Frosticus

When you savage leap (procs) then fast AS, then hit the big version of rending flurry from hide. Everything falls over and just the boss is left trying to run away with a sliver of health. It doesn't get old.

I've never really given DP a fair shake, but I am pretty familiar with Poison. I'd probably proc the attacks as much as I could as that seems to be one of the main selling points of DP. Use the P2W amplifier that gives mez protection and make sure you have the defender ATO procs in good powers so they go off frequently. The absorb and heal go a long way to keeping your rolling. Entomb proc in a hold is pretty great too. You shouldn't need aidself. I built my poison/fire for solid resistances, with low defense and made sure to build in good mez protection (rune, melee hybrid). It has had no issues taking down most AVs/GMs and quite a few TFs solo no insp/temps/lore.

If you are looking in game it is probably adding the damage for fiery embrace, or some portion of critical damage for the scrappers. Lots of the power displays are showing inaccurate numbers these days under total damage. For instance: Tank is actually 6 ticks of 14.26 = 85.5 damage

A solid combo if I do say so myself. This is the experience I had with plant/poison/stone. A really great controller. I'd quickly look toward turning your difficulty down, but increasing spawn size until you feel ready. I think I mostly played at -1/x5 no bosses with my plant/poison until I got a lot of the procs in place. It has never felt like a st destroyer though (enough to get it done late game), but the aoe is really good and the fun factor is very high.

Some controllers can deal out a lot of damage, especially over a sustained period. Burst damage isn't really their forte though. What is your combo?

proc'd out dark/bio

Just an update for the build in the OP. I haven't changed any of my slotting. You can still do good st damage as long as you follow AS with a snipe. Generally enough for taking out bosses. Upfront hemo crit might actually be beneficial for killing off luts. To a point anyway. +2 (+3 with alpha) feels good, but higher settings you are left with a lot of partial kills that the old heavy dot would finish. Finally, my sustained dps has tanked considerably. Down about 100dps vs pylons. I'm out of practice so you might be able to recover some of that deficit. Overall it is still a great AoE stalker (only with proc tho) and it is still probably a bit better off than elec for single target. That said, I'd probably play this combo as a scrap or tank . You'd have essentially the same aoe capability, scrap would still do similar st dps (less burst tho), but gain the taunt aura and toughness. Everyone can stealth missions if they choose to.

Here's a fun little solo challenge when your server is slow (no insp/temps/lore - I locked the first two with the task force options, which also gave me a nifty timer and I just don't enjoy lore pets. Clear all 20 pylons. I cleared them in 30 mins on my ill/cold/stone with 1 death which definitely threw off my timing and the rotation I was planning to defeat them in 😞 (dam drop ship!) That works out to 90 seconds per pylon including travel between and back from the hospital.

No particular feedback about the build, but I can say I actively avoid x/8 settings on my ill/cold. The aoe damage is too anemic, no aoe containment options and so much potential damage from PA is lost when they don't focus fire due to healback. I prefer +4/3, not because most enemies types are too challenging, but just for expedience purposes. Or just hunt AV's/GM's/solo TF's. That is illusion's forte imo. That said, consider slotting spectral terror for tohit debuff. Rad Infection plus spec terror (tohit debuff slotted) should get pretty close to flooring most +3's (considering alpha level shift at +4). Maybe the 2 defense pet IO's would help Phant? Other than that, he just dies. The power has been bugged for over a decade haha.

Traps. It gives you tools to solo most content with just SO's even many AV's. Fold space is a fantastic pairing for traps.

I run 90% slow/rech res on my /fa scrapper. You could likely get by with less if you run high defense, but keep in mind some of the things that pack a lot of -rech are going to be hard to defend against for /fa (like ranged psi attacks). Having your heal not cycling quickly is very frustrating.

The stalker sets with decent aoe still do good to excellent st damage. I have a few characters with limited aoe (basically just judgement) and there are times it can be tedious facing even a handful of enemies. That said, I play a lot more st specialists than aoe specialists.

@nihiliiis pretty much right on the money. His dps assessment between the two ATs is accurate. He's also correct about the value of a taunt aura. With my stalker I've had to chase so many AVs all over the map that it draws the fight out to incredible lengths. Some GMs that you "could" drop simply become a stalemate because they move around. It is to point that I picked up melee radial hybrid with the taunt aura as the bonus of assault hybrid is wasted while they flee. All things being equal (which they aren't quite), the taunt aura available to some scrappers lets them set the pace and control the engagement. The stalker, on the other hand is at the behest of whether or not the enemy wants to fight them. While I enjoy stalkers more than scrappers, the scrapper is better suited to the OPs goal

You shouldn't have endurance issues even with just the auto hit buff from HL. More aggressive/proc builds sometimes need to ensure they stand near a target to get 2 buffs from HL, but you should be fine just staying at range. Plus you have conserve power if things start to dip. Personally if I wasn't chasing a proc build (which is the direction I went with cold/fire/psi) I'd just look to softcap ranged def and then look to boosting resistances evenly as much as possible. I'd seek to put them all in a spot where melee core hybrid (with no targets in range) gets me close to res cap in as many areas as possible. With psi app you could potentially soft cap ranged and res cap s/l/e/f/c/p leaving just neg/toxic a bit short. If you went sorcery over flight you could fit in rune of protection as well. Cycle melee hybrid and rune for near full time mez protection and great resistances. The defender absorb proc in a frequently used attack is pretty clutch ime. Finally, I tend agree that procs aren't the be all and end all with fireblast; however, I'd still proc out inferno as much as possible on a team build. 3 +5 armageddon (dam/rech, acc/dam/rech, proc) and 3 more damage procs ensures going into the fray is worthwhile. Just preferences though. The build you posted looks super solid.

Not sure if I can get much further than this with my current approach. I only got 1 bomb planted. no insp/temp/lore (I used my temp self rez due to carelessness)

It is only impacted by the purple patch and any resistances the target has. Builds with lots of -damage can cripple most AV's and still take a lot of the wind out of their sails at +3. What out for resistance based god modes though!

Yah I recall that poll. Oh well, savage is still fun albeit probably with more downsides than upsides these days. I'd like the set to be a bit more unique in exchange for all the dot. Maybe the bleed could do a small maxhp debuff or something. The set has good to great aoe, depending how you slot it and savage leap gets you around the battle field in style. With old hemo I'd give the set an 8.5/10. With New hemo... 7/10 (6.99 of those points are for savage leap haha). But that is just my opinion

I'm not sure I'm following. a 14 sec recharge attack should be 2.6 scale should it not? As you indicated the base damage is scale 2.39. Does any other set have reduced damage in contradiction to the damage formula because they can leverage a combo system? I haven't looked that closely. Just as on test I'm of the opinion that the blood system isn't good enough to warrant any reductions to base damage from the damage formula, but here we are. Like you say, I guess they assumed players average out 3 stacks of blood during play. I've played a lot of savage on stalkers and I'm not sure that really applies to them. As I demonstrated in the savage guide they go from 0-5 really easily and consistently. However If you can ride 3-4 stacks somehow I guess it still performs pretty well if you are ok with dot damage, no mitigation and all lethal. Proc'd savage leap is reason enough to enjoy the set (imo). At least until that is revisited. That said, I think I'd lean toward a savage tank these days. Something like a rad/sav could put out a lot of aoe damage and they are in less of a hurry to drop enemies. Note* I'm not sure how rending flurry works on tankers - whether it was excluded from the aoe size increase because 5 blood stacks increase it's size already. If it is anything like on doms, I'd guess it is not in favor of savage.

I haven't tested it on live yet, but in the beta this new version is a massive nerf to hemo for stalkers. Warranted or otherwise. In the beta it was underperforming what it "should" be doing with blood stacks, but I don't think it was ever addressed. I'd be leary of rolling savage melee if you are hoping for strong st damage at this point, but the aoe is still extraordinary.

For me, my plant/poison was one of the most powerful and synergistic controllers I've ever played. The few weaknesses of plant are filled quite well by poison and the limitations of poison are all but erased by plant. My poison/fire defender is a different breed all together though. Much higher highs and much lower lows than the controller. Very fluid and snappy. Every encounter feels like I have the tools to handle it and it just comes down to my ability to execute and mind the battlefield. For me, no other build has given as much enjoyment. A group of like 5 white cons "could" kill me if I'm asleep at the switch, but at the same time I can handle some of the most difficult content in the game if I play well and leverage my powers. That is exactly what I desire when playing games. Two things to keep in mind: 1. Mez protection is highly recommended. Constantly re-toggling venomous gas is annoying at best, but will probably get you (and perhaps others) killed in the thick of it. 2. Don't worry so much about team mates. If I'm right in the middle of everything and I'm still standing then more than likely everyone else will be doing fine as well. This is because poison is best played very aggressively and excels in quickly turning the tide of the battle. The longer you draw the fight out by tending to teammates the greater the chance of the battle turning back to the favour of your enemies.

It was never far up the list unless you took the time to saturate souldrain. The shift in play has moved most people more into a "minimal prep time" style to the extent that people are even pushing to count the time a MM takes to summon pets, so herding up spawns for souldrain is questionable. It's still a good to great set regardless of how it fits into the pylon game.

This was an experiment in a different approach to building a debuffer and it turned out to be the most fun I've ever had playing the game. Have a read through my poison guide if you like.

It's a very different direction than I went, but it looks quite solid. -I think you won't use paralytic very much in actual play. -The 2 defender procs are a huge boon survival. I personally get them into blaze and blazing bolt, which are my main 1-2 attacks. That might be challenging for your build. Fireball is a fine spot for the absorb though for group play, but could be missed vs AV's and such. -If you are teaming a lot then I like your slotting of tactics. If you aren't then I'd flip tactics and aim. The on demand damage boost of aim+Gaussian is really nice. -You mentioned +5'ing most enhancements. Keep in mind this will greatly impact their ability to exemp down and retain bonuses (pvp and purples not included). If that is something that is important to you.

Defender ATOs are really good. Strong bonuses and the procs are a massive boon to survival. On my poison, traps, and cold defenders (all of which have limited to no self healing ability) the procs provide a huge amount of survivability when you play aggressively.

It's good, but almost unnecessary. Traps is quite robust and also diverts a lot of attention via caltrps, seekers and even mortar. The defender procs are more than ample at keeping you topped up even before the superior version.