Frosticus

Earth/poison works very well.

I dont inherently dislike patch powers, but dark control has demonstrated that you have the ability to make them work with domination/overpower. So smoke canister should be altered. Otherwise, aoe confuse, aoe disorient, knockdown patch and a robust taunting pet, means I can use this set to great affect. I'll test out tonight though

Buttstroke.... Heh

Look for a dom with fast aoe control because single target control is basically irrelevant on most teams. It's kind of meaningless solo too, but some people swear by playing slowly with st confuse. Probably want some decent soft control for the many times that hard control fails in harder content. Soft control that actually matters are things like knockdown patches and big slows. Tohit debuffing is nearly worthless in more difficult content. That should make your choices pretty clear for primary. I like /fire for teams simply because there are times you won't survive in direct melee range. Fire lets you sit comfortably 20ft back and still get all the buffs and none/less of the near instant deaths. /psi is unmatched for survivability. That shouldn't matter as much in a team, but if you solo difficult stuff it can be significant.

yes, primarily kyoyo it lets you get through the crash without insp in lvl 25 content. But also the click mez and auto power that gives kb protection. They both make the crash safer too. Basically I'm forced to take melee core and ageless on my /ea if I want to safely and easily get through the crash. My /nin sentinel gets to use clarion radial which gives me even more defense as well as boosting the +end power, giving me a bigger self heal and making my sapping more powerful (elec blast). Really nice synergy and flexibility offered by /nin.

I think that is maybe not the best advice for some sets. Fast AS is often the best DPA attack a stalker has with or without focus. It should be spammed. I want my AS up as quickly as possible, which means the proc rate on hide would be really low. Trying to optimize the hide proc in AS while abiding by the 10 second lockout leads to some very convoluted attack chains that don't interest me. I can slot oodles of rech into TF and it will still proc hide. Also I want double focus from TF. Placate reliably gives me that. Hide proc in AS (even with minimal rech) was failing to trigger that often enough that I was frustrated. Crit ET heals me a bit I don't use it. It's not even on my tray. Might give faster pylon times I guess? Fast ET is my highest DPA attack outside of crit fast AS. The procs are irrelevant compared to the raw DPA of fast ET. The goal is double focus and fast ET spam. Procs are just a bonus. Placate is fundamental to my playstyle. But ya the bonuses of that set are really nice. I use energize reactively as a heal. The heal procs help me use it that way by covering most chip damage. The recovery bonuses of overload and unleash potential are very high. I need perception and I need additional tohit and accuracy. I ran a tactics build for awhile, but FA works well enough and gives really good tohit debuff protection. I wish I had more tohit honestly. Yep torrent is pretty good. 100% knockdown is also really nice. It won't make you an aoe machine, but I didn't make an em stalker for that purpose. It is what it is. I need a lot of recharge (just look at the overslotting of overload). My intent was to have no gap between overload and unleash potential. In practice you can easily pause for a moment or just placate them and wait (I placated mother mayhem until overload cycled in the psi video). This build is an exercise in seeing how far I could push the t9.

Ya for sure, my normal sr tank build uses RoP, I think many do. But the hilarity of the t9 build is something else. Not batting an eye at rage crashes and unlimited endurance is a different set of benefits compared to the RoP build. A t9 /ea brute ala @nihilii is a sight to behold. My elec/nin t9 clarion radial sentinel is the definition of ridiculous in so many ways. Now I'm working on an unstoppable sav/invuln stalker. Obviously that crash is a whole different kettle of fish. It's just a different approach. In general I thought I was happy with the performance of my various armor toons, but similar to how making proc builds was fun and fresh a couple years ago, this avenue gives a new look at some of them and changes the areas they excel at.

Fair enough, I'm not sure how a conventional build would attempt to counter tohit buffs like in this demo without stacking as much powerdrain as possible (and being far more cautious about target selection), but players often have unique solutions. Other fun t9 builds that I've played and highly recommend trying: /nin (scrapper and sent). They don't need any incarnates to get through the crash. It actually gets silly. SR/ tank. 82% def during unleash, 45% def thru the crash, 160% def under elude. I'm sure some players might find a place where that is useful.

Not that it makes a huge difference, but I typically run spiritual (agility was on the build I posted and in the vid). My def numbers are usually overkill and the +heal of spiritual is more beneficial. I have agility on that build because I've been working on Lanaru AV. He pushes a 20% tohit buff, saps like a mofo and has freezing rain. So you need 65% def to softcap Ignoring the fact that freezing rain is a 37.5% def debuff (at lvl 53. I couldnt make a meaningful dent at 54). No success yet, but getting there.

More clicky that an /ea spamming power drain? Probably a wash, just loaded differently. You can see in the above video how it plays. There were 10 overload crashes in that clip and no hesitation on engagement with spawns to manage it. Everything in this game has some sort of cost. The cost here is you either micromanage the crash and learn to perfectly time ageless, or you just play and power thru it like I do. The above video is content that a normal /ea build will crumble in...quickly. Keep in mind that I'm showing this without inspirations. A single small purple and you can retoggle at your leisure while at softcap. A normal /ea would be using insp like they are a competitive eater.

Attached Stalker (Energy Melee - Energy Aura)3.mbd

I'll put of the mids when I'm at my pc It isn't a particularly complicated build, just lots of recharge so you have no gap where overload or unleash potential is not buffing you. This leads to several things: -It's a bit weaker if you choose to play outside of those powers, but it is more or less an /ea build so still good where /ea is good. It is however, considerably stronger than typical /ea builds if you use the powers. -Your endurance management relies on overload and unleash potential. Both powers give a lot of recovery, so if you play outside of them you will need to use energize proactively for the end discount. - you have overload+unleash in lvl 25 content, but without ageless you probably want inspirations to get thru the crash. Pretty small issue unless you are playing with insp locked out.

It's quite easy to hit perma dom rech levels so there isn't much reason not to do it. Your character will be better for it. That said, you could run a low recharge build that cycles domination with rune of protection, indom will, or melee core hybrid and have no issues with mez protection. I guess that'd be ok if you were investing all your bonuses in to def/resistance. I dunno, mag 6 aoe stun is good even with flashfire being kind of slow. Just depends on the content you are facing.

Depending on the content you play it is hands down the best aoe hold. For large battles that persist awhile, or more mobs join in, it will do a lot of work. It can hold bosses (lvl 54) on its own. It can be perma in such big battles. It is also very fast cast and can be cast blind/around corners. * It is also very good against AVs solo. Stoney tanks them and Gasses holds them when the triangles drop. No need to spam you extremely slow st hold, so you do more dps

There is a lot more involved in a build than just looking at the base numbers, but I think we all "know" that. I'm not going to pretend my /psi dom does as much st damage as my Gaussian boosted /sav dom, but it does enough to drop a lvl 54 Requiem (no insp/temps/amps/lore) pretty quickly. Being able to leverage the +dam ATO can be pretty significant. Some sets do it a lot better than others. Some sets can't do it at all. /Psi sets you up to defeat the targets that sustained single target damage actually matters against. For everything else you want "burst" aoe, which doms by and large don't have. In fairness, you generally take /psi for the 16 target PSW (all other pbaoes are 10 target) and for the unparalleled sustain of drain psyche. And while this is far from your typical /psi it is unlikely any /fire, /nrg/, /earth, /sav, or /dark dom is doing this no matter how hard they try: credit: @Ston edit: while I wouldn't suggest OP creates a /psi dom if their intent is to do big damage numbers, it sounds like they already have it at 50. So advice to pick a different secondary is not particularly helpful.

You just need a whack of recharge. That transforms doms. In your case it will increase the frequency of: Stun/nuke - quickly kill off fodder PSW - quickly kill off fodder, flatline enemy recharge Drain psyche - solve all end issues if used on 2 or more targets. Solve healing if used on 4 or more targets. Psy Lance + mind Probe - if you want to do decent st damage you need these up as often as possible. *consider the +dam ATO in subdue. It will easily 2-3x stack which adds a lot of damage to the rest of your build (ie confounding chant and epic aoes) The advice on epics is fine, but largely irrelevant. Fireball+ rain of fire Souldrain + dark oblit Sleet + icestorm They will all see similar results. If you team a lot then lean toward sleet, but it doesn't really matter. And you ideally have your character playing "well" before adding in epics/incarnates. Recharge is basically all that combo needs.

I had eyeballed fault+disrupt on a penciled out stone/ea stalker. Add in placate and that is a lot of control. Maybe enough to get you through some more difficult encounters. I tried it on my em/ea, but tbh it didn't seem to affect very many targets. Not enough to allow me to work through the type of mobs that were giving me issues. IMO /ea is so good against your average enemy that it doesn't benefit a great deal from disrupt and disrupt isn't enough for the mobs that /ea struggles against. Leveling may be a different story of course and I could see it being valuable there. For me the only solution came from the t9, now I can sail through psi mobs, nems, DE, romans, etc. Rularuu can still give me fits if there are a lot of specific bosses, so I have to approach them a bit more carefully. I can't think of a mob type that I worry about now, even less so if I remember I have an inspiration tray.

100%. The combination of having access to powers 5 lvls above AND lowering level requirements to unlock.. the game has never been easier to be strong. I mean I'm using my t9 secondary power in lvl 25 content now. So just having access to that is huge, but also benefiting from the sets I put in those powers is potentially very strong. And as significant as it is for doms, think about a corrupter now having access to transference+fulcrum OR sleet+heatloss on the Penelope yin TF. That is nuts.

Ya perma dom in the mid 30s while leveling requires a lot of effort, but on a 50 build it just is. That particular build is still perma in lvl 25 content, which did require some conscious thought in power ordering, but no noteworthy concessions.

Ya for sure, mine's of course a lvl 50 build too . I run the same build for everything with this dom, although there are definitely times I'm tempted to respec to the content. A respec ends up eating up an entire play session, so I can't be bothered. Exemp'ing certainly adds to the difficulty, even just losing 2 powers and incarnates. That said, purples, ATO's and pvp IO's all exemp down to lvl 1? so a lvl 50 build can pretty easily have perma dom in 35+ content. It seems weird not to tbh simply as a byproduct of chasing perma dom, but I realize not everyone arrives at their destination by taking the same route.

If you haven't played sav you should. Feral charge is very unique

You 'might' see a tiny difference against mobs that use dark melee like vampires...maybe Or Nictus Romulus for his melee attacks A lot of posted EA builds fall a bit short on neg energy def and the above changes mean attacks like smite/shadowpunch/shadowmaul, or Nictus Romulus' melee attacks, only check negative/melee now. But I definitely agree that EA still excels where it excels and has the same struggles it had before.

Ya for sure, but I don't think I've ever been on a team that was actively seeking to do the Ice Mistral SF. I "think" I did it once on live, but the unique feature of the final encounter was unfamiliar to me. Maybe on some of the higher pop shards? A lot of content in this game is untouched unless you drag a team to it. So if I can solo it when a team does want to run it, I can ensure a positive outcome.

Ya that was my exact thought. After your grail post about the /ea brute, the hamster in my head put in an overtime shift thinking how I could replicate the ease that nin gets thru its t9 crash. EA is a good set with an incredible t9. Tough: Just don't have room for it. I'd like it because lvl 54 melee AVs can still essentially 2 shot me if things go badly. Weave would just be a drop in the bucket. Plus it would be 2 more togs to turn back on. Leadership: I ran a leadership build with mu for awhile. In the end I really like the heal procs (4 total) they cover a lot of chip damage and keep working thru the crash. FA gives me perception and some tohit+acc but works way better against tohit debuffs. Torrent works as a single target attack in a pinch, but the ffb and knockdown is nice vs groups. Energy drain: it seems weird not to have it, but I don't need it. Even though the def would help during the crash. The build has so much recovery and near immunity to drain. I actually didn't realize melee hybrid cost 0 end until recently. I was going thru the crash with no mez protection for awhile as I assumed it would detoggle.

Additionally: Short circuit > thunderous Gives you the shock proc on the nuke across the entire spawn (of 10 targets) making it the highest damage sentinel nuke. Plus the way sentinel nukes work they normally do bonus damage in a very small aoe (much smaller than the nuke aoe). The shock proc on thunderous will cover the full 20ft.