Sancerre

i have avoided stone melee because the aoe capabilities looked god awful but maybe i am missing something? Tremor has a massive radius (especially for scrapper) but does peanuts damage. the set is great otherwise and you can supplement aoe with ball lightning but seems kind of awful having -only- ball lightning as actual aoe damage (and i guess judgement). incidentally, i always felt like hurl boulder should have a (small) radius explosion around the impact site.... it is a really cool skill with absolute dumpster DPA values in a powerset that already excels in single target damage (and yes i know it is ranged).

you can craft super optimized builds to cycle t9 defense clicky and Unleash Potential (Force of Will power pool) for... 'mostly'... perma overcapped defenses with extremely high DDR at all times as well (ageless radial). works with energy aura, super reflexes, and ninjutsu. you need to be fairly aggressively slotted towards recharge on the t9 but it works. it is a bit frustrating dealing with the crash every 4 minutes as that is the window that you are not within the 'mostly' umbrella... but if you time the ageless perfectly, you never actually drop your toggles. also locks you into taking the force of will power pool which can be inconvenient to squish in. very strong but requires far more attention than basically anything else in the game and there are no great ways to track the actual crash timing in game with hard numbers so it becomes a bit of an unwieldy guessing game (would need something similar to world of warcraft's WeakAuras) in practice, this is really only useful in solo play if you plan to do that sort of challenge. in party play, the common /cold corruptor bubbles you up with insane defenses anyways and all of this is just unnecessary. incidentally, a side benefit is that your endurance recovery is absolutely bonkers the entire time (both unleash potential and the t9 clicky do major work here).

storm has no self heal and the hurricane repel effect is extremely love it or hate it. the hallmark of the set is to offer more damage as individual skills (not buffs or debuffs particularly... and yes i know freezing rain debuffs) via tornado and lightning storm. scourge does not work on these buttons, unfortunately. also, many of the corruptor primaries dont need supplemental damage buttons when fully built. storm IS a good set but not in a selfish way that the OP wanted. i feel like it is better for defenders anyways, mostly due to the (lack of) scourge interactions.

i think fire blast always wins outright for best mix of single target and aoe. others are 'fine' like ice, AR, etc... but you know the deal here, im sure. corruptors do not shake up things compared to blasters in any substantial way. /kinetics, as others have mentioned, will likely just be the king for pure damage... it is certainly less survivable than others, but it can be built to be survivable enough for most content. /time does not offer substantial damage but it does offer the most comprehensive list of buffs to just about everything else otherwise (importantly to SELF unlike many other sets) that allow you to play very aggressively forward without much consideration. not a tanker here but can honestly feel more durable than scrappers. incidentally, the massive global recharge and defenses allows you to enhance more aggressively as well. /rad offers something in-between. good mixture of massive debuffs and self sustain... but conditionally... which is (potentially) the frustration with it. the anchors are very powerful but you have to play very methodically with it. /nature deserves a shoutout here for being able to provide strong power gains to self and being survivable but ultimately feels more team oriented and less selfish. the above top 3 feel astoundingly strong and self-sufficient, when fully kitted out. a lot of other sets are certainly 'good' (like trick arrow or dark) but are definitely more team oriented... unfortunately a number of sets require too much investment into the powerset itself and dont allow you explore into power pools to supplement your defenses... and/or the major hallmark powers just dont effect yourself.

Well Ackchyually you are technically correct. the best kind of correct. hope you are happy -- you win this battle of semantics.

tankers get an inherent punchvoke taunt aura on every attack button they press. that is the multiple. tankers also have a higher magnitude taunt. taunt aura is 10 targets... there is value in being able to hold 16 on you. there is also value in higher magnitude taunts (and stacked magnitude taunts) so that the critters most assuredly do not run away. as far as shield defense for scrapper is concerned -- i agree shield defense is one of the higher tier powersets for scrapper. Also correct that not all scrapper armors have a taunt aura and... to their detriment... i personally believe there is no META value in running a scrapper armor set without a taunt aura included.... for fun is a different consideration. i dont have many criticisms for shield defense (both tanker and scrapper version) other than lack of heal and poor endurance management... both of which are covered by dark melee. that being said... dark melee offering that healing and endurance utility is to the detriment of it's design intent damage output.

Thoughts on dark melee/shield: shield charge is deceptively mediocre on scrapper and very good on tanker the taunt auras (plural) on tanker is MUCH better than scrapper. stuff will run away from scrapper, just less than a scrapper with no taunt aura. shadow maul and touch of fear actually feel like real aoe on tanker your ST damage sucks cause you are playing dark melee period scrapper dark melee doesnt 'fix' this your thinking is inverted here... tanker damage is not that much worse. dark melee doesnt particularly 'shine' on scrapper the crit proc ATO doesnt have a great home i personally find build-up is better for scrapper playstyle dark melee lacks the PUNCH that scrapper wants. generic thoughts not pertaining to dark melee or shield defense: at the end of the day, scrappers will certainly do more single target damage than tankers, but this game is rarely about putting down single targets. tanker will clear missions faster if you herd stuff properly. tanker will feel more durable along the way. tanker will feel more self sufficient earlier in the leveling process. tanker is very consistent. tanker is better for teams to passively keep stuff grouped and not hitting squishier party members generic damage procs on scrapper do the same damage as generic damage procs on tanker. scrapper can get streaky crit luck and feel amazing and then see no crits and feel awful.

the reason is actually all the same that you outlined. with how fast groups blitz through enemies, what difference does another damage proc make? if you stick with the group, it doesnt matter much what you have slotted. however, if you decide to splinter from the group or just run solo, these -res procs are more valuable and should help clear faster than a single damage proc. i would note though... no need to go overboard. do 1 of each only where it makes sense. some powersets, it just doesnt make sense.

armor sets, on a role that is geared towards damage just need to be viewed from a different lens than durability alone. scrapper is not about surviving to infinity. scrapper is about killing them before they kill you. and the 'better' armor sets will allow you to take on more foes, stronger foes, and with less downtime. to touch on fire armor -- fire armor has the highest potential damage but bio offers SIMILAR damage output with better durability AND a taunt aura. if fire armor had taunt aura and the consideration was strictly durability (and theme), fire armor would absolutely be considered strong. fire armor is more durable than people give it credit for (especially with the buffs in the last year) but it currently has too many flaws and there are better alternatives. the comparisons are always relative to what you can be using instead -- what is this powerset offering that the other powerset is not?

By what metrics are you defining 'worst'? I feel like this topic is less subjective than people make it out to be. There are easily identifiable objectively bad performing armor sets that have terrible survival and offer little to no utility or offensive power to offset that. This comparison is all relative to what other, objectively better armor sets offer. The high bar is going to be bio armor for having the best offensive capability while still being sufficiently 'survivable'. The adjacent comparison is something like invulnerability or energy aura for just being able to literally survive the best, generally, while also offering some sideways utility and a taunt aura. Some armor sets are at least 'close' to these 3... others are light years below (hello /regen). Fire armor is probably the one and only oddball in the mix because it does have substantial offensive power to offset its terrible survival, but not enough to warrant its use in SOLO play. The one and only buff Fire Armor needs for people to like it on scrapper is a passive taunt aura -- this one single change alone would instantly shuffle scrapper fire armor up to the top of the table next to bio armor. not advocating for scrappers to get even more taunt auras though... im personally in the camp that scrappers shouldnt even have taunt auras in the first place. Also -- Dont need people coming out of the woodworks to claim that regen is actually sleeper OP top tier if you mail 10000 purple/orange inspirations to yourself and always party with a bubble defender. regen sucks. it does not perform anywhere near any of the other sets in terms of survival. it offers some of the absolute worst debuff protection. it offers no taunt aura. it offers no offensive utility at all. it is bad. if you want to say otherwise, you are wrong and delusional. if you still want to play /regen for theme, you do so fully understanding it is a meme or a challenge.

city of data https://cod.uberguy.net/ not sure how accurate it is to homecoming anymore (when the last update happened) but it is generally the most accurate and detailed data available for everything. there is an attack chain builder tool somewhere... i dont have a link to it.

dark melee is bad for damage but it is still scrapper damage. to the OP -- mids can sometimes be weird when comparing skills with critical strikes active... it may apply to the powerset you are building and NOT the ones you are comparing against. that may be what you were running into.

regarding kick -- i thought all of these animation redraws were cleaned up and no longer matter (years ago at this point). i dont actively use boxing/kick to know because they are terrible but i wasnt aware this is even a consideration aside from a thematic style choice of wanting to literally kick someone at the cost of using one of the worst DPA attacks in the game. i will note that kick is technically better than boxing as a synergy buff to cross punch, presuming you never plan to actually kick anything. regarding synergies or self buffs (or whatever semantics) -- they can be fun when designed well. it is fun to look at powers interacting with each other in a meaningful way and build around that. the joke is that these barely matter and the bigger problem is that even when fully collaborated, they dont even bring the powers up to an acceptable baseline.

a perception to fix is that low tier powers are worse than high tier powers. in dark melee, smite is a T2 attack that outclasses every other button including the T9 midnight grasp (for damage). The ask is not that boxing/kick should be a mid-tier AT attack, but rather it should closer to a solid T1/T2 attack performance (boxing is not quite there, and kick is absolute trash currently). The other part of this is questioning why kick exists, adjacent to the superior boxing -- boxing/kick are largely viewed as gatekeepers (blocking access to tough/weave) but other than fulfilling a requirement for the fighting pool to literally have (2) tier 1 powers, what is the purpose of Kick? i think the synergy system in the fighting pool is a joke. brawl is never going to be anything but a meme. even fully synergized, boxing and kick are not good. cross punch is only relevant because it allows access to force feedback recharge procs that builds otherwise might not be able to include... and supposing you do grab cross punch, you dont really care about the double synergy anyways (mathematically, you shouldnt). all that said -- i would not advocate for any change here. i think there are creative directions that could possibly be taken here but the fighting power pool is currently desirable overall... and that is more than can be said compared to other power pools.

there is a stigma in this forum against spelling out the realities of powersets. so let me go ahead and get the PR statement out of the way -- play how you want and if it is fun to you then nobody can tell you that you shouldn't be having fun. Reality -- Dark Melee is functional but low tier for damage. dark melee offers a ton of utility that other sets do not in the form of healing, endurance management, and hit chance reduction (inverted defense). it is very crucially missing knockdowns (fuels the absolutely busted force feedback recharge proc), -defense (that can fuel resistance reduction procs), and reliable AoE damage (shadow maul is fun but is objectively bad, touch of fear is 'good' but lacking in comparison to other sets). positive to note that smashing and negative energy damage are much better than lethal damage (that _MANY_ other powersets are stuck with), but that doesnt help the damage output enough.