Oysterhead

I'm about 90% sure of this, but in PvE taunt powers (outside of the presence pool) are auto-hit, they never miss. In PvP that changes. I don't know for certain that is true for Dwarf form, but since it is for Tankers, Brutes and Scrappers, I assume it is.

The key piece of Master Brawler is "Owning this power will also improve your Focused Fighting and Focused Senses abilities" Focused Fighting description states: "If you own Master Brawler you will also gain resistance to Knockback and Immobilization", and Focuses Senses says "If you own Master Brawler you will also gain resistance to Disorient, Hold, Sleep powers. You end up with identical protection to Practiced Brawler, without needing to click something for maintenance, and gain the absorb shield click from Master Brawler. The only possible benefit to taking Practiced Brawler would be the ability to double stack it at higher recharge amounts, but the base amount of protection should be fine that I would never recommend not taking Master.

You're better off than your numbers show in Mids at the moment. You have a non-superior blistering cold slotted into Mental Strike, causing you to miss the 5-set bonus of 5 let/smash def, which puts you up a lot. Minor other recommendation, I'd change the HO from Concentration to Gaussian's chance for build up. I'd also drop a slot or change one of the Gauntleted Fist sets from Psi Blade Sweep. You don't need that 6 smash/lethal resist, remember you'll usually have 2 stacks of +res from Might of the Tanker, which is 5-10% to everything, since you're already overcap on Smash/Lethal, that one is wasted. A proc would do nicely, or... if you really wanted to push your def a bit more: Drop that slot Psi Blade Sweep, add it and more to taunt, sacrifice a couple more somewhere and you can 4 slot Mocking Beratement for 2.5% more S/L def. You could probably remove one of the unique from health, or two even, and one from Stamina. Bio is overflowing on endurance in most cases, so you won't miss those. Honestly you don't really need to be softcapped on Bio. The regen, resists and absorb shields will see you through nearly always. But if your goal is to hit it, that'll put you at 45% exactly.

Ah you're right, I misread how it works as a chance to active on each member, rather than the chance to active raising per member. Yea with that in mind that's no where near as useful. Thanks for the heads up on explosive vs shield breaker! I figured it was a global chance to proc one everything rather than the specific powers then work on, but that makes sense.

My thanks to you both! Made some modifications, below, that I plan to respec into soon. Currently 36, so starting to come together. I fit a couple procs into t1 pets, switched t2 over to call to arms to get defensive aura over resistance. Ended up dropping all attacks, even M30, to fit powerboost in without giving up other stuff. I have Stealth to do exactly what you asked Meknomaner, drop TJ and stealth when needed, also for the final lotg slot. I did enjoy M30 for the ff procs, but, I'm still sitting at high enough global recharge that it shouldn't matter at all, everything is permanent without it. Otherwise the +damage to target doesn't seem as valuable as any power I'd have to drop to get one back in. If I keep this guy going 50+ I'll drop more procs into t2 pet at minimum, dropping the call to arms set bonus as upgrading to purples will give enough recharge to offset the loss, and potential in Commando too, is my thinking.I still have 4 slots in tactics (including the BU proc which I know isn't idea there, but I figure random build up procs for everyone is worthwhile), may drop 2 and add the -recharge procs to time's juncture.

I'm new to building MMs (and my first real Time Manipulation as well), but pulled this together after trying to pick up info from other posts. Below is a 'leveling' build, so no purples or boosts in it. I was aiming for as much recharge as possible to get perma-everything in Time (or double/triple stacked where possible) and Serum as well. Hitting 232.5% global recharge as is which seems pretty nice for no superior sets, if my math is right it'd jump to 248.75% with the ATOs upgraded and one of the hold sets upgraded to 5-piece Unbreakable Constraint. I dropped one of the pet auras (Call to Arms) to fit more recharge. I at one point had Slug with another FF proc in it, but really didn't find I was using it enough to justify the pick, so dropped it for Time Crawl (which does more damage with procs, fwiw) Damage procs in Time Crawl & Time Stop I'm wondering if I might be better off dropping into either Slowed Response or getting enough slots int Chrono Shift for 5-slot Synapse's Shock for another 6.25% global recharge? Any thoughts appreciated!

Another thing to consider, Stalker chance to hide ATO (which should always be put into Assassin Strike) will drop you into hide, which then gives you a 100% chance to crit your next single target attack or ~50% (or 100% if you're Kinetic Melee with Burst) to crit on the next area attack. Not as good as Scrappers 5 second of 50% crit chance, but it does let stalkers get at minimum 2 crits in a row very often (orange circle AS, drop into hide, crit next attack). Plus stalkers have a higher base crit chance. All ATOs & mechanics combined, I seem to notice a lot more crits on my stalkers than scrappers? But that might just be confirmation bias. The bigger difference between the two in my mind is Stalker Build Up spam, which is always great when you can stack a bunch of those procs.

The beta Focused Feedback thread has a lot of good info: Someone there also went through the changes to the specific pets and their new skills. I haven't played them personally yet (doing a ninja MM now) but plan to next, the general sentiment is that they are a gigantic step up from the prior iteration.

I really enjoyed Ice armor on stalker. Where I dislike the set on Tankers/Brutes, because Energy Absorption, before capping defense with set bonuses, has to be used pre-emptively for them to increase defense, negating the endurance gain mechanic, where as stalker you're less likely to need to use it pre-emptively and can keep it for endurance gain. Ice has lower DDR for a defense set, but again, as a stalker you aren't expected or need to be the primary meat shield out in front, and if you are in a situation where cascading defense failure may be an issue, Icy Bastion is amazing. Chilling Embrace also some helps offset the problem stalkers have with everything running away all the time (they'll still try, but they move a lot slower.) Shield is great on all ATs, where Ice might be at its best on stalker.

Croax has and maintains the tier list of stalker sets: Are you going for theme (I know you've been doing your christmas characters) or effeciency? Energy Melee is one of the best attack sets and MA is pretty well at the bottom. Stalkers have the worst iteration of MA. Ice is also near the top, as stalkers have one of the best iterations of that, if that fits for christmas stuff. Energy Aura is an excellent armor set. So En/En would do great.

Ice Melee did not surprise me. Coming from mostly stalkers, Ice Melee is already considered top tier if not top. Cold damage + nice, well rounded set of ST and AoE attacks. It lacks the satisfying "crunch" of some other sets outside of Frozen Aura's footstomp, but still great. Claws blender mode sitting high across the board makes sense (if/until you run these for Stalker where accepted wisdom is it'd be near bottom) and is good to see too, another set I think is often assumed lower performing than it is. Also, I totally missed that Tanker Fiery Melee has its own special area attack... Definitely just bumped way up my list of next things to try.

That is very interesting! I'll have to dig into your builds some. Obviously Trapdoor favors personal AoE damage, where in group situations single target damage may be more impactful, but since I personally like doing big area numbers this is handy! Seeing Savage at the top took me aback a bit, but also nice to see, I know when I play Savage characters (especially on tank) it feels amazing, hitting so many things with big area attacks constantly. Do you think the teleport attack to lead off helped some there too? Martial Arts being that high and Energy Melee being so low are the other stand outs. MA's single PBAoE putting in a lot of work there?

That seems like an... interesting and ill-advised choice? Skipping Adaptation on bio means giving up the damage proc and +% damage buff from offensive stance alone, ignoring the flexibility the other two stances offer even. That's a very large increase to your effectiveness on its own, more than you'll get from any single other power, especially since it requires zero slots. Adaptation makes everything else you do, better, its very efficient. Staff Mastery is the same. Requires no slots, makes all your other attacks/powers better. Stalker version of Staff does not have Staff Mastery, and is far worse off for it. You may not have noticed the impacts, but Mids lets you see them pretty quick. Just looking at Mercurial Blow, 6 slotted with Mako's just to get some basic stats. Base damage is 125.4 (113.7 from the atttack, 11.74 average from the Mako proc), turn on Offensive Adaptation and it does 157.6, the rest coming from the toxic proc. And the proc scales! Skysplitter goes from 532 damage to 622. And all that is before the +30% damage buff you get for being in offensive adaptation that gets added to Hardened Carapace. That moves Mercurial up to 177.4, and Skysplitter up to 697! That's a 42% increase in Mercurial Blow damage and 31% increase to Skysplitter. That's a full damage IO. Think of both of those as being able to add 1enhancement slots to all your other powers, each, above the 6 limit, and the ability to change them all out at the click of a button between damage procs, endurance reducers, recharge times, resists, end mod, etc. That's a lot of power for 1 pick. It certainly could be done! Just like petless MMs are a thing, and Hide-less stalkers are a thing now. Its an idea, but, not a good idea 😃

Hard to throw a build together without knowing your goals or budget, so, lacking that, I built one how I'd build for myself, which is to level to 50 in style and then move to the next. Below is a leveling IO'd out build, no purple sets, no winter set, no superior sets, so everything can be slotted by your late 20s while leveling up and the 40+ powers are nice to have but not build defining, so you'll be mostly set by Manticore / Numina TF time. You can move powers around or switch CJ/SJ for Fly/Hover. Doesn't have hasten, I'd probably drop One with the Shield for hasten if you wanted. This will hit right about the defense cap solo, and with people near you, you'll be near the incarnate defense cap. With +res procs (easy) you'll be over 90% S/L and ~60% others. You can switch Quick Strike for Body Blow at some point if you want, or even when leveling, the quicker refreshing attack is nice for 1-20 though. If you're using this character beyond 50 into incarnate content, you'd want a much different build! You'll want to drop some attacks (focused burst is first to go) and get a real Epic Pool, probably more procs and assume you'll be getting more defense and such from incarnates and teammates. This will let you essentially tackle all leveling TFs without breaking a sweat. I'll say though, if you're remembering Energy melee from live, the set has had a major revamp here on homecoming and is now a top tier set in most situations. Kinetic Melee is, sadly, probably the set in need of the most love and one of the lowest performers. This would be a more powerful build as Shield/EnergyMelee and pretty easy to switch to that. (Ignore slot levels below, and the weird repeated stuff at the bottom, export link got weird)

Overwhelming Force DMG+KB->KD is unique, Sudden Acceleration KB->KD is not, so you can have 1 of OF and as many SA ones as you need