macskull

When I know there are hero Stalkers around I'll usually hang out around targets of opportunity waiting for them to come out of hide and into the shark animation, because it gives me almost 3 seconds to hit BU, run over, and start the AS. The problem with Soul is that Dark Blast is a really crappy attack when compared to sharks, but it's ok as a finisher (as a comparison, non-critting Spirit Shark does more damage than Dark Blast on a crit).

I don't have Fitness at all on my Warshade (Stygian Circle is up very fast with the amount of recharge my build has), so I'd probably end up leaving the default slots for the Fitness powers. My Peacebringer... has Fitness, but I haven't actually touched it once since it hit 50 and I have no plans to revisit it.

Doesn't the ability to change the match size after finding out the lineup sort of defeat the point of having a double-blind lineup submission? I mean, I could push for a 5v5, find out the other team was bringing something that would shut my current lineup down, and then say "screw it" and go back to a 3v3.

It's been nearly two years since the Kheld changes, and I still don't buy this. Sure, you get mez protection in Dwarf form, but as a tradeoff you lose access to all Nova and human abilities, and if there's a non-Dwarf power you need to activate, you'll get mezzed as soon as you drop out of Dwarf. Being able to toggle on Dwarf form while mezzed is a passable and welcome solution, but it is by no means a good one (for example if you get mezzed during the activation time of Dwarf, it'll detoggle and you'll have to activate it again) because of the limitations. No other AT with mez protection has the silly restriction of being able to access only a subset of its powers while mezzed, and if anything Crabs and Fortunatas should be the prime example of why human form, at least, should have basic mez protection (both Crabs and Fortunatas can pump out ranged damage very safely and have non-limiting mez protection to go with it).

If the mez protection bonus granted by Controllers and Dominators was increased to, say, mag 2 from mag 1, this would be less of an issue because single applications of mez would not require you to shift to Dwarf form. Currently, lack of mez protection is a bigger issue when on teams than while solo (simply by virtue of more teammates meaning more enemies meaning more mezzes), but unless you're teamed with at least a certain number of two other ATs you're still stuck with subpar mez protection.

I have, and building Fury is just as difficult as it was before the change, let alone maintaining it once it's built. Problem with Fury is it relies on you landing attacks more than you being attacked, and as a melee AT you aren't doing that constantly against any intelligent opponent.

Your sarcasm detector is broken, good sir.

It's odd - I'd have expected to see a lot more Forts/Banes as Stalker spotters since I18 launched, but it's been almost a month and I can count the number of them I've seen on one hand.

Kinetics for MMs was at the top of my wishlist until they nerfed pet recharge in I14. Now it'd just be a crappy buff set with no mitigation.

The thing here is all the powers you listed as comparable to Total Focus' animation time are AoEs, while Total Focus is single-target. That automatically puts Total Focus at a disadvantage because you're only going to be doing damage to one target each time you use the power. The animation may be long on the other powers you listed, but at least you can be fairly sure you'll be hitting multiple targets.