This is taken from the old post by fiddesoder99
(Hopefully Empyreal10 will be very happy with this post.)

Here is the original (previously considered to be the Gold Standard, but now dated) build:

Build by championBuilder 0.4.1

Download this Build here.

: Level 40 Champion

Superstats:
Level 6: Super Endurance
Level 13: Super Dexterity

Powers:
Level 1: Shadow Bolt
Level 1: Shadow Embrace -- Rank 2, Fatal Allure
Level 6: Spirit Reverberation
Level 6: Teleport -- Rank 2
Level 8: Shadow Form -- Rank 3, Rank 2
Level 11: Force Shield -- Force Sheath, Rank 3, Rank 2
Level 14: Lifedrain -- Vampiric Sympathy, Rank 2
Level 17: Shadow Shroud -- Rank 2
Level 20: Ego Surge -- Nimble Mind, Rank 2
Level 23: Telekinetic Eruption -- Enhanced Form
Level 26: Ego Blade Breach -- Rank 3, Rank 2
Level 29: Force Eruption -- Gravitational Polarity
Level 32: Ego Storm -- Malevolent Manifestation
Level 35: Masterful Dodge
Level 35: Flight
Level 38: Dark Transfusion -- Blood Sacrifice

Talents:
Level 1: Impetus
Level 6: Agile
Level 9: Indomitable
Level 12: Energetic
Level 15: Accurate
Level 18: Shooter
Level 21: Daredevil

The build, as originally posted, still works well enough but here are some new/current facts that should alter the build for today:
- Fatal Allure adv. functions quite differently
- Shadow Form scales off Super Stats
- Gravitational Polarity adv. has to be fully charged to function
- Shadow Shroud energy gain scales with CON
- Spirit Reverberation energy gain scales with CON
- Nimble Mind adv. +Crit% scales with CON

Given the above, here are a few proposed changes:
a) Since nothing from the core of the build requires END, CON seems to be the better Superstat. This changes the build from a DEX/END build to a DEX/CON build.
b) Fatal Allure should be changed to Dark Displacement.

And here are a few questions:
1) Does changing the Superstat from END to CON alter Dark Transfusion's usefulness so much that it is no longer valuable to the build? Should the talents be changed from DEX/CON/EGO to maybe DEX/CON/END to retain some of this usefulness? (Or perhaps a heal of some form like Empathic Healing, or Ego Sprites w/Slave Mentality adv. would be preferred?)

1.1) What should the talents focus on anyway? DEX/CON/EGO, DEX/CON/???, DEX/???/???, or some other arrangement?

2) Since Gravitational Polarity has to be fully charged to function, does this decrease its usefulness so much that it is no longer valuable to the build? (Perhaps a 3rd Active Offense like Ice Sheath would be preferred?)

3) Is Form of the Tempest so supremely useful to this build that it absolutely must be included in this build? (I personally don’t think so since the only melee attack that it would benefit from is the Ego Blade Breach, but I figured I’d throw it out there.)

Any thoughts/comments/suggestions or additional questions are appreciated.

This build brings me back every time. I understand your desire to update it (since it's been flaunted so much) but there's two fatal flaws that make this build no longer viable:

1) This build was posted before the melee pass and the introduction of the Brawler Role (along with the current Form of the Tempest). This means playing a mixed melee/ranged build is annoying at best now, since you either don't receive the full damage bonus (Avenger; which has its own set of problems) or gouge your ranged damage (Brawler). Or you could play in Guardian, but that also defeats the purpose of having "so much kill" for one build.

2) F2P's slew of updates and nerfs. This killed Gravitational Polarity (effectively) and tied CON directly into the performance of Darkness. Vampiric Sympathy also works much differently now, and is only really useful as pseudo-team-support. With the advent of Ebon Ruin, EBB's place in this build is essentially ousted, not to mention polish on Ebon Rift making it much easier to use (and Vengeful Shadows is quite deadly).

In general all of the updates weakened and/or broke the synergies that made this build awesome back in the day. It just doesn't function like that anymore; it is a casualty of paradigm shift.

Even if you took the core of the build and polished it, it would still be retrofitting an outdated build, and it shows. The core of this build is not as tight as it once was, it doesn't leverage half the synergies we have now, and simply falls flat.

If I were to rebuild this, it would look completely different. However, it depends on what you want to do with it. There's no point in keeping the ranged/melee hybridization (avenger/brawler; ebon ruin vs. EBB) which is a huge part of this build, unless you specifically want to go that route. That fact alone changes a non-trivial portion of the build.

edit: Also thank you for starting a new thread on this build. The old one got necroed so many times...

I understand that you made it very clear that your point of view pertains specifically to this particular build, but I wanted to point out that there are some instances where melee/ranged hybridization can still work extremely well, namely, using Pulsewave's "rage of majesty" building on certain combos which affects both damage types equally.

There are plenty of instances where ranged/melee hybridization is still viable, of course. Neither Sentinel nor Protector care about damage type, and you can certainly still use universal damage buffs in either role. There's also Guardian, but there are precious few reasons to use Guardian in my opinion, and with the current state of the game, I consider staying in Guardian a waste of potential most of the time.

However if you're planning an all-out offensive build utilizing Avenger or Brawler, hybridization tends to fall apart. Notable exceptions are if you're augmenting the build with the opposite damage type as a buff or debuff (sticking Roomsweeper on Enrage stacking ranged builds, using Ebon Ruin as a Paranormal Resistance / Heal debuff).

For the build being discussed in particular, the melee/ranged split seriously damaged its viability. Swapping out Shadowform for Seraphim would make the core of the build sync up more, but a lot of the buffs still need to be swapped out.

I am running something like this kicking ass with shadow form, shadow embrace, and a few ego bade powers in avenger. One thing tomnote is that in order to maintain it I'm forced to use int/Rec.

ranged ego stealth variant,
tk assault would be nice variation be nice in there, but I decided to focus on burst-lance with ego choke providing a nice compliment for both defense and single-target finishing move

Build by championBuilder 0.4.1

Download this Build here.

: Level 40 Champion

Superstats:
Level 6: Super Dexterity
Level 13: Super Ego

Powers:
Level 1: Kinetic Darts
Level 1: Telekinetic Burst
Level 6: Ego Reverberation
Level 8: Shadow Form
Level 11: Evasive Maneuvers -- Sleight Of Mind
Level 14: Mental Discipline
Level 17: Ego Choke
Level 20: Telekinetic Lance
Level 23: Smoke Grenade -- Escape Artist
Level 26: Ebon Ruin -- Paranormal Paranoia
Level 29: Ego Surge -- Nimble Mind
Level 32: Dark Transfusion -- Blood Sacrifice
Level 35: Masterful Dodge
Level 38: Conviction

This is exactly what I'd like to see continue in this post. Ideas on how to make an all-out offensive build utilizing any role that has a hybrid melee/ranged split and uses Darkness and Ego frameworks.

It may be a difficult proposal, but this game is so configurable that nothing is impossible. (Sub-optimal, maybe, but not impossible.)

Also, with the number of people continuing to resurrect the old post, clearly there is interest in making this kind of build a current, more functional one. So keep the ideas, suggestions, and notes coming.

A sub-optimal solution along the same lines, keeping in mind multirange viability and all-out offense, would likely fall entirely under the aegis of TK. Mental Discipline, TK Assault, ego blade attacks of choice. Possibly stack Enrage just to be a jerk, though that'd be damn hard on yer stats. Except that you can also substitute TK Wave for any/all ego blade attacks in the same build and, for the most part, do the same stuff but better.

There's really just no good way to easily mesh ranged and melee attacks anymore. Not offensively, anyways. Whichever role you pick, you're hurting yourself pretty badly in the other mode, and for the vast majority of content you don't really need it. Defensive passives, as has been said, can do whatever they please, but even then they typically do better to pick a range and optimize their performance within that range. The only solid exception that comes to mind are Bullet Beatdown builds, and since I know this is a PvP thread in disguise, those don't count.

About the best way to do it, s'far as I can see, would be to do like Empyreal said - just bring Ebon Ruin w/Paranormal Paranoia on a more typical Shadowblade build, run in Brawler, and just flip to Avenger if/when you need to do some sniping. It's not a bad way to play by any means, but I don't figure it's as magical as this was back before I joined up. I wouldn't know, I've very little idea of how Champions worked prior to F2P.

once again, as long as you're being specific to this build with that statement I'm ok with that. But the only offensive passive ego/dimensional builds I could see holding a candle to an AoPM+enrage guardian role build would be much squishier running on Elite. I agree much more with Pulsewave on this, who said something along the lines of offensive passives being overshadowed by the benefits of AoPM+enrage. The only problem with that is that it doesn't work for every powerset in the game due to you pretty much being required to take STR as one of your SS to really beef it up, which is a terrible choice for some powerset combos.

I'd love to see a paranormal / ego build running in brawler solo burn down an elite AP boss as fast as my STR/DEX AoPM enrage DE infernal while at the same time barely taking a scratch. I also tank MegaD with him in guardian role, and routinely top the damage scoreboard. Ironically, it is never my intention to be the one tanking him.

Can we not bring back the Primal Rage debates, please?

The devs have already stated that they're not happy with Primal Rage builds, the majority of the player base is unhappy with Primal Rage outperforming offensive passives - note that most builds in the forum these days seem to be using offensive passives anyways, in something of a surprisingly universal cold shoulder - and nobody liked it when every Tom, ****, and Celestine in the forums was going into every new build thread, regardless of stated theme, objectives, or the desires of the builder, and saying "OH MAI GAHD THIS WOULD BE SO MUCH BETTER w/ENRAGE."

If you want to discuss the merits of using Primal Rage to facilitate offensive multirange hybridization, excellent. That is absolutely a weakness in Cryptic's current build and I will agree that using exploits - which is what Primal Rage is, make no mistake about that - to patch up something that should be perfectly viable in the normal operation of the game is fine. But let's not make this another 'anything you can do Zeus can do better' thread, shall we?