Psyonico

I never got a SS very far until this guy. He originally had Rage in his build. I ended up not using it like ever because it turned out I didn't like the mechanic, I later Respec'd out of it. I've got several Street Justice toons, I like the set but it doesn't quite have the same crunch as SS. EM seems to be the only set that has comparable crunch to SS, at least for me.

Ice/Storm corrupter. You get Ice Storm, Blizzard, and Freezing rain for lots of numbers popping up.

Doesn't sound like the OP is looking for another either/or situation, but is instead looking to rearrange the power order in the set. To which I have to vote no

I use the defender ato with the chance to heal in one of my TA/A's attacks. Healing Arrow FTW!

This was my first thought as well

Are you talking about the phantom pets? They are based around the original phantom army pets in illusion, and I happen to use them in just that way. So I'm against changing their look.

Anything you happen to deem cool, regardless of how powerful it is.

I partially like the ground punch varient

That's actually very interesting. I wonder why there is such a large discrepancy between Savage Melee and Psi melee

Ooh, another one! I find DP/Ninja training satisfying too.

Well, if he's a Tutha de Dannon I'd go with either the Trinch or the Drinch

So controllers and Dominators get an "I win" button? I don't mean to sound snarky, but it seems a bit much.

I can't tell you how much I love this thread. Don't see these ideas happening this year though.

I'll second Martial Combat, especially paired with Dual Pistols. That combo just looks *so* cool.

Scrappers are great for beginners. With the exception of /Regen most secondaries are fairly forgiving. Really any primary will do. Sentinels are not particularly strong, but they are also beginner friendly. /Regen on sentinels is actually a decent set.

The other possibility is that some melee AoE powers have been changed to ranged AoE powers (Fault for example) so the slots disappeared because you can't slot those IOs into those powers any more.

This is true, I know Stone Melee is pretty crunchy too, so maybe I'll just have to play that more.

My Inv/SS had rage at one point, but I hated the -dam and the -def so much that I ended up just not using it most of the time. Bio/SS does look better than Shield/SS on paper, but I suspect I'm just going to have to accept the fact that unless the rage crash is changed (which doesn't seem likely) I won't like SS.

So, I love the crunchy feel of SS, but I hate the Rage crash, so on my invul/SS I skipped rage. I like the way he feels, but his damage is really low (he's 50 and mostly T4'd.) So I'm thinking of trying SS again with maybe Shield, since AAO has the +damage portion. Anyone have experience with a rage-less Shield/SS? Does this combo work or am I going to have the same damage problems?

You get an additional rifle costume power thingy for it. So you can in fact have a green rifle

Here are my thoughts. Taunt doesn't need Accuracy unless you are PvPing, I'd drop those slots and move them to Precise Strike. You also might want to move the Disorient proc to precise Strike as well, it's a low chance, short duration, mag 2 stun, so it's not that powerful. I'll agree with Erratic about the two slots in Lightning Field, slot the rest of Armageddon instead. I'd move the Panacea and the Miracle into Health instead of Physical Perfection, that way if you exemp down you'll keep those bonuses Rather than a run speed in infiltration, slot a Blessing of the Zephyr Movement IO. This will increase both Run and Jump. You probably won't use Conserve Power much, move the 2nd slot from it into Power Sink and put an End Mod/End Redux IO in there. Power Sink is better for End Management than Conserve Power.

Except SOs are stronger until level 30 IOs.

Honestly, it's not a particularly common combo, but I've got one that is a beast. I-capped defense, and basically Perma-God mode between Rune, Unrelenting, and Melee core. Pre-aggro changes I did what I call the Linea test. This is a +4x8 ITF where you jump into a couple of spawns to cap aggro and see how long you survive. After about 15 minutes I got bored and quit, but it was enough time to see that the build worked. Your analysis on everyone else is quite thorough though, well thought out!

Maybe Bio/Spines or Bio/Rad? Spines has insane AoE potential and Rad is great with contamination. I don't know anything about how these would fare in Hard Mode though. I personally would avoid fire armor unless you're really into digging heavily into IOs. Fire is the weakest in terms of damage mitigation. Its strongest mitigation is that you kill things faster. Don't get me wrong, a dead enemy deals no damage, but in my opinion it is one of the harder armor sets to drive.