Sancerre

not a stab at you personally but i find it amusing that you are one of the few people to ADMIT this. everyone else hating on this topic probably has the same opinion here and doesnt want to acknowledge it. IF the team did end up buffing hidden strikes and placate to the point where it was 'mathematically superior', you would not want to continue your current stalker playstyle even if the (potential) changes fundamentally did not alter your current stalker playstyle. i made very vague/broad suggestions early into the topic but it doesnt need to be that hidden strike just does 'more damage'. it can provide a limited buff to all sorts of things (recharge, endurance recovery, to-hit, defense)... it can give a flat heal or endurance chunk... it can place a strong debuff on the enemy (-damage%, -regen, -to hit, -defense, -resistance)... if we want to go down the road of more damage though we can also just look at it differently than just pumping up the numbers directly. as a thought... what if it attached a 'bomb' debuff to the target that 'explodes' on death or after a certain amount of hits for a medium AoE nuke (probably via pseudo pets)... which could serve to shore up the limited AoE stalker has. Or some kind of scaling DoT that could cement stalker as the AV killer. hidden strike could also just be kinda boring and provide a buff bonus to damage or crit chance. and im sure others can think of more creative applications/possibilities to occur with hidden strikes. the key here though is that some of these things would not necessarily provide a benefit over the unhidden strike in all situations. you would need to balance the opportunity cost of casting the long hidden strike. there could still be plenty of opportunity to use unhidden strikes as well. the difference being that there could potentially be a good opportunity cost to actually USING hidden strike. the reality as it current stands is that it is never 'mathematically superior' to do the hidden strike because #1 it is a waste of time to wait for hidden and #2 it is a waste of time to CAST the hidden strike. and beyond that there is no unique benefits to use hidden strike either because it provides no alternate benefits. the only real purpose to hidden strike currently is for theme or because you havent used it in a while and you just feel like 'why the hell not'. we dont need to create the inverse situation here. unhidden strike does not need to become the 'mathematically inferior' version at the end of the day. if well designed/balanced, they can both be useful depending on the situation infront of you. i think there is opportunity to evolve stalker into something unique instead of just an alternate scrapper. it seems like this thought scares people more than it excites people however... and as a general statement to the topic at hand -- yes i understand this same conversation occurred with instant snipes, but sniping was never the center focus and iconic theme of the blasting powersets. you are given hide at level 1 and the AT passive has a nice paragraph about it... who else has hidden assassins strikes?? cause i see tons of archetypes have snipes (stalkers have snipes!)

yes, you are on the right mark for efficiency of maximizing damage output. not sure how often AAO updates but i usually have all 3 positional defenses and damage bonus monitor'd on all my characters... sometimes the damage bonus would not tick up for a few seconds. im guessing the game engine just runs an area check every 2 seconds or so. lighting rod and shield charge use pseudo pets, so they dont actually break hide.. they do not benefit from the crit chance either though. so this is not some amazingly busted interaction... in fact i would argue that if it DID use your hide and provide nothing in return, that would be a _bug_. it is working as intended... and ultimately just gives off a little bit of feelsbadman knowing that your 2 iconic powers within the powersets cannot crit. i only ever got my elec/SD stalker up to 40 before i decided it wasnt a solid direction for me. as fun as it was having the 2 tele-nukes, the downtime was hefty and thunder strike felt absolutely awful to use. maybe the gameplay feels better with some epic/patron powers...

looks like you forgot about gladiator 3% defense IO (resist set). regarding force feedback recharge IO... i dont know how good it is on shield charge because of the (relatively) longer cooldown. i would say i have INCREDIBLE gains on it with my titan weapons scrapper because i can spam whirling smash every 2-3 seconds and it will have near 100% uptime in a pack of 4+ enemies. big thing to keep in mind there is that it only needs to proc on a single enemy to buff you. while it wouldnt see as much value as i just described in your build, it might still be valuable enough... i dont have the right answer for you there.

i would tend to doubt someone who flaunts an OP build, but shrouds the build in secrecy... apparently i would need to dig through your post history or find your secret hangout forum goings to learn how to properly win with stalkers. everybody likes to have a power fantasy of their favorite character being amazing but your accounts in the last bit are absolutely ridiculous. By level 12 you were at +2 carrying a team??? i dont care what AT and powersets you are playing. you have no powers of any significant value and no enhancements at level 12. How exactly could you possibly expect to carry *anything* better than anybody else with nothing of significance available. Rhetorical by the way, i dont need some recount of you clearing frostfire all the while believing you were carrying your half AFK teammates trying to level up a new alt. anyways this thread has been spinning in circles a lot. stalkers are not very good at AoE (minus spines and electric) and that is OK. they arent designed or intended to be great at AoE. the goal should not be looking to buff their weakness of AoE, but rather enhance their strength of single target... and in the process bring back the feel good of acting like a stalker. hidden assassins strike is a strong identity of what a stalker was supposed to be but nobody wants to use it because it is absolutely terrible trash. there are a ton of options that could make hidden assassins strike (and also placate in the process) actually valuable and worth using that would not change the current stalker playstyle (if you wanted to continue ignoring hidden and placate). also im not sure exactly where the general consensus came about of 'stalkers are OP'... the general consensus i see in game is that melee in general are not preferred aside from a few brutes/tanks... and not specifically for them to deal damage, just to run ahead of the team and herd critters. if your goal is to blow through the content as fast as possible, you want as many team buffs and massive AoE nukes as possible. that would make stalker, objectively, the _least_ desired class. that said, aside from people making specific class comp parties for the challenge of it, i rarely find anybody with an elitist attitude about this kind of thing in game.

damage is substantially lower but it is very good for teamplay (double leadership) and is reasonably durable. bane has a lot more AoE available than most stalker sets though.

i suppose im surprised you were ultimately influenced to dump power crash. im not the biggest fan of cone attacks in this game but power crash is definitely solid as far as range and radius. i do wish the damage were a bit higher than whirling hands though... or maybe even just the total focus version was buffed by some percentage. i think a very obvious big question mark there is tactics. you could very easily slot kismet somewhere in your build for 6% to hit... instead of 8% hit with a constant endurance drain. i guess if you are getting it for perception/confuse/fear stuff though that is a different choice... or just to have the team buff?? i see you are also spending slots on grant cover that has very little tangible benefit to you individually. something else a lot of people overlook is the travel power IO set zephyr. provides a little bump to ranged & aoe defense as a 3 slot. im guessing you 6 slotted red fortune in weave specifically for the 2% ranged defense.. i would imagine zephyr is a better choice for example. last bit -- regenerative tissue unique IO is honestly pretty worthless. i suppose your worry is that you dont have a heal at all... i would just say that 25% regen probably isnt going to solve or even remotely close the gap on that issue. the preventative medicine unique IO is 100% better (and missing from your build otherwise)

take a look at the actual damage of arcane bolt in game (mids needs to be updated on cast time and damage both)... its huge. especially when you proc arcane power, it does more damage than blazing bolt (instant version). so it arcane bolt is actually useful, unlike boxing/kick from fighting pool. rune of protection definitely is a shadow of its former self in high recharge builds, but still useful. personally i really enjoy having fly/mystic flight but the fly pool is a dead end otherwise, so there are some useful options to pick up within the same power pool in sorcery side...

this is a big problem with the game, generally.... not limited to melee powersets. often times it might sound fun to build out a certain theme of a superhero... but... the realization sets in quick if you have played some of the 'better' powersets... that you just feel like a lame duck. i think titan weapons (pre adjustment) was a big offender of this (and is arguably still overbearingly strong) -- back then, you could look at any other melee power set, compare it to titan weapons and ask yourself WHY you would objectively want to play anything else. the only reasonable answer was theme. you are certainly allowed to enjoy powersets that offer the fantasy of playing a certain theme, but it would be nice if the balance was more closely aligned. all that said, we need to be careful about advocating for powersets to all follow some homogeneous formula. each powerset should feel unique and have its own flavor... otherwise i could just take fire blast power set, color it white-ish blue... and suddenly i am ice blast??. color it green and i am atomic blast! i think a successful example of powerset unique style is titan weapons momentum mechanics, or the energy melee focus proc. even if these 2 sets ended up having the same baseline buttons (yes i realize they dont) of 3 single target attacks, a cone attack, a PBAoE attack, 1 taunt... etc etc... the unique mechanics would provide different feel and unique flavor to each. i dont think each powerset needs its own unique proc that changes the flow of how you press buttons necessarily however (as i just referenced)... dark melee, for example, proceeds to be unique by offering its own take on a build-up activation via soul drain (dark melee has its own... challenges... present anyways).

i think the biggest problem generally is what you have mentioned -- how powerful AoE is in the game... and the fact that melee, outside of specific damage auras, are just overall generally lacking in that department. stalker ends up going even deeper into the limited AoE functionality than other melee which makes the problem even more apparent. your argument, as i understand it -- IF it is a clear design choice for stalkers to be terrible at AoE, THEN stalkers *SHOULD* be the king of single target deletion... and honestly its hard to say that that is in fact the case. ranged classes can become very durable and dont need to worry about maintaining melee range with critters running away constantly. the single target damage of a blaster or corrupter doesnt feel 'lacking' either when compared to a stalker. it does seem really odd that the focused/channeled assassins strike is entirely ignored and unwanted even though it is a hallmark piece of the class... that should probably be reviewed. Perhaps consider some of the following: reduce channel time on assassin strike, remove interrupt from cast time on assassin strike, add a debuff to the enemy struck by assassin strike, add a buff to the stalker after performing a successful hidden assassin strike. there are a lot of interesting possibilities here but nobody has a desire to use the mechanic because it is just not worth the time investment currently. also, as someone else mentioned, the stalker ATOs are, by far, the best in the game and the only thing that comes close is the scrapper crit proc... none of the other ATOs are remotely close to the power these offer. that said, it takes these overpowered ATOs to make stalkers *feel competitive*... not overpowered. thats where the oddities of a thin margin for balance comes into play... because of how strongly these ATO procs can scale out other power creep. ultimately i think it boils down to design decisions of deciding WHO should be the 'king of damage'? the squishy ranged blaster? or the melee assassin? and we can look back at the quick snipe changes to see that the design team was favoring the squishy ranged blaster (ironically also helped stalkers and scrappers, despite being intended to help blaster powersets). that leaves the melee assassin somewhat homeless in terms of effective functionality. obviously thematic character design is a different topic (play what you want, blah blah blah). my opinion -- i think tankers are very obviously a slow-go chunky boy. scrappers and brutes hit the mark of being the more 'dps focused' melee and have clear distinctions between each other. stalkers are most similar to scrappers, but dont really seem like they have a clear identity that makes them 'better' as an alternative than scrappers... aside from having a 'free' stealth button baseline. it often comes down to some scrapper power sets are simply designed better on the stalker side (elec melee being a good example)

yea that thread brasilgringo linked has a lot of good information about attack chains and definitely opened my eyes as to proper IO slotting for the attacks. the main change that mixes up TW (months old change at this point anyways) is the recharge reduction if you use an attack with momentum. and alongside that using forcefeedback recharge proc IO in whirling smash you can get some really insanely fast recharge attacks. to the point where it looks like some folk in that thread are not interested at all in titan sweep (the first cone attack). i can see this to some extent but im not quite sold on it... i still need to buy more IOs for my TW toon anyways, dont have enough recharge personally. the other bit that stood out was arc of destruction getting the ATO crit proc... something i hadnt really considered properly but makes sense. the main single target attack chain i saw being referenced was just rotating AoD, rend armor, and follow through. i still think you would want to use crushing blow in there because it is the most effective attack to _START_ momentum with, but again i still need my IO sets fleshed out and im missing a good amount of recharge. for AoE attack chain, im not sure if it could ever get down to just rotating AoD & whirling smash (with enough recharge)... maybe. thats where im slightly confused with dumping titan sweep entirely.

generally speaking scrapper will do more damage than brutes.. mostly cause the scrapper ATOs are absolutely insane and the brute ATOs are... well they exist. for AoE situations, this difference will be difficult to distinguish... but single target definitely favors scrapper. Brutes will have a larger HP pool and greater 'possible' resistance cap but this will only really matter if you are running a resistance secondary. the other important thing to consider is that brutes naturally taunt things and have _AOE_ taunt available. for solo play, this helps keep things attacking you longer instead of fleeing (which can be annoying as a scrapper). for team play, this is also generally favorable as well because people prefer it hits the beefy brute than anything else anyways... the downside in teamplay is that brute damage scaling relies on getting hit so if you are competing with others for minions to hit you, your damage will be lacking. as for secondaries... they can accomplish various things but some might be more narrowly focused into 'i can only solo x type of content'... for example if you pick fire armor you will probably have a difficult time existing outside of AE fire farms. some secondaries are just straight up... bad... and im sure if i start name dropping each set, inevitably someone will point out how they 'made it work' but the reality is some sets are just *GENERALLY* better and easier to build... -BIO armor is most typically the pair with TW just because it boosts damage even more and you can 'get by' sufficiently with its defenses. -ninjutsu and super reflexes are both solid and easy to max out defense. they both achieve similar defenses but ninjutsu is, in my opinion, just flat out superior. -willpower... some folks swear is great, but im not particularly a fan. -radiation armor can be interesting. very similar to BIO where it boosts your damage and you can 'get by' sufficiently with its defenses. -shield defense... unfortunately cannot be paired with titan weapons. truly unfortunate. to note... there exists a very overpowered ability called 'shadow meld' in the soul mastery patron pools that boosts all defense by 30%... can have really high uptime. BUT its not as great as it sounds because the duration is super short, it can never be permanent and it has a 3 second cast time. i would flat out ignore this ability as much as possible because it will never truly be part of your active defenses, gives you an illusion of safety but you will die during its downtime, and the cast time vs duration is incredibly annoying (unfun) to manage. it is a trap. any build that plans to actively use it will regret it... in my opinion. below is my Titan weapons / ninjutsu build... it can at least 'inspire' some aspects of titan weapons if you chose a different secondary. i would say the primary tree would never really change much (defensive sweep vs crushing blow is your only major 'choice'). other than that the scrapper ATO set placement is the only other critical piece. i personally like the crit proc in follow through.

yea again im not sure why you are having such a drastically different experience. i do not have any issues unless its against something like freakshow that actively drain my end... and against that, there are certainly end problems that i need to take a small break between packs. definitely important to have the +10 max end accolades (portal jockey & atlas medallion)... recovery is based on a percentage of max end. ultimately if you feel like you *need* ageless, then go ahead and use it. the biggest synergy at the inception of the build was clarion boosting the to-hit buff to reach +22 for the instant snipes. that is no longer 'needed'. you are otherwise psuedo-capped on defense between general defense buffs and times juncture but you wont be in times juncture range all the time so i dont recommend that personally. you could easily replace rune of protection for tough/weave and cap defense that way (and also cap out S&L resistance along the way)...

-survival buff is pretty expensive tbh, but recovery serum is cheap enough. -i was actually never aware of a supergroup buff. -other possibility is the free mutation power. if you get the one that does -50% end cost (pain tolerance i think), you definitely shouldnt have problems for a while... random is random there though. anyways just wanted to drop in and follow-up on the 2 changes that came out more recently (rune of protection and arcane bolt). -for rune of protection, while it sucks to have fairly long gaps in mez protection, the build has super high defense in the first place so you arent likely to be hit with a mez generally... and if you do... you just pop rune of protection THEN. saves you the need to have inspiration available and more importantly buffers out a window to get time's juncture back up. definitely a change though cause before i would just fire off rune of protection whenever i felt like it just because it *could* be up most of the time and it gave me an extra layer of safety without any thought. -for arcane bolt... the longer cast time is definitely noticeable. in a single target rotation, casting arcane bolt at any point will delay the ability to cast blaze or blazing bolt. that said, it does like 10% less damage than blaze (which is still very good) and will hit even harder than blaze if you have the arcane power buff on (its random)... so i think its probably worth it cause flares was trash otherwise. it is definitely strange to me to see an attack from a power pool actually be... useful... and not just a filler but it is definitely welcome.

my character is built virtually the same as you posted here... felt like diving back into this game... rune of protection adjustment is a fairly substantial blow to the playstyle of the *SOLO* build here. ultimately this build is super safe unless you get smacked with a CC and drop your toggles (or get end drained). the rune of protection / clarion rotation would keep you *mostly* safe from this previously... and have very little downtime. you will now have 2 minute complete GAPS of _ZERO_ mez protection without inspiration candies. so you either wait it out or risk it. the other significant change i see is that arcane bolt (from sorcery tree) is actually insanely strong now for some reason (seems way overtuned). legit just another blaze button (yes i see the activation time is longer). not sure that it would be entirely worth it but... i feel like it should just outright replace flares / fire blast (no reason to slot them over arcane bolt as i see it). spirit ward was never particularly useful in this build anyways, so replacing that doesnt really matter. overall, the rune of protection change would make the gameplay incredibly difficult to maintain the same clearing speed *SOLO* as before... but if you are running in a team and someone else can give you long term mez protection, the build is still great to splinter off and split clear in a group setting. other than that this build is still incredible in group play because /time's group buffs and enemy debuffs are fantastic for clear speed and you will be pulling your weight in personal damage because you are constantly damage capped via soul drain as a fire primary. aside from mobs that speficially end drain you, i never had problems with end *after* being mostly kitted out. getting there can be a little more painful. not sure where your toon is at IO wise, but i could recommend using Victory Rush (from leadership) for a while inplace of combat jumping to help with that and/or *not* using assault/maneuvers until you can actually support them.

retsu is good as a defense IO mule and also where defense debuffs barrage you -- can be a panic button if you catch it happening fast enough. otherwise can be omitted. smoke flash can go for sure... really dont need it at all. blinding powder and caltrops are definitely useful if like their application.

even back in regen's glory days, the biggest pitfalls were -endurance, -recharge, and -defense debuffs. regen still has no protection against any of that. fortunately there is the ageless incarnate but it doesnt shore up everything. Pros: -Technically the best scaling set for parties because no support ATs can offer anywhere near the HP/regen bonuses available, but plenty offer a ton of defense/resists. **that said i find it very difficult to die with anything if there are a bunch of support ATs in the party. -Very little downtime and a ton of blue bar -Can be "fun" to manage a number of clicky powers instead of set toggles and forget about it Cons: -the set is virtually impossible to softcap all defense with and you will likely just settle with being able to softcap on 1 purple pill (or waiting on shadowmeld a lot if that is your thing) -extremely low resistances all around (except toxic) -integration gives you basic protection against status effects, but none of the more unique protections (as noted above) -Bio and Willpower are arguably just better. while regen does win out in overall HP pool and regeneratin, Bio & WP do offer more overall protection while keeping the high regeneration theme. -the volume of click powers that keep you alive can be annoying, especially if paired with titan weapons (or other damage window oriented sets). -does not offer any unique offensive skills or bonuses towards damage, recharge, or movement. overall i just dont see a good reason to pick /regen objectively. even if you are going for a character theme, willpower will probably fit the bill all the same.

i would say you got caught up in achieving set bonuses at times and lost sight of what you really wanted. easy example is scorch and electrifying fences... you are already overcapped on melee defense. im not sure that you are actually planning to use electrifying fences at all or if that is just a mule for the set bonuses. deflection also provides smashing/lethal resistance. you go out of your way to get set bonuses for this stat but ignore slotting resists into this power. (tough and one with shield are good potential mules for unique IOs) im not sure if you are getting tactics for the increased perception or the to hit... the fact that you arent slotting for more to hit in it leads me to believe its for the perception -- in that case i recommend to you rectified reticle - increased perception IO in build up (add a slot) and kismet in combat jumping (add a slot) if you still want +to hit. this otherwise seems like a bit of a waste to me. there are a number of different powers that could be more useful... taunt comes to mind immediately. or also one with shield because you are not capped resistances and the crash is not debilitating like other armor sets. slotting out maneuvers for actual defense is a bit of a waste on a brute unfortunately, but if you are doing it for the S/L set bonus i guess thats more understandable. there is another avenue for amassing a bunch of *all* resistances and that is through rotating rune of protection and melee core embodiment incarnate.. you would need to trade some powers (probably super jump, maneuvers, and tactics). not saying you should, but its an option. it is a bit annoying to keep track of especially cause this game doesnt visibly warn/notify you when clicky durations are running out. overall there are no problems with the build and it looks good but it can be tooled around for better min/max i guess.

the obvious comparisons are with shield defense and super reflexes. all 3 sets are able to easily cap positional defense, so thats not really an issue. all 3 sets get a stackable status defense clicky (instead of toggle). shield and ninja get a decent baseline of resistances. the biggest "issue" with ninja is that, as a set based on defense, it has the *lowest* defense debuff resistance (around 35%). but if you overcap defense slightly and use ageless incarnate, that "hole" is not really a big issue. really nothing wrong at all with ninja. very self sufficient and simple.

you're looking at it backwards. DM fills one of the problems of regen by adding -hit (effectively defense) to it. unfortunately one of the bigger problems with regen is just surviving alpha strikes... which -to hit on attack isnt going to solve. that said i think willpower and bio are just flat out better than regen anyways. DM is a very mediocre powerset overall. it has solid single target DPS (slightly above average), but pretty terrible AoE. the secondary benefits (-to hit, some CC, constant build-up, heal, end gain) are great and so is the damage type itself. another big benefit is that DM is not a particularly active/combo oriented weaponless set -- this means hitting other buttons wont massively drag down your dps or generally interfere with damage windows (lookin at you titan weapons). shield defense is an obvious choice because shield charge fills the gap of AoE damage (even if the cooldown is long) and the heal built into DM helps fill that void from shield defense. that said, you can also approach the AoE void with just straight damage auras (fire, elec, bio, and others). but if you are going down to rabbit hole trying to fix it, why not instead just pick a better damage set. generally speaking i dont think there are any "bad" armor sets specifically to go with DM. its just a very solid all-rounder with its weakness being in AoE damage. Some armor sets are just lower tier in general (regen). so my opinion is: either build around a concept/theme and dont worry about the results or avoid dark melee to begin with. as a special note, shadow maul cone warping is especially important if you want better AoE. basically you just run through a pack with super speed on and shadow maul queue'd up... while doing a mini-jump as you pass through them.

it could honestly just be a matter of how many people made an empathy defender and ran it through DFB to lvl 16 and never played it again. why? likely because back in the day everybody NEEDED an emp defender in a team to function. if you take a look at scrappers, regen is the most popular secondary, despite it being by the far the WORST secondary. why? likely because back in the day it was actually the best. the game is different today. you've gone pretty far off of the OP's main topic: generally no, but they do have value. at higher levels/IO sets/incarnate powers, there are often better support archetypes to be running - notably kinetics, time, and radiation. these sets are better mostly because the buffs/debuffs also affect the defender, whereas empathy is 90% useless solo. and this matters because the defender can actually be another self-functioning teammate that doesnt need an empathy/force field defender babysitting them. also, there was a good point about knowing that you will be teaming with someone. if you guarantee you will always be with an emp defender, you can forsake end recovery and defense options in your build in favor of more recharge or damage. or for anyone with a snipe, you wont need to be concerned about slotting out tactics to achieve the +22% to hit threshold (although this matters far less with the recent patch).

just to note, although it is not really surprising and revolutionary... invariably, the fire primary is above and beyond any other primary for damage purposes (both ST and AE). if we are to talk about dealing damage, there is no discussion to be had around other primaries. in a solo scenario, certain corrupters secondaries will provide greater damage output and defensive options than blasters. /kinetics (especially) will outperform a blaster everytime (unless the blaster is chewing red inspirs nonstop). Typically the greater benefit at hand is that there are a number of defensive options so that corrupters can actually walk around in a pack of critters without dying -- a dead blaster does 0 damage -- /time is a great example here providing an insane defense buff as well as a large -to hit debuff... among other things. in a group scenario, corrupters are obviously going to be providing a greater benefit to the overall team (90% of the time) because the buffs and debuffs are a share of their power collectively. that said, SOMEONE needs to deal the damages -- so the blaster who has nothing else to do BUT damage will individually reap the benefits of the party buffs/debuffs and deal far more damage. This is not only because blasters inherently deal higher damage (roughly 50%), but also the availability of build-up, additional higher damage melee attacks and the more obvious fact that they will not be spending time casting the buffs/debuffs. so what it boils down to is solo-ability (corrupters are typically "tankier") and group support VS being the highest possible ranged damage. as for the defender vs corrupter topic that was brought up... defender obviously has better group support and general tankiness (the support archetype is now the primary!). All non offensive powers generally have higher base numbers on defender (includes tough, weave, combat jumping, leadership buffs, etc.) and it adds up. the damage output will be "similar" solo, as vigilance passive will offset the lower damage defender has in the blasting trees, but the scourge procs will keep corrupter ahead. The scourge procs are a bit undervalued as well i think... typically you are dumping AoE and killing off minions/LTs which now leaves bosses in scourge range. That aside, the main difference for damage purposes is that defender is capped at +400% damage, but corrupter is capped at +500% damage. This is also a big reason kinetics actually favors corrupter (for the corrupter individually) -- fulcrum shift, soul drain, vigilance passive, and enhancements easily puts you above 400% without even using reds or aim/gaussian proc. so here it is mostly a case of defender being the "safe" pick solo and better group support VS general damage output. and some would argue, why not just do a blaster if you are going to cheapen your group support anyways? and that is a fair question, but ultimately up to whoever is making the toon... much the same as brutes vs scrappers.

this is my build for titan weapons/nin. obviously not savage melee, but damage archetypes can be tooled around much the same for the most part. defense capped without incarnates with even level 50 IOs. that said, im not fully settled into which incarnates are "best". and some slots could probably be shifted around because it is overcapped (about 2%). for what its worth, ive heard savage melee is much better on stalker... but ninjitsu objectively looks much worse on stalker, so pick your poison. that is not personal experience though... ive never really played a stalker beyond DFB. Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.6.0.3 https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer Click this DataLink to open the build! Level 50 Magic Scrapper Primary Power Set: Titan Weapons Secondary Power Set: Ninjitsu Power Pool: Speed Power Pool: Fighting Power Pool: Leaping Power Pool: Leadership Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery Hero Profile: Level 1: Crushing Blow -- Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg(A), Mk'Bit-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Mk'Bit-Dmg/Rchg(3), Mk'Bit-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mk'Bit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mk'Bit-Dam%(7) Level 1: Ninja Reflexes -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), RedFrt-Def(7), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(9), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(9) Level 2: Danger Sense -- Rct-ResDam%(A), Rct-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(11), Rct-Def(11), Rct-Def/EndRdx(13), Rct-EndRdx/Rchg(13), Rct-Def/Rchg(15) Level 4: Titan Sweep -- SprScrStr-Rchg/+Crit(A), SprScrStr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(19), SprScrStr-Acc/Dmg(21), SprScrStr-Dmg/Rchg(21), SprScrStr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23), SprScrStr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(23) Level 6: Shinobi-Iri -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), RedFrt-Def(25), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(25), RedFrt-EndRdx(27), BlsoftheZ-Travel/EndRdx(39), BlsoftheZ-Travel(50) Level 8: Follow Through -- SprCrtStr-Rchg/+50% Crit(A), SprCrtStr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(27), SprCrtStr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(29), SprCrtStr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(29), SprCrtStr-Dmg/Rchg(31), SprCrtStr-Acc/Dmg(31) Level 10: Build Momentum -- GssSynFr--Build%(A) Level 12: Kuji-In Rin -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 14: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(31) Level 16: Seishinteki Kyoyo -- EffAdp-EndMod(A), EffAdp-EndMod/Rchg(33), EffAdp-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(33) Level 18: Rend Armor -- AchHee-ResDeb%(A), Hct-Dam%(33), Hct-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34), Hct-Dmg/EndRdx(34), Hct-Dmg/Rchg(34), Hct-Dmg(36) Level 20: Kuji-In Sha -- Prv-Absorb%(A), Prv-Heal/Rchg/EndRdx(36), Prv-Heal/Rchg(36), Prv-EndRdx/Rchg(37), Prv-Heal/EndRdx(37), Prv-Heal(37) Level 22: Boxing -- KntCmb-Knock%(A) Level 24: Combat Jumping -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), ShlWal-ResDam/Re TP(39), Ksm-ToHit+(48) Level 26: Whirling Smash -- Arm-Dam%(A), Arm-Dmg(39), Arm-Dmg/Rchg(40), Arm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Arm-Dmg/EndRdx(40), FuroftheG-ResDeb%(42) Level 28: Bo Ryaku -- GldArm-3defTpProc(A), TtnCtn-ResDam/Rchg(42), TtnCtn-ResDam(42), TtnCtn-ResDam/EndRdx(43) Level 30: Tough -- StdPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx(43), UnbGrd-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(43), UnbGrd-Max HP%(45) Level 32: Arc of Destruction -- Obl-%Dam(A), Obl-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(45), Obl-Dmg(45), Obl-Acc/Rchg(46), Obl-Dmg/Rchg(46), Obl-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(46) Level 35: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A) Level 38: Weave -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A), RedFrt-EndRdx(48), RedFrt-Def/EndRdx(48) Level 41: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A) Level 44: Physical Perfection -- PrfShf-End%(A) Level 47: Kuji-In Retsu -- LucoftheG-Def/Rchg+(A) Level 49: Super Speed -- BlsoftheZ-Travel(A), BlsoftheZ-Travel/EndRdx(50), BlsoftheZ-ResKB(50) Level 1: Brawl -- KntCmb-Knock%(A) Level 1: Critical Hit Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A) Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A) Level 1: Sprint -- UnbLea-Stlth(A) Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A) Level 4: Ninja Run Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A) Level 2: Health -- Pnc-Heal/+End(A), Mrc-Rcvry+(15), NmnCnv-Regen/Rcvry+(17) Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A) Level 2: Stamina -- PrfShf-End%(A), PrfShf-EndMod(17), PrfShf-EndMod/Acc(19) Level 1: Momentum Level 50: Void Radial Final Judgement Level 50: Seers Radial Superior Ally Level 0: The Atlas Medallion Level 0: Task Force Commander Level 0: Portal Jockey Level 0: Freedom Phalanx Reserve Level 50: Ageless Radial Epiphany Level 50: Reactive Radial Flawless Interface Level 50: Musculature Core Paragon Level 50: Assault Radial Embodiment ------------

yea combat jumping is incredible in every build. i would never consider it a waste. super cheap end cost, makes flight abilities 100x better to use, and a great place to dump unique defense IOs (lotg). so you would pick up super jump as the filler power. realistically, there is not much competition in the power pools, so i dont see where you are losing out here personally. hasten and combat jumping are a baseline in every toon ive made.

not pretending to be an expert on the powerset but, dont forget there is also judgement incarnate. doesnt seem like the AoE is lacking in general. it probably comes down to tradeoffs. combat jumping is an amazing power. easy, cheap defense (and lotg mule) so you are only "wasting" 1 power to grab spring attack. to grab fireball you need to pick up 2 worthless powers (granted fireblast is probably OK) and also commit to sacrificing other possibilities -- body mastery does provide a large benefit to endurance. realistically id probably sooner say you should look at ball lightning instead because it only requires 1 wasted power to grab -- and really it is just a huge shame that zapp's damage from the epic pool is super underwhelming for a snipe for whatever reason cause otherwise it would seem like a solid pathway.

curious on your thoughts on just corrupter vs defender in general. defender pros: stronger heals (15% ish) stronger debuffs in general +slowed response -res (30% vs 25%) +rain of fire -slow (-50% vs 40%) -- this one is a shocker... its the secondary tree for defender....... +distortion field slow (90% vs 70%) +times juncture -hit (15.5% vs 12.5%) and damage debuff (25% vs 20%) stronger defenses in general (some of these really surprised me) +farsight defense (12.5% vs 9.4%) +dark embrace power pool (27.5% smash/lethal vs 20%) +rune of protection (mystic power pool) -- 25% vs 19% +maneuvers (leadership power pool) -- 3.5% vs 2.5% +combat jumping... 2.5% vs 2.1% (really??) flexible in skipping time crawl +not a particularly strong power, can be skipped entirely as defender in favor of AIM, super speed, temporal selection, time stop, vengeance,. stronger solo damage (on average) Corrupter Pros: Higher BASE HP (1071 vs 1017 -- this kind of looks like TYPO in pines, but ill give it to the corrupter) Higher BASE damage +Roughly 15% stronger attacks BASELINE (big footnote on this) CRITS at low health Objectively "better" archetype IO procs a lot of the data really shocked me. initially it seems like defender is just obviously only going to be stronger in defense/debuffs (as it should be), but then i looked into the damage numbers. especially considering this build is extremely capable solo, the defender actually does MORE damage solo on average than the corrupter even before debuffs are concerned. as noted above, the corrupter BASE damage is 15% higher, but the defender has a 30% damage buff solo and has a stronger leadership assault (18.75% vs 15%) buff. AIM is stronger on defender (50% vs 42.5%, which is again ODD like rain of fire being it is the corrupter's primary). even soul drain is just flat out better on the defender (8% per target vs 6.8% per target). As far as solo is concerned, defender would only lose out in cases where the corrupter is scoring crits in execute range. and frankly, in a team environment, the 10% damage difference (discounting crits in execute range) will barely be noticeable. i guess ultimately the biggest difference is the damage buff cap. the corrupter, having 15% stronger BASE damage and a damage buff cap at 500% can land the bigger hits at the end of the day. the defender will be limited to a 400% damage buff cap. consider a solo defender: 100% (baseline) + 30% (vigilance passive) + 100% (slotted damage enhancement... roughly) + 80% (max soul drain) +50% (AIM) + 75%(gaussian build up proc) +18.75%(assault leadership) === 453.75%. This will turn into 400% and the gaussian proc is ultimately fairly useless (its only a few seconds anyways so i would reasonably say just dont run it in a defender build) consider a solo corruptor: 100% (baseline) + 100% (slotted damage enhancement... roughly) + 62.5% (max soul drain) +50% (AIM) + 75%(gaussian build up proc) +15%(assault leadership) === 402.5%. This still leaves an additional 97.5% to bump via inspirations or party members. worth noting that aim (along with gaussian proc) are much more temporary than the rest of the numbers, but i think the damage cap would reasonably only be a concern if you are in a party with a /kin archetype (which is actually fairly common). BUT if you are in a party with a /kin, i would seriously doubt the party overall is struggling for damage. Also worth noting that the corrupter scourge crits are not very noticeable unless fighting an elite boss or AV solo (as in a party, even AVs will melt before you can land more than 2 attacks in execute range). overall it would seem that the defender would reach much higher defense/resist numbers far easier and could conceivably move some slots around for more utility stuff like annihilation & gladiator -resist debuff, which could potentially swing defenders even further in the spotlight for solo damage & party damage. im sure there are other interesting IO procs as well. and with that i wonder -- is defender OP? is the 500% damage cap worth all the sacrifice? it would be difficult for me to justify saying corrupter should be buffed or defender should be nerfed, but this little research project is eye opening to me at least.