggro cap is the major bottleneck. So the big benefit that bringing a second account along will accomplish is to attract an extra 17 targets into melee range so that everything gets AoE'd to death faster. Therefore I'd say bring something with an AoE taunting ability, either a Taunt Aura (so some Scrapper secondaries will count) or Gauntlet/Punchvoke (Brute/Tank PBAoE abilities). And aside from that? Moar Damage. Resistance debuffs always help, but most times an Active AE farmer will be combining inspirations into reds and sitting at their damage cap, so bringing a Kinetic buffbot etc will be largely pointless. All that said, making the second account into an AFK farmer and throwing it into its own separate AE map instance will always give you a better return than partnering two accounts up in the same map. The only time I'd bring two toons on the same farm is if one of them isn't level 50 yet or I'm just messing around (watching a Bot/Kin Mastermind plus a VEAT Crabbermind destroy one Asteroid after another is utterly hilarious but not exactly the most efficient!) 😉

A lot of the Invention Origin enhancement sets include one "global" or "Proc" enhancement; which has strange/unusual effects. There's a list here. One of the popular types of "proc" enhancements are "damage procs": essentially if you slot these in a power then whenever you activate that power it gets a chance to deal additional damage. There's a complicated formula to work out the exact chance; but the short version is that the longer the recharge time of the power (including slotted recharge enhancement; but not including external recharge from buffs and "global" set bonuses) the better the chances that a proc will activate. "Proc bombing" is whenever you slot lots of different damage procs (and/or resistance Debuff procs) in a single power - often neglecting to slot it fully (and sometimes neglecting to slot it at all) for regular damage enhancement aspect. After the power has enough accuracy to reliably hit, the rest of the available enhancement slots are filled with as many procs as the power can take. Infrigidate from Cold Domination is a good popular example of this: 1x Accuracy and 5x Procs is the typical slotting. I'm fond of doing something similar for Sleep Grenade from Arsenal Control and a good few other powers.

Here's a slightly shuffled variant of one of my builds that might work. zTanker - INV_SS (Hover).mbd With one foe in Invincibility range and no incarnate clickies running it looks like this this: The Superior Might of Tanker Proc (assuming you're using KO Blow on cooldown) will be adding another 6.7-20.1% resistance to all on top of that. Regarding the attuned vs non-attuned enhancements question... it depends. Generally you'll want to attune all your "globals" (check this list to see what counts as a global and what counts as a proc) but whether regular IO enhancements (Set IOs and Common Crafted Enhancements) are better attuned or boosted will depend on your current level as per https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Exemplar_Effects_on_Enhancements#Details and also on whether or not the set bonuses they grant are vitally important to your performance. Personally I almost always just boost them (unless they contain recharge enhancement aspect and the power they're in has lots of damage procs). Procs don't care about attunement; and Universal Damage and Archetype Enhancements are "pre attuned". PVP set enhancements and Very Rare (Purple) set enhancements can technically be attuned but they don't gain any benefit from it, so you'll always want to boost those.

Anything will survive soloing at +2x8. So speaking purely offensively I'd vote for BattleAxe + Radiation Armor. Scrapper if you want more Single Target damage; Tanker if you want more AoE damage. Fiery Melee isn't too far off either if you really don't like the look of the Axes.