Frostweaver

I am not a stalker Guru, though... Just a guy that HATES keeping an eye on my endurance 😛 I kinda have a rule though... the chance for +end fires so rarely that I only slot it if I have extra slots and already have end recovery 2 slotted (or I need the set bonuses) or I will slot it in clicky/targeted end drains, like in blaster's /ice aura... when you have an aura constantly ticking a ton of guys, it fires CONSTANTLY. But in stamina, it seems to rarely fire... even a common Endmod IO seems to give you far better endurance management. I am not sure if this is how it always has been, or it's new to homecoming, but it seems to challenge old wisdom of putting 'chance to' procs in passives.

I was figuring on using the one that looks more like a real rifle 🙂 sounds like a potentially well-rounded range-only blaster, though. Will I be cutting my own throat by minimizing the powers that require me to actually draw the bow?

Cannot tolerate Sonic's noises, plus it's nuke is a pbaoe. Already have 3 DP's. BR though.... It's not got a lot of Aoe (comparitively) but since I am really very used to cones as a primary... I guess I could 5 slot the purple set and then use the 6th slot for range to improve the radius. Thanks for the advice, I will give br/ta a shot (maybe a sci fi Topper Harley)

see, I am trying to figure out what works best with /ta that is NOT archery. I figure it's pure range, so maybe all the cones from /AR? does it have the defense to keep fire alive? Is fire even a good choice with it's PBAOE? would it do better with all the aoe from dp?

Personally, I would probably go ahead and tank the recharge a little by splitting stalker's guile between AS and savage strike, but That's only because I know you have an attack chain that's so tight half your bar will go unused, and I prefer higher defense and slightly lower resistances. Bio has decent regen, and I like to exploit that fact to build a bit more of a balanced 3-tier defense rather than pushing resist to the limits. But ymmv, it looks pretty good. Not sure how much very rares would improve it. I am curious why you would pick stealth instead of maneuvers as a LOTG mule, though. Are you having end problems? Note- Boundless energy has higher recovery than stamina, and the chance for +end doesn't proc very often in stamina. adjusting some slots to add a miracle someplace could help a lot. Boosters in all of your common IO's also helps a lot. If you leave stalker's guile the way it is, boosting hasten's recharges to +4 drops your hasten downtime to 9 seconds. slotting miracle into health, pulling slots out of stamina to add a common end IO +5 to boundless energy, and swapping out stealth for maneuvers and moving the second slot from Cj down to maneuvers for an LOTG defense/end increases your power usage to 1.44, but it also increases your recovery to 4.08, and your defense across the board by 3%. Really minor tweaks. Getting superiors is really going to help, and agility core will boost your defense quite a bit... and combined with endmod in boundless, your recovery will be a truly disgusting 4.78. with perma-hasten. Many melees prefer musculature, but in this case, you are going to be one-shotting stuff a lot, and you already have plenty of +dam... as well as 24 second buildup.

Almost everything is better on a brute.

You've never killed yourself with ET? Awww....

no more 5 slotting or 3x3 slotting the Tanker ATO's, that's for sure. regen would be helped insanely if it had more than 1 auto

Well, I figure there's a reason Regen isn't available for tankers. can you imagine 4000 HP? With Regen buffs? able to heal umm....Well, brutes already heal nearly 200 hp per second enhanced. a Tanker would be like 300 per second. Giant Monster territory. Brutes already get a LOT more from regen than scrappers and stalkers... On a tanker it might be a top-tier set.

Dull pain, almost doubles the hit points available, actual hp/sec is almost triple what Bio can get with a decent build. That's why Bio has resists and regen doesn't. There's a reason that Regen is the choice to tank Hamidon, because nothing else heals fast enough to ignore those...things that ignore defense and resistance completely. Don't you DARE try to put me in the position to try and 'defend' regen vs. bio. I personally vastly prefer Bio over regen... but I am not foolish enough to really believe that they are even remotely similar, even if they have some of the same tricks. Heck, stone and inv have some of the same tricks too. Regen absolutely has it's place, but it needs a little help. There are three basic tiers of internal damage mitigation.... resistance, defense, and heal. and NO ONE, not emp, not anyone, can hold a candle to regen's ability at the third. No one even gets close. The problem with regen is that EVERY OTHER SET makes it pretty easy to stack at least two of those three tiers, which multiply each other. I understand WHY they don't want Regen to have the other two, but disagree with the need.... the greatest healing in the game, a full order above it's closest competitors, simply doesn't have the 'stacking' and secondary tricks that other sets have.... it pays too much for it's abilities...No aura, No secondary boosts, no external mitigation, slows, debuffs, NONE of those things that stack together to make an unkillable machine.... The only thing it has besides pure hit points is unmatched recovery.... a trick that is no longer particularly special or even that useful with IO sets and free fitness for everyone. It's sorta like stone armor... It has an amazing trick that no other set can match, but the question is, with IO sets, is that trick really needed anymore? And is it really worth it's downsides anymore?

yellow means that you are in the 'nerf zone' where ED starts to reduce the effect of the enhancement. Red means you are at ED cap, where the bonus is dropped to like 1% or some ridiculously low number like that.

I have consume, but it's just a mule for the very useful mocking beratement set. Then, I never really need consume OR ageless for end, I usually just click it for the recharge.

To be fair, MOST sets will get you there. The difference in clear speeds between different primaries is often a matter of seconds... Like I have seen a TW/Fire do disgustingly powerful things with recharge procs that clears a map only a few seconds slower than spines, and my claws/fire is only about 20 seconds slower on map clears. and the difference between a careful build and a sloppy build is MUCH more pronounced than the difference between Bio and Spines.

Generally the slower, higher DPA sets, in combination with armors that do not require constant attention. Where you have a little space to breath between attack chains. Placate can dramatically increase the overall damage. Stuff like Broadsword, Ice Melee, Kinetic, MA, and nrg in combination with low-maintenance armors such as Bio, SR, and click-light sets. Any place where it's worth 1.7 seconds in order to get a guaranteed crit. (In Kinetic and nrg's case, to get a build-up refresh or avoid Killing yourself with ET). In combo-heavy sets, like DB, StJ, and staff, or sets where the big hitters don't get as much Crit, like NB, or even 'fast' sets like Claws, or in combination with a click-heavy secondary like regen or nin, Placate, while not a wasted power pick, might actually slow you down or the 1.7 second animation might even (unlikely but possible) get you killed in a 'click to not die' situation. And as previously mentioned, fast sets get more utility from building focus with quicker attacks. And then there are some 'border' cases like PSI, where insight combo causes a damage spike in greater psi blade that isn't affected by Crit, but the base damage is so insanely High that forcing a Placate Crit is more justified than spending that time on a psi blade attack that only has a 50% chance of giving you focus. There's also the 'tight build' thing to worry about... Sometimes, even if Placate is absolutely worth it, taking the power pick will force you to give up something else that gives more benefit. Like I would always take placate on Ninjitsu, because two of it's powers are utterly skippable, but I have more important powers to get in Regen. Just remember though... Placate doesn't help much unless you have some really good defense, because if your defense is low, and you are surrounded by mobs, one of them is likely to break your momentary hide before you can get your fresh crit off. That's one of the reason defense armors are so popular among stalkers. Placate+ATO hide can crank the damage of an attack chain way past sane levels if you aren't getting knocked out of hide every time it pops.

Bio is fantastic, but it does NOT do everything regen does. Not even close.

That's actually a really smart idea for a farmer blaster.

It's a spectrum. Some sets benefit enormously from Placate, some sets not so much. and placate itself is a mixed bag... some playstyles it speeds up, some playstyles it slows down. I have level 50 top-tier stalkers of both persuasions. The Stalker ATO chance to hide, however, is what has made it from an essential power into a 'can take, can skip' power.

Thanks, Man

No, the bind for shield bash actually uses a target as the 'focus' of the ability, so you don't have to click the target on the floor to use it. Just highlight a mob and BOOM you hit it and everything around it.

My take: Water is ranged. REALLY ranged. It does awesome at medium range. You can do it with MC, but all the diving in and out of range is kinda tough. Fire's nuke is melee-based. Ice is another major ranged set, but you don't really have to play it that way because it's cones basically suck. Electric's got some... issues. Still doable, but it pays with some damage for an effect that is just hard to capitalize on (end drain) and doesn't work on the Big Bads very well.

You guys have heard of the 'go to enemy' bind for shield bash, right? Does anyone know a similar bind for burst of speed? Doing 3 in quick succession nets you a nice damage boost, but the hunt-and-peck-and-target circle of it slows you WAY down.

Inv for stalker is vastly different from Inv for scrappers/tanks. Broadsword does just fine with the stalker version.

My only real problem with Regen is how many darned clickies it has. I think IH should be a toggle (and much lower) just so you have less frantic button pushing, and maybe give regen's version of dull pain some low-end resistance (5%?) in order to make it less of a stretch to god-mode.

Okay, to add flavor, Once you IO the crap out of it and add in incarnates, it actually performs pretty well. especially backing something like TW. get it to soft cap defenses and decent s/l resistance, and...well.... at least you won't brownout constantly. And you have a Rez! That's all that matters, right? Not that the rez has any secondary effects you can slot besides heal/end. It's great for collecting debt badges? Umm... it doesn't suck as bad as stone when fighting +0/+1's? It has better end and resistance than /sr? Moment of glory really does kick butt, though. for 15 seconds. Come on, I am trying to throw you a bone here. Just for you, I trowed together a quickie katana/regen to see if I could actually make it work, and managed to get up to 62% s/l resist, 50% vs everything else but nrg/dnrg/psi, soft capped melee, and midrange (30%) typed defense. umm... 18 seconds to heal to full, and just about doubled hit points. Reasonably fast attack chain, and the best part is, you only have a little over a minute of downtime in between MOG's! (Not to mention that you will almost always have a nice, convenient quick-recharging revive if you die at the 30 second mark) Perma-dull pain, not quite perma-hasten, instant heal up about half the time, and did I forget to mention Revive? Oh, and 70 HP/sec-177 HP/sec heal is actually a lot of damage. It's not the prettiest girl at the Ball, but she should still turn a few heads. (no, it's not close to optimised)... I absolutely agree that Regen needs a little help, but it's not impossible by any means. I am certain you could survive and thrive in a farm with it even un-optimised as it is. You will be clicking a lot of buttons, though. Throw a few incarnates at it, and you will make a decent enough brute. Not top-notch, but not unplayable. I am trying to make you feel better.

We still have Hamidon...