Zepp

Another point, Burnout and Whirlwind are among the least popular pool powers out there, if you were to replace Hasten you would need three new powers rather than one because replacing one power would justify an overhaul of the pool, which would mean replacing the useless Burnout and the unpopular Whirlwind as well...

This would affect a lot of builds. Many builds have more recharge than they actually need so that they can perma hasten. with this change they could actually move some of their IOs around and focus on improving resistance, defense, or damage. It could also open the door to proc builds being even more the new meta. There are market implications as well. I'm not against it per se, but it would have so many unintended consequences that it would be very difficult to deal with the repercussions.

Just a suggestion, add a mez-break (like Burn's Immobilization break, only for all mez, to the "Misdirection"/"Smoke Bomb" move). That would add a lot of survivability and make it much more of a get-out-of-jail-free-card... At lower levels solo you could engage with a minion, kill it, then use it to leave the group. Wait a short while and re-engage with a smaller group. At higher levels or in groups it would become a panic button. So basically it would be an AoE Placate with +Res (all mez effects). Also, rather than replacing a defensive ability, it would probably be better to replace a melee attack (if you really want to keep the build up power).

Intrigue is a synonym for manipulation... Political intrigue is the core function of an agent or spy... it is also a verb which means to make secret plans to do something illicit or detrimental to someone. This is especially appropriate if we replace the buff ability with Misdirection (as an AoE placate with power boost).

Whirlwind is second to last, behind Invoke Panic and just ahead of Flurry.

Well, @Replacement if you are interested in adding a "Misdirection" T1, perhaps look at the sets that @Steampunkette put together, remove the build-up-ish power and replacing it with Misdirection. Misdirection could be a combination of AoE placate and power boost? So it would be offensive or defensive, depending on the situation. I think that would give you what you are looking for. I think the base stats, minimal threat level, and decent damage would mean that a weak inherent passive stealth maybe with some +Perception, would be justifiable.

Surveillance, as a power in the Munitions Ancillary pool, provides -Res and -Def... that and a perception bonus should be a perfect fit as an inherent.

I would go Dark Melee / Willpower Scrapper or Brute. You can perma the build-up, which is tied to damage, and you can decrease their chance of hitting you, which addresses Willpower's lack of defense... Unstoppable.

That sounds reasonable. What I would like is for @Replacement to rewrite the proposal (with inherent and any adjustments made since the OP) in a new post so I can cite it when I add this AT to the list.

I think that would work (maybe even dropping to 0.5 and a 0.25 multiplier), for passive stealth (automatically stealthy or linked to their secondary T1?), what exactly do you mean? If we are going with just a "Reverse Fury" mechanic, it would have to be on a timer of about 8s or less (similar to Stalker Hide).

I tend to not prefer click abilities for inherents as well, but that was what was being discussed. One idea would be something like Preparation: you have a bar that outside of combat grows to increase damage and to hit, engaged in combat that buff declines and you have increased defense, resist, regen, recovery, absorb, and control duration. That way you enter the battle "surprise" your enemy with an offensive buff and as you "learn" your enemy your defensive abilities improve. That provides the previously discussed alpha aoe boost with help for sustain. The -threat could be on top of that and help provide aggro management.

I think this could work (very similar to my Zoomer, but adding the defense and flipping the primary/secondary should be helpful - now that the "manipulation" T1 is no longer a ranged immobilize). This is also similar to what we've been talking about in the Amalgamation thread. The issue is how to work the passive. Is it a build-up bar that leads to a click power PBAoE Placate +Special (+DMG, +2 Mag to CC)? The build-up bar could be based on time out of combat, making it an alpha-only ability, but decreasing the recharge to perhaps 2-3s, allowing you to alpha spawn after spawn with little downtime, but not giving you a get-out-of-jail-free-card. That way you would only get to damage "distracted" enemies and would require an active step before engagement. Either that or simply a "free" click power on a 20-30s recharge (maybe 45s-0.5s/level) (unaffected by global recharge, no slots). Another idea would be to have a -100% Threat Level (similar to Superior Invisibility) in the passive. That would give you protection in a crowd and work well with a placate or "distract" ability...

Again, I don't think stancing is the way to go with this.

As someone who proposed a straight Manipulation/Assault AT, I actually do agree with you. The two issues are crossover and redundancy. Some of the manipulation sets are too offensive oriented to be useful for a toon with Assault. Adding in a couple defensive powers allows you the flexibility to make this less problematic, I was just making sure that we realize that it is going to require some caution in the development of "Projection" (I would have gone with "Intrigue") sets...

For blasters they are getting melee-ranged attacks. With an assault primary, they don't need melee-ranged attacks. That is the difference. There are also some powers that have a direct crossover; Smite and Midnight Grasp, for example, are in both Assault and Manipulation sets...

One of the issues with using too much of the Manipulation pools is that some of them have straight damage powers and not enough control. So each set would need to be evaluated to keep the control powers and minimize the damage-centric powers...

I didn't think there would be much support for the idea, I just thought I should throw it out there.

Sentinels have the same Res caps as other non-melee ATs, should this be changed?

The confused "penalty" is most felt by low level Illusion Controllers and all levels of Mind Control Trollers and Doms... And the bigger issue for them is low level Illusion trollers that use Deceive in a group and Mind Control Trollers and Doms are stigmatized by ignant people who do not understand the confuse mechanic and thus make it harder for these players to get groups... In other words, the confused penalty will help these three situations more through removing social stigma than actually changing the amount of XP. However, that would also mean that a Sup. Inv. Illusion troller could Deceive the boss, clear the spawn and then just have the boss to finish off while it is effectively unable to hit back for full XP for each mob. That would be a little too OP... I do think allowing it to trigger Containment would be nice.

Would you be replacing the build up -ish power from assault and moving it to T1? Or would it be the T1 from their secondary? It would probably work like an AoE placate (or sleep) +special. The duration would have to be fairly limited to prevent it from being OP. It would be slightly more limiting than Stalker's Crit, but its ability to increase magnitude make it slightly more powerful of an effect. It still seems much less powerful than Dom/Troller/Stalker inherents and requires the use of a non-damaging ability to maximize output.

Chance to placate, placated/non-aggroed enemies receive bonus damage/magnitude effects? Maybe too stalkery?

For the secondary, it sounds like what we were discussing in the amalgamation thread: I think the mix of armor and control with the sustain from manipulation is a good choice. I do not like the idea of the stance inherrent, I find stancing to be annoying and they are difficult to balance because it is overpowered (bio armor) or fairly pointless (dual pistols)... btw, I will add this to the AT concept thread soon, just waiting to see if there are any revisions to your original idea...

I used to play a Hover-Ninja Blade-Stalker... it worked out quite nicely... but for a lot of melee sets, notsogood....

Nearly 1/5th of the resistance cap for the most common damage types for most ATs with one Resistance and one Resistance/Endurance IO? Depending on the Armor set this can put you over the top or fill a gap. Nearly 1/8th the softcap to all defenses with one Defense and one Defense/Endurance IO? This is good for defensive armor sets and great for resistance armor sets... This plus the two res procs put you a quarter of the way to softcap... That seems like a decent investment on most toons.

Follow the link... The Duo (19.06.07.16.09.36) and look at Super Serum... Unfortunately, there isn't a rifle-based assault currently, but that could be added with the expansion (and possibly infernal assault too...) The assault link in my signature has at least four ideas that would have rifles in them. Follow the links and share your opinion on which you think is the best.