Telperion

1. i've been growing a db/wp stalker, mostly solo, who is at lvl 19 now. i've been having a lot of fun, and felt very effective, particularly after finally getting vengeful strike at 18, which gives me the attack vitals combo.

i've no placate yet, so my combos are sweep (build up, AS, ablating), and AV (power, nimble, vengeful). most of the time, i've ignored the combos, and done great. on more challenging fights, i can knock down everything after an AS with sweep (which is still an AOE despite ablating being ST), and fit in an AV in buildup's duration.

i am planning on getting all the DB attacks, though debating on dropping ablating eventually, which would deny me the sweep combo, but would open up another power slot.

The other thing, from a pre-stam perspective, is that the set is really easy on the blue bar. every attack i have so far is between 4 and 7 end, and keeping up in dmg to the other sets.

2. i don't know about a dmg boost for snipe in pve...it would for-sure benefit from pvp dmg mods for it's activation time, though.

My experience is cobbled together from my WM/WP brute and kat/fire scrapper, both in their 40's.

For mace, i've skipped bash (i respecced out of it after getting crowd control), and whirling mace (which i'm considering working back into the build, with both crowd control and whirling mace at 10 targets, the aoe dmg would add up nicely).

For /Fire; Depending on who you talk to and how they use the set, Temp Protection, Consume, Burn, and Rise of the Phoenix are potential skippables.

Temp Protection - the benefit here is the 20% slow resist, if you decide you need it (/fire depends on cranking Healing Flame's recharge). With only the toggles, you will be running 70%-ish fire resist. you don't need more.

Consume - WM can be end-hungry; i'd say you'd get good mileage out of it. It just has a kinda long recharge.

Burn - Fire is squishy, particularly if you are running without Tough. Burn's Afraid effect can give breathing room, and with an aoe immob (or *maybe* mace's knockdowns) can be leveraged as an attack. You may not feel like it's worth it. It's also the set's immob protection, if you don't have Combat Jumping.

Rise of the Phoenix - insert usual self-rez debate here. Insps can get you up and free up a power slot, if all you use this for is to rez yourself. However, debt is a joke, and some players use this for an attack, dealing over 600 damage enhanced, a mag 4 stun, hefty knockback, over a 25 foot radius. i'm still on the fence on this one for my scrapper.

there's my 2 inf; have fun!

I played it a number of times on my ice/fire tank, when it was up. Honestly, the trickiest part was DR34D, he caught me by surprise the first run, and buildup + FE + blaze = let my body hit the floor, lol.

that first run i also had the hardest time with the freaks; if i was in the big pack, fresh tanks would attack me as others got scared and ran, which gave the RNG too many chances to kill me. I ended up dragging off my aggro limit to the front of the room, where i'd slowly burn them down. Chilling embrace + slow proc kept 'em at -30-50% rech, and usually hoarfrost was enough to fend off the inevitable hits. fun fun map