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I have always 6-slotted both of the Scrapper ATO sets. Generally I don't think they lend themselves to 'franken-slotting', but if I didn't want the 6-piece bonus from Scrapper's Strike, and There was a long-enough recharge power I wanted to fire faster Then I would consider franken-slotting that longer recharge power with the Scrapper's Strike Recharge/Global Crit Bonus. So maybe Mass Levitate? The only thing working against my considering it for Greater Psi Blade is that I would almost certainly 5-slot Greater Psi Blade with some set, and add the very rare Unbreakable Constraint %Smashing piece as the final piece for that attack.

Sharing my final build for a Psi/Invuln/EM Stalker. I played this up to 50, and made some modifications along the way. I think there is a better Stalker to be made with this Primary/Secondary choice, but I like where this one landed with respect to the specific powers I wanted to have. I rather like how the Force of Will pool matches (graphics-wise) the Psi Melee primary. It wasn't within my specific character concept to use the Psi Mastery Epic pool, but I can see layering that set on top of the primary AND Force of Will to make a certain type of character. Invulnerability fit the concept better than most other choices, as well as being something of an easy set to run with. My play style choices and slotting preferences are on obvious display. I wanted Wall of Force as early as possible for two reasons: The single-target focus of a Stalker can be frustrating from the perspective of RNG missed attacks, so AoE mitigates that bad feel Runners, or critters otherwise not in melee range Normally I'd take Combat Teleport much earlier (to mitigate that second bullet point). Specific to the type of low-level content I play, I'd be pretty comfortable swapping the level pick of Dull Pain (level 10) with Combat Teleport (level 30).... as shared above, the progression of my Invulnerability power choices more-or-less allows for "one man stands" in level-appropriate PUG content. I find Project Will to generally be an inferior pick of ranged attack, but (a) it offered set bonuses I wanted and (b) it was a choice between that or Weaken Resolve. Weaken Resolve is a common choice for me, and takes no more than one extra slot... so if a player is focused more on higher-level content exclusively I would suggest the following changes: Level 8: Weaken Resolve (A) Analyze Weakness Accuracy/Recharge 50+5 (*) Achilles' Heel %-Resistance 5-slots in either the single-target or cone Epic ranged attacks. I don't think this Stalker needs two cone attacks, but I won't argue against having more AoE for larger spawn sizes. I'd slot Energy Torrent just like Wall of Force, so that would be a loss of some set bonuses for me. If the loss of 10% Global recharge hurt too much, that second slot from Weaken Resolve could be used elsewhere for a fifth LotG mule. Pull one slot out of Unyielding to make the slot math work out. Weaken Resolve will help against some particularly high HP targets, although I am reasonably satisfied with single-target damage (despite the concentration on Psi damage).

Even if we accept the math above, my main argument against the blanket recommendation of %-Resistance is that (for this example above) is this: In order to see the hypothetical benefit of "200 extra damage", that benefit won't show up until the next attack. If the critter gets defeated because of %damage, it isn't necessary to make multiple attacks. It makes no difference if a critter with 10HP left is finished off with an attack that does 2000 or 2200. For giant sacks of HP, this is noticeable. For other critters, less so.

I'm often using a LOT of respecs during leveling. Often I want to try different powers, sometimes it becomes necessary to change up enhancements. There are some non-standard things that can be done with power pools, respecs help explore those options. Outside of changes to power sets, the most common reason I'll respec a "completed" build is for some quality-of-life adjacent reason... commonly I'll discover that that I have Endurance management under control in a level 50 build, so I pull slots from things like Health or Stamina to put somewhere else.

Even more that Invulnerability, I find that Energy Aura is a set with a bigger "Psi Hole", because the lack of inherent positional defenses. Slot away with Psi resists!

The need for %proc to also hit doesn't show up in the logs. IIRC this was confirmed through code review. I convinced myself this was the case when I had a power with somewhat poor native accuracy... I replaced a %damage piece with an accuracy IO and via the logs I could see that %damage was hitting more frequently. Conversely... IIRC if you collect enough data from an attack with a %damage where the %proc rate is at the ceiling, you can eventually see that you get fewer %damage records (i.e. below 90%) for each hit. This is somewhat painful, because the %proc ceiling chances are in the slower recharging powers. It was with a Tanker's Taunt (loaded with %Psi from Perfect Zinger, and nothing else) where I first noticed that the %damage occurrences were not quite reaching the levels I expected from the %proc formula. As near as I can tell, not all "autohit" powers are created equal, especially when it comes to %procs. The differences that I observe are in the ones that can accept Accuracy IOs (like Tanker Taunts) and those that cannot. Auras/Toggles/pulsing pseudopets are particularly bad for %damage (or other %procs), mostly because the way the "tick" affects the %proc calculation but also because those types of powers are often not slotted for accuracy or cannot take accuracy enhancements.

Only 1 mini-pet at a time. It will need to be respawned every time you change an instance of a map. I am pretty sure this one doesn't fly, so it will try to path to wherever you are (unless you have Group Fly. Mini-pets do nothing, they won't even notify enemies that you are hidden.

Wouldn't it be true that if an enemy had ZERO Resistance to a damage type that -Resistance wouldn't add ANY damage to that enemy, for that damage type?

Again, sticking with a solo character: IMO: One of the many factors that works against %-Res beyond the marginal increases in (inherent) typed damage is that in order to capitalize on %-Res, there is a chain of several links that has to happen in order for it to work out: The player has to hit with attack containing %-Resistance The %-Res proc has to go off (with a ceiling chance of 90%), and hit The subsequent attacks have to come within the 10 second period The subsequent attacks have to hit The %-Res has to be reapplied (see 1 and 2, above) So (1) and (2) are relying on slotting (inherent to the attack, but also global set bonuses and power choices) to maximize recharge, ToHit, and accuracy... but also trying to avoid slotted recharge (to maximize %proc rates. (3) and (4) are more driven by slotting choices for accuracy and damage (because it's the damage-taken that is trying to be increased, plus slotted recharge because those attacks need to be ready to take advantage of the %-Res. In contrast, %damage only relies on equivalent conditions for (1), (2)... and if the %damage doesn't go off... i.e. (2) fails... it's no big deal because losing on some %damage has no effect on the rest of the attack chain, except possibly requiring a greater number of attacks. On teams, or with a MM or pet class... the non-players will be more-or-less constantly dumping attacks on targets, so this is how %-Resistance turns into a force multiplier. It helps some with Damage auras too, so on something like a Tanker that has relatively low inherent DPS attacks AND can get enemies to group... every little bit helps, and Bosses tend to stick around when playing a solo Tank. In my experience, the way I have been able to maximize %-Resistance effects has been to use the same %-Resistance piece in multiple attacks where those attacks: Have decent %proc rates and accuracy (gotta hit, gotta land the %proc) Hit multiple targets (so AoE), because it's all random The attacks can chain, so the duration of the %-Resistance is increased And furthermore... those slotting choices are generally made on LOW DPS characters, because otherwise I'd just have the high-DPS character spamming attacks (slotted with recharge, damage... while maintaining endurance and accuracy). It takes some effort for a solo player to stay at the damage cap such that %-Resistance is boosting damage taken by critters. <-If you are here, either %-Res and %damage will increase DPS. I have my Masterminds slotted to keep up %-Resistance this way, using the Annihilation set (or at least the %-Resistance piece) everywhere possible. I certainly have some characters that have added the Achilles' Heel %-Resistance piece to as many attacks as possible, but those are characters focused on teaming and not solo play. A solo player that just wants to have -Resistance (notice lack of %) is probably better served by taking Weaken Resolve from the Force of Will pool. All it really needs is Accuracy, and it can also be slotted with the Achilles' Heel set if that is a deal breaker. It is a single target, but as I wrote before: (hard) single targets are almost certainly the ones that a solo player wants -Resistance on. Use the slots in the attacks for more damage (%damage is usually an option) instead.

I will respec if I have to (because a power set radically changes, like Energy Melee did) or if the set adds something I want (like Robotics did). I have several characters I haven't respecced from when the power pick choices were lowered, because I still like the way they play! I have a couple of characters I should probably revisit. Some had their Patron/Epic pools change enough... and I have a couple of VEATs that probably deserve a tune-up.

So I misremembered 20% as 10%, but I have been pretending (for simplicity) that the single type of debuff is "never expiring"... either it there is a power with it that never misses and always procs (and is used within 10 seconds) or more likely multiple powers have the same piece slotted...and enough of those hit and proc to make the effect "eternal". There are a lot of possible "what ifs" that have to be factored in, I've also tried to not explore cases that mix %-Resistance and %damage... Only because how well this works depends on attack chains, slotting choices, proc rates, etc. It really is quite situational.

Sticking with solo play for this post... A typical level 50 %damage is doing almost 72 points of damage. Some do more. Some fraction of that will be resisted, but that damage will be in addition to whatever the inherent (perhaps enhanced) damage is being done by the power... So the mathematical exercise is to see at what point it is better to do slightly more damage because resistances are now slightly lower (and it is rarely 10%, because resistance resists resistable resistance debuffs) than it is to just drop an extra 72 points of damage on a critter. A resistance debuff, by itself, won't ever defeat a critter AFAIK... so %damage starts out with an advantage. For large spawns of even con critters, that extra %damage can drop enough of them with one hit that this inherent advantage is magnified. It is against the survivors of the initial attack that the %-Resistance comes into play. So let's say some STattack reliably does 72 damage that is resisted at 50%. With a hypothetical %proc of same damage type, that would be 2*72*.50=72 points of damage. With an eternally restacking %-Resistance, the same attack is doing (initially) 36 points of damage and then a theoretical maximum of 1.1*36=40 points of damage. Obviously I have simplified things, but if the enemy had 800 HP, and no attack missed, and all other things being equal, the %damage takes fewer attacks. This simple exercise should point players to the general circumstances where %-Resistance can allow them to do better that %damage... Which I have found to align with the circumstances I posted above. There is no precise best answer, because there will be too many variables in builds and enemy groups.

Solo: "damage taken" may be higher, but if it still takes the same number of attacks to defeat a spawn, then there is no practical benefit to try to apply %-Resistance. There is another subtle effect that generally favors IMO %damage for solo players: %damage can be off-brand relative to the damage types done by the inherent attacks. -10% Resistance against an enemy with high inherent resistance to a type of damage that is in the player's attacks is already a sort of losing proposition... so go ahead and try to have the %damage be a different type altogether.

While I can't say I've seen players be rejected, I can believe the (post-2005, anyway) things happened. A couple of Homecoming anecdotes: 1) I do often see people offer to switch to a different AT, unprompted. This is a sort of self-selection that I'm not crazy about (play what you want, we'll be ok!) but I can sort of understand. 2) This past weekend I PUGed on a team where the leader was always actively recruiting for 'healers'. This was a new player (*1), playing a Brute... and after a couple of missions I could see why that player felt they needed a healer. No shame on the leader, but they weren't slotted (or playing) for survival and the offense was kinda passive. I don't know that this player was rejecting folks, but they came across as pretty slow in accepting players, which I took to mean they had AT preferences. Again, CoX isn't a 'trinity' game... but after playing most of the Task Force Commander TFs with that player, I don't think they realized it.... yet. (*1) I say 'new' because they were traveling back to TF contacts rather than calling the mission completions in. EDIT: I want to add that (2) wasn't that bad of a PUG experience, up until some of the PUGmates were getting confused to the point where they were Taunting/AoE teammates and healing enemies. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also Crabberminds' pets, IIRC.

I deeply appreciate the approach, but I'm pretty sure this conclusion is what has been written every time this comes up. That is: 1) %-Resistance is a multiplier for groups (doesn't really need to be stacked in duration) 2) %-Resistance can help against sacks of HP, provided they aren't resisting the resistance debuff and are being hit while the %-Resistance is affecting them. Ultimately it comes down to "how many fewer attacks have to be made against a (spawn of) enemies." Ignoring ToHit: One one side of the equation the first order concern is solo/party DPS (and also number of targets) and on the other side is enemy Health/Resistance.

My /Energy Meele choices/slotting follows. There is nothing particularly fancy about it. I like my characters to not have to wait for Epic levels to get attacks, so this build also includes the following: I have found that if I am considering an Epic/Patron attack specifically for use as a source of %damage, I may as well work an equivalent power into the build early, rather than later. YMMV. This build runs without Hasten. My build has the %Build Up (Gaussian's) in Invincibility, but if you have a different primary I would go ahead an put it in the actual Build Up power.

I slot my Dark Servant (/Dark Controller) as follows: Level 30: Dark Servant (A) Cloud Senses - Accuracy/ToHitDebuff (*) Cloud Senses - Accuracy/Recharge (*) Cloud Senses - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (*) Cloud Senses - Chance of Damage (Negative) (*) Gladiator's Net - Chance of Damage (Lethal) (*) Hami-O Endoplasm (Accuracy/Mezz): Level 53 I like the Cloud Senses set bonuses, and the %proc has a chance to contribute on all of the Dark Servant Attacks Gladiator's Net %damage only has a chance to fire on the hold, but the PVP %damage is one of the better %damage sources... so it isn't great, but for my build it was the best remaining option (I had used the Unbreakable Constraint %damage elsewhere). I thought the Endoplasm was the best choice, because Fluffy needs Accuracy and also has multiple types of controls... the HO boosts each of them.

One commonly run PUG TF is Penny Yin's... It has opportunities to bring extra 'boys to the yard's that can be seen as "making trouble" or as "making memories" (or both), especially in the final mission. Personally: if a PUG has been ROFL stomping everyone, I don't see the big deal about opening side doors or resummoning Clamor ASAP. I know there are some players very sensitive about this so if I am playing a character that can, I just run out to intercept the incoming Freaks in the hallway. A recent team chat had a PUGmate ask "isn't there supposed to be an ambush?" from the reactor room. This certainly borders on "showing off", but it isn't as if that extra wall of enemies isn't already coming for the group. The team I mentioned resummoned Clamor and defeated her while I was cleaning up the other spawn.

I am more interested in Lusca because of the extra Merits for the tentacles. Previously it was hella work for only 6 merits.

IIRC each Winter Pack (25M? in AH) has a chance at something like 2.3 Winter pieces (on average). You can buy those packs and play converter roulette. Or, each Winter pieces can be bought for 100 merits at a merit vendor. 1 catalyst drops every 24 hours for level 50s, with enough defeats.

I am reasonably confident that the CoX RNG is pseudo-random, where RNG tries to uniformly fill the number space between 0 and 1. I'm not sure which, if either exact value of 0 or 1 is allowed. So not random, but pseudo-random. Historically: There are biases in RNG, but they are small and difficult to demonstrate (and observe!) related to all sorts of things... I want to invoke "scale-invariant priors" but that's a limb I don't want to climb out on. In the olden times, folks would point at "seed" values. CoX is notoriously complicated w.r.t. to RNGesus because there are a LOT of things that a single player can do to force ToHit checks. Auras are known to be a huge "hidden" culprit, I'm not sure if it is easily demonstrable that the "interior ToHit" checks for %procs (in attacks, which are separate from the %proc chance) may or may not count as part of "player streakbreaker math", but they definitely fill up the RNG space. As these sorts of ToHit checks populate the pseudo-random space, and no one really can tell (or care) if an aura (or a %damage proc, if applicable) got a "miss"... and when a bunch of them have populated the "less than 0.900" space of RNG, the pseudo-random nature of RNG makes it that much more likely that the player's attacks are going to fall in that > 0.900 space. Usually players are mashing buttons faster than aura ticks. I honestly can't remember what the code is doing (we discussed and reviewed this a long time ago in these forums) with respect to: "when it is time for streak breaker to fire, is that ToHit check consuming an RNG roll or not?" If that ToHit check is also consuming an RNG roll, the pseudo-random flat nature of RNG implies that (for characters at the 95% ceiling) that a MISS (due to >0.95 roll) would have been more than likely to have been less than 0.95 at odds better than 20:1 anyway. I think the streak breaker/RNG combo is completely fine, and it is almost certainly having the sort of intended effect for characters with lower overall ToHit chances in their powers. I do think that RNG manifests a small, but observable bias. Demonstrating it with the logs at a high level of significance would take some effort, and lots of data. It's relatively easy to show the "flat" distribution of the RNG (use a damage aura), my guess as to the scale of the "bias" in RNG ToHit checks would above 0.95 would be that it is on the order of a fraction of a percent. I do think there is some observation bias, because as I wrote above: players pretty much only get UI MISS! notices on attacks. EDIT: I don't expect anyone to come back and read this post, but here is a potential study design for testing if RNG is giving "too many" misses. I haven't done the experiment (because frankly, there would be nothing to do about it) but it's supposed to be a tenet of (some?) science that you post the study design first and then collect the data,

This is a bit of a mixed bag, at least when all of a character's attacks (including things that make ToHit checks, like auras) are at the 95% ceiling. I appreciate that streak breaker exists, but hooboy it is possible to rack up a LOT of streak breaker forced hits, even on a single spawn.

Aquatic blasters really dampen the mood I guess.

When I get a tell that someone is switching characters, I right-click to get global name. Gotta be fast sometimes!