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I'm perfectly fine with where Stalkers are in the game; I prefer my Stalkers over my Scrappers. Like every other AT there are some primary/secondary power sets that could stand some tweaking (or availability) but as far as revisiting the AT inherents and ATOs: Stalkers would probably have the lowest priority. This is not meant to be snarky: I suggest the OP try several other ATs to REALLY hone that sense of righteous indignation.

I'm sure that most of us who have played Stalkers have a common set of pet peeves, but there are a few missions and arcs that really stand out as being bad for (Stalker) business. Here is my least favorite: Marshal Brass' Aeon Conspiracy. This is a level 15-19 mission, so chances are that if you want AoE to help speed this up, you will need P2W powers. This is just the least annoying aspect of the arc. It is the overwhelming number of escort missions... including the dreaded PTS Complex map... I've played a LOT of 'find the hostages' on that map, and even I still have trouble tracking them all down. We also get several missions where we get to either escort Amanda Vines through three levels of a science map, but from the bottom level of the underground PTS complex. BLECK. I'm unconcerned about the "kill all" or even the kill ambushes, or the kill to make escorts easier, it's just the frickin' escort missions that drive me crazy. They can be annoying enough for any player class, but when your character has a Hide built in, it is extremely annoying.

Don't forget the known klowns.

I'll write this about radio missions (either side): I will almost always help if someone is having trouble; the times I don't offer is when I am on another PUG or doing SF/TF content (including Ouroboros) When I play radio missions: I want the Temp powers. the hero/villain pelts, and the badges. I've been with groups that felt the Mayhem/Safeguard missions were not worth doing... to me they are the whole reason to do tip missions. There are many players who FREAK OUT when part of a team when they would have to exemplar down, My absolute favorite over-reaction was when my level 48 invited a level 50 to help fight a fire in Steel Canyon... OMG the WHINING about me not passing him the star...

I'll chime in that I agree that I think most combinations of Tough/Melee and Debuff/something ought to be able to handle an even level MoITF. I've never tried to solo it, but I did pair my Dark/Time Blaster with a Scrapper to get it done (at some elevated difficulty level). We actually had a second scrapper who started with us at level 40 (we were incarnate), so we had an additional challenge (of a sort). The only other detail I recall about that effort was the compliment (backhanded?) that I demonstrated 'I knew how to keep myself alive.' Despite Blackstar and End of Time being PBAoE, and the melee Future Pain working with the Time Controls, there was NO WAY I was going to toss the MoITF attempt by trying to Blapper. Dark is a perfectly fine ranged offensive set, thank you very Darkly! (Especially when keeping an eye on our third man!)

Welcome to Blue side, Hero.

I can TOTALLY appreciate this, but from my POV (as a participant, not as a leader) that amount of effort appears to be more about improving the efficiency of the raid and less about completing the raid. I wouldn't suggest starting a raid without having a dedicated tank, or enough Control/DPS to take out the mitos. In my experience the 'waiting around time' isn't used to explain the mechanics of the event, even by folks who aren't setting up macros to use during the raid. 120 merits in 35 minutes isn't bad, but if my game time is ~2 hours a day that's a pretty dull use of 35 minutes. The most interesting twist (but ultimately boring IMO, YMMV) I saw a league use was the explicit desire to spawn and clear each mito bloom in a semi-old school approach. I never got an explanation of WHY that is how the leader wanted to run that raid, but I saw a LOT of macro use explaining that this was HOW it was going to be run. I had plenty of time to look at the league composition and powers and there was nothing that stood out to me as making it necessary for the league to have to take that approach (he still had requests for Lore drops, for example). I'd be slightly less jaded about the Hami raids if I didn't see a full league of people give up when a triple-bloom goes pear-shaped. It's a LOT harder to get those first 80 merits in that circumstance, but it is still 80 merits and it is entirely doable, especially with a full league... and access to the auction house for EoE refills. I wish all blessings to raid leaders. Maybe appoint a deputy to run a trivia contest or something while we are otherwise doing nothing in game?

I find the Hami raids to be a mixed bag: by all measures, a Hamidon raid is probably the most efficient way of earning merits/inf (MSR is a slightly different beast, IMO): Two raids can net 120 merits, the third raid is dealer's choice Waiting around for a raid is a perfect time to craft/convert enhancements for the market place Personally: I have been avoiding Hamidon raids because I no longer need to amass a fortune in INF, so I find waiting for the raid to start to be boring (sorry, the banter isn't witty enough). I seriously wish that the raid leaders would start the raid when the league is 2/3 full. The AH usually has enough EoE to cover anyone who didn't get drops/comes late, and button mashing during the GM phase doesn't really need an entire league. Once Hamidon spawns, we can discuss the subtleties of approaching the Hamidon... but I've only ever seen a full league give up, and I have seen smaller groups stick around and clean up a triple bloom... so it isn't as if a full league was really needed from the get go. As for easy merits: The first SSA1 arc mission can be run VERY fast, primarily because travel between the three missions is very easy (especially red side). My slowest times are with Masterminds; every other AT can easily get this done in under 10 minutes. It helps if you have some P2W attack powers as not all ATs will have enough attacks to speedily defeat the enemies (at the exemplar level), in my experience the MMs can still struggle because of Endurance issues. There are many other low-level arcs that give better Merit rewards (in the non-once-a-week sense, a repeated SSA offers 20 merits ) but the travel times between missions usually takes more time and many of them have at least one 'defeat all' mission. If a character has sped past low-level missions, revisiting them can be rewarding in multiple ways.

"Master of" (no deaths, no temp powers, maybe other restrictions?)

Rando contributions: 1) for ATO and Winters: if the market looks hostile (i.e. BIN too high, or too few pieces) I will just buy packs and play roulette. I typically stop when I'm within 1 piece of what I want and then go to the market to fill the specific hole. 2) Team insps: I try to pull them out for use (by level 50s) during low level TFs / SFs. If you play them frequently enough you can get a sense for which parts you will need them... Hello, why is everyone always grouping against +4 Clamor? <- Seriously, do folks not pay attention to her attacks? I think every time I've seen a team wipe in a Penny Yin TF at +4 it is because a majority of the team is standing toe-to-toe with Clamor, including the folks with ranged heals/debuffs/buffs/blasts.

I think this is a good point, and I think has been good discussion around it. My own (selfish) build attitudes tend to make me want to skip (or deprioritize) certain powers that only target individual allies because I benefit so little from the power while at the same time (thanks to IOs) almost every character can invest in themselves to be less likely to need those powers be applied to them. I only dabbled with Empathy a little bit on (early) live, so I don't consider myself really qualified to comment on the set as a player... but when I am running lower level content for PUGs at higher difficulties I see teams with a good mix of ATs (including Empaths) do better than teams without.

I seem to recall that back before IOs were a thing it was Scrappers that had folks declaring "Tankers are useless (because a Scrapper can do the same job)." This is just my opinion, but for me when I think of a melee character concept I decide on the AT based on my anticipated play style and available power sets. As for the actual topic of Inherents, I don't have a specific issue with the Scrapper inherent and I do worry whenever the topic comes up (usually in the context of radically changing Domination). Changing the Tanker inherent was (socially) messy (mostly because of Brutes, some because of Tankers) and specifically proposing a change because "Stalkers do it better (than Scrappers)" is sure to invite a lot of that sort of tension back. The closest I feel comfortable to staking out an opinion on the Stalker/Scrapper divide (I play both) is that my feeling is that it is a Stalker ATO that is making most of the usual perceived effect in terms of damage output, and not the Stalker inherent per se. I'm of the opinion that there ought to be more exploration of the design space around enhancements as opposed to AT mechanics; I am NOT re-inviting the specific question about 'game balance and IOs', rather I think that we should recognize that the game has the possibility to add more 'flavor' to ATs by considering new/alternate Enhancements, particularly with ATOs (although can I get that PVP/Very Rare Fear set first?)

The problem (with Mind Link) is that the 'recharge' portion of the Membrane's will not contribute to recharge of the power. HOs act like IOs, in that if the power cannot take an IO of a particular type then the HO portion of the same type won't contribute to boosting that aspect of the power. This isn't true for dedicated Defense or ToHit sets. You already have 5 LoTG, so replace one of the Membrane with a boosted (50+5) Shield Wall Def/Recharge and another (attuned) Def/Recharge piece from a lvl21-50 defense set. (or re-jigger your other defense sets)

hem (or maybe... possibly?)

/echo Assassin's Mark usually ends up in my Stalker's chosen level 1 attack. Almost every other attack has an alternate set choice that (I believe) serves my builds better.

I will agree that I find Mass Hypnosis (Mind controller, T5, taken at level 8 ) to be a useful power, albeit a situational one. I find myself using it: When exemplared to low level missions, it is a valuable control for the solo player. When playing x8 spawns and things are going pear-shaped. I agree that the mechanic is tricky, but an AoE Sleep is much more useful IMO than a single-target Immobilize. It certainly doesn't fit well with the preference for AoE damage, but that is a balance problem with AoE damage .

Welcome home.

Combat Jumping: Typically for my characters this is a slot 49 pick. It just gets a LotG Global Recharge piece. Assuming you don't need it to mule any other Defense set globals, for 'defense' toggles I usually choose: Luck of the Gambler Def/Global Recharge (attuned) Shield Wall Defense (boosted 50+5) Shield Wall Defense/Endurance (boosted 50+5) Shield Wall Global Resist (if it isn't muled somewhere else to get the +Health) The diminishing returns hits pretty hard IMO on Combat Jumping. The above slotting is usually my choice for a Defensive toggle taken at a lower level. Rune of Protection: In the current Homecoming rules, I have this just as a mule. It isn't worth slotting it any other way IMO. Arcane Bolt: This one depends on the AT. For my Blaster, I have this slotted with Apocalypse (x5) making it roughly as effective as the T1 single-target ranged attack (which is slotted with Superior Defiant Barrage). Other ATs with different damage scales and different power choices (and thus different enhancement set choices) will make different choices. It doesn't have the greatest inherent accuracy, so if you opt to go the franken-slot route (for an AT like a Controller, for example) I would try to include a ACC IO (boosted) or a boosted set piece like Gladiator's Javelin to get some endurance reduction as well (plus a 2-piece set bonus, along with the %proc, for +Recovery)

Some of the information that kiosks could provide can be had by clicking on civilian NPCs strolling around the Rogue Isles, such as total hours of play time.

If your chassis will take an optical drive, your power supply likely should be able to handle a second SATA optical drive. My guess is that the SDD/HDD are probably on one SATA connection and the DVD drive is on the second. A supplier like HP may be cutting things close w.r.t. power budgets, but you can review your components (primarily the video card) to determine if the power budget can comfortably accommodate another drive. Maybe its just my experience with certain commercial blu-rays, but as far as being a storage medium they seem much 'flakier' than CDs or DVDs. I have a couple of 'problematic' commercial blu-rays, but it's very rare that I have a DVD that won't be read (unless it is physically damaged). The net cost for an external blu-ray versus an internal is roughly in the same ballpark, The external ones will typically require TWO (adjacent) USB connections to be powered, and I would hope that all of your USB connections are 3.0 compliant (for a just purchased machine) but if not then the external blu-rays will be slower than from an internal drive. My (now, quite old) primary desktop was assembled (by my choice, although not my hands) with two DVD R/W which might have been overkill even for its era, but certainly is these days. During pandemic times I used both internal drives to archive a LOT of my CD & DVD collection; having two drives made that job a little easier. I used an external USB-powered drive to archive my blu-rays, or as an alternate reader if I had a slightly damaged DVD. The external blu-ray has been successful between 50% - 66% of the time to read/rip my DVDs that had no obvious signs of damage but couldn't be read via the DVD drives. In my configuration I don't have easy access to the necessary USB 3.0 ports so the BRs are much slower. (I could tear my rig apart to reconfigure the front panel USB connectors, and frankly I was surprised that it wasn't assembled that way but given the internal cable routings and the front-panel layout the risk outweighs the reward. The times I've been inside the box I'm surprised by how much effort this relatively simply task would take.)

I would STRONGLY recommend against any 'escort' type missions: They are miserable for any character with any sort of movement increase, and for characters with some sort of Stealth (ehem, Stalkers) they become outright painful. I like the mechanics of the first SSA1 mission, especially redside as you get more agency and can make an actual choice that alters the way the arc completes. The 'click on object' aren't that bad either. I enjoy the frustration of the various 'protect objects from being destroyed', but the triggers need to be better implemented for some of them (because of random maps, it is possible to never stand a chance of saving an object).

The more experience players tried to ask what the PUG leader's reasoning was, and he got very snippy... which is why folks dropped. He also had a deep misunderstanding of individual players' settings of spawn sizes would have on the missions. Most of us are aware of the tedious natures of the defeat all missions, but IMO there is no real difference in 0 and -1 as far as getting through those early missions. Synapse is one of the arcs that can be REALLY tedious if run at higher difficulty (because of exemplar effects, including on enhancement bonuses) but there is no real reason to run it at -1 for a team... especially if you want to 'show off' against the King. I've had some pretty wimpy (non-DPS) characters solo the Clockwork King, so it isn't as if that is a particularly noticeable achievement.

Heh. I recently saw folks quit a TF because the PUG-leader was asking for everyone to turn down their difficulty to -1; I'm not exactly sure why this request was made. The PUG-leader was trying to make a case that this was necessary to finish Synapse, which was made all the weirder because the PUG-leader was a full-kit level 50 build that wanted to 'show off' soloing against the Clockwork King.

Replying to an older thread: I don't think any of the updates affected Stalkers in a substantial way except for the reduction in range on the Epic (Fast) Snipes. I have both a StJ/ and /Bio Stalker, but not on the came character. I find that my /Bio Stalker does fine in all combat without having capped defenses (I have typed Defenses higher than positional) or capped resistances. Every so often it will get completely overwhelmed if I'm not paying attention, but that's pretty much limited to x8 spawns in Incarnate content. The StJ/ has all of the primary except Initial Strike and Placate. The /Bio has all of the secondary powers except Genetic Corruption.