Scientist

While I don't know if I'd pick it up purely for use with Benumb, remember that it also buffs any Defense power you use. Thus, if you fire off PBU then cast the Ice Shields, they will have roughly double the defense values for the next 4 minutes. While you aren't going to be able to hit a whole team with PBUed bubbles in the 12.5 sec duration of PBU, it does let you "solo" soft cap several folks, say the Regen scrapper whos going to be tanking the AV at the end of the TF and the blapper who's going to be helping for example. And you can do that for every shielding cycle, based on PBU recharge and duration of the shields. With recharge slotting and doing part of the team at a time, you might even keep doubled shields up on an entire large team.

So I'm planning to pick it up for the versatility; if the team needs more defense, use it on shields, if it needs more AV/boss debuffing use it on them, etc. I like powers that let me tweak my support in more offensive or defensive ways depending on what the team needs, I've seen that vary WIDELY depending on the team makup.

I wonder if a MM or controller might do better by use of pets, which sidestep the individual character End limit?

Alternatively, one might be able to leverage "pets on the fly", e.g. confuses. One of the quickest Posis I was on had a Plant controller along, those Vahz spawns can really take each other out fast when they are confused. . .

As Dechs says, a WS has to take a fair number of powers that don't need slotting. Even if you only use them in some missions, on some teams, vs some foes, its not like you'd have the slots to make something else really overshadow them. So some of what I will recommend is based on "niche" use.

Grav Emanation, as said, is handy for bunching mobs and its knockback will affect bosses. If you are running Inky, and the geometry is right, blow the spawn plus boss(es) into a corner, and run over and Mire/Eclipse off them so by the time the boss stands up hes stunned from the stacking, buying you time to blast the spawn. Inky is also nice when the spawns are on the large/dangerous side but you still want to Mire/Eclipse off them, it cuts the return fire some. Not a long duration stun, but a lot of WS playing runs on tight timing. And stun sets are cheap for good +recharge.

I tried to like Unchain Essence, but it was rare enough I had a handy body in the right spot early in the fight that I swapped it out for Quasar which is not a much longer recharge, has higher damage, and can be used when and where I want to. Friend of mine loves UE, so try it.

Ironically, I then ended up stripping the slots out of Quasar to sprinkle across the plethora of "travel powers" a WS can get for Zephyrs and now reach about 25% ranged defense in my favorite blasty Eclipsed Nova Tankmage form.

Interesting note; if you stack Shadow Cloak plus Stealth IO plus Superspeed, the turrets in Bloody Bay can't see you. Handy for grabbing Shivans. Rikti Drones still can, they are flagged to "ignore stealth". Shadow Cloak counts as a "travel power".

Starless Step in addition to its other uses lets you grab one mob to beat down and turn into an Extracted Essence before charging into a tough spawn. Beware; 50% chance of Taunt, 10' radius, so choose a straggler. Though I've also used this in the STF to pull the Patron AVs from out of line of sight, very safe. And another niche use, in the LGTF the mitos around the mini-Hamidon are NOT immune to TP foe, unlike real mitos, making it easy to pull them out and beat them down. Counts as a "travel power".

Nebulous Form, handy for "stealthing" missions with things like Rikti Drones and Cysts who see through stealth. Also for absorbing nasty alphas, like the one from the Clockwork King. Counts as a "travel power".

I also slotted both Mires for damage, others have made a good argument for the Dwarf one, I'm going to use the humanform one anyway on every spawn so I might as well soften them up and its about the same base damage as a defender AoE like Irradiate. Not going to bring tears of envy to a blaster, but defenders certainly slot up their AoEs.

Infrigidate, from Cold, is -31% defense debuff (on a defender), and with minimal slotting stacks twice. With more aggressive recharge slotting you could get that up to 3x stacking, down side is it has to hit. Up side is a pretty vicious (-87% recharge) slow it inflicts as well.

I saw some calculations on the scrapper board one time for this, since they were working out attack chains with Achilles in multiple attacks (for example katana).

1 proc chance every 10.3 secs:
none activate: 80% ((1 -%) ^ #)
one activates: 20% (% * (1 - %)^(#-1) * #)
multiple activate: 0% (1 - (((1 -%) ^ #) + (% * (1 - %) * (#-1))))

2 proc chances every 10.3 secs:
none activate: 64%
one activates: 32%
multiple activate: 4%

For AV fighting, I'd suggest one in each, since resistance debuffing helps hugely with multiplying overall team damage and AVs are the ideal time to use Tornado anyway. A second proc is roughly equivalent to running Assault for the team, for zero End cost and just one slot instead of a power pool pick.

Interesting fact I saw (though I haven't tested it myself); the Achilles proc isn't affected by the purple patch, i.e. it isn't reduced against higher con foes, unlike debuffs from other sources. It grants an auto power to the foe, and since the foe is always even con to itself and is the source of the effect, its at full power.

A Fort will be much easier soloing then a Crab until you invest a fair amount in IOs, Crab doesn't have a lot of tools till higher levels to deal with incoming damage except for outgoing damage. On the other hand, with dual builds make a Bane and solo with that, Bane is a great soloer, then switch to Crab for a team build.

A well IOed Crab is a popular addition to any team, not quite as much AoE as a blaster (assuming doing co-op content), but nice team buffs and debuffs and doesn't need much attention from support characters.

Ah, remembering the Brute I recruited during Double XP weekend who would stop dead. . . and use his Patron ranged AoE on each new DE spawn before running in, leaving half the spawn running towards the team, the other half staying near him. . .

So I recruited another Brute who swore he was a really aggressive fighter. He waited for the first brute on each spawn. . .

We ended up with a Stalker taking the alphas, he at least set a decent pace and kept them clumped around him long enough to unload on the spawn. He was darned good at it too, I think he had a partially IOed build.

Very fun guide.

One other note that can help speed this up with a not-so-strong team, Teleport Foe works (at least last time I tried it, a few months back) on the TF Hami mitos, unlike the "real" ones. It will mostly whiff on the Yellow ones, because of their high "ranged attack" defense, but works fine on the Blues and Greens. This lets the whole team beat each one down undisturbed.

Many warshades have the TP foe power, since they have a lot of throwaway powers they have to leave unslotted and thats a good candidate. I found on my WS that we could drop mitos roughly as fast as my TP Foe recharged. Villianside, some MMs and stalkers may have it.

One of the challenges with trap powers, great though they are, is that they are often tough to put IO sets into because you want recharge pretty much capped but many good sets don't have great recharge, maybe 30-40%. Fine for a blast, but not so good on powers with 30-60 second timers.

I like roughly one IOs worth of Range in Seekers, as well as capped recharge, because they are so nice to take alphas from nasty bosses/AVs. And said bosses/AVs also often have a habit of having unusually long perception or aggro ranges, so its often helpful to stand back. Well back.