You pretty much nailed the synergy. I found it to be an extremely effective set both solo and teamed. My only turnoff to the combo was endurance management (lots of endurance Taxing cones) though I haven't played it past lvl 38 or since IO sets were introduced which I'm sure would help a ton. With the new difficulty slider I would imagine this would be a really fun combo, I need to get my dark/traps back on the road :P
I was just doing a little DPE math on Dark Blast, actually. It's a general rule of thumb that ST attacks do about .192 DS per point of endurance, and AoEs do about the same DPE against 2.5 targets. Against those measures, Dark Blast beats the average, with Gloom, Tenebrous Tentacles, and Night Fall all doing over .2 DS at the same target numbers. I think this slight bonus damage is meant to compensate for the fact that their damage is done over time rather than in a burst, which leaves enemies alive longer and gives you more opportunity to waste attacks against enemies that are already doomed by the DoTs on them.
I'm guessing one key to endurance efficiency is to let the DoTs cook instead of throwing them out continuously. Acid Mortar also offers good DoT and a nice bonus to effective DPE through -res, but only if the spawn lasts long enough to pay off the price of putting it down. The same can be said of the other traps - the faster you kill a group, the less efficient they become, since they won't be following you to the next group.
I think that once I have the cones and some reasonable levels of mitigation, I should be running against something like x3/+1 or +2, giving my slow-burn damage as long as possible to cook against lots of tough enemies.
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My experience with Dark/Traps was that it didn't work out as well in practice as it did on paper. On SOs anyway. Mainly with regard to the Defense/-tohit synergy. That was primarily due to the ubiquity of defense debuffs. With FFG+CJ+Maneuvers it wasn't uncommon to see my defense numbers go red, even after opening with some -tohit debuffing.
Against mobs with no defense debuffs it was wonderful. The few attacks that did get through I could usually compensate for with the self heal in DB/.
Naturally there's a lot of room for improvement with set bonuses to get high enough defense that cascade failure becomes a rarity rather than a regular occurence. Not only that but if I was running a DB/Traps Corruptor on SOs today I'd build it differently and it would be more effective I expect.
Dark/Traps is a build that I'll always like but never roll it myself. Theoretically it has enough survivability to *SAFELY* solo multiple AVs simultaneously. Maybe not as fast as a Fire/Traps but definitely safer
I don't see a lot said about this combo. I'm considering rolling one, and at first glance it looks like there's some strong synergy to be had. Dark Blast has -Tohit and Traps has Defense; Traps has zones of debuff and damage, and Dark Blast has an AoE immobilize to keep enemies in them. Is there anything about this combo I've missed that is particularly notable, positive or negative?
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