Without_Pause

That's Savage. Took Claws to 50 twice, and /ea to 50 once. Partly why I couldn't stick with Claws/ea was due to how familiar it felt even though it felt great. One of the few scrapper builds I would think of doing if starting over.

So you are "totally engaged" as a MM at level 27 while only having Transfusion and Siphon Power? You don't even have a staple Kin powers Speed Boost or Siphon Speed. What are you doing instead, using MM attacks? (chuckles) As someone who has taken Kin to 50 more than once with one being my main for years and a MM to 50, I got a headshaking chuckle out of this. I mean, how the hell a /kin at 27 gets thanks for being dedicated while not having one of the two signature powers is beyond me. (dedicated butt kicker, lfxp)

Stalker: StJ/ea. A bit early on my Elec/sd, but I like /ea better. Scrapper: Rad/sd. I was doing this instead of Dark/sd even though that build has a strong fan base. Having gotten them to 39-40, I lean towards Rad. Against All Odds fueling a damage aura and more AoEs. Season with -res procs. Brute: Claws, StJ or Kat with WP. Savage/rad is early, but Savage fuels /rad. Fury adds to Savage's damage. Savage could use a rework on Hemo though. I will die on the hill Savage is what Claws should have been. TBD, SS/elec. It feels like it has potential in my head. I need to tweak the leveling build, and then go from there. Tank: No official good answer as it is an AT I don't play much at all. I think my highest was my hardcore one, Elec/dark, which I actually did like. If not for me playing the brute version, Bio/rad might be my pick. Tanker AoE cap with two damage auras and more AoEs and the ability to switch to an offensive mode. Corr: Fire/dark. A Swiss Army knife of awesome. A nod to Fire/kin through. MM: I got one to 50(Bots/traps), but I don't find the AT fun. I liked that build though. Dom: Earth/earth. One of those, "How is this legal?" kind of fun builds. Plant/fire is great. My hardcore one on live died, and I rerolled it here, but axed it for some reason. I likely need to go back to it. Controller: Earth/storm for sheer fun factor. Teams knew they could play stupid when I had that build. Ill/dark might win for feeling the most powerful overall(includes soloing). Defender: Kin, Rad or pretty much anything with /sonic. Dark/dark. I think controllers got the better /dark port, but on fast moving teams, I felt like I was better off using the defender version as blasting away felt more useful. Blaster: Water/temp since it was my first blaster to get to 50. Ice/ice is close. I even had a Water/ice before switching to /temp. Fire/*. There's a handful of powersets I'm still waiting to get more experience with or at least get them high enough.

My one post where I quoted you says otherwise. Let's be honest, one isn't taking Rad over Dark due to the heal. It is the ability to slot -res procs in it. Agreed, I would(and have) picked Dark and Rad for the other melee ATs. At the end of the day, people pick things for mix/max, fun, or both reasons. The OP never stated which way they leaned. I'm merely pointing out the by far most popular build combo for a stalker might just be something worth looking into even if it isn't the min/max best.

Your statement was you preferred Dark/ea over Dark/shield. What I am saying is there can see support for the reverse since Dark offers a heal. I also looked up Croax's Elec/sd build and every attack had a damage proc unless a ATO set was involved. I already have an /ea build nearing the finish line, and I am working on a /sd build. Yes, the /ea has been a smoother ride, but I would honestly question how popular something like Elec/sd is over Elec/ea. As of 3/2/2020 there were 307 level 50 Elec/sd(#1) as where there were 34 Elec/ea(#37).

In defense of Shield, it trades off the lack of def, heal, end management, etc for offense. IO slotting and Incarnating a build can further patch up it's weaknesses. I'll say that some primaries can benefit from Shield since it adds an AoE. If a primary has a heal and/or end management, then again, I think Shield is the better pick. Case in point, Dark/sd versus Dark/ea. While Elec/sd is certainly a thing(I have one), Elec has enough AoE on its own so Shield isn't "needed."

Being similar to the OP, my vote is StJ/ea as I have a level 50, and it is one of my favorites to play.

Stalker is the winner since it doesn't lose out on AoE despite having so much of it, and adds in a hard ST attack for a set lacking in ST attacks. It does give up a control for AS, but that's still a win. Lightning Rod is a pet, so it doesn't break hide either.

What is your secondary? That's where the debuffs come from. If you want to take alpha strike as a controller, you need to know what you are doing and be built for it. That is made easier with IOs and Incarnates. It is also made easier if you are Illusion as PA can take alpha strike. I wouldn't worry so much about the melee types taking alpha strike depending on who they are. They are built for it. A controller is built to control the battle and not necessarily initiate it. Plus, you can learn the art of pulling although controllers tend not to be built for it.

At least we know who pees in their neighbor's pool. Maybe don't dump on the person who literally wrote a beginner's guide to be a stalker, and then now has gone and made a list of every possible Stalker build with full slotting and gave a listing of what they feel are the best primaries and secondaries based on their experience and giving logical reasons for it. You complain about lacking data and then provide none yourself or even logical reasoning for why his choices were wrong. But right, you can one shot a NPC. We don't even give out cookies for that.

Heritage rule sounds like what we did on live with a hardcore SG. Still mad I lost a blaster at 41 and then lost a Plant/fire when we did the same mission next. I believe the first 50 was a Dark/sr scrapper.

Well, due to their AoE cap, they can't be that great at AoE. Fire will work on a Sent, and Beam has the ability to ignore the AoE cap due to how it works. But, a Blaster with mezz protection is a Stalker if the OP would have taken the time and effort to actually learn how to play one. Not like there is a guide to how to play the AT stickied in its forum or anything. Sents can be good for something. Once the devs know what that is, I can tell you. FYI, raise the range and AoE cap for a Sent. Get rid of the inherit being tied to both T1 and T2 attacks when many offensive sets don't take or later respec out of the T1. Tweak inherit as needed.

The issue with stalkers is once their mitigation goes, and it will at some point, they have such a small pool of HP, they can faceplant in a hurry. I was reminded of this when my /ea stalker took on more mobs than she could handle do -def. Saying that, the damage output a stalker can do as compared to a brute, as an example, is quite striking.

Not surprised someone who couldn't pull off a farmer on a basic level is now complaining about not finding an easy mode on other builds. I honestly wonder how much of the OPs leveling is done with farms or 2x XP. The ignorance about how to play a build is quite high. I mean, a level 46 blaster and now you don't like getting mezzed? Did you completely skip past going against Circle of Thorns and Tsoo during your early leveling?

I haven't ever done it. My personal laptop runs rather cool when running it, and I've had my work laptop run a lot hotter, and it has a SSD and more RAM. Again, I don't run apps in the background. I did a scan of my laptop and working on updating drivers as well.

One of its two non-nuke AoEs is PBAoE, so depending how at range you want to stay, Elec's damage isn't ideal for a hover blaster. If end drain was worth a damn, its lower damage would be more acceptable.

In a pinch, 2 level 50 IOs will be good enough for Hasten. You could boost them to 55 if you like.

If you are doing 0x4, you might as well do regular content. At least in that case story arcs gets you merits which can get you converters. Tanks, honestly should be doing at least 0x4 at some point depending on the mob. Granted, she is 50+1, but on common IOs and I run my brute on +1x8. She isn't that far into the other tiers either. A counter point is farming at 0x4 can still be faster, but I would rather have the merits and enjoyable content where the build could get pushed dealing with troublesome mobs. That's where you learn the build and how to play it.

In the land of CoH, x8 diff settings are king, so yeah, AoE wins out. That's why so see even on stalkers the popularity of Elec/shield.

I keep finding this narrative odd since I solo farmed with common IOs at +2/x8. Was it slow as I leaned on purples? Yes, but I farmed at that diff at level 50(pre-incarnate). I honestly can't recall when I switched over to that diff either so it might have been sooner. I know +3 was a bit suicidal until 50+1. Saying you need sets to do anything above 0x4 is, well, wrong.

Currently dual boxing a couple of characters on red side as a way to do some content on that side. First two contacts can give you 15 merits. I think the next one was 8. There's nothing really red side which would limit hitting a billion. I switched my builds from the standard sell tutorial inspirs, to selling common salvage, to selling common IOs. I can get the up and running on the typical end game stuff shortly enough. My level 50 stalker is /ea. It is a great set. Working on getting a Elec/shield built.

WP is pretty forgiving, so just about any secondary can bring a benefit to it outside of something like /fire since fire is simply that. My personal top two might be StJ and Kat, but I concede some others might work even better. I just don't have one of them at 50 to have a genuine comment about the set.

Partly why I think it plays better on ATs not named Stalker. Losing AoE to gain AS isn't exactly isn't by default a win. I think WP and Dark tanks with /staff will pair quite well.

Once you hit 50, Rebirth can fill in as a heal/regen as well. End will be an issue until you can at least get some IOs going. I currently have a Rad/shield and Dark/shield scrapper, and to be honest, I might like the Rad one more. Rad has more AoEs and with the tanker changes for target caps, that can be a benefit for /rad. You can slot for -res on /rad as well. The heal isn't great and not on par with /dark's, but /dark is more know for utility than damage. With investment, Rad/fire brutes can outdo Spines/fire ones. Again, tanks have a higher cap for targets.

One of the early standout missions to me. I ran it on a Kin/elec in a group and we failed terribly. I groomed a Earth/storm for it, and it was a joy to completely own that mission on a full team.