Jibikao

I haven't played Dual Blade on scrapper/brute/tanker but I won't be surprised if DB performs better against AV because it has follow-up type of power that you can stack. Stacking follow-up on Scrapper is so good because Scrapper's base damage is so high.

Poor Stalkers...

And yes, Focused Strike is so slow. It is a poor attack chain. I wonder if Quick, Body and Smashing Strike is just good enough?

There was an old thread about Placate + AS. I don't remember the specifics because I think there is a pretty big difference between soloing an AV and using AS on a large team because your regular attacks have an increased chance to critical (well, most of them). For example, I think Martial Arts benefit more by not using AS on a large team because it has many heavy hitters that can critical. On the other hand, Spines should benefit a lot from AS because its heavy attacks are so slow already.

I just know when I am doing SF, I rarely use AS even on AVs. I may use it as the battle opener and that's it. It just feels so slow. I definitely don't use AS on regular bosses at lvl 50 because a lot of time, it is either overkilling (because somebody already hurt him so much) or hitting a dead body.

Energy Drain is good. Slot it with a mix of healing/+end recovery. It's auto hit and it allows you to continue fighting most of the time. The healing part is small but it does help if you hit more than 2 targets. Don't treat Energy Drain as a 'healing" power. Just use it as +endurance and whatever healing you get is just bonus.

- Energy Protection passive is good. Any passive with +resistance is great because it's much harder to get resistance than defense. It's a passive with 3 +resistance type. Very good.

Yeah, you don't really need Hover or Fly before lvl 22. And if you are on villain side, temp fly pack is good enough!

Edit: Slot some -end because it costs like 13 end to use it. There were times when my end was really low and when I hit Energy Drain, my toggles went off. Just a bit of -end helps a lot.

But placate with AoE isn't good for AV soloing. And Placate with AS have conditions. I was wondering if Placate + Eagle Claw or Midnight or even Total Focus can increase dps a bit that's all.

Blah..so placate hurts dps that bad? That's one area they can improve to make it happen faster. :P

Wow, didn't know that!! I thought 7.5% is capped at x5. Damn. I need to replan my perma dom build then.

I've been playing Dominators for a long time and I have no problem using melee/range (in fact, one of my favorite attacks is Radiant Strike!). When I say synergy, I guess I mean PB doesn't excel in any category even though he has access to many tools (including healing). An all-range human form's damage just seems too low to me. An all melee Human has mez protection problem and no psionic resistance (but this is lesser of the problem) and two aoe knocks back, not down. An aerial Human form can't use one of the better aoe attack Solar Flare. The only thing that stacks well is -defense which is probably the least important debuff in the game except when you put procs (but I've said it many times that a Primary/Secondary Set shouldn't be balanced with invention Sets in mind; hence why MM Merc needs buffs because without procs, they deal pathetic damage).

And when I look at Tanker form, WS's Dwarf just seems better. I have not really tried tri-form and as far as I can tell, both Squid forms are about the same?

Yeah... basically, PB has a lot of tools but they don't synergize as well as WS. PB has two range and two melee so to deal most dps in human form, you have to melee, which I am fine with. What I really hate is Solar Flare's aoe knockback.

I was going to try Hover thinking that most of Pbs I've seen do aerial combat but then you can't use Solar Flare in air. It's like whatever I plan out, it seems to have obstacles.

I think Assassin Strike doesn't scale well with higher difficulties IMO. When you first got it, you feel like "Oh yeah!!! Big damage!" You can one-shot a boss with build up and you feel like this is what Stalker is really about. It also helps that other ATs don't do this "big" damage (yet) so you feel like you have a purpose on a larger team.

But as you level higher and past lvl 38, your assassin strike doesn't have that big impact anymore and you feel like it's dragging you down by setting it up. Your Stalker is supposed to be the "threat removal" for the team but other ATs also have tools to "remove threat" just as efficiently (brutes can tank better, dominator controls better, MMs have two upgrades and more buffs/debuffs).

I haven't used my stalker in either Apex or Tin Mage. I guess I should try and see how effective Assassin Strike is. I know it won't be too effective against those pylon/hydras and possibly not too effective against all those elite bosses.