Dark Miasma/Storm Summoning - Are They Powerful Sets?

I have level 50 dark and storm defenders. Both are insanely powerful, although they play differently. I can neutralize a spawn sized for 8 with either and /em newspaper.

My storm experience fairly well matches Sailboat's. Storm has multiple chaotic powers. Using them all the time forces a playstyle that doesn't mesh well with a lot of teams, and when it does help, it's not the nice comforting easily understood sort that a bunch of green numbers or a mass hold will give. It's still good stuff, but I've found that it seems to work best to hold the storm powers in reserve. If the tank starts to lose control, I can generally fix the situation. And, Freezing Rain is such a good power that just using that and Thunder Clap (slot it up, perma stunning minions has its uses) and then blasting away and using O2 on the squishies works pretty well.

Thinking about it, if you're fighting enemies that behave and cluster around the tank, though Storm is great, that situation doesn't really cry out for a stormie. However, for something like Red Caps or Cabal, which behave horribly and won't gather at the tank for their beatings, storm's chaos is less of a disadvantage.

Meanwhile, plenty of good things can be said about Dark, so here are some bad things: It lacks a demezzer. Other than Tar Patch, it won't really speed up a steamrolling team. And, it doesn't have any endurance-granting powers. Kinetics and Empathy will do two or three of those. (Not sure how much Empathy speeds up steamrolling.)

None of that stops my dark/sonic/dark defender from being my favorite defender (and, kind of, my favorite controller), however, as well as probably my most powerful character overall.

short answer: They are both powerful.

long answer: Dark is flat out the best general purpose protection for a team that there is. If your team is dying, get a dark, they will then survive.

Storm helps you more solo and is also pretty nice for a team, and furthermore, complements Dark very well too so if you have both it's maybe even better than 2 of one.

As for comparing to pain, well - I have, let's see... a 35ish Storm defender who was my main way back in the 2nd and 3rd months after release, still lot of fun and finally I found a build where she is really effective solo as well; a high 30s Dark defender who I made around 2006 and is a great team support, not at all effective solo (he can just muddle through a heroic mission solo as long as no EBs are in it) though could be his build; and a high 20s pain corrupter made just after they came out who is a lot of fun as team support but not nearly as effective as either of the other 2 (but defenders are more effective by modifier type than corrupters in their buffs and debuffs anyway).

I also have a recently 50 empathy defender who is about equally effective to the Dark solo (slightly better since she has air superiority) and about equally effective to the Storm on teams. Worst of both worlds, but I like her concept and she's awesome in duos which the other two are not; Empathy and Pain both shine most in duos/trios, I think. Which is why a full team with 3 or 4 Empaths is so awesome, it's like 3 duos ish with the full team xp bonuses - synergy!

Storm and Empathy both make up for their lesser defensive buffing than Dark by having greater offensive buffing, especially (in the latter case) if you're on a team with people with less than perfectly IO'd for recovery builds. Storm really can put out some decent damage, and add that to having an area effect offensive-debuff that is a little better than Dark's in effectiveness (freezing rain approximately same resist debuff and slow movement as tar patch - and freezing rain wins by having the defense debuff as an additional offensive bonus, and some knockdown too). Empathy does not do damage but it has a damage boost buff, an endurance recovery buff, and one that does both.

Dark has *nothing* for offense but Tar Patch. So the fact that it's the most effective defensive set is pretty balanced. Only Force Field is similar in effectiveness and lack of offense. If you had a FF and a Dark... and still died... ROFL

I will admit that Dark Miasma has one major problem: AVs.

Dark Miasma, doing everything it can do, it about equal vs. a level 50 AV as a Trick Arrow Defender who has 3 -tohit SOs in Flash Arrow.

DM also has a minor problem: No source of defense debuff. However, Petrifying Gaze's combat spam claims it reduces the target's defense (it doesn't), so I'd love to see PG get buffed so that its combat spam isn't lying to me

Dark and Storm are similar in many ways, but both are very good sets for teams and solo.

Last night we were doing a level 50 Invincible mission against Blades of Artemis. I screwed up with my Dark Miasma defender and aggroed like four groups of them at once. With Tar Patch, Tenebrous Tentacles, Darkest Night and Fearsome Stare the tables were turned and the Blades were completely unable to move or hit anything.

Dark requires a more ordered playing style because the mobs need to be concentrated around the anchor for Darkest Night and the pet (which holds and debuffs accuracy).

Storm requires "ordered chaos." At the micro level it's very chaotic, but at the macro level it needs to be ordered so that the mobs are maintained in the Freezing Rain (often combined with Snow Storm). You don't want to use Gale very often, but it's very useful in limited circumstances. Hurricane is similar, but you can use it any time you feel like as long as you don't mess with the melee fighters. Tornado is situational too, and is probably the least useful power in the set. Lightning Storm is great, but does tend to scatter the mobs. You may wish to hover or jump up before using it to minimize the knockback it generates. I avoid it unless the mobs are in a corner or at the end of a corridor. I always bring it out for AVs; they aren't KBed by it.

When things start going bad for the team, though, you can cut loose with everything in Storm. When it's all going off at once it's total chaos, but the mobs are debuffed like crazy and fly around like ragdolls.

WHo's bad-mouthing fluffy?! Dark Servant has saved my A** so many times that I'm constantly in debt to him. When you're in a huge battle running low on end., just used your last blue insp. and you (and possiblby your pets if that's the case) are already wondering how long it's gonna take you to get across the map a 4th time, sudden;y you hear a TG go off and think "hey that wasn't me" da da da DAAA!! Fluffy to the rescue!

Dark Miasma is about average i think. I think i don't have the same standard as all the posters above shouting how great both sets are, really. DM offers some useful things but when it comes to keep the team alive i think it's barely average.

Note that i'm not talking about the random PUG in a radio mission or whatever, but when the stuff really gets hard. Usually that means:

-one or multiples AVs, and against them the debuffs aren't worth much. The most useful debuff is -regen, i would much prefer to have some buffs against an AV than all the DM debuffs together

-massive aggro : the anchored debuffs are inferior to buffs for a good reason : they will NEVER hit all the mobs in the area when the things are not under control. And that's exactly when you need them the most.

An effect applied on the mobs instead of the players will never be as good as the other way around. Against any serious threat, by the time you can cast the debuff and/or manage to bring all the mobs in range of it, it will be too late. Any ambush, unwanted aggro, mobs spread all over the room, and the debuffs are more or less useless while the buffs are useful all the time. So i would take a FF, sonic, cold or even empath over a Dark miasma if what i need is someone to keep me alive.

Storm ? All it brings is offense. But if i want offense i'll look for a kin, blaster, scrapper, or about anything else. Hurricane is beyond useless in any decent group. Sorry, but by the time the Stormie is done debuffing the mobs and push them up into a nice big pile with FR, i'll just kill them and move to the next spawn. A lot faster and more effective as well. And even the damage it brings is average, again, by the time the Stormie is done summoning all the pets and all the stuff, things will be dead.

Both sets are good for leveling, they can do the job, because frankly most missions are so easy anyone could do it anyway and support is not needed. But i wouldn't rate them "as good" as the main sets. When i want support, i'll want a rad, FF, sonic, empath, maybe even cold or TA. Dm if the team is good enough. Storm ? They're the last thing i want when i need support. And i leveled some of them, i just can never justify myself to play my storm characters instead of about anything else because they're good only to bring chaos when things are so bad there's nothing else to do. And the whole point of bringing a def or even a controller is to avoid that at first.

Alright, here's a little tale about /Dark. I've had this happen more than once, but the story is indicative.

On a level 13 Dark/Dark Defender, classic mix of teammates - a Tanker, a Scrapper, and a Blaster, we step through the door to find one of those nifty little 'traps' that happen when you're not paying close attention. In front of us is a Boss-spawn, with a full crew of friends, but there is a Bridge above, with another spawn of Lts and minions.

The Tanker and Scrapper charge in, with the Blaster on their tail, and just as things are getting interesting, the spawn Above aggros and starts coming over the edge. I am desperately tossing Heals, while popping my debuffs, but the other three get dead anyway, just as my Darkest Night finally sticks to the boss. Oh, and this is an Offender build, so I didn't have Howling Twilight, yet - I have Dark Blast, Gloom, and Moonbeam though.

So, a Defender, standing alone against a Boss, 2 Lts (left), and some Minions - But I finally have both Tar Patch and Darkest Night deployed and, between the stacking Debuffs in my attacks and Twilight Grasp... I manage to tank and destroy the whole spawn that had killed my friends.
It would have been more fun and less stressful, if I'd had Howling Twilight, but that might have been overkill.

The group was mightily impressed.

Be Well!
Fireheart