DarkBlaster_NA

Originally Posted by MaestroMavius

Problem with adding it for MM's is, to them, the 'run into melee' bug isn't actually a bug and is more 'balance'.

If we could lock our pets in place to fire at will... Think about how OP'd that'd turn Bots into, or Thugs...

I strongly believe they haven't fixed it yet, not because they don't know how, but rather because they don't want to.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle

Here's the direction I took my dark/time. I would call my single target damage pretty excellent and most of it comes from dark/ and from /fire so I think it's fairly comparable. Now, several things:

Pull the will of the controller proc out of living shadows and replace it with cloud senses. Yes, the cloud senses proc is hard to get on the market, but you can just buy it with merits if you need to. Having done that, for goodness sake put another slot into possess and another slot into wherever you put your will of the controller set. For two slots you're passing on 10% ranged defense. Not a good trade! Incidentally, I strongly agree with others who say that -tohit and fearsome stare go together like Dr. Pepper and trout. Shadow field is a great place for will of the controller in its entirety and if you wanted to keep lockdown you could find a way to slot dark grasp more.

I would drop one of the slots from tar patch. Well actually I'd drop two, but if you want to keep two recharge in it then lose the slow but add an impeded swiftness proc.

Red fortune and thunderstrike are questionable in a purpled build. Thunderstrike makes some sense if you want the ranged defense, but if you're only five slotting red fortune just drop it entirely and slot shadow fall with three or four lucks of the gambler. I would also consider saving a couple slots on umbra beast: he is a good source of damage, but I found that in the end the extra slot for the soulbound proc didn't seem quite as competitive as more damage procs in spammables.

So, on to single target damage. Yes, you want to have shadowy binds and fire blast. Depending on the circumstance, I either alternate those two or throw in dark grasp as well. Even on a monster recharge build SB-FB-repeat is gappy but I feel like when I don't need the hold it seems to do slightly better DPS. Haunt is theoretically part of the ST chain yet I feel like I get better results when I instruct them to kill one boss and I focus on another boss, in terms of spawn clearing. Against a single hard target when you can bring all of it to bear, though, it definitely gets pretty hurty.

This is all, like, my opinion, man, but it would drive me nuts not to have at least two reliable, single target "blast" type powers and the nice thing about shadowy binds is that it does a lot more than just damage.

Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master

hmm the soulbound proc would do very nicely in haunt, i think ill try doing that

i figure A) ill be using haunt a lot so it will proc on myself and B) it will proc when they are up so it will help with their dmg a bit

Originally Posted by Beauregard

I think you're trying to play a game that no longer exists. Hard controls become less and less relevant the deeper you get into the game compared to soft controls because hard controls never really get any better (you can't increase Mag very effectively) while soft controls get a lot better (you go from "I'm slightly harder to hit" to "the targets have a rock bottom chance to hit").

Now, there's nothing wrong with playing the game however you have fun. But even as you're doing so, you should try to recognize that you're making a personal choice based on subjective concerns rather the most potent choice based on objective ones.

Originally Posted by Tater Todd

Same here can you please post your build and list your goals for the build?

Originally Posted by Local_Man

You skipped three of the best powers in my opinion. Fearsome Stare is an essential control power - a great Alpha attack that neutralizes a full group while debuffing their To-Hit. Worry about Containment later after the entire group is controlled.

Possess? A Deceive/Confuse clone with a better animation that draws NO AGGRO so you can take foes out of the fight before it begins. Possess is wonderful for that straggler who is outside of your AoEs. My Illusion/Rad guide discusses all the great uses of Deceive, and that would apply to Possess, too.

And you skipped Haunt? A couple of pets who do pretty good damage and can be a great aggro puller?

I would consider these three powers to be staples of the Dark Control set.

Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim

In complete agreement with you on this. They're able to set it in all of two seconds... maybe less. I know that an engineer can be signaled I am about by one tick of my damage aura on my Dark Scrapper, and get it out before the next hits (or maybe there is a miss in there)... the time is not long, whatever it is. The requirement to be on the ground is silly as well, but I'd at least take a change to the activation time.

Its suicidal need (along with every pet now) to get into melee makes it even worse. That's an arguably even bigger issue that the devs have to fix: some pets are made for melee, others are not. Gun Drone, by definition, should not want to get up close. Why this obvious issue with pet AI has been allowed to continue baffles me, especially since people now have more pets!