Frosticus

I have 3 power transfers and 1 pancea all in auto powers on my em/ea/body stalker. Reviewing video, most often 2 fire, but 3 is common and 4 is not rare. On that build it covers most of the chip damage that gets through leaving the heal power for when a bigger hit lands.

If this is what 6th place feels like... Energy TRANSFER! Then I'm ok with that

It's fine. I like it more for controllers because a lot of the set is tied up in fire imps contributing damage. They get the same imps and have tools to make them excel much more. That said, I enjoy my fire/fire/fire dom. It can do a lot of single target damage with +dam ATO in procd char and high uptime of fiery embrace. The aoe controls tend to be too slow for my liking, so I enjoy it on high con/low team size settings.

I think this video more clearly demonstrates how powerful placate is.

It also has a very fast cast time now. Extremely useful power.

Here's a little demonstration of placate. I'm mostly using it defensively here, but you do get a bit of me using it offensively for double energy focus. Basically I placate the group I don't want involved and then use the offensive boost against my target. This build is a bit different than what you generally see from a defensive perspective, but that is a different discussion. His webnade only checks ranged def, so I'm webnadded most of the fight. Crimson has quite a bit of defense. His cloaking device is 30% and he also has elude, so that is annoying. The fight is lvl 54 Agent Crimson + 4 Ballista EB allies No insp/amps/temps/lore First video is with no placate. I just attempt to "scrap". I actually survive quite a bit longer than I thought given their tohit floor is around 9-12% for various attacks. Could I "win" this encounter? doesn't look like it...not with this spec. Second video is using placate. As you can see it is about as easy as it gets

Ya most AVs recover ~26 end/sec and have a pool of 800 endurance. As mentioned earlier, sapping can still be very valuable against EBs and lower, even at lvl 54. But for AVs you should probably have some other tricks at your disposal.

This is with drain psyche slotted for 71.3% end mod = -856.65% recovery So the equivalent of about 4 heat exhaustions Most AV's have 2 x as much recovery as the pylon. A +3 (lvl 54) AV would decrease the debuff even more. 87% resistance instead of 85% and level scaling difference of 65% effectiveness. Takes a pylon from 13.34 end/sec down to 3.33 end/sec You'd need approx: 1150% -recovery to flatline the pylon 2300% -recovery to flatline an AV 3600% -recovery to flatline a lvl 54 AV

Psi mastery makes a lot of sense as it rounds out builds with 2 lotg spots, reliable ffb, more defense, outstanding psi protection and as I demonstrated in various vids - woc is really good for melee doms. It is a good overall package that leans more toward protection. Psi Assault is still standing tall. What it lost in the psw nerf it gained back in the quick snipe. Shifting its focus from aoe powerhouse to decent at everything. Psw still hits 16 targets and retains top spot for pbaoes as the others only hit 10...it is also a control power in and of itself. Subdue is one of the best ranged options for the +dam ATO and is an easy 2-3x stack Drain psyche remains the best sustain by a landslide, so if that is important to the player there is little else in contention. There are lots of good choices. I love /fiery for single target ranged as that is utility in and of itself. I lament the lack of ato slotting though as it restricts primary choice (for me) . It is very different from the tankiness of /psi, or the chain teleporting and aoe mayhem of savage.

I've always felt EA is overrated. I still feel that way in general as the holes are glaring. But Overload an amazing power. It should be called Overlord because it is a literal godmode. It plugs the holes and puts your stalker in the HP zone of a meaty well-built scrapper, but with stalker tools. With built in conserve power, power drain and placate at your disposal there is no reason not to spend as much time as possible in the t9. For late game ageless radial works really well for me. Bringing up the moderate debuff protections to excellent levels, cycling overload more often and it costs 0 end to activate, so seamlessly gets you through the crash. EA was an easy #1 pick for me.

Ya I think most people overlook several things. 1. EM's performance is raw damage. It isn't using self buffing things like follow up, or multiple -res powers. 2. EM responds better to buffing and debuffing. If a claws is pushing 2x followup and buffed by forge it will see less relative increase. Same goes for builds stacking a bunch of -res to get their numbers. 3. Some sets require a static enemy to get anywhere close to top performance. Not all scrappers have a taunt aura, or tools to keep mobs still. TW taking 2 steps to chase and having momentum drop is tedious. 4. Almost all scrapper sets can dish out great damage, so you should generally play what you like. 5. As nuts as EM is on scrappers, stalkers crank it up several notches. Consistent and predictable double focus, fast AS and buffed power crash.

While my main dom is earth/psi/psi I voted earth/psi/soul Earth stands out as an aoe control set with fast cast times. While its single target control is less than many others (slow hold, no confuse) the pet can control AV's... which is pretty unique and probably more useful. Psi cause drain psyche is just a big step up in so many situations Soul because soul drain is really good on an AT that lacks many good sources of tohit and damage buffing and dark obliteration.

lol I voted the exact same even though I don't have psi app, I still think it is probably the best. All the reasons you mentioned make elec blast really good for sentinels. Plus the huge drain of thunderous blast gets them proc'ing shocked constantly whereas it takes a bit to get to that point on the other AT's for most builds.

To each their own, but I encourage everyone to try it. Hide proc has an internal lockout of 10 seconds. Placate hide is independent from that. Which is to say, as I originally stated. If push came to shove I'd take placate over hide. Placate and the hide ATO still function without the "hide" power. I'm rarely "organically" hidden once on a map teamed or solo.

This is a common misconception. Teammates have to be within 30ft of you. That is very unlikely on any team moving at a decent clip. You'll be lucky to have 3-4 within range when you launch your opening aoe attack. As you say, at worst it is a +19% crit chance, but it is more typically +25-30% in practice. Stalkers can have decent aoe if they build for it, which I imagine most team-centric stalkers do. The cast time of placate is very fast, but also has little opportunity cost. You can't punch something in the face from 60ft away as you are jumping in, but you can placate and then cast your aoes. Most teams move too quickly for hide to reengage organically. The single target advantage is less on a team, that is true. Not because it doesn't work the same way, but because the team will have likely condensed near your location when you are single target killing, so you'll get that full 31% and at that point placate could potentially take away an opportunity for an assassins focus stack of a weaker attack. Indeed, some sets benefit more from it than others. You should definitely try it. Old placate was 100% skip in pve. New placate is an i win button in so many situations. The increase to 5 targets was significant, but the cast time reduction was perhaps even more important. So often with the old one you'd cast placate so slowly that it would often be broken before you could get an attack cued. That happens far less often now. How you slot it will be build dependent. It is auto-hit, costs zero end, I just do recharge, but range can be nice too. All a posted build will show is ~2% less defense from hide. I'll upload some videos of a stalker in the next week or so. Full disclose, it is an EM stalker, which imo does gain a bit more from placate than some others.

Placate is even better on teams, aoe crits all day. If you haven't tried it since it was buffed please do. It is night and day compared to how it used to be. If you have and didn't see large potential gains during play then it is what it is. What would a superior build look like to you? Higher dps? Able to complete harder content? What would you like to see because a "build" isn't going to convince most people. I mean ideally you have both, but if I was pressed I'd take placate, it is unique and rarely resisted.

Agreed. It is a very strong power both offensively and defensively. I'd personally skip hide before placate if it came down to it because once I'm in mission it is rare for hide to naturally kick back on between spawns.

Vanessa Devore has this. It's a juiced up dark ring mistress power https://cod.uberguy.net./html/power.html?power=carnival.carnival_vanessa.mask_of_feebleness&at=boss_archvillain She also summons a dark servant Most AV "killers" have her missing from their list.

Yes exactly. Retsu is like crack, but clarion boosted Retsu is some kind of crack that the gods would use. Clarion works with most of the /nin set pretty well and boosts my stuns too. Mine is a speedster concept, so I just kind of went all in on that idea (which means my proc damage is almost nil) Retsu's unsuppressed speed is already great, but w/ clarion it puts you right up near the speed cap. I actually laugh when AV's start running away (which they definitely do!). I feel like the Flash catching up to them.

I've never taken too close of a look at /ea, but I really like what you are doing. The huge hp spike and psi def of overload is reason enough to utilize it imo. As for Ninjitsu (scrapper/sentinel) version specifically, I've always assumed people that suggest retsu is a skip are just parroting misinformation picked up here/discord. I mean the set gives you three tools that you are taking anyway to make the end crash a small speed bump, rather than a significant obstacle. 1. Click mez protection- no chance of randomly getting mezzed when your end crashes. 2. Auto power with kb protection. Similar to #1, no risk of being knocked down during the crash and being killed. 3. This one is pretty major. Ryoyo (+end power) costs 0 endurance to activate and needs no targets. The set puts you in a position to get thru the crash with no inspirations and continues to give some important protections during it. Hopping back, hitting kyoyo and retoggling takes like 7 seconds. There are workable strategies to never even disengage too, like barrier tanking, which you mention. I dont personally use barrier on my em/nin scrap, but that's only because Clarion radial + retsu is one of the silliest things you can do. Edit: ET also costs 0 end, which just begs you to keep going through the crash.

On a defender a fully enhanced Short Circuit with charge up and agility radial will "only" sap a lvl 54 for 71%. Adding in similarly slotted ball lightning will up the total to 85%. So they need other ways to get that spawn fully drained, or else they are waiting for an aoe to cycle while they get pummeled. They can juggle powerboost, clarion and their nuke, or they can look for an aoe drain in their primary (which are somewhat limited). Otherwise the fact they are hitting 16 targets is not very significant. 10 completely drained enemies is better than 16 mostly drained enemies from a mitigation standpoint because it is so binary. *As a reference point elec/em blasters have the same issue. Fully enhanced+agility+charge up+ powerboosted short circuit "only" saps lvl 54s for 73%. Sentinels just cycle thunderous blast and short circuit every mob. Properly slotted that will flatline a group of 10 lvl 54's in less than 7 seconds. And they do it again for the very next spawn. Zero end and zero recovery. If they want they can add a secondary like elec/ea/ice for a fast recharging powersink clone. From a single target perspective: A sentinel has less drain and -recovery in every attack, but they have vulnerability which debuffs endurance resistance by 15% and ignores level scaling. So facing a lvl 54 (+3 con) defender recovery debuff drops to 81.25% (unslotted) per attack A sentinel facing a lvl 54 has their recovery debuffs drop to 65%, but they can debuff by 15% resistance which brings it up very close to the defender at 74.75% (unslotted) per attack. As long as you are ok with 10 targets their ability to shut them down over and over again is unparalleled in terms of ease and potency.

I didn't say you need mag 14. I said I have mag 14 on that build for a variety of reasons. A pylon does mag 12 knock. If you have mag 12 protection you should be fine. All I demonstrated in that video is that mag 11 is not enough with or without weaken.

Normal rikti pylons con even no matter what level you are.

Purple patch affects nearly everything, but it is important to understand that it doesn't affect what you have, but rather what you do. Same as for npcs. For example. In the vid I posted I have 11 kb protection. No matter what level enemy I face I retain 11 kb. Look at a fake nem vs me at lvl 50+1 If a lvl 45 Fake nem hits me with staffbolt (he cons - 6 to me) it will do 9kb*0.15 = 1.35kb and I ignore it If a lvl 54 Fake nem hits me with staffbolt (he cons +3 to me) it will do 9kb*1.33 = 11.97 and I'm knocked (down) If I unslot my alpha it now cons +4 to me. It will do 9kb*1.44 = 12.96 and I'm knocked (back). I'm pretty sure powers with -special stopped affecting knockback when it was removed from powerboost. Weaken is a reverse powerboost. If weaken is decreasing some aspect of knockback I'm not seeing it in either mag or distance.

Ya for sure. I think a single kb IO is generally sufficient. You only need specific protections if you are doing specific things. I built that poison/fire/psi to hunt AVs and GMs, so getting punted around by every psi AV with tk blast, and there are a lot of them ( mag 11 kb needed), wasn't an option for that build. There are ways to counter high kb scenarios if you don't encounter them often - like taking a breakfree. I posted the vid to demonstrate that weaken has no impact on kb.