Hjarki

Storm was arguably the first of the 'proc monsters' and much of the incentive for these threads came out of the discussion of Storm on the Defender forums. I think that Storm is fairly well 'solved' at this point and what it brings to the table well-understood (at least for those who have followed these discussions all along) - which is likely why Myshkin didn't really put much emphasis on it. I also think that players are tempted to tack it onto everything else because it is so powerful - even when it's not necessarily all that synergistic (such as with Fire/Storm). Fire isn't discussed much because there aren't many (unique to Fire) opportunities there. It's powers don't really interact with procs in particularly special ways - about the closest it gets to such an interaction would be Overwhelming Force in the Imps (due to the triple attacks). Hurricane can take a lot of procs, but it can't do all that much useful with those procs due to the Repel. Even if it didn't have Repel and you could just leave enemies sitting in the Hurricane, it would still only proc at the 'normal' rate. As a persistent toggle, that might be decent enough. But it's not going to deliver exceptional performance. -25% recovery is, frankly, not very useful (in PvE). Either your enemy is going to resist it heavily or you simply don't care that they can't re-use an attack that probably wouldn't come off cooldown before they died anyway.

It's Fire secondary, which has both a damage aura and an ability called 'Burn' which drops a short DoT damage patch. Farming Brutes would normally use Fire Armor combined with Spines or Radiation for primary if they want maximize continuous AE dps. Note: I mean Fire primary for Tankers. I was thinking Brutes.

I didn't really 'skip the fact'. Hurl Boulder is a better attack than X-Ray, but X-Ray brings -def and apoc proc. Nor, in fact, is it a build I would play since it largely disregards durability (while it's still a Tanker, it doesn't have the kind of comprehensive defenses you'd really want on a Tanker) - it's more proof-of-concept. I'm not sure I agree with your 'whole point' either. We're really looking for key features, not the whole set - indeed, as I've mentioned with Titan Weapons, being force into set-specific mechanics can actually be a hindrance. In terms of the lower tier powers, they're mostly all the same proc-wise. Any melee attack has plenty of slotting options - unlike Blast sets, you don't need specific secondary effects to get enough procs. That's why I made that breakdown of what was actually meaningful (purple procs, KB AE, -resist procs and slow recharge first power). What other significant distinctions do you believe exist?

That's why I made a distinction about three phases of the game. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade here. You should play what you enjoy in the way you enjoy playing it. However, when we talk about how 'good' a set is, we're generally not talking about the mid-game and we're definitely not talking about the early game - because people have direct experience with that. What we're normally talking about is how it performs beyond what we can easily tell from even briefly playing the set - the pitfalls we'll run into when you get into the final stages of the game. For example, I know a guy who runs fire farms with 5 identical Brutes. Individually, these Brutes aren't able to clear a fire farm particularly well. However, when you're putting them all in the same place on auto-follow, they work great because they all have Leadership - and the guy designed around the fact that he'd have 5 stacking Leadership buffs. Having that knowledge that they will *always* be used in this fashion gives you significant advantages. Indeed, even the concept of the 'fire farm Brute' does this. As long as you know you will never have to face any non-fire damage, you can easily soft-cap Fire Defense and hard-cap Fire Resist on Brute. You may suck at dealing with any other form of content, but in that one place - the only place you'll ever be - you're a monster. The same could be said about more conventional characters. If your wife plays Empathy/Psi and you play Electric/Stone - and you never play except with each other - then your Electric/Stone Tanker can be built around the omnipresence of those Empathy buffs (and clearly they would be useful in that duo).

While Fulcrum can double stack, the average performance of Fulcrum Shift is going to far less than that ideal circumstance. Moreover, the Scrapper themselves is likely to be running near half their damage cap when it matters anyway. Given the choice of bringing a durable, flexible source of dps that can operate independently and a Defender who needs baby-sitting to hopefully yield the same extra damage, it's an easy choice. Once you get to the final AV/GM, Fulcrum Shift could potentially be useful. However, it tends to under-perform the resist debuffs because resist debuffs are a multiplier for everything while +damage buffs are only a bonus for base damage (and one that's hard to stack very high due to the lack of targets). My Rad/Fire Brute farmer would care vaguely about some of what Empathy brings. He doesn't need the +hit, the +dmg has a minimal impact. Recovery Aura is useless since I don't run out of endurance. Regeneration Aura is useless because it's a drop in the bucket compared to my self-healing. Adrenaline Boost provides a marginal boost to the rate at which I can cycle AE effects, but it's not all that noticeable (the regeneration and recovery components aren't important). The +defense can potentially save me some purples against unusual damage types, but +defense is ridiculously common given how many people use Leadership powers. And that's on a build specifically optimized for fire farms trying to operate in normal content. On my actual Tanker, none of what you're talking is about is particularly useful unless I"m fighting enemies with oddball attacks. More importantly, sets like Time Manipulation give you those sorts of features as well - and they don't come attached to an otherwise weak character. Something like a Time/* can buff defense, recharge, recovery, provide healing just like Empathy - but they can also amplify damage and operate independently with ease. In both these cases, I think people are confusing the mid-game with the late-game. In the mid-game, sets like Empathy and Kinetics can be quite useful. But once you're running around with fully slotted, incarnated characters, those buffs tend not to be all that useful because they solve problems players already solved with their build. It's the same reason everyone loves Force Field early on, but doesn't find it all that worthwhile as they develop - that defense is fantastic when everyone has none, but becomes pointless in a team with soft-capped characters.

To optimize dps, you want to trigger momentum and then spend the next 5 seconds exploiting it. This creates 'blocks' of time where you don't want to do anything else but use Titan Weapons attacks. However, in order to optimize procs, you need non-Titan Weapons attacks (it has no ranged attack or hold for Apoc/UB, for example) in your rotation - and that forces you to waste momentum on non-TW attacks.

I meant Fulcrum Shift - Empathy doesn't get any powers that augment the damage of the group. I was just using Fulcrum Shift as an example of buffs that are great mid-game but start to lose value late-game. For the late-game characters I'm talking about, Empathy tends to bring nothing of value.

No, this is the way it works. But to make it work, you need a complete rotation that fits into that 5 second window - and then other elements compatible with using them outside of the 5 sec window. The timing just doesn't work very well since you need to synchronize both aspects.

The problem with Titan Weapons is that it's an 'insular' set in the sense that it really pays to only use Titan Weapons attacks. But that's not actually what you want to do if you're optimizing procs. One part of your ST attack chain should be ranged (for Apocalypse). Part of your AE attack chain should be target AE (for Annihilation). I do think that Titan Weapons is such a strong overall set that it might simply out-damage a more carefully optimized 'proc monster', but I'm not sure I'd consider it a particularly proc-friendly set.

The primary doesn't actually matter nearly as much as the secondary. What you're looking for: A way to get a decent ranged attack and Hold attack, allowing you to slot Apocalypse and Unbreakable Constraint. Note that any Ranged attack can slot Javelin, Apocalypse and Decimination so it doesn't necessarily need any other special features (although it would be helpful). The combination of Target AE, PBAoE and -def to permit slotting all three -res. Note that target AE can slot Annihilation, Javelin and Positron's, so it's in a situation akin to Ranged attacks. AE that knockdown (and preferably not >= 1 MAG so you don't have to reduce it). A long recharge first power. Tankers must take the first power. Moreover, because it has -20% resist attached, they must use it. The sets: Battle Axe (KD AE) Broadsword (First Power, -Def) Claws (-Def, KD Cone AE) Dark Melee (none) Dual Blades (-Def, KD Cone AE) Electrical (KB/KD AE). Chain Induction likely works like Jolting Chain. Energy (First Power) Fire (none) Ice (Hold, Target AE) Katana (First power, -Def) Kinetic (KB Target AE, Ranged) Martial Arts (KD AE, -Def) Psionic (KD AE, Hold) Radiation (-Def). Note that the Contaminated Mechanic makes Radioactive Smash into a pseudo-AE while Contaminated Ground has double proc rate. Savage (-Def) Spines (Ranged) Staff (KD AE, Ranged) Stone (KD AE, Ranged, Hold) Street Justice (KD AE) Super Strength (KD AE, Ranged, Hold) Titan Weapons (KD AE, -Def). First power is a Cone. War Mace (KD Cone AE) Epic/Patron pools can compensate for some of these issues. Without going through them all, I'd call out the following: Earth. A Ranged -Def attack. Also a Hold and a target AE on excessively long recharges. Energy. This provides Focused Accuracy to reduce accuracy/hit issues, a -def Ranged attack and endurance mitigation. Mace Mastery. Focused Accuracy and a KB Target AE (on a regrettably long 32 sec recharge). Pyre Mastery. This has all of the Blast set abilities (ranged, Hold, target AE), but they're on large recharges. Soul Mastery. This has the best of the Ranged attacks from pools and arguably the best target AE (slightly less damage than Fireball, but with a -hit debuff attached for Cloud Senses). The first problem arises from our desire to get a long recharge first power. All of the 'First Power' sets (by which I mean a first power with a longer recharge than their second power, although each of those sets also has a first power with a longer recharge than any non-First Power set) are otherwise awful for our purposes with few of the features we need. I'd argue that this probably means we need to strike "First Power" from our list of considerations since we can't realistically meet it. Moreover, it's not all that critical a concern because we need to slot full sets somewhere (accuracy/recharge bonuses, ATOs, etc.) The next most rarefied ability is Hold. As I mentioned, this can be obtained from Epic/Patron pools. However, only one of the Holds is very competitive in terms of activation time (Char) and all of the Holds are on 32 sec recharges. Since we can't afford slots for internal recharge in our Hold, any Hold with longer than a 12 sec recharge will lose value on Unbreakable Constraint and any hold with longer than a 15.4 sec recharge will lose value on all procs (due to capped proc chance). Our 4 Holds: Greater Psi Blade (15 sec recharge, 69.8 dpa) Freezing Touch (16 sec recharge, 109.2 dpa) Seismic Smash (20 sec recharge, 92.3 dpa). Note: This is a MAG 4 Hold Knockout Blow (25 sec recharge, 66.6 dpa) Ice's lack of KB AE makes it my least favorite choice on that list. Super Strength is otherwise a strong choice, but it's Hold is not. Given that, I'd argue that Psionic/Soul and Stone/Energy as a first-pass choice. Of those, I think Stone/Energy is the likely the better choice since it has multiple KB AE to keep near-permanent Force Feedback going. On primaries, I think Bio is a standout. It has a damage aura, you can slot multiple non-accurate heal sets (provides significant boosts to recharge), and it provides a predictable hit bonus (unlike Invulnerability, whose hit bonus can't be relied upon since it scales with number of enemies). The biggest issue with Bio would be that it's not a particularly strong set from the standpoint of actually tanking (no defense debuff resistance, wonky mix of defense and resist). An "I really wanted to be a Scrapper" (i.e. minimal emphasis on survivability) approach like so:

The major issue with farming with Storm is the scatter. While you can potentially skip Whirlpool, skipping Freezing Rain undermines a significant portion of the spec. That being said, you can still farm pretty quickly. Over on the Corruptor forums, under the Water/Storm thread, I posted my 'tank mage' version of a Storm/Water Defender (Ranged/AoE soft-capped, S/L/F resist capped). About the only change I'd probably make would be to replace the recharge I/O in Tornado with Soulbound Allegiance proc.

I haven't tested it, but I'm almost certain the build up only affects the user for two reasons: Decimation is not intended to affect pets, unlike Soulbound Allegiance. Lightning Storm is not a pet, but a pseudo-pet.

The chance to hold is from the Winter set I slotted into the power - it can't slot Entomb. Moreover, the only reason I slot that proc (which isn't actually that great - MAG 2 like most such procs) is that I need it to complete the 6-set bonus.

It works in my Brute. It's hard to tell, but I think it's a byproduct of the Contaminated mechanic. When you hit an enemy with Contaminated, it deals damage to nearby enemies - and that damage carries any procs on the original single target power. For example, I have Force Feedback in my Radioactive Smash. If I hit an un-Contaminated target, the chance to proc is fairly small. If I hit a Contaminated target, it rises to around 50%. The same sort of thing happens with my other procs. My Contaminated Strike has a chance to hold, so I'll get little ice blocks around nearby minions with I hit a Contaminated target. The other procs (can't recall which they were - think Lady Grey and Hecatomb) also splash around.

I like to think of the game as having three phases: Early game. Here, even Tankers struggle to survive without help. Everyone desperately needs buffs, so Defenders are incredibly valuable. Mid game. Moving into the mid-levels, many of the basic survival issues (at least for melee AT) have been solved and the primary concerns tend to be recharge and endurance. Non-melee still have issues with survival. Late game. Once at 50 with IO sets/Incarnates, well-built characters have solved survival, endurance and recharge issues on their own. This normally means that what they need from their Defender is damage amplification - while individual characters may gain some slight benefit from other effects you provide, this is very much on an individual basis. For example, my Rad/Fire Brute can benefit from additional defense while my Ice/Bio Stalker can't (although both can manage just fine without it). As a result, if your value to the team is such buffs, then your value is likely minimal. You also have to consider how the game changes. In the early game, you tend to have 8-man teams traveling as a tight group. In the late game, you're likely to break into sub-groups of 2 - 3 players unless it's an AV/GM fight. This also creates a significant bias in terms of the value of Defender abilities. Part of the reason that debuff-centric sets are stressed in the late game is that these are the sets useful against AV/GM while permitting the player themselves to be independently useful. Fulcrum Shift is a great ability, but if you're planning to use it on a single Scrapper you might as well just play a clone of that Scrapper - you'd end up with a more flexible, more durable team that did just as much damage. Where Empathy 'goes wrong' is that it provides almost nothing besides survivability (which your party probably does not need) and isn't a strong baseline for a Defender to be an independently useful part of the team.

Lightning Storm's knockback is magnitude 1.0 - the knockback is reduced to knockdown on anything +1 level or above. In contrast, Tornado's knockback is magnitude 6.23, meaning it flings enemies every which way.

I wouldn't do a Corruptor at all. Storm/Water Defender has a much easier time hitting the defensive marks while delivering equal or greater damage. Water/Fire/Fire Blaster can be built as a pure farmer (only Fire Def/Resist) and deliver more damage than a Corruptor. While Dark and Time are solid sets, they're not even close to Storm in terms of damage output. Likewise, Water will outperform Fire (for AE) once you start slotting IO sets.

Unless you're playing a very end-heavy primary, I'd argue the main use of Consume is endurance drain protection/mitigation. There are a number of enemies that will zero out your endurance bar, drop all your toggles and you'll be dead before you know what happened. If you just plan to spend all your time in a farm, then it's not much of a worry.

Healing sets actually have some very solid options for set bonuses. However, I'd also argue that O2 Boost - at least on a Defender - is one of the better heals out there. First of all, it's a targeted heal. At low levels, when you can't target yourself and you don't have much in the way of decent enhancements, this may seem like a bad thing. But at high levels, it's a very good thing. Once you get away from the "we all travel in a tight little pack" model, AE heals just stop being all that effective. They're not bad in league play, but there's no real point building for league play since everything is just taken up to 11 anyway. Targeted heals are what really make a difference - and the only sets with targeted heals tend to 'healing sets' (which are not amongst the stronger sets). What this means in practice is that Storm Summoning tends to spend a lot of time as 'the healer'. Second of all, it removes status effects. I'd argue that O2 Boost is just about the only useful status effect removal power. No one actually pre-buffs with these powers because it's too much of a nuisance (and most of the time players don't need it). So they need to be used reactively. However, the UI just isn't sufficient for this. Technically, it's possible to look at the character in the gamefield and tell that they're sleeping/stunned/held/whatever. In practice, this never happens. Because O2 Boost removes status effects as a side effect of its healing, it ends up being the primary tool for removing status effects - because you don't have to know someone has a status effect on them. Inarguably, it's tough to do traditional MMORPG-style tank healing with O2 Boost because it's relatively small. But there isn't much call for that sort of healing. In terms of Hurricane, it tends to diminish in usefulness in the later stages of the game. When you first get it in the teens, it's an incredible ability. It's a nearly unbeatable defense against any melee enemy and you can cripple mobs by sticking them in a corner. Later on, these tactics start to become less and less viable. You spend a lot of time in places without corners to stick mobs in. The relatively low magnitude Repel is insufficient to deal with many melee enemies. Even the hit debuff gets resisted into nothingness against targets you really want to hit debuff. Even if this were not the case, why slot Hurricane? All of its features are fine out of the box. The only component you can meaningfully buff is the hit debuff - and that's either more than enough or can't possibly be enough. Fiddling with the knockback doesn't really do much for you since you don't want to be flinging enemies around and you can't keep them in the Hurricane long enough to usefully proc anything (in most cases). About all you need is endurance reduction.

If you Boggle an enemy, it will tend to pack the group for subsequent AE. In terms of Bio, I think the reason to play it is offensive adaptation. Honestly, I don't think you lose much (7.5% of all resists is about it for a Stalker) in exchange for your +hit/+damage. That being said, it takes a while to develop.

It's more than just positioning. Force Feedback in Radioactive Smash has ~50% proc rate due to the Contamination mechanic triggering off nearby enemies as well as the target. Irradiated Ground does ridiculous amounts of damage when slotted with procs due to triggering every 5 seconds rather than every 10. The -def on Radiation also allows slotting Achilles' Heel to amplify the rest of your damage. My current build is designed for fire farms, but with the ability to function outside of them as well:\

Hack is a relatively high damage per activation attack for a basic attack. However, no basic attack cracks into the top 3 for high damage per activation on a Stalker set. The top 3 for Broad Sword are Head Splitter, Assassinate and Moonbeam. Those latter two are the in the top 3 for every Stalker primary. Head Splitter is the lower third of damage-per-activation for Stalker heavy attacks (it beats Claws, Dual Blades, Electric Melee, Ninja Blade and Spines; it's less damage-per-activation than the heavy attack from all the other sets).

As noted elsewhere, Force Feedback benefits the user. Soulbound Allegiance appears to benefit you on activation but the pet on damage. The former is a near-certain proc while the latter is a relatively low proc chance (Tornado is a small radius AE that checks every 10 sec).

As far as I know, you don't receive the Shield Defense damage bonuses while Hidden and Shield Charge can't critical. That would make it a poor choice for Stalker AE since Stalker AE is primarily about criticals from Hide. When you say Shield Defense is 'well-regarded', I'd argue this is because of its defensive benefits rather than its offensive ones - it's a positional defense set that also provides meaningful levels of S/L resist. I do think it's difficult to comprehensively explain the strengths and weaknesses of a given set in a simple list format and metrics for evaluating good vs. bad are often implied rather than stated. However, even a short sentence can give an indication of why the individual is rating those sets the way they do.

In general, "Better on Stalker" means one of two things: Stalkers receive a high dpa attack in the form of Assassinate. This often replaces a relatively low dpa single target attack, taking a set from mediocre single target damage to exceptional single target damage. Stalkers receive an ATO proc that rapidly recharges Build Up. While this is always useful, it's even more useful with sets that also use Build Up for some other purpose. I suspect the second reason is what's at work here since Savage Melee also generates its resource from Build Up.