Frosticus

I think you will be good with any secondary you like as illusion is very good on doms. honestly ill/x/ice can breeze through most encounters, so anything you add just speeds it up. I think there are 4 secondaries that stand out most to me /dark - self heal and -tohit to stack with spec terror /energy - stuns to stack with gleam and PA's melee punches /sonic - additional -res to boost PA /sav - additional +rech to boost uptime of PA /fire would have been unreal if PA still taunted, but it will still offer a ton of st damage. I've tried out ill/fire, ill/son and ill/sav and the ill/sav/ice is just great and really fun. Teleporting around while your mirror images fight along side you is very iconic feeling. It will be my selection for live.

Played an axe/ea scrap last night for a couple hrs. I've always liked axe, but never saw reason to play it over warmace, or even broadsword really. Some observations: Swoop has so much knockup that it can cause enemies to be out of range of other melee attacks (vs +0). It probably always did, but the trimmed animation probably makes it more apparent. - cued chop generally executed well. cued gash sometimes wouldn't fire until they hit the ground. I'd want to test this more. Axe Cyclone sometimes doesn't seem to tractor beam in enemies that you'd think it would. Is there a suppression period on the reverse repel? Fighting smaller groups of 7ish enemies. Maybe I'll watch the combat log to see if it was simply missing. - otherwise this power is the bee's knees setting up pendulum and even cleave to be more successful. It also makes armor auras perform better. - I can think of quite a few places where this tech would be better suited than a melee pbaoe, but it is great that axe got it. Pendulum was always an easy cone to use, but I prefer the new aoe version Cleave is really easy to hit 2-3 targets with after Cyclone. Excellent single target damage, good aoe that offers additional synergy, and pretty solid single target mitigation. It leaves broadsword in the dust, but still leaves warmace looking decent. Nice job. I'd recommend pairing it with an armor that offers endurance management because this set can suck down the blue bar pretty quickly.

My desire was always ill/fire, but I've been testing an ill/sav. I'm pretty well versed in what illusion can do for controllers. There will be lots of good ill combos for doms. 1. Spectral wall - meh. I'd rather have spec wounds. High burst damage of some doms would work well with the heal-back timer. Man doms t1 ranged attack is really weak and now skippable. Having a decent psi ranged attack would be welcome. I'd skip spec wounds on some doms, but I will skip spec wall on most doms. Maybe you need this though to prevent running AV's since PA no longer taunts? 2. Spectral Terror - love that it is available earlier. Have always loved placing outside of line of sight. Its a good power and keeps working while you do other stuff. I've always wished it had a bit more range on initial cast so you can get it down more easily before the team engages. 3. Superior invis - might be of even more value in lowering your threat modifier now that PA and phant decoy have no taunt? 4. Gleam - aoe stuns under domination are amazing. This is a great one, taoe with pretty quirk cast time. 5. Phantom Army - They have enough control (stuns/kd) to easily contain a single boss. Gleam more than makes up for the loss of taunt vs groups. PA is the entire reason to take Illusion for controllers imo. Definitely a decent damage source for doms, but I'm not seeing a compelling reason to make large build sacrifices push these to perma on a dom. Huge step down for the set vs AV's though. 6. Phantasm - skip. This suicidal pile of tissues is barely worthwhile for trollers that have considerable support powers to keep him standing. The decoy's taunt could occasionally cover downtime of phantom army, which was the only reason to use him imo. Conclusion: I'm going to play this set. It is great. My ill troller has no really way of locking down x8 spawns, has extreme st damage, and is unreal vs AV's. My ill dom will have spectacular group control and super high (st) damage. AV performance is a good or better than most doms.

Huge buff to some defenders, doms, tanks (bye jab!), poison as a secondary, etc. I think blasters make out the best though - at least for me. Not sure defenders need a boost as they are already pretty desirable relative to corrs and tanks definitely don't need a buff. On the fence, definitely a nice quality of life boost, but...

Gives up AV dominance for pretty stellar group control with a big aoe stun that has good cast time. But could still do most AV's safely with domination confuses if desired. Haven't tried it yet, but I've been waiting as long as I can remember for illusion dominators. A lot of fun combinations

8 seconds is fine, but the little used (or valued) mechanic of mez resistance should reduce the suppression window imo.

plant/son will wreck stuff. Add in /ice app for sleet and you have a ton of aoe -res for your (proc'd) creepers to shred mobs.

I know it probably isn't intended but sonic blast paired with cold/poison/dark and others was one of the most potent damage debuffers you could ever imagine. Frequently capable of flooring the damage of almost anything they faced due to the way that -res works with -dam. I definitely know some cold/son defenders that specifically built for the purpose of debuffing enemy resistance and flooring their damage. Their personal damage output was not their focus to say the least. I think these sonic changes look great, but I do feel bad for such unique builds disappearing just for the sake of more damage.

Trying out my ice/sav dom I like these changes. I mean it is a buff in many areas so what's not to like? Shivers+(faster) ice slick probably provide ok ranged control now for most ranged situations. The knockdown probably lets them retaliate from the fear a bit more often than one would like. Ice slick+AA (dominating) probably provide enough melee control now for most melee situations It's not total lockdown by any stretch, but it is definitely better. What to improve: Shivers could still use a little more punch Block of ice is still a bit slow Bug: Artic Air is still toggle dropping when mezzed

Looking at this a bit more I think it is fair to good for a lot of powers. ex Artic Air - even with a end game build it would take about as long to get back up and running ex Offensive toggles on armored characters - they might not even be paying attention to notice it went down as they aren't commonly mezzed It is a sizable downgrade for some powers that are often vital for other characters ex. Hurricane/venomous gas - when these powers drop you drop shortly after. On my stormy I can get it going way faster than this suppression I dunno, I really like my aggressive debuffers and in playing them aggressively I make sure that if I do get mezzed those powers are up way faster than this suppression period. For me the QoL improvement isn't worth the downgrade. 5-6 seconds is probably ideal.

This is a big nerf to my poison defender who lives and dies by venomous gas bolstering my offense and weakening enemies. When that toggle drops the scales tip immediately in favour of the enemy. It is priority one to get it back up, or die. roughly 4.7 vs 8 seconds post breakfree. This is a big quality of life improvement for playing semi-afk in easy content though I guess.

I'm not sure to be honest. I've never liked shred that much, but I don't like most melee cones. Savage leap could always crit, but it seemed exceptionally low. It still seems low to me. I'm not sure why savage melee has lower crit chance on aoe's than other sets (including rending flurry). It is still a great aoe set, but sometimes I think about those aoe's on a scrapper under critical strikes and how well they might perform.

In actual gameplay savage comes out pretty far ahead ime.

Definitely, but that particular AV is more challenging than many others. That said, storm doesn't give you much other than a nice dps boost (steamy mist is basically it). They are nearly immune to slow/rech debuffs, tohit debuffs and you won't be holding them unless the triangles are down. As mentioned above your best bet is to softcap ranged def, make sure you have mez protection in place and then hope they miss you enough.

The biggest favour you can do yourself on your sav/shield is to put as many procs as you can feasibly slot in to savage leap. In most powers giving up set bonuses for procs is a meaningful sacrifice, but in savage leap it is an easy choice. It does so well with procs.

Would the perception proc provide enough to see thru blind? I run +perception on everything so I'm not sure, but that could remove the need for inspirations.

Generally what you'd strive to do is build enough global tohit/acc that you don't need any in your powers. You still want to ED cap (or close) your damage enhancement in each power. So with musculature you'd still want to see around 110-120% damage enhancement. Then you layer on the procs. Only defenders and brutes have procs clearly superior to damage enhancements (corrs and trollers both critical which doubles damage enhancement effectiveness and muddies the water) That said, some builds benefit more from procs than others and in almost all cases proc performance is greatly overstated on the forums as the increase in performance is surpassed by the decrease in other metrics.

yes this certainly helps. If they are actively running though the delay after combat tp usually means they are out of range again before you can get a melee attack off. savage leaps is great. It sort of just is what it is for stalkers. You control the start of the engagement better than anyone, but once the fight is underway much of the pacing is determined by what your enemies want to do. If the Ogres want to flee into the hills, or an AV wants to try and flatline your dps - they will. Most other (non melee) ATs have to deal with runners too, but usually have a suite of tools to reduce the issue. off topic a bit, but I personally believe stalkers are the best balanced melee AT and definitely the most enjoyable (for me).

Everything will try to run from a sav/sd stalker. I dunno something about breaking the mobs morale? I remember a dev talked about that in the old days.

The other option is weapons mastery for webnade. Physical perfection is a nice power. Exploding shruiken is a small aoe but would roll procs well if you went that route. Giving up snipe is a big sacrifice though. Just depends how badly runners aggravate you.

savage/sd does oodles more aoe than elec/sd and probably has more st too. I know you like the ITF and I've done it at +4/8 no insp/temps/lore/amps on my sav/sd/mu. But you won't be afk'ing the mobs. Chasing the AV's around is fun at first, but gets old after awhile. Final romy jumping up into the mountains...sigh. I've tried it with enemies buffed, but I triggered the ambush at the summit and got whittled down. BU+ball lighting+savage leap+fast AS+(hidden) 15ft rending flurry is a lot of aoe over a pretty sizable area. You'll likely have double buildup for the rending flurry as the aoes trigger the proc constantly. you can throw shield charge in there too. But remember SC won't refresh buildup (psuedo pet). I imagine lightning rod doesn't work either, but savage leap does.

Poison/fire/psi has been my favorite defender. Keep in mind that frequent use of the defender ATO procs take away much of the shortcomings of lacking self healing capabilities.

Honestly it's something I'm struggling with right now. You need another attack besides maiming, AS and snipe if you want to run seamless chains. One could argue that stalkers rarely get to due to runners and such, but it is still probably important to be able to do. In most content those 3 atttacks, rending flurry and leap will be all you use in addition to always recharged buildup. You might want savage strike as a filler. At least it can add to assassin's focus, which savage melee really struggles to build ime. 100%. Savage leap is reason enough to play savage. People singing the praises of combat teleport should give savage a try. Definitely. It is a 14 sec attack so it will hit pretty hard and roll procs well. The issue is does it hit hard enough to justify draining your blood stacks and to warrant being a 5-6 second dot (one of the slowest available to melee sets. Maybe the slowest?). Compare it to incinerate (not available to stalkers of course) which most people dislike as well. Hemo is a slower dot and just barely does more damage despite recharging 4 seconds slower. All while being a consumer. Something isn't right with Hemo. I don't think anyone is gimping themselves to take it, but it really should be better.

I think Hemo is pretty skippable. Not because it is a bad attack, but because it is a consumer of blood stacks with no real benefit for the consumption. I think you are just better off plowing through spawns at full blood for the global recharge benefits toward AS and snipe.

Unless you took one of those pesky judgement's with a 2+ second cast and someone hits them with pyronic judgement first ha! I think if I was just contributing ageless every 2 min I'd personally feel pretty useless to the team, but to each their own. I don't personally team much in late game, but I have certainly felt my presence was next to nothing on many teams and I have some objectively strong builds in my stable. Nukes and judgement tend to do that in teams though.