How to handle Carnies and other Warshade questions

Hi everyone,

I'm having some trouble with pesky Carnies... I am playing a level 48 tri-form Warshade with the following IO sets: 6 Touch of the Nictus in Essence Drain, 5 Stupefy in Unchain Essence, 2 Fury of the Gladiator in Quasar, 6 performance Shifter in Eclipse, 5 Decimation in Nova Bolt, 6 Kinetic Crash in Nova Blast, 5 Positron's Blast in Nova Detonation, 4 Perfect Zinger in Dwarf Antagonize, and one Tempered Readiness a piece in Dwarf Strike and Dwarf Smite.
I am nowhere near done with my build but the infamy fairy hasn't come to visit too often lately. Anyways, my difficulty is set to +0 x3, and the Carnies seem to be the only enemy group really giving me grief. Not even Void Hunters are this big a deal. My ideal approach has been to try and gravity well/inky aspect/gravitic emanation the mobs right off the bat and then blast the crap out of them in Nova form, but it never likes to go according to plan... Instead, I get forced into Dwarf form and if I even pop out to fire Hasten (There's never even time for Eclipse unless I can mez a small group and then hit it quick) they instantly hold me. Any insight on how other players handle this would be appreciated (I know "finish your build" is probably the most logical response, but I need help getting through the poor stage.)

I'm sure you could glean some useful tactics off my MFing Warshade guide, as it is designed for tri-form doom slinging.

To address Carnies in particular: They're a bit of warshade kryptonite to be sure. They drain endurance, something we have no protection against, and the psi damage comes with -recharge.

The best thing to do, I think, you're already doing. Open up with Gravitic Emanation to stun the whole crowd. Get up close and Eclipse/Mire, then Gravity Well a minion and Unchain Essence on the corpse. Now get the hell out in Nova and you should be able to blast safely before they ever get out of the stun. As a bonus, you'll be out of range for the endurance drain.

If they're mezzing you, then I'll refer you to my guide (again) for a bunch of tactics for dealing with mezzing enemies.

Funny (and great) that you replied, I reference your guide pretty often The thing that irks me about gravitic emanation is that they tend to scatter, making it hard to get a good mire/eclipse in. I do try to flee in Nova form but there always seem to be one or two that escape, run up close and hold me or beat the crap out of me so that I have to go into dwarf. :/ Maybe I just need more practice, I've tried turning the difficulty down for Carnie missions and it is easier to get through but it also takes much longer than other groups do. Thanks for the help though, it's much appreciated.

Admittedly this is from a human form perspective, but my approach is usually to stealth in, toggle on Inky Aspect, Eclipse, Mire, Gravity Well on a minion, Unchain Essence, Stygian Circle, jump back, gravitic emanation, mop up, raise pet, Stygian Circle again.

Just make sure that if you're dealing with Master Illusionists that you time your alpha strike so that they've just come out of Phase Shift, otherwise they'll avoid your attack and batter you with impunity.

I've been wondering about how inky aspect works exactly, I always have it on when in human form and it doesn't always seem to be effective... Does it have a sort of cycle like phase shift, or am I imagining things?

Yeah the illusionists are the worst. I also have some lag issues which make them even harder to handle.

Great thanks. The -hp has seems to be so minimal, is there any real harm in leaving it on whenever in human form?

That's what I thought, thanks. I've been reading through a lot of the Kheldian guides in the stickied thread and it seems like most people recommend picking up super speed, so I grabbed it as my level 49 power. Maybe it just takes some getting used to but as of now it's totally working against me in combat... I've been overshooting mobs by just enough to miss the bulk of my initial eclipse/mires, which is a pretty huge deal since I'm nowhere near perma on either yet... Leading me to my next question (or series of questions )

Power choices for tri-form?

I think I picked up all of the powers recommended in Dech's MFing Warshade guide, (the ones I picked listed below) so I'm going to focus on the ones I picked up that I don't use but couldn't think of anything else to pick.. I grabbed maneuvers, and stealth (even though I already have shadow cloak) because Dech mentioned that they all take the LOTG proc's. Is that really a good reason to pick up powers that I literally have no use for as a primarily solo tri-form player? And if not, what else is there really to pick?
I also grabbed nebulous form for the sake of getting around in places like rwz and grandville-- Timing the phase for as soon as I exit a mission is pretty helpful, but again I wish there was a more appealing choice. I have Orbiting Death for aesthetic purposes, sadly I get more use out of that than the other ones I've mentioned. I also don't care much for unchain essence but I put a set in there with a global recharge bonus so I guess it stays.

The powers I selected are:

Shadow Bolt (What a waste, never used)
Absorption (KB Protection)
Gravimetric Snare (Worthless)
Orbiting Death (Looks pretty)
Dark Nova (Granted)
Hasten (Granted)
Sunless Mire
Shadow Cloak
Maneuvers (LOTG)
Gravity Well
Black Dwarf (Granted)
Stygian Circle
Nebulous Form (Meh)
Essence Drain
Gravitic Emanation
Unchain Essence (Meh)
Dark Extraction
Quasar
Inky Aspect
Stygian Return
Eclipse (Granted)
Stealth (Meh)
Super Speed (Meh)

I guess what I'm getting at is, what powers in everyone's opinion would make me not feel so wasteful, and/or how can I use the powers I'm iffy about in a better way? Thanks for bearing with me, any more advice along with the advice I've already recieved would be greatly appreciated.

Did I rant too much in that one?