Jibikao

If it's a true AV-status, range Fortunata will have a hard time beating due to lower dps but this doesn't make Fort "suck". Fort, in my honest opinion, is one of the best ATs in the game when you factor in survival, mez protection, control, team buffs and damage.

Well, one is a bit too extreme but hey, I don't mind if they don't put any # of player restriction.

Last week the strike target is Tin Mage. It seems to me that most people just join Trial team to unlock Alpha and advance than trying to do "shard runs" or weekly for Wells.

I don't blame them because I am one of them too. I find doing trials a much faster way to get Incarnate abilities.

However, I also like to do regular Strike Forces. I like change of scenery too. The problem I had is it took me much longer to form a Tin Mage than before. In fact, in one of the runs we had to use a "dummy" (basically a second account) to start the SF.

With player population being "imbalanced" (meaning a large portion playing 50s and not enough in other zones), is it too much to ask for a reduction in the Player Requirement?

I am not asking for a reduced mob size or anything. Keep the same mob size for x8 players. We just want to start the SF and enjoy the challenge and rewards in the end.

We've done Apex with 5 people before and we loved it. We didn't want to do it on purpose but since trials came out, it is much harder to form a full team for Apex/Tin Mage. We had to use two dummy accounts and one player crashed. The problem with dummy account is that we don't always have dummy accounts available.

The SFs that could use reduction in player requirement:
Lady Grey down to 6
Tin Mage down to 6
Apex down to 6
ITF down to 4

Any thoughts?

The only argument I can think of is that "oh, that means people can farm those SFs easier!". Well, how is this different from farming in AE? If you want to allow farms, you might as well let the players to do the contents the dev created easier. If the # of player is lessen, we can do those SFs easier and get Shard pieces.

I like Lord Recluse the most and followed by the Sand Man.

I have to say, most patrons look good except for Mako. A "shark" man as patron just seems out of picture to me. Ghost Widow, Sand Man and Black Scorpian all tie to the arachno enemies really well but a "shark" enemy? I don't think any of the enemy is close to a type of "fish".

Oh wait... there is Crab. Never mind. lol

A crab looks a lot closer to "Spider Armor" though.

What can realistically be added to Stalker that doesn't involve "more damage"?

Let's assume we already have too many ATs doing too much damage. What would you add to Stalker's gameplay that is beneficial to both soloing and large team?

Well, one thing we know is that MM Thermal actually uses Corruptor level resistance but the debuffs and damage buffs are lower.

This strikes me as very strange because they broke some rules (MM is supposed to support "less"). I wish they could broken some rules for Trick Arrows as well. That set's debuff value is so freaking low. They could have increased the -damage and -tohit part.

The numbers you used is based on Corruptor's version? I didn't know about:
Hellfire Demonling Attacks: -30%
Hellfire Gargoyle Attacks: -40%

The pets themselves can debuff up to 30% and 40%? Are you sure about this? I have a lvl 32 Demon/TA who I no longer play and I've never noticed that strong of resistance debuffs.

I still think /sonic is going to be under-performing for most primaries. Demon (and maybe Thug) is the only one that I think may work (due to the reasons you have listed above).

Resistance-set on pets just don't work as well unless you have constant healing to back it up. That's why I think /Thermal works well on Demon. Demon themselves have some healing and they offer even more resistance.

I don't think Demon/Sonic is going to any more "over-powering" than Demon/Trap or Demon/Dark.

/Sonic is going to be terrible on Ninja for sure but resistance is harder to get than defense so if you plan to team with others, /sonic can be a good thing.

Oh yes! I just soloed a pylon on my Ninja/FF. I thought I would die for sure because pylon's aoe damage is so high and I don't have bodyguard/taunt.

I was using tier 4 Musculature and tier 1 Reactive and some envenom dagger.

I know soloing pylon doesn't seem like a big deal nowadays but I never thought my Ninja/FF could do it. Definitely not before the group aoe buff because I would have ran out of endurance for sure.

I've tried it with Merc/Poison, Necro/Pain and Merc/Storm and they all failed pretty bad (I don't use taunt). The aoe damage is so high that the +resistance doesn't work. I either run out of endurance or not doing enough damage 'cause I am always resummoning/reupgrading.

Ninja's damage is really quite high.

Where is your Single Hold?

I've seen one lvl 41 Dominator (fire/fire) in St. Marital with no single hold during Double Exp weekend.

I really can't figure out how he/she leveled to 41 without ST hold. The only reason I can think of is being power leveled.

Dominator without Single Hold is like Scrapper with no shields running.

One thing I want to mention:

My Mastermind took Tactics but it is still not good enough for Lore pets when I fight against +3. Both Vanguard pets miss pretty often against certain mobs, like Ritki Drones.

On my Fortunata who has Tactics and Mind Link and uses Clockwork, the lore pets rarely miss because I believe their attacks have pretty strong -defense.

So if you are a Scrapper and you have no -defense (like Martial Arts), then Clockwork may be a better choice. I've always thought that if you are melee and you don't have support powers for your pets, it is better to use range-only pets so they don't die. A dead pet does zero damage. I haven't found one instance where Sorcerer runs close to melee range. Clockwork boss has. However, the most satisfying thing about Clockwork is that Chest Beam. It does a lot of range burst damage.

I only have experience with Vanguard Core. The boss pet, while not doing superior ST dps, stays at range almost 99% of the time and she has decent aoe damage and a self heal. She can REALLY survive on her own. She does elemental damage.

I am not sure what your epic powers are but if you think you need more aoe damage (which is what MA is lacking), Vanguard Sorcerer is not bad at all.

Now the lieut pet is interesting. He has two range and one melee. The Bayonet attack actually reduces target's Lethal resistance (which fits my Ninja/FF). I didn't know about the lethal resistance debuff until I took it. I can't remember if it debuffs Smashing damage which your MA has.

Of all the range-only pets, I believe Sorcerer is the only one that truly stays at LONG range. Clockwork boss has a power that only has 60' range and that causes him to go forward a bit. Drones' cone only has 60 or 40 range. I can't remember which.

Seer boss pet stays at long range too but she doesn't do any aoe damage at all. I can't remember which boss pet that truly stays at range. I just know Sorcerer always stays at range. In fact, sometimes she stays so far back and I need to lure her closer.

Basically if you are looking for a Boss pet that doesn't run in and survives well, Sorcerer is a great choice.

I don't play Defender much but I find myself very hard not to pick Sonic Blast. Defender's version debuff so much.

I would also consider Ice and Fire Blast because just like some have said, the Rain type of powers do the same damage regardless of AT (although Corr's Rain can scourge).

I would only consider Archery if I am Trick Arrow.

Yeah, I enjoy the repel effect more than the knockback effect. I mostly use repel to position enemies or to stop melee coming at me. On my Merc/Storm Mastermind, I mostly just stand on the back with hurrican running. So enemies that want to come at us will get pushed back.

The -kb can be useful because you can keep them repelled while debuffing their tohit.