Dart Burst vs Psychic Scream

When I hit 47, I respeced to start on my final build for my widow. Originally, I had tried all melee, but the -regen on poison dart was too tempting. Since I had one ranged power, I decided it was worth it to grab another AoE cone.

I figured the Scream would be better since it was the highest level power and was in the specialization tree, but I find I seldom use it (got plenty of attack powers). So, I was thinking of changing to the burst for more stackable -regen. It's better for specialized AV situations and it's not like I need to use either power every fight anyway.

How do the two really stack up? Any good reason to take one over the other? Is psy really that much better than toxic in terms of mob resists?

From my experience, Dart Burst has been the better power. It has a shorter activation time, shorter recharge time, does more damage per activation, and costs less endurance. Even if one factors in enemy resists to lethal/toxic, Dart Burst can be cycled more efficiently to suit your needs if damage output is your concern.

As far as the benefits of -Regen versus the -Recharge, I can only say that the -Regen is not as helpful overall as the -Recharge (but i'd just recommend having Mental Blast for any emergency Psionic Damage/-Recharge needs). YMMV.

I would get both if possible...but if I had to pick only one I would go with Dart Burst All The Way.

I have both and like having it. The combo cycles fast and with the Soul Immob you have three cones that can form a near seamless chain of AOE (180% recharge). I think it adds a lot to a widow when teaming.

I also like to throw Psionic Tornado in there to keep them off of their feet.

Yea, on the nightwidow thing - I haven't even started on an alternate fort build yet. But to get both, would it be worth it to dump eviscerate to get both? It's another step away from a melee build, but it's a stupid animation anyway.

I've played with both and currently have all three. There's a lot of time that I get stuck into melee and are using the spin cycle When I am doing that, then it's nice to have eviscerate as another melee based AOE.

However, if I had to choose, I'd take both cones personally. When teamed there are usually a lot of durable people so having some good AOE potential is a nice thing to have. I have a solid attack chain along with three cones and spin for when I want to unload on a spawn.

I took psy scream on my night widow over dart burst. Spin and eviscerate are more than enough AE damage for me, so it really came down to this: which power could be used situationally to assist me best?

I decided that psy scream's -50% recharge debuff was better than the piddly -regen debuff burst offers. It isn't a part of my attack chain, but I use it occasionally if I'm getting overwhelmed to help neuter incoming damage.

Either will work, just my preference.

Dart burst is the better overall attack - it does more damage counting the DOT ticks, with a faster animation, and with a faster recharge.

My widow uses both, mainly because they let me cover a lot of a spawn with their cones if I aim them right. The night widow has a real 'jack of all trades' capability that this plays into - with the right build you'll have very high single target damage, good area damage, high to very high personal defense, and moderate team buffing. There's not much you can't do, and you can do it all pretty well.