Frosticus

hmm I'd change storm cell to be target centered rather than location based. I'd leave it as not requiring line of sight. The reason I'd do that is twofold: 1. I can't imagine most players actually use target location binds, so while I do, most players probably have to click and place it, which can be pretty tedious. 2. More importantly and the main reason to make it targeted is because it should work more like haunt and be taunted on to the target you select for the duration/defeat and then star moving around freely. I think it would work better in practice with that behavior as right now I am unsure who it decides to start following if the mob scatters.

Observation: Single target attack chain isn't very inspiring with not a lot of punch as well as quite a bit of dot damage It seems to be an attrition set and probably plays underwhelming on fast teams. Probably ideal for solo or small teams Bug: Storm cell can slot just about everything under the sun for sets. Ranged aoe damage procs and knockback damage procs seem to have no effect. Self buffing procs like defender bastion forcefeedback, power transfer, etc do trigger on cast. Used category 5 (unslotted) on top of Storm Cell slotted with damage procs and didn't see then trigger at all in the logs. But more testing is probably needed.

Took my melee fort for a spin. Previous single target attacks were: Swipe, Strike, Follow up, Lunge Did a respec so my single target attacks are now: tk blast, lunge, follow up, dominate and shatter armor Mixing such attacks before was untenable. It seems to work quite smoothly now, so not only a huge improvement in feel of the character, but also a major buff in overall power of my single target dps and control. I think this really breathes new life into the VEATs.

Triple redraw bane no more?

Truthfully I hate the rage crash too. I still play the set, but I really dislike the "time out" of the crash. Stone melee is a nice alternative with a lot of screen shake, but it falls a bit short in performance for me. TW is another option. Arc of destruction is a very satisfying attack.

Ya I paired it up with /stone. I think stone armor is pretty strong for stalkers (maybe for everyone), but mostly I find that brimstone adds the right amount of fire dot damage to really flesh out the build. As good as fire melee is now the fire dot is a bit underwhelming, but brimstone gives you lots of satisfying dot, plus it crits.

Ya it's not my favorite AS animation and it is also one of the slower "fast" AS's.

5 stacks is well worthwhile to consume on rending flurry. It gains decent base damage and expands the aoe to 15ft (up from 8ft) 5 stacks is not really worthwhile to consume on hemo. I'd probably skip hemo if you can. The dot is very slow and it really doesn't do enough damage to warrant being a consumer. You need 3 stacks (iirc) for it to even do the correct base damage for a 14 sec attack. Exhaustion isn't a debuff, it just blocks you from gaining the buff of frenzy. Semantics I suppose.

Is it hard to sneak around with a giant flaming sword? Not if you melt their eyes first... However you reconcile being sneaking with fire melee, I suggest giving it a try. The improvements are tangible and I believe stalkers have the best version of fire melee giving up incinerate for AS. Cremate is ample control for bosses and Greater firesword triggering achilies makes single targets drop very rapidly. Even faster in game than on paper as fire damage is rarely resisted. It isn't an aoe powerhouse, but that isn't really what stalkers specialize in.

I have a lowbie ice/stone. Minimal Crystal visuals look pretty good with the ice attacks. Stone armor does everything pretty well with the only real hole being slow/recharge debuffs, which are easy enough to cover decently with a few partial winter sets. I've never gotten on the /ea train. Granted I've only ever really used it auto leveled on test server, but it never feels as robust as people praise it as being. I might gravitate towards different content that exposes the psi weakness more though.

No real input other than to suggest that 2 +5 rech IOs is close enough to 3 rech IO's that it probably isn't worth the extra slot in most cases, freeing up quite a few slots in your original build. Also, with regard to dark servant it is (perhaps) important to understand how it works. When you slot a tohit debuff set IO it only impacts the powers that have tohit debuffs. Same for a hold set IO. It also has to hit things for most of its powers to do anything. I see nerve radial to help with acc, I went vigor radial on my ill/dark as it has an impact on more of your key powers, at least for me. 3 +5 def/rech IO's in fade is nice.

Sure, but back then it was more like being impressed by killing lvl 50 chimera, or spending an hr+ to kill lusca. Lvl 54 Seige w/ rings, Sinclair, Ghost Widow, or Director 11. GM's like Boomtown goliath, or Ripple surge - those things require a lot more than 94 dps. Let alone scenarios like the Twins where you are fighting both and vandal shows up, or Hro'dritz+honoree in Lady Grey TF. Those situations will squash or stalemate most builds, including most builds people are taking in to HM content because they are a different focus. Anyone can load up on super insp and pop a longbow lore I guess, but not needing those things is a lot better than needing them. I think when people talk about AV/GM killers they mean without many outside aids and ideally without lore. Confusing AV's is one of the least efficient methods. My ill/sav dom does it because that's all it can do vs AV's (literally), but a "better" AV killer has already downed it and moved on before I've even confused it... I tip my hat to those doing such, but it is a different focus. The force multiplication on even small teams is off the scales in this game. I'll personally be more impressed by those solo'ing HM on 2+ w/ minimal deaths, insp, or crutches like lore, but that is just me.* * 1 star is pretty easy, my ill/cold has solo'd both ITF and Aeon w/o insp/lore.

Most offensive def builds will out dps and out survive the mirror corr while solo. Defs have higher self buff modifiers and more powerful debuffs. It is actually fairly pronounced on some combos like poison w/ soul drain. Less so on some combos that don't properly use AT modifiers (like cold). Corrs massively outdamage defenders in high buff team situations and still provide "enough" team utility that they are almost always the better team choice with a few exceptions. Blaster damage is front loaded. Corr damage is back loaded. The longer the fight the closer a corr gets to equalizing their damage.

For regular content I'd take it and just leave it unslotted. Throw it down for longer lasting encounters as it just makes everything a bit easier. For HM it is a must have for the new FF for all the reasons @Zect states. The devs basically said lol @ balance with the new FF changes. It makes me look forward to unlimited-target chaining poison debuffs or something coming down the pipeline for that set.

I'm not entirely sure that the small bump in personal damage is going to overshadow the large decrease in team damage as envenom, poison trap (proc'd) and venomous gas all contribute quite a bit to team kill speed. Of the two I'd go with /psi over /rad. Some of the cast times in rad assault are just painfully long.

It's not my personal approach, but I like what you've done! I usually put 4 damage procs and 2 +5 dam/end with musc or intuition radial The base damage and proc chance on call hawk are both so high, that I strive to maximize both when I can.

You probably won't without hasten. You also don't need to on a dom as they are far less important than on a troller because they function very differently. They aren't much more important that fire imps really in that they just add supplemental damage for a dom. A dom with high uptime of PA is a perma dom so the little control they throw out is a drop in the bucket, but extra damage is always welcome.

As with any illusion controller, if it can't kill PA then the fight is yours to lose. Strive for high uptime of PA, benumb, and stack sleet. Proc your attacks including infrig because endurance is a non issue. Everything you build on top of that is more for ambushes/adds, multiple AV's, or dealing with unique mechanics. Most AV's are about as simple as killing a standard boss for ill/cold. It can do well, though /storm/earth(seismic smash) is a huge endurance pit. I like the 2 res uniques for stoney and with a bit of support he can tank a lot of AV's (he taunts) leaving you free to heap on the damage which storm has in spades. Hurricane unfortunately doesn't do much vs AV's so you may want to build up other defenses in the event that stoney doesn't keep their attention completely.

Vs a -1 venonous gas (2 slotted) and weaken (unslotted) should do: (14%+15%)*1.11 = 32% tohit debuff. If nothing else a single small luck insp should pretty well floor their chances of hitting you. I found in my time with poison that mez protection is the most important. The set does well enough, but requires active input, so getting mezzed is problematic. Either a bf vs mezzers or an amplifier made for much smoother solo experience for me.

Sleet is really good, but it shines best on teams or on doms with a bit more aoe. That isn't to say it isn't desirable on a single target dom of course. It is up to 45 second -30% res debuff. I stack it easily on my ill/sav/ice on anything that lives long enough. You'll want to solve your endurance woes and I'm not sure if adding in sleet to the start of a fight will aid in that goal. PA, TF , snipe, and powerburst already use an unmodified 78.2 endurance. Sleet would take that up to 101 endurance. Domination and slotting likely won't cover you if you play at a decent pace. Procd blind vs TF for the ato? It is always 2-3 stacked for me in blind and I prefer triggering it from range. You have the 6th slot free in blind if procing, less so in TF. I use confuse if I need long lasting single target control, which isn't that common. Perma PA is not needed. They are really only supplemental damage. They have mediocre control and you just standing there can basically pull aggro off of them.

It used to! some pets had ai issues so it was taken away for all of them. The upside is they are no longer debuffed by enemy -rech powers either (not applicable to PA anyway). Old lightning storm was something though and was a sadly caught in those changes too.

You can't buff PA externally (ie assault), but they can buff themselves via enhancements. Soulbound proc is just short duration enhancement value They each have a chance of triggering it on themselves with every single attack. So like if you put decimation chance for buildup in you build but it could trigger off every attack you do with just the one slotted. It's probably not quite as potent in dom PA as troller PA as dom version hits softer and uses their ranged attacks a lot more which probably have a bit lower % of triggering than melee attacks. The faster PA defeats things the less impact the healback has. So dropping a lut in 5 sec or less means no additional attacks wasted.

you can just do a fade away call hawk, (or blind) and not lose out on the damage during the 1 second cast of combat teleport. Hoping back 40ft while activating a ranged attack is not much more challenging than the combat tp. Maxing feral charge is definitely a worthwhile goal, but it is pretty easy to do. I'd only use combat teleport for that purpose if I was specifically trying to hit the middle mark of feral charge to limit it to 2 stacks of blood so I could forever avoid exhaustion*. Perfectly spacing that jump can be challenging. Or if I was a hover dom. Fold space might be worth the power picks though for some people. *If avoiding exhaustion is one's specific goal.

Couple thoughts as we are taking pretty different directions with ours. -Call swarm: is a skip now. Especially if left unslotted. You could make the argument for jamming it full of procs, but even then... -Combat teleport: I don't see the need for this when you have feral charge up every 4ish seconds. Unless it is a concept build that just teleports around while your summons kill things? Nothing wrong with that. -Gleam: this should be taken. It is the best aoe stun doms get (by a tiny margin) and aoe stuns are awesome. I'd definitely take this over flash if it was an either or situation. -Call Hawk: I know there is some misguided advice about avoiding exhaustion, but sweet baby j this power hits like a truck. It does comparable damage to seismic smash once the dot is completed.

I have a db/stone that uses the hedge trimmer looking sawblades. Super powered landscaper. Proc damage from brimstone is nice. Damage boost from feint to the damage aura is nice too.