Thermal vs any other secondary

I have read many times on here that Thermal is not the most damage causing secondary and the debuffs are not as good as others. I have a 33 demons/dark and a 50 bots/dark. Also have a 36 demons/thermal and a 42 bots/thermal (and a couple dozen other mm's over 25).

Damage
Dark has a nice -res (tar patch) @ -30% which would mean all your pets do 30% more damage if the npcs are stuck in the patch. Melt Armor has a 22.5% that is ready to use almost as often as tar patch. But dark doesn't have Forge which adds 30% more damage to the top 3 pets (need to keep it casted). So 30% + 22.5% is a bit nicer than the 30% on Dark.


Damage Bonus
Thermal: When you couple Supremacy, Forge, Hell on Earth and Leadership's Assault you get 103.75% damage bonus on the big fella and 66.25% on the 2ND tier pets.

Dark: When you couple Supremacy, Hell on Earth and Leadership's Assault you get 73.75% damage bonus on the big fella and 36.25% on the 2ND tier pets. Notice the drop in damage.

Survivability
Thermal: With the thermal shields the pets have never died in at least 20 levels and only need healing when they are fighting a large group of oranges or higher. I rarely have to heal them otherwise. With this secondary you can send your pets in to attack up to 3 purples and live to tell the tale. I have done missions set at +0/X8 solo. It is tough, but possible. Try that on Dark and you and your pets will get wiped.

Dark: My pets die often. So much in fact its a real pain. You think taking 15 seconds every 4 minutes to put thermal shields on your pets is a pain? Doing that sure beats re-summoning them just as often. Oh and if you send the pets into a large group of reds -- you better kiss them all goodbye because they will all die. They need healing often and if they run off from your Twilight Grasp... well its like playing an EMP Defender and the team splitting up in a hard mission -- someone's gonna die.


Passive Damage Bonus
Pets that stay alive do more damage than dead pets.


AV's and Heroes
Thermal can solo these guys at level 35 and beyond.

Dark? Try to solo them with dead pets.


Conclusion
Thermal has more damage than Dark by a clear mile.

My Necro/Dark is bar none the strongest AT I have. Considering I have 3 servers full and multiples of every AT thats saying something.

I've got a Ninja/Thermal that is struggling at 22 right now. Just trying to fine tune the diff. settings after leaving Praetoria. But from what I can tell so far he is much weaker at this level than the /Dark was.

Maybe it's the Ninja vs Necro that makes it seem this way but the utility in /Dark is far superior to the shields and heals in Thermal at this level.

Now, once I get a bit higher and can play around with Melt Armor and Forge, that opinion might change. But as far as ease of levelling goes I'd have to hand it to /Dark any day of the week.

As I said on the original post I have played /dark all the way to 50 (my first 50 villain) so if you are saying that I am doing something wrong to be losing my pets that often and you never do, well you must have a couple billion in your IO sets (I just had SO's on that 50). My 33 demons/dark uses regular crafted IO's (no sets).

I was just playing him an hour ago. Came across 6 yellow waler's on a beach. Put the tar patch on them, darkest night and spam'ed the heals. Killed them all, but in the end of that short fight I lost one of the little demons.

If Forge means so little to a pet and I solo 95% of the time on mm's, should I respec Forge out?

Petrifying gaze is a nice hold, but only works with one guy. That doesn't help much when I generally solo X5-6 missions. X1 is dead boring on an mm.

Since I solo, Howling Twilight isn't trained.

As for my keyboard game experience -- lets call it 35 years (1975 on Apple II) playing comp games and 12 years on mmorpgs. Like I said I don't use sets. If I make the game too simple to play it becomes boring to me.

/Traps


That is all.

Respites and Aid Other. Or Triage Beacon if it's a stationary fight.

I play my Necro/Dark as an ambusher.

I'll set my cadre of cannibals in a corner and then run out and use Darkest Night to pull. I'll then run back to my minions and right as the mass of the group rounds the corner I'll lay down the patch and hit Howling.
A quick Fearsome stare keeps everything locked down while my guys chew em up quick. Rinse and repeat.

With AV's I usually adopt a more aggrssive posture, using tankermind skills to distract and whatnot. Occasionally I'll sacrifice Dark Servant to soak up an alpha, but that's rare.

Please retitle this thread to: "I am ignorant about Dark Miasma"

All by itself, a properly slotted Dark Servant with its Chill of the NIght debuff drops To Hit by -45% in melee. Forget whatever else DS does, you just created a pure zone of safety and love. My zombies love it.

As stated, Howling Twilight is an amazing opener or 'oh shiz' button for neutering a spawn. I

Fearsome stare has awesome -To Hit as well, and the fear/tremble effect also reduces damage as mobs cower.

PG is great for taking out troublesome Lts, like Sappers.

You also forgot Shadowfall, with its additional resistances and stealth. You should have taken the whole set into account, not just cherry picked to skew your argument.

I'm not saying Thermal is worse or better. I'm observing though that your bias is showing, or you are incredibly ignorant about how DM works. Or both. Your OP started off drawing a line in the sand based on lack of knowledge, and it got worse from there.

Yeah, I skipped Howling at 1st because I was playing solo. That particular MM never teamed from 1-50 for concept reasons. So I skipped howling since the rez wouldn't work on my pets.

Then I was clued in around level 35, as I came to the boards and discovered my error.
I quickly vetspecced into it and OH WOW.

I can't imagine his build without it now!

Howling Twilight needs NO defeated teammate to activate or utilize. As stated earlier, the 'rez' effect is a side effect of an AUTO-HIT low mag stun, slow, and regeneration debuff. This power is all up-side and requires 90% recharge to make it totally useful.

Alternating Fearsome Stare and Howling Twilight allows a */dark mastermind to operate at very high level of efficiency.

Howling Twilight and Twilight Grasp have enough -regen to make fights with tough targets a lot easier. You can take both these powers much earlier than heat loss or melt amor.

I have to agree that if you are having pet survivability problems with DM, the problem lies with you, not with DM. No Howling Twilight or Fearsome Stare -tohit slotting stand out as your biggest problems. Maybe you're anchoring Darkest Night poorly too, I don't know. TG should be more than enough to handle what damage DOES get through, even with its smaller radius.

Your problem with /Dark is you're not using it's biggest debuffs. If you use Bodyguard mode, Provoke, Darkest Night, Fearsome Stare, Howling Twilight, Tar Patch, and Twilight Grasp all in succession in ANY order (with the exception of Tar and Darkest being first) you'll win. My Demon/Dark can taunt EB's/AV's and stand there with autoheal going as his pets go to town. Lay down Darkest Night and Fearsome Stare and the AV has debuffed ToHit. Use Shadow Fall and you have boosted defense/resistance. Tar Patch sucks away some resistance and speed, Howling Twilight and Twilight Grasp destroy regeneration, and your Dark Servant is basically another you going to town.

I agree with Chill_Out: Change the name of this thread to "I am ignorant about Dark Miasma."

I must admit after reading these many posts that I am learning a lot about the true power of /Dark. Will train Howling next level (have nothing else to train except for maybe Black Hole
How would I slot Howling Twilight?

So what is this Chill of the Night? It that a new power for the Dark Servant? BTW, any suggestion on how to slot fluffy?

Maybe someone could include builds so I can see how my other powers look.