BlackestNight

Fearsome Stare:

The reason I say one recharge as opposed to two fear durations is more of a quality of life issue. 3.5 seconds of recharge vs. 6.6 seconds of longer fear doesn't seem like much of a choice: the longer fear wins out right?

In some cases yes, in others no. Solo, I say the two fears are better because you can launch your fear and have over 30 seconds to wipe everyone out. In teams where multiple mobs are involved, the faster recharge allows you to the ability to lock down more groups faster. 3.5 seconds doesn't seem like much sometimes but it could make or break your team in large-scale battles. At the same time, 6.6 seconds of extra fear doesn't seem like all that much either. Either case, you don't "lose" anything per se, you just trade off what you believe to be more advantagious.

More fear duration equals more "breathing room", quicker recharge means you can lock down multiple mobs or mobs you missed faster. It's a matter of playstyle.

I prefer more versatility over longer fear because 26.6 seconds is more than enough for my playstyle. Enemies simply don't last 26.6 seconds in most scenarios. The extra 6.6. does me no good. However, 3.5 seconds of faster recharge means I can use the power more often and lock down more enemies.

So the moral of the story is this: playstyle determines slotting. Your mileage may vary.

Thanks for all the replies! I love how people come on to this Guide and share how they use their D3. I'm pretty stubborn when it comes to being "efficient" and I drop or don't take a lot of powers in the name of Efficiency.

Player_101 (didn't you go by a different name awhile back?) had some good points about Blackstar and that my "reasoning" for taking it is as mature as a 5 year olds. I just feel that if a Defender doesn't take their nuke then they are submitting to the "Defenders are weak" mentality. When a Defender can drop 16 guys at once, it shows the other ATs we have some meat to our bones. It's more psychological than practical.

I tried dropping Blackstar on Test for a Hover/Tactics build and while the build was great, not having Blackstar for certain times was "de-flating" I guess. Kind of like, dang, I couldn't take them all out with one shot. Anyway, thanks for the support...

Carry on!

Endurance Problem Solving *Addendum*

Toggles

Depending on how you use your toggles, you can save endurance by not relying on them less but by knowing the situation you're in and making a decision on when having the toggle up is more detrimental (as it drains endurance) then having it down (and possibly taking damage). For many situations, the "cut-off point" is smudged and you can never be truly sure if/when dropping, say Darkest Night, will breach your personal/team safety but there is usually a time in every battle where you or your team begin feel that the battle is under control. At this critical point, you have the opportunity to start dropping toggles to regain lost endurance.

For example, let's say that you and a Blaster are in a mission fighting Freakshow. There are 6 of them, a Freak Tank, two Lieutenants and 3 Minions. You start off with a Fearsome Stare on the whole group which Fears all but one of the Lieutenants (Freak Tanks can be feared with one application). The Lieutenant blasts you with electrical energy, giving you the heads up that you missed one. Immediately, you lock down the Lieutenant with a Fearsome Stare. The Blaster follows your Stare with an AoE (say Fireball) and this causes all the Feared enemies to retaliate. The Blaster is Alpha'd and goes down to yellow health, which you heal using the Tank as as the target to slow his Regen. Sensing that another Alpha like that may kill one or both of you, you put Darkest Night on the Tank and then turn on Shadowfall to give both of you Energy resistance (which the Freaks are using). With both toggles running and the effect of Fear, the battle goes smoothly and you drop all the minions and one Lieutenant with ease. All that is left is the second Lieut. and the Tank. This is the critical point I'm talking about. This battle, most likely, has gotten over the "dangerous" phase and is in the "clean up" phase. You know that you can now control the Freak Tank and the Lt. without the use of Toggles. Now, you may miss with a Fear or a Petrifying Gaze which means that having the toggles up could save you. That is your call to make. However, barring a bad string of misses, the toggles have become more detrimental in the long run and you should probably turn them off. Having battlefied presence of mind is among the greatest assets you can have and will go a long way to saving you endurance.

Finally, I'll mention it though I shouldn't have to: turn Sprint off in battle. It's a meager endurance drain but a drain nonetheless. Combat Jumping is definately ok and so is Hover. Any Travel Power is also a waste of endurance in battle with the supression factor now so turn them off as well.

Attacks

Toggles may drain you but gratuitous use of power is likely the culprit of why you're out of blue bar. Simply put, spamming unneccessary attacks is the number one killer of endurance so knowing when/where/why to use your attacks is critical. In my experience, not waiting for the damage over time from Gloom and Tentacles (to an extent Nightfall) causes me to become impatient and use a Dark Blast to finish the guy. That's 7.5 Endurance I could have saved. Also, there are certain powers that come up so frequently and have so many good uses that you use them every time they refresh. The perfect example is Fearsome Stare. The Fear effect lasts 15-20 seconds easy so using it again before that time just for that purpose is wasteful. It also has a Debuff associated with it and that's why I like to spam it, but, if I'm running Darkest Night, using Tentacles/Nightfall and have already Fearsome Stared once, I probably have most enemies to the 5% Accuracy cap anyway. A second application for the debuff alone is inefficient. Little tricks like that go a long long way in saving endurance.

Don't take Hasten

Hasten, while I strongly encourage it for many reasons, does cause you to burn through endurance faster. With so many useful powers at your disposal, Hasten just brings them up faster and causes them to scream "Use me!" all the time. I personally had to discipline myself from using Petrifying Gaze every time it came up because I found I was really getting hurt endurance-wise. Having Hasten is great if you can control your need to always be doing something. Compulsive use of powers is your worst nightmare in Endurance Land.

Team Tactics

What has already been said is very good advice, especially when fighting anything a few levels higher than you. Since your damage will drop off sharply when fighting +3 or 4s, it is best to use your endurance to control or debuff. However, once you hit the purple range, accuracy also begins to drop off so you aren't as reliable at hitting with Petrifying Gazes or Fearsome Stares (or heals for that matter) and you'll want to rely more on toggles that are autohit.

That is why I still suggest that CD3s get Darkest Night because it always hits. Granted, against +4s the 35% Debuff is scaled down to 17% but that's better than the zeros that you're getting from missed Fearsome Stares. Enhancing Darkest Night just adds more cushion of safety so that is also why having it slotted up becomes noticeable. 6-slotted, 1 End/5 ToHit brings you to 90% -Acc on an even con and 43% to a +4.

Finally, pets will get you into more trouble than anything. Many times you’ll be standing there, everyone stealthed because of Shadowfall, and your Fluffy will decide it is a good idea to Tentacle the pack of +3s and 4s in front of you. Instant aggro, instant scrambling and many times, instant death usually entails. I honestly don’t cast Fluffies if the enemies are high enough to the point that their AI is more of a liability than their powers are an advantage. This happens a lot on missions where the Tank could easily herd the room but my stupid pets decide to immobilize one third of them as the enemies chase after the tank.

Miscellaneous

Tips

- Early on it’s best to slot all your toggles with endurance reducers because the boost to the actual is so minimal that you’ll hardly notice it. While the same can be said for how much Training Enhancements reduce the amount of endurance you’re being drained, endurance is a much more valuable commodity than the debuff. I heard this a long time ago from an Supergroup mate and he told me a very simple rule: don’t buy Training Enhancements. Save your influence until level 12 and buy Duel Origins. The boosts you’re getting from Trainers are minimal and you’ll be fine with what you find doing missions or hunting.

- Know what you’re going to choose for a power or what you’re going to slot far in advance. Use a HeroPlanner or similar program to chart out what you’re taking and when and also how you are slotting it. Having a build laid out in advance can save you a lot of frustration later.

- It’s very tempting to slot out attacks but try to put slots in your Primary early on so you don’t have to later. Again, Training Enhancements don’t do a hill of beans in the long run so slot out your Primary and get the slots in before slots become a premium.

- Fluffy AI: Like all pets, Fluffy suffers from some silly AI but there are a few things that you can almost always count on. First, he almost always lead offs with Tenebrous Tentacles and he attacks the closest enemy. What this means is that they will aggro large groups do to the cone nature of Tentacles which can sometimes be his undoing. Their second attack is usually Petrifying Gaze and he will cast it on the enemy he just Tentacled. At this point he will check his own health and decide whether to cast Twilight Grasp. If he takes any damage whatsoever, he will use Twilight Grasp as soon as it is available and on the enemy he has been attacking. This heal will interrupt his “routine” of Tentacles and Petrifying gaze as it take priority over other attacks. Thirdly, he really likes to avoid melee range. Even though he has a personal aura, he rarely gets in range to use it. If you want him in melee combat, you pretty much have to cast him in it. How he uses Darkest Night is a bit of a mystery to me because I just never notice that he’s using it as it never jumps out when he does. One thing I do know, however, is that if he uses it, it only lasts about 10 seconds on any particular enemy and then it shuts off so he doesn’t keep it on all the time. And finally, the best piece of advice I can give you is this: kill the enemy he’s attacking. He doesn’t switch targets often so if you want him to affect another enemy, you have to dispatch the one he’s preoccupied with. Just make a routine of taking out his targets so he can hold and debuff the next.

- Know your own limits. It is sometimes very tempting to run ahead of your team because you know you can control most groups however, you are still a Squishy. You simply cannot take the damage of most alpha strikes later on and will find yourself eating dirt if you get overzealous. With Fluffy, this isn’t as much of a problem because he can heal you but still, let the Tank or Scrapper draw the initial aggro. At the same time, many mobs are clustered when they spawn and almost always perfectly arranged for your cones. Again, hang back and let someone take the initial alpha strike before tossing out a Fearsome Stare or Dark Pit because should you miss any great number of them, you’re going to face plant. Darkest Night is the exception here because it auto-hits but if you haven’t slotted it incredibly well (or at all) enemies can still hit you with a little luck.

- Don’t be surprised if teammates don’t understand your powers. I’ve had to explain what I do many times so don’t take offense if they simply don’t understand. Many times, seeing is believing so just get into the mission and show them what you do. If they still want that Empathy or Bubbler, let them try to get one without complaining. If you do your job, the Empath will say “I have nothing to do” and you’ll know that you’re getting it done.

- Feared mobs don’t fight back. If you can help it, after Fearsome Staring, take targets out one at a time because if you don’t attack the Feared enemies, they just stand there cowering until affected. This can be hard to do with Fluffy or if the mob is just screaming to get Tentacled/Nightfalled so just be a good judge of when you can do this.

- Team Play. When on a team, debuff/control before attacking (as a general rule) as your damage will pale in comparison to any Scrapper/Blaster worth his salt. Once your primary duty is fulfilled, blast away for two reasons. One, you’re adding damage, even if it isn’t stellar and two, because the more you attack, the more you’re debuffing the enemy’s accuracy, which in turn creates safety. So even by attacking, you’re fulfilling your main duty. Don’t believe, however, that the –Accuracy on your blasts will be enough to ensure team safety because at best, they’re only going to get up to 15-25% -Accuracy versus a Fearsome Stare or Darkest Night that does 20-35% by themselves. Adding that additional 15-25% on top of your Primary is what keeps everyone safe so know your role and fulfill it.

- CD3s. A well built CD3 will rival just about any good Controller so don’t be afraid to call yourself one. Yes, you don’t get the chance to “critical” a hold or get Containment but you will most definitely be able to control just as well and mitigate damage just as efficiently as some Controllers. If you’re on a team and they call for a Controller, just say “I’m already pretty good at that” and explain that you can fulfill that role. Once you get Fluffy, they’ll really begin to understand (because pets are supposed to only be for Controllers) but in the mean time, act like a blasting Controller.


And then, finally, there is Blackest Night himself. He is a bit of a variation on the BD3 and leans toward the Offender side of the coin. I play him like a CD3 but don’t have all the powers to make him one. At any rate, he kicks butt so I’m not complaining. This is what Blackest Night looks like at level 50. I still haven’t respec’d him as of Issue 5 because I’m toying with Tactics but here’s the proposed build.

Exported from version 1.5B of CoH Planner
http://joechott.com/coh

Archetype: Defender
Primary Powers - Ranged : Dark Miasma
Secondary Powers - Support : Dark Blast

01 : Dark Blast acc(01) dam(3) dam(3) dam(5) dam(5) dam(7)
01 : Twilight Grasp acc(01) hel(7) hel(9)
02 : Gloom acc(02) dam(9) dam(11) dam(11) dam(13) dam(13)
04 : Moonbeam acc(04) dam(15) dam(15) dam(17) dam(17) dam(19)
06 : Darkest Night endred(06) thtdbf(19) thtdbf(21) thtdbf(21) thtdbf(23)
08 : Hover fltspd(08)
10 : Swift runspd(10)
12 : Fearsome Stare acc(12) recred(23) ferdur(25)
14 : Fly fltspd(14)
16 : Tenebrous Tentacles acc(16) dam(25) dam(27) dam(27)
18 : Health hel(18)
20 : Stamina endrec(20) endrec(29) endrec(29) endrec(31) endrec(31) endrec(31)
22 : Shadow Fall endred(22) damres(33) damres(33) damres(33) damres(34) damres(34)
24 : Night Fall acc(24) dam(34) dam(36) dam(36) dam(36) dam(37)
26 : Petrifying Gaze acc(26) recred(37) hlddur(37)
28 : Hasten recred(28) recred(39) recred(39) recred(39) recred(40) recred(40)
30 : Super Speed runspd(30)
32 : Dark Servant acc(32) thtdbf(40) thtdbf(42) hel(42)
35 : Tar Patch recred(35) recred(42) recred(43) recred(43) recred(43) recred(45)
38 : Blackstar dam(38) dam(45) dam(45) dam(46) dam(46) dam(46)
41 : Oppressive Gloom acc(41)
44 : Dark Embrace damres(44) damres(48) damres(48) damres(48) damres(50) damres(50)
47 : Soul Drain acc(47) recred(50)
49 : Recall Friend inttim(49)

-------------------------------------------

01 : Brawl Empty(01)
01 : Sprint Empty(01)
02 : Rest Empty(02)

The Tactics Build, which is quite a different, takes all the accuracies out of every power (the slots themselves) and that fuels 6-slotted Tactics and 6-slotted Fluffy. I picked up Conserve Power from the Power Ancillary for endurance issued associated with the extra toggle. On Test, it works pretty well. Here’s that build:

Exported from version 1.5B of CoH Planner
http://joechott.com/coh

Archetype: Defender
Primary Powers - Ranged : Dark Miasma
Secondary Powers - Support : Dark Blast

01 : Dark Blast dam(01) dam(3) dam(3) dam(5)
01 : Twilight Grasp hel(01) hel(5)
02 : Gloom dam(02) dam(7) dam(7) dam(9) dam(9)
04 : Moonbeam dam(04) dam(11) dam(11) dam(13) dam(13)
06 : Darkest Night endred(06) thtdbf(15) thtdbf(15) thtdbf(17) thtdbf(17)
08 : Hover fltspd(08)
10 : Swift runspd(10)
12 : Fearsome Stare recred(12) ferdur(19)
14 : Fly fltspd(14)
16 : Tenebrous Tentacles dam(16) dam(19) dam(21)
18 : Health hel(18)
20 : Stamina endrec(20) endrec(21) endrec(23) endrec(23) endrec(25) endrec(25)
22 : Shadow Fall endred(22) damres(27) damres(27) damres(29) damres(29) damres(31)
24 : Night Fall dam(24) dam(31) dam(31) dam(33) dam(33)
26 : Petrifying Gaze recred(26) hlddur(33)
28 : Hasten recred(28) recred(34) recred(34) recred(34) recred(36) recred(36)
30 : Assault endred(30)
32 : Dark Servant thtdbf(32) thtdbf(36) thtdbf(37) thtdbf(37) thtdbf(37) hel(39)
35 : Tar Patch recred(35) recred(42) recred(42) recred(42) recred(43) recred(43)
38 : Blackstar dam(38) dam(39) dam(39) dam(40) dam(40) dam(40)
41 : Tactics endred(41) thtbuf(43) thtbuf(45) thtbuf(45) thtbuf(45) thtbuf(46)
44 : Conserve Power recred(44) recred(46) recred(46) recred(48) recred(48) recred(48)
47 : Temp Invulnerability damres(47) damres(50) damres(50) damres(50)
49 : Super Speed runspd(49)

-------------------------------------------

01 : Brawl Empty(01)
01 : Sprint Empty(01)
02 : Rest Empty(02)

So there you have it! One of the most complete guides to the D3 out there, I hope this has helped. Have fun with your D3 and I hope you get as much enjoyment out of them as I did!

Hope to see you around so we can team!

Pool Powers

There is only one mandatory Pool to take (Fitness) but Speed is incredibly useful so I highly recommend it. Outside of those two, the sky’s the limit. I personally took Fly for concept reasons and having the vertical movement helps considerably. In all, I only took 3 pools (Stamina, Speed, and Flight) and my 4th is currently Recall Friend. Here’s my picks and reasoning behind them:

Fitness

Swift: Once incredibly useful because Shadowfall had a movement penalty, Swift is now just optional rather than encouraged.

Hurdle: Same as Swift, whichever you believe will help you more.

Health: With the new boost on Health, it’s kind of silly not to take it. It gives +40% Regen and some protection against Sleep. I take it at level 18, after Tentacles so I can get…

Stamina: …at 20 (a.k.a. ASAP). This is what makes your life as a D3 enjoyable. Without it you’ll suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Slot it up as fast as you can without neglecting your primary focus (Controlling/Debuffing). Once slotted up, you’ll be able to go from group to group with much less downtime and you’ll be able to spam attacks and control powers much better.

Speed

Hasten: A necessary evil in my book as it costs 5 slots and a power. But, if you want to maximize Tar Patch, this is necessary. Since many of our powers have longer recharges as of Issue 5, Hasten also becomes a little more “mandatory” in order to use them fairly quickly. Also, all your powers will come up quicker, especially the ones that are incredibly useful like Fearsome Stare, Tentacles and Petrifying Gaze. You’ll heal faster, do damage faster, and…burn through endurance faster. Be mindful of your blue bar but once Stamina is 6-Slotted with SOs, you’ll find that you’ll be just fine.

Super Speed: Not only a nice travel power but Shadowfall + Super Speed= Invisibility. You’ll be able to stealth around missions which is very handy for finding glowies or scouting. Since I have Fly, this gets me around faster and I just turn Fly on to get over obstacles.

Flight

Hover: It’s nice to get away from melee attackers and be able to attack in the air. Cones are kinda funky when coming from above but you’ll figure it out. It’s a prerequisite to Fly so I took it.

Fly: Yeah it has a lot of negatives about it but as a Magic Dark/Dark Defender that is bristling with black magic, it seemed only natural to fly. Getting around in missions is especially nice and the endurance cost, once obscene, now doesn’t dent my endurance bar with Stamina. Suppression should be noted here: if you attack while flying, you’ll get reduced to base hover speed for 4 seconds. Toggles do not cause suppression though.

Group Fly: Looks cool but has no real value unless you’re in the Shadow Shard or teamed up with a lot of lowbies. It is slower than Fly but costs less and some teammates might get annoyed with it.

Leadership:

Maneuvers: Now fairly worthless, this isn’t worth the endurance to run it, let alone slot it. I’d have to check the numbers again but I want to say it’s 2.5% or something. 7.5% if fully slotted with Defense Buffs…a.k.a. worthless.

Assault: Defenders get about an 18% boost to base Damage or about a DO. Considering you have to take one Leadership pool power before Tactics, I suggest this. Just put an Endurance reducer in it and run it when you feel it’s worthwhile.

Tactics: Definitely worth it as you could possibly take out all your Accuracy enhancements (or at least one of them if you had two in a power). This effects Fluffy too meaning you could possibly slot him/her/it with an endurance reducer, a heal, or a 6th ToHit Debuff. I’ve experimented with a Tactics build that allows me to take a slot from every Secondary power and 3 from my Primary powers to 6-slot tactics and 6-slot Fluffy while keeping the rest of my powers as is. It’s a nice build but it depends on Tactics to be running and endurance usage can get hairy. I took Conserve Power to offset this and it worked pretty well.

Vengeance: Any power that requires a death to work is just not cool in my book but the buffs from this power are incredibly good and it provides mezz protection. Still “meh” but it has it’s uses I guess.

Concealment:

Stealth: Useless, Shadowfall already does it.

Grant Invisibility: Not useless but Shadowfall gives team stealth. Take it if you’re on the path to Phase Shift.

Invisibility: Since you’ll already have this in Shadowfall + Super Speed, this too is redundant but if you want to look more invisible, I’d take it on the way to Phase Shift.

Phase Shift: Since it was changed to a 30 second timed toggle, this has seriously diminished it usefulness. I don’t think it’s worth 3 power picks but some people might. It still costs a ton and has somewhere around a minute recharge (I think) and personally, the drawbacks outweigh the advantages.

Fighting:

Tough/Weave simply don’t put up the numbers like Scrappers and Tanks. Wait for the Ancillary Pools and take the Armors there because they’re much more impressive. Boxing and Kick are even more worthless to a Defender.

Teleportation

Recall Friend: Incredibly valuable as you can Teleport your Fluffy around but since he can go up elevators now, it’s not as bad as it was before. Still a team-friendly power that is useful from level 6-50.

Teleport Foe: I guess you could pull with it but I wouldn’t recommend this power as you don’t necessarily want any enemies up in yo’ grill.

Teleport: The fastest travel power when slotted correctly, this takes some getting used to and probably needs a bind to really work as well as you’d like. When I have used teleport, I bound it to my left shift button so all I have to do is hit shift and then click. It is costly when you first get it but if you want to slot it up, it’s insanely fast and will get you across large distances quickly. However, it isn’t easy to go exactly where you want to go, especially if you want to go somewhere in mid-air.

Group Teleport: Probably among the more useless powers in the game, it doesn’t have the distance of Teleport and it costs a lot for how much distance you travel. It might be useful if you have Howling Twilight and want to group rez but other than that, no use for it.

Leaping

Combat Jumping: Nice early power to have and it gives defense and immobilization protection. If you go the Super Jump route, there is no reason not to take this. It’s also dirt cheap so you can run it all the time.

Super Jump. IMO, the best Travel Power because it gives good vertical movement with great speed. Plus, it’s not that expensive to run.

Acrobatics: Some Mezz protection is better than none and knockdown can get annoying. Is it worth a toggle power? Maybe, but I don’t recommend it.

Ancillary Pools (Levels 41-49)

Ancillary pools, in my opinion, should be totally your decision and what you want to do. I know I will go with the Dark Pool for concept reasons but also because there are some cool possibilities with my current powers. Power Mastery is also a popular set because every power in it is useful and wanted. I have little experience with Psychic and Electric Mastery but since they’re much like their counterparts in the other sets, I think I can assume what they do.

Dark Mastery

Oppressive Gloom: A toggle that causes all nearby foes to become disoriented at the expense of your Hit Points (the more foes in range the more it drains you) and a very meaningless amount of endurance (something like .12 end/sec). Now that Issue 5 has reduced most Mez powers, Oppressive Gloom is kind of worth something as an added control feature. If you stack it with Howling Twilight and Dark Pit, you should be able to disorient Bosses but since Howling Twilight comes up so infrequently, you’re best to stick with Dark Pit + Oppressive Gloom to take out Lts. It looks cool too!

Dark Consumption: Unfortunately, this power is not like the Scrapper version. The base recharge on this power is 6 minutes and this, in my opinion, kills any usefulness it might have had. The only way this power is useful is if you 6-slot it with recharge reducers and have perma-hasten. At best, it comes up every 97 seconds, 90 seconds if you +3 all your enhancements. That doesn’t take into consideration an accuracy that the power should have in it or endurance recovery enhancements to make the power more worthwhile per mob. If you leave it at its base slot and slot one accuracy in it, it will recharge at the exact same rate as the base recharge of your Nuke. So you could use it as an “after-nuke” power. But, because Nukes take all your endurance now, you won’t be able to use it, even if it only takes 5 endurance or some small number to use. Even though this power is very situational, it’s still “better” than Oppressive Gloom, in my opinion. I picked Oppressive Gloom out of frustration for this power and because I like to glow red.

Dark Embrace: The sweet, sweet armor I’ve been craving for so I don’t die instantly becomes available at level 44. Like most Ancillary armors, it gives good (25%) Smash/Lethal resistance but it also gives Negative and Toxic resistance as well (25%). Couple this with Shadowfall and you can put up some modest resistance numbers. The only thing that you won’t be protected against is Fire/Cold damage. Not bad for a squishy. I would suggest 1 Endurance Reducer and 5 Resist SOs which would bring you to 50% resistance to Smash/Lethal/Negative/Toxic and if you slot Shadowfall up with 5 resistance SOs then you’d have a total 50% to Smash/Lethal/Toxic 50% to Energy/Psionic and finally 100% resistance to Negative(!). Since Defenders can only get 75% resists, this isn’t doing too shabby. Note, however, that running both Dark Embrace and Shadowfall with one Endurance Reducer in each will drop your overall endurance gain by 1 endurance per second (from 2.92 endurance/sec to 1.99 end/sec). Practically speaking, it’s almost like turning Stamina off. If this is too much, slot another reducer into one or both.

Soul Drain: This is probably the reason you took Dark Mastery, if you’re like me and want to do a ton more damage. Soul Drain, like the Scrapper Secondary power, pulls the essence out of foes around you and increases your damage and accuracy, while also doing damage and debuffing them. The effect lasts 30 seconds and you get ~5% (tested at around 4.88%) more damage and accuracy to your attacks per mob that it hits. Basically, it’s a combat “Build-Up,” something we D3s don’t have it all besides Tar Patch. Since the most targets you can hit is 10, you could theoretically add 50% Damage and Accuracy to all your attacks for 30 seconds. Since you’ll want this on as much as possible, I suggest slotting it out with as many Recharge Reducers as you can. According to my HeroPlanner, it has a +20% accuracy built in so an Accuracy in it would also make it very reliable even in the red-purple range. What I’ve done, beyond the normal “use at the start of a fight and kill stuff” is to fire off a Fearsome Stare, throw down Tentacles and Tar Patch (maybe cast Darkest Night on a lieutenant in the group), run in and Soul Drain then fire off Blackstar. With Tar Patch and Soul Drain, Blackstar (6-slotted for Damage) should blow most everything away and those that survive will be seriously debuffed. Plus I have a Fluffy behind me doing mop up and watching my back.

Power Mastery

Conserve Power: This a really difficult power to pass up, even from among the other Ancillary Pools. Basically, for the 90 second duration that it is up, your endurance costs from all powers is cut in half and this translates to virtually unlimited endurance because with 6-slotted Stamina, you’ll regain faster than you lose. You can blast, debuff, hold, cast Fluffy, whatever to your hearts content and not even blink at your blue bar. This power is so good that you’d be a fool not to have it up as much as you can. 6-recharge SOs and perma-hasten will get the recharge down from 600 to about 160 so it will be up 90 seconds and down 70. If you get all +3 SOs then it drops to 150 and it will be up 90 and down 60 (so up 2/3 of the time). With it on you can run every toggle and keep blasting so this is a very nice power to have.

Power Build Up: Another gem of the set, PBU not only gives you Build Up (+80% damage and +60% Accuracy) but affects all secondary functions of your powers. Heals will go up, -Accuracy debuffs will increase, Holds will hold longer, Immobilizes will last longer, etc. It’s an all-around awesome power to have. It lasts 15 seconds rather than the usual 10 for Build Up but has a 4 minute down-time rather than a 90 second one. If you want it to function at the same level as Build Up (time-wise) then you’ll have to have 3 recharge reducers and perma-hasten to get it to a 90 second recharge. The best you can get it down to is 60 seconds with 6 +3 SOs but the slots are going to be needed elsewhere.

Temporary Invulnerability: This is just like the Tanker version except that it gives 30% to Smash/Lethal. That’s all it does. No Energy, Toxic, Fire/Cold, Negative…just Smash/Lethal. It’s still nice to have however so do take it and slot it with an endurance reducer and the rest as resists. You could get your Smash/Lethal up to 60%.

Total Focus: Much like the Blaster/Tanker version, Total Focus is an extreme damage single-target attack that also has a Mag 3 Disorient built in (will affect a boss). It does require melee range and has a long animation time but those are its only downsides. If the Brawl Index is the same for Defenders as it is for Tankers, it would be at 9.8889 (compared to a Snipe at 7.6667) base and could be enhanced up to 26.5 with 1 Accuracy/5 Damage. Basically, it will be your single-target monster damage. However, I suggest taking it at 47 instead of 49 if you intend to slot it because the level 47 power can get 6-slotted while the 49 cannot. So you’ll have to choose between Temporary Invulnerability or Total Focus at level 47.

Psychic Mastery

Dominate: Foe Hold plus Psi damage (in the same league as Dark Blast), this would either replace Petrifying Gaze or be used in conjunction with it to hold a boss in short order. Since it is a “Controller” Hold, it already has a +20% bonus to Accuracy but it recharges just as fast as Petrifying Gaze. For CD3s, this is awesome because you’ll do damage while holding. If you take this, I suggest one Accuracy in the initial slot or going all out and pump it full of Damage. It’s kind of an all-or-none thing.

Mass Hypnosis: This power puts a large group to Sleep, which means that anything that affects them will wake up, somewhat like the Fear effect on Fearsome Stare. Good for crowd control before a battle, this power (like other mass control powers) has a 10% accuracy penalty and will need to make up for it in an Accuracy SO. I currently have no experience with this power so I can’t even begin to say how to use it. Since all AoE Holds have been reduced, I’m out of the loop on the numbers for this power.

Mind Over Body: Like the other Ancillary Powers, this one gives Smash/Lethal/Psi resistance at 25% each. Unlike other sets, you already have Psi resistance in Shadowfall so this would increase it even more. Again, 1 Endurance Reducer/5 Resists if you can spare the slots.

Telekinesis: Another power I have no experience with. I gather that it’s an incredibly expensive toggle that is an AoE Hold. Whether it was affected in Issue 5, I don’t know but if it is as expensive as I assume, endurance reducers would be in quick order.

Electric Mastery

Electric Fence: Possibly the most useless Ancillary Power for a D3, Electric Fence simply Immobilizes a single foe and does minor damage to them (with a terribly small endurance drain attached). All I can say is to skip it because it just doesn’t do anything you can’t do already. Plus the power that could be taken in its place is so much better.

Thunder Strike: One of the more impressive melee attacks from the Electric Secondary of Blasters, Thunder Strike is a superior, near-Snipe level, damage close-quarter area of effect attack that disorients the target and hits everyone around them and knocks them down. Unfortunately, like most of the heavy hitting melee attacks (Total Focus, etc.) this has a longer recharge (20 seconds) and heavy endurance usage (21.5), This also drains a fair amount of endurance although it’s nothing compared to the next power. One Accuracy and 5 Damage is my personal suggestion and you’ll have a great melee attack should you want it at level 41.

Charged Armor: Much like the other Ancillary armors, Charged Armor gives you the standard 25% resistance to Smash/Lethal/Energy and since those are the most common damage types, it’s possibly the most useful of the 4 sets. Adding Shadowfall into the mix would give you some very good numbers across the board but would get you to the cap for Energy damage. This power looks pretty cool and causes you to “spark” all over and the noise of running it isn’t annoying like some of the others. Like all the armors one endurance reducer and as many resists you can spare should go into it.

Power Sink: Works much like Dark Consumption in that it draws endurance from foes around you and the more foes the more endurance, however, this one does no damage but instead actually drains endurance from enemies. It naturally drains about 75% of the endurance from even level foes and you can fill up from about 3 mobs. It also appears to be an auto-hit because it doesn’t take accuracy enhancements. I’ve never seen it miss so, I think it has very high accuracy (like Burn) or auto-hits. This power only has a 60 second recharge and Hasten drops it to 35 seconds already so one more recharge would make it available every 30, or about once a fight. From there, you could add Endurance recovery enhancers to get more endurance out of every foe (requiring less foes to get you to full) or endurance drain enhancers to drain enemies more. Personally, I would only add a few slots and fill your remaining powers with the slots you saved but if you 6-slot this you’ll have a great power too.

Dark Blast

Dark Miasma can stand on its own as a powerful (one of the top) Defender Primaries and the reasons were given above, but why would you want to take Dark Blast over the other Secondaries? The first, and probably the most common, reason is for concept. There is nothing that quite says “I’m a bad-a**” than being completely dark and evil yet still fighting for good. Many people love having dark characters so this just naturally fits for them. The next reason is probably the most practical: Dark Blast synergizes very well with Dark Miasma. The –Acc on Dark Miasma’s debuffs will stack on top of the Dark Blast’s –Acc in its attacks. By simply attacking targets, you’re helping your Primary and vice versa. Also, Dark Blast features two “controlling” powers in Tenebrous Tentacles and Dark Pit that Immobilize or Disorient and a crowd control power in Torrent. In terms of damage potential, Dark Blast is on the lower end of the Secondaries. It does not have any way of boosting its own damage via an Aim power nor does it have an innate accuracy boost like Radiation or the “weapon” attacks. What it does have, however, is have the best or second best secondary effect for blasts. The –Acc can add up as you spam attacks and this increases your own survivability by merely doing what you were going to do anyway: kill the enemy. Every time you hit, they have a lower chance of hitting you back. Finally, Dark Blast is known for its Cone attacks and for good reason. Tenebrous Tentacles and Nightfall can be used back to back over large crowds to do substantial damage over time. Because Tentacles immobilizes foes, the enemies are held in place for Nightfall and another shot of Tentacles. Doing this over and over, you get tons of numbers flying over the enemies’ heads and if you add Tar Patch on top of this, you’ll feel almost like a Fire Tank’s Burn.

Dark Blast (Level 1)

The power this set is named after is going to be your single target bread and butter from level 1-50. It’s equal to most of the Blast Secondaries’ first attack in that it does moderate damage (2.7778 Brawl Index at base) and has a quick recharge time (4 seconds base). It does 100% Negative damage which isn’t as resisted as many of the attack types but those that are resisted to it (Banished Pantheon for example) are highly resistant to it. This is one power that you should slot up early with the recommended 1 Accuracy/5 Damage rule and use it against everything. With Hasten, it comes up pretty quick and the damage isn’t huge but it adds up. If you’re skipping Gloom or Moonbeam, make sure to compensate by getting this baby slotted up ASAP.

Overall: 3-Star Power. You have to take it and it never becomes a monster in damage but you can lean on this attack and squeeze off a few rounds to make the enemy squirm a little.
CD3: 4-Star. As a CD3, you may skip other attacks so this will be your bread and butter for many levels. If that’s the case, get as many damage slots in it as you can if you want to be able to solo. If you team a lot, this isn’t as much of a problem but still devote a few slots early to it.
BD3: 3-Star. If you plan on taking a lot of attacks, don’t neglect Dark Blast. You’ll use it more than any other in most battles so make sure it’s doing moderate damage. Slotting a ToHit Debuff might not be a bad idea either if you don’t intend on using it as a damage dealer but as a debuffer.

Gloom (Level 2)

This is one of those attacks that takes some getting used to. Gloom is 175% stronger than Dark Blast (just shy of twice as much) but many times it doesn’t feel like it because the damage is delivered over about 4 seconds. Compared to most of the other second tier Blast Secondaries, Gloom does slightly more damage (on the order of 7.3%) but because of its DoT, some people don’t see the trade off as worth it. However, in the Dark Blast Secondary, Gloom is the second highest single-target damage attack and you get it at level 2. The tricky part, however, is that you have to wait to see if Gloom finishes off a target if you want to save endurance and impatience may make you throw out a Dark Blast. This causes some endurance issues in the beginning but as you use this power, you’ll learn to judge if it will kill a foe or not. Another problem lies in the fact that many times your Gloom will be ticking away and will kill the enemy but a teammate will run in and finish them off anyway. This leads to endurance problems for them because they didn’t need to attack. Still, this attack is a diamond in the rough and I suggest taking it at level 2 to give yourself a one-two combo of Dark Blast and Gloom that cycles fairly quickly and packs a decent punch.
Overall: 4-Star Power. Does more damage than Dark Blast but the DoT is tricky and sometimes bothersome. Fully slotted with 1 Acc/5 Damage SOs, it becomes a remarkably potent weapon so use it often.
CD3: 4-Star. Still a great buy early on and it will help you get past some of the rough spots in your solo career. Slot it as you are able.
BD3: 4-Star. The Debuff on Gloom is greater than that on Dark Blast and lasts longer. So add a ToHit Debuff if you feel it necessary. I still would rather have flat out damage but that’s your call. Take it early and slot it up as you have the opportunities.

Moonbeam (Level 4)

This is your Snipe and it comes at level 4! Like all Snipes, Moonbeam suffers from the same pros and cons of having awesome damage at extreme range for an interruptible and long animation time attack. Here’s a few things to get you thinking though: Moonbeam is tied with having the longest range in the game (even among Snipes) and it has a significant Accuracy debuff attached (meaning that the foe you just shot might miss you on the return volley). Also, to reiterate, it’s available at level 4! Most sets have to wait until they’re 16 or 20 for their Snipe. Also, Moonbeam does the same exact same amount of damage as Dark Blast and Gloom combined (base) so if they’re slotted the same, you can know exactly how much damage a follow-up One-Two punch will inflict. If Moonbeam one-shots a baddie, than a Dark Blast and Gloom will do the same. Moonbeam is great if you want to pull a group or lay down some heavy fire. Unlike most Snipes, using Moonbeam in battle isn’t that difficult because enemies will be unable to interrupt your animation due to the –Accuracy on them. I use it all the time mid-battle to inflict a nasty reminder that Defender’s can do some decent damage from time to time. Used in conjunction with Tar Patch, a fully slotted Moonbeam can one-shot an even minion and can lay down some serious hurt on a lieutenant. I recommend taking this but you may not like Snipes. If you have to choose between Gloom and Moonbeam, I would personally take Gloom because it will be used more often and it is safer to use but Moonbeam isn’t bad either.

Overall: 3-Star Power. This is a love/hate relationship and I simply love it because I can actually get a big hit in from time to time. Pulling is nice too. I also like the fact that the actual graphic for it is a big-beefy blast rather than the pencil-thin bolt like the others. It’s impressive to watch it follow an enemy as they run.
CD-3: 2-Star. Again, Gloom is the better choice if you have to choose but you’ll actually get some use out of Moonbeam because enemies will be unable to interrupt you.
BD-3: 3-Star. If you’re not taking another Control power for awhile, throw Moonbeam in at level 4 and have a triumvirate of death dealers.

Dark Pit (Level 10)

One of the odd things about this “blast” power is that it does no damage. Instead, it causes a Mag 1 disorient over a decent area of effect that causes foes to stumble around like they’re drunk, unable to retaliate. Unfortunately, it has an innate -20% accuracy built in that puts you down to the 55% range of hitting an even minion instead of the usual 75%. Basically, this means that you literally have to put Accuracy enhancements in here (2 SOs minimum) if you want it to be reliable. For the CD3, this is an additional crowd control power that, in conjunction with Tar Patch, Howling Twilight, and Tenebrous Tentacles, you can pretty much turn a group of enemies into a dark pile of disoriented goo. The Tar Patch will slow them down and –resist them, the Howling Twilight will add its own Mag 1 disorient in addition to debuffing and Tentacles will hold them in place for other powers (once you get it). This combo would cause lieutenants to become disoriented as well. Many people lead off with Dark Pit, followed by Fearsome Stare to control the majority, if not the entire, group. Disoriented mobs can run away (at high speeds sometimes) so the Immobilize of Tentacles is a welcome addition. I suggest slotting two accuracy and a few recharge reducers into it as it does have a 60 second downtime and you’ll want it to start nearly every fight.

Overall: 3-Star Power. The accuracy penalty is hard to overcome early on but once it is accounted for, this becomes a very nice opening move.
CD3: 4-Star. It’s a control power so you really do want to have it. Enemies that are stumbling around don’t fight back.
BD3: 2-Star. It doesn’t debuff and the slots could go elsewhere. I respecced out of it in my 20’s and haven’t looked back. It’d be nice to have from time to time but I have lived happily without it.

Tenebrous Tentacles (Level 16)

Most D3s swore by Tentacles back in the day because it was their first “cool” power that not only did damage but immobilized and was nearly the defining power for D3s in general. Most would still agree it is the staple power of the Dark Blast set and as such, I’ll go into some detail on how this power is used. First off, it’s a Cone attack, something to be loved or hated depending on your school of thought. Positioning is key when using it to make sure you get everything you want/can get in the Cone. Tentacles has a very broad cone, somewhere along the lines of 120 degrees in front of you and about 20 deep. As such, you needn’t be too far away to get a large group within its slimy clutches. Tentacles is a somewhat dubious attack power because it does roughly the damage of Dark Blast but over about 8-10 seconds, making it not the greatest attack power out there. For pure damage, it will never become a show-stopper but when facing large groups, a Dark Blast over the head of 10 enemies is worth it. Most people love the fact that it immobilizes foes and keeps them from running. This is especially helpful to melee classes and those with such powers as Burn. Tentacles also does primarily Smashing damage, the only non-Negative damage you get. Also note that the duration on the Immobilize is far greater than the recharge time, meaning that you needn’t spam the power to keep the immobilize going. Although Fearsome Stare will be a better control power, Tentacles will also help you control the battlefield by making sure enemies don’t go anywhere. Slotting is something kind of tricky, despite what you might think. If there is one attack power that you could pull slots from, I say it’s this one. Since it does the least amount of damage of any of your attacks, you’ll get less of a benefit from slotting it. This is true of the opposite: pulling slots out hurts your damage less than pulling it from other powers. I have pulled 2 slots from it to fuel Soul Drain’s recharge, for example. It still does nice damage over large group, however, and if you want it more for the Immobilize/Debuff factor, I say go with 1 Accuracy, 1 Immobilize duration, 1 To-Hit Debuff and maybe even a Range Increase. That way it’s roughly the same “depth” as Night Fall, which helps in positioning your cones. Either way, you can’t go wrong.

Overall: 5-Star Power. Still the defining Dark Blast power, get it at 16 and start feeling powerful. Getting used to the Cone takes some time but positioning yourself won’t take long to master. Slotting is your preference but I do suggest investing at least two more into it beyond base.
CD3: 4-Stars. Fearsome Stare will probably do 85% what Tentacles does so adding this may seem redundant, however, Tentacles will keep enemies from running which Fearsome Stare does not do all the time and it recharges much faster. Just add it to your impressive list of controlling powers.
BD3:5-Stars. See CD3 but also add on that the Debuffing factor of Tentacles is nice in addition to keeping enemies near your Anchor. Whether you take this as an attack or a debuffing tool, you can’t go wrong.

Night Fall (Level 20)

A long misunderstood power that in any other set would be near useless makes a nice niche in the D3 set. Night Fall is a pure damage dealer that happens to be in the form of a narrow but deep Cone. What makes it unique is that it synergizes incredibly well with your existing cones (Fearsome Stare and Tentacles) if you simply take a few steps back before firing. It also does roughly Dark Blast damage (actually just about 10% more and 15% more than Tentacles) but it’s a very quick Damage over Time. The numbers fly up like a Burn patch and are over with in about one full second so to say this is Damage over Time is a little bit of a misnomer because it is only slightly less than instant. Where the Single-Target blasts had the one-two punch of Dark Blast and Gloom, the Area of Effect blasts are also paired together intimately. Tentacles can hold the group in place and Nightfall, after positioning, can hit the same group with more damage. The two attacks cycle fairly quickly and you can melt large groups easily (especially with a Tar Patch underneath). This is costly, however. Nightfall costs a whopping 19 endurance per use and Tentacles uses 15 so each time you use this one-two you’ve burned a third of your endurance for what comes out to be just a little over two Dark Blasts in damage. This might not seem like a good trade-off but think of it this way: if there were 10 enemies in a group, you’d have to shoot them 10 times with Dark Blast to equal one Nightfall. The rule of thumb I like to use is that I don’t use Nightfall on anything less than three targets. After 3 targets, the damage per endurance becomes positive versus Dark Blast and applying Nightfall is to your advantage. Once Stamina comes into play, you’ll find that spamming Tentacles and Nightfall over and over to kill groups is not as costly as it was and you’ll be able to kill faster than ever. Like all pure attack powers, I suggest 1 Accuracy/5 Damage if you can spare the slots.

Overall: 4-Star Power. I consider it to be just under Tentacles in usefulness in the long run, especially if you want to take out large groups in the shortest time possible. It, too, takes some getting used to for positioning but once that is down, you’ll find it to be a great tool to have.
CD3: 3-Stars. Skippable if a controlling power comes up and probably skippable if you don’t intend to be a Cone damage dealer. Still, I recommend it if only to solo better.
BD3: 4-Stars. In addition to the damage, the debuff is also nice and spamming Tentacles and Nightfall is doubly debuffing the whole gaggle of enemies. Again, if you want to add ToHit Debuffs to this, it’s a great power to have because it spreads all that debuff around to a ton of enemies.

Torrent (Level 28)

For a level 28 power, this is a bit of a let down. Unlike the Energy Blast/Torrent or the Radiation Blast/Electron Haze, this Cone “attack” does virtually no damage at all but instead has a very good chance (somewhere around 90%) to knockback foes should it hit. I’ve tried this power out on the Test server and, while occasionally useful, I found that it simply sat unused 90% of the time. This, unlike the aforementioned Cone “Torrents”, is a control power and should be treated as such (like a Power Push or Gale). When used, it sends a black cloud of mire toward the enemy, much like Tenebrous Tentacles and those caught and hit within it go flying back a good distance. Higher level foes will not be pushed far but lower level foes simply get launched. This is a good “Get out of my face!” power if melee attackers are trying to get close enough to count the number of eyelashes you have. If you have an Anchor, this could be used to launch foes back toward the anchor or if you have a Tar Patch down, it could throw them back into it. However, more often than not, you’ll probably throw them out of the anchor or Tar Patch. As with all Knockback, teams that rely one aggro and control will dislike you for throwing foes around every which way so be mindful of their tactics. This, too, has a small debuff on it but not enough to warrant using it for that sole purpose alone. Personally, this is a fun power to have when you’re level 49 and have nothing else to take so you can impress the newbies in Atlas Park by launching level 1 Hellions 300 feet back. Outside of that, I wouldn’t recommend this power. Should you take it, I recommend an Accuracy (to make sure that if you’re using it to save your butt that it hits) but really nothing more unless you want to send that Hellion 600 feet with another Knockback enhancer.

Overall:2-Star Power. It’s usefulness is limited in most situations and there are a host of other powers to take at level 28 so I suggest skipping it entirely. If it came earlier, it would be better (i.e. switch Dark Pit and Torrent) but since it is not, it loses its luster.
CD3: 3-Star Power. As a controlling power, you might want to take it to position enemies within Cones or whatnot. However, this again, is situational at best.
BD3:1-Star Power. Simply doesn’t add anything you can’t get elsewhere and throwing people around is a bad thing with anchors. Skip it.

Life Drain (Level 35)

Oh the power that has absolutely no business being in with a D3. This power could possibly make up for not having a personal heal in your Primary (a la Storm and Force Field) but even then it costs a ton for very little health. Being a D3 that already has a heal power that has to hit in Twilight Grasp, this power is 100% worthless. It doesn’t do any more damage than Dark Blast, costs 3 times as much and recharges over 3 times longer as well. There is simply no redeeming quality in the power. So, alas, your level 35 power is a lemon but consider yourself lucky. Because you don’t take this power, you can take just about anything you missed along the way right here. Also, 6 slots will open up over the course of the next to levels to finish slotting out things that are lacking. So really, it is a blessing in disguise.

Overall: 1-Star Power. Worthless in every way shape and form but the slots are nice to have.
CD3: 1-Star. Perhaps even more worthless to a CD3 because it doesn’t control anything.
BD3: 1-Star. Nope, not even going to say “it debuffs.” Worthless.

Blackstar (Level 38)

At level 38 you get your Nuke and like the others, it has its drawbacks. First, it drains all your endurance and you’ll be unable to recover for a few seconds. Two, anything you don’t kill will automatically be aggroed to you in your vulnerable state. However, IT’S A FREAKING NUKE!!! A lot people don’t use it often and probably would get more use out of another power but how can you skip your level 38 uber attack? Initially, it does very unimpressive damage but once you slot it up with 6 Damage SOs (no Accuracy, all damage) it will drop yellow minions and with a Tar Patch (or two) under it, orange. This power is pretty much a “cool” power to have worth little practical value but having it never hurts. Since you’ll have Fearsome Stared, Tentacled, Nightfalled, and Tar Patched the group already, in addition to Fluffy’s Holds and Debuffs, you’ll actually be safest “Nuke-r” around. If anything is left standing, Fluffy will automatically target them and since Blackstar puts a massive accuracy debuff on everything it hits, you might not even get hit by return fire. Of all the Nukes in the Defender Secondaries, Blackstar is probably in the middle but in addition to Fluffy, it becomes a contender simply because you can use it without as much fear of dying afterwards. Take it, show it to your friends and impress the masses. Later on, you may get Soul Drain that will add an additional 100% of damage to Blackstar (if you max it) and if you add in the Tar Patch –resist, you’ll really go boom. That doesn’t happen to a minimum of level 47 but once you get it, it will be impressive.

Overall:3-Star Power. Granted, you don’t have to take it but it’d be a crying shame if you didn’t. Shame on you for thinking about skipping it! It’s a nuke, man! A Nuke!!!
CD3: 2-Star Power. Does no controlling but heck if you’re not cool when you blow a group of 30 guys away.
BD3: 4-Star Power. It debuffs too! Plus…it BLOWS $*^& UP!

Purpose

There are a lot of Dark/Dark guides out there but I wanted mine to be a little different just so that the average player could get a feel for what he/she wants to do with their D3. D3s are very versatile and besides the 4 or so powers that probably shouldn’t be taken, you really can’t go wrong choosing the “cool” powers.

So what does a D3 have to offer and why should you want to be one? D3s have the luxury and privilege of being in the upper echelon of Primary/Secondaries because we have so many tools at our disposal and because we are balanced nicely between offensive and defensive ability. D3s can perform many roles within a team and does many of them quite well but if you want to know what we’re best at it comes down to this: safety. Unlike the Empathy Defender that heals all the damage that a team takes or the Force Field Defender that gives everyone high defense, Dark Defenders prevent the enemy from hitting you with their myriad of –Accuracy debuffs or they simply stop the enemy from attacking with a variety of control powers, much like an actual Controller. In addition, they are the only non-Controller with true pets and those pets are quite versatile, much like the D3 themselves, that also do a ton of debuffing and controlling. In addition, D3s have the ability to fine tune themselves to a couple of distinct roles and each role is noticeably different. So, while I will do the typical “here’s the power, when to take it and how to slot it” jig, I’m also going to give you how I feel it would be best used if you’re a “Controller” D3 (CD3) or a “Buffing” D3 (BD3, though it’s more like a De-buffing D3 but that would become a D4 and there’s already a D4 out there, but I digress).

Here’s how I classify the CD3 vs. the BD3.

Controller D3s are all about controlling the enemy and making sure that they’re, in some way, mezzed into submission. This can be done through the wide variety of powers within both the Dark Miasma and Dark Blast sets. The general rule here is that if there is a “hold” (hold, disorient, sleep, fear, stun, etc.) power that comes up at the same time as a Blast power in the Secondary, the CD3 will, within limits, take the hold power over the attack. Similarly, in battle, the CD3 will use a control power over an attack, if all things were equal. This doesn’t mean that they completely ignore their secondary or that they don’t attack in battle or can’t solo, it simply means that they’re primary concern is to take foes out of the fight.

Buffing D3s are not quite opposites of the CD3s but are different animals entirely. They will rely more on the toggles (Darkest Night/Shadowfall) to insure their (and their team’s) safety instead of spamming holds or fears. This isn’t to say that they skip the holds, it’s just that they rely less on them. The BD3 is content with flooring accuracy to the 5% basement on mobs and playing the chance game with hits, kind of like a pure defense set like Super Reflexes or Ice Armor. However, by playing this game of death, they are freer to take attacks and slot them up instead of taking all the holds. The BD3 can also rely on his attacks to do the de-buffing, meaning, they will probably attack more than the CD3 if only to get more –Acc on their foes.

Both D3s are great and one is not necessarily better than the other. I would have to say that CD3 is a bit more team friendly and is “safer” than the BD3 but the trade-off there is that the BD3 will have more powerful attacks and probably solo faster. This isn’t to say one is not team friendly (the BD3 still rocks) and the other can’t solo (the CD3 will still do great) it’s just that in certain areas, one will be more efficient than the other.

I would also like to mention at this point that the BD3 and CD3, despite their class-distinction will overlap considerably. The BD3 will probably still get Fearsome Stare and Dark Servant (henceforth known as Fluffy) in addition to a sometimes handy Petrifying Gaze. This gives them a wide-array of controlling powers already. The CD3 will simply expand upon that by using Howling Twilight as a mezz power and grabbing Dark Pit while possibly skipping Darkest Night altogether (why debuff an enemy that can’t fight back?) due to its endurance drain. The slotting of the CD3 and BD3 will also be different but that will be covered later.

This guide is designed to help both sides of the D3 by listing a power, telling what it does and giving it a star-system for how useful it would be for a CD3 and BD3. Some powers will heavily favor one side or the other and some will be great regardless of what kind of D3 you want to make. It’s still all your decision though. Have fun and experiment to see which one you enjoy the most!

Dark Miasma

Dark Miasma is great because it’s the only unique Defender set that isn’t shared as a secondary with Controllers. It’s a useful combination of holds, fears, heals, and –Acc debuffs that really turn enemies into whiffing machines. Darks are sometimes called the most defensive of the Defender primaries and this is for good reason. They lack any form of buffing an ally and all their attacks affect enemies and not the team itself. Tar Patch may reduce resistance (the only form of damage boost we get) but other than that, teams will probably not even know that your powers are at work. You will forever be the unsung hero because it’s hard to tell that enemies are missing you. Big green numbers, glowing buffs and bright green anchors are the tell-tale signs of the other Primaries but not with you. You just sit back and watch the enemies miss, something often underappreciated by teams.

The powers are as follows:

Twilight Grasp (Level 1)

From everything I’ve heard, the base heal on this nifty little power is 22% of your life and that goes a long way when you finally get a few Heal SOs in it. It’ll save your butt on many occasions but there are two things that you, and your team must know about it. First, it has to hit. Your ability to heal is directly proportional to the enemies you fight. If you’re in the deep purple range, don’t expect to heal often. If you’re fighting whites and lower, this is a very reliable heal. Always, always, always, slot an accuracy enhancement in here, before anything else (heals included) so that when that critical need comes and you have to be healed, it doesn’t whiff completely. Secondly, the effect of the power is a fairly small radius around you and if teammates want healed, they have to be within about 10-12 feet of you. It’s very difficult to heal others as they run like chickens with their heads cut off in a battle so try to warn the team if you’re the primary healer. Speaking of, I wouldn’t recommend being the primary healer due to the fact that the heals, while normally reliable, aren’t guaranteed. Also, while Twilight Grasp does heal a good chunk of life for you, it won’t be as significant to a Tank or Scrapper with higher max HP. Just remember that if they’re on the verge of death. Finally, TG has an added minus regen effect that will slow/stop regen for about 10 seconds. This is absolutely critical for high-hitpoint enemies that can regen 100s of life per tick (because it is percentage based). Using this on a Boss isn’t a bad idea even if no one needs the heal for this reason alone.

Overall: 5-Star Power. Take it and love it. Slot it up with 3 or 4 early and respec out of those slots later in the game when Fluffy can do some of that for you. This goes for both BD3 and CD3 types.

Tar Patch: (Level 1)

With the addition of the –resistance aspect of Tar Patch and the –fly/-jump, this has become a must have power for anyone that wants to increase their damage.It has a 45 second duration and a 90 second recharge. For those playing at home this means that perma-hasten and the initial slot with a recharge SO means that it’s ready to go the second it runs out. This also means that if slotted up really well, this little beauty can stack upon itself for a little while giving you and your team a really impressive damage boost because you just dropped mob resistance 60%. Triple stacking is possible with perma-hasten, 6 recharge SOs and a little help from a buddy with Speed Boost or Accelerate Metabolism. Also, more than one Dark/* can double up on Tar Patch duty and just spam as many as they can to increase efficiency. Now, the –resistance is the reason to get the power but the original power had a slow effect that really helped in controlling enemies. Basically, you would lay a Patch down and snipe the group so that they ran through the Patch. Melee attackers would take forever to get to you and you could blast them on the way in. This was also helpful to Melee teammates who didn’t want their foes to run. Slotting comes down to whether you want to have more Tar Patches out (which is what I recommend so you can use it every battle) or if you want to increase the slow aspect of the Patch. You can’t slow enemies past 10% of their normal walk/run speed so don’t go overboard. I have 6-slotted this baby with all recharges and it’s up every 21 seconds or so. Double-stacking is freaking beautiful so I recommend it highly if you can manage it.

Overall: 4-Star Power. The –resist is absolutely awesome and I highly recommend it for any D3. If you’re using it just for the slow/-fly/-jump aspect then:
CD3: 4-Star (anything not held won’t be going anywhere)
BD3: 4-Star (keeps large groups near your anchor)

Darkest Night (Level 2)

For the BD3…this is your Promised Land. To the CD3…it is a waste of endurance for anything less than an AV. Darkest Night reduces Accuracy by 35% and reduces the damage of incoming attacks by 37.5%. It is a somewhat expensive toggle that requires an anchor but affects a fairly large area around the anchor. When fully slotted out with To Hit Debuffs, this monster can floor just about anything (within reason) to the 5% Accuracy basement and what this means is that you can fight with near impunity against anything +4 or so and below. However, this cornerstone of Dark Miasma has it’s downfalls. First, it is endurance heavy. You will notice the sharp contrast between fighting with it on and off. Early on, I say just slot it with endurance reducers and throw it on a boss that is giving you trouble. Once SOs open up, you can do a few things. 6-Slot it with To Hit Debuffs and cause everything you’re up against to miss wildly or you could be more modest and only 2-3 slot it with an Endurance Reducer and a few To Hit Debuffs. Basically, pull it out when things are getting hairy as a “big gun” to help give your team the edge. Or you could skip it entirely, something I don’t recommend but if you’re CD3, it might make sense. My current set up is 1 End Reducer and 4 ToHit Debuffs. It’s still wildly effective and cost efficient.

Overall: I still say it’s a 5-star power that is the cornerstone of the set. The damage reduction alone is worth taking it for.
BD3: 5-Star power (I cannot stress enough how important this is for you)
CD3: 2-Star power (might be nothing more than an endurance drain but situationally useful against tough foes)

Howling Twilight (Level 6)

This has a few things going for it. One, it’s an auto-hit, area of effect Rez that resurrects an entire team instantly to full health and endurance. Two, it’s a mag 1 disorient and does significant -recharge of all foes in its area. The only downside to this power being used like a pure controlling power is its recharge. Even maxed out with 6 SOs and perma-hasten this will only come up once every 50 seconds. If you just use it as a rez and throw a recharger in it with perma-hasten…it’s up every 90 seconds. It does require an enemy to hit to get the rez so remember that you can’t just rez anybody at any time.

Overall: 3-Star Power. This is arguably the best rez in the game due to being able to rez multiple people to full health and endurance in addition to its other effects.
CD3: 4-Star Power (Recharge slightly too long to make it an every battle weapon but auto hit is really nice)
BD3: 2-Star Power. (A very nice rez but skippable until later)

Shadow Fall (Level 8)

This nice little area of effect power has some really great abilities. First off, it’s a team stealth. This gives everyone around you a stealth factor greater than Stealth from the power pool. Secondly, it provides a tiny amount of defense (2.5%) which always helps. Thirdly, and most importantly, it gives Negative, Energy, and PSIONIC resistance at a base level of 25%. Since Psi resistance is nearly non-existent to everyone else, this is a rare commodity for Tanks and Scrappers looking to fight Psychic Clock Kings and whatnot. To begin with, slot it with endurance reducers and try to run it as much as possible. The defense and stealth is simply too good to pass up. This used to have a movement penalty but that is gone as of Issue 5. Eventually, once Negative, Energy, and Psi become more common, I’d slot this puppy up with resistance enhancements. With one endurance reducer and 5 resistance SOs, you get 50% resistance to all of those damage types. Also note that turning on Super Speed while running Shadow Fall is the same as running Invisibility. So, if you want to stealth through missions, turn them both on and click the glowies, find the boss and his gang, etc.

Overall: 5-Star Power. Too many good things to pass up in this power and it’s not terribly expensive. Very team friendly and gives Psi resistance.
CD3: 5-Star Power. (Helps with the initial alpha of holds in addition to what’s been previously mentioned)
BD3: 5-Star Power. (See overall)

Fearsome Stare (Level 12)

While grossly overpowered in I4, Fearsome Stare is still a cornerstone power of Dark Miasma. This bad boy does two things and does them very well. First, it puts a Fear effect on baddies within a HUGE cone. This fear makes enemies cower and unable to attack unless they are attacked first. Even if they are attacked, they can get one attack off and then must resume the “fear position” thereby having a –recharge effect. What this amounts to is a pseudo-hold that, if you are smart, can turn into a hold by not touching the other feared mobs. The fear lasts 20 seconds and has a 40 second recharge. It’s also pretty cheap. Secondly, it puts a modest –Acc debuff on enemies, somewhere in the order of 15%, which also stacks. So, you can easily get a -30% debuff on most foes just by using two applications of Fearsome Stare. Slotting is more of an issue now, however. With perma-Hasten alone, it comes up every 23.5 seconds but that’s not enough to make it stack. Adding a Recharge will drop it to every 20 seconds but it still would run out the second it came up again. My personal preference is 1 Accuracy, 1 Recharge, and 1 Fear Duration as it would give the power good accuracy, a 20 second recharge and a 26.6 duration, meaning self-stacking. More slots would make the power more useful but duration is all that should be slotted for as a recharge SO would only drop it another 3 seconds while Fear Duration ups it 6.6 seconds.

Overall: 5-Star Power. Huge cone, cheap, massive debuff and Fear effect, this power has it all. Takes a few slots to make great, however.
CD3: 5-Star (a great, maybe the greatest, control power in the set)
BD3: 5-Star (a great debuffing power, but the control is gravy)

Petrifying Gaze (Level 18)

The only true “hold” of the set, Petrifying Gaze is a power that takes some slots to make useful. It’s a mag 3 single-target hold, meaning that you’ll be able to lock down lieutenants and minions in one application. Its base recharge is 16 seconds and has a duration of 12 seconds. That means that it won’t be able to hold a boss without a bit of help. Perma-hasten brings it down to 9.4 seconds and allows self-stacking but only for a few seconds and that’s really not enough to make it a boss-holding power. A Recharge SO would bring it down to 8 seconds while a Hold Duration would extend it to 16 seconds. This, in my opinion, is enough to make it useable but it won’t be as powerful as Controller holds. Dark Servant also has this power but because you can’t enhance their Petrifying Gaze, it won’t be near as effective as yours. However, Fluffy will help you lock down the occasional minion or lieutenant, which always helps.

Overall: 3-star Power. Without slots/Hasten, it’s useful but not great.
CD3: 4-Star. Slotted up, a good hold but you’ll still be jealous of Controllers.
BD3:3-Star. Still practical and 2 slots aren’t that hard to find.

Black Hole (Level 26)

Well, to say this is the lame duck power of the set is about right. Yeah, it can be used to turn a group of enemies intangible for a brief amount of time and take them out of the fight but the duration (20 seconds) isn’t worth the massive endurance cost and the long recharge. Basically, this power sucks not only because it’s worthless but because it’s worthless and expensive! The only thing I could really see this power being used for is for that CD3 that wants to be as “controller-ish” as possible. Even still, it’s situational at best. Try it on Test and see what you think but I personally wouldn’t get a Moonbeam snipe’s distance near it.
Overall: 1-Star. Completely useless in 90% of the situations you’ll encounter and that 10% where it could be useful can be covered by other powers, namely Fearsome Stare.
CD3: 1-Star. (I’d still say it’s totally useless)
BD3: 1-Star. (Ditto)

Dark Servant (Level 32)

Totally reworked in Issue 5, Dark Servant was drastically reduced in power by disallowing multiple instances of them. Also, Petrifying Gaze was reduced, just like the Primary Power. Dark Servants have a 4 minute recharge and duration, unlike the Controller level 32 pets that have virtually unlimited duration. They will follow you up elevators and through portals, however. Fluffy can also be unsummoned by typing /release_pets.

Dark Servant, as a utility pet, works best if you can realize his/her/its limitations and work around them. It has 5 powers: Twilight Grasp (identical to yours), Petrifying Gaze (also identical), Darkest Night (similar in power but only affects one target), Tenebrous Tentacles (vastly reduced damage but otherwise the same), and Chill of the Night, the aura that does minor damage and rumors to have incredible Accuracy debuffing capability. Chill of the Night will always be on and Fluffy will cycle through the various attacks in no real particular order. He will also follow you quite religiously and usually attacks the closest thing next to him. He has more health than you do and can be used as an “alpha-strike” absorber or as a small meat-shield while solo-ing.

Fluffy will partially replace the need to debuff and control enemies but not as much as it used to. Properly slotted (see below), a Dark Servant can be very effective but don’t expect it to do your job for you. I would never recommend dropping Dark Servant altogether but there will be various camps on how to slot it.

The first theory on how to slot Dark Servant is to be minimal-istic and stick with a “base” pet. Powers that used to not require slots to be effective (i.e. Petrifying Gaze and Fearsome Stare) could be patched with slots from Fluffy. Therefore, this camp would say to keep Fluffy at either base or 1 slot. An Accuracy would be very helpful and a Heal or ToHit Debuff would be optional to get slightly more mileage out of him/her/it.

The second theory is to maximize Fluffy for Debuffing. One Accuracy and 5 ToHit Debuffs would make everything that Fluffy does (minus Petrifying Gaze) seriously drop the accuracy of enemies. Chill of the Night, Darkest Night, Twilight Grasp and Tenebrous Tentacles all have –Accuracy debuffs and this means that, more often than not, Fluffy can be a Debuff bot on top of your own personal debuffing abilities.

The third theory is to make Fluffy an all-around stronger pet by slotting for Accuracy, Hold duration, Heals, and ToHit Debuffs. Instead of super-charging any one aspect of Fluffy, they boost everything to make him more effective with every power.

Overall: 5 Star Power. A very nice utility pet that will help you a lot in your upper-levels. Can be made very powerful or left at base and still be useful.
CD3: 5-Star. Helps you hold a little but debuffs enemies, something you might not have a lot of at this point in your career. Any help is good help.
BD3: 5-Star. Can be enhanced to be a very powerful Debuffer but the heals and holds are always welcome.

[ QUOTE ]
Soul Drain

This power ROCKS! It's not quite a self Fulcrum Shift, but it's close, and provides an accuracy buff. This has great synergy with... everything, and works wonders with Choking Cloud. With Hasten + AM, 4 SO Rech will allow it to come up just about as fast as Aim with 1 SO Rech - sufficient to use at the beginning of most every fight.

Endurance Cost: 23
Base Damage at 50: 30.58 + 5% crit chance (double damage)
Base Damage Increase per mob: 12.5%
Base Acc Increase per mob: 12.5%
Duration: 30s
Recharge Timer: 90s
Activation Time: 3s
Brawl Index: 2.3509
Recommend Slotting: 4 Rech

[/ QUOTE ]

Confused. He says it has a 90 second recharge, yet, if I Perma-Hasten+AM + 4 rechage, it brings it down to Aim + 1 Recharge SO? Aim has a 90 second recharge as well, which make no sense in light of his previous statement.

Base Recharge, should be then, 120 seconds, not 90. Perma-hasten + AM +4 SOs on a 120 second recharge brings it to every 36 seconds as compared to an Aim with Perhma-hasten+AM+ 1 SO which is up every 38.

So...which is right? I just extrapolated from his written info, which I take is more correct than the number he put down. So, could some confirm the BASE recharge on Soul Drain? Is it every 120 seconds? 240? 90? Thanks.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A minor correction: The recharge time on Dark Mastery/Dark Consumption is 6 minutes, not 2.

[/ QUOTE ]

minor ?!?

according to several who have taken it, it seems quite bad..

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...Number=3050172

quote out of that thread:

[ QUOTE ]
Just got Dark Consumption and was shocked to learn that it has twice the recharge time of the Scrapper version. This makes this power virtually worthless.

I mean, a 6 minute recharge on an endurance gain power? It has the same recharge as Blackstar! I mean, I can't even use it every 5rd or 6th fight.

[/ QUOTE ]

please comment

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, please do. I don't know how anyone can possibly mistake a 2 minute recharge with a 6 minute one.

I've also heard reports that the Endurance drain on TI is less than .39/sec but closer to about .25/sec also due it's less protective nature (vs. other damage types).

In addition, the armors, are all the resistance numbers the same for every damage type? I.e. Does Charged Armor provide 30% to Smash/Lethal and Energy or does Energy have a different resistance number? The same goes for Dark Embrace and Mind over Body. Just curious, really.

This post is far too long for anything of mine to be noticed but I'll add it anyway.

The problem I see in the late 40's game for Defenders is the fact that a Defender's "strength" in buff/debuff no longer has the impact that it used to in the early game. The Melee ATs don't need any more protection and the damage ATs rarely need damage boosts. The only thing these ATs need is increased killing speed via a buff to endurance recovery, resistance to Psi, or a decrease in recharge times. That's all Defenders are good for in the late game. Thus, you get Empathy Defenders all over the place for RA and AB and Force Fielders are left in the dark because a Regen Scrapper or a Fire Tank does just fine with or without bubbles.

Now, solo, Defenders, IMO, are fine just because we can buff ourselves. But, as I just witnessed last night, a Blaster completely, utterly, and totally outshines a Defender in damage. That doesn't bother me so much except that Defenders barely seem to have an advantage over Controller Secondaries.

The idea of giving Defenders inherent mag protection would be nice but I also suggest giving us the HP boost that many would like to see. There was another post about Defenders having very few Mez protection powers and that too is another hole in the AT. Almost every Scrapper or Tank Defense has "the" power that gives status resistance. Once you get this power and run it, you're virtually immune. Defenders get...Acrobatics? Not even in the Epic pools do we get any love. How are we supposed to do our job if we're mezzed 50% of the time in a fight?

At any rate, I'm not complaining all that much because I have a Dark/Dark that isn't shared by Controllers or Blasters. My Powers are unique and I have a lot of tricks up my sleeves. Once I get Dark Embrace + Shadowfall I'll have resistance to everything but Fire/Cold by at least 40% and I'll be able to take damage somewhat. Mez will still be my bane though.

Thanks for looking at us States and if I could sum up this entire thread, as I have read it, in a brief statement it is this:

Increase the gap between Defender Primaries and Controller Secondaries and allow us to do our job better than anyone else. In that regard, we will become useful in the late game.

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad the path that leads to destruction and many go through it. But narrow is the gate that leads to life, and few find it.

“Dogmatic fools,” the Teacher retorted. “They think that power is inherently evil but fail to realize that it is not the power itself that is evil but the wielder.”

The entire class nodded in agreement except for a lone hand in the back that was infamously well known.

“What is it, Silas!? What is your objection now? Surely you agree that power itself is neither good nor evil but rather fashioned into whatever means the wielder intends!” the Teacher was more than upset as Silas had interrupted him for the sixth time today, a new record.

“No, Teacher, I have no objection to your remark. That passage…it speaks of life and destruction in the same breadth and sets them against each other yet we are told to believe that power and destruction are necessary and good. Who is correct?” the young prodigy asked.

Interestingly enough, the Teacher was more than happy to alleviate the confusion. “Young Master Silas, the fault lies with the passage and not our teaching. Power and destruction are indeed vital to the maintenance of order and life. Duality, if you will. Neither good nor evil, life nor death, not even the Gods nor the Old Ones are any ‘better’ or ‘worse’ but rather, equal and opposite. You will eventually come to master this absolute truth.” Pleased with his answer, the Teacher resumed his lesson.

But Silas was not convinced. He knew that there was something more to the nature of good and evil and why the Society and the Institution were loathe to admit it. He was keenly aware that good and evil were not “equal and opposite” but rather at war with each other. Silas’ father told him that very thing many times before bed…and before he was murdered. Ever since then, Silas was branded an outsider and a threat.

Whether he was, in fact, a conspirator remained to be seen for all he knew was that he was the most gifted mage in the whole of the conclave. The Institution for the Arcane and the Society of Mages that backed it were more than happy to let such a bright young man enter their hallowed body of magi. In fact, they believed that Silas was not only perfect to become a very powerful mage…but predestined to do so. He knew all of this, of course, and was more than happy to use it to his advantage. He was treated with special favor throughout his years at the Institution and now, in his last, 9th term, he was about to be taken under the wing of the most prodigious arcanist that had ever went through the Institution.

That night, Silas lay awake pondering over the nature of good and evil trying to delineate the two in a fashion that was not blasphemous to the Magi Order but still fit his own, and his father’s, beliefs. While he stared out at the celestial bodies hovering in the void of space, his body began to tremor. Light flooded into the room and everything around him was bathed in an incandescent glow. Silas tried cupping his eyes to shield himself enough to see what was going on and before him was the silhouette of a robed figure.

“Mark and remember, boy!” a voice bellowed from amidst the light. It sounded like thousands of different voices together, speaking in unison with harmonies and dissonance simultaneously. “You have been chosen to bear witness to the End of Days, you who are most favored among men! That day of wrath shall leave no mountain intact, no island above the seas, no blade of grass unscorched and no mortal being alive, so terrible will the sundering of the world be. Then, as the sun sets on the final day of this blue sphere, the blackest of nights will descend like a veil upon the surface of the cosmos. Even the Immortals shall quake in fear as this Blackest Night unmakes all of Creation. You have been chosen by the God of this Age to stand fast against this great doom and usher in not the Blackest Night but the Age of Glory to which all that has breath of life within them shall rejoice and be glad for all eternity. Therefore, from this very moment, you shall be imparted with immortality and this Seed of Power to which only the divine has thus far been given. Grow it well and over the course of your unnatural life, you will become more powerful than you can possibly fathom. Go, and deliver the mortal world from the Blackest Night!”

Silas woke up with a strange feeling in his chest and the memory of that vision was scorched into his mind. He knew with all of his being that what transpired the night before was real and that he had been imparted with power beyond what was known to him already. However, the strange feeling began to fade as the days drew on and while he believed he had been given this revelation, telling anyone, save his Mentor, would have labeled him a heretic and destroyed any chance of coming out of the Institution with the title “Magus of the 9th Order” the highest that can be achieved by anyone alive. (There were some accounts of undead Magi returning from the grave to continue in the arcane arts and their power was of a level that simply could not be achieved in the lifespan of mere mortals. These “Timeless Ones” were revered and feared but also looked upon as the ultimate resource in the study of “pure” magicks. Silas’ Mentor was among them.)

After graduating at the top of his class, Silas was paired with the benevolent and wise Saint Thomas Agnew, a man that lived from 45 A.D. until 84 A.D. He was executed for his belief in The Good during a time when the Dark Ways of Icthulu became the official path to dark power among the enchanted. Saint Agnew was a disciple of the Way and was privy to the secrets of resurrection and while the rest of his contemporaries were killed and remained in the afterlife, St. Agnew made a decision before his death to live on to teach others about The Good. In April of 84 A.D., he let himself be killed by the Grand Master of the Icthulu Order to prove that not even the darkest of magi could keep him from becoming immortal. In front of the entire Icthulu Order, St. Agnew was resurrected and no dark force in the entire assembly, Grand Master included, could affect him whatsoever. He became one of the Timeless Ones by sheer will alone. To that end, he became the most powerful wizard the world had known. 300 years later, he received word of an upcoming Institution being built to focus the power of the world’s magi. Alarmed at what such a body of arcanists could do, St. Agnew enrolled under the guise of a wealthy duke to keep an eye out for strange behavior and went through the motions to graduate at the top of the first class of the Institution. He has since been on the Board of Elders and the immediate mentor to every valedictorian that graduates. Silas became his 104th apprentice and from what everyone has been saying, he may be most gifted among them.

Silas’ first encounter with St. Agnew was a cordial dinner when he was still a 2nd Order Elementalist. (Every student within the Institution goes through basic magic studies so that may have at least a basic understanding of every form of magic in the known world. The order of their learning are as follows: 1st year: Elements, 2nd year: Light. 3rd year: Physical. 4th year: Astral. 5th year: Necromancy. 6th year: Dark with the last 3 years being further courses on the subject that the student was most proficient at. If a student is exceptional at any one practice early on, they begin these more advanced classes immediately. Silas was extraordinary in all of them but his manipulation of the Dark magicks was peerless. As such, he was labeled an Elementalist to begin with but when his instructors learned that he was just as good at the other forms, they weren’t sure what to do with him. Ultimately, Silas became a 4th Order Mage in every form of magic and a 5th Order Mage, the highest, in the Dark Arts. Since a mage can only have one primary art, the highest anyone can achieve is a 5th + 4th Order standing which has its own special designation: a Magus of the 9th Order. Their numbers are few but not excessively so. At the time of Silas graduation, there were over one hundred of them. Timeless Ones are not held to this code because they can become 5th Order Mages in every art and hence become “10th Order Illuminati” to which St. Agnew was one of four known.) St. Agnew had more than just a premonition about the boy eating bread before him, he knew that he would truly become something out of this realm. He told the Board of Elders immediately that Silas would become not only the most powerful mage that would come out of the Institution but would border on becoming the most powerful mage ever.

Thus, Silas’ story begins when the revelation given to him by the Heavenlies was told to St. Agnew and the mystery behind it began to be revealed.

“Mentor, the narrow gate, why is it so hard to find?” Silas asked during a cool afternoon in A.D. 412. Silas had been studying with St. Agnew for three months now and was in the prime of his life. The amount of learning St. Agnew possessed was astounding and even with a thousand years, Silas didn’t think he could know it all. However, a thousand years is exactly the time Silas had and more, being immortal now.

“Why is a four leaf clover hard to find?” the Mentor answered with a question. Like many teachers of old, St. Agnew’s preferred response to a question was with a question and it frustrated Silas to no end. “The answer to your question and mine are one in the same.”

Thinking for a minute, the answer became clear. “Because there are so many look-alikes around it,” Silas responded. “There are many broad gates, many paths but they all lead to the same end: destruction. It’s hard to find the narrow one when there are so many paths to take.”
“Precisely, Silas, precisely!” St Agnew actually jumped to his feet with excitement. “Do you know that I’ve asked that exact question to all my students and none of them have gotten it right? I was beginning to despair that no one could. So many of my students couldn’t relate the gates to the clovers and they were stuck at an impasse of broken reason.”

“How do I find this narrow gate?” Silas continued.

“Now that is the question we’ve all been trying to answer,” St. Agnew explained. “For many years, I thought that the Gate was some form of ‘true path’ that only an elect few could attain. But, the more I’ve dwelled on the subject, the more I believe that anyone can enter through it. It is a universal Good. That very idea got me killed so many years ago! Anything that makes the average man equal to the mage is heretical nowadays. I fear that if it continues, the mages will take over and we’ll all suffer the consequences.”

“You speak of a universal Good. Everything taught to me said that there is no such thing but rather that the ‘good’ you speak of is just a relative term designated by a subjective author. There is no ‘good,’ just mere existence that happens to support a particular viewpoint,” Silas added with a matter-of-factness that would bring a tear to the Teacher of his past.

“Ah, but there is Good!” Agnew laughed. “There is a Good that is unfathomable and an Evil that is unmentionable. Both exist and both are battling for supremacy. However, their weapons are not swords or arrows nor are they glyphs or incantations, no, they inflict damage upon each other in more subtle ways. Take, for example, the injustice in society. That is a weapon of Evil. As long as the innocent are repressed and those that deserve justice go unpunished, Evil is winning in that battleground. However, whenever a man takes joy in his work, whenever lovers unite, whenever the sun rises, Good overcomes. You tell me, whom do you believe is winning the war?”

Silas answered, “That is difficult to ascertain. How am I to know all victories for Good or Evil considering that there are so many constantly happening? The scales must be huge to determine the balance of power!”

“Simplicity is the answer. Do you see more corruption in the world today than yesterday? Or do you see society getting better by the day?” St. Agnew replied.

“Mankind is evil, Mentor. There is no way we could possibly be getting better. Dark days are coming…I know this for a fact.”

“Do you now? How do you know?” Agnew asked with intrigue.

“I have not told this to anyone for fear of not graduating but there came a revelation to me some months back foretelling the…Blackest Night.” Silas hesitated with the last phrase.

St. Agnew’s face dropped instantly and his demeanor sank into hopelessness. He sat silent for many minutes before starting, “So it is true then. The Blackest Night is coming. I too have felt it’s looming shadow…slithering…into the world. For all my powers of foresight, I cannot tell when it will happen for it seems some distance away, yet…far closer then I want to imagine. Even the Timeless Ones will perish under it’s cold embrace. To help me press on, I simply shut it out of my mind but now…I simply cannot.”

Silas divulged the facts of the revelation to St. Agnew, who immediately knew who the messenger was, “It is said that a great Prince of the Hosts would appear to mortal men when the Gods would try to prevent this calamity. They have chosen you in their infinite wisdom and have no doubt guided you thus far. How they will try to stop the Blackest Night is the stuff of legend but I believe you should be more acquainted with this prophecy if you wish to combat it.”

Silas was lead into the hollowed grounds of St. Agnew’s Study, a wealth of knowledge and lore that was unequaled among mages. Within it’s dusty and crowded labyrinth of books, scrolls, artifacts and relics, St. Agnew managed to find the oldest book Silas had laid eyes upon.

“It was given to me as a gift from another Timeless One, the Adjutant of Horus, which you have some familiarity with, I’m sure,” Agnew started. “Even the early Mesopotamians were looking toward the End of Days and trying to discern its time and purpose. The first prophecy came to a simple farmer back in 4351 B.C. He claimed that a god came to him and told him that there would be a great upheaval and all of the created order would perish under everlasting darkness. Later, an Egyptian High Priest wrote in one of his temple records that the Sun God, Ra, had asked for a body to inhabit so that he may become mortal and die before ‘a night infinitely dark consumes me.’ To think, a god wished to escape annihilation by succumbing to Death!? Finally, just before the death of Christ, it is said that around the 6th hour, darkness overtook the sun and many tombs were broken and the dead roamed free. I see that as a taste of what’s to come, as the death of Creator would have that kind of effect. It was short lived, however, due to his resurrection and his restoration of order. There may come a time when that order cannot be restored and that, my dear Silas, is when the Blackest Night is upon us.”

“So The Good loses.” Silas said hopelessly.

“Our destiny is not set yet, my young friend, but if we continue on our current path, I fear that we may indeed fall to the Blackest Night.”

“I understand it now, we’re on the path that leads to destruction and we have to find the narrow gate, but how?” Silas searched for answers.

“That is what you are to find out. That is your commission by the gods. Not even they know what path to choose. So many are offered and only one is the true path. Find it and you will save this universe. Fail, and everything that you hold dear will be destroyed. I believe it is time to set you off on your journey. I will be with you as a guide and mentor but my essence to the mortal plane is diminishing daily. I estimate another few hundred years before I will be too ethereal to be able to help you anymore. In the mean time, I will teach you everything I know and will help you become the most powerful mage this world has ever seen.”

“What about this Seed of Power that the Messenger told me about?” Silas asked.

“Indeed, the Seeds of Power are bestowed only upon celestial beings and their potential is limitless. They were forged before the first dawn and only a few of them remain. Supposedly, their true power lies in the ability to alter destiny and fate and to change the course of entire universes. Ultimately it comes down to a decision of freewill. However, it can also be used to expand your own power to that of the gods. Even they quake before the Blackest Night so I don’t know if you can outright overpower whatever force is behind it. But, if the Blackest Night is indeed many millennia away, who knows? Maybe you will become so powerful that you will be able to engage the Great Evil head on and defeat it outright. Only the Creator has ever done that, in the beginning during creation. What He could do is far beyond the scope of even the gods, however. Exiling the Blackest Night is no small feat and while I believe the Creator could do it again, I believe He is watching to see to see what we do.”

“So I must simply wait and see. What a terrible suspense!” Silas exclaimed. “What do I do now?”

“That is simple, Silas. Start learning everything you can about the Blackest Night and is origin and who is behind it. This prophecy was not given in vain for the gods knew that you have the potential to do something about this cataclysm awaiting us. I, too, was placed in this very position for a reason and I believe I know it now. Remember, young Silas, there is no such thing as coincidence. Purpose is behind everything.”

Hundreds of years passed and the corporeal form of St. Agnew did, indeed, diminish until late in the 12th century when he ceased to be entirely. Before his crossing over, St. Agnew gave this charge to Silas and that was to change his name into the very thing he was fighting against. “It will be a constant reminder of what is at stake and the doom that may befall us. Your name will be among your greatest weapons as those of all walks of life will sense that you bring tidings of misfortune and calamity. You will be shunned, exiled, and be made an outcast the rest of your days on this planet. Few will understand you, many will fear you. Use this power to your advantage and your name will go before you like a plague that silences all enemies. Keep practicing the arts and increasing in knowledge and someday, I believe you will find what you are looking for. Good bye, Blackest Night. I have been honored by your presence.” And with that, St. Agnew faded out of existence.

Blackest Night wandered many decades, very much lost and alone. He feared trying to build relationships that were destined to be cut short by death. Marriage was out of the question and children that would grow up and die before his very eyes was too painful to think about let alone attempt. Instead, his life would be one of isolation and study…and discipline. Devoted to the searching of answers and the seeking of a power that can disrupt the great darkness, Blackest Night began to believe that it was not in the powers of Light that salvation was held but rather in the very power that was seeking to destroy this universe. Blackest spent the next thousand years learning, creating, focusing and improving upon every Dark Power that was known to man and it was with the power of the Blackest Night that he hoped to combat it.

This delving into the Dark Arts had consequences that even he could not foresee. First, his physical appearance began to change and while his body remained in its prime (as an artifact of his immortality) his skin began to glow a light blue. His eyes lost most of their normal vision and instead shifted into spectral sight. As his power increased, he could sense the ebb and flow of magic as it localized and pooled in certain locations and people. This 6th sense allowed him to determine the life force within all living beings and their magical potential. It also allowed him to home in on this power within life and steal it for his own manipulations.

As with all the Dark powers, power is not created by the wielder but taken from his surroundings and as Blackest Night refined his abilities, he could use the very life forces around him to mend wounds and even resurrect the dead. Further and further he searched and began to unlock powers from beyond the grave. Demonic power was among the most powerful but also the most dangerous to the wielder but as an immortal, he had nothing to fear from the demons he was summoning. These Dark Servants were offered existence in the mortal plane as long as they were subservient to their Master and harmed no innocents. However, Blackest Night limited their power and their time in this world in order to keep the supernatural balance intact. Too many Dark Servants at once would have called down the Heavenly Armies and Blackest would be at odds against the gods. Instead, he limited himself to a handful at any given time and all would be given the same power and the same form.

The years rolled on and technological advances caused the widespread use of magic to diminish. Blackest saw the rise of the Industrial Revolution and marveled at the unequaled growth of mankind’s dominion over the planet. Resources were stripped and lands conquered in order to plunder even more. The Institution fell into ruin after some of the Eldest Magi became the slaves of money and the whole estate was sold to the highest bidder. Magic was being inadvertently wiped out because people didn’t need it anymore. Science won the secret war and Blackest became the last Magus of the 9th Order (although he attained a level that was even beyond the Timeless Ones).

World War I and II forced Blackest out of hiding and he became personally involved during the fighting in the Eastern Front between Stalin’s Russia and Nazi Germany. Rumors of a powerful shadow and “Death in the wind” spread like wildfire throughout many of the forces stationed in the East. There tales where Death himself descended upon the battlefield and slew hundreds of men that were performing inhumane acts to their fellow man. Truth be told, Blackest Night only participated in two battles but he saw something he hadn’t seen before in the last one. A single man stood against an entire army and defeated it using nothing but his bare hands and obvious superhuman strength. Curious to see if perhaps this man was magical, Blackest investigated but found no trace of magic within the single-starred hero. His power came from an outside source or was inherent within him.

Blackest Night followed the exploits of the man and his subsequent founding of the Freedom Phalanx. Statesman, as he would later be called, became a vital member of Paragon City and the heroes that began assembling there was akin to the Institution Blackest was once formerly involved in. However, what as even more exciting was the resurgence of magic within that city as magical heroes were coming out of the proverbial woodwork to help restore order. However, such a nexus of magical activity was bound to catch the eye of the force behind the Blackest Night. The former Silas knew that if the Blackest Night would come in this age, ground zero would be Paragon City.

Even more alarming were the whispers of an ancient and powerful magi order that were actually trying to bring about the end of the world. The Circle of Thorns, as they were known, were actually descendants of the Order of Icthulu that killed St. Agnew. Echoes of their magic resounded out of their underground lair and Blackest Night picked up on it immediately. While they too performed Dark Magic, Blackest knew they would be no match for him. His mission was to stop the Circle from prematurely launching the End of Days and figuring out what they knew about it.

“It is time to come out of hiding and fulfill my destiny,” Blackest Night said as he flew into the city. “I may be the harbinger of Death to these people but I will not forget The Good that still compels me. Let the Blackest Night come…I am ready.”