Lord Mayhem

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Oh for crying out loud. What, exactly, is the point of this thread? To churn up some more anti-farming propaganda? Well, why not? Let's just add some more negativity, shall we? I mean, there must be at least two people who browse these forums who aren't well aware that farmers are dirty evil scum here only to ruin the gaming experience for everyone else. Oh, wait.

You know, if newbies aren't put off by the filler request /tells, they sure as hell will be by these constant, pointless, flamebait threads that pop up twice a week.

Bravo, all of you. Bravo.

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And somewhere a unicorn cries out in horror at the inhumanity of it all.

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If that's correct, does this mean will see these new zombie models in a new zone or zone makeover?
Dark Astoria would be good

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We can only hope.

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She probably had enough of being rescued all the time - she's almost as bad with it as Fusionette

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That's nothing compared to WSPDR reporter Amanda Vimes on villain-side (not that you'd know about that ) - I swear there must be a dozen missions either kidnapping her or rescuing her (you even get to kidnap her family!) - she gets kidnapped more often than Azuria loses magical artefacts!

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I have a lvl 50 PB, and it's one of those toons that I really have to be in the mood to play - as FFM rightly says, to get the best out of it requires an entirely different approach to the normal "mash buttons when they recharge" that you can get away with on most other toons.

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For me this extends to most of my L50s - I have to be in the mood to play them.

Mashing buttons can work for brutes/scrappers if you're feeling lazy, but I disagree you can get away with that on most archetypes unless you're in such a good team that you're steamrollering the content (but even then you'd be setting yourself up as one of the least productive members). Most of the squishier and/or team-supporting archetypes (i.e. not just damage dealers) need to be more alert to the repercussions of their actions than brutes/scrappers, with greater situational awareness and/or active defence (i.e. controlling/debuffing foes & moderating aggro).

If we're talking about complexity of play then I find that my Mind/Psi Dominator requires much much more thought to play than my Warshade (if I want to survive every fight, anyway). Ok, I have a good keybind set-up on the Warshade which probably helps, but in terms of tactical complexity I'd put him on par with my Stalkers/Blasters or Corruptors, as most of my characters in those archetypes have a certain way they begin most fights - debuffs in a certain order before attacking for the corruptors, or an optimal opening attack chain to maximise burst damage under Build Up for stalkers/blasters - similarly my Warshade begins most fights with eclipse/mires before shifting to nova to attack - sure, it's not rocket science, but it's hardly mashing buttons either, unless you define all videogames as basically mashing buttons (though I guess that is somewhat true...).

But sure the Crab Spider is easier to play than most archetypes for me, so I agree with you there - I had a lot less tactical choices with it than with any other ranged archetype I play - mashing buttons could pretty much work on it. I can't speak definitively for the other VEATs yet as I haven't played them to a reasonable level, but the Fortunata seems quite Dominator-like so I'm sure it's more complex to play than a Crab, Bane seems Stalker-like so probably on par with Warshade for me, though Night Widow looks Scrapper-like so maybe simple button-mashing can work there /shrug.

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Just started a new blueside toon, and was churning along for the Isolator badge in Outbreak.

10 minutes in, got a "Will you join my team for 30 secs to fill?" tell. OK, polite, and didn't follow up with an immediate blind invite, but even so...farming tells to level 2s in Outbreak!?

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I've had that before, on both sides, usually just after getting into the game after character creation, but before I remember to go on /hide from searches (often it's the farmer's /tell that reminds me to do that).

I mean honestly, do they expect you to wait around to do your door mission in the tutorial just so they can have a few extra mobs in their mission? It's somewhat selfish and not giving the best impression of the community to complete newbies if that is the first communication they ever get in the game.

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I cannot compare either at high level as I found the HEATs very much of a 'Meh' to play and did not enjoy the levelling journey at all. I am hoping the VEATs will better suit my play style when I eventually get Harlequin to 50. I suspect the HEATs require a little more finesse and thought to be fully enjoyed and I definitely more suit the 'Smack it and See' style of AT!

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Well apart from not having Eclipse and the pets, more or less the whole playstyle of my Warshade was nailed down by L22 (having both Mires, nova form and Stygian Circle by then) and at L6 in particular it felt more powerful than anything else at that level I've played. My Crab wasn't even a Crab at L22 and I really didn't enjoy the first 24 levels of that VEAT (being just a weak AR blaster with sub-blaster damage and weak buffs/armour).

Oh another "win" to the Warshade I forgot to list (though possibly it's personal preference) is the epic story arcs/missions. The HEATs at least get a full story arc every 5 levels until 50 and it's a good story, while VEATs sometimes just get 1 mission every 5 levels (just occasionally an arc of a few missions, early on) and the story was rather weak imho and not really epic at all - but then I am getting rather sick of all that Destined One stuff.

My 7 favourite powers that I actually play:

Psychic Shockwave (just got it & no slots yet, but still it's great - though Frenzy looks cooler)
Rain of Arrows (my favourite nuke as it's up every 30secs)
Mass Confusion (perfect control, with no aggro)
Terrify (control + damage, in a wide long cone, yum)
Eclipse (best "godmode" power as you can perma it with no crash)
Sunless Mire (I'd have said Fulcrum Shift, but don't personally have a /kin that high)
Water Spout (it's just fun! Though Summon Tarantula brings in the coolest-looking pet)

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double jump- you jump one time extra in mid air, this can only be done when you are going up.

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GvE Jump Pack

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Can someone use their (undoubtedly superior) search-fu to find the Dev post on the US forums where it is clearly stated that redraw does not affect the activation time of a power.

I really want to lay this particular ghost to rest, as it annoys me.

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While this *was* true, it is no longer the case across the board. With the exceptions of Spines and Claws, melee sets are now tweaked so that redraw *does* affect your cast time.

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Yeah it's been changed, Shadowe, just like Jay says. Claws and Spines are the only two sets with redraw still baked into their animation times, and BaB is working on Claws - Night Widow claws were a test-run for it - but Castle is concerned that speeding up the Claws animations by removing redraw allowances from them will make Claws too good as it's already one of the best scrapper sets for dps.

But all of the weapons sets are now like Dual Blades - they've had the "pauses" at the end of each animation (that were there to account for redraw) removed so that attacks flow more gracefully and quickly. I'm surprised you haven't noticed tbh - it makes a massive diff to Broadsword, Katana, etc.

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However, I did not know it had been buffed, despite trying it.

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This is half the problem, tbh - in online games once a power/set gets a bad rep for having been weak or nerfed once, then that can carry through in the playerbase consciousness even when it is no longer true.

Mace used to be known as one of the weakest melee sets, but now it has been fixed and is meant to be pretty good now - but for players who don't read forums/patch-notes and haven't tried it in ages the set will continue to be seen as a weak set and they'll continue to push negative vibes around in-game about it, despite the fix.

I can’t speak for Peacebringers, Banes, Night Widows or Fortunatas. What I do have is a Level 50 Warshade (tri-form double-mire build) and a Level 50 Crab Spider (focused on area damage & with 6 pets) - and I think they can be compared directly, seeing as they’re the most AE-heavy HEAT and the most AE-heavy VEAT. I’ll compare both at L50:

Survivability - Warshade wins easily, even without taking Dwarf into account, because of Eclipse. Sure, the Crab has good resists and great defence, and Serum (Dull Pain basically), but my Crab doesn’t do so well taking the alpha of a 20-strong hazard/TF spawn (sometimes survives, sometimes dies - defence isn’t as reliable as resists), while with my Warshade I don’t even hesitate and can guarantee surviving it (and without Dwarf - an Eclipsed Nova is harder to defeat than most archetypes ever get to be). For small spawns you might think the Crab has an advantage as the Warshade needs big spawns to Eclipse/Mire off, but my Warshade can almost cap all of his resists at 85% off 4 mobs hit and CAN cap them all off 5 mobs hit, and eclipse is near to being perma on him.

Mez protection - Crab wins if the Warshade isn’t in dwarf. Being mezzed is very annoying for the Warshade and is pretty much the only thing that can stop an Eclipsed warshade. This is the main category where Crab beats Warshade tbh.

AE damage - For burst damage the Warshade wins easily after miring twice as in nova it can wipe out a TF-size spawn on its own in a few attacks. Miring takes time though, especially if you need to Eclipse as well, so the Crab is ahead over the first 5 seconds (though Omega Maneuver takes 5secs to go in, if using that), but then Crab attacks do take ages to animate/recharge compared to Warshade nova. AE dps I think is broadly similar on both if the Warshade doesn’t use mire - my Crab has an attack chain purely of AE/cone/PBAE attacks, but then my Warshade nova has so much +rchg so does he.

ST damage - Warshade wins, as the Crab’s single target damage isn’t that good. Sure, they’re both working off just 2 single target attacks at range (assuming Warshade in nova), but the Warshade ones recharge faster, animate faster and dps is much better taking Mires into account. My Crab had to pick up a single target attack from a PPP to have a gap-less single target chain and all attacks animate slowly.

Control - Warshade wins, as my Crab really has no control beyond its pets

Debuffing - tempting to say the Crab wins because of the -res on Venom Grenade, but the Warshade can stack a ton of -spd -rchg just using attacks (not that it usually matters - most things die so fast).

Pets - my Crab gets 6 pets that do some nice control but not much damage and can only be up 1/3-1/2 of the time, while my Warshade can have 2-3 pets out all the time that do massive damage. Warshade wins.

Buffing - Crab wins, as the Warshade has no buffs but my Crab has both TT:Maneuvers and TT:Assault.

Downtime - my Crab had major end issues until I got expensive IO sets slotted into him nearer L50. My Warshade had zero end issues after getting Stygian Circle at L22. Warshade wins.

Panic button - the Warshade doesn’t really need one once mired up and eclipsed, but there is always Dwarf. The Crab has Serum, but that’s about it as Omega Maneuver takes too long to explode to be a panic button like the nukes of other ATs and the taunt it has is too weak to work as anything but an alpha-taker (its main purpose). Warshade wins.

Flexibility - Warshade can play controller, tanker or blaster - sure, I don’t have that much control, the tanking is only useful on single targets (I only really use dwarf on AV/GM fights and it’s fine for that, because single target taunting and damage-taking is all that Black Dwarf is really good for), but for blasting my Warshade can easily keep up with my blasters/corruptors/Crab on dps and even outdo them (though my Blaster wins on burst, as it should with BU+Aim+RainOfArrows). Crab can do area damage and buff the team just by standing around, but can only really tank stuff at range and even then can’t hold aggro that well. The only role the Crab can really fill on a team is area damage with some minor buffing on the side. Warshade wins I think.

Weaknesses - sure, Warshade is weak to being mezzed in nova/human forms, but Voids/Quants aren’t the danger they used to be and cysts are only a minor annoyance for a good team. My Crab Spider is weak to being melee’d to death when he gets swarmed by all the mobs that his AEs annoy, because his melee def isn’t capped like his ranged def. I think the Warshade weaknesses are slightly more annoying, but on the whole there’s parity here - every archetypes needs a weakness.

Builds - Warshade build was short on slots but I had so many free power choices I took both SS & SJ and tons of other “utility” stuff as well. The Crab build I wanted was so short on power choices that I had to skip taking a travel power (I got by with CJ + 2-slotted Hurdle) and also couldn’t fit Hasten in, but wasn’t particularly tight on slots. Parity, I think, though I really wish VEATs had got inherent travel powers like HEATs as it does make a big difference, especially at low level.

Personally I think both are fine relatively - majorly buffing either would make them too powerful compared to other ATs. I admit, I’d like to see nova form getting at least mag2 protection to hold/sleep/stun just to cut out those brief annoyance mezzes that do nothing except toggle drop (and I guess human form toggles could each have mag1 to hold/sleep/stun too) - I’d also like to see Crabs getting slightly more damage (20% would do) so that such an AE-focused build compared better on burst/dps to my Warshade, Archery Blaster and Fire Corruptor, but then the latter two don’t have the Crab’s survivability (well the blaster does if it uses PFF/FoN actually).

I think shapeshift time for Kheldians should be instant too - just to cut down how long it takes to shift between multiple forms when miring and to mitigate some of the annoyance and time lost of having to switch back into nova after being mezzed.

So basically I think Warshades are fine compared to Crabs. Maybe Peacebringer needs a major buff (I’m not going to play one, simply because it can’t “almost permanently” self-cap ToHit, Damage and Resists like my Warshade can), but Warshade doesn’t. Players who say Warshades are weak either don’t have a double-mire build, don’t like that playstyle, or haven’t levelled enough.

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Maybe they could make a shotgun temp power as a drop as part of the Halloween salvage door drops?

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That would be good.

If some of the zombies had animated hair it would be even better!

Sounds great and has me very tempted to make an AR/ character just for the event, so I can run around blasting zombies with the shotgun power. Actually I think some of my heroes still have Holy Shotgun Shells from Striga...

The TF pool is different to the Trial pool.

Iirc only respec trials (and possibly the new Hami raids?) pull from the Trial pool (to give parity between CoH and CoV I guess, as CoV has no non-respec trials - though there is still a lack of parity on TFs...), while Task/Strike Forces (except Ouro ones) and non-respec trials (Eden, Sewer, Cavern of Transcendence) all pull from the TF pool.

I'm still not seeing your logic, but then I have several respecs built up on most of my characters that they'll probably never use anyway, so this won't ever affect me. I guess if you're someone who habitually uses respecs often, either as part of your build progression or to correct mistakes, then you'd care a lot more than me. Shame I can't sell my earned/vet respecs for 20mill inf or sell them back to NCSoft for £5.99

Personally I don't see selling respecs as any worse than the bonus Pocket D teleport or jump pack or costume pieces in GvE - I only bought GvE for the extra items as I already had both CoH & CoV anyway, but I was ok with it because subtracting the value of the 1 month sub, GvE only cost me about a quid anyway - but still, in reality, I've already paid money for items/powers.

But yeah micro-transactions is a slippery slope, it worries me, and we're all rather suspicious because of course the MMO operators are in this to make money from us. My concerns can basically be boiled down to three salient points:

Micro-transactions bother me if:
1) players can buy an "in-combat advantage" over non-buyers in the game
2) they become mandatory to play the game (like certain Asian MMOs I've heard about where you can only buy heal/mana potions for real money from the "cash-shop/item-mall", and content becomes too tough/onerous without them)
3) content that players previously received free in issues/patches (such as new costumes/powersets/archetypes/zones/arcs, etc) will only be available through micro-transaction payments in future

Though I think big paid-for expansions are fine providing they have tons more content than we'd normally see in a year full of issues AND we still get the "free" issue content - oh and as long as it's not more than 1 paid expansion per year.

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Indeed dmg does a great difference, it's just about the animations, it would make a dull set repeating animations on same secondar´.

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Yeah on that basis it would be a bit dull and I thought that was probably what you were getting at, hence suggesting a replacement for the T1 immob with a dark version of Power Thrust.

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if we consider Dark Blast being ported also, we'd need a power to substitute Black Hole, that Nightmare power from Tygrrfang looks good for it a bit tweaked, for sure the name is cool .

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Ok you've confused me again - Black Hole is in Dark Miasma.

Do you mean Dark Pit? (that's not overpowered for a blaster because it's only mag2).

Or Blackstar? (I think that's one of the lowest damage nukes anyway, so that's not overpowered).

Personally while I think Dark Blast has to come over to Blasters in the end anyway, my worry is that it's probably the lowest damage blast set anyway. I don't see anything overpowered in Dark Blast when put on a blaster - sure, it's a bit more controllery than some blaster primaries, but taken as a whole none of the controls are more powerful than say the Sonic Attacks or Ice Blast sets already are (and those two sets actually have some of the best single target damage in addition to good control).

So yeah, I'm not seeing much trouble with a direct port of Dark Blast except that the Devs may want to tweak damage upwards on a few things in there. On the whole I'm actually more enthusiastic about Blasters getting Rad Blast than Dark Blast.

Sounds fine (and fun) to me, but then it has been suggested a few dozen times before

S4P, have you got some quota to fill for a certain amount of suggestion posts per day? Just curious

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Charged Ground is basically an Electric version of Ice slick, only with a -End effect too, I put it in to even the powerset out from being mostly attacks

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Yeah I guessed you'd modelled it on Ice Slick/Patch or Earthquake, I just didn't see how electricity could have those effects even using pseudo comics science. In real science sending electricity into the ground is what you do to dissipate the charge, hence real lightning rods and the "earth" wire in electric plugs

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I didnt Choose the Mallets because that would end up with too much knockback in the powerset, which wouldnt help at all being that the enemies are going to be held by the primary anyway.

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Well the mallets do knockdown anyway (knockback of mags lower than 1.0 do knockdown, just in case you're getting your info from Mids or real numbers in-game - the only time that isn't true is against lower level enemies than yourself). Oh and not all primary set controls block knockback/up anyway (some do, others don't - check Mids or real numbers if not sure), which /Storm controllers can make use of to herd controlled foes into a corner for AEs.

But yeah, I'm not fussed about not having the mallets anyway as I don't really like their animation/looks - I just thought another melee attack might have been nice considering Dominators have a higher base damage modifier for melee than range (and boy does my /Psi dom feel that lack of melee attacks) - but with Castle looking at dominators soon and ruminating that he might spread the damage bonus from domination to all attacks out of domination that may not stay true for long anyway.

I must admit with my Crab Spider I did notice certain mobs hitting right through my defences as if they didn't exist - Nemesis especially, even when not under their Vengeance effects (Jagers seemed very accurate).

Admittedly I've never played /SR past the teens and I think that's the problem sometimes with some of us taking a longer view of the set - when you play the set at low level it does seem somewhat weak because defence doesn't scale as noticeably as resists do at low level - you need your defences near/at cap asap, really. Though I have heard lots of players saying /SR is really good at high level /shrug.

On my Crab Spider his defences didn't really seem good enough until I had capped or come close to capping him in at least one position (ranged in his case - he only capped melee/area when my partner used Mind Link).

My main complaints with /SR are:
- having to wait so long for area defence
- defence not being so noticeable at lower level until you get your toggles fully slotted
- /SR not having any easily skippable or optional powers (you really need to take everything, which can be tough on tight builds if your primary has few skippables as well)
- status protection being a click rather than a toggle so it's not perma out of the box (and because even on auto it will force redraw if you have a weapon set when it needs to re-apply)
- no in-set way to regain health from the times you do get hit

Although generally I am fine with some sets taking longer to mature than others and I am looking forward to playing /SR seriously to 50 at some stage.

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As for Heroes getting poison power set, Defenders certainly, controllers...depends on how it does when the devs test it.

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I think it's probably more suited to controllers than defenders - /Poison on MMs is mainly single target, which in the case of the debuffs would make it a nice secondary for controllers on an AV fight when their controls aren't as effective as they are on normal spawns. But really I think it would be fine on both of those ATs and Corruptors too with perhaps a few tweaks here and there.

And as "Poison" doesn't sound heroic it could be renamed Alchemy or something similar for defenders/controllers.

Ok I decided to redraft your last suggested set, Tygrrfang, to show what I meant. I kept your Nightmare power, but suggested a few tweaks to it (and a potential substitution) - otherwise I’m fairly happy - this is a Blaster secondary I’d play and I don’t think it’s overpowered compared to the other Manipulation sets.


Dark Manipulation

Tier 1: Dark Cascade
Single Target, Melee, Minor DMG (Smashing / Negative), Foe Knockback (mag16.6),
(A copy-paste of Power Thrust from Energy Manipulation, just with Negative instead of Energy, and using parts of Torrent’s animation and particle effects)

Tier 2: Shadow Punch
Single Target, Melee, Moderate Damage (Smashing / Negative), Foe -To-Hit
(Damage higher than Dark Melee version, but recharge is also longer at 10s base to match Blaster Energy Punch)

Tier 3: Touch Of Fear
Single Target, Melee, Foe Fear (mag3)
(Same as Dark Melee, but possibly with 12s recharge)

Tier 4: Smite
Single Target, Melee, High Damage (Smashing / Negative), Foe -To-Hit,
(Damage higher than Dark Melee version, but recharge is also longer at 14s base to match Blaster Bonesmasher)

Tier 5: Oppressive Gloom
PBAE, Toggle, Foe Disorient (mag2), Self -HP
(identical to the Brute/Scrapper Dark Armour version, though maybe with the slightly higher end cost of the Defender APP version)

Tier 6: Soul Drain
PBAE, Self +DMG, +To-Hit
(as per Dark Melee, but with no damage)

Tier 7: Nightmare
Single Target, Ranged, Foe Sleep (mag3)
(I’m tempted to change this into either a short range cone, say 40ft and 60 degrees, or keep it as a single target sleep and instead add negative damage to it, perhaps at the same level as Mesmerise from Mind Control. In that respect, to save time, it could be a simple copy/paste of Mesmerise, just with negative damage instead of psi, and typed for psi/range. Discuss)

Alternatively Petrifying Gaze (mag3 ranged hold with no damage) from Dark Miasma could be used as the Tier 7. instead

Tier 8: Dark Consumption
PBAE, Moderate Damage (Negative), Self +End,
(As per Dark Melee. I’d leave the damage on it, as unlike /Electric’s auto-hit Power Sink it still needs to actually hit, though it costs only 0.52 end compared to 13 for Power Sink. Power Sink also drains end from enemies unlike this, and has a 60s recharge, unlike the 180s on Dark Melee’s Dark Consumption, so I might be tempted to put the Blaster version at 120s recharge to balance them a little more closely - or you could drop the damage to Minor and make this 60s recharge, I guess).

Tier 9: Midnight Grasp
Single Target, Melee, Superior DMG (Negative), Foe Immobilize (mag3), Foe -To-Hit,
(as per Dark Melee but with slightly higher recharge to bring it in line with other Blaster superior damage melee attacks - possibly 18s so it still recharges faster than the higher damage Total Focus in /Energy - and being pure negative damage and having lower animation time makes it attractive anyway)


Oh and Statesman_4_Prez you can’t just list power names and leave it at that, otherwise it looks like you’re letting blasters have a superior damage melee attack as their first mandatory choice, which would make your version of the set the most overpowered/desirable blaster secondary by far.

Yeah that looks fine Tygrrfang - to me, anyway.

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2.- I don't like the idea of Tier 1 and Tier 9 being pretty much the same just with different damage, as I said I think the three powersets involved have enough powers to compose a set.

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The damage makes a huge difference though - the T1 blaster ranged immobilises are mainly used in early levels AS immobilises (then either not used much after that, or slotted for damage to use when mezzed), while Midnight Grasp is a supreme damage melee attack that just so happens to immobilise, but is mainly taken/used for the damage. And stacking issues within the same set for immobilises I don't see as a problem, because immobilises still allow the enemy to attack.

But as an alternative how about if we go with Tygrrfang's last-posted version of the powerset but change the T1 into a single target melee knockback power like Power Thrust from /Energy manipulation, maybe using some of the graphical effects of Torrent?

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I'd rather spend 8 million influence than £5.99 for a respec tbh.

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I agree completely. This is a service I'll never use, but I have no objection to the service existing whatsoever (providing the respecs aren't tradeable, like the recipe ones, but I assume the bought ones are just added to the character like a freespec is?).

As long as NC doesn't start selling salvage/recipes/enhancements for cash then I have no problem with extra micro-payment services like this as long as they're not required to play the game.

Actually I have a greater problem with the Wedding Pack than I do with this - because I fear(ed) that the wedding pack might lead to all future additional costume pieces only being offered in paid mini-expansions.

Oh and Alphane, if you have a problem with NC's pricing then may I suggest you never play a SOE game (actually that's good advice anyway ) - they charge rather more for their services, for example:

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The Character Transfer Service with items for moving from server to server, from account to account, from account to account on a different server for 1 character has been lowered from $75 to $50 per character. However, the discount for multiple character transfers is no longer available.

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I think its more likely that the civilians will be the ones able to blow you over. Just don't get into a shoving match with one - they'll win

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I dunno - it's fun being able to blow citizens around with Gale on mayhem missions with my new Ice/Storm corruptor

I was perfectly calm, Nightmarer - astonished, but calm I don’t see how you thought I’d lost my temper from that paragraph you quoted - but with text a lot of the interpretation can depend on the reader - maybe I was a bit strong in some of the other paragraphs so I apologise if I upset you. Ahh well, moving on.

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Dark Manipulation:

Tier 1: Dark Grasp:
Single target, Ranged, Moderate DOT (Negative), Foe Immobilize, Foe -To-Hit,
(Uses the tenticle animation of midnight grasp, player raises his/her hand at the enemy and the tenticles appear)

Tier 2: Shadow Punch:
Single Target, Melee, Moderate Damage (Smashing / Negative), Foe -To-Hit,
Slightly Beefed up version of Shadow Punch, Increasing it from minor damage to moderate.

Tier 3: Touch Of Fear:
Single Target, Melee Fear,
Same as the Dark Melee power.

Tier 4: Smite:
Melee, High Damage (Smashing / Negative), Foe -To-Hit,
A more powerful version of the dark melee power.

Tier 5ark Torrent:
Ranged (cone), moderate DMG(Smashing / Negative), Foe -To-Hit,
Uses the torrent animation, basically a more powerful version of torrent, However it loses the knockback.

Tier 6: Soul Drain:
PBAOE, Self +DMG, +To-Hit,
Same as the dark melee version except that the damage has been removed.

Tier 7: Nightmare:
Ranged, Foe sleep.
Trap an enemy in his nightmares, however attacking them will cause them to wake up.

Tier 8: Dark Consumption:
PBAOE, Self +End,
Same as the dark melee version except the damage has been removed.

Tier 9: Dark Rift:
Close (AoE), High Damage(Negative), Foe fear.
You concentrate and create a small rift between the netherworld and our world. This results in a small explosion and
the release of a number of unspeakable horrors. Enemies will take some damage from the explosion and may cower in fear.
However more experienced enemies may not give into their fear. (Uses the Quasar Animation). Thinking a mag 2 fear.

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I still feel this is overpowered, however I'm having a hard time finding powers to use. A secondary blaster set, with a fear, sleep, PBAOE build up and +end, makes me nervouse. But the only way I can see of fixing it is to replace the sleep or fear with shadow maul, This is something I wouldn't want to do.
The cast time is too big for a blaster, not to mention the set would start to get alittle damage heavy (if it isn't already).

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I think this set is probably the best suggestion on this topic so far IF you change out the Tier 9 for Midnight Grasp (you’re right about Shadow Maul - to risk that animation time in melee I'd want at least Total Focus or nuke-level damage). As it is I’d be more worried about a blaster having two stackable controls of the same type - Fear in this case - so the existing T9 has to go. The set already has AE control in the T7 position, but I think AE sleep is fine (even one of the blaster primaries has a cone sleep).

I wouldn’t worry about the set getting too damage-heavy if it’s melee, as Electric/Energy Manipulation both have a lot of melee damage and their melee attacks do more damage than the Dark ones anyway.

Though I could also possibly see Oppressive Gloom (my choice) or Death Shroud (possible, but a damage aura on a blaster would be skippable to me) going into the tier 5 position instead of Dark Torrent too.