Bopper

@Myrmidon and I were testing something else today when we happen to come across an oddity. We found a spot in Atlas Park where if you are inside it, you become invisible to the rest of your team that is outside it, and vice versa. Notice the Yellow region where we are on the map. We see eachother fine as we both are inside its bounds, and we can see each other's health bar. The moment the teammate leaves the zone, they are gone from my map. THey are only across the street but it might as well be on another map. I won't bore anyone with another screenshot, just know that Kllomatrix will see the same thing from where they're at. I will be gone from the map and grayed out.

This is slightly outdated (I have a newer build that I don't think I openly published), but much of the proc options should be valid for what you're looking for @Hops. I share various builds emphasizing AoE and/or ST while varying between the use of Power and Soul for epics.

I would look into using Follow Up in your rotation, and also try to get a Snipe into your rotation (Zapp or Moonbeam). Remember the +To-Hit will buff the damage of the quick snipes and those powers are very procable (purple apoc, pvp proc, and snipe proc, plus moonbeam has access to an accurate tohit debuff proc). You won't use it too frequently, but with enough global recharge you'll probably use it every 8-10s. So if you can come up with a chain for that, perfect.

quite the contrary...I mean, if you're looking at using focused accuracy, that's all the more reason for choosing to use follow up

Why would you skip followup in a proc build? It's one of your most procable powers.

Correct. Shield might also be a popular pick, as you can Shield Charge, not break hide, then use Power Crash out of hide. I haven't played Shield on a stalker though, so I don't know if you use procs in SC if that might break hide. I'd ask someone else about that.

I wanted to throw in some more evidence for why I prefer stalker. Keep in mind, this is entirely because of how good EM is on a Stalker. Here is a breakdown of the best DPA attacks for Stalkers in the game. The first table are non-AS attacks. The second table are AS attacks. The third table are AoEs (I filtered out any AoE with an arc less than 45 degrees...which mostly just removed the 20 degree arc "cones") Energy Melee has 3 of the top 15 non-crit DPA attacks. Energy Transfer fast is 1st while Energy Transfer slow would rank 3rd behind Freezing Touch and Max Combo Crushing Uppercut. Total Focus ranks 4th, behind ET, FT, and CU. Bone Smasher ranks 15th while Energy Punch would be 19th if I exclude epic snipes. Now...that is not evidence of choosing Stalker over Scrapper, it is only to highlight the single target dominance of Energy Melee before I provide additional evidence later to support Stalkers. I did want to highlight the fact that Energy Transfer and Total Focus do not have full critical hits, so I also analyzed the average non-hide critical hit damage for a solo Stalker. This is a 10% chance to crit for each attack, with the exception of Storm Kick which has 15%. This doesn't change much other than to show Total Focus falls from 4th to 6th in DPA and Bone Smasher goes from 15th to 14th (assuming no epic snipes). The part where Stalkers shine over Scrappers is with their Assassin's Strike and Power Crash. Assassin's Strike replaces Whirling Hands, which is an average PBAoE attack. However, Energy Melee's Assassin's Strike is the 2nd best version you can get in the game. The only version better is Kinetic Melee with its 0.67s cast time. The reason why this is important, AS does a full crit and with Assassin's Focus you can practically guarantee that crit (or at the very least a 66.6% chance to crit with 2 AF stacks). That makes AS a fast version of ET, which as we saw in the table is already the best DPA attack in the game for Stalkers. So what sounds better...having Energy Transfer that is sometimes fast, or having two Energy Transfers, one that is sometimes fast and another that is always fast? Point goes to Stalker. Finally, EM Stalkers get Power Crash which is arguably the 3rd best AoE available to Stalker Primaries. Savage Leap at max range is flat out broken, but given its 40s recharge it deserves its perch as the top AoE. Sweeping Strike has better DPA, however it has a smaller AoE and is limited to 5 targets whereas Power Crash has an avenue to hitting up to 10 targets with the use of Energy Focus. Others could argue Shockwave is superior given its much larger AoE and faster cast/recharge. In either case, Power Crash is no worse than the 4th best Stalker AoE while having some argument for 2nd best. Scrappers don't get Stalker's version of Power Crash. Instead of a 16s recharge doing 1.9519 scale damage, it is a 9s recharge doing 1.2032 scale damage. It's decent, but a DPA of 38.0 as opposed to 54.8 just doesn't compete. Especially when you factor in Crits, the Stalker version has potential to one-shot LTs. It's fantastic. There's not much else to say. I have nothing against Scrapper EMs. They will still be amazing given their ATO combined with TF, ET, and BS attack chains. Their AoE will be fine with a chaining of Whirling Hands, Power Crash and possibly an Epic AoE. However, a chain consisting of TF(hide) followed by two fast ETs and two fast ASs before needing to restart TF is *chef's kiss*. An AoE alpha strike of PC(hide) followed by a proc bombed Epic AoE and fast AS is *chef's kiss*. There really is nothing Energy Melee is bad at...or average at... for Stalkers. It's top tier in Single Target and it's above average in AoE (for Stalkers). I really should stop singing the praises of Stalker Energy Melee...my voice has a tendency to get things nerfed (I actually advocated for Power Crash to be toned down in Beta, it used to be 18s and 2.166 scale damage which was insanity). But let's hope it doesn't and we can all enjoy the set as it currently is.

It should be 5 ticks, not 4 ticks. But if I'm wrong, let me know. It is my understanding that you always have 5 ticks, unless you have max blood stacks, in which case it becomes 6 ticks. When you see duration of 4.1s, remember first tick is at 0s. So 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. But I forget how it works with delays. So if the game shows otherwise, let me know

Stalker. You gain Assassins Strike and you get the 16s version of Power Crash (hits as hard as slow Arc of Destruction)

After another week of playing and tweaking, I updated the OP with my current build. Bottom line, removed Cross Punch and Kick, added Tactics and Mu Bolts. Also Proc'd out Power Crash and Ball Lightning to make up for the loss of Cross Punch (although CP wasn't exactly shining in AoE anyways).

Some issues with the proposal (apologies that the thread went off the rails on PPM instead of staying on topic, but I promise to just speak to the proposal). If you do this change, you have to be consistent. Recharge shouldn't get special rules just because of the PPM formulas, afterall, Alpha has always been a global enhancement. But,, enhancements can come with set bonuses,, so let's explore that avenue. What you'd be looking at doing is making the ignore-ED portion a set bonus (or some other generic global buff). This will have negative repercussions to powers that ignore strength/buffs but accept enhancements. So folks who want to use a heal Alpha get hosed when it comes to powers like Earth's Embrace. The other problem with a set bonus approach, damage resistance. You can't grant a strength buff to damage resistance, it doesn't exist due to its mechanics with damage. So, such an implementation of a global buff breaks on that issue alone.

True, but there's one gotcha. The global proc will not turn on until you use the power its slotted in atleast once on a map. Personally I put it in ET (I want all the recharge slotted amd typically won't add damage procs to ET), but something like EP or BS is fine too if you use them in your rotation.

Typically, I take Void Radial. I'm usually sofrcapped on defense, so having that -damage debuff is nice for layered mitigation. Vorpal is good if you're not already softcapped. It has a decent defense buff. Pyronic is nice with its cast time. You can fit it into your rotation without it feeling like you're interrupting your chain.

I would never want to skip over slow ET. If anything, maybe skip BS. The DPA from slow ET is still a top 10 attack

This is an old version (I thought I cleaned up a newer one), but I can't seem to find where I posted it. Nonetheless, it's accurate, just disregard "Beta" it is now "Live". It's a bit disjointed (again, old...not cleaned up). HC Hides is what I26 Stalker Hemo did when using Hemo when Hidden. It had 2 DoTs normally, a tiny one and big one. Then the crit would do another 2 DoTs, a big one and a huge one. The HC Not Hide is what I26 Stalker Hemo did when using Hemo when not Hidden. There was never a Critical Hit (normally you have a 10% chance to crit). Instead you had a 100% chance at essentially an extra tick of DoT damage (it would say it's a crit in the combat log...but it really wasn't). The Beta Hides is now what's on I27. It not longer has the 2nd tiny DoT, and the Crit DoTs were changed into 2.6 scale upfront damage (like most DoT attacks, the Crit is an upfront sum of the DoT damage...a bit disappointing but oh well). The Beta Hides is also the same for Crits when not Hidden, it will have a 10% chance in that scenario (standard).

Issue 27

I only did a quick glance at the power data, but didn't notice any obvious difference between Tanler Shield Charges and other Shield Charges. I did want to ask a question though before I look more into it later. Have you tested to see if there is a difference in results based on if you cast Shield Charge as a location selection versus if you cast it using Powexeclocation target macros?

I call BS. Nowhere in the game does an elevator go up/down more than one flight of stairs. CoH architects are all red-siders

Not necessarily. Energy Punch is actually a great filler attack. It has DPA similar to Bone Smasher and can be very useful when you take an enemy down to a sliver of health and don't want to waste your big guns.

Personally I find the attack's DPA too low. There might be situations where you could leverage the regen debuff, but it usually is not worth the loss of a Fast ET. I have always skipped the power.

Not if you use two ETs before you use PC again. You can do something like this as a starting rotation: PC(hide)> AS(fast/proc hide)> TF(hide)> ET(fast)> AS(fast) > Zapp > ET(fast) The rotation is right about 10s between the end and restart of AS(fast/proc hide). This lines up well for the Hide proc lockout. It's not the best burst, but you can achieve great sustain. Turn Power Crash into a proc bomb, get a 71% chance to proc FotG, and the remaining 10s will average 14% more damage. I compared the numbers to my other ST rotations, and the use of the proc helped increase the DPS by another 5%.

With enough recharge you can certainly chain some devastating attacks with EM. I use a chain of TF(hide)>ET(fast)>AS(fast)>Quick Snipe>ET(fast)>EP>AS(fast) You could replace Snipe with Bone Smasher to improve your crit chance on AS, it's personal preference to use the Snipe as it becomes 2.3 damage scale when used with Buildup and it makes for great DPA. Factoring in crit chance, that chain does: 4.56+5.016+4.6+2.53+5.016+1.276+4.324= 27.322 scale damage in a little over 10s. The only thing EM lacks is debuffing opportunities. Power Crash is great AoE amd can take the FotG proc, but I dont think one would want to use it in a ST attack chain, but I'll look into that tonight.

@InvaderStych The timing conflict. It was never supposed to be unique

What InvaderStych and Marshal_General said is true. It currently does add benefit, but it's deminishing returns. However, that functionality is a bug and it will get fixed eventually. Hopefully next Beta, but we'll see.

If you're looking to be ST focused only, Soul is a great way to go. Shadow Meld can give you a huge Alpha Strike protect even in situations where enemies have heavy def debuffs or to-hit debuffs. Plus the -ToHit and exotic damage type of Moonbeam is great. However it's hard for me to lose out on Ball Lightning as an AoE.