Mr_Grumpums

DB/Stone is visually cool, since the swords grow to match your size when you activate Granite Armor, but endurance is an issue and the recharge debuff in granite armor might make chaining attacks into combos a pain. Slot for endurance, accuracy, and recharge before damage and rely on Empower combo and Fury, I guess.

You can only pick Soul Mastery or Leviathan Mastery (one patron pool allowed) and some of the powers in the set have prerequisites. For example, Shadow Meld requires you to have one other power in the Soul Mastery pool before you can pick it, which is why you get Dark Blast first.

Either set would work just fine. Personally, I would choose Soul Mastery to get Dark Blast and Shadow Meld for the extra defense. From what I know about Dual Blades for Stalkers, you don't want to throw enemies around where you can't hit them with Attack Vitals and Sweep.

Mace is similar to Axe in terms of powers. The main differences are that Axe does Lethal damage and has knockup/down effects, while Mace deals smashing damage and has stun effects.

Other than that, it's mostly cosmetic. I'd personally choose War Mace because I like Stun. I think that the Battle Axe has more skins.

They meant powers in the Stalker patron pools. Soul Mastery has Dark Blast and Shadow Meld, while Leviathan Mastery has Water Spout and Hibernate.

Dark Blast is a decent ranged attack with a -ToHit debuff, but it needs slots in order to do real damage. You can probably finish off running baddies with it without slots, though.

Shadow Meld is a click power that gives you an extra 20% defense for 15 seconds. For a /Nin stalker who has kept up with their SOs, that means that nothing will be able to hit you for the duration of the power. I use it as a miniature Kuji-In Restu.

Water Spout is Tornado from the Storm Summoning set, and Hibernate is, uh, Hibernate from Ice Armor.

I'd say that it depends on your playing style. If you use Build up all the time, then try and get it earlier. Personally, I usually pick it up in the 40s for non-stalker/tanker melee characters.

I play a Plant/TA controller, and I had a blast on it from level 8 to level 50. It's STILL a blast, and I can solo with ease.

For a scrapper, I'd suggest a DM/WP or DM/Shield. Both have solid protections, but Shield gives more damage and a strong AoE, while WP gives a lot more regeneration and recovery. Both are fairly easy to play.

Redside, a Bots/Dark Mastermind is a real moster from level 1 to level 50. The bots can pretty-much take care of themselves, and your debuffs make them even safer. Also, I think it's the best mass rezzer in the game, because it has bots to use as a distraction while it brings back the whol party from extinction in seconds.

I hear Mind/Electric is popular these days for dominators, as is Plant/Ice.

I used Roots as my main damage dealing power from level 4 to level 26 on my Plant/TA controller, and it worked quite well.

Personally, I would pick the Fire secondary. The damage you can put out with that build is very impressive, and I like having a self-heal and endurance recovery power around.

Willpower is also good, because Willpower is good for everything.

Fire Sword can be skipped relatively easily, but ditching Fire Sword Circle and Greater Fire Sword would be a bit much. If you aren't going to pick those powers because of the look, then you should probably choose another primary.

I can see it. You can get away with calling almost every one of the Controller secondaries whatever you want from magic auras to fancy mutant powers to...whatever, but Trick Arrow is just a person with a bow who shoots out arrows that are either scientific gadgets or enchanted or something. Makes the concept hard to figure out.

I made my Plant/TA based on the story of the blind Norse god Hud being tricked into killing his brother Baldur with an arrow made from mistletoe by Locke (google Mistletoe, Locke, and Baldur if you're confused and actually care enough to look it up). My character supposedly wears a bracelet made from the mistletoe that killed a god and the bow that fired the arrow, giving his magic arrows and plant manipulation. It was a stretch, but I hate leaving the description blank.

I don't know enough about PvP to comment with all of these changes happening. Either one will make a solid PvE toon, though.

The DM/WP Stalker loses Rise to the Challenge and Dark Consumption, two powers that rapidly boost the recovery of health and endurance. The powers rely on the number of enemies near you, though, so they aren't really fit for a Stalker. It's still durable and has plenty of effects attached to its attacks to boost the effectiveness of your defense, however, and you can heal yourself with Siphon Life. Oh, and Soul Drain is replaced with Build up, giving you more burst damage, but a shorter buff duration.

The DM/WP Brute is like a cranky pro boxer crossed with the freaking energizer bunny. It keeps going and going, pummeling every enemy in front of it down one by one, and it thrives in the middle of a huge pile of enemies.

Either AT would make for a good character. Just decide which one to make.

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dual blades does a lot more dmg on a scrapper t han a brute. the BF +dmg is higher on a scrapper and even with 75-80 fury the scrapper is still ahead.

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That's good to know. I was about to try and remake an old alt, and now I have yet another reason to leave him in my brain attic. DB/Stone Brutes are not winners, no matter how cool it is to have a rock golem with giant freaking swords.

Ah! I didn't know you were planning on hovering the whole time. Remember, though, that a lot of indoor missions will make that strategy difficult. Those pesky low corridors won't let you hover out of the reach of an angry Behemoth Lord.

Bots/FF still the FOTM?

My goodness! Why didn't I think of that? :P

Parry is certainly nice, but I also get a lot of use out of Healing Flames.

I'll admit, though, that I'm starting to take a lot more damage on teams now than I used to in the lower levels, but that change came with a corresponding boost to my damage as I finished slotting my attacks.

Very nice for a budget build. I might wanna slap this on my WP/SS when I get around to replacing my generic IOs.

I have a BS/Fire Scrapper in the mid-40s. It's a real damage powerhouse, though I hear it doesn't outdamage a fire/fire scrapper. In Melee, it's pretty much untouchable once you stack Parry, and stacking Build up and Fiery Embrace makes for great damage.

What REALLY makes it is the look, though. He's a guy on fire swinging a sword around, with Lieutenants dropping in one hit, and minions immolating in Blazing Aura.

Why not Hasten? It takes 3 slots and it's done. The more recharge you can squeeze into your build, the faster those Fulcrum Shifts will be able to buff your damage. It only takes 3 slots, so it's not too bad there, either.

Why didn't Stalkers get shields? Because the Devs Stalkers to be able to use Shield Charge. It'd be like giving every Stalker access to Lightning Rod from Electric Melee, but not have to balance it with the weaker ST attacks.

Also, it'd be almost as unstealthy as electric armor.

Hmm...

Two Dark/Shield Scrappers running Grant Cover will have some serious Defense, some serious offense, and a lack of downtime due to DM's PBAoE endurance recovery power and Siphon Life. You'll also have double Shield Charges to slam down on big groups. With DM's -Tohit debuffs on top of the defense, you'll be able to take out just about anything.

I'd grab at least one decent Melee attack from /EM, or maybe Conserve Power. Also, the purple sleep IO is pretty cheap, last I checked. Why not invest in it?

I dunno if I'd play this build, mostly because I have an Archery Defender already and don't like to use the same powerset twice. Looks feasible, though.

I hear that SS/Invul is better these days, but my PvP knowledge is admittedly outdated.

I don't think you can stack KB unless the effects are part of a toggle or pulsing pet...So yeah. You'll be able to stack KB. Throw down Freezing Rain, walk up to an enemy with Hurricane on, and fire off Power Push. It should be a combined KB factor of 66.9, according to Mids.

If you wanna go for it, then have fun with it. Slot for KB!

I'd, uh, let teams know before joining them, though. If they get all mad about you bouncing things off of walls, then they might boot you. Other people might take one look at your powersets and them drop you. KB isn't very popular on teams because it can mess up someone's AoEs and interfere with Stalkers and brutes hitting their targets. And enemies can be bounced into another mob, causing trouble.

Also, KB isn't going to do much more than annoy people in PvP or knock them out of their travel powers. Good for keeping them for running, but that's about it.

And you might have endurance issues. Energy and Storm both use a lot of endurance.

Honestly, though, it sounds pretty fun for an alt. :P

I know it doesn't NEED a team, but you can't affect huge groups of enemies when you're solo.

Energy Melee has more damage per attack, but their attacks have longer animation times. Their two big bangs, Energy Transfer and Total focus, do Extreme damage, but their animation times are about as long as snipe attacks.

I'd say that, all things considered, the two are equal for Brutes because the DM attacks have shorter animation times, damage that fewer enemies protect against, and cool effects like -ToHit Debuffs, heals, the PBAoE Endurance Recovery, and the Immobilize.

But I have to admit that I'm a bit biased. I've always liked Dark Melee over Energy Melee.