Frosticus

Please take Hasten. You are giving up huge slotting opportunities if you don't. Use base empowerment and spend the money on the +rech amplifier while leveling. You don't necessarily "need" permadom while leveling but being able to chain it twice in a row will be a big improvement over letting it drop every time and you can get that at a very low level.

Axe looks like the easiest port to me. AS for swoop Placate for taunt

Earth and dark for personal damage Mace for personal+ pet damage and overall utility. Not exactly the same needs but i went mace on my ill/Marine. Disruptor blast hits much harder than fissure and you shouldn't need to cycle your aoe attack twice against the same spawn solo or teamed. Focused acc allows more proc opportunities. Poison ray passes seismic/midnight grasp very quickly if you have multiple damage sources, although not nearly as satisfying to use. Scorp shield is much better than rock armor and looks like waves

For def based t9s in the case of /ea that only matters if you are a masochist trying to never use inspirations to get through the crash. Otherwise you just hit a single blue and energy drain in the case of /nin (scrap/sent) they have a 0 end cost blue bar refill on a short timer, that set sails through the retsu crash like it is designed to handle it. Only /sr has issues easily handling the crash before 50, but it also gains the least from using it relative to the others. That said, 160% positional def on a tank is entirely, unnecessarily, enjoyable. everyone is free to petition for the type of gameplay they want, but imo /ea and /nin really underperform outside of their t9. So t9 changes would have to be accompanied by a major revamp of the entire set for me to get behind it.

I love overload and retsu (scrap and sentinel). I wouldn't play those sets without the t9s in their current (or very similar form). *I have 2 - /ea stalkers, a stone/nin scrap, an elec/nin sent and a sr/ss tank that all live in their t9s with the same formula of seamless t9>unleash>t9>unleash The full end crash is pretty trivial to power through and the builds reward chasing optimization as much or more than anything else in the game (which some really enjoy) I'm of the opinion that the defense based t9s give ample reward to justify their downsides. You just have a case of a community (discord included although they are coming around on /nins retsu) that is hesitant to try something because someone told them that it didn't work for them, when in most cases the crash is "barely an inconvenience" That said, unstoppable and powersurge either need to do a lot more to justify the increased risk that their crash carries, or the hp crash needs to be retooled. In the video @Americas Angel posted above at one point the mobs have 3x veng and a 54 rad/rad AV is on me. I dunno what to tell you, but even chain emailing super insp might balk at that situation. And as many survival insp one would take to replicate it, I can load up on huge reds instead if so inclined.

I think some behind the scenes changes have been happening with some of the power redirects/executes in the last couple months. I can't put my finger on exactly what though. It's my pet theory that redirects/executes will be what eventually paves the way for future proc changes.

It triggers interface damage regardless of successful knock. That isn't related to slotting, but it shows it can probably roll damage procs without meeting the condition required for the patch itself to deal damage (ie knockback resistant enemies) On my arsenal builds I haven't seen it do enough damage to warrant damage slotting and it doesn't proc well enough to dedicate the slots to it that are better spent elsewhere in the build. It is however the only control primary patch that has enhancable slow, which ime is very valuable. But ymmv.

I use a single +5 slow. That slow caps (1%away) 54s and helps better utilize the many patches.

Slow cap is -90%. ,but level differences mean you need more than that in practice. 138% slow will cap a lvl 54 if you are a 50+1. Some enemies have slow resistance though.

Not super busy for a buff/debuff set. For the most part you just cast tide pool each spawn. Everything else can be set between spawns. A bit like nature. Compared to a sentinel tho... busier for sure

If you are open to it, I have a marine/seismic defender. It's pure power fantasy with meteors and tsunamis. Very tanky, great visuals and pretty nice clear speeds. If you are set on sentinel I'm on /Stone armor kick right now. It is quite good on sentinels too.

Similar to Auroxis interms of slotting across the board. I like the ato procs in it on my def, the set becomes extremely tanky, notably more than my troller and corr, although they are great in their own ways. Guassian is quite good in it most of the time. Against large spawns it has nearly 50% uptime, but the inverse is true as well. Against a single foe it will rarely trigger.

@SirBronco Of the ones listed I would do fire/marine, it has the most synergy and fire gains the most from marine. That isn't to say it is the strongest, for that you'd want illusion. If you've never done an illusion playthrough marine is pretty great with it. Yes PA will fill up your shifting tides stacks (almost instantly), no issues. Ill/marine is probably in the running for top combo in the game when you consider st damage, aoe clear, team buffing and personal survival as a package. Lots of good marine pairings though, it offers a lot.

I mean, that's certainly a thought process. Players ask for things all the time, some good, some bad. I'm all for doom-casting and enjoy pretending the devs are out to ruin the game as much as the next guy, but it doesn't really hold up under scrutiny. The closest recent comparison I can think of is static for Tesla cage and how elec manipulation for blasters is allowed to build it. It only has an interaction if you pair them. Did elec blast or manip get nerfed as a result? Nah, elec manipulation is in the running for the strongest blaster secondary.

If you spam your st confuse then that is your playstyle. I don't play passively. I also don't chase a 5% ranged def bonus on an AT that has no defense and is better focused on aoe mez and damage. I've put up tons of vids for my earth/psi/psi, the approach works extremely well. WoC is a bad choice for a passive ranged build, no question about that. Ymmv.