Hjarki

I can't find anywhere that lists the exact numbers. Assassinate is supposedly 129.0 base damage. If we assume Hecatomb and Armageddon are approximately the same (they're what I have Assassinate and Cross Punch slotted with), then this means my Cross Punch would be 84.0 base damage (with full Boxing/Kick synergy). My second attack (Ice Sword) is about 12% more dpa than Cross Punch against a single target. So, in isolation, I'm losing a bit of single target damage by using Cross Punch. However: Cross Punch is also slotted with Force Feedback. This procs ~10% of the time, so it's the equivalent of around 5% - 10% recharge. Cross Punch is AE, albeit only barely. It's a 7 yard, 50 degree arc so it's more a matter of getting an extra enemy tagged every now and then. Cross Punch grants +10% recharge automatically. Cross Punch grants +10% hit automatically. This is the core reason I use it - it enables Moonbeam to be used reliably in a rotation. Without Cross Punch, I could hit 22.5% for insta-snipe between Offensive Adaptation, Tactics and Kismet. However, non-Bio Armor Stalkers don't have this option. The main alternative would be relying strictly on Build Up. Freezing Touch and Greater Psi Blade also do more damage than Assassinate - which is why I mentioned those three sets in particular.

This is a tough question to answer for Corruptors due to the way we think about what is 'best'. For most classes, its a somewhat fuzzy combination of defensive sustainability and offensive output. However, almost any 'tier one' Corruptor build on those merits is actually inferior to the Defender version of the same (or similar) build. The across-the-board numerical superiority of Defenders on everything except pure nukes means that they have more flexible slotting/incarnate options that pushes them over the top vs. the relatively small differences in base damage and Scourge on the Blast set. As a result, a tier list ignoring the existence of Defenders would look remarkably similar to the Defender list. A tier list including Defenders effectively chops off the top - because tier one sets work better for Defenders than Corruptors - and you're left with some special cases and tier two or lower choices. For Blast sets, what makes a good 'Corruptor set' tends to be two factors: Poor first attack. If the second attack in the set is significantly better than the first, it's often preferable to play it as a Corruptor. Rains. Corruptors get an unusual benefit from Scourge in conjunction with Rain-style effects. I'd call Archery, Dark, Fire, Ice and Psychic 'Corruptor sets' on this basis. Of those, I'd probably rank Dark and Psychic a step below the others. For Support sets, you run afoul of two problems. The first is that Defenders are simply better at support than Corruptors - and when that support involves increasing damage, that means they eat into (and often eliminate) the superior base damage/Scourge Corruptors enjoy. The second is that support takes time away from attacking - and the more time it takes, the less of an impact that damage/Scourge becomes. There are some sets that work particularly well as Corruptors: Cold Domination. The primary virtues of this set are Steamy Mist (weaker for Corruptors, but still grants a decent bonus), Sleet (no difference between Defender/Corruptor), and Benumb (no difference in terms of the key -regen component). While being forced to take the underwhelming Infrigidate can be an issue, Defenders are forced to take either the underwhelming Infrigidate or the underwhelming Snow Storm anyway. Dark Miasma. You've got a stealth power, a -resist debuff that's the same between Defender and Corruptor, a heal that's fine either way and a bunch of control powers that work essentially the same for either one. The problem here is that if you're interested in playing */Dark, Dark Affinity for Controllers is a significantly better choice. Kinetics. Getting sufficient defenses for a */Kinetics Corruptor is problematic - Scorpion Shield is almost always the route taken - but Corruptors have a higher +damage cap, so they tend to gain more advantage from Fulcrum Shift (despite the smaller numbers). Traps. I'm loathe to add this to tier lists because it's so wildly out-of-step with the rest of the game, making it nearly impossible to use well in a group setting. However, many of its powers are the same regardless of whether the set is primary or secondary. With that in mind, you also have to consider that almost any 'Corruptor set' is also one that tends to benefit Controllers/Masterminds for similar reasons. So you're left with a choice between group-friendly (Corruptors) and solo-friendly (Controllers/Masterminds).

For the melee sets, Stalkers are in a bit of an unusual place since the highest dps chains almost always are going to involve Assassinate and Moonbeam - which are universal to all Stalkers. Toss Cross Punch into the mix (for the +hit bonus to make Assassinate a rotational ability) and your single target chain isn't going to vary much between different sets. For armor sets, the general rule is that Tankers/Brutes take resist sets while Stalkers/Scrappers take defense sets. This tends to be exacerbated for Stalkers because the power Stalkers lose (for Hide) from resist armor sets is almost invariably the damage aura. So from the standpoint of pure damage, you'd probably go with sets like Ice, Psi and Savage Melee that have a strong attack to round out the ST chain with a decent AE attack. Likewise, you'd picked defense-oriented sets that provide a damage benefit like Bio, Energy and Super Reflexes. Shield technically boosts your damage, but its very situational nature makes it a poor choice (you get no real benefit when you need it the most - in that AV/GM fight). You could also build for defense. A common approach would be to pick a set with a +defense attack and pair it with a positional defense set (Super Reflexes, Shield). However, your damage will normally be significantly lower than building for damage.

Truthfully, I don't think Dark or Poison are particularly strong for this sort of build. The primary way you get a lot out of procs is by exploiting the discrepancy between the internal recharge of a power and its actual recharge. However, most global recharge comes from 5-slotting attacks - the same attacks you're trying to fill with procs. That means having a secondary which provides no global recharge is going to sharply limit how effective your build will be. The reason Storm is so exceptional is that it can use Force Feedback to get a massive amount of global recharge. Likewise, Time explicitly grants +50% recharge. In contrast, neither Dark nor Poison help your global recharge at all. Dark saves you some slotting on defense, but it has an incredible demand for recharge (due to the recharge:duration on Fade) that can only realistically be satisfied by 5-slotting purples in the very powers you wanted to use for procs. Poison doesn't have either the recharge or the defense, so you're going to need to spend an enormous number of slots just trying to hit soft-cap before you can even think about slotting procs.

I followed the instructions in the initial post. My Island Rum updated. So I went to click 'play'. It paused for a bit, Island Rum closed (presumably it thought City of Heroes was starting) and... nothing. City of Heroes did not start. There were no error messages. Just nothing. So I tried the 64-bit version. Same thing. The safe version? Same thing. I tried the rescan/reset recommended in the thread. No change. I verified I had the right manifest (I did). I tried running the actual CoH application in my applications folder. It did start up and allow me to sign in. However, I got the following message: "Wrong Game Version. Run Patcher and Reconnect. Server 2019.08.22. Client 2019.06.05". Not sure where to go from here. Update: I managed to get it to work by deleting my wine directory and running winecfg: rm -rf ~/.wine winecfg

It might help to break down what is and is not useful in the late game. Not Useful: Defense buffs. Most late game characters soft-cap their critical defenses and, even if they didn't, the sheer amount of incidental buffing players receive from Maneuvers and other sources tends to make these buffs pointless. The major exception would be defense buffs that also affect Psi - which is why Time Manipulation manages to be better than Force Fields at Force Field's strength. -hit/-damage debuffs. These are some useful when they're on a Tanker/Brute damage aura. But they're unreliable as defenses and provide no meaningful protection on AV/GM. -recharge/-speed. These are useful in PvP but of almost no use in PvE where you can simply Immobilize or tank enemies and -recharge is resisted so heavily on any target you care about. +regen buffs. These simply don't add enough in most cases. Empathy's Adrenaline Boost is close to being an actual heal, but it's long recharge makes it too inflexible to take the place of actual healing. Somewhat useful: Resist buffs. While your tanker/brute is probably hard-capped on S/L, these can be useful for Fire farm Brutes that come out of the farm or all your Scrappers/Stalkers who aren't hard-capped (especially to unusual resists). +recharge/+recovery buffs. These are incredibly powerful in the mid-game but tend to be unimportant in the late game since most players solve these issues. However, there are some builds that can use almost unlimited amounts of recharge/recovery. Healing. The value of healing varies a great deal. In general, single target heals are fairly useful at any stage of the game but AE heals diminish in importance as players ramp up their defenses. Heals that require a target are especially weak not just because they can miss but because accurate healing sets are weaker than standard healing sets. Status protection. This is technically useful, but it's rarely useful in practice because status effects only tend to impact ranged characters and they impact them so frequently that keeping up the constant buffing isn't all that useful. Field status effect protection (Force Field, Sonic Resonance, Traps) is slightly more useable, but tends to have holes and doesn't function unless you're in the same place as the people needing those buffs (which isn't particularly common outside of leagues). Very useful: Control/damage effects. While these vary in power, the ability to deliver control effects and damage from your primary is often important for a Defender. -resist. The only debuff that truly matters, this is the best way to amplify damage for yourself and your team in the late game. +damage. This isn't as good as -resist, but almost all damage-dealing builds have a fair amount of wiggle room before cap. Unfortunately, having more than one +damage build isn't all that useful. -regen. This deserves another asterisk. -regen is only useful against AV/GM and only in very long fights. In most non-solo AV/GM fights, -regen is inferior to simply increasing damage (either via +damage or -resist). Stealth and self-buffs. If you don't have Stealth at level 50, you're probably a bit of a hindrance to your team. Likewise, the primary use of support sets isn't to buff other people (whose needs you cannot know beforehand) but to buff yourself (and your pets) because you know what you need. In general, high end (non-PvP) play tends to break down into certain modes: Farming runs. These are normally the province of custom builds explicitly for farming that selectively choose the exact defenses they'll need. Defenders are rarely ever used as a base for such builds and aren't particularly useful unless players are under-slotted because you can almost always replace the Defender with a decent farming build and get better results. People who make farm teams don't do 4 Brutes + 1 Defender - they just do 5 Brutes. Task Forces/Missions. Most of the time, you'll find that players tend to break into small groups rather than travel in a 8-man force since its faster. Stealth is at a premium in these groups. Also, if you plan on playing lower level content, the development rate of your sets becomes crucially important (which I haven't really addressed because it's far too lengthy a topic). Solo play. This is almost entirely about survival. In general, a solo Defender build will consist of the ability to wear down an enemy over a long period of time. Leagues. The short answer here is that it just doesn't matter what you play. There are so many buffs/debuffs flying around that your contribution is largely reduced to damage, -resist debuffing and managing to survive. Given that, I'd rank the sets: Tier 1: Storm Summoning. The addition of KB->KD and the ability to slot Force Feedback for recharge takes this set from curiosity to powerhouse. Time Manipulation. This set just covers everything that needs to be covered with top notch powers. Tier 2: Cold Domination. This tends to be a weaker version of Storm in terms of its key effects. Dark Miasma. This is a compendium of nice effects, but at second rate levels of power. Kinetics. A set that provides some decent buffs, but few slotting opportunities and little benefit for its user. Nature. While it requires a lot of recharge, it provides some of the stronger buffs around. Radiation. A weaker version of Time. Thermal. The premiere 'healing set', it still suffers from an inability to protect its user. Tier 3: Sonic Resonance. It's core features - debuffing and buffing resist - are done better by other sets. It's lack of other features beyond resist manipulation makes it weaker than those sets. Empathy. Superfluous buffs, excess healing and no real damage multiplier. Almost any time you'd be tempted to bring an Empathy Defender, you'd be better served with Thermal. Force Field. Buffing defense simply isn't all that useful due to its prevalence elsewhere and Force Field doesn't bring much else to the table. Pain Domination. Similar to Empathy, it's just out-classed by Thermal. Poison. Decent single-target debuffing, but no self-protection and little in the way of decent AE. Trick Arrow. It has a plethora of control/debuff effects, but they tend to be numerically inferior. It's always better to have a single strong power than a handful of weak ones. Traps. This deserves an asterisk. As a solo set, it's actually pretty good. However, it's tempo is so out-of-line with the rest of the game that it's almost unplayable in groups. For Blast sets: Tier 1: Assault Rifle. A balance between Water and Beam, albeit one that requires a great deal of comfort with cones. Beam Rifle. This set is relatively weak AE-wise, but the short cooldown ultimate makes up for the lack of other AE. It's difficult to build due to the Disintegrate mechanic, but it's the best set for single target damage. Dual Pistols. The PBAoE ultimate is problematic, but it's still a nice, short cooldown. The rest of the set is excellent with its variety of effects. Water. If this had a Sniper attack, it would be the perfect Blast set. As it stands, it's still an incredibly strong set with easily slotted abilities of all the important types. Tier 2: Archery. Difficult to slot, but has one of the better target AEs and a strong ultimate. Dark. The emphasis on Cones is the big problem here. However, it's an overall strong set that only suffers from forcing Defenders to take the otherwise weak Dark Blast. Fire. This works better for Corruptors and Blasters (who don't mind its lack of slotting options). Ice. A generally strong set, this doesn't really have the diversity of effects necessary to make it Tier 1. Psychic. Another set that wastes powers on a basic attack you don't use, it has a very strong single target rotation but lacks slotting opportunities. Sonic. Not as good as its classically been, it's a pure team set that doesn't do well solo and doesn't bring appreciably more to the table than higher damage sets like Beam/Pistols do. Tier 3: Energy Blast. A solid set of abilities tied to relatively long activations and knockback that needs suppression. Electrical Blast. A generally weak set with few virtues beyond the ability to sap a spawn if Thunderous Blast is slotted for it. Radiation. Terrible single target damage coupled with lack of decent non-PBAoE damage options make this a weak set for general play. Even if you can build your defenses up to the point where you can make those PBAoE worthwhile, Dual Pistols does it better.

From the standpoint of teaming, the job of Controllers goes from 'lock down' to 'stay out of the way' as you level to 50. Once you're at 50, a lot of what Controllers bring to a group actively hinder the group - whether it be preventing the tank from collapsing the spawn (AE Immobilize/Disorient/Hold) or blocking doorways (pets). So instead of picking a Control set, I'll list the abilities I see as being broadly useful across a wide variety of groups/situations: Phantom Army. Indiscriminately using this can be a hindrance to your group. But an invulnerable taunter is incredibly handy even when you're not trying to solo AV/GM. Confuse. In all its incarnations, Confuse is simply better than other controls. Not only does it prevent the mobs from attacking back, but it collapses them into a nice (easily AE'd) pile. Wormhole. It filters bosses away from minions/lieutenants, dumps the latter into field effects and doesn't even aggro. AE Knockdown nukes. Bonfire/Tremor are problematic because they disperse spawns. Jolting Chain and Propel bring the same virtues, often with more damage attached and don't interfere with teammates. Single target damage. While Controllers don't get much here, their basic nukes are still useful. However, every Controller gets (approximately) the same tools for single target damage. None of them get abilities like heavy damage nukes or sniper shots that really make a damage rotation, so it's all just basic nukes with controls attached. Given the above, I'll probably break down the primaries like so: Top Tier (Illusion, Gravity, Electric). These all have flaws to them, but they have one or more strong abilities from the list above. Second Tier (Plant, Dark). These sets both have a Confuse, but are too disruptive when they try to do anything else. However, they also have a singular (relatively tough) high damage pet that can come in handy. Third Tier (Fire). While there are various Fire builds that work for solo-farming, Fire tends to be highly disruptive with incredibly fragile pets that limit its damage output capability. Fourth Tier (Earth, Ice, Mind). These are all low damage sets with few worthwhile abilities. If I had to pick combinations for 'best general purpose Controller', I'd probably go with Illusion/Time and Electric/Storm. They've got holes, but they can deal with most everything pretty well and certain things exceptionally well.

Stone is well-suited to a 'proc monster' build since it has every form of attack - melee, PBAoE, target AE, Ranged and Hold. It also has multiple knockback attacks for Force Feedback. However, I'd say this value is limited by a few factors: Titan Weapons. This set is so over-tuned that it's really hard to beat it. Since it already has the best procs (Force Feedback), eeking out a bit more dps from Unbreakable Constraint and Apocalypse probably isn't enough to bridge the divide. Brutes/Scrappers. There is a relatively small damage disparity between Defenders and Corruptors that makes the defense vs. offense trade-offs involved in these proc discussions meaningful. However, the damage disparity between Brutes/Scrappers and Tankers is so enormous that it's tough to justify a Tanker build that isn't a 'pure' Tanker (i.e. built for raw defense). Unlike squishies, where you normally take a 'good enough' attitude and just soft-cap Ranged Defense, it's impossible to close every defensive hole for a Tanker and there's no accepted stopping point for 'enough defense'.

In terms of AE, I think there are two issues that haven't yet been discussed: Knockback AE. Consider Fireball vs. Explosive Arrow. They have the same activation time and recharge. Fireball just does more damage. However, because Explosive Arrow can slot Force Feedback, it will deal more damage than Fireball - and, indeed, the entire set will end up dealing more AE damage. That single slot of Force Feedback will yield ~30% global recharge average over time - a benefit that swamps the minor damage advantage Fireball enjoys. Ultimates. Everyone loves the ultimates. However, they're not actually that good. One problem is that, even in +4 content, much of their damage potential is wasted because they over-kill the minions/lieutenants. Another problem is that their recharge is so long that their overall dps is not high - the piddling damage from a Brute's Fiery Aura is many times more dps than the massive burst from Inferno. Procs exacerbate the recharge issue since the proc chance for Rain of Arrows and Inferno is effectively the same - 90%. While it's unlikely that a feasible Blaster build contains 4+ procs in all of its primary attacks, almost any decent Blaster build is going to optimize around those procs. If I'm putting Apocalypse in one of my attacks, I'm probably going to grab the recharge bonus. But I don't really care all that much about the psionic defense, so I can just as easily 5-slot. I'm definitely taking the damage proc out of those 5 slots. And the last spot? It's probably going to another proc because I'm already well into ED territory with the basic damage of the attack. A 6-slotted Apocalypse is almost always going to be worse than 5-slot Apocalypse + Javelin toxic. Likewise, consider Blaster's Wrath. I'm probably going to end up 6-slotting this because I need the Ranged Defense. But I can choose where I want to put it - and that 'where' probably isn't Sniper Attack (which has plenty of proc opportunities and I don't want to reduce my proc chances with all the excess recharge from the 6-set). If forced, I might shove it into my basic attack (which is going to have excess recharge compared to the rate at which I use it no matter what I do). But where I really want to put it is a place like Rain of Arrows where I don't have many proc options and the recharge in the set isn't going to hurt my proc chances. These sorts of details can dramatically alter how various sets/ATs perform at 50 - often in ways players don't expect from a naive view of the power sets themselves - because they create an emphasis on 'holistic' builds. It may not seem like having more defense somewhere will help your offense, but it often does - because while you can't usefully slot more +damage, you can potentially slot those procs to augment your attacks.

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.