Silas

If I wanted an AoE Tanker, I'd go SD/Fire/Pyre. Burn is great but Shield Charge is better. As Auroxis said, while Burn recharges 3x as fast, SC hits 3x the targets and has a bigger AoE.

Plus softcapping a SD Tanker is trivially easy so you'll be much, much tougher than a Fire/ Tanker. I'd take AAO over Blazing Aura any day.

2.02 end drain/sec running your toggles, two of which are of debateable value to a Fire/Dark. You have 3.31 end/sec recovery. That leaves you 1.29 end/sec for other stuff. Since you've got 0 end redux in Darkest Night, running that will bring you down to .77 end/sec.

Dark Consumption is not going to make up for that. I don't even know if the Cardiac alpha will.

I really don't think the level of defense you've got is worth that kind of sacrifice. Most of your key powers are underslotted because you're spread way too thin.

150% isn't even that extreme for a Kin. My Kin runs at 153-193% recharge with Siphon Speeds going.

Hasten is 70%, 1-2 Siphon Speeds is another 20-40%, a moderate amount of global recharge (say 50%) and you're at 140-160% while Hasten is up.

With high global recharge and Siphon Speed, 2acc/2rech level 50 IOs, giving about 80%. I wouldn't go with just 1 acc though. SO slotting I'd say 2 acc 3 rech.

I'd swap the sets in Burn and Footstomp. Footstomp will make better use of the proc and higher enhancement numbers the 'Geddon set provides.

How do you find your endurance useage? Are you running the Cardiac Alpha?

Also agree about dropping the second LotG from Veng. That regen bonus is giving you .7hp/sec regen. You can definitely use that slot better elsewhere. Like as a 6th slot for Healing Flames. Putting an end rdx in there will drop it down to 5.5 end, which I've found to be well worth it.

Alternatively, if you really want to use the Panacea proc you could put that in Healing Flames, since the hp/end you get from it over time in Health is pitiful but in Healing Flames it will give you a 20% chance to actually gain endurance using it.

On the contrary, Archery has very solid damage. While lethal damage is one of the more resisted types, your hardest hitting ST attack (Blazing Arrow) is second in damage only to Blaze of all the tier3 blasts. Plus you can get it at level 6.

Rain of Arrows is a stupidly good AoE and Fistful of Arrows is a quick and very solid cone.

Archery hits plenty hard goes well with TA, you've made a good call.

Oh hey that's now isn't it?

I logged in yesterday, laughed at a MotD and changed it.

Today, I logged in and briefly spoke with a friend.

I'm pretty much on schedule.

Seconding the Fire/ or Ice/ vote.

I've got a guide for /Storm in my sig if you want to take a look. Its definitely a very unique set, but also very tricky to play well. That said, if you can play it well its monstrously powerful.

Only Sonic and /Traps have mez protection in their sets, Cold is hardly an exception. You can grab Acrobatics for some hold protection, which is quite nice. Cold isn't about healing anyway, its about +def buffing and mad debuffing.

If you look at the numbers fully enhanced, Aid Other heals as much as Cauterize. That's awesome, right? Except Cauterize isn't interruptible, fires over a second and a half faster and has over triple the range. I won't deny that being able to heal someone is a great boon, but as a Cold you have much better ways to help the team. Stimulant is well, even worse.

I went with Speed/Leaping/Fighting on my Ice/Cold. The only reason I'd go with the Medicine pool is for Aid Self but honestly, popping Respites is faster, easier and more effective.

Yes, Heat Loss will help a lot for your endurance. But I wouldn't recommend relying on it for endurance sustainability. If you're always soloing it doesn't matter, but on a team you'll want to use it where it will provide the greatest benefit, not ASAP because you require it to function.

While Sleet is perma, the more you can throw it out the better. Double Sleets ftw. Just to illustrate, if you swap 2 of the Posi Blasts for generic recharges so that you've got maxed recharge in it, Sleet goes from recharging in just under 20 seconds to just over 16. That's a solid few seconds and well worth rejigging your slotting there if you can.

And you forget or don't correctly understand how the FFB proc works. It has a suppression period, it's not going to give you +100% recharge all the time.

Besides, the FFB proc would go off far more reliably in Footstomp. Has a bigger AoE so you can hit more targets, faster animating and is generally a better AoE power.

Quick thoughts:

Massive endurance useage. Maneuvers is a big culprit here. I'd go with one or two Kinetic Combat mules rather than relying almost entirely on defense toggles to get to the softcap.

At the level of recharge you've got, you can throw out Blaze and Fireball every few seconds. They're going to need more end redux. I usually go with 5 Rags/1 End Rdx and 5 Apocs/1 End Rdx and it makes a huge difference. Fire Breath and Rain of Fire also need end redux too. I'm not sure if the Cardiac Alpha can make up for this, but I'd try to build for endurance sustainability so whatever Alpha you go for is pure bonus.

Benumb needs more accuracy.

Sleet needs way more recharge. Like, ED territory recharge. Endurance reduction helps too. I go with 2 rech/end from the def debuff sets, maybe a def debuff/rech/end and a recharge.

You can drop 2 slots from Tough. I almost never run Tough anyway, your main mitigation comes from your defense. It's wasted endurance and slots for the small benefit it provides.

To get more s/l defense you can put 2 Rectified Reticles in Aim. With your level of recharge, the recharge hit won't be significant. Especially since with Sleet, the main benefit of Aim is the +damage.

Hope that helps

I've never personally tried using the Numpad for stuff, but I agree with general keybinding stuff. I'd imagine clicking all enemies and powers would result in very slow and awkward play.

I personally bind a lot of powers to keys close to WASD. F for travel power, X for Sprint, Q for power used all the time etc. I also rebound Target Closest to C (habit from old game ) Ally buffs bound to G and H. The first 4-5 powers in my tray I just hit the number keys/alt+number key to use. So the only powers I'm using my mouse to click would be stuff on the far right side of the trays, location powers and stuff on the top tray.

I'm definitely a big proponent of keybinding but as I said, never used the numpad much so its interesting to see from another perspective. Glad you found a system that works for you

Yup, Fire/Darks are great fun. For general /Dark info (but written from the perspective of a Fire/DM) I've got a guide in my sig. My build I'm currently using is also in there.

As to your question:

Definitely Skip: Black Hole

Optional: Blazing Bolt, Aim, Petrifying Gaze, Flares

Blazing Bolt for your standard snipe reasons, while it does good damage and is a pretty solid set mule, its too slow for what is otherwise a fast paced set, interuptible, etc. Aim is really nice for the +tohit boost because /Dark has no -defense, but it can be skipped if your build doesn't have room. Petrifying Gaze is your only ST mez but you don't really need it since /Dark is such a powerhouse. It's got crap mez values, I only took it as a purple mule and don't get much use out of it. Flares is good at lower levels until you can round out your attack chain.