Rathulfr

Get and use Mids Reborn for crafting builds. Then login to HC Beta to try them out. You can create a char, boost it to 50, and get all the enhancements for free. You need never screw up a build, or if you do, it won't cost you anything but time.

Oh, I never had trouble doing damage with my Energy/WP Sentinel, either. It was just wasn't as good as I would have liked, and seemed to take longer than my Energy/* Blasters. Admittedly, this is not a fair comparison, given the higher base modifier of Blasters over Sentinels. In general, I find it's easier to make a tanky Blaster than a blasty Sentinel, but that's a topic for a different thread.

My retail main for 8 years (2004-2012) was an Energy² Blaster. I loved him, and brought him back for Homecoming. But I found myself frustrated by the same problems leveling up that bothered me (namely, repeated squishy face plants). So I decided to try an Energy/WP Sentinel instead, and was totally sold on that. I got him to 50+3 T4, and enjoyed every second of it. I thought I had found the answer, but his anemic damage kept bothering me. This was especially troubling for tackling AVs and tougher bosses, which seemed to take days (Sentinels never die in combat: they just die of old age while s l o w l y blasting their targets.) So I decided to try a different Blaster secondary to see if that would help. I rolled up an Energy/Temporal Blaster, because of the -Regen powers in the secondary. That made all the difference: fully built out, my EB/TM Blaster is almost as durable as my Sentinel, and does way more damage.

Re-assign those slots for ENA to other powers that can benefit from them, and leave just the one default slot in ENA: you won't use it that much. If you can afford the purple IO, put in the Gravitational Anchor +Chance for Hold proc in it (not really worth the money, but if it procs, it procs). If you want to slot ENA, make it a mule for more defense, either ranged or S/L. You should deactivate Aim and Vengeance to see what your real totals are, because you won't have Aim and Vengeance up all the time. If you do so, you'll see you're just shy of soft-capping ranged, smashing, and lethal. You can make up for that by re-slotting Tough to take 4 Unbreakable Guards (including the +Max HP), and taking them out of Frozen Armor. I'd also swap out your frankenslotting of Eagle Eye and Health: put the Numina's in Eagle Eye and frankenslot Health, instead. I usually just 3-slot Health with Miracle +Recovery, Panacea +HP/End, and Preventive Medicine +Chance for Absorb. Move one slot down to Stamina to 2-slot it with Performance Shifter +Chance for End and +EndMod. Kick with 5 slots of a purple event set? You must have money to burn. If I slot Kick at all (and I haven't really needed to, recently), I usually just 4-slot it to mule Kinetic Combat for 3.75% S/L. Yes, that's less than 5-slotting Superior Blistering Cold's 5%, but it's a hell of a lot cheaper to make up that missing 1.25% somewhere else (like ENA). I'd also move the Thunderstrikes to Ice Bolt and Ice Blast, and move the ATOs to Freeze Ray and Bitter Ice Blast, to get more damage and recharge out of those, instead. Take Ice Storm at 12, please: you need that sooner rather than later. Move Upshot to 10, Ice Storm to 12, Combat Jumping to 14, and Maneuvers to 18 (Assault can wait).

Nor Energy Melee. *sigh*

Fixed that for you. 😜

Definitely longer than it ought.

It gets less on Sentinels because Sentinels get more defense/resistance/mitigation from all the other powers in their secondaries than Blasters get in theirs.

Unpopular opinion: I love Windows 10. I think it's the best version of Windows ever, since I started working with Windows 3.X back in 1991. Most of the criticisms and paranoia about Windows 10 are overblown and unmerited. And they pale in comparison to the awful shenanigans everyone seems to blithely accept from Apple and Google.

I suspect that the release of WoW Classic, Fallout 4, and Borderlands 3 have also had an affect on player populations.

I concede defeat: I must've remembered incorrectly. I humbly stand corrected.

Nope: it affects everyone on the team -- everyone gets the chance for BU.

I often 3-slot Luck of the Gambler into Maneuvers at a minimum, or 6-slot it with LotG or Reactive Defenses. Lately, I've taken to 3 or 6-slotting Tactics with a full set of Gaussian's, based on recent research regarding PPM and the Chance for Build-Up, especially in teams where other players have done the same (multiple procs of BU are possible that way). I usually 1 or 2 slot Assault with boosted common End reduction IOs, because it won't take any sets.

I'm convinced that there's a "wrap-around" bug with Aim/Build-Up that causes this maddening effect. Wrap-around is when one exceeds a given range and it becomes a negative value, instead. The original Tetris for PC had this bug: the high score was capped at 8-bit maxInt, so when you played well enough to get past that value, your score actually decremented back down to 0 as you continued playing. I think that if Aim/Build-Up pushes your +ToHit over the cap, it actually pushes it into a negative value (or is interpreted as such), and you're guaranteed to miss, because your ToHit is now less than 0. Every time I hit Aim, Build-Up, and snipe, I always pray: "please don't miss, please don't miss, please don't -- G*D*IT!"

I believe that most folks skip Unstoppable these days, given power creep and IO sets. If it isn't taken by Brutes, Scrappers, or Sentinels, it probably isn't essential for Stalkers, either. But I could be wrong. This is just my opinion.

I've been waiting patiently for Energy Melee Scrappers for years. I had hoped this would be an easy thing to do, considering that EM Stalkers are a thing. But I guess it's just not a priority.

I recommend Energy/Temporal or Archery/Tactical for solo Blasters, if you want to stick with ranged damage. Both secondaries offer good damage and mitigation, and are low maintenance.

+1 yes please

The DB combos on Stalker are clunky/awkward with the Hide/AS/Placate dynamic. I had one friend tell me to just ignore the DB combos altogether, and play it like any other Stalker. Unfortunately, since I'd played a DB Scrapper back in retail, the combos are what appealed to me. If I wanted to ignore the DB combos, I'd play a Katana Stalker, instead. So I gave up on DB Stalker. YMMV.

I concur. A level 50 character has a possible maximum of 98 to 103 enhancements (if they slotted the Prestige movement Powers -- I don't, but it's possible someone else does). Yet we only get 70 slots of enhancement inventory. I've had to burn two (2) respecs to fully strip a level 50 character without losing any of IOs or buying unslotters (which can get expensive, given the current market rate for merits/unslotters). I thought there was an in-game method to get one more row of enhancement inventory (10 slots), but I don't remember exactly what it is. Even so, that's still 20 slots short for a complete strip. I wouldn't mind earning the extra slots in-game, if that's what it takes, but AFAIK, I don't think it's repeatable to get 10 trays.

This is one of the main reasons I don't play red side that often: it's just too dreary. It's sad that my SAD affects me in my virtual world, too. *sigh*

I'm all for more helmet options, even dome-like helmet options. I'm just not a fan of adding something that could be used to exacerbate the abuse of the costume creator for copyright infringement. There are already far too many options for that in the existing system, so why make the problem worse? So if you're asking for a "Juggernaut-like" helmet, my vote is "No, thank you." But if you're asking for more helmet options, my vote is "Yes, please!"

It is. The OP edited the first post with the freshest links.

Is there any reason for a sub-level 35 to not be allowed in the zone? Should we level lock any other high-level zones while we're at it? Peregrine Island or Grandville, perhaps? Aside from your distaste of "using the MSR for PLing", how would enforcing a minimum level on RWZ improve game play for anyone?