Oysterhead

What I've learned from this thread is that Icy Bastion and its status as best T9 armor power is not well known/understood 😉 For reference, Icy Bastion for Stalker/Scrapper is: +37.5% Resist to all but Psi, +400% Regen, +200% recovery, +status protection to everything (essentially max all). 30s duration, 300s recharge, no crash. With decent slotting and global recharge it becomes 'cap all resists' and as Ratch mentioned, is available about 30% of the time. I haven't played a Brute/Tanker with Ice Armor to max yet (it is on the list!) so can't comment on the exacts, but Hibernate always seemed very underwhelming and extremely narrow situational use? But also that situational use exists in theory, vs many other sets T9s being made redundant by the sets themselves. I like this idea of a lingering effect after turning the ice block off. It carries some risk/reward play, if you pop it early when otherwise safe for the buff, you lose the safety net ability during the cooldown, but if you use it in an emergency, lets you pop out early with benefit and be of more immediate use to the team.

Curious if anyone knows this. Looking at the Focus stacks, they read as +33% chance to crit per stack, which sounds additive to me ("Each stack of this buff boosts Assassin's Strike's chance to critically (hit while the user is not hidden) by 33.3%."). I assume that is on top of normal crit chance, so solo, 10% base, 1 stack = 43%, 2 stacks = 76%, 3 stacks = 100%. In a team, that's 31% base, 1 stack = 64%, 2 stacks = 97%, 3 stacks = 100%. Is it really additive or just overriding to static 33/66/100? Because if additive, on a team, the difference between 2 stacks and 3 stacks is almost nothing. And even solo its minor.

Just duration these days. When the taunt auras were normalized for tankers back in i26 page 4, the taunt aura magnitude was bumped up to 4 across the board, identical to Taunt the skill. Likewise all attacks and gauntlet apply a mag 4 taunt as well. Taunt does last nearly 3x what the auras do though.

There was a similar question on this over on the Brute forum, from the perspective of Taunt vs Taunt Aura, I'll copy my response from that to here as its relevant for tankers too, and matches what Gobbledegook said: "I mostly play tankers, and nearly always take taunt, so my thought is... Skip Taunt. Taunt even on a tanker has a very narrow use. Auras do the majority of the heavy lifting, taunt for me is primarily a way to force ranged enemies into melee (taunts have a -range effect on them!) without having to run after them, or get a second group to begin running towards you without actually going over there, but if you're in massive groups of enemies the aggro cap is limiting that anyhow. That cap limit can be worked around by standing with others (preferably melee characters with taunt auras), so taunt is oddly best used when you have a lot of tanks/brutes already. Taunt does last a lot longer though, Aura taunt runs out after ~14s (if you've stepped out of range...), Taunt lasts 40s. I struggle to think of many situations where things live that long that you aren't already going to be standing toe to toe with, or you aren't in situation where you are so far over the aggro cap that this is all out the window anyhow. Nearly all of what you can do with taunt you can do by merely hopping over to the other group, letting your aura pulse once, and then jumping back. So its whether you can spare a power slot to save you and your team the occasional confusion/chaos of enemies running around a bit is the issue (And lets face it, someone has probably area immobilized them already anyhow). I think there's this expectation that taunt saves squishy characters, but, taunt only hits 5 things. If a blaster has jumped into a x8 sized crowd and you aren't already in the middle of it, taunt won't save them. Taunt will make 5 things turn to you while the other 10 continue to kill the blaster. Jumping into them and the aura pulsing will work faster. The only other thing I could think of in favor of a brute taking it is that the auras have a target cap of 10, so when you jump into a pack you won't on the first pulse get everythings attention. Likely have a few pulses everything will have been hit once. But even with taunt, you'd have to make a split second decision on which ones already got hit and which closest 5 didn't and try to hit them with taunt to get yourself up to the aggro cap.. without overlap. Not realistic. So taunt has its uses, I'll probably keep picking it up on my tankers, I don't think anyone brute or tanker should hesitate to ditch it if you can't fit it."

/macro_image "TrickArrow_Slow" "Glue Arrow" "powexec_location target Glue Arrow" That'll create a new icon button that turns Glue Arrow into a targeted AoE. With a broken icon! I could not figure out where to get the icon names, anyone know where there's a list of those? Now fixed icon, thanks arcane! Sub in other icons and skill names to make them for any other powers.

There are macro commands you can use to execute location AoE powers at a targets location with a single button press. I'll see if I can dig them up for you if someone hasn't before I get to it. But that essentially solves this issue, you can make location AoE powers into Target AoE powers on demand.

Energy Aura does have a taunt aura for scrappers. its about as bad as they come, 2.25 seconds, just above Willpower, but exists. (Energy Aura on scrapper also get +recharge per enemy in range, which may be why they have it?)

I've been mostly avoiding this thread, but here's my thoughts. I think your original basic suggestion of focus stacks refreshing is a decent enough one, though I honestly don't mind it as it is. I mentally adjusted that +66% additive crit chance is still friggin huge and a-OK to use if Assassin's Strike is off cool down but not yet at 3 stacks. So then, while annoying, occasionally dropping a stack and not critting didn't upset me as much, given how often I felt I gambled and won with a crit at 2 stacks. Could it be smoother? Sure. If we were able to pick fix priority, the chance for a stack rates being examined is what I'd look at. (Ice Melee Frozen Touch i know has a bug report out right now that it doesn't grant 100%, unlike all other attacks with its recharge) Assassin's Strike doing more damage from Hide is not a change I'd like to see. I vastly prefer the current style of Stalker play, I hated Stalkers when they first released with the hide-strike-placate-strike style. I get you want the option open, but if it becomes numerically superior to keep dropping into hide again to do slow attacks, that's style of gameplay is not remotely appealing. I could ignore it, knowing I am playing how I want, but not playing something to its fullest capacity does not sit well with me either. In Stealth AS is an occasional bonus and I'm fine with it being that. As for the money thing... and millions of influence of IOs. Well, that seems intimidating at first certainly, but in reality that's a pretty low bar once you have some experience and time in game, and if you've played multiple characters to their 40s, should be very easy to reach. If you haven't done so, really look into how Merits become Influence on the AH. It is playstyle dependent, but if you play through Posi and Synapse TFs, you'll be around level 20 and have 70+ merits, which become 14million influence, and are nearly enough to buy most of what tidge laid out. Hit up the Weekly Strike forces and you accumulate money very quickly, and that's the most passive way. My first stalker ever I was able to buy the two proc ATOs, self funded, by my mid 20s. I now pass them (and a ton more) down to new stalkers. Most people are far richer than they even realize in game, they just haven't taken the time to convert their recipe/merit wealth into influence.

This is the thread what has SwitchFade's build: Here's an update to date Mids build of it (with minor modifications, he uses CJ/SJ I switched those to Hover/Fly, and I dropped the superiors to normals for leveling slotting, dropped 1 slot from hasten to add a power transfer heal) that I've had saved for one of my upcoming characters I haven't played this build yet, but it does look pretty monstrous in potential:

Definitely the case. And even then you need very good recovery debuffs, which most electric attacks don't have. Electric Assault, Electrical Melee, Electric Blast all have a -100% recovery debuff attached to most of their attacks, but it only lasts 2 seconds, and most (all?) are only a chance to even do that, so 20% chance to do -100% recovery for 2 seconds. So even if you luck out and get the debuff, if you back off from attacks for even a bit the enemy will recover some endurance and be able to attack. However, Electric Control for Dom/Controller gets longer duration recovery debuffs. Tesla Cage is 4 seconds, 30% chance, Chain Fences is 6 seconds, 40% chance, Jolting Chain is 8 seconds, 50% chance, Synpatic Overload is 8 seconds, 100% chance. Gremlins have 2 attacks wiht 30% 4seconds. Starts to get to where you can keep something at zero endurance if you keep momentum up. Electric Affinity gets good tools here too, nothing at -100% but they get a 25 seconds -50% in Discharge (MM only) and -75% for 25 seconds in Shock. Of course then you have no way to drain with just that. Elec/Elec Controller or Elec/Elec Dom have the best chance of really sapping stuff and keeping it at nothing for a bit, and its still constant work.

Shinobi-Iri! 1. Yes, its a global increase to crit chance, area attacks included! 2. Not sure, I think it does stack? In mids, Eagle Claw power list as increasing 'GlobalChanceMod ECCritMod' for Player/Small/Large by 33%, and Shinobi-Iri lists GlobalChanceMod PlayerCrit, MLCrit, BossCrit, Large, Small and CritPlayer by 75%. Give then different names, (ECCritMod vs just XCrit) That seems to be a global chance to hit enemies to crit more, and then a global chance for Eagle Claw specifically on its own. No idea if they stack additively, multiplicatively, if it takes the best, or what though.

I'm in the midst of a SR/Kin melee at the moment. SD is similar enough, I don't see any reason they wouldn't work well together. For attacks in KM, I'm skipping Body Blow and Concentrated Strike. Concentrated is a long animation for a single target attack and ends up worse damage per animation than all the other single target attacks. Smashing Blow + Quick Strike are enough once you get your area attacks and Focused Burst. You'll probably want Repulsing Torrent, otherwise the sustained area damage is pretty low with just Burst + Shield Charge, but put a KB->KB in that quick. I went deep into Fighting to get Cross Punch for more area attacks as an experiment, its... not a bad way to go? This is a super rough build, I took my SR/KM build dropped Shield Defense on top of it, and moved things around a tiny bit (dropped cross punch, bit of slotting shifts), I'm sure there's much better ways to do this, but to give you an idea: That build has Weave, but doesn't need Weave... in a group. Phalanx Fighting is a big part of Shield. Solo, no weave: 39% melee, 33% ranged, 35% AoE. Solo, with weave: 47%/41%/43%, Near Two people no weave: 53/47/50, With Weave and 2 people: 61/56/58 (three people would incarnate soft cap you to everything) Tough you need, both for S/L resists and set potential. Add 11% to resists for the ATO proc and you're just shy of S/L caps and 62 to E/N, 50 to F/C/T 45 Psi. I do have 3 IOs boosting Psi that you could swap out if that isn't as big a deal to you. No purples/superiors/Winter sets. Moderate procs on attacks. Upgrade to superior ATOs and purple/winter sets and those numbers go up a nice bit.

No idea on slotting, but a quick call out that there's a quick handy mod in the CoH Modder tool to turn Umbra Beast's howl off 😉 (Really a great tool with easy to install mods all around, not sure folks are fully aware of)

Correct. That's the big strength of this combo, both Lightning Rod and Shield Charge work by spawning pseudopets to do their damage, which the game does not consider to be offensive action from the stalker, so you stay in hide. Which means you can do both back and back, still be in hide the whole time, get the bonus crit on all of that AoE damage, and still open with another attack for additional bonus crit chance. Against all Odds is a pretty hefty damage bonus stacking. Equal to eating a small red or two at all times in a crowd (10% with 1 thing in range, up to 59.5% with 10), and -7.5% damage to everything, which is better than resists as it helps everyone and goes above the cap in the formula. General question for anyone, as I have an Elec/SD stalker in the wings I plan to play soon as well, anyone ever experimented with putting performance shifter +end procs in attacks that accept it (which looks to be all but Lightning Rod, Assassin's and Thunder Strike) to offset some endurance concerns? 1.5ppm is a bit low, and its trading damage.

Please ask me again in another month or two when I've finished my journey of trying every set on tankers. Also this question is not fair. All of my tankers are my favorite tankers.

Tier 3 secondary power Shinobi-Iri cannot be selected at level 4, which I believe is the universal level available for Tier 3 powers on every other secondary set for all ATs in the game. Confirmed in game and City of Data even has this marked as such. Minor inconvenience obviously, as level 4 opens up Power Pools, so reshuffling builds is easy enough, but did create a confusing few minutes for me!

Quick tip for Mids until it gets updated, Afterburner is the power that got replaced with Evasive Maneuvers and accepts the same sets and IOs. So you can pick that and actually drop the LotG into it 😃

I mostly play tankers, and nearly always take taunt, so my thought is... Skip Taunt. Taunt even on a tanker has a very narrow use. Auras do the majority of the heavy lifting, taunt for me is primarily a way to force ranged enemies into melee (taunts have a -range effect on them!) without having to run after them, or get a second group to begin running towards you without actually going over there, but if you're in massive groups of enemies the aggro cap is limiting that anyhow. That cap limit can be worked around by standing with others (preferably melee characters with taunt auras), so taunt is oddly best used when you have a lot of tanks/brutes already. Taunt does last a lot longer though, Aura taunt runs out after ~14s (if you've stepped out of range...), Taunt lasts 40s. I struggle to think of many situations where things live that long that you aren't already going to be standing toe to toe with, or you aren't in situation where you are so far over the aggro cap that this is all out the window anyhow. Nearly all of what you can do with taunt you can do by merely hopping over to the other group, letting your aura pulse once, and then jumping back. So its whether you can spare a power slot to save you and your team the occasional confusion/chaos of enemies running around a bit is the issue (And lets face it, someone has probably area immobilized them already anyhow). I think there's this expectation that taunt saves squishy characters, but, taunt only hits 5 things. If a blaster has jumped into a x8 sized crowd and you aren't already in the middle of it, taunt won't save them. Taunt will make 5 things turn to you while the other 10 continue to kill the blaster. Jumping into them and the aura pulsing will work faster. The only other thing I could think of in favor of a brute taking it is that the auras have a target cap of 10, so when you jump into a pack you won't on the first pulse get everythings attention. Likely have a few pulses everything will have been hit once. But even with taunt, you'd have to make a split second decision on which ones already got hit and which closest 5 didn't and try to hit them with taunt to get yourself up to the aggro cap.. without overlap. Not realistic. So taunt has its uses, I'll probably keep picking it up on my tankers, I don't think anyone brute or tanker should hesitate to ditch it if you can't fit it.

The BU Proc is the Gaussian's proc that Marshal_General mentioned right above your post. So yes 😃

It was! Taunt auras were normalized on tankers (i26 page 4, same one that made the big tanker damage & area attack changes) and Rise to the Challenge applies mag 4 15 second taunt to everything now, like all other tanker auras.

With Dark Armor, I think you're looking for either of two things: Stacking disorients with Oppressive Gloom, or trying to offset Dark Armor's notorious endurance upkeep costs. On the endurance side, Staff with its Forms can give a nice endurance discount and recovery bonus, and Savage Melee with stacking blood frenzy is a big endurance discount. Staff even has two ST disorients (though you'll almost certainly skip Precise Strike, so just 1). Dark Melee works too as it has Dark Consumption, though Siphon Life is less impressive for Dark Armor since it has such good healing on its own, but that could work as an easy passable power. On the disorient side, WM has an area chance to disorient, and ST one. Street Justice has 3 attacks with disorient that most builds always pick. Super Strength + Dark Armor makes a good case for taking Hand Clap for instant area stunning all around. Energy Melee's ST and cone attacks all have it (but not its PBAoE). Kinetic a couple, Stone Melee has Fault and Stone Fist, Rad Melee's two really big attacks have it, MA has it on several. The third possibility is to increase defense! Dark has decent starting defense built in with Cloak of Darkness, and you can push it towards all softcaps easily through your attack set and IO sets. Staff's Guarded Spin is large Melee/Lethal defense (15%,) MA's Storm Kick is 10% to everything, Broadsword and Katana get a massive 21.4% to Melee/Lethal. I'd recommend Staff most of the time, unless disorients is what you're really after, in which case Energy Melee or Street Justice. I have a Dark/Staff in the 30s myself, it was probably the tankiest character I've played out of the box? At level 15ish I was softcapped to melee and sitting at 70+ all resists, and no endurance issues (granted with amplifiers) and it seemed to have huge potential.

It's bigger than the numbers would appear by themselves. While only a 36% gain in total gross end recovery, compared to your base end drain (1.23/s), you were at 0.73/s net endurance gain, and are now at 1,44/s, which is a 97% gain in net endurance recovery. You effectively doubled your recovery! I really like the look of this build. Adding it to my list to try out eventually!

The more I think about it, that makes more sense, purple patch after the total. So like you said, good against AVs but won't let you punch too far above your weight/level.

Hmm... I think we are saying the same thing? I'm not positive how it works, but I was under the impression that higher level enemies would resist a portion of the resistible effect, and take the entire portion of the unresistible effect. So if unenhanced, against a +4 the 5.63% unresistible hits, and then the (0.48*5.63) = 2.70 hits, for 8.33% total debuff. But that is an assumption, I'm not finding anything on the wiki to contradict that, though I only looked a bit. Are you thinking instead it is (5.63+(5.63*whatever base resists)*0.48, so even the unresistible half gets knocked down by the purple patch? I didn't think it worked that way, but am not positive. I've previously read on here that Flash Arrow is very good for this exact reason.

End game... they all get rather similar I feel? When you're fully IO'd out and all incarnates, all the melee classes are typically soft capped defense and/or with enough resists/regen/absorbs that you can be pretty fearless, stalkers are no exception. On the damage output side, stalker when compared to the others will depend on which primary was picked. Some of them drop a lot of area damage, while others drop very little. If you're in a group setting, a stalker can focus on bosses and up which are typically the largest danger (minions and lt will just drop dead near instantly regardless) and be contributing a ton. Solo is where area damage will matter a bit more, since as a stalker you have no taunt, you want to finish off pesky little things fast and then burn down the bosses. You can pick up the epic pools to add area damage as well (Mu and Blaze being very popular for that reason). Solo, something like Ninja Blade or Martial Arts with very low to no area damage is going to play a bit differently than a like a Claws/Bio or Elec/Shield with lots more AoE. Over on the scrapper forums there's the Trapdoor test thread, linked below. Stalkers are doing very well on that, keeping up with the scrappers for many builds.