Supernumiphone

It will proc in TT: Leadership. You can notice the icon showing along with all your other active power icons. It's purple, though I don't remember the exact image. If I'm remembering correctly when you click/hover over it, it's called [Boost Up]. It only lasts 5 seconds so it's easy to miss.

Try putting Domination on auto instead. I used to have Hasten on auto and either fired Domination manually, or I tried having various binds fire it, such as when I hit a movement key. I dropped Dom fairly regularly.

Ever since I put Domination on auto and started firing Hasten manually, I hardly ever drop Dom. Even if I don't notice Hasten is recharged right away I'm generally still okay.

I should note that I have Hasten perma or near to it on my builds. If you're at the minimum global +recharge for perma-Dom that might change things somewhat. I'd still say give it a try though.

I'm a somewhat amazed at how many people are posting in this thread who haven't bothered to read the OP.

I tend to unlock most of the redside unlockables. Many of them are unlocked by badges required for accolades, so I figure if I need to get the badge at some point, I might as well get it early and unlock the contact while I'm in range.

Having two accounts helps there. Trapping ghosts at an early enough level to still get missions from the contact is often a debt-filled affair. I just use a 50 on my other account to do the trapping until my new toon gets the badge and unlock.

People run teams to get Gangbuster (while unlocks Slot Machine) fairly regularly since it's an accolade requirement. I jump on those with newer alts and have the contact as soon as I'm in range.

Same for Crimson Revenant. It's hard to finish leveling through Sharkhead without taking out Ghost of Scrapyard at least once. Maybe on lower population servers that's not as true.

It used to be very close trying to get Doc Buzzsaw unlocked without outleveling her. I'm not sure what changed there but I don't have that problem anymore, despite leveling rather slowly and as a result often having patrol XP.

The only ones I don't usually get, and in fact have never done, are Arbiter Leery, Number 204, and Viridian. I don't run respecs often at all, and when I do I usually take the merits. I don't know if it's still true but in the past if you didn't take the respec reward you didn't get the unlock. I have never had anywhere near 50 toxic tarantula kills before I hit 50, much less 45. I don't know what possible leveling path would change that. As for Viridian, that's just ridiculous. I don't expect to ever run his arc(s).

As for wanting more unlockable contacts, I would only want more if they were done right. For me "right" means that if I chose a leveling path that had the right enemies or other badge requirements in it, I could unlock that contact through regular play, but it would still have to be a deliberate choice to make that happen. Unfortunately most of our badge requirements are not set up that way. Even choosing missions with a specific enemy type at every opportunity most defeat badges can't be had without a lot of grinding.

I would not want more unlockables if the key to unlock them was more mindless grinding.

The only one is Electrical Melee, provided that when you say "AoE power" you really mean "AoE damage power." I think that is the way most people look at it though. Electrical Melee is unique in that way, which probably helps explain its popularity.

Edit: FYI in case you weren't familiar, Lightning Clap (a clone of Hand Clap from SS) was the power removed in the Stalker version.

Edit2: Also it's interesting that the original version we were shown had Thunder Strike removed for AS instead of Lightning Clap. It was only after much complaining and cajoling that we were able to get the version we have today.

or even better...both!

If Stalkers have a much greater proportion of sets that have poor or no AoE, I think it's fair to say Stalkers in general are not strong in that area. It looks like you disagree there. /shrug

Speaking only for myself, I have no interest in playing sets that have no AoE or only a single 5-target cone. What that means is that if I want to roll a Scrapper, almost every single attack set available to Scrappers is on the table. On the other hand if I want to roll a Stalker, my options are severely limited.

From my perspective there is a deep and wide chasm between the two in terms of AoE potential. I can understand that you may value things differently, but your attempts to paint a picture of Stalkers as not being disadvantaged at all in that area seem disingenuous at best.

Pretty much. I'd be sure to put a Numina's proc, Miracle proc, and Perf. Shifter proc in the build. Those along with the amount of endurance cost reduction you get from most sets should be enough to keep endurance usage manageable.

I'd be taking the Fighting pool for sure. Both Tough and Weave. Even with those and a Steadfast unique, you'll still only be sitting at around 27.5% S/L defense. I think you'll need most of your focus on S/L/E/N defense when putting together the build, with +run speed and +recharge where you can fit them in.

It looks like an interesting challenge. I don't have time now but if no one has responded tomorrow I'll see what I can put together in Mids'.

We will differ in opinion there then. AS is a good opener, but on full teams that's often times all it is. Stalkers may start out faster due to the higher burst from AS, but after that it's all scrapping.

A number of Stalker sets have no attack other than AS that can be used after Placate that doesn't lower overall DPS (over not using Placate). For those sets that do have a good attack to use following Placate the difference in overall DPS doesn't tend to be large. Placate is a good aggro management tool, and for controlled criticals, but it's not that significant a contributor to DPS.

As far as the scaling criticals, it takes four team members within 30 feet to exceed Scrapper damage on average. Not everyone agrees on just how common a scenario that is, but I would say that Stalkers will not out-damage Scrappers on average due to the scaling criticals alone.

Damage comparisons are usually done at base and at the cap, but Scrappers will often pull ahead in the middle ground due to differences in powersets. Follow Up, Blinding Feint, Soul Drain, AAO, Fiery Embrace, and of course damage auras all give Scrappers an edge in damage.

I think most of that came as a byproduct of chasing +recharge and +def, rather than being something that was sought after specifically. That aside, speaking for myself I wouldn't want to have to debuff something in order to be able to hit it reliably. Sure in many situations you'll be doing that anyway and it won't be an issue, but there are situations where I want to be able to just apply damage immediately without any setup.

Supposedly it was to encourage people to form up, re-buff, and rejoin the fray en masse. I have never seen that happen in practice. Not once. Instead it just annoys the piss out of people and for me personally is almost enough to ruin what might otherwise be an enjoyable trial. There have been times on Lambda that the timer on the sabotage phase is counting down, I get defeated and hosp just in time to miss the door opening, and have to wait the full time before getting back into action, and I'm a hairs breadth from swearing off the damn trials because of that ridiculous door timer.

Sadly if past experience is any indicator, that decision will not be revisited. Probably not ever, or at least in the next couple of years.