Argh! Help me decide - fire/dark or ice/dark !!
By
CDN_Guardian,
Posted on: 2009-05-28 14:27 in Corruptors
[ QUOTE ]
Anyone with experience with both of these have any gameplay opinions? I'm the type of guy who likes to pop Darkest Night on something REALLY far away, pop tar patch around a corner, and go to town.
[/ QUOTE ]
Assault Rifle. 
DN + Tarpatch + Corner. Waaait for it. Scary Face! Web Envelope! Ignite + Flamethrower + Full Auto + Buckshot + M30.
Repeat every 45 seconds until nothing is left on the map.
Villains: Annie Alias, Dr. Amperical, Shade Golem, Knight Marksman
Heroes: The Clockwork Mime, Soccerpunch, The Fissioneer, Samurai Houston, Oversteer
Join The X-Patriots on Virtue!
Zem has a good point.
My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom
Trying to resist the temptating to make my decision between 3 and not merely 2, guys :P
Have never really like KB in standard attack powers 
My take is that you only pick Ice/Dark if you are going all out control. Dark Miasma has enough control and debuffs to allow you to solo safely and help your team greatly regardless of primary. Unless you want to make a Dom/Corr hybrid, after you've got enough control it's time to turn your attention to damage. Fire Blast is the usual set for that. Not that Ice Blast doesn't do very nice damage but the extra control it adds is kind of overkill when paired with Dark.
Ultimately it's all about having fun, so pick whichever you enjoy more. If there's no concept reason pulling you in one direction or the other and you like nuking spawns with lots of AoE damage, Fire seems like the way to go to me.
For extra-super-mega safety against creepy things like Purple Bosses, Ice will do better. Being able to Hold Bosses later on (specially some of the nastier ones) is a huge plus to Ice.
For indiscriminate damage over a big area next to you, with the occasional mess-up, Fire is your baby. If you team a lot, Fire will make you giggle like a little girl with the AoE carnage you'll be able to inflict. Lots of enemies do increase the value of Fire.
Fire/Dark.
/Dark gives you enough mitigation, you dont need more. Then Fire/ all the way for the AoE as well as the single target carnage. Ice/ lacks on the AoE side.
I would break it down like this.
Ice/Dark Great solo, good on teams.
Fire/Dark Good Solo, great on teams.
I like utilty, which would lean me more toward the Ice/dark if i had nothing else to choose from.
Have a fire/dark I was a bit "meh" about until she hit the teens. Once you toggle pull then throw tar patch + build up + rain of fire + fireball + taco-bell breath, you can wipe out lots. I've started eating 2 +def inspirations, pulling 12-15 enemies, and wiping them all out at once. 3 or 4 pulls of that, and you clear a solo mission.
Also had fun wiping out scrapyarders near Ghost of Scrapyard with my fire/dark, thanks to aggro limits - just Darkest Night something on the edge, run a distance away to limit time between large scrapyarder enemies attacking, and use the above attack on them. Taking out a dozen at a time really makes those sharkshead badges easy to pick up, and helps plenty with leveling speeds.
RagManX
"if the market were religion Fulmens would be Moses and you'd be L. Ron Hubbard. " --Nethergoat to eryq2
The economy is not broken. The players are
Ice/Dark is a lot of fun. Ice Storm + Tar Patch gives some nice AoE early and surprisingly good mitigation as they try and run out of it with stacked slows on them. Toss in Frost Breath and Blizzard later on and you can melt spawns. It's definitely one of the easier Corruptors to play solo.
[ QUOTE ]
Once you toggle pull then throw tar patch + fearsome stare + build up + rain of fire + fireball + taco-bell breath, you can wipe out lots.
[/ QUOTE ]
There, fixed! 
Global: @FuzzyOne
Find me playing these servers: Champion, Justice, Freedom, Virtue and Pinnacle
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Once you toggle pull then throw tar patch + fearsome stare + build up + rain of fire + fireball + taco-bell breath, you can wipe out lots.
[/ QUOTE ]
There, fixed!
[/ QUOTE ]
Used to do it that way, but found I needed 1-2 purples to do the toggle pull anyway, and fearsome stare just slowed down the damage attack portion of my chain with no obvious benefit in survivability. I don't use fearsome stare now on anything less than at least a couple of orange Lts that survive the alpha or when there is a boss and I need the extra debuff on the boss.
RagManX
"if the market were religion Fulmens would be Moses and you'd be L. Ron Hubbard. " --Nethergoat to eryq2
The economy is not broken. The players are
Toggle pull on the Cimeroran Wall, (upper areas are easier) --> superspeed past 2nd mob (being careful not to exceed Darkest Night's range and breaking Line of Sight) to let them partially stack --> superspeed past the 3rd mob (again breaking LoS) so the first 2 mobs run into the 3rd mob --> tarpatch --> drop Fluffy on the mob to get over agro cap --> Aim + Blizzard --> go back and clean up Surgeons from first two mobs.
Lucks help during the toggle pull.
It doesn't always go smoothly.
Patrols wreak havoc due to agro limits.
Bosses survive the Blizzard so they must either be avoided or planned for.
[ QUOTE ]
Used to do it that way, but found I needed 1-2 purples to do the toggle pull anyway
[/ QUOTE ]
Wuh?
I'm not trying to be a meanie here, but... wuh?
I've got four level 50 Dark Miasmas, and I never ran into this. How do you position yourself to apply the debuff, and what do you do next?
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
I like ice rain with tarpatch - they stack the slows for that extra damage. Quite a site to see in slow mo!
Malakim
-Playing since COH beta and still love the game!
Ice Storm and Rain of Fire have exactly the same amount of -speed debuff. Ice Storm gains a 10% -recharge debuff, does half lethal and half cold, and does x2 damage on scourge. Rain of Fire has no -recharge debuff, does all fire, and does x3 damage on scourge. Just think about that alone, when talking about a DN pull into a rain fest.
Fire is the clear winner hands down when it comes to the Patch+Rain combo.
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Massacre_Melanie -the original Fire/Dark Corruptor -
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=115217
The Guide to BURN
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Used to do it that way, but found I needed 1-2 purples to do the toggle pull anyway
[/ QUOTE ]
Wuh?
I'm not trying to be a meanie here, but... wuh?
I've got four level 50 Dark Miasmas, and I never ran into this. How do you position yourself to apply the debuff, and what do you do next?
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm still in the 20s, and don't have a travel power yet. The toggle isn't enough, even stacked with shadowfall, to keep me mostly untouched. Until I picked up CJ at last level, immobs were an issue, too. I don't have full invis, and don't move around too quickly yet, plus lack sufficient +def set bonuses and slotting to get high enough -tohit or +def to run without a little extra def from eating insp.
RagManX
"if the market were religion Fulmens would be Moses and you'd be L. Ron Hubbard. " --Nethergoat to eryq2
The economy is not broken. The players are
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Used to do it that way, but found I needed 1-2 purples to do the toggle pull anyway
[/ QUOTE ]
Wuh?
I'm not trying to be a meanie here, but... wuh?
I've got four level 50 Dark Miasmas, and I never ran into this. How do you position yourself to apply the debuff, and what do you do next?
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm still in the 20s, and don't have a travel power yet. The toggle isn't enough, even stacked with shadowfall, to keep me mostly untouched. Until I picked up CJ at last level, immobs were an issue, too. I don't have full invis, and don't move around too quickly yet, plus lack sufficient +def set bonuses and slotting to get high enough -tohit or +def to run without a little extra def from eating insp.
RagManX
[/ QUOTE ]
Darlest night will never be enough alone - you need to stack it with fearsome stare. The reason fearsome stare is considered a must take power in /dark is not the fear (although that is a nice bonus) its the fact that it has as much -to hit as darkest night AND is not a toggle that will drop if you are mezzed.
One of the standard pulls I use when soloing my fire/dark corruptor is the folllowing:
1) Use shadowfall to stealth into position to drop darkest night on an LT or boss in the back of a spawn or two
2) Run back around a corner and drop tar patch on the mob side of the corner
3) when the mobs have followed to the corner and are stuck in tar patch, pop around the corner and hit the group with fearsome stare. At this point they will have at least a 30% to hit debuff stacked on them (more with good slotting) and you should be pretty safe - worse case you get mezzed and drop darkest night but by then the fear should have locked everything down.
4. Aim+RoF+Fireball+whatever to finish things off, or whatever attack powers you have in your primary.
If the mobs are bunched together already or there are not good corners to run to I open with fearsome stare to lock them down - then drop darkest night, tar patch, etc. The HUGE range on fearsome stare means that they only have to be mostly bunched to get everything.
Both fearsome stare and darkest night should be slotted for to hit debuff as soon as posssible (so right after acc/rech in FS and end reduction in DN) to maximize the protection.
Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13
[ QUOTE ]
Darlest night will never be enough alone - you need to stack it with fearsome stare.
[/ QUOTE ]
I have both. Fearsome stare doesn't help me pull enough spawns to cap AoE. With just DN and SF, enemies still have a pretty good chance to hit me. I usually solo my fire/dark, which means to make the AoE capabilities really work, I have to pull 2-4 spawns (running on difficulty one above default). When she's running on a team, it's actually easier to take advantage of her pulling and AoE abilities since I usually only have to hit one or two spawns and can usually get behind a corner before the toggle affects enemies and they aggro.
For soloing, which is about 90% of the time I play her, I find a good corner to pull to, run past however many spawns I need to get a dozen or more enemies grouped, dropped DN on a Lt or Boss in the last spawn, run back towards my corner (dragging the toggle target through extra spawns but staying within toggle range), and finally drop tar patch. Once all the yummy enemies hit the edge, I can build up, drop rain of fire, then jump around the corner to either FS+FB+BoF or FB+BoF, depending on how tough a group of enemies I'm up against. But really, on a soloist pulling multiple spawns this way, by the time RoF and FB combine damage BoF take almost everything else out unless there is a boss, so I hardly ever need FS. The time spent effectively in the open and subject to enemy fire to make the pull work is why she usually has to use inspirations as part of the pull.
But even though I don't use it too much in the situations I find my fire/dark in, I picked up FS at 22 (stamina at 20). She just hit 24, and adding CJ to her build has helped some, too. The biggest problem I've had for her has been immobs. Now that weakness is gone, and I'm at the point I can start getting some decent IO slotting going for bonuses. She's always been quick clearing missions solo. It's just getting easier.
RagManX
"if the market were religion Fulmens would be Moses and you'd be L. Ron Hubbard. " --Nethergoat to eryq2
The economy is not broken. The players are
(QR)
I'm in pretty much the same situation right now. I've been playing a couple of /dark Masterminds (I love Dark Miasma) and now find myself extremely nostalgic for my old DDC, although this time around I find myself leaning toward more damage than Dark Blast provided - Fire and Ice.
I'm guessing both are better for massive Tar Patch AoEing than Dark/ was, though I am curious - how's the survivability 40+, when the game goes into "A notch above insane" mode (I'm looking at you, Arachnos, Longbow...)?
Once you get to that level, you have access to Fluffy, so it's stupidly easy. Aside from getting mezzed every once in a while, it's almost easier. You have more tools, more slots, more resistances to the damage types they throw at you at high level.
The hardest part of the game for a /Dark is probably the mid teens, when they have no end to work off of and few powers to recover from a bad spawn.
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Massacre_Melanie -the original Fire/Dark Corruptor -
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=115217
The Guide to BURN
Yeah thats my experiance with fire/dark as well, early aoe machines that wheeze and huff till 20 then aoe god/esses of doom post. I melt them therefore I am is their mantra.
Now we aren't ready quite yet to let the catgirls out of the bag.... (quote from ex libris)
Rolled an ice/dark, even made an IO build to look forward to. Got ambivalent about it and rolled a fire/dark... and now I'm on the fence with that build as well. Granted, they're both still peons but I don't know what to do!
I think I'm liking the slows on ice, but I can't help but think about the AoE (from fire) that I'd be missing out on. Plus, Bitter Ice Blast would have a nice -10% tohit debuff to stack on with /dark. And of course, then there's Blizzard which beats the pants off of Inferno.
But then there's fireball, sweet sweet fireball.
Anyone with experience with both of these have any gameplay opinions? I'm the type of guy who likes to pop Darkest Night on something REALLY far away, pop tar patch around a corner, and go to town.