Dark is definitely not crappy nor lame.
Between Tenebrous, Pit and Night Fall, you have lots of AoE potential, while Immobilizing, Disorienting and stacking -Acc. Not too shabby.
Life Drain deals good Damage, if slotted for this purpose, and is a good addition to your Healing potential. And, of course, Dark Blast and Gloom, the good ole trusty ones.
Give it a spin, at least until you have your main attacks decently slotted and you'll have a good idea if the combo is for you or not. After all, shooting inky black darkstuff at people is never a bad thing.
I've read thru a few Dark/* guides and it seems the general consensus is to skip Dark Pit, Torrent, Life Drain, and Blackstar. I guess the upside is that it allows one to take all of Pain plus Hasten and the Fitness pool without having to worry about power slots.
Considering Castle's stand on how all powers should be useful, I wonder if Dark Blast is going to get some love?
I've played around with Dark Pit and I have to agree with others, it's not all that effective, especially considering the recharge and end cost. Torrent, which I guess is similar to Gale, well, we know how popular that is (I find that cone KB powers *can* be useful for positioning and crowd control, but without any significant damage you're better off with something else). I don't see the point in Life Drain if I'm going with Pain, especially since it has such a low yield; the same damage as Dark Blast, the same healing as Nullify Pain. And I guess Blackstar is optional. Most are saying the damage is mediocre (base numbers are on par with most other Corruptor nukes, but without any damage buff in the set the net result is less), and coupled with the penalty makes it something you won't use much.
So that leaves you with 2 single target attacks, 2 cones, and a snipe. Can you form a decent attack chain with just those? Unlike other blast sets there is no "short range high damage" attack, no true AoE, and no Aim. And Night Fall is a *very* narrow cone. Are you capable of doing as much damage as other sets?
And what about slotting? Is it worth trying to squeeze in some -tohit, or is that 7.5% really not worth it? What about slotting in interrupts in Moonbeam? Does it make it easier to use in combat as a high damage single target attack, or does that not work very well either?
The concept fits my character well, but I'm afraid I'm going to get annoyed by the lack of attack powers and sub-par damage output.
I disagree about Dark Pit. Fully slotted it might be worth it. The only change I wish Castle would make is to the accuracy. No need for it to be lower than other attacks IMO.
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I'd even take torrent and 6 clot it with kinetic crash. You won't be using it all the time, but if you get mobbed by melee with immob resists this will give you the breathing room you need.
Well, if you readily believe that you'll use only 2 ST, 2 Cones and the snipe, better playing with some other pick.
Dark Pit slotted with Stupefy provides excellent bonuses (excepting maybe the Knockback. If you want the 3.13 Ranged Defense, you'll have to get it.) and makes it a very worthy pick. Your safety level will increase a lot against some of the annoying Minions out there.
The Nuke is always debatable. I like them, to blow myself up once in a while, for fun (or trying a lucky Scourge with a boss at 40% Life. Russian Roulette, anyone?), but it's certainly not a core power like Night Fall.
About the ToHit Debuff, I think there are more interesting options for your slots. Simply stack them with different powers and you should be ok.
Dark Blast is more of a utility set. If you want top tier damage it's not where you go. IIRC Gloom gets a little bonus damage for being all DoT. It's not much but it's something, and when it Scourges those tics are big.
The AoE is actually not bad. It's no Fire Blast, but it's not bottom of the barrel either. Night Fall is a narrow cone, but it has a long range too. In practice what you usually end up doing is using TT, then hop/run back a bit to use NF. I try to squeeze some range slotting into TT to reduce the difference in range between the two cones. As for -tohit slotting, I'd only consider that after the cones were both hitting ED hard on damage and recharge. Stacking the debuffs twice will do a lot better than a little bit of -tohit enhancement, and you get more damage that way too.
Dark Blast is one of the few sets that I always take the snipe on. It might be possible to keep busy later on without it with good recharge slotting in the other powers and Hasten. For me though snipes are a sort of guilty pleasure, so I don't mind having an excuse to take it. I know they're not good from a performance standpoint, but they're just fun. As a bonus if you take the snipe early, it can one-shot an even-con minion up to level 4 I think it is. Worth taking just for the first few levels of lulz IMO, even if you respec or just switch to build #2 and skip it later.
Life Drain is also worth taking IMO. Even if you don't need the heal you can slot it as another attack, and it's nice to have another filler when you're focused on a single target. Plus when it Scourges and you finish off a mob with it, that is the most pure style move in the game to me. I never get tired of seeing that. Sometimes I will stop attacking and wait for it to recharge so I can use it as a finisher.
I don't now how to answer the question of whether the damage will be too low for you. I've never been unhappy with it, but no two people will agree on how much is enough.
One recommendation I do have if you decide to go with it, is to try to get some +def set bonuses. Primarily ranged def, with AoE def a secondary priority. In my experience the -tohit from the blasts isn't enough by itself. Of course it's hard to know when an attack misses whether it would have hit without the debuffs. There are too many times where you get a solid string of hits despite your debuffs though.
Part of the problem is that many foes when you open with your first debuff, they immediately start retaliating with their ranged attacks which do -def. At that point they're only debuffed by -7.5%, less by a bit if they're above your level. So some of the -defs will hit, at which point they've usually more than negated your debuffs. I haven't tried Dark Pit and that might mitigate the problem somewhat, but lieutenants usually have the same types of attacks.
Anyway some +def to stack with your -tohit will be great synergy and help prevent cascade failure when facing foes with -def attacks.
Beyond that I'd say just try it. To me it has a very different feel from other sets. It's one I happen to like. Judging by the rarity of the set though I'd guess I'm the exception there.
I usually stay away from Night Fall; but Tentacles gets really nice when used with a solid recharge boost
Dark Pit gets a bad rap but it can be used with Tentacles to give you a little breathing room to get off other combos or powers like Moonbeam.
I'm not sure how much I'm liking /Pain though, unless you're planning on doing a lot of teaming; I would pick a different secondary.
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With Dark blast, all you need are the two ST attacks and the 2 cones. It baffles me when I see people say they stay away from Nightfall. It's a narrow cone, but it's hardly difficult to get the baddies lined up. When you've got a group you are attacking, all you will primarily use are TT and Nightfall, with the 2 STs as fillers or to take down those with just slivers of health. I have a dark/rad and groups just melt in front of me. Plus, thanks to the -to hit from both sets, often times I can take down a group of +1 or +2 without even getting hit.
But, I also have a dark/pain. She's a lot of fun on teams, but she's a little slow to solo. Plus, solo, she dies much more than my dark/rad. I agree with the sentiment that if you want to mostly solo, go with a different secodary.
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I'm wanting to roll up a Pain corr, and the only set I haven't ever played is Dark Blast. But DB really looks kinda lame (which is why I've never played it before).
Is Dark/Pain as crappy a combo as it sounds, or will I be pleasantly surprised?