Hjarki

Cross Punch also adds +10% to hit, which means that you can insta-snipe with Moonbeam if you've got some combination of Tactics, Kismet and Bio Armor or Invulnerability.

If you drop accuracy/recharge instead, then you don't lose any damage and you'll probably still hit 95%+ (depending on the rest of your build). Your damage will drop from 96.3% to 80.94% for an attack with a basic damage of 82.85, for a loss of 12.73 damage. With the 5-set, you have 66.25% recharge slotted into the attack. The attack has an area factor of 1 + (10 * (11 * 19 + 540) / 40000) = 1.1872. So the proc chance would be ((12 / 1.6625) + (1.83)) * 3.5 / (60 * 1.1872) = 44.46%. With a 71.75 damage proc, this would yield 31.9 damage - about 2.5 times what you lost from +damage. Note that this doesn't account for criticals, Assault Hybrid, etc.

Musculature/Intuition are going to add probably 20% to your damage. Since all you're doing with Nerve is slotting another non-purple proc, it's unlikely that you'll make up the shortfall.

Thoughts: Initial Strike. Your Toxic/Psi resist isn’t really high enough to care about 6-set bonus here, so you’re probably better off tossing a proc in. Heavy Blow. There’s rarely any reason to take both basic attacks - usually you only need one for a rotation and one is better than the other. Also, the Assassin’s Mark proc may be very useful, but the set is nothing special. I’d just grab the proc and use some other set. Assassin’s Strike. Stalker’s Guile really begs to be split for twice the 3-slot bonuses. Your defenses are horrible, so you need to work on that. Build Up. If you’re set up to proc Assassin’s Mark, you don’t need recharge here. Sweeping Cross. Bio Armor can be tough on a Stalker. Stalker innately want to pursue positionals (since they only need 2-of-3) but Bio Armor strongly incentivizes the typed. However, it’s a decision you need to make: typed vs. positionals. I don’t see much reason to take a full set of Obliteration here. Boundless Energy. All that endurance/recharge/whatever is wasted here. I’d recommend you do something more like 2 + 2 with Performance Shift proc & endMod and Panacea proc & Heal - then save the set bonuses for the power that actually needs the enhancement (Ablative Carapace). Shin Breaker. Start with Force Feedback: chance for recharge. Only then start thinking how you’ll fill out the remaining 5 slot. There’s nothing you can do with this power that’s more worthwhile than the Force Feedback proc. Combat Jumping. Normally, putting defense enhancements into powers with as little base defense as Combat Jumping isn’t all that worthwhile and you’re not getting much of a set bonus. Crushing Uppercut. This is another issue with straight-slotting a set that doesn’t justify it. DNA Siphon. You probably want at least some -recharge in here. Genetic Corruption. Chance for Placate is pointless here - anything you can placate is already asleep. For that matter, the power itself is rather pointless since it doesn’t actually debuff resistance or do anything but put enemies to sleep. Moonbeam. You need a way to hit insta-snipe consistently to make this worthwhile. Parasitic Aura. It looks like you’re just taking the power to take it. You don’t need it for a mule and it’s not a particularly useful power in most cases - it’s better to have a strong overall build than a panic button for when you get in over your head. I've linked my current iteration of Ice/Bio below for comparison. While there are different elements at work in the primary, a lot of what I did with secondary/pools can be adapted. It's got similar levels of resist to your build, but capped typed defense, insta-snipe and an overall higher damage rotation.

I'm not sure it's 100% updated, but I've listed my Storm/Water build below. A lot of the basic ideas can be ported over to Water/Storm, but obviously you're trying to hit different breakpoints. The goal I was going for - soft-capped Ranged/AoE, hard-capped S/L/F - probably isn't reasonable for a Corruptor build. Also, my current thinking is that building around Agility/Spiritual (probably the former) makes more sense.

Did you click over to 'effects' on Hide where it breaks down all the different bonuses by type? My Pines has the AoE defense at the expected value. In terms of the actual game, the power is +1.88% to all Defense, +38% to AoE and +3.75% to all while Hidden. The +3.75% is the only part that goes away. I've actually been tinkering around with Staff/Electric. With Agility, I can zero out endurance bars every 20 sec or so and have enough power to run constant Whirlwind (which also routinely procs Force Feedback) while having capped positionals and S/L/E resist. However, it pays for all that control by only using primary set attacks (no pool attacks).

Blast sets are generally poor for farming since they're focused on burst rather than sustained dps. I can farm on my Storm Defender because Storm is actually quite effective - fire farms are one of the few places where Tornado routinely gets AE damage rather than single target. But to make a Blaster farmer? I think you're going to find the compromises necessary to get the defenses you need impede your ability to slot procs - even Fire Brutes struggle to soft-cap defenses (the hard capped FR is a given) enough that they can't slot for maximum possible dps. Much of the reason Defenders do so well is that they're defensive powerhouses. My Storm/Water Defender has something around double the unenhanced defense of a Fire Brute and 47.5% unenhanced Fire Resist (so I can hard-cap it without actually slotting for it). For a Blaster, who starts at zero defense/resist and needs to make it all up from relatively weak pool toggles? It's a rough road. Corruptors are, in some sense, 'gimpy Defenders' for this approach as well. On my Storm Defender, I have 16% pre-slotting Defense (Hover, Maneuvers, Weave, Steamy Mist). On a Storm Corruptor, you'd have 12.75%. After slotting, this is a 5% defense shortfall you have to make up somewhere. Likewise, that 47.5% pre-slotting FR turns into 35% FR on a Corruptor. You can certainly make up these shortfalls, but that means you need to use your offensive powers for defensive slotting rather than pure offense. Corruptors and Blasters also don't get the payoff Defenders do. Those procs are great, but they're equally great regardless of AT. Between the struggles Corruptors have on defense and the fact that so much of the damage isn't any better for Corruptors than Defenders (this is particularly noticeable with Storm, where the Tornado/Lightning Storm damage is the same between AT and cannot Scourge), much of the time your Corruptor build will end up with both weaker defense and weaker damage than the Defender version. The other reason people farm on Brutes rather than, say, Scrappers (who get all the same sets at higher damage, plus criticals) is Taunt. Even on a fire farm, lack of any form of taunt tends to result in scattered packs. While this isn't too bad when you're talking 15 - 20 yard AE, it's devastating for 8 yard ones.

In terms of Water & Storm in particular, the way I did it: Water Burst (not currently in build): Place Force Feedback and other procs here as able. Geyser: Same as Water Burst Whirlpool: Don't bother with procs (location AE generally don't work with them) Single Target: Triple procs. Thunderstrike 3-piece + 3 procs is a nice breakpoint. Water Jet is where Apocalypse (and ATO if Corruptor) should go. Your basic attack will inevitably have a bad proc rate based on the frequency with which you'll cast it, so it's the best place to mule complete sets or put other low-value enhancements. PBAoE: None available to Water/Storm, but these can take a number of procs. Tornado: I don't generally slot for procs (except Force Feedback) since they proc at a lower rate than expected with the attack rate (it works on a 10 sec cycle like a toggle, but has a tiny AE radius that provides a penalty to proc rate despite rarely hitting more than 1 target). I haven't experimented with Soul Allegiance Build Up, but it might be worthwhile. However, since Tornado doesn't need accuracy, it tends to have slots to spare (although your build might not). Lightning Storm: This has a problem similar to Tornado in that it has a tiny AE radius that penalizes the proc rate while not often hitting multiple targets. This is exacerbated by the fact that Lightning Storm is generally used on hard single targets like AV/GM rather than large crowds. Cones: The problem with cones is the range issue. I don't use Water's Cone attack, but if I did I'd want to extend the range out to 70+ yards. This consumes slots you'd otherwise put procs in, so my general rule is that I'll probably just use Position's Energy proc (since you can grab a cheap 2-set with Damage/Range from the same set). Lastly, pay attention to accuracy. Most level 50 builds are 'over-accurate'. They slot powers without regard for the fact that anything over 95% hit chance is wasted. If you're just naively straight-slotting everything, this isn't a big deal since you're wasting your slots anyway. However, if every slot you save on a power is one that can be re-purposed to more damage, knowing where the limit on accuracy lies can allow you to reduce the number of slots required to enhance the power itself (and this limit can vary between powers since some are far more accurate than others). This also means that Tactics and Kismet can be important on builds even when you can easily hit enemies - because it lets you reduce your commitment to accuracy and save slots. That being said, the reason I tend to triple proc is because that's where the breakpoint on sets like Thunderstrike and Defender/Corruptor ATOs lies. If you managed to save another slot, you'd need to find something to usefully slot with a 2-set bonus.

The general rule is "resist for Tankers/Brutes, defense for Scrappers/Stalkers". However, I think in this case, it might not be the best course of action. All Stalkers are effectively AoE defense capped. That means Stalkers only require two positional defenses rather than the normal three. However, Staff has an enhanceable attack that grants +10% Melee Defense (on top of the not-completely-meaningless 1.88% to all from Hide). This means that any Staff/* Stalker is already well on their way to soft-capping positionals and you might be better served by pursuing a resist-based set.

I play a Storm/Water Defender and it is pretty insane damage-wise. However, I'll note that I play a Defender rather than a Corruptor for a few reasons: Storm damage between the two AT is the same. Heavy use of procs in Water Blast means that 40%+ of the Water Blast damage is the same. Freezing Rain is -35% resist for Defenders vs. -30% resist for Corruptors. Since this applies to all of your damage and most of your damage is the same between Defender/Corruptor, this means Defender tends to deal more damage. Defenders have a significantly easier time soft-capping defenses. Part of the reason I'm able to slot my attacks so heavily for proc damage is because I don't need to slot them for defense. A Corruptor would have a much harder time reaching the (admittedly outrageous) levels of defense I run (Ranged/AoE soft-capped, S/L/F resist capped). Some of the key elements: Slot Force Feedback into Tornado, Lightning Storm and Geyser. Potentially put it in Water Burst as well (I don't use Water Burst on my build). Be aware that you can 'split' one of the Corruptor/Defender ATOs by putting 3 of it in two different powers to grab a 10% recharge bonus twice. Normally this would be AE powers because they're the ones that need recharge (you don't want recharge in your single target powers or it hurts your procs) and AE IO sets are generally poor. Water Jet should have a pile of procs in it. Because you get to use it 3 times in an 8 - 10 sec span without hurting your proc chances (due to the double tap mechanic), it is one of the most proc-friendly attacks in the game. Char/Dominate from epic pools is a good choice to round out the rotation since it can slot Unbreakable Constraint. You don't actually need more than two single target attacks (Water Jet and a basic attack) to exploit Water Jet effectively. As usual, slot the Aim power with Gaussian's build up proc. Steamy Mist can be 6-slotted for both defense and resistance pretty effectively. This allows you to take multiple endurance reduction set IOs without wasting enhancements on superfluous qualities like recharge. Tornado is where you put the Overwhelming Force proc - nothing else really needs it unless you plan to slot Gale as an AE attack. Freezing Rain doesn't really need anything except recharge but it can be a useful mule.

Pool (and patron/epic) powers can crit as well.

In a league setting, there are so many buffs/debuffs that the only real distinction is that both Tankers and Brutes have a 90% resist cap while everyone else has less. In a solo setting, Fury tends to be a tremendous advantage while the Tanker's advantages aren't really apparent. In a team setting, Tankers tend to be superior for a few reasons: The -20% resist debuff is far more significant than the Brute's damage advantage. Tankers gain greater benefit from Inspirations and other forms of damage buffing. Tankers have a more comprehensive set of defenses. That being said, neither Tankers nor Brutes are particularly necessary for endgame teams in most cases because everyone else on the team also has soft-capped defenses and pertinent resists hard-capped (at a lower level).

Recharge is only a penalty when it pushes the rate at which the attack recharges below the rate at which you can feasibly use it. With a Blast set, this tends to occur if you slot any recharge at all into the single target attacks because the three-attack chain is already so tight. However, on a Controller, the ST chain is normally a two-stroke Hold + 8 sec recharge pool attack. This attack chain has to slot recharge to close the rotation anyway, so you might as well get it from your Alpha. On an Electric Controller, your AE works the same way. You've got two 'rotational' AE - the Immobilize and Jolting Chain - both on 8 sec recharge that require slotting recharge to close the rotation. Everything beyond that is proc-chance-capped no matter what recharge you thrown at it, so additional recharge is pure upside (and more upside than Musculature).

Jolting Chain starts with a single target attack that also summons two psuedo-pets. That single target attack appears to proc at the expected rate for single target attacks. Those two psuedo-pets fire off a single attack each and summon two (?) psuedo-pets of their own. These pseudo-pets appear to proc at the expected rate for psuedo-pet attacks (hard to tell exactly), which will be lower than the initial attack (since you don't get the global recharge benefit to PPM). This process continues for a few iterations until you've reached the target cap. It does not appear that any enemy can be affected more than once by the power (you can't summon it on an AV for 16x damage). Normally, you'd slot this with Apoc, Javelin and Explosive Strike. Assuming no recharge is slotted, this gives you ~60% chance on normal procs and ~75% on purple procs for the initial strike. The psuedo-pet chance to proc seems slightly lower - but not by all that much. I don't believe there's any portion of the power that involves area effect factors at all. It's also very likely that you can slot Jolting Chain for recharge without significantly penalizing its proc chance. If we assume that the psuedo-pet proc chance is 30%/37.5% (which I believe is conservative), then the difference between 100% recharge slotting and 0% recharge would be 60% + 30% * 14 = 4.8 procs per activation vs. 30% + 30% * 14 = 4.4 procs per activation. This small difference not only suggests that slotting Jolting Chain for recharge makes sense, but it makes Agility a very strong choice for Alpha.

Procs in pets only fire when the pet uses a power that could slot that proc. If a pet only has a single power that uses a given proc, that will normally mean you'll just get the expected performance (if it's a 3.5 PPM proc, it will proc approximately 3.5 times per minute rather than more). However, if a pet has two or more powers that use the same proc category and they don't interfere with one another and the pet can operate constantly, then you can potentially do better. For Dark Servant, the only proc that seems to make sense is Cloud Senses. The rest would be limited to a single power it uses. I think you'll find building towards Ranged Defense much easier than using Scorpion Shield with Storm Summoning. While Steamy Mist isn't as massive a boost as Fade or Farsight, it's still quite sufficient to soft-cap defenses once you add on pools and IO sets. That being said, Mace Mastery has a -res ST attack, a knockback AE and you can mule all the defensive pet IO uniques into any of the patron pool pets. So it might be a strong choice even if you could reach your defensive goals in other ways.

To Hit, -damage and -defense debuffs aren't all that useful. End game players are also hit/defense capped and -damage tends to be heavily resisted on any enemy that you're worried about. -resist debuffs are useful, but Radiation's toggle is stuck at 30%. In contrast, the click debuffs can take Achilles' Heel for an extra 20% and the field debuffs can layer on top of one another for multiplicative effect. As a result, when you look at total -resist debuffing, Radiation is one of the weakest sets (amongst those that can debuff -resist at all). So while toggles are good for AV/GM, the penalty you suffer for that convenience is prohibitive. In terms of Freezing Rain/Sleet, both Immobilize and tanks prevent this from occurring. -recharge is mostly irrelevant outside of PvP. On non-AV/GM, it doesn't matter since the target is unlikely to cycle their attacks anyway. On AV/GM, it's resisted into meaningless. -speed is somewhat useful on a click debuff, but it's not a particularly rarefied ability. Radiation's -regen is the best (alongside Thermal's). In terms of lack of (significant) -regen on Time and Storm, I thought the same thing at one point. However, -regen isn't very meaningful outside of solo because fights don't last long enough. For Storm, it isn't even meaningful solo since the damage disparity between Storm and Cold swamps the benefit of -regen - take a look at Rikti Pylon tests. Vis-a-vis Time vs. Radiation, they've both got self-heals, a passel of debuffs, and self-affecting recharge. However, Time just does it better: Farsight vs. Accelerate Metablism. Of these two defensive powers, Farsight is by far the superior, allowing easy soft-capping of defenses. Chrono Shift vs. Accelerate Metabolism. Chrono Shift is +50%, AM is +30%. Distortion FIeld vs. Lingering Radiation. The proc-friendly Distortion FIeld is an AE nuke all its own that benefits from - but doesn't need - recharge while the recharge-intensive Lingering Radiation isn't up enough to be a convenient source of -speed. Slowed Response vs. Enervating Field. As I noted before, being able to slot Achilles' Heel (and damage procs if desired) effectively makes Slowed Response a much better -resist debuff for general use - it routinely provides more damage amplification against crowds. Against a single target, they're more comparable - and neither is even close to the layered fields approach. Temporal Mending vs. Radiant Aura. Temporal Mending is a larger heal and Temporal Selection allows using it as an effective single target heal (which Radiant Aura is not). My assessment of Sonic is based on the fact that it really only does two things: increase resists and debuff -resist but it does both of those at a merely adequate level rather than the exceptional level that would be required to justify the complete absence of other useful features. In terms of Dark: Twilight Grasp. Target heals have much weaker slotting options and carry the risk of missing. With Transfusion, that's somewhat counterbalanced by the fact that you've got an AE heal at the target. But even Grasp's large size can't compensate for the fact that 99% of the time you'd prefer to have something like Temporal Mending. Tar Patch. This is a perfectly adequate power. However, it's almost strictly worse than Sleet/Freezing Rain due to the longer recharge and lack of slotting options. Darkest Night. I've already discussed above about why these sorts of debuffs just aren't very useful in endgame. Howling Twilight. I really want to like this power. But it mainly just ends up being a mule. The recharge is simply too long compared to the duration of its effects to make it all that useful. The one time it works as a mass rez you'll always remember - but you'll never remember the countless thousands of other times where you had no use for a mass rez. Shadow Fall. This is inarguably a great power. But I'd trade it for Steamy Mist/Arctic Fog in a second because Negative/Psionic just aren't as common (or useful) as Fire/Cold. The value of a resist is related to how much you already have. Taking someone from 70% to 90% chops damage in a third. Taking someone from 0% to 30% merely cuts it down by 30%. Against Negative/Psionic, players tend to be in feast-or-famine mode. Those who are good against it tend to have it beyond cap, while those who are bad at it tend to have virtually none. In contrast, Fire/Cold is slathered across every purple set so everyone tends to have fairly decent values there if they care at all. Fearsome Stare. It's been argued that this is a control power just as strong as a Controller gets. While technically true, I also find it useless. Actual control powers tend to be counter-productive in endgame because they prevent melee from collapsing spawns into a small area - that's why Controllers get told not to use their AE Immobilize. Basically, their pathetic damage AE Immobilize ends up preventing massive damage PBAoEs from the melee. Fear isn't quite as bad, but it has a similar impact. Players simply don't need these kinds of effects to protect themselves. Petrifying Gaze. A relatively poor single target Hold. Black Hole. No one ever takes this power. Dark Servant. I've never seen this usefully deployed outside of solo. Mostly, it's just a mule for one of the many, many sets it can slot. Dark's two biggest guns - Tar Patch and Shadow Fall - also happen to be powers Dark Servant doesn't get. So it mainly sits around randomly (and slowly) throwing powers that you probably wouldn't throw if you had them yourself. Now, if you replace Fearsome Stare and Petrifying Gaze with Fade and Soul Absorption, you've got a top notch set because you've got such an enormous selection of B+ abilities that you can get around the fact that Dark isn't A+ at anything. RIght now, I'd say the breakdown goes: Darkness Affinity, Storm Summoning, Time Manipulation. Almost every 'power build' comes from these three sets. While you can make perfectly adequate builds from other sets, these are the ones that really go a step beyond. Cold Domination, Dark Miasma, Kinetics, Nature Affinity, Radiation Emission, Thermal. These are perfectly adequate sets that just lack the perfect storm of abilities of the tier one sets above. Empathy, Force Field, Pain, Poison, Sonic, Traps, Trick Arrow. These are all sets that are relegated to fairly narrow roles rather than leading to a broadly useful hero. You can find niche uses for them, but they're probably not sets you want to play all the way through to 50 and beyond.

I normally play support AT, so I decided to give a try at a Stalker. It's worked out pretty well, so I thought I'd list it for advice/discussion. Design Goals I want to make a high damage, high control build with strong defenses. I landed on Ice/Bio as a reasonable compromise. For Defenses, I wanted to soft-cap S/L/F/C/E/N and hard-cap S/L. Soft-capping Psionic seemed impossible and Bio just doesn't have enough support for non-S/L resists. For Control, I've got a single target Hold, two multi-target Sleep (which are admittedly not all that useful) and I took a Knockdown/Disorient attack from pools. For offense, I've got three high damage ST attacks, perhaps one of the best melee AEs around (Frost) and a decent PBAoE. Single Target Rotation There really isn’t a ‘rotation’ per se. Due to variable recharge rates, crit opportunities, etc., it’s more akin to a ‘priority list’. Ice Sword is the lowest priority. Cross Punch is needed to set up insta-Moonbeam. Freezing Touch and Assassin’s Ice Sword are thrown into the mix. In any case, there’s enough to keep me busy. Most of the time Build Up takes the place of Ice Sword. AE Rotation The build has three AE attacks: Frost, Frozen Aura and Cross Punch. The first two are 10-target AEs while the last one is a 5-target cone that I don’t believe I’ve ever seen hit a second target. Adaptation I built around the notion of using all three adaptations: Defensive. I use this when I need to soft-cap defenses and cap S/L resist. Since I’ve also got Shadow Meld, this isn’t too often. Efficiency. This transforms the build from endurance-negative when fighting into endurance-positive so it can be used cyclically as ‘endurance recovery’. Offensive. This is what I use 99% of the time and it’s necessary for insta-snipe. Slotting Notes Ice Sword. Most of my attacks are slotted for S/L defense since Bio only gets S/L in Defensive Adaptation. That means either Kinetic Combat or Stalker’s Guile, so I’ve got two slots left over that I just use to round out the necessary stats and toss a proc on top. Frost. This is technically a target AE. However, it can’t slot range and HO range doesn’t work on it, so I just scavenged all the Damage/Range enhancements from various IO sets instead. Freezing Touch. The proc chance of Superior Blistering Cold is ~82%, so it’s effectively a MAG 5 Hold. I slot chance for knockdown solely to limit the amount of recharge in the power. Genetic Corruption. I have no idea if the Placate does anything here. I’m really just trying to grab the set bonuses. Moonbeam. There are a host of ways to slot this for greater effect. However, straight-slotting for F/C/N/E defense works well enough. Incarnates Intuition. Musculature could also make sense here, but the minor loss in damage in exchange for slow/hold seems reasonable. Range does not seem to affect Frost. Ageless Radial Epiphany. This is the only offensive Destiny and I prefer the version that protects me against defense/hit debuffs since I can always drop into Efficiency if endurance becomes an issue. Assault Radial. I’ve got 3 of the hardest-hitting single target attacks around, so it seems to make more sense than simply getting another Build Up. Lore/Judgement/Interface. These's are all dealer's choice - none of them have any synergy or dissonance with the build. Build Note that Pine's doesn't add in the S/L Def or Resist for some reason in Defensive Adaptation. Total cost is likely around a quarter billion influence.

Melt Armor and Slowed Response are the best of the AE -resist debuffs since they can slot near-auto proc Achilles' Heel to instantly deliver -50% resist. However, Melt Armor is inferior to Slowed Response due to the longer recharge and higher recharge:duration ratio. Click -resist debuffs are also functionally the best sort for delivering AE -resist debuffing because you can debuff the entire spawn without scattering it (or worrying about it scattering later). Heat Exhaustion and Lingering Radiation are the best -regen debuffs since they have a 3:1 recharge:duration ratio (and thus higher uptime) while alternatives like Benumb have a 4:1 (or worse) recharge:duration ratio. So Thermal's debuffs are actually quite strong. Radiation's toggle debuffs are useful early on, but fairly weak in the late game. The only real value they have is Enervating Field's -resist component - and Enervating Field is one of the weakest AE -resist debuffs because it can neither benefit from stacking or gain much advantage from procs. The hit/defense/damage components simply get resisted too much or are superfluous (you're hitting enemies 95% of the time when they're not MoG'd anyway). Cold's Sleet is an inferior version of Storm's Freezing Rain. Both are problematic due to the scatter/running problem. If you can solve that in some fashion, Freezing Rain is one of the strongest debuffs in the game since it can be stacked up to 2.5 times and has the largest single AE -resist debuff. Contrary to what the character builder says, the debuff components of Howling Twilight only last 30 secs (the control components only last 15 sec, but can be extended with enhancements). This gives it a 6:1 recharge:duration ratio and it's impossible to make 100% uptime. This means that Dark is roughly on par with a set like Time Manipulation for -regen debuffing. Tar Patch can be made permanent but isn't as good as the -resist rains or the click debuffs (for reasons discussed above). Sonic has a single target -resist debuff and an ally field debuff. The ally field debuff is one of the most convenient mechanisms - if you've got the tank to throw it on - but it has the same problem that Radiation's -resist debuff (no useful procs, no self-stacking). In any case, Sonic is middle-of-the-road at AE debuffing and probably 4th or 5th on single target -resist debuffing. Poison has two stacking -resist debuffs than can yield -65% resist on a single target (or a very tightly packed group of enemies). However, it requires the player be in close range to use the second (smaller) debuff. Pain Domination has a slightly worse version of Melt Armor that's also PBAoE. Overall, I'd say: Thermal does what Pain and Poison do, but better. Storm does what Cold does, but better Time does what Radiation does, but better Dark and Sonic are two ends of the same stick. Dark isn't particularly good at anything it does, but it does so much that the aggregate makes up for the individual weakness of the powers. In contrast, Sonic isn't particularly good at anything it does - but it does so little that it's rarely worth playing the set. Traps is extremely hard to make effective in a group setting, so it's customarily left out of these discussions. Trick Arrow tends to be numerically weaker than it should be, so it also gets omitted.

I'd go with Storm (x4), Time (x2), Thermal (x2) for your team. It covers all the key points: status protection, soft-capped defenses, hard-capped resists, healing, -resist debuffing, recharge buffing, endurance management. Storm is there because it brings both the best control and the best damage. You'd want as many as possible. Time has solid -resist debuffing and provides the best recharge buff. Thermal is there because it's the best option that covers full status protection and its resist buffs complement Time's defense buffs.

I generally make an assumption of +150% for all the various static features of a build. It's probably a wee bit high, but it's a nice round number. Aim + Gaussian's is +130% on that, which puts you 20% away from the cap. On somewhat related note, I think Soul Drain is an over-rated power because players tend not to think about the fungibility of build attributes. Basically, Soul Drain is just a way to replace +damage inspirations in the same way that Conserve Power is a way to replace +endurance inspirations or Weave is a way to replace +defense inspirations. So the question really becomes which replacement is most effective for your build? I'd argue that inspirations are almost always better than Soul Drain for a Defender for three reasons: Inspirations are no-risk. Soul Drain is high risk. Soul Drain requires a three-power investment that precludes many other potentially critical choices and shackles you to one of the weaker resist toggles (negative/toxic are not common damage types). Inspirations don't care what epic/patron pool you picked. Soul Drain is useless when you most need damage boosts: the AV/GM fight. Mass AE tends to be very granular in the sense that your ultimate is going to annihilate all of the minions/lieutenants it catches while leaving all of the bosses alive. Raising yourself to the damage cap will not change this - you'll still be left with the bosses, the minions/lieutenants will still be dead. In contrast, AV/GM fights do reward incremental improvements in damage since the longer the fight goes on the more you need to deal with the AV/GM's attack and the more it regenerates.

My point was that you could accomplish the same thing with IOs or various purple sets and use fewer slots. Tossing in recharge/damage from different random sets doesn't really get you anywhere.

The comparisons are apples to watermelons most of the time anyway. If you have two different Scrapper builds that clock in at 250 dps and 300 dps, it's reasonable to say that one is 20% more dps than the other because both builds likely scale the same (very well). After all, being able to solo Rikti Pylons isn't why people optimize their dps. They just want to measure how well they'll do against enemies they actually care about. But consider that 300 dps Scrapper against a 600 dps Storm Summoning Mastermind. While the Mastermind does twice the damage against a Rikti Pylon, that does not translate into twice the dps against anything you care about. Consider: When someone Fulcrum Shifts, virtually all of a Scrapper's damage is improved (and to a higher cap) while a significant portion of the Mastermind's probably isn't. Pets that perform fine at +0 don't necessarily work at +4. Not only do they die in an eyeblink, but their damage is minimized because they're lower level than the summoner. Storm Summoning requires long, static fights (such as against Rikti Pylons). If the fight goes mobile or doesn't last long enough, the value of Storm Summoning's damage tools diminishes rapidly. I'd term Scrapper/Stalker dps as "flexible and scalable". It can be turned on and off almost instantly - it doesn't require prep time or long ramp-up periods. It scales with buffs, debuffs and levels almost perfectly. Comparing that dps against dps that is optimized (whether or not that was the intent) to fight +0 immobile objects doesn't yield very sensible results.

Some thoughts: Ageless Destiny is not only the best damage-amplifying Destiny but completely solves all your endurance woes. In contrast, Cardiac Alpha comes at the expense of Intuition (or Musculature). I think it's hard to justify Cardic on anything except a tank. Procs in Tornado/Lightning Storm. I'm not a particularly big fan of placing damage procs in these powers since they both have a (small) AF penalty that isn't justified by the rate at which they actually inflict AE damage (they tend to be almost exclusively single target damage). With Lightning Storm you also have the issue that it's a special purpose power rather than a core part of every encounter - you're only really using it on relatively long, static fights. Given that, I'd rather invest the proc slot elsewhere or use Lightning Storm as a mule (since you have to mule something, might as well mule those powers you use less frequently). Steamy Mist. I think a better approach is to franken-slot it for both Defense and Resistance. This will get you ED-limited defense, ED-limited Resistance and the endurance discount you need. The way you have it slotted right now provides relatively weak set bonuses and wastes most of the enhancement value. Fly Trap. This has two defense debuff attacks, so it makes sense to slot defense debuff-related procs. Slotting Soulbound Allegiance for the Build Up may or may not be a wise idea. However, you should give serious consideration to taking a patron pool so you can mule all 4 def/res bonuses for pets to keep your Fly Trap alive. That being said, the only patron pool I really like is Mace Mastery - and that would require re-orienting the build towards S/L/E defense and likely Poisonous Ray rather than Arcane Bolt (which wouldn't make for a repeatable single target rotation but would significantly amplify pet/pseudo-pet damage on a single target). Carrion Creepers. I don't understand this slotting at all. You've got three different sets that don't combine to actually grant set bonuses. You probably want to slot this with a purple set for the superior enhancement (even if you can't grab useful set bonuses). That being said, I don't find powers with this long of a recharge particularly useful in most cases. Sure, they do dramatic things when they're available - but they're so rarely available that the overall impact isn't great. With single target powers it can be somewhat justified for rare AV/GM fights. But AE powers tend to only be useful when they're massive burst damage (often with control attached, like Blast set ultimates) or high dps when viewed over time. Carrion Creepers is neither. O2 Boost. I tend to view avoiding the heal as problematic. Considering it also doubles as status effect protection, it seems like taking it and slotting one of the several very strong heal set options makes sense. Enflame. I've heard good things about this power for static fights and if you place procs in it. As a baseline power, I was thoroughly unimpressed. Freezing Rain. This isn't really a damage power, so adding more than some slots for recharge and maybe slow is only justified if you get some really strong set bonuses. Panacea +end/healing. This is a great unique you can slot in Health.

Control effects are in general not very useful in the 50+ IO set world. The control effects you do see being used tend to be "...and also controls" effects like Tornado or Bonfire that are primarily sources of damage. You also have to consider that many control effects are actively counterproductive because they interfere with melee AE. Unlike ranged dps, your melee need those mobs packed tight. If you're not very careful how you're using your AE control effects, you end up creating a situation where you turn an easy AE fight into a long, drawn-out single target one.

The absolute limit of Gaussian's up-time should be 55% because the proc only lasts 5.5 sec and can only trigger once every 10 secs. With just your 6 pets out, you've got ~33% chance to proc each tick so you should be experiencing ~20% uptime if the math all checks out. In terms of Storm, the Build Up proc isn't particularly useful. Storm has 4 damage dealing powers: Gale. This is rarely used for damage (except via procs) and it doesn't deal meaningful damage. Freezing Rain. Again, the damage is too low to bother buffing. Tornado. This is unaffected by Build Up in any way. Lightning Storm. If you summon a Lightning Storm while the proc is active, you will get a damage bonus for as long as the proc is active. However, after it fades, you no longer get the damage bonus and you do not get a damage bonus on previously summoned Lightning Storms if you get a proc while one is out. There's no reason not to put the Gaussian's proc in Tactics. However, I don't believe it's going to yield the results you're expecting. If you were forced to choose between Tactics + Gaussian's and Assault, Assault would very likely be a better choice. Likewise, if you were able to choose between Aim and Tactics to slot Gaussian's, the former would usually be a better choice.