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

Gravity Control perhaps for biotics? There's some overlap with some of its powers and some biotics. Gravity/Energy Dominator? Force Fields has some overlap, especially with the force bolt and bomb, and barrier was a biotic power. So she could do an FF+Dual Pistol (or Assault Rifle) Corruptor or Defender.

Yea looks to be a bug in Mids. Just checked in game it is indeed a builder on all 4 ATs. That's too bad, that instant refreshing Shred sounds pretty nice 😃

Hmm... that's not what Mid's say currently. Did something change or is Mid's wrong? Shred: Melee (Cone), Moderate DMG(Letahl), Foe Minor DoT(Lethal), -Def(All), Self -Blood Frenzy +Special You rapidly slash at your foes several times causing a moderate amount of damage to all enemies in front of you and reduce their defenses. Shred also causes minor lethal damage over time. This power consumes all stacks of Blood Frenzy and will deal slightly more damage per stack. Additionally, Shred has a 20% chance to immediately recharge itself for each stack of Blood Frenzy. Using this power with 5 stacks of Blood Frenzy causes you to become Exhausted. edit: Looks to be a builder on Tanker, spender on Brute, Scrapper and Stalker.

First note on Savage is the blood frenzy stacks. You gain up to 5 of them, and they are what give you recharge and end cost reduction. Some skill use the stacks for enhanced effect, but if you use the skill at 5 stacks, you actually get a minor debuff (Exhausted) which prevents you from gaining stacks for a very short time. So there's an argument to be made for doing all you can to build to 4 and spend. In practice that gets tricky, so I tended not to worry about it. Also, the build up power, Blood Thirst, instant grants 5 so you can exhaust yourself, then hit that to get back as well, though you'll exhaust again after. Spending on the PBAoE will make it a larger radius which is great, spending on Shred the cone will make it do more damage. Savage definitely has some skippable powers. You'll want one or the other of the t1/t2. T1 Maiming Slash is the harder hitting, slower animating one, and Savage Strike is faster to animate and refresh. Long term you'll probably want Maiming, but Savage might be smoother early on, so a respec option. If you have the scrapper ATOs, this is where I'd put the Critical Strikes ATO proc. Of the rest, I'd say skip Hemorrhage and Confront and grab the rest. Hemorrhage is the single target frenzy spender, but shred (the melee cone) works there too. I think maybe this got buffed, but it was always the least impressive power. This will leave you with Vicious Slash + Savage/Maiming as your only single target attacks, and Shred will become part of your single rotation then, if you don't like that, try Hemorrhage out? But honestly with some recharge and hasten you can get to where your lowest tier attacks is nearly able to be an attack chain of 1. Bio is very much a grab everything set. There's not a bad power! For Bio, you can optionally 'proc bomb' some powers, turning them into offensive tools as well. DNA Siphon and Parasitic Aura will both accept a ton of 'Chance for Damage' IOs from a variety of sets, so at the cost of a bit less survivability, you can put those in. DNA Siphon with 5 damage procs can do nearly 400 base damage in an area as a.... heal. You'll mostly want to run in Offensive Stance, but can flip to Efficient if you're a bit low on endurance, or Defensive if you need to tank for a bit, very flexible. Because bio is a layered set (defense+resist+regen+absorbs) it benefits from having tough and weave greatly.

I'd recommend Savage Melee if that isn't too close to Claws for you animation wise. Its a fast refreshing, low endurance cost set. Its mechanic stacks -end cost and +recharge so fits both active play and low down time. For secondary, perhaps Bio? Which thematically can go well with Savage, is an active set with a number of high impact click effects, and features very high regen and recovery. Between the two, you'll have more buttons to click in the shortest period of time and would have to really push things to ever run out of endurance. Bio is a top tier set as well, it will feel leaps and beyond more survivable out of the box than regen. I played a Bio/Savage tanker and it was the most frenetic character I've played. Savage animations make you feel like you're doing more than you really are (in a good way, I'd push my attack buttons in times with its multi-attack animations just because it felt right), the teleport AE has you bouncing all over and spinning around and bio gives you a lot of active mitigation tools.

Build looks completely fine to my eyes! Biggest thing the changes would allow for is taking powers sooner if you wanted to for exemplar reasons (could grab Overcharge at level 26 instead of 32 now, for example) but the Sentinel changes would just make you do more damage with this build than before without needing any other adjustments. The Chance for Opportunity ATO proc works differently with the new mechanic, if that is a consideration for keeping or replacing the ATO set.

If you're trying to make things a bit harder on yourself (As, I think any of those pairings will in fact be plenty strong), SR/Claws. Claws has a fast attack chain and can start to chew through your end quickly despite somewhat lower costs, and SR has additional recharge and no end support, so a bit more difficult. Ice has end management in it, so would be 'easier' there for general play. If you want to be a rarer combo, Ice/DB or Claws both I do not recall ever seeing! Where SR/Claws or SR/DB I have.

Ice/Invuln would be my vote. Invuln is just always good from a raw numbers perspective. Ice Melee will give you consistent knockdown with Ice Patch which is huge for survivability on its own, then -recharge on most other attacks, and even some sleep in Frozen Aura. Some other sets can do similar, anything with KD, but Ice Patch is probably the largest increase to tankiness in the melee sets.

Another vote that Super Reflexes is very nice on tankers, and I'd agree with Astralock that in most cases Shield is better, but, SR shines on a tanker. Due to our larger health pool, ATOs giving nice resist bonuses, SRs innate scaling resists get more time to work well. You'll drop to half health faster than most other tank sets, but, you can stay there almost indefinitely. I slotted +chance for heals/aborbs all over the place (Power Transfer, Preventive Medicine, Panacea). Different style but works very well.

I'd say both of these are pretty accurate, but what is funny is that when you combine the two of them (Fiery Aura+MA Tanker) you end up with a very potent tanker. MA with its +def helps Fire Armor out a ton, as do its knockdowns, and Burn gives MA the area attacks it is missing. That combo was one of my strongest tanks, not tankiest tank, but was able to kill very fast to make up for it. Kinetic Melee was the worst feeling of the primaries I've tried so far. Looks cool, but always felt like a lot of hand waving to have everything die before you get attacks off.