JD_Gumby

Especially during Cat Herding, er, Task Forces where it seems the vast majority of players can't grasp the concept of "stay with the group". (Or have I just been very unlucky to have everyone wander off 'til it's AV time on every single TF I've been on? :P)

Until I20 hits, I can support that stand. After that, though, shards'll be dropping in it... (Personally, though, I'll be skipping it - my characters tend to be built for 29 as the lowest they can go [L30-32 IOs being the best tradeoff, IMHO, between power and amount of content that can be done without losing sets while exemplared])

Highly doubt you can fire it that many times. And how many times you can fire it is not the issue. The issue is doing significant damage in one shot from an extreme distance (though it's a great thing with my squishy AR/Dev Blaster with his Sniper Rifle, LRM Rocket, and Time Bomb, I can't think of any situation where it would be of use to a Stalker) without the foe being able to fire back at you while doing so.

If you want Stalker-like play without the stigma of actually being a Stalker, go with a Bane Spider.

Yes, both. It's a deliberate strategy because of the way damage is shared. First, the attacks have to hit you through your Defense. Then the damage gets reduced by your Resistance. Then the damage gets reduced further as it's spread out to your pets within Supremacy range (2 shares for you, 1 share for each of your pets, which means the damage you take is reduced to 25% of the post-Resistance total if all of your pets are out and in range).

The upshot is: personal attacks and Provoke are great, at least as long as you've been building for Defense and/or Resistance, stay near your pets in bodyguard mode and don't order them to focus-fire on an enemy (since that drops BG mode for a while; with Bots/Traps I'd edit your focus-fire macro to only send in the Drones & Assault Bot so that the Protectors stay on Defensive/Follow and you get a 50% reduction to damage)

Against EBs, sure, and on higher +#/x# settings. At normal difficulties, though, against normal (plus Bosses) foes, they're just fine...

To you, perhaps. Not everyone has the Go! Go! Go! mentality where speed is everything.

You still get shards while solo, but it's quite rare no matter what you have slotted. The way they've got it set up has it so that drops are more likely the larger the team (not just the team-equivalency at the Field Analyst/Fateweaver) you're on.

Depends on the player and how perma you want your Phantom Army. I went the Spiritual route on my Ill/Rad and now have about a 3s buffer between its recharge and the PAs starting to disappear. Means far fewer times that they've disappeared on their own before I could cast again - which, due to my slow reflexes, means fewer faceplants from whatever baddies I happen to be facing.

On the other hand, you've blasted through there faster and with fewer chances for faceplants. A worthwhile trade-off.

And that's the problem - it was your first MM and thus you obviously didn't know what you were doing and therefore played badly with it.

Team? No. Socialize? Yes.

Not really. You can just hit the x key (or whatever you bind the descend key to) and get close enough quickly. You do tends to slide a little, though, if you're angled at all, but not much of a problem with a little practice. (note that my above suggestions are how I handled respeccing my AR/Dev, with the exception of grabbing Maneuvers to mule an LotG recharge since he already had Hasten).

Not that they need something extra, given the crapton of Reward Merits and Inf and drops they already come away with.