Siolfir

I haven't looked at the build (at work, no Mid's) and haven't checked the market for much of anything lately, but I'll take a shot at the questions I can answer.

1. They are separate bonuses, so you can have 5 LotGs and 5 Basilisk's Gazes.

2. Once again I haven't seen the build. I slot it as an attack and let the heal take care of keeping my hit points topped off. Let's face it, you're playing a Mind Dominator - if something is attacking you it's because you let them or missed, and you shouldn't need to worry too much about needing the heal.

3. Sleet has plenty of -defense on its own and checks tohit 5 times a second. I personally prioritize recharge, then accuracy, and fit an Achilles' proc in when I can (it has 2 chances to fire). If you get a good set bonus out of it, slot it for more; otherwise it's a great power on its own.

4. Haven't seen the market. Sorry.

5. Haven't seen the build.

I think it either used to or still happens with Dual Blades as well, and may happen with other sets. When I was playing a DB Stalker I'd have mobs hit me as the from-hidden Assassin's Blades was going off before the damage was dealt. I deleted her a while back and haven't read any complaints about it recently, so I'm guessing it was fixed for that set.

I think the issue is that the delay on mobs noticing you isn't offset by the draw time if the weapon isn't already out, so there's an overlap from when the mob notices that you're attacking and your damage is dealt that lets you get hit. I haven't analyzed it a great deal, though.

I fail to see a use for Confront when a ranged attack would suffice.

And I'd say that my Stalkers have prevented more squishies dying than a Scrapper taunting one thing off of them (Demoralize is funny that way if you actually use AS from hidden status), and that if the Scrapper with Confront wants to play meatshield they'd be better off on either a Brute or Tanker where they would have a far more meaningful contribution to keeping things packed together and away from the rest of the team as a whole. A single target taunt has some uses, but they're highly limited and situational and on a competent team you won't need it for anything but a set mule.

And once again if something is added to Confront that in no way removes any functionality to how it currently works - which is what spawned this whole sidetrack, people wanting debuffs added to it - how does that negatively impact the power?

Wow, go away from the forums for a few days and miss all the fun.

As someone who started one of those "buff Stalker" threads, I'd say I have a pretty good idea of what I had in mind when I made the request. It wasn't that Stalkers couldn't perform, it was that there was no logical and rational person who could state that they were numerically balanced when compared to Scrappers, which was the at-the-time "balance point" for the melee ATs; keep in mind this was while Tankers had Bruising and a higher hit point cap for both higher damage and more survivability, Brutes had their damage cap reduced so that their damage-capped performance left them behind a Scrapper once criticals were accounted for and Fury was adjusted to "make it easier to maintain but harder to build to high levels" - a statement that's fairly laughable with the ATO proc, but there was a post by Castle stating that the gain/decay was targeting a 65% level when most people assumed 80% or higher for most sustainable damage calculations, and Scrappers and Stalkers were left alone. Scrappers consistently outperformed Stalkers in every damage metric outside of rare, hard-to-engineer corner cases in both single-target and AoE damage, while having a much higher hit point cap and higher base hit points - which were suspiciously similar to the arguments made about the Brute adjustment attempting to reduce the "nominal" Fury level.

Simply put, there was absolutely nothing in the game that a Stalker could do where you could not replace a Brute or Scrapper and do the same job better than the Stalker could. Sustained damage? Scrapper or (depending on set) Brute. Burst damage (under a Build Up window)? Scrapper or Brute. Stealth to the end of a mission? Anyone with a single layer of stealth and any amount of common sense. Ganking PvP n00bs who aren't paying attention? Psi Blaster.

Am I happy with the buffs that Stalkers received? Well, I would have gone about it a bit differently - I posted concerns when the announcement of how the buff was going to happen at the time and PM'd Synapse with them as well. If the unhidden Assassin's Strike is considered balanced for an entire AT as a whole I have to ask why Energy Transfer doesn't have its 1-second animation again, because with 2 stacks of Assassin's Focus the DPA for AS surpasses it. I was also only expecting either a damage or survivability increase and not both (of the two, I preferred damage). So do I think they were overbuffed? Yeah, probably. But sadly, that just puts them on par with the other "damage" melee ATs.

And if Scrappers get a fluff, team-mez-resistance buff that doesn't affect their solo performance, then why does it matter? But if it's just because you want Scrappers to be unique and special snowflakes with their inherent, that ship sailed long ago. Criticals as an inherent stopped being unique with CoV when both Corruptors and Stalkers got them - and yes, they were only 20% on held or slept targets for Stalkers (which is still there for PvP, not that you can leverage it given mez durations and suppression) or at a 2% per mob's health below 50% level for Corruptors, but it's the same functionality - you do double damage outside of hidden status because the random number generator decided to bless you with its magnanimous beneficence for that particular attack. Later there was a lot of these same complaints about Stalkers when their out-of-hidden criticals were changed to the current 10% scaling critical, but after a while it settled down because there still wasn't anything that they could do better than Brutes or Scrappers unless your team likes group-hugs and those situations were few and far between. But Stalkers got a recent buff - again - so here come the same old arguments - again - about how "they have our inherent waaaaahhhhhh" - again - that overlook the full picture of how the ATs stack up against each other - again.

And yes, I do think that Blasters need looked at; I didn't go back to quote it but it was said here that Scrappers should be top for DPS when combining both single-target and AoE damage, and unless they were talking only about melee ATs, and if so that clause was omitted, then that's pure crap: Blasters should be. If nothing else and there is a refusal to raise their uncapped performance then they need a higher damage cap - right now when all of the ATs are damage capped they're behind Brutes, Stalkers, and Scrappers for "effective" damage modifier, and can potentially fall behind Corruptors if you can guarantee Scourge on every attack.

I really don't have a problem with the suggestion in the OP. I think it's frivolous, but then so are vanity pets and travel powers. I'd rather have a new power set instead, but as stated before in the thread, it's personal preference. If it doesn't affect their performance, only the rest of the team's - and especially if it's made to not stack - then whatever. It's not like it's going to unbalance them further.

Life Drain isn't a great filler for DPA, but it's nice to keep your hit points topped off. I was really hoping that they'd bump the recharge on it up to 10 seconds so that it would fall into the same damage/end/recharge numbers as Siphon Life (with the same animation!), only ranged.

That didn't happen, so you have Gloom, Smite, and Drain Life all at 8 second recharge. You'll probably want to use a control at some point as well since you're in melee range, so it's not like you can't find something to fill the gap, but it's not optimal for pure damage.

Sadly my plans for Dark/Dark/Soul were upended in part by a lack of slots (I'd want to slot up Dark Consumption, Dark Obliteration, and Soul Drain) and in majority by an unwillingness to swap alignment and run the arc during 2xp when I could join TFs instead. Alas, I was forced into taking Sleet instead, and will have to take Soul Mastery on a different build.

My Elec/Nin that I copied over to test the changes on beta skipped Havoc Punch and I had no issues with building Assassin's Focus because Charged Brawl, Jacob's Ladder, and Chain Induction gave me plenty of changes to get it.

I have no idea why people are saying they can't build focus before Assassin's Strike recharges. It's not hard to build 3 stacks with any decent attack chain on a mature build, and if you're leveling up using only the high recharge attacks - good DPA or not - just to have a better chance for focus the longer delays between power activations give focus a chance to drop off just as much as a chance to build it.

Build for a decent chain, let focus come as it will - and it will - and let the RNG sort it out while you watch things fall down.

Also, Lightning Rod - at least when I tested it in beta - doesn't provide Assassin's Focus due to technically being a pet summon instead of an attack (the same reason it doesn't break hide).

Besides, it's the incarnate xp needed to unlock the slots that's really horrible. The thread rate when compared to what is needed for the powers themselves is extremely generous in comparison.