Gilia

Just to clarify, it only suppresses when attacked in PvP. In PvE it's when "if you attack" only.

I believe the game's description is also slightly misleading. I can't test this at the moment, but I'm fairly certain that the difference is Fly will suppress and Hover won't. With that, outside bonuses become more useful on Hover. I believe if you have the jump pack from GvE edition, for example, or the Fool temp power, you can Hover around very quickly w/o suppressing when attacked. Though to be honest, as I'm thinking about this, I can't say if I've ever tried doing this with Fly. I just seem to recall that even with the outside +movement, Fly goes down to base Hover speeds.

Fly's base endurance cost is actually terrible. If you have no problem attacking with it on, your builds are nicely set for recovery and the like. I have some builds where my blue bar never drops at all unless I use Fly instead of Hover.

Hover is a wonderful place for an LotG:+Recharge and a Kismet: +6% tohit. That's what I have in it on most of my builds that took it.

Hover also has a much higher movement control and friction bonus. This, aside from the speed, can make it a much easier way to navigate caves and other tight places. You won't keep gliding when you try to stop.

W/o getting real into my keymapping scheme, on my flyers Hover is set to Shift+Z and Fly is set to Z. I switch between the two regularly, even just travelling around. I will also use hover to break from falling (no sliding) then switch to fly. It's a very fluid way of moving around, and it makes it really hard for me to switch to Super Jump or Teleport on other characters.

1) I'm sure it's possible, or at least darn near. Especially if you're talking level 50 style, as the amount of global recharge needed is going to drop a bit below the current 70% if you use whatever alpha enhancement does +recharge.

2) I agree with Steel. It's possible, but overkill. I've been running my main with no investment in defense at all and had no problems. With i19, I'm going to swap out for //Cold and end up with about 35% S/L. The way I look at it, Defense is an afterthought for Dominators.

3) Yes and no. I've done many speed run ITFs (25-30 minutes) where Plant/Fire dominators are basically cannon fodder. At the same time, my Mind/Energy Dominator does wonderfully because I have several controls that do not aggro (awesome with ambush heavy content), enough stealth to go unnoticed by all but AVs, and the ability to confuse, sleep, or hold any of the AVs.

Switch over to a "normal paced" TF, say where you're steam rolling, clearing, or even just not making an effort to get through it quick, and this is not the case. On steam rolling TFs (treating mobs almost like you would a farm) Plant/Fire will shine, because you have Seeds up so often and can do Blasterish damage. The DPS capabilities of some Plant/Fire will show up my Mind/Energy on some such teams/TFs, because my soft controls become less useful and I like the AoE and pets.

From what I've seen, Plant/Fire doesn't do very well on LGTFs, at least if they're done with much speed, and that's for various reasons.

Other than those two cases, I would be surprised to see if you had much issue. In fact, if you took Seeds at 8 you will have it no matter how much you exemplar for a TF. That's going to be an awesome addition to any low level TF. With that in mind, I would recommend you take the time and investment in a couple purples. Plant/ can use 4 of the cheaper ones (immo, hold, confuse, and sleep), with confuse and sleep being incredibly cheap for how good they are.

Cold Domination can pull off higher damage with high recharge builds because you can stack Sleet. Here's the post in Turbo_Ski's guide that explains some of that.

I believe the short version is because resistance debuffs are resisted by resistance (oh boy), stacking -res powers makes them more effective. The second one is less resisted than the first. Radiation can't do that alone.

The recharge:duration on Lingering Radiation is much better than Benumb. Using radiation, you only need about 100% global recharge to keep your target's regen floored. You need about 200% to do that with Cold. Cold has all these wonderful debuffs rolled into two powers instead of Radiation's three, so I believe that's the compromise.

I would bet Cold has a much higher damage potential with a build heavily invested in recharge. At SOs, I bet Radiation is better. I don't know where they would meet in the middle though.

I don't think that's actually nuff. The biggest problem I see with H Burst is its arc is half of Suppression.

Even with drawing the gun with the worst possible animation time, the DPA on H Burst is only about 10% less than Suppression. If the gun is already drawn, it's the opposite (H Burst would be about 10% more). So if your build has any other reason to draw the gun (Wide Area Web Grenade or reduce the KB of Frag Grenade) then there's no reason to skip H Burst. In fact, if you could form a consistent attack chain, the only reason not to take H Burst over Supp is, again, the smaller arc.

I personally like H Burst, Supp, and Venom because that's three different damage typesover wide areas.
On another build I have WAWG and WE from Mace Mastery to immobilize everything and bring their recharge way down.

I also don't see any problem with building for more recharge than you need for perma pets because... pets don't always die because they run out of time. Occasionally they will get killed the old fashion way.

The only thing I don't like about the second build is the investment in Gaussian's in a build that didn't shoot for soft-capped anything, or even a ton extra positional defense. Granted, there's not a ton of really good places to put those slots instead. Numina's in Health or Recharge IOs/Procs in your attacks, perhaps.

The only thing I know I would give up a slot there for is The Call to Arms proc in one of your pets with an open slot. Giving a horde of pets 5% defense seems better than giving yourself 2.5%.

If you're Achilless Heel proc crazy, Ninja Blade is the way to go. Two powers in DB have -def, while six do in Nin (including the quick recharge). Ninja Blade also has D Avalanche and S Dragon... awesome attacks for mitigating damage.

I've never been real keen on DB on Stalkers, but that extra cone attack is pretty tempting. Then there's the fact that Empower is a normal chain for Stalkers anyway (BU->Assassin->Placate) so it's very easy to leverage.

It's more or less a wash in my mind. If you're going to IO for soft capped defense, then the mitigation offered by Nin is less useful, and the extra AoE for DB will be more useful. If you're just going to lightly IO, I would stick with Ninja Blade.

The default is actually the "while in combat" number: 1.88%.

The unsuppressed, hidden, out of combat numbers are: 3.75% Melee and Ranged and 37.5% AoE Defense.

Is it showing 37.5% or 1.88% AoE Defense (note it will round in totals up to 1.9%)?

[Shield Defense.Grant Cover]

Interestingly enough, the wiki entry doesn't mention it, but Mid's and the game both do... it offers defense debuff resistance to everyone within 15'.

He already explained....
I really like this idea. They could be based around the Combat Training/passive powers that VEATS get. Reverse engineered, they'd be nothing spectacular, but might come in handy if you have specific goals for your build or would prefer to have a few more autos. The lack of 3-4 autos in my power pick ups, although welcome, is something that kind of nags at me as well.

Rename them and change the values to be appropriate, but it could just be:
CT: Offensive
Auto +Res (like you said, the mez prot in VEAT's auto+res's would not be welcome)
Mental Training
CT: Defensive

Well, I've played a Ice/Thermal Controller to 50 and a Necro/Pain Mastermind to 50. I just don't think they call for as much attention as Sonic Resonance :P.

I believe you forgot Suppress Pain/Soothing Aura on your count for Pain Domination. I base this on your number being one lower than my count and you didn't mention it when you talked about the level placement of solo powers.

For Pain, all I'd really like to see is a wider radius World of Pain. It's already pretty big, so why not? This is my personal taste of course. The other thing I'd like to see is Anguishing Cry get a slight reduction in recharge time. Without IOs, it can only be up half the time. That's a ways behind most other sets' -res. I agree Pain Bringer getting some +recharge would have been nice.

For Thermal, I really like how Forge works now. It's good off the bat and becomes awesome with more recharge. My only complaint for Thermal is similar to pain, which is that Heat Exhaustion and Melt Armor are so far from perma out of the box. Since Thermal has shields, heals, a rez, and some good buffs, I'm guessing the debuffs were given such high recharge intentionally to be a balance. "Fixing" Thermal would probably just make it too good.

I like the idea of a cone, though to give it a larger area (and maybe some ticks of damage), they'd have to balance that with a smaller target cap, either 10 or maybe even 5. Of course, what I had in mind was a small radius, small cap, targeted AoE. It'd be like using Electric Fences from the Brute Mu Mastery. It's a respectable amount of AoE, but it wouldn't break farming or make you able to handle a much bigger mob.

However, if they made it so it did not stack with Sonic Disruption, S Resonance would no longer have a leg up on the -res game in any sense. It would be brought down and into line with Cold Domination, Storm, and Radiation, and then Trick Arrow would become the -res queen.

I realize Sonic Resonance can't be balanced around Sonic blast, but Howl has a -20% AoE debuff on a 10 second recharge. Right now, Sonic Siphon is -30% with a 16 second recharge against one target. I don't see how making it an AoE, and leaving everything else the same, would be unbalanced. Some tweaks maybe, but no major draw backs, like perhaps bring the animation from 2.17 to 2.33 (what Howl has) or reduce Siphon's duration.

Currently, the leg up Siphon has on the regular attacks its duration is 30 seconds, vs the attacks' 8 seconds. Reducing it to say 20s or even 16s means it would still be perma, more effective than the attacks, and again, solidify Sonic as the best at -res.

The more I think about it, just upping Dispersion's resists and making Siphon AoE would be a good enough fix for Sonic Resonance. It addresses the parity of solo to team slightly, though not by the same measure you used (the quantity of powers would remain the same). I imagine a Sonic/Sonic Corruptor would become solidly the highest damage straight blaster setup with just this change.

The price of only doing 1 damage type, not leveraging Dark Sustenance, and amplifying all weaknesses does not seem worth it to me when you could use almost any other AT and just pick up Oppressive Gloom. Dark Armor, Dark Mastery, and MM's Soul Mastery all have it. That leaves what? Peace Bringers, VEATS, Controllers and Dominators? The Controller / Dominator could just use Fire/ or Earth/ and get the fast recharging AoE stun.

I would second some form of Cold Domination. The defense and Frostwork layered on a WS's awesome resists, and AoE -res to complement the Mire. That all sounds like gold to me. I'd probably back that up with Sonic Blast, Archery, or your favorite controller primary.

I actually meant to say "unenhancable." I think being able to fire off Disruption Field and Repulsion without an ally (but make these two actions mutually exclusive, where each one disables the other) would solve the problem likity split.

I get the impression that you might have been led to believe that Liquefy has a -res component. It doesn't . It's -def, -tohit, knockdown, hold, and slow.

So with that in mind, do you still think it's too much AoE -res? As DrMike pointed out, right now the AoE -res on Sonic is less than Trick Arrow's. Sonic only wins the -res game if you consider single targets, and even then it's not by much.

I'm still really keen on a solo-form of Disruption and Repulsion. This is an interesting take on it, however. It would take one of the team-only powers and make it in some regard solo only (most folks probably wouldn't like you doing PBAoE knockback in order to get the -res on there). It would maintain its "Controllers get more use out of it" with the -kb AoE immobilizes. In order not to heavily favor them, however, I would be inclined to say give it a smaller debuff with a long duration. Like -15% for 45 seconds or something like that.

I'm curious if you would still oppose Sonic Siphon as the AoE -res instead, knowing that Liquefy doesn't offer -res.

I would definitely start with Sonic Siphon, but before I throw s'more 2 cents at what DrMike offered, I have a couple other ideas.

I agree with your assessment that Dispersion needs to be upgraded a bit to balance with Force Field. A 33% increase in the resist values would do the trick.

Give Sonic Cage -regen and possibly -recovery, so when you time out somebody they stay where they are until you get back to them.


You aren't actually restricted to just Siphoning the boss. Granted, I would bet the numbers suggest you have to be on a close to full team or an already high damage team for continual applications of Siphon to be worth a lot more than the equivalent animation time and endurance of a good ST attack.

That's why I'm fully behind making it an AoE. Reduce the accuracy to 60% or 67.5% (from 75%) and give it a 5' radius. All of a sudden it's worthy of some slotting attention, competes with Sonic Blast for -res, and puts Resonance on top of the -res game.

This is too true. I'm a little less worried about it than I probably should be, tbh. I think part of the reason is that Sonic Resonance has strong proactive damage mitigation in the form of Dispersion and the Shields. The other sets depend on less reliable and reactive damage mitigation. I'd be curious to know if they ever do any datamining on the subject.

At any rate, I've actually gotten folks killed with the Disruption Field. I could get behind some mitigation there, for when you throw it on a pre-IO Scrapper or Stalker. The occasional knockdown or a -dmg debuff would do the trick.

Like I implied before, I like this. There's many advantages which I feel more than outweigh this draw back and it accounts for the most unique part of Sonic Resonance.

If they incorporated some way of using the team anchored powers while solo, I'd be all for that. Each of them could unlock an enhanceable power with a 30 second recharge that disables the toggle for 30 seconds when used. The duration would be 30 seconds as well. I just wouldn't want to see the current mechanics removed. Being able to enhance the tank's ability to tank while increasing the survivability of the DPS squishy without ever dedicating animation time mid-battle is part of why I love S Resonance.

I would actually argue the other support sets have too much self protection before I'd argue any are lacking. Self-protection and support aren't supposed to be the same thing.
I'm not sure if you accounted for the fact that Traps, FF, and Sonic are the only ones with self-mez protection. That's pretty significant, IMO.
I'll get into Liquefy later, but no, it does not have an unusually long recharge.
Sonic Siphon + Disruption Field gives Sonic the most -res on a ST of the sets, IIRC. It's a 50% bigger debuff than second place (Trick Arrow) and about double all the other major contenders (Rad, Thermal, Storm, Cold, Traps, and Dark).

Since it doesn't self stack, I could care less about its recharge being better. I would love to see it as a small AoE (5' radius?) with a slightly larger recharge. That is all. I suppose a lower recharge would help you spread it around, but simply making it a non-self-stacking AoE would make Sonic's lead on -res solid, and not make Sonic into a busy support set.

This is one change I agree with, and honestly, I think it really should have happened already. Force Field's version offers 33% more damage mitigation. What the heck!?

I'm not opposed to this, but it isn't going to happen. Sonic is also secretly awesome at mez protection, containing bother Dispersion and Clarity. It doesn't come in handy much, but it can.

I absolutely hate this idea. Disruption Field is on all the time, you do not need to even see what you're debuffing before you're helping, it helps Tankers and Brutes hold aggro instead of stealing it, it requires a minimal commitment (activating one times + once for each elevator ride rather than every mob), and it fits with Sonics not-so-busy nature. The only problem I have with Disruption Field is that Controllers can hook it to pets, while Defenders and Corruptor's only available pets are crappy ranged ones.

Removing (or reducing) the per-target cost would be nice. I prefer Sonic Repulsion to Repel, etc, and yeah, I use them. The reason is, when someone's overwhelmed, or I notice a squishy getting snuck up on, I simply pop that on them for a bit and it can drastically increase their survivability. In longer fights or when prepping for an ambush, I put Disruption on the lead, Repulsion on a ranged character, and stand behind him or her. That works very well. It can also handle nasty things that have placated your friends, like Banes.

The problem with this is it shares the recharge with the other support AoE Holds: EM Pulse and EMP Arrow. Moreover, the other Tier 9s that aren't a toggle or pet take 300 or 360 seconds to recharge. The exception is Fulcrum Shift, which everyone knows is awesome sauce. Liquefy is ridiculously good as it is. For Defenders, one -ToHit SO means -42.5%! That's on top of a huge -defense, knockdown, slow, and hold. It's damage mitigation's version of a nuke. If you picked up a res shield in your epic, the layered res with its -defense means you can handle almost anything. If Liquefy's recharge was knocked down it would have to be seriously gimped to compensate.

Just to be clear, since I find this misleading, a Fire/Rad Corruptor has the firepowa of a fireblast because of the debuffs. Which is certainly going to be very welcome on teams, though the extra attention it attracts can be a headache. It's not that you start with the same damage then layer on the debuffs.

At any rate, I would say you try a Stalker first. As others have pointed out, MM and Stalker are the most unique in how they play. If you want a Scrapper who focuses on ST damage and can do some fun ninja stuff, Stalker's the way to go. Stalker was actually the gateway AT for me into redside, I tried everything else first and was left wanting, but once I got my first Stalker to 50 I was willing to give 'em all another go.

The perception that redside ATs are weaker I think comes from a pairing that goes like this: Defender-Corruptor, Tanker-Brute, Scrapper-Stalker, Controller-Dominator (leaving Blaster and MM out of this one). In this case, most of the descriptions could be "Like this Blueside AT, but with more damage and less (what you were used to)."

Damage isn't a sign of weakness, it's just a different emphasis.

Exactly what Seldom said. A well built/played Dominator doesn't need Defense. Mine will pick some up in i19, but I've run dozens of task forces now without more than maybe 3% defense and have had no problems with survivability.

OP: While I agree with the general rule of thumb that once you have all the recharge you need, damage bonuses are more valuable, for this build I think it's much closer to a toss up. I would actually go with recharge. It may come in handy against heavy -recharge enemies (particularly if you're like me and get so consumed in attacking and mezzing that you might forget to reactivate hasten long enough for Domination to drop). Also, all of your attacks are shorted recharge besides Incinerate.

Honestly though you are so well built for both damage and recharge, it's kind of a wash.

If you go this route, I would second (or third or whatever) claws/electric. I find with SS/Elec, Lightning Field has the problem that some people complain about for DoTs in general. That is, Foot Stomp does such large increments of damage that often times anyone hit with FS would have been dead even w/o Lightning Field. Not always, of course, but I think something with just as awesome AoE with lower recharge, etc, like claws would be a good route to go.

On the other hand, your original comment about the Brute out damaging Scrappers will be true with certain power sets and circumstances, but a damage aura Scrapper will very likely give you a run for your money. A Spines/Dark Scrapper, for example, can get 2 damage auras with 2 exotic damage types, on top of awesome AoEs.

Yeah because of BF I'd say Scrapper.

The only reason I'd lean Brute is if you'd like to tank or contribute to the tanking. RttC holds aggro so poorly, that having the AoE Taunt Brutes get would come in handy.

Oh, really?

Soldiers don't get vengeance. :P

I'm not keen on Ninjitsu getting proliferated. I don't think it's impossible or that it'd have to be butchered to go to Stalkers. As said, make hide into a stealth toggle and replace caltrops so it isn't doubled up and voila. The Stalker Munitions Epic replaced Caltrops with Physical Perfection. Something simple like that. Superior Conditioning, from the Tanker/Brute epics, for example. Nothing stellar, but still a decent pick up.

Smoke Grenade can stay the token skippable it's always been. Maybe make the Blinding Powder cause notice or some aggro, since they don't have to worry about breaking hide and it'd be a reasonable draw back.

I think you can make a decent Ninja theme now with Katana,DB,MA/SR,WP/Weapon,Body.

I'd echo that. At the very least, I'd take 2 slots out of Sonic Siphon and add a Recharge IO to Ball Lightning and Thunderous Blast.

I'd just put 2 Recharge IOs in Power Sink. At base, you only need to hit 4 guys to fill up your endurance, so I think using it more often is better than being able to fill up with 3 guys.

What does the Mu Adept use that benefits from healing?

Looks pretty good!

I'm not color blind, but I still have issues with it. This is actually why I go with Mutation. With I think three exceptions (Taunt = Annoyance and Hold = Statis and Interupt = Chrono-something), all their names include what they do. Like the name is the type of enhancement.

My first 50 was mutation and I just assumed they were all like that. Oh boy was I wrong.
You can check out all their names at the wiki.

I believe Science's temp power is a sleep. I find that hilarious (a big old needle sticking out of the neck) and very useful at low levels. As mentioned, however, the hold from tech is awesome as well.

After those considerations, I try to just go with what I think "makes the most sense." That usually, for me, has more to do with the costume than anything.

I have an Arch/Dev Blaster built to look like a member of Wyvern... so tech.
I have an Energy/Energy Blaster built to look like an average dude... so mutation.
The I have an Arch/Energy Blaster in brown robes with an old face... so magic.

I call it gadgets, inherent powers, and spells to enhance archery abilities.

I also made it part of my original goal to have one 50 of each AT to cover all the origins at least once. That part was done much soon of course :P.

Yeah this just confirms my suspicions. Your friend's build focused on HP bonuses, but gimped everything else. You'd be seriously downgrading if you switched to that build.

With your current build, replace the PS:EndMod/Acc/Recharge in Stamina with a PS: Chance for +Endurance. That'd bump your blue bar a bit.

I'd probably replace the PS:End Mod in Power Sink with PS:Acc/Rech.

The Miracle proc in Health would help too.

Those are the easiest fixes.

Gaussians is good for builds that use positional defense, like Ranged, Melee, and AoE. It's not good for builds using typed defense. Especially not when S/L is the highest goal. That's 6 slots for 1.25% defense, and none of the bonuses before that are very impressive. I'd suggest pulling that off to use on a different character, and just slotting Rage for recharge. (Hasten could use another slot, 1 in CJ could mean 10% regen and .4% defense, for example)

Others will probably follow with other notes to tweak your current build, if you don't like the idea of completely revamping the sets (ala the build I suggested), but that's a few thoughts.

You've got Power Sink every 22 or 31 seconds (w/ and w/o Hasten), so you shouldn't have any blue bar troubles.

Quick side note: you have Footstomp checked for totals, so it's counting the Force Feedback proc in all your recharge times. That's a huge overestimation of how much global recharge you actually have.

I usually pick up the anti-mez in the mid twenties, tbh. Usually level 24 or 26, but possibly even 28 depending on what's available. I don't think mez gets bad until about 30, and it's even less of a concern with defense based characters.

I wouldn't wait till 38 though. You're fighting Rikti, Freakshow will stun or sleep you constantly, and so forth. The 40-50 block is by far the worst though.

I find mid 30's is around when characters lacking mez protection at all will really start to notice it too. There's AoE holds and sleeps firing off all over the place!

On my BS/SD Scrapper I scrapper lock so bad, and only have one slot in Active Defense, so I get mezzed from time to time as it is in the 40's.

I have to say looking over the sets you have in Mid's, you really should go back to Soul Mastery. Without Gloom your attack chain is kind of poor (are you using Brawl or Boxing at all?), and Darkest Night is a great way to remove some of that squishiness. Rage+Gloom is really something you should be taking advantage of, if not Rage+Epic AoEs is another good route.

I just noticed your friend's build uses Power Surge instead of Power Sink. I like Power Surge. I took it. However, dropping Power Sink was the absolute last thing you should have done.

I'm sorry, but I think your friend really steered you in the wrong direction. Comparing these two builds, you should actually be having more endurance problems, and be more squishy.

The slotting in your friend's attacks makes very little sense. Half Crushing Impact and half Mako's in punch? On top of the stuff I noted in the last post. Was the goal for +HP bonuses? They aren't bad, but Defense and Recharge are more useful with SS/El

I'm going to post a post-i19 build (which again, it was schedule for a week from today, but since it's still in closed beta, I'd bet on 3 weeks from today). I am having a hard time telling what enhancements you already own between the two builds, so I'm going to just start from scratch.

Unfortunately, the computer I'm at only has a modded version of Mid's (with the upcoming change to Fitness), so any datachunk I post probably won't work for you.

I believe I used all of your power picks from the first, but added in Darkest Night (add to your survivability), Power Surge (good occasional fix for both your problems), and Haymaker (for a more fluid attack chain).

I also reorganized all the powers to how I would want them if I were playing this and exemplared.

Hasten's up 3/4ths of the time. If you could squeeze more recharge out of this setup, that'd be awesome. I'm not sure where or how.

For Dark Obliteration, I went with Siphon Insight, because the bonuses are awesome, and the extra -ToHit would help you. If you feel you could use more AoE damage, a Positron's Blast would do.

With 35% S/L defense and -14% to hit on Darkest Night (all on top of what Electric Armor offers), you should have no problem with the majority of the game's content.

You aren't going to be super resilient to NE, Fire, or Cold damage. Fortunately NE and Cold are the least common in PvE, and by a very large margin. You're by no means weak against Fire, either. Just keep this in mind when such attacks come flying your way, you'll have to give extra attention to Energize, and possibly wait for it in between mobs. You could resolve some of this using different sets, but I think your S/L defense and recharge would suffer way more than it's worth.

You're not that resilient to psi damage either. However, compared to other sets (all of 'em besides Willpower and Dark Armor, I believe) you'll actually do pretty well against it relatively.

Again, above all else, use Power Sink. Electric Armor was formulated with it in mind. If you use it every 30 seconds, you won't have any more endurance problems. If you don't, plan on end crashing every couple minutes.

i19 is one or three weeks away. Just wait for it and you'll get a free respec.

Posting the data chunk would in fact help, if you have it loaded in Mid's, you simply export it and make sure the proper check boxes are checked or not.

If you don't have mid's, hop into the game and open your power attributes ("Powers" above the tray, then "Combat Attributes" at the top. Let us know what your Recharge Bonuses is under "main" or whatever the top section is.

That being said, I have a SS/ElA/Mu Brute. I have the same problems you mentioned... sort of.

The Most Important Thing
Your biggest problem, seeing as you have Stamina well set up and the two Recovery procs, is you aren't leveraging Power Sink enough. That puppy can fill your blue bar from nil to full every 30 seconds. You really shouldn't be having any problems at all, if you use that around 3 or 4 enemies whenever it's up.

Also, remember that Energize is a self heal meets Conserve Power. If Power Sink isn't up, and you see your blue bar plummeting (like whenever sappers or Mu have your recovery knocked out), pop Energize. It can help.

Stamina is most optimally slotted with 3 End Mods and the PS Proc. (You can get a 5% movement bonus if you do 2 generic end mods, PS:End Mod, PS: Proc) Your friends edit actually isn't much of an improvement, because Stamina was gimped so badly. The Energy Epic pool is certainly more endurance friendly than the Soul pool, but the changes in slotting of Stamina, and the slotting in S.Conditioning/Physical Perfection are pretty poor. The biggest help (if there was any) would be from the lack of epic attacks, which are pretty expensive. Losing Gloom was an expensive price to pay for that though.

Your friends edit also put FS at level 41, which is a really bad idea if you'll ever exemplar. That's an under exaggeration. It's a terrible idea. Take that puppy at 32.

Squishiness? I find Electric Armor shines superb against many enemy groups, then others it falls flat on its face. With Weave, Combat Jumping, and your Kinetic Combat sets.. on top of Tough, you should find yourself doing well against anything that does mainly smashing, lethal, or energy damage. You probably won't do so hot against things that focus on psi and fire (like Carnies) or have enough +ToHit to over come a mild amount of defense (Malta Gunslingers), or anything that can address all your layers at once (Longbow).

I find with those sets I tend to do very well against Rikti, Arachnos, and Freakshow. You may want to adjust your difficulty based on which groups you'll go against.

Circle of Thorns are a toss up in my experience. They're easier than they have been on some of my melee toons, but they aren't a cake walk either. KoA are the same way.

Your squishiness could also come from the fact that SS doesn't add a lot of mitigation. Unless you have your recharge up enough to really economize on Footstomp's knock down, the lower chance of KD and Stun on the other attacks isn't that impressive. My solution to this was to actually us the Kinetic Combat proc, which on top of the inherent small chacne to stun/KD in SS, makes it very easy for me to keep one boss from attacking me hardly at all.