Since when?

I don't find Ice to be slow at all. Most of the single target attacks animate in ~1.5 seconds or less. The AoEs activate in 2 - 2 1/2.

I'll admit that the animation times for dark are longish but the superior mitigation that it gives makes that a small issue.

Most people that find it akward find it so because the heal requires a to hit roll. Proper slotting resolves this issue. For the rest they see only the primary function of the powers in the set and fail to take into account the secondary effects of the powers.

The only thing that my Dark/Ice/Psi misses that my Dark/Dark/Dark has is the stacking AoE stuns and 100% chance of KB in Torrent. Stacked AoE slows and stacked single target holds makes up for it quite well though.

Well I have seen that too, most famously during a debate between my Illusion/Kin Controller and a Scrapper who had Stealth as to who could ghost a mission better.

Fortunately, if I have ever met anyone with the kind of arrogance you describe on the EU servers, they have been mostly quiet about it. The one time I did feel slightly put out was when an Empath with Healing Aura on auto and following the Tank kept getting complimented for their healing. I took a quick AFK and came back to find the team dead. I didn't feel the need to say anything after that.

That was the original idea behind my Dark/Ice/Psi. I did some elementary number crunching and figured that I could generate roughly 60 mag of hold on a single target cycling those 4 holds with all of them fully slotted and Fluffy contributing as well. I was tempting to try to convince one of my other friends to build a similar toon just so we could perma-hold an AV even through its PToD.

Srsly. Solos hazard zone spawns better than several of my Scrappers and probably one of my Brutes.

Great! Move to a different server! And here, read this, it will help you so that you'll never be teamless.

That is a pretty awesome concept. I'd love to see it in action. You can do some amazing things with the next power customization.

You've never seen a Dark/Sonic? I'm not sure what your definition of "awkward fit" is, but Dark/Sonic synergizes *extremely* well. On the contrary, I think Dark/Dark is awkward because there are simply too many overlaps and redundancies in the controls/utilities. But then again, I tend to look at things from a min/max perspective.

Acctually, using a Dark/Dark is anything but redundant, or akward.

I can hold the Agro of a 8 man mob, with Bosses, better then many Tankers can, and for a long enough time, that I can drop a 8 man mob, and keep them in total control of my powers while doing it.

The moment I get to pick my Epic pool for my Defender, im going for the Electric Pool, adding Thunder Strike to my attack run will definatly drop mobs faster then I can now, and since Dark Blasts give me more then enough control, I can, and already herd mobs, clump them up, Tank them, and soon, Thunder Strike them!

Not to mention, Electricity will go well with my Water Magic Theme.Water + Electricity = GOOD THEME!

Since iv never had the pleasure of getting a Epic Pool on a Defender, does the one im going for have Ball of Lightning or Short Circuit?Only thing I know it has is Thunder Strike.

I just made a Dark/Sonic this weekend and I am having a blast with her. The two do synergize well. But I have to politely disagree with your assessment of Dk/Dk being redundant. As FM stated in the post above this one, the ability for a a Dk/Dk to not only herd mobs, but control them and hold their agro is astounding. TP+FS+TT+NF rinse & repeat.

You're very entitled to your opinion. I just disagree with it.

I can do the same thing with my dark/sonic. That's actually the point of my post. Just about any well build dark defender regardless of secondary can do the same. The dark secondary really doesn't add much. And with sonic, I can also pump out some very respectable damage numbers due to stacking -res.

Think about this:

Dark Blast vs. Shriek. Dark blast does an exotic damage type and tohit debuff but shriek adds -res. Over time, shriek will edge out dark blast in terms of dps.

Gloom vs. Scream. No contest here as Scream does substantially more damage.

Moonbeam - nothing similar in the sonic set but it's a snipe and extremely bad from a dps perspective.

Dark Pit - a locational AoE that stuns only minions vs. Screech - a single target ranged stun that stuns up to Lts. Both can be stacked with howling twilight. This is a matter of taste, but I think they are roughly comparable if you consider ease of use, end cost and especially considering screech adds -res as well.

Tenebrous Tenacles vs. Howl -toss up IMO. TT has a great immobilize/tohit debuff and decent damage over time. Howl adds -res to the whole group hit and can add substantially to damage, especially in team settings. I also think tar patch makes TT somewhat redundant, since the slow from it is pretty much all the holding power a team needs to target AoEs.

Nightfall - A narrow cone AoE, difficult to use. Nothing comparable sonic side.

Torrent vs. Shockwave - roughly comparable powers.

Life drain - nothing comparable sonic side, but made redundant by twilight grasp.

Blackstar vs. Dreadful Wail - DW is better in almost every way.

Further, the secondary tohit debuff in dark blast becomes marginal because the primary has this pretty much covered. Fearsome stare + darkest night adds a ton of tohit debuffs. They both already stack with shadow fall, which is another power in your primary. Sonic also gives you aim and Siren's Song.

I'm not knocking dark blast as being bad. My point is that dark blast really doesn't add much to an already strong primary. Sonic blast on the other hand adds damage, more -res and a fair amount of useful/nonredundant utilities.

Cold/Dark Defender to 31; Dark/Rad Corruptor to 26. I've played it enough.

EDIT: Dark/Sonic Blast Defender to 50 and multiple other Dark Miasma characters.

EDIT2: I forgot I had a pre-ED Dark/Dark Defender on Guardian. Level 25. However, I don't consider this valid since I haven't touched the character for 1000+ days.

Well, im going to have to set you straight on alot of this.

Your very right about Dark blasts being a Exotic Damage set.Yours, is a highly resisted set.Negative Energy, especially later on in the game, is rarely resisted at all.Yours, gets resisted more and more as the game progresses.

I will not even dare claim that I can out damage Sonic Blasts, because in many situations, youll always out damage dark blasts.However, there are many situations that Dark blasts can Shred through enemy groups that you cant.At best, youll be on par with my damage towards end game with many of the enemy groups.Ritiki Included.

As for Trenebous Tenticals having no use because of Tar Patch?Your way off.TT keeps the mob on the Tar patch, no having to play with the Mob to keep them there.

Dark pit, its self, can be spammed if you give it enough recharge, and Hold Duration.Being HIGHLY useful, even without the aid of howling Twilight.It being a AoE makes it even more useful after all of that.Can ST Shriek do that?I didnt think so.

As for Dark Blast and Gloom, I can easly spam those back to back for very decent DPS when I face a boss.Not to mention I can Tank a boss using just these 2 powers becuase of the -toHit, and forgo any other powers during that boss if I so choose.Trust me when I tell you that reading the damage and using mids is way off when you acctually use this set.The numbers, and Mids program, do not in any way tell you about game resistances, or weakness of the things you fight.I do alot more damage then you'd think, and I dont trail behind by much.

As for Nightfall being a narrow difficult to use cone?Not at all.I can hit the entire mob with this power, and it does a good amount of damage each cast.The further away you trigger this power, the more its going to hit.Granted I cant "Always" hit the entire mob, but I still tend to nail 3/4 of the mob if it was a bad line up.

Moonbeam, ill have to agree with you on this one.I dont think other then to pull a mob, which I really never do, its kinda useless in most settings.

Life Drain, you said this one was redundant because of Twilight Grasp.I again, have to set you straight.First off, its a beautiful thing when im standing in the face of a Boss, spamming Dark Blast and Gloom in its face so it cant see me, but I am also adding Life Drain to the chain.It not only adds damage, it heals me in case i acctually do get hit by the boss in question, allowing me to heal while not breaking the DPS chain on that boss.You dont see this power useful, because you dont acctually "Tank" your enemies with your build.I however can get up close and personal with the mob if I so choose at any givin time during the fight, and be totally safe.

You also havnt mentioned Petrifying Gaze.Do you not use it?If you dont, your missing out big time.

Blackstar, I have no comment on this one, because I dont have it yet, but im sure its more useful then you say it is.I can already see how it can, and will be useful.

By the way, yes, I do have a Sonic Blast Defender, so I acctually know what im talking about.A Kin/Sonic to be exact.I got bored of it around level 38, and simply stopped playing it.Sonic Blasts, even with Kinetics, was lack luster.It was alot of work, to have to team with people, just so I could use Fulcrum Shifts full glory, so I could hit as hard as a standard Blaster.While every Blaster, Tanker, Kheldian, Scrapper,ect. on the team hit even harder then that.

So forgive me if I dont see the "Synergy" of your Dark/Sonic build.It seems exactly as someone else said, akward to use.

On a side note, I cant really see how a mainly ST power set like yours, as well as the KB of some of your AoE power, can do extreemly well, unless it was on a team setting.One of the bigger questions I have for you, is how did you deal with your Endurance problems using Darkest Night and Shadow Fall constantly?I use them for Tanking the Alpha of a mob, hit them with a couple of my AoE attacks, then turn them off because they really suck up the Endurance.I tend to control entire mobs for the duration, without the aid of those powers after the Alpha of the mob, because of my Dark Blasts ability to take away there ability to hit me with no defensive toggles on.

If you say anything along the lines of IOs, or getting your Epic Pool, im going sit back and grin really big, because I have neither of those.

So please, Enlighten us.

I'm going to ratchet this discussion down a bit because I want to make clear I don't want to see this devolve into personal attacks. I have opinions about dark/dark and you have contrary ones and much of the different perspective may come down to play style

With that said, my rebuttal:

Sonic is a mixture of smashing *and* energy damage. And the -res effect pretty much ensures high damage against just about anything. I don't worry about resistances to damage type on a sonic blast toon because it just isn't much of a factor after a few blasts.

Sonic blast also has aim which increases the gap between the two blast types. I haven't taken a dark blast character against 40+ mobs, so I don't have personal knowledge about what it can do, but I think you very much overestimate the effect of enemy resistances as a contributor to the weakness of the sonic set, especially since it's a mixed damage type set and not completely all smashing damage.

Tar patch keeps stuff on there long enough for me to kill them. If you have to use a power to hold them there before they're all killed, I submit you may not be doing enough damage. My dark/sonic doesn't need TT, and if I have to keep something in place (I've never had the need), I'll just put them all to sleep with Siren's Song. In groups, once tar patch is set, a blaster's AoE will have all the mobs killed anyways.

Dark pit has a 60 base second recharge. Screech has a 20 base second recharge...if your theoretical build has enough recharge to spam dark pit, it can stack shriek on multiple targets in the same amount of time. I'm not sure why you'd even bother using dark pit since howling twilight in your primary does practically the same thing, is more effective and easier to use since it's a targeted range power. Further, the best AoE mez a dark defender has is Fearsome Stare, which again makes something like Dark Pit mostly redundant except in situations where you run into fear resistant foes (FS still debuffs them).

Dark blast and gloom doesn't do close to the damage of shriek and scream, especially if you factor in the massive -20% res effect for defenders, and the tohit debuffs are completely unnecessary. Why bother with spamming tose attacks when you can just simply use darkest night which has an enhancead tohit debuff of around 30% and then use any blast you want. Throw in self +dmg buffs like aim and the gulf becomes even wider.

I'm well versed with lining up cones, and I believe that Nightfall has the same approximate arc as Full Auto. Both require a moderate amount of positioning. However because the cone size is radically different than TT, I find that it becomes a hassle to use. If you're okay with this, then you're more tolerant.

Hey we agree on something!

I can get just as close to a boss with my dark/sonic as you can with your dark/dark. IOs can easily bridge any gaps that's left with darkest night. It doesn't even need to be heavily IO'ed since darkest night (enhanced to -29% tohit debuff with just SOs), manuevers + shadowfall (around 13% defense fully enhanced with just SOs) is effectively 3% shy of the soft cap. Throw in a Steadfast Res/Def IO and hey look, I'm a "tank" at the soft cap. What you can do with your build isn't anything that other dark miasma defender of any secondary couldn't do.

Don't even have it any dark miasma build. Completely redundant power that's made pretty worthless since you already have fearsome stare. And specifically on my sonic blast build, it's completely inferior to shriek. At best, it's a power pick for a set mule. IMO there are so many better choices you can make. I think Pet Gaze is the second worst Dark Miasma power after Black Hole.

It's a defender nuke. Let's leave it at that.

That could be a play style issue. Maybe sonic blast just doesn't jive with how you like to play. I like damage, and make no apologies for it. Dark Miasma is already chock full of utilities that a blast set which has yet more utilities and poor (IMO) damage has no appeal for me.

I have zero endurance issues on my dark/sonic. I had far less as soon as I frankenslotted my blasts which were where most of the endurance was consumed. My dark/sonic is not heavily IOed and use a mixtures of IOs and SOs. She does fine with that set up.

As for taking alphas: toggle on shadowfall, toggle on darkest night, apply tar patch, heal (rarely) if alpha counter attack is harder than expected. Which is pretty much the same as any other dark miasma defender and not special to dark/dark.

I don't have shockwave and have howl and my single target blasts. It's plenty and I can get by solo even at higher number difficulties just fine.

Why? IOs are part of the game. If you don't want to take advantage of it that's fine, but don't dismiss a perspective of a player who can do what you can and more with those slotted.

And in my example above I mainly stress the use of pool powers (manuevers), power choices (shadowfall, darkest night) and the use of 1 (*one) IO.

Frankly, with IOs, I think a dark/sonic build would pull further ahead because building for defense reduces the need of the dark blast tohit debuff effects even more.

Exactly! I was just thinking that I see tons and tons of /Dark people on redside...

I also have to disagree, i myself have a dark/eng/primal def. Most people would say my build is counter productive b/c of the knockback, but i drop tar patch behind a mob, open with fearsome stare, drop darkest night, use explosive blast and energy torrent to knock them back onto tar patch. Then i just finish them off with powerblast/powerburst/total focus if needed. I just love the extra soft control the kb in Energy Blast gives me. But that's just me. ^_^

The OP suggested that they hadn't seen many Dark Miasma Defenders. I'd agree with that. I've seen Dark/everything at least once, but I've seen Rad, Emp, Ice, Storm, Thermal and even FF played a lot more than DM Defenders.

I'm trying to suggest a reason for this, not saying that Dark/anything else is stupid or never played.

You're the 3rd?4th? person to completely ignore my response to the OP, or his question, and instead jump in to boast about your toon. I'm sure it's lovely, but that's not the point.

I'd be curious to know how that would compare with a Radiation-Ice-Psi with CC, EMP, Freeze Ray, Bitter Freeze Ray, Dominate (and Telekinesis?).

If you're slotted for end-red, running both of those constantly should be no problem at all.

(Although I typically use FS for the same debuff, and leave DN on the shelf for boss fights, it's because mobs die too quickly to make DN necessary.)

Not running Shadow Fall constantly is a great shame. It offers Def, Res and Stealth to you, Fluffy and your team-mates, notably touching upon Psionic Def and Res, which is rare and really handy for team-survivability against the Rikti. It's also one of the few powers to provide a huge Fear Res buff.

I've been here since 2004. Dark Miasma was a set available at 2004. Some of the Dark Defenders that people talk about are literally five years old. The reason why there may not as many of them is because it's five years old. People play other ATs and other combinations.

And for your information, my toon is lovely. And I'll ignore any post if I simply don't feel it warrants any response or if I just feel like it. The other people ignored your post for the same reason. We're not under any obligation to respond to any post, let alone yours.

That's not why the synergy is good. It's the combination of the fear cone and Tar Patch followed up by damage cones, one of which roots a spawn in the Tar Patch. IMO, needing to use DN on every spawn slows you down, so being able to skip it and just slather them in -toHit as you defeat them is a speed optimization, both offensively and defensively.

To be honest, though, Dark Miasma is such that I don't bother using DN on most mobs even when I'm not wielding Dark Blast as a blast set and before I'm adding mitigation with IOs. I take the damage on the chin and heal it with TG when I have to, playing my Miasmists like Regen characters who have to hit a foe to heal. I break out DN and my holds when I have to worry about being mezzed by my opponents.

To the OP: Dark Miasma is a strong generalist. That means its useful and survivable in a wide array of circumstances. However, it also means it tends to lack the singular focus that some players seek out for specialized, high-end play goals, such as soloing GMs with no inspirations or temp powers. It's also debuff heavy, which makes it a nice set for soloing with, but sometimes not as effective at protecting teammates from high-order damage the way a buff set might be. I love Dark Miasma, but it also fits my goals and playstyles very well. YMMV.