Frosticus

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.

Enemy tohit buffs can be troublesome for defensive builds. Your typical "softcap" build will quickly find they have little protection. Fortunately they aren't "that" common and similar to heavy psi damage from the previous demonstration you can just avoid the content, or stack inspirations, or rely on a team if that floats your boat. But what if you didn't? This is 40 mins of continuous fighting against: +4x8 Nemesis - each cast of vengeance adds +30% tohit to the spawn Lvl 54 Positron AV and Nemesis ambush - crazy strong debuffer that uses radiation blasts and radiation debuffs for reference each attack debuffs def by 26-39% . Tohit floor of 9.75%, so he will hit you and potentially strip your defense. He also has his own version of "Overload" that gives him a ton of defense and a huge hp buff. Lvl 54 Manticore AV - he has some of the TA debuffs like acid arrow, but is surrounded by upwards of 100 nemesis mobs that constantly join the fight. His tohit floor for attacks is 11.26% and he also has a 10% tohit buff toggle. I go through 10 overload crashes. Some I'm paying attention to, some catch me by surprise if a lot is going on. Even given the above situations, I'm never in danger from the crash. As always: no insp/temps/amps/lore pets Also, No deaths

If you have a decent amount of procs in your attacks you should just keep attacking as normal.

Hey I get it. I like /EA, that's why I'm showcasing it. If I'm anything, I'm objective about the strengths and weaknesses of the builds/combos I'm playing no matter how much I enjoy them. Honestly, there is little in this game that can't be countered by teaming and/or lowering the difficulty, but that doesn't feel very super to me most of the time. I like teaming for big stuff, but by and large I don't love it in this game since the proliferation of incarnates and rare IO's, but that is a different converstation. /EA has 3 primary weaknesses. Psi, Toxic, and significant def debuffs. How you overcome them, or if you even do, is going to be up to each player. All I've been showing with the last couple posts for my /ea stalker is: 1. The advantages of placate - which is still often auto-skipped without consideration 2. How to incorporate the best t9 in the game in to your build and the advantages and disadvantages of doing so. /EA crushes run of the mill content, how it handles more obscure stuff is my interest. Next up I'll be demonstrating /EA vs mobs with significant tohit buffs, which is really going to highlight #1 & #2. Most def builds get a bit squirrely in that situation. If that is something your build can already handle, then hopefully you get some entertainment value at the very least.

Ya EA is pretty naked vs Psi and those seers don't seem to get knocked much, or want to come close to get pummelled. You should run it again post 50. It is nice going back and beating on things that were troublesome earlier.

Ya for sure. I fully agree with you on psi epic. I run it on my earth/psi/psi for me and to help stoney. Like you say he taunts, but he needs help against non-psi AVs. I still think ice/psi is a bit of a square peg into a round hole in terms of being a single target killer, but I respect what you are saying and I've done plenty of builds that color outside of the lines only to have them turn out better than I'd hoped.

You should be able to eventually cap your stoney to every damage type with /sonic. My stoney is only capped to psi/toxic and he can very easily tank lvl 54 psi AVs with spirit ward. Yours will be extremely resilient. You'll wish he could aoe taunt!

Haha ya, doms and stalkers are my two favorite ATs and neither of them are getting voted homecoming queen of hardmode anytime soon. But it could change. Team strategies change and what was once challenging is no longer

It is pretty easy to get thru. Just click unleash and melee core before it goes down. You will be fairly well protected You are right about AS and I should have added a caveat. Fast ET has better dpa unless AS crits, so fast ET is priority on this build and ET recharges so fast. It is a bit more black and white on most other stalkers where the heavy hitter takes longer to cycle. Other than that I will sometimes squeeze in bonesmasher before AS if I'm confident that both attacks were going to happen either way. I dont have the hide proc in AS on this build, or I might reverse that again haha. Sometimes my brain turns off too and everything I planned for an encounter goes out the window and I start using total focus before placate, or buildup before placate haha. Doubly so if my health is in the red!