Novacat

Archery: "generic" set style with slightly better accuracy across the board and fast recharge especially on the nuke. A decent grab-bag of the usual: T1-3 attacks, a cone, a radial, a stun, a snipe... often no secondary special effect though since its special is higher base acc. Beam: Is based around Disintegrate: a heavy DoT and light-DoT debuff (which can spread) of the same name. It offers a series of special effects (including a bit of -regen and -res) or bonus damage to things affected by this debuff. Greatly rewards both spreading disintegrate, teaming with other beam users (as everyone benefits from everybody's disints) and good positioning for my favorite Piercing Beam Dark: some surprising amount of defense thanks to the nonstop piling up of -ToHit on everything you have in there. No radials but Cone Heaven. Offers more immobilize, Gloom's one of the better T2s due to being a DoT, and the set has some health draining plus is capable of some serious proccery with Abyssal Gaze as well. All three can and will serve you quite well, so it's more about which one feels more fun really.

Note my edit too as that'll affect your arrows (TA's basic immobilize starter is full 80ft range too which is rather handy considering our Defiance options) and cone lengths. Moonbeam means a 120ft umbral torrent right behind it!

Tactical Arrow is the pure ranged secondary. All others have an offering of melee or point-blank attacks, though that's not to say they're not either a nasty way of punishing what DOES get close (and things do eventually get close once in a while) or to *prevent* them from closing in in the first place (like trip mines and caltrops). If you skip such non-ranged attacks at worst it makes it easier to stack some pool powers (you'll be wanting tough/weave and maneuvers probably anyways). For the primaries, Archery, Assault Rifle, Beam Rifle, Ice Blast and Water Blast are all fully ranged including their nukes; Electrical's got a ranged nuke but does have Short circuit in the pile of regular powers (it has no cone though plenty of electric cones in the epic/patron pools to choose from), while the rest have PBAoEs as their Tier 9 (though those are hideously powerful). Other notes: Beam Rifle and Dark Blast have no standard Radial AoE. However Beam's Overcharge (nuke) is ranged, and Dark Blast has long range cones (including an 80ft base one) to compensate Ice, Pistols, Sonic and Water have no snipe: Snipes are much more useful than they were back in the days of live, so this loss is worth noting. That said, each of those sets has some serious capabilities to compensate. (Edit: One thing I should point out especially if you don't take /energy: Snipes now give a 50% range boost for 10s which means you can easily follow up at long range if you use it as your opener. A slow one makes for a hell of a hit, especially when by the time the non-instant-projectile ones hit you've already also got your range-buffed nuke going off) My main's a Beam/TacArrow, and while the lack of a 'fireball' basic equivalent does annoy a bit, the fully ranged Overcharge and the ever-handy Piercing Beam do make up for that loss rather well.

Do not sabotage your perfomance and build for a few more % of ranged defense. It's not too costly by taking the usual suite of powers, global IOs and your ATOs to get into the low 30s. But going from there to a perma the softcap can involve kneecaping yourself, paying for those extra 1.83% or whatevers with the power and utility of things you actually do and make use of. Remember that when you really need it you'll have Barrier, inspirations, temporary powers or buffs from teammates, all to bring you into the magic numbers. Touch of the Beyond (which was not a Sustain before they were introduced in i24) now offers twice as much Recovery for a minute as Stamina (though auto) does, and 2.8125x the Regen gained from Health, with another 2.8125x unenhanceable on top of it. That's a lot of survivability to gain. A single 50 EndMod gives nearly an extra Stamina worth of recovery to Touch of the Beyond alone (a +4 in that slot is worth 25.44% recovery alone) A single Heal Mod gives the damage proc, an extra 47.7% Regen(if unenhanced) So with 4 slots you could use healing, accurate healing and/or endmod sets to 2pc yourself significant bonuses while also slipping in a proc or global bonus (and a 2pc bonus obviously). That still leaves two for doing the same out of a to-hit debuff, accurate to-hit debuff, or fear set.

ESD's technically non-damage (doesn't slot it and only damages freak/bot types) as well. It would tick Needs Range, Needs Accuracy, and EndMod is a main feature. While it has no -recovery component to stall drain on its own it does pack a -55% base drain, higher than either Short Circuit or Power Sink's (though again without a -recovery component that's of questionable usage)

Is there anything that needs 60%+ accuracy bonus AND the accuracy bonuses from IO sets AND the acc or to-hit bonuses from powers like tactics and other buffs? I know plenty of powers that can use a ton of +range just to match the rangebands of the rest of their own sets,... but other than Heart of Darkness (60%) which is entirely unrelated to EndMod... Just the two triple-pieces (Acc/Endmod/Endredux and Acc/endmod/recharge) would already be enough to turn a 75% power into 114.8% before any other buffs or bonuses anywhere which you're bound to get a few of. With Range/Recharge at the top instead, that would put those 70ft powers back where they belong. Some 60% bases like ESD Arrow on Blasters would probably still not reach 100% anyways from the current Preemptive Optimization since they only get to 104% with a triple and two doubles, so it's overkill on others and still not enough for those.

A suggestion if I may: There's already fire damage in the Blaster ATO and plenty of negative/smashing/lethal to go around, but I don't think there's a cold damage proc anywhere?

While End Reducers pretty much come naturally with IO set slotting, don't forget that Touch of the Beyond's supposed to be your sustain there. It's a 60s buff to regen and recovery, and those are the main counter to blaster endurance issues (especially an AoE loving set like Water). If you use the Radial Core for Musculature, combined with at least one full-fledged Endmod, it'll take a real load off your back. It's also not a bad idea to have a full Healmod in there for the regen. Touch of Nictus' proc and healmod aren't a bad pair for the healing side, while the new Endmod sets currently in beta are going to be a very nice addition to a power like this one even if you're just frankenslotting two or three pieces out of it.

If it's any consolation the sword attacks aren't wonderful. As you say, Choking Powder's not bad, though very short ranged. And as you say, Shinobi's value compared to targeting drone... Hell even with stealth if we compare Shinobi + Kujin'Toh to TD and Field Operative, Ninja's losing out big time. Unless I guess you're dealing with a psychic damaging fear spell, maybe. Immobilizing Dart: Truly an insult; not only does it have less than half the damage of its contemporaries, it also has a longer cast time! The mild -recharge/spd doesn't make up for this any more than a stronger such effect did on the old Web Grenade. Sting of the Wasp: Sad. Pretty much all alternatives in other sets hit harder and many hit faster too, often with stronger secondary effects. Lotus Drops: Very basic, lethal and -def. This is marginally more damaging than Martial's Dragon's Tail (Burst of Speed's an incredible alternative though), but slightly slower to cast and doesn't have knockdown. End of Time hits harder still though casts a little slower (with additional conditional damage and types atop it), and does -regen. Faster recharge and a tiny bit bigger radius as well IIRC. Atom Smasher's a lot slower to come out but it does hit harder, recharges faster, stuns, and still does more -def than Lotus does. Smoke Flash: would be alright were it not such a short duration, and if not for the complete lack of set compatibility or -hit component. It's not even that great as a placate since it's not like you can crit Blinding Powder: it's ... okay. Range is very short and the magnitudes are just 2, so it could still use a bit of love. Golden Dragonfly: A tiny cone that sometimes maybe will let you get two in a line if they're basically-stacked, for the kind of damage and secondary effects you'd expect from something secondaries offer at level 2-10 at the latest. At this point you should probably just grab Cross Punch along with Tough and Weave; it won't hit quite as hard even with both boxing and kick, but a far more debilitating and a wider cone at least. You'd think there'd at least be exploding poison shuriken and teleports or something.

Bane's problem is the ranged attacks it gains leave you purely as a wolf-spider. That leaves you with just the gun, which can be a bit visually and audibly underwhelming. Also for some reason they have a 10ft penalty (because screw us that's why) out of nowhere. Bash isn't particularly bad - it's better than Pummel, but by the time it's available, since it's through a level 24 respec, you've also got Pulverize, Shatter and Bayonet available Mace Beam is a 2s cast time for 55.61 with knockback. Single Shot may be Lethal of the same damage but it's done in 0.9 and Burst hits even harder in a beautiful 1s cast Mace Beam Blast is trash. 2s cast time for 36.7 and some knockback. Radius is also 10, which is a flaw in the Frag Grenade but the Frag does just under twice the damage of this thing without the range penalty, weaker knockback that you probably won't need to slot against if you'd do so otherwise, and a faster casting time And it gets worse, because both of these have a Patron pool equivalent which hits harder (and disruptor's got a wider radius), although their recharge time is slower due to being from the pool. Mace Beam Volley Suffers the same problem as Blast, this time as a cone, though thankfully not overshadowed by a mace cone... well, not a mace one on a VEAT anyways... Poisonous Ray Never got the range treatment. It's 40ft like all the other old heavy blasts used to be, and is a little bit weaker to boot than those equivalents and Crowd Control, well it's not bad but you're not really a melee specialist so you're less likely to get to even swing at two guys at a time compared to murdering a single with Shatter. Web Cocoon is very Meh: it would be alright as a "toxic web grenade" but instead of damage it gets a hold... problem is you don't get any other holds to stack it with at all. So basically you're in it for the cloak, build up, and for critical hits with Pulverize or Shatter. The armor's really good, but compared to getting even higher resists and an energy summon? Nearly everything else the Bane has, the Crab already has as well, or nearly as good (bayonet's not that much worse than pulverize, though pulverize IS better, for example) since they're wolf spider attacks.

Elec's problem is similar to Elec (the primary): end drain just doesn't mean much. So without the draining that leaves its quality as a blapping set. The Sustain's not bad for a clicky, but if I'm going to punch and hold things why not just use atomic or something?

Now I wanna see what happens if I frankenslot all my AoEs for that 5% range buff...

For the Toxic Darts, maybe a few alternative animations to select from would help - or at least the needle be tintable Same with the Vial: I don't dislike the flask but some characters a canister like Smoke Grenade's might look better? Corrosive Vial feels like it's just lacking a little oomph still because of the small area (it's an area attack so it already has access to a -res, the -def basically does nothing later).

I rather liked the Range components, although it's true not all that many powers would find any use for it without accuracy also. Could it have gone half and half perhaps? Range/Recharge, with the two accuracy being in the triples maybe? Some obvious recipients for having ranged buffs in the set would be the electric cones so many patron pools offer. Static Discharge and friends would definitely want some of that, though it's true they also need *a bit* of accuracy too (not much though, many ATs that get those powers have some hit or acc gained from elsewhere)

Bio Armor may be an example of the way forward then? Where it has adaptation and its 3 toggles, here the Nova and Dwarf forms would be significantly more powerful damage/tanking modes that do lock out *some* powers (or just greatly diminish them) but heavily alter what they're focused on. Maybe if you don't already have the unlocked powers, switching form gives you a temporary basic form of them, using the same mechanics that the new travel powers offer things like Jaunt. Then it'll just need something for soloing (Defenders got that for THEIR inherent eventually). Well, maybe the VEATS too, that training's a pretty tiny and non-playstyle-affecting affair compared to all the modern inherents.

Modelwise things like IDF Heavy Troopers already have some equipment that would be a wonderful fit for this. LRM also needs to not be the frankengun (or whatever rifle you've chosen). Same with Wolf Spider gear; different animations (a little flurry of missiles instead of the grenades, there's already 'gas' ones too, different sound and weapon options for the gun attacks) in the costume/power-animation would also be a breath of fresh air.

"Stop using your hands. Use your mouth more" seems like something that needs some bug-fixes.

Poison's mosh-pit-powered sister: Heavy Metal Ivy

It's on hit. The spread is a debuff, never to my knowledge has spread proc'd far as I could see. Far as I've experienced, the proc will be on hitting the one you target with disintegrate, so that you can front-load a bit more damage or effects.

It's one of the things that makes the Dart worth considering: The 2s cast powers are in the quality-vicinity of Bane Spider ranged mace beams.

No experimentation changes yet? The Electrical Affinity changes though seem really nice. Especially the sentinel usage.

Venom was being used as an example: You can take the crab venom, or you can take the wolf venom, but you cannot take both. Taunt and no-Taunt Gun Drone could get the same design treatment: One can choose either power.

Or, against targets that actually shuts down, you could've killed them in that 5.03s with something else - something you're still going to have to do now that they're out of juice. And against GMs, AVs and the like, well it simply doesn't work unfortunately. And unless you DO SC+PS (or at least SC+Thunderous or +ESDArrow) the end drain leaving them half full from all your other attacks is doing basically nothing. I want to like End Drain, but it does need a bit more. What if as SeraphimKensai suggests losing endurance bar meant a very slight gradual erosion of resistances? Or maybe of the target's damage: they can still throw out all those punches at 1End each, but at half a bar that's X% less damage, and now your basic elec attacks can *sustain* the debuff you've built to?

Tactical Arrow. Trick Arrow's a bit less beloved by people in these parts! But Tac Arrow is an excellent set; long as you don't mind having no big fat debilitating face-punches, it's got less hard control but more utility and self-buffs than other secondaries. For primaries where you really want/need to focus on the set itself due to various mechanics (like Beam or Water) it's golden.

The trick to the time bomb timer (do remember it's shorter now) is Trip Mine. Or at least a slow snipe or timing a BU+Aim+Nuke sequence. It does hit just as hard as a PBAoE Tier 9 after all (well a little more but given the damage types) and now you've just hit with two of them.