*This guide is created using my personal experience of playing a DM/Reg to level 48. I welcome any additional suggestions and comments in making this guide better.
**DMG = Damage, END = Endurance, REC = Recharge, ACT = Animation Time, TYPE = Toggle or Click, EFFECT = the effects the power carries, AoE = Area of Effect, DoT = Damage over Time, AE = Assassins Eclipse, TP = Teleport, LRSF = Lord Recluses Strike Force
INTRODUCTION:
Dark Melee:
Dark Melee is an interesting melee set ported over from scrapper. Taunt, Dark Consumption and Soul Drains of the original are now replaced with Assassins Eclipse, Build Up and Placate. In addition, Touch of Fear was moved back to lvl 26 instead of lvl 6. Siphon Life is moved back to lvl 18 instead of lvl 8.
Pro:
Attacks carry acc debuff, which quickly adds up.
Has build-in fear attack.
Damage type less resisted vs. lethal and smash.
Has a lvl 32 attack power that is not a cone.
Con:
Damage type highly resisted by ghost/magic type of mob who also happen to be some of the most annoying enemies in game.
No Range attack.
Unable to burst damage as high as some other sets such as EM.
Half of lvl 32 attack damage is dot.
Regeneration:
Regeneration is an interesting set, unlike many other stalkers secondary. it doesn't rely on defence, but instead on healing. REG is also ported from scrapper secondary, Quick Recovery was replaced with Hide.
Pro:
Not dependent on defence, therefore less prone to +ToHit.
Runs fewer toggles than other sets.
Has +HP ability
Good health regeneration power.
Con:
Weak against massive burst damage.
Weak against slow powers.
Has no stamina recovery power like scrapper's version.
Tier 9 power very weak.
Synergy:
The major synergy of combining DM and REG is DM's acc debuff attacks help make up for REG's lack of defence. DM's build-in fear is also helpful to REG powers recharge dependent nature.
POWERS:
Dark Melee:
Shadow Punch: DMG: Minor REC: Short END: Minor ACT: Very Fast
Rating: PvE: 4 PvP: 3.5 Without Stamina PvE: 2.5
Shadow Punch is available very early in the game. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to cope with its endu cost in comparison to Shadow Maul without Stamina. Combined with Smite, you can reach higher DPS than Shadow Maul, but you also use a lot of endurance and only hit single targets. Its short recharge and animation time also helps stacking up acc debuffs. In addition, it can also be used as a good finisher when enemy has a silver of health left.
Smite: DMG: Moderate REC: Short END: Minor ACT: Very Fast
Rating: Overall: 5
Smite is must have power. It is a great finisher and follow up to Assassin's Eclipse. You can also use it from hide for critical damage before you get Midnight Grasp. It will always be helpful no matter if you PvE or PvP. Get this early and slot it up fast.
Shadow Maul: DMG: High REC: Moderate END: Moderate ACT: Slow
Rating: PvE: 3.5 PvP: 2 Without Stamina PvE: 4
Shadow Maul is a controversial power. Over my course of play, its importance moved slowly from being great to replaceable. Nevertheless, this is a great power early on, the ability to target more than one enemies and decent damage means you will save a lot of endurance. When used in combination of Air Superiority, you can negate its biggest draw back of 3 secs animation by keeping your target knocked down. Shadow Maul gives 50% chance to crit out of hide, which is decent in PvE considering you can usually catch two people in it. It is particularly nice for mayhem missions where the bank guards tend to stand next to each other. If you are lucky you can get double crits. I know this isn't documented in City of Data, but from my personally experience, it seems that you will get better chance to crit against even con than +2, +3 mobs. At later level, SM becomes less useful due to higher number of knock down immune elite bosses/bosses you have to face. More importantly, high level mobs start doing some massive damage, making the 3 seconds animation time hurting a lot more. By the same token, setting up SM also becomes more painful as it takes time, which equates to you having to take more damage. I suspect defence based sets might fare better with SM, since they can dodge more incoming attacks. In PvP, SM is okay against squishy, but the 3 seconds animation time really hurt. Against tougher target like a brute, its damage isn't very fantastic unless you can score a critical, but that's only 50% chance even from hidden state.
Assassin's Eclipse: DMG: Extreme (from Hidden) REC: Moderate END: Moderate ACT: Slow (2 secs interruptible)
Rating: Overall: 5
This is the signature power that defines a stalker. It is also your major source of damage. As long as you have hidden state, you can use it for great damage. You can still use it from hidden state even if mobs have aggros on you as long as you are not hit during the 2 seconds interruptible. One thing to pay attention to about this attack is only the first 2 seconds of the whole 3 seconds animation is interruptible, you can move in the last second and the attack will still work. Another thing is that when the animation finally finishes, you must have line of sight with your target or the damage will be nullified. If this happens, you will still maintain hidden states and the mobs will not aggro, but you lose the endurance of using this attack and you will have to wait for the recharge again. You can hit moving target as long as you are not moving and the target is within melee range the moment you activate this power, which you can achieve by clicking the power repeatedly. Defensive sets work better with this power because you are less likely to be interrupted while waiting for the hidden status to kick back in so you can use this again. There is another trick with Assassin's Eclipse. Hidden status takes 10 secs to kick back in. If you can time it right, you can initialize this attack 1-2 secs before hide comes back. So by the time the animation finishes, your hidden status would be back just in time to boost Assassin's Eclipse's damage. Of course, this is risky but with practice and some help from Hero Stats, it is really not that hard. Also remember that in PvP, damage dealt by AE is not resistible. Assassin's Eclipse combines really well with Teleport and Touch of Fear, see them below.
Build Up: EFFECT: +80% Dmg, +20% ToHit, REC: Long END: Small Act: Fast
Rating: Overall: 5
Everything about this power is nice, except the long recharge. This power will super charge all your attacks for the next 10 secs. Using in combination with Assassin's Eclipse and you can one shot a Lt or put him near death. The +20% ToHit should not be ignored. In PvP, it helps somewhat to punch through defensive sets. In PvE, late game will feature a lot of annoying and high defence or acc debuff enemies, include but not limited to Night Widow, Mu Strikers, Circle of Thorn Boss, Knives of Artemis, Police Robots, and Ritki Drones. So if you have some spare slots in your build, I suggest slotting some ToHit into this power.
Placate: EFFECT: +Stealth, +Hide Status, -Aggro(PvE), -Target(PvP) REC: Long END: None Act: Moderate
Rating: PvE: 4.5 PvP: 4
This is another set defining power. In PvE, it will make the target forget about you and put you into hide state for 10 secs. Note that the hide state Placate gives is not related to your Hide power. You can turn off Hide and Placate and you will still gain the state, but it will wear off after 10 secs. You must remember this is a single target power, so the mobs you didn't placate will still chase and attack you. This power can be used both defensively and offensively. Offensively, it gives you a chance to fire off Assassin's Eclipse again in the middle of combat or do critical on your next attack, thus making it a great boss killer. Defensively, you can kill a boss's buddy, placate the boss and escape. Like build up, such great power carries with it a long recharge, so slot +Recharge into it. There are a couple things to pay attention when using this power. Sometimes in PvE, after placating a boss, the boss will wait 10 secs and continue to chase after you. So instead of forgetting about you forever, the boss will suddenly remember you again after 10 secs, I am not sure the exact cause of this. Also, if you have applied some sort of Dot (damage over time) attack on a mob, and then use placate, the dot will aggro the mob again, in effect breaking the -Aggro. You will still have the hidden status, but the mob will be able to attack you. You should always try to use it when the mob has finished its attack animation. If you use it in the middle of a mob's attack animation, the attack will still hit you, this won't aggro the mob, but it will break your stealth and hidden status. By the same token, try not to use placate in the middle of mob's attack chain. There is a chance that mob's queue up attack will still hit you even after you placate. Air Superiority can help negate this problem somewhat. In PvP, this power is bugged. It supposedly make placated player unable to target you, but like in PvE, if the players has queued another attack right before you placate, the queued attack will still hit you. Even worse, if your attack carries any kind of secondary effect like tohit debuff in the case of DM, it will also break the -Target. DM can elevate this problem somewhat by using Touch of Fear before using placate. Overall, even though some problems are preventing this power to be rated 5 stars, it is still a great power when it works as intended.
Siphon Life: DMG: Minor, +Heal REC: Moderate END: Moderate ACT: Slow
Rating: Overall: 2
This is one of those skippable powers for DM. It sounds pretty good on paper that every successful hit will heal you by 10% of health until you realize that stalker inherently has very little hp to gain a lot from this power. Add that to the fact that it has a pretty high endurance cost as well as a moderate recharge, it is just not that great overall. You also have to consider what to slot in it, if you slot Acc+Dmg, then its heal sucks. If you slot Acc+Health, then it does crap damage, at the end of the days you will probably realize there are other great powers that you can spend your slots on that will give you a better return than this. The +heal is potentially more useful to defence sets than regen, since those sets don't completely rely on healing to mitigate damage. I can imagine this to be usable if you can slot some Hamidon Origins, but then again, there are probably other better places to spend your HO on.
Touch of Fear: EFFECT: Fear, -ToHit REC: Fast END: Low-Moderate ACT: Fast
Rating: Overall: 5
I will be honest. Imho if you don't want to take this power, you should not choose DM. In a simple statement, this is the power that makes DM set. In PvE, this works as a second placate. You can apply fear to a mob and wait for the hidden status to kick back in for an AE attack. You can also use this when facing multiple mobs to reduce the incoming damage. If you have slotted some recharge, you can use it on multiple enemies per fight to make things easier for you. This is also a great boss killer. Two applications on a boss will turn him into a coward. Then you can wait for hidden status, AE, reapply ToF twice, wait for hidden status, rinse and repeat. Personally, I like to keep the boss feared while keeping on scrapping. From my observation, even though one attack wakes up a feared mob and allow him to take one action, if you have fast attacks, you can spam several of them and they will only trigger one attack from the feared foe. This greatly reduces the number of hits you take from dangerous enemies. As a Regen, if you want to play on the safe side, after a round of attack and using up reconstruction, you can keep the boss feared until your placate, reconstruction, buildup recharges again before launching a new around of assault. It also carries with it a high -ToHit at somewhere around 11%. So stacking this on an enemy a few times will really reduce their accuracy. Two ToF combined with a defensive set will basically floor a mob's accuracy. ToF also helps regen set since it has no defence to begin with. Defensively, ToF can quickly nullify dangerous enemies such as Sapper. So if you happen to miss your AE on a Sapper, you can use ToF to redeem the situation. If you have more than one Sapper, you can AE one and ToF the other. If you have an ambush coming and no time to setup for an AE, you can use ToF. In PvP, if you use it on a player that did not carry a break free or resist fear, you can actually wait 10 secs for another AE. Of course, status like fear has diminished return in pvp, so don't over use it on a target, but its -ToHit is still useful in any case. In short, ToF is just a great tool that can negate a lot of stalker's inherent weaknesses. Remember some mobs are immune to fear in PvE such as Nemesis soldiers, Banished, etc.
Midnight Grasp: DMG: High, Immobilize REC: Moderate END: Moderate ACT: Slow
Rating: Overall: 4
This is a great finisher to DM. Between this, Smite and Shadow Punch. You will dash out some serious pain to single target. MG's weakness is half of its damage is dot and as a stalker you must finish your target fast before you sustain too much damage, so this goes against that philosophy. The dot is also not good for Placate. You can check the detail on that above. Its immobilize aspect is okay to stop running enemies, but overall not so useful. MG's strength lies within its critical. Unlike some other set's tier 9 attacks. This is a single target attack, which means it has a 100% chance to crit out of hide. When MG crit, it will take in account of the total amount of damage it will do. So the crit already includes the dot damages. For example, if your MG does 50 points of straight damage and 50 points of dot damage, your will crit for 100 instead of 50.
Regeneration:
Hide: EFFECT: +Hidden Status, +Stealth, +AoE Def TYPE: Toggle, END: Moderate
Rating: Overall: 5
This is a power you have to take to make stalker's inherent work, although some can argue this is a disadvantage to stalker class since no other AT has to take an extra power just to make their inherent work. Regardless, this is the power you will keep running 90% of the time. This power makes you completely invisible to mobs, except a few that can see through stealth such as Knives of Artemis and Ritki Drones. If you attack or sustain damage (except self-inflicted such as falling), you will be taken out of the hidden state, the stealth will suppress and your AoE Def will drop to almost nothing. In simple terms, it is as if you have turned off this power. If you are neither attacking nor attacked for 10 secs, you will automatically gain all the benefits back. Despite what some might believe, this is NOT actually a cheap toggle. According to city of data, this toggle costs as much endurance as integration. Most people will just throw in an endurance enhancement in it and forget about it, but as a Regen you should consider slotting three defences into it since Regen doesn't have any defence. So you are less likely to be interrupted when facing aoe mobs that become prevalent in late games. Another thing is when you are rescuing hostages, you have to turn this off or the hostage will not be able to follow you. In the upcoming I9, you won't have to do this anymore since hostage will put a huge debuff on you that mobs will be able to see you from miles away. In my opinion, the new changes really hurt stalker and especially in getting nukes in Warburg, but little you can do about that.
Fast Healing: EFFECT: +Regen, TYPE: Passive
Rating: PvE: 4 PvP: 3
This is the power that a lot of people have mixed feeling about. Most will tell you to ignore it. However, after some testing, I have found this power to be very useful. From my observation, if you have this power three slotted and Health from fitness pool along with Integration, you will be able to regen about 25 health every second at high level. I noticed that after getting this power and slotting it up, I drastically reduced the number of times I have to use Reconstruction. Also, with the new upcoming invention origins, passive powers become really powerful when combined with unique IOs since it will be active all the time. I suppose this power helps less in pvp aspect since burst damage rules the day, but I figured since DM can not burst as much as other sets anyway, you might have to stay in the fight a little longer than other sets and in that case, every bit of healing helps. Combine this with dull pain and you should be able to recover even more health per second.
Reconstruction: EFFECT: +Heal, +Toxic Resist REC: Long END: Moderate Type: Click
Rating: Overall: 5
This is a decent heal power for Regen, when slotted it heals about half of your health every 30 seconds. You get this power pretty early and it really helps with early level game play. At later level, this along will not keep you alive, but it is still a good heal against Lt and minions. In PvP, this will help with negating some of the burst damage you receive where defensive set become less effective with all the +ToHit on hero side. Its toxic resist isn't anything to write about, but it can be helpful in late game when toxic damage become more and more common.
Dull Pain: EFFECT: +HP, +Heal, REC: Very Long END: Moderate Type: Click
Rating: Overall: 5
This is the other heal power besides Reconstruction. In addition to increase your total hit point by a huge amount, it also carries a massive heal at somewhere around 75% of your life. This is your primary defence again massive burst damage, in PvP or PvE. More HP means your passive regen will be more effective as well. That said, you will still need purple inspirations against elite bosses or certain high level bosses. At late game, bosses or even lts such as Bane Spider Scout frequently take out 50% to 90% of your life each hit and using just reconstruction and dull pain still won't keep you alive. You will need purples in these situations. As DM, you can try using the good old ToF.
Integration: EFFECT: +Res(Hold, Stun, Sleep, Immo, KB) +Regen END: Moderate Type: Toggle
Rating: Overall: 5
You want to take this power as early as possible. Its status protection is incredible. You also regen your health pretty fast if you slot in heal enhancements but from my observation, I have not been able to totally rely on its passive regen when I didn't have Fast Healing. In PvE, I have never been stunned when this power is running. In PvP, there are times when I have been stunned even with it, so you might also want to take Resilience on top of this. One thing to pay attention to is this power does not protect from confuse, fear and placate. Fear is very popular in PvP so you might want to keep some breakfrees around or take tactics from leadership pool, which shortens the fear duration.
Resilience: EFFECT: +Minor Res (Smash, Lethal, Toxic), +Res(Stun), TYPE: Passive
Rating: PvE: 2.5 PvP: 3
Overall, besides its additional stun protection, its resists to Smash, Lethal and Toxic is just too small to make much of a difference. I have heard some people mentioning that with this power, you can use a self rez inspiration and not having to worry about the stun, I have not personally verify this claim, but it certainly sounds possible. Its stun protection plays a greater role in PvP, but still not as much use to a stalker as it is to a scrapper since stalkers in general don't stay and fight as long. That said, this is still a resistant passive, which leaves some possibilities for slotting in some cool unique resistant IO when I9 arrives.
Instant Healing: EFFECT: +Regen REC: Very Very Long END: Moderate Type: Click
Rating: Overall: 4
This used to be the Regen's set defining power. With several nerfs, it has been reduced to a clicky with massive recharge. It is still a decent power, but nevertheless situational. It won't save you when you are already near the edge of death, since this power requires time to work properly. It is also better to be used along with Dull Pain which boosts its effectiveness. As with any +regen based power, it is most effective against high dps damage rather than massive burst damage. Translating that to PvE, it usually means it is more effective when used against high number of minions rather than high level bosses. Since Moment of Glory is kind of crappy, this can be treated as regen's pseudo tier 9 as long as you remember there is still a difference between this power and a true tier 9.
Revive: EFFECT: Self Rez REC: Very Long END: None Type: Click
Rating: PvE: 3 PvP:?
This is Regen's self rez power. It is not bad as long as you don't use it near a bunch of mobs. It is not so useful at early game, but at late game, death can come swiftly and frequently and in cases like these, Revive will make a death recovery much easier since you can jump back into a fight without going to hospital, this is also pretty useful for Hamidon raid. I have not tried this power in PvP, so I can't say how useful it is.
Moment of Glory: EFFECT: +Res +Def(All DMG besides Psionic), +Res(Stun, Hold, Immo, Sleep), +Recovery, -HP, -Heal REC: Extreme END: Minor TYPE: Click
Rating: PvE: 2.5 PvP:?
This is Regen's tier 9 power, while other sets' tier 9's drawback comes in the form of a crash at the end. Regen's drawback is always active until the power ends. Once the power is activated, you will first heal to full and then lose 75% of your current health. You will have a massive defence and resistance against anything not psionic, but you will not gain any more health until the power ends. This effectively negates all your powers from the set as well as any healing done to you from external sources. Dull Pain once again can help this power somewhat by increasing the hp limit. During my testing, I have not found this power to be very useful. Eventually mobs will still be able to hit you and you often had to run before the duration is up and then having to wait until it finishes in order to heal back. Given how prevalent psionic damage is in late game, it is just not very useful. I have not tried this in PvP, so I am not sure how good it is, but I can imagine praying not to meet any psionic defender/dominator or illusion controller while this is active.
Pool:
Leap: Super Jump itself is a pretty nice travel power in PvE or PvP, but combat jump and acrobats don't really help regen much.
Fly: Air Superiority is decent for setting up Shadow Maul and Placate, as well as knocking down fliers. In PvE, its knock back is also pretty useful to mitigate some damage by keeping enemy on the ground. Fly itself is also pretty nice for attacking flying targets in PvP or PvE, it also gives you a great awareness of your surrounding in PvP zones as well as being useful to following up with Teleport+Assassin's Eclipse.
Fitness: Health stacks nicely with passive regens, Swift combines nicely with fly and the upcoming stealth travel IO from I9. Hurdle also can take advantage of stealth IO from I9 as well as being helpful for both Super Jump and Super Speed. Stamina is useful for a stalker especially in PvE and almost a must have if you want to bring out the true potential of hasten. You probably don't need this though if you just do hit and run in PvP.
Concealment: It adds almost nothing to PvE except maybe Phase Shift. This is very useful for PvP to negate some of the +perception from hero side. Phase Shift is a pretty decent power for saving yourself from potential impossible situation, but remember to use it before you are almost dead since this power does take time to activate, it also has a pretty long recharge and high endu cost. You can only keep this toggle on for a max of 30 secs before it turns off automatically. In PvP, this can act as a free placate. You can turn this off when your opponent is not paying attention and immediately start Assassin's Eclipse for some good damage.
Leadership: Assault adds some damage which is always nice. But tactics is what you are really going for in pvp. It adds perception which helps you to see other stalker in Warburg or other heroes using stealth. While it won't prevent you from being feared, it will shorten the fear duration. The extra +ToHit is always useful against defensive sets. I can see tactics for stalker being a lot more common in pvp after I9 since heroes will be running around with stealth travel IO. This can become more important to Regen since unlike SR and Ninjatsu, Regen doesn't have any +perception in the set. The downside is these toggles cost A LOT of endurance. The last power is pretty useful for LRSF.
Presence: Intimidate is a ranged fear, but unless you really love its ranged aspect, Touch of Fear is superior to this in everyway.
Speed: Hasten is very helpful to Regen since majority of Regen's power are clicks. It also helps to negate some slow effect which usually spells death for regen, being able to use ToF, AE, Buildup, Placate more often is also a great benefit. To bring out it is full potential, you might want to consider stamina unless you are the Hit and Run type. Super Speed isn't a very good travel power since you have no vertical movement, but you can try taking teleport or hurdle to help somewhat. You do lose some awareness of your surrounding in PvP compare to SJ and Fly. While Hasten is very useful, you have to give up a pool choice to get this. Personally, between concealment, fitness and teleport, I had to give up fly for it.
Teleportation: Teleport Foe is good for pvp and pve. In PvE, you can tp out minions before attacking the boss or lt. In PvP, you can tp a player in and follow up with ToF. Since DM is completely melee, this is pretty useful. Admittedly, Energy Melee will probably put this to a greater use due to its incredible stunning and bursting capability. Teleport is great both defensively and offensively. Defensively, you can escape even if you are slowed, immobilized, -jumped, -flied. Offensively, you can aim behind someone, queue up your AE, activate the power and you will immediately start AE once the animation finishes. Since teleport let you hover for like 4 secs right after you use it, your AE will not be interrupted. Of course, this is only really useful against stationary target.
Fighting, Medicine: I don't really find these two pools too useful to a Regen, but I can imagine them to be pretty useful for defensive sets.
Patron Power Pool:
Mace: The first two powers are blast and snipe. Both the blast and snipe allows you to crit while in hide, but both are also kind of crappy in damage. The snipe takes an insane amount of time to activate and the damage...lets not talk about the damage. I have only one advice for the snipe power: dont take it. For the blast, its damage is still kind of low but it can be useful for a DM to finish off a runner with a silver of health, it does have a pretty strong knock up though. The power you really want from Mace set is Web Cocoon. It is a basically a super charged web grenade. It does mag 3 hold + -recharge + -jump + -fly + slow. So it is a very nice power for pvp, especially if you dont have air superiority. It is decent in PvE to slow down bosses that are chasing you, as well as holding mobs so you can score criticals (20% chance) on them. The pet is pretty useless in my opinion, it has a really long recharge and the damage them do is kind of meh. One thing to pay attention to is all mace powers have weapon draw and you will have to deal with it. It takes about 1-1.5 secs to draw the mace before you can activate any power. This can get pretty annoying when you use it in the middle of your attack chain. You can elevate this problem somewhat by clicking on a mace power before actually using it. This will allow your character to draw the weapon beforehand. For all your trouble, you get +5% accuracy to all your mace attacks.
Soul: Like Mace, this set has a blast, a snipe, a hold and pet. The hold used to be bugged with its animation so that if you use it in pvp, your victim will be held for almost 10 secs duration while unable to even use breakfree since it counts as a 10 secs knock up. I heard this has been fixed so it is no longer an I win button. Nevertheless its animation is still pretty cool, which could be a reason to take this power for concept reasons. The blast, snipe and pet are similar to mace, so see above.
Leviathan: Finally something different for a change. You will still have a blast, but instead of a snipe, you can summon an indestructible pet for 30 secs. You cant control it but it will stun, -def and cause panic. I heard its attacks have either really high accuracy or autohit that it can piece even personal force field. The best thing about this is using it will not put you out of hide state. Note that it causes panic, not fear, so the enemy will run instead of cower. Leviathans hold is pretty standard except it also has a fly component. The pet is also pretty standard.
Mu: The set overall is pretty standard. You get a blast, snipe, hold and a pet. The thing about the Mu pool is all the attacks you get have a chance to drain enemies endurance as well as recovering your own endurance. This isnt something you will write home about, but Mu set does have something else in store. The hold power has a -100% recovery associated with it. This effect will last as long as 8 seconds. This is a very nice effect in pvp, especially if the enemy is not paying attention to this while you are spamming this attack.
Accolades:
+HP/END Accolades: You should try and get your hands on these as early as possible, especially the +HP ones. Stalker have very low hit points and those things will prevent you from getting one shotted in pve and two shotted in some pvp situations. You passive regen also works better with higher HP limit.
Demonic Aura Accolades: This is a mini tier 9 with an extreme long recharge, but it can save you life so try to also get your hands on this as soon as possible.
CONCLUSION
Dark Melee / Regeneration is a very flexible combination. It is a combination that requires a lot of attention, since most powers are clicks instead of toggles. As such, your decision on when to use which power under what condition matters a great deal. You might not have the bursting capability as some other sets, but you make up for that by controlling the flow of combat using Touch of Fear. You also have to remember that while Regeneration has to tools to deal with burst damage, it is only temporary. When you are out of reconstructions and dull pain to use, you will not survive another around of attack. Keep an eye out for your status icon, when enemies attack you, an attack icon will show up before the damage even connects. This helps you to be ready to hit heals when the damage finally follows through. Always carry purples with you. It is your best friend no matter if you are dealing with an elite boss, bad pulls or ambushes. If you are facing enemies that can fear, remember to carry breakfrees. Overall I had a lot of fun playing my DM/REG and I hope you do as well.
Posted
Interesting commentary on the two. Would be really interested in seeing what you suggest in way of a build / slotting.
Issue: 8 Ver. 1.0
*This guide is created using my personal experience of playing a DM/Reg to level 48. I welcome any additional suggestions and comments in making this guide better.
**DMG = Damage, END = Endurance, REC = Recharge, ACT = Animation Time, TYPE = Toggle or Click, EFFECT = the effects the power carries, AoE = Area of Effect, DoT = Damage over Time, AE = Assassins Eclipse, TP = Teleport, LRSF = Lord Recluses Strike Force
INTRODUCTION:
Dark Melee:
Dark Melee is an interesting melee set ported over from scrapper. Taunt, Dark Consumption and Soul Drains of the original are now replaced with Assassins Eclipse, Build Up and Placate. In addition, Touch of Fear was moved back to lvl 26 instead of lvl 6. Siphon Life is moved back to lvl 18 instead of lvl 8.
Pro:
Attacks carry acc debuff, which quickly adds up.
Has build-in fear attack.
Damage type less resisted vs. lethal and smash.
Has a lvl 32 attack power that is not a cone.
Con:
Damage type highly resisted by ghost/magic type of mob who also happen to be some of the most annoying enemies in game.
No Range attack.
Unable to burst damage as high as some other sets such as EM.
Half of lvl 32 attack damage is dot.
Regeneration:
Regeneration is an interesting set, unlike many other stalkers secondary. it doesn't rely on defence, but instead on healing. REG is also ported from scrapper secondary, Quick Recovery was replaced with Hide.
Pro:
Not dependent on defence, therefore less prone to +ToHit.
Runs fewer toggles than other sets.
Has +HP ability
Good health regeneration power.
Con:
Weak against massive burst damage.
Weak against slow powers.
Has no stamina recovery power like scrapper's version.
Tier 9 power very weak.
Synergy:
The major synergy of combining DM and REG is DM's acc debuff attacks help make up for REG's lack of defence. DM's build-in fear is also helpful to REG powers recharge dependent nature.
POWERS:
Dark Melee:
Shadow Punch: DMG: Minor REC: Short END: Minor ACT: Very Fast
Rating: PvE: 4 PvP: 3.5 Without Stamina PvE: 2.5
Shadow Punch is available very early in the game. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to cope with its endu cost in comparison to Shadow Maul without Stamina. Combined with Smite, you can reach higher DPS than Shadow Maul, but you also use a lot of endurance and only hit single targets. Its short recharge and animation time also helps stacking up acc debuffs. In addition, it can also be used as a good finisher when enemy has a silver of health left.
Smite: DMG: Moderate REC: Short END: Minor ACT: Very Fast
Rating: Overall: 5
Smite is must have power. It is a great finisher and follow up to Assassin's Eclipse. You can also use it from hide for critical damage before you get Midnight Grasp. It will always be helpful no matter if you PvE or PvP. Get this early and slot it up fast.
Shadow Maul: DMG: High REC: Moderate END: Moderate ACT: Slow
Rating: PvE: 3.5 PvP: 2 Without Stamina PvE: 4
Shadow Maul is a controversial power. Over my course of play, its importance moved slowly from being great to replaceable. Nevertheless, this is a great power early on, the ability to target more than one enemies and decent damage means you will save a lot of endurance. When used in combination of Air Superiority, you can negate its biggest draw back of 3 secs animation by keeping your target knocked down. Shadow Maul gives 50% chance to crit out of hide, which is decent in PvE considering you can usually catch two people in it. It is particularly nice for mayhem missions where the bank guards tend to stand next to each other. If you are lucky you can get double crits. I know this isn't documented in City of Data, but from my personally experience, it seems that you will get better chance to crit against even con than +2, +3 mobs. At later level, SM becomes less useful due to higher number of knock down immune elite bosses/bosses you have to face. More importantly, high level mobs start doing some massive damage, making the 3 seconds animation time hurting a lot more. By the same token, setting up SM also becomes more painful as it takes time, which equates to you having to take more damage. I suspect defence based sets might fare better with SM, since they can dodge more incoming attacks. In PvP, SM is okay against squishy, but the 3 seconds animation time really hurt. Against tougher target like a brute, its damage isn't very fantastic unless you can score a critical, but that's only 50% chance even from hidden state.
Assassin's Eclipse: DMG: Extreme (from Hidden) REC: Moderate END: Moderate ACT: Slow (2 secs interruptible)
Rating: Overall: 5
This is the signature power that defines a stalker. It is also your major source of damage. As long as you have hidden state, you can use it for great damage. You can still use it from hidden state even if mobs have aggros on you as long as you are not hit during the 2 seconds interruptible. One thing to pay attention to about this attack is only the first 2 seconds of the whole 3 seconds animation is interruptible, you can move in the last second and the attack will still work. Another thing is that when the animation finally finishes, you must have line of sight with your target or the damage will be nullified. If this happens, you will still maintain hidden states and the mobs will not aggro, but you lose the endurance of using this attack and you will have to wait for the recharge again. You can hit moving target as long as you are not moving and the target is within melee range the moment you activate this power, which you can achieve by clicking the power repeatedly. Defensive sets work better with this power because you are less likely to be interrupted while waiting for the hidden status to kick back in so you can use this again. There is another trick with Assassin's Eclipse. Hidden status takes 10 secs to kick back in. If you can time it right, you can initialize this attack 1-2 secs before hide comes back. So by the time the animation finishes, your hidden status would be back just in time to boost Assassin's Eclipse's damage. Of course, this is risky but with practice and some help from Hero Stats, it is really not that hard. Also remember that in PvP, damage dealt by AE is not resistible. Assassin's Eclipse combines really well with Teleport and Touch of Fear, see them below.
Build Up: EFFECT: +80% Dmg, +20% ToHit, REC: Long END: Small Act: Fast
Rating: Overall: 5
Everything about this power is nice, except the long recharge. This power will super charge all your attacks for the next 10 secs. Using in combination with Assassin's Eclipse and you can one shot a Lt or put him near death. The +20% ToHit should not be ignored. In PvP, it helps somewhat to punch through defensive sets. In PvE, late game will feature a lot of annoying and high defence or acc debuff enemies, include but not limited to Night Widow, Mu Strikers, Circle of Thorn Boss, Knives of Artemis, Police Robots, and Ritki Drones. So if you have some spare slots in your build, I suggest slotting some ToHit into this power.
Placate: EFFECT: +Stealth, +Hide Status, -Aggro(PvE), -Target(PvP) REC: Long END: None Act: Moderate
Rating: PvE: 4.5 PvP: 4
This is another set defining power. In PvE, it will make the target forget about you and put you into hide state for 10 secs. Note that the hide state Placate gives is not related to your Hide power. You can turn off Hide and Placate and you will still gain the state, but it will wear off after 10 secs. You must remember this is a single target power, so the mobs you didn't placate will still chase and attack you. This power can be used both defensively and offensively. Offensively, it gives you a chance to fire off Assassin's Eclipse again in the middle of combat or do critical on your next attack, thus making it a great boss killer. Defensively, you can kill a boss's buddy, placate the boss and escape. Like build up, such great power carries with it a long recharge, so slot +Recharge into it. There are a couple things to pay attention when using this power. Sometimes in PvE, after placating a boss, the boss will wait 10 secs and continue to chase after you. So instead of forgetting about you forever, the boss will suddenly remember you again after 10 secs, I am not sure the exact cause of this. Also, if you have applied some sort of Dot (damage over time) attack on a mob, and then use placate, the dot will aggro the mob again, in effect breaking the -Aggro. You will still have the hidden status, but the mob will be able to attack you. You should always try to use it when the mob has finished its attack animation. If you use it in the middle of a mob's attack animation, the attack will still hit you, this won't aggro the mob, but it will break your stealth and hidden status. By the same token, try not to use placate in the middle of mob's attack chain. There is a chance that mob's queue up attack will still hit you even after you placate. Air Superiority can help negate this problem somewhat. In PvP, this power is bugged. It supposedly make placated player unable to target you, but like in PvE, if the players has queued another attack right before you placate, the queued attack will still hit you. Even worse, if your attack carries any kind of secondary effect like tohit debuff in the case of DM, it will also break the -Target. DM can elevate this problem somewhat by using Touch of Fear before using placate. Overall, even though some problems are preventing this power to be rated 5 stars, it is still a great power when it works as intended.
Siphon Life: DMG: Minor, +Heal REC: Moderate END: Moderate ACT: Slow
Rating: Overall: 2
This is one of those skippable powers for DM. It sounds pretty good on paper that every successful hit will heal you by 10% of health until you realize that stalker inherently has very little hp to gain a lot from this power. Add that to the fact that it has a pretty high endurance cost as well as a moderate recharge, it is just not that great overall. You also have to consider what to slot in it, if you slot Acc+Dmg, then its heal sucks. If you slot Acc+Health, then it does crap damage, at the end of the days you will probably realize there are other great powers that you can spend your slots on that will give you a better return than this. The +heal is potentially more useful to defence sets than regen, since those sets don't completely rely on healing to mitigate damage. I can imagine this to be usable if you can slot some Hamidon Origins, but then again, there are probably other better places to spend your HO on.
Touch of Fear: EFFECT: Fear, -ToHit REC: Fast END: Low-Moderate ACT: Fast
Rating: Overall: 5
I will be honest. Imho if you don't want to take this power, you should not choose DM. In a simple statement, this is the power that makes DM set. In PvE, this works as a second placate. You can apply fear to a mob and wait for the hidden status to kick back in for an AE attack. You can also use this when facing multiple mobs to reduce the incoming damage. If you have slotted some recharge, you can use it on multiple enemies per fight to make things easier for you. This is also a great boss killer. Two applications on a boss will turn him into a coward. Then you can wait for hidden status, AE, reapply ToF twice, wait for hidden status, rinse and repeat. Personally, I like to keep the boss feared while keeping on scrapping. From my observation, even though one attack wakes up a feared mob and allow him to take one action, if you have fast attacks, you can spam several of them and they will only trigger one attack from the feared foe. This greatly reduces the number of hits you take from dangerous enemies. As a Regen, if you want to play on the safe side, after a round of attack and using up reconstruction, you can keep the boss feared until your placate, reconstruction, buildup recharges again before launching a new around of assault. It also carries with it a high -ToHit at somewhere around 11%. So stacking this on an enemy a few times will really reduce their accuracy. Two ToF combined with a defensive set will basically floor a mob's accuracy. ToF also helps regen set since it has no defence to begin with. Defensively, ToF can quickly nullify dangerous enemies such as Sapper. So if you happen to miss your AE on a Sapper, you can use ToF to redeem the situation. If you have more than one Sapper, you can AE one and ToF the other. If you have an ambush coming and no time to setup for an AE, you can use ToF. In PvP, if you use it on a player that did not carry a break free or resist fear, you can actually wait 10 secs for another AE. Of course, status like fear has diminished return in pvp, so don't over use it on a target, but its -ToHit is still useful in any case. In short, ToF is just a great tool that can negate a lot of stalker's inherent weaknesses. Remember some mobs are immune to fear in PvE such as Nemesis soldiers, Banished, etc.
Midnight Grasp: DMG: High, Immobilize REC: Moderate END: Moderate ACT: Slow
Rating: Overall: 4
This is a great finisher to DM. Between this, Smite and Shadow Punch. You will dash out some serious pain to single target. MG's weakness is half of its damage is dot and as a stalker you must finish your target fast before you sustain too much damage, so this goes against that philosophy. The dot is also not good for Placate. You can check the detail on that above. Its immobilize aspect is okay to stop running enemies, but overall not so useful. MG's strength lies within its critical. Unlike some other set's tier 9 attacks. This is a single target attack, which means it has a 100% chance to crit out of hide. When MG crit, it will take in account of the total amount of damage it will do. So the crit already includes the dot damages. For example, if your MG does 50 points of straight damage and 50 points of dot damage, your will crit for 100 instead of 50.
Regeneration:
Hide: EFFECT: +Hidden Status, +Stealth, +AoE Def TYPE: Toggle, END: Moderate
Rating: Overall: 5
This is a power you have to take to make stalker's inherent work, although some can argue this is a disadvantage to stalker class since no other AT has to take an extra power just to make their inherent work. Regardless, this is the power you will keep running 90% of the time. This power makes you completely invisible to mobs, except a few that can see through stealth such as Knives of Artemis and Ritki Drones. If you attack or sustain damage (except self-inflicted such as falling), you will be taken out of the hidden state, the stealth will suppress and your AoE Def will drop to almost nothing. In simple terms, it is as if you have turned off this power. If you are neither attacking nor attacked for 10 secs, you will automatically gain all the benefits back. Despite what some might believe, this is NOT actually a cheap toggle. According to city of data, this toggle costs as much endurance as integration. Most people will just throw in an endurance enhancement in it and forget about it, but as a Regen you should consider slotting three defences into it since Regen doesn't have any defence. So you are less likely to be interrupted when facing aoe mobs that become prevalent in late games. Another thing is when you are rescuing hostages, you have to turn this off or the hostage will not be able to follow you. In the upcoming I9, you won't have to do this anymore since hostage will put a huge debuff on you that mobs will be able to see you from miles away. In my opinion, the new changes really hurt stalker and especially in getting nukes in Warburg, but little you can do about that.
Fast Healing: EFFECT: +Regen, TYPE: Passive
Rating: PvE: 4 PvP: 3
This is the power that a lot of people have mixed feeling about. Most will tell you to ignore it. However, after some testing, I have found this power to be very useful. From my observation, if you have this power three slotted and Health from fitness pool along with Integration, you will be able to regen about 25 health every second at high level. I noticed that after getting this power and slotting it up, I drastically reduced the number of times I have to use Reconstruction. Also, with the new upcoming invention origins, passive powers become really powerful when combined with unique IOs since it will be active all the time. I suppose this power helps less in pvp aspect since burst damage rules the day, but I figured since DM can not burst as much as other sets anyway, you might have to stay in the fight a little longer than other sets and in that case, every bit of healing helps. Combine this with dull pain and you should be able to recover even more health per second.
Reconstruction: EFFECT: +Heal, +Toxic Resist REC: Long END: Moderate Type: Click
Rating: Overall: 5
This is a decent heal power for Regen, when slotted it heals about half of your health every 30 seconds. You get this power pretty early and it really helps with early level game play. At later level, this along will not keep you alive, but it is still a good heal against Lt and minions. In PvP, this will help with negating some of the burst damage you receive where defensive set become less effective with all the +ToHit on hero side. Its toxic resist isn't anything to write about, but it can be helpful in late game when toxic damage become more and more common.
Dull Pain: EFFECT: +HP, +Heal, REC: Very Long END: Moderate Type: Click
Rating: Overall: 5
This is the other heal power besides Reconstruction. In addition to increase your total hit point by a huge amount, it also carries a massive heal at somewhere around 75% of your life. This is your primary defence again massive burst damage, in PvP or PvE. More HP means your passive regen will be more effective as well. That said, you will still need purple inspirations against elite bosses or certain high level bosses. At late game, bosses or even lts such as Bane Spider Scout frequently take out 50% to 90% of your life each hit and using just reconstruction and dull pain still won't keep you alive. You will need purples in these situations. As DM, you can try using the good old ToF.
Integration: EFFECT: +Res(Hold, Stun, Sleep, Immo, KB) +Regen END: Moderate Type: Toggle
Rating: Overall: 5
You want to take this power as early as possible. Its status protection is incredible. You also regen your health pretty fast if you slot in heal enhancements but from my observation, I have not been able to totally rely on its passive regen when I didn't have Fast Healing. In PvE, I have never been stunned when this power is running. In PvP, there are times when I have been stunned even with it, so you might also want to take Resilience on top of this. One thing to pay attention to is this power does not protect from confuse, fear and placate. Fear is very popular in PvP so you might want to keep some breakfrees around or take tactics from leadership pool, which shortens the fear duration.
Resilience: EFFECT: +Minor Res (Smash, Lethal, Toxic), +Res(Stun), TYPE: Passive
Rating: PvE: 2.5 PvP: 3
Overall, besides its additional stun protection, its resists to Smash, Lethal and Toxic is just too small to make much of a difference. I have heard some people mentioning that with this power, you can use a self rez inspiration and not having to worry about the stun, I have not personally verify this claim, but it certainly sounds possible. Its stun protection plays a greater role in PvP, but still not as much use to a stalker as it is to a scrapper since stalkers in general don't stay and fight as long. That said, this is still a resistant passive, which leaves some possibilities for slotting in some cool unique resistant IO when I9 arrives.
Instant Healing: EFFECT: +Regen REC: Very Very Long END: Moderate Type: Click
Rating: Overall: 4
This used to be the Regen's set defining power. With several nerfs, it has been reduced to a clicky with massive recharge. It is still a decent power, but nevertheless situational. It won't save you when you are already near the edge of death, since this power requires time to work properly. It is also better to be used along with Dull Pain which boosts its effectiveness. As with any +regen based power, it is most effective against high dps damage rather than massive burst damage. Translating that to PvE, it usually means it is more effective when used against high number of minions rather than high level bosses. Since Moment of Glory is kind of crappy, this can be treated as regen's pseudo tier 9 as long as you remember there is still a difference between this power and a true tier 9.
Revive: EFFECT: Self Rez REC: Very Long END: None Type: Click
Rating: PvE: 3 PvP:?
This is Regen's self rez power. It is not bad as long as you don't use it near a bunch of mobs. It is not so useful at early game, but at late game, death can come swiftly and frequently and in cases like these, Revive will make a death recovery much easier since you can jump back into a fight without going to hospital, this is also pretty useful for Hamidon raid. I have not tried this power in PvP, so I can't say how useful it is.
Moment of Glory: EFFECT: +Res +Def(All DMG besides Psionic), +Res(Stun, Hold, Immo, Sleep), +Recovery, -HP, -Heal REC: Extreme END: Minor TYPE: Click
Rating: PvE: 2.5 PvP:?
This is Regen's tier 9 power, while other sets' tier 9's drawback comes in the form of a crash at the end. Regen's drawback is always active until the power ends. Once the power is activated, you will first heal to full and then lose 75% of your current health. You will have a massive defence and resistance against anything not psionic, but you will not gain any more health until the power ends. This effectively negates all your powers from the set as well as any healing done to you from external sources. Dull Pain once again can help this power somewhat by increasing the hp limit. During my testing, I have not found this power to be very useful. Eventually mobs will still be able to hit you and you often had to run before the duration is up and then having to wait until it finishes in order to heal back. Given how prevalent psionic damage is in late game, it is just not very useful. I have not tried this in PvP, so I am not sure how good it is, but I can imagine praying not to meet any psionic defender/dominator or illusion controller while this is active.
Pool:
Leap: Super Jump itself is a pretty nice travel power in PvE or PvP, but combat jump and acrobats don't really help regen much.
Fly: Air Superiority is decent for setting up Shadow Maul and Placate, as well as knocking down fliers. In PvE, its knock back is also pretty useful to mitigate some damage by keeping enemy on the ground. Fly itself is also pretty nice for attacking flying targets in PvP or PvE, it also gives you a great awareness of your surrounding in PvP zones as well as being useful to following up with Teleport+Assassin's Eclipse.
Fitness: Health stacks nicely with passive regens, Swift combines nicely with fly and the upcoming stealth travel IO from I9. Hurdle also can take advantage of stealth IO from I9 as well as being helpful for both Super Jump and Super Speed. Stamina is useful for a stalker especially in PvE and almost a must have if you want to bring out the true potential of hasten. You probably don't need this though if you just do hit and run in PvP.
Concealment: It adds almost nothing to PvE except maybe Phase Shift. This is very useful for PvP to negate some of the +perception from hero side. Phase Shift is a pretty decent power for saving yourself from potential impossible situation, but remember to use it before you are almost dead since this power does take time to activate, it also has a pretty long recharge and high endu cost. You can only keep this toggle on for a max of 30 secs before it turns off automatically. In PvP, this can act as a free placate. You can turn this off when your opponent is not paying attention and immediately start Assassin's Eclipse for some good damage.
Leadership: Assault adds some damage which is always nice. But tactics is what you are really going for in pvp. It adds perception which helps you to see other stalker in Warburg or other heroes using stealth. While it won't prevent you from being feared, it will shorten the fear duration. The extra +ToHit is always useful against defensive sets. I can see tactics for stalker being a lot more common in pvp after I9 since heroes will be running around with stealth travel IO. This can become more important to Regen since unlike SR and Ninjatsu, Regen doesn't have any +perception in the set. The downside is these toggles cost A LOT of endurance. The last power is pretty useful for LRSF.
Presence: Intimidate is a ranged fear, but unless you really love its ranged aspect, Touch of Fear is superior to this in everyway.
Speed: Hasten is very helpful to Regen since majority of Regen's power are clicks. It also helps to negate some slow effect which usually spells death for regen, being able to use ToF, AE, Buildup, Placate more often is also a great benefit. To bring out it is full potential, you might want to consider stamina unless you are the Hit and Run type. Super Speed isn't a very good travel power since you have no vertical movement, but you can try taking teleport or hurdle to help somewhat. You do lose some awareness of your surrounding in PvP compare to SJ and Fly. While Hasten is very useful, you have to give up a pool choice to get this. Personally, between concealment, fitness and teleport, I had to give up fly for it.
Teleportation: Teleport Foe is good for pvp and pve. In PvE, you can tp out minions before attacking the boss or lt. In PvP, you can tp a player in and follow up with ToF. Since DM is completely melee, this is pretty useful. Admittedly, Energy Melee will probably put this to a greater use due to its incredible stunning and bursting capability. Teleport is great both defensively and offensively. Defensively, you can escape even if you are slowed, immobilized, -jumped, -flied. Offensively, you can aim behind someone, queue up your AE, activate the power and you will immediately start AE once the animation finishes. Since teleport let you hover for like 4 secs right after you use it, your AE will not be interrupted. Of course, this is only really useful against stationary target.
Fighting, Medicine: I don't really find these two pools too useful to a Regen, but I can imagine them to be pretty useful for defensive sets.
Patron Power Pool:
Mace: The first two powers are blast and snipe. Both the blast and snipe allows you to crit while in hide, but both are also kind of crappy in damage. The snipe takes an insane amount of time to activate and the damage...lets not talk about the damage. I have only one advice for the snipe power: dont take it. For the blast, its damage is still kind of low but it can be useful for a DM to finish off a runner with a silver of health, it does have a pretty strong knock up though. The power you really want from Mace set is Web Cocoon. It is a basically a super charged web grenade. It does mag 3 hold + -recharge + -jump + -fly + slow. So it is a very nice power for pvp, especially if you dont have air superiority. It is decent in PvE to slow down bosses that are chasing you, as well as holding mobs so you can score criticals (20% chance) on them. The pet is pretty useless in my opinion, it has a really long recharge and the damage them do is kind of meh. One thing to pay attention to is all mace powers have weapon draw and you will have to deal with it. It takes about 1-1.5 secs to draw the mace before you can activate any power. This can get pretty annoying when you use it in the middle of your attack chain. You can elevate this problem somewhat by clicking on a mace power before actually using it. This will allow your character to draw the weapon beforehand. For all your trouble, you get +5% accuracy to all your mace attacks.
Soul: Like Mace, this set has a blast, a snipe, a hold and pet. The hold used to be bugged with its animation so that if you use it in pvp, your victim will be held for almost 10 secs duration while unable to even use breakfree since it counts as a 10 secs knock up. I heard this has been fixed so it is no longer an I win button. Nevertheless its animation is still pretty cool, which could be a reason to take this power for concept reasons. The blast, snipe and pet are similar to mace, so see above.
Leviathan: Finally something different for a change. You will still have a blast, but instead of a snipe, you can summon an indestructible pet for 30 secs. You cant control it but it will stun, -def and cause panic. I heard its attacks have either really high accuracy or autohit that it can piece even personal force field. The best thing about this is using it will not put you out of hide state. Note that it causes panic, not fear, so the enemy will run instead of cower. Leviathans hold is pretty standard except it also has a fly component. The pet is also pretty standard.
Mu: The set overall is pretty standard. You get a blast, snipe, hold and a pet. The thing about the Mu pool is all the attacks you get have a chance to drain enemies endurance as well as recovering your own endurance. This isnt something you will write home about, but Mu set does have something else in store. The hold power has a -100% recovery associated with it. This effect will last as long as 8 seconds. This is a very nice effect in pvp, especially if the enemy is not paying attention to this while you are spamming this attack.
Accolades:
+HP/END Accolades: You should try and get your hands on these as early as possible, especially the +HP ones. Stalker have very low hit points and those things will prevent you from getting one shotted in pve and two shotted in some pvp situations. You passive regen also works better with higher HP limit.
Demonic Aura Accolades: This is a mini tier 9 with an extreme long recharge, but it can save you life so try to also get your hands on this as soon as possible.
CONCLUSION
Dark Melee / Regeneration is a very flexible combination. It is a combination that requires a lot of attention, since most powers are clicks instead of toggles. As such, your decision on when to use which power under what condition matters a great deal. You might not have the bursting capability as some other sets, but you make up for that by controlling the flow of combat using Touch of Fear. You also have to remember that while Regeneration has to tools to deal with burst damage, it is only temporary. When you are out of reconstructions and dull pain to use, you will not survive another around of attack. Keep an eye out for your status icon, when enemies attack you, an attack icon will show up before the damage even connects. This helps you to be ready to hit heals when the damage finally follows through. Always carry purples with you. It is your best friend no matter if you are dealing with an elite boss, bad pulls or ambushes. If you are facing enemies that can fear, remember to carry breakfrees. Overall I had a lot of fun playing my DM/REG and I hope you do as well.