Black Hole usage in Apex?

I've been considering making use of my second or third build for my Necro/Dark MM for the Apex and Tin Mage TF's using other powers I normally would not use. I'm planning on using more ranged attacks. Dark Blast and Gloom. To make room for those attacks I'm not using all my pets, just Zombie Horde and Grave Knights, since my pets often die.

But I really wanted to hear any advice/suggestions if Black Hole might be a useful tool to keep BM's swords and minions phase shifted and from doing damage to me and potentially the team, allowing us to focus more on Battle Maiden herself. I don't know how long the phase duration is and does Black Hole function like other phase powers like PvP, where the is a duration where they cannot be phased? Has anyone tried using this? Use? or Do not use?

I'd say it's a great tactic while BM is fighting. As soon as she disappears and you have to fend off the ambushes, though, you should stop with the phasing. Of course, you could still phase the swords, as they aren't required defeats for her to come back.

Also, phase is always fine if the team needs a few seconds to recover. This situation rarely occurs, but when it does, the phase is invaluable.

How should I slot Black Hole then?

Im not sure if it will work all the well. Since they are +4s it will be extremely hard if not impossible to get it perma. And if you can't get it perma its prolly better to just kill all but one or two of the swords and champs (champs i think might stop eventually [i think] though) so they dont cause much of a threat anyway.

While fighting BM, BHing other mobs is useful to get them from doing damage to you and your teammates... as long as you don't accidentally BH BM, too.

When BM is away, you want to kill the three waves of Champions (the female warriors). BHing them will slow that down. You can't kill what you phase. However, while BM is away, the Swords can be BH'd, since they don't matter. In fact, by BHing the last few Swords you keep dumb teammates from killing them initiating a new wave of Swords.

BH is very situational and is more of a 'buy us some time' power.

Being that I am Necro/Dark/Soul MM, (and I plan on switching to Chill Mastery for this Task Force) most of my secondary and epic pool mez powers that I normally use, like my Holds, Immobilize, and Fear aren't quite as useful a) against +4's b) Praetorian mobs that inherently have mez protection. So I'm looking for alternatives for my powers that aren't quite as useful, at least for the Battle Maiden fight. 3-4 attempts in that part of the Task Force, and I haven't felt like I was doing enough, and I want my Master Run badges. I'll play around with a build in Mid's as post it as soon as I can, the weather as crappy again and I got home late last night.

Thank you for the input, everyone.

I think Black Hole can help. Just make sure you use it on the swords and not the 'Humans" after BM disappears. You need to kill human mobs to force BM out again.

Speaking about "phase", I've brought it up before but they somehow made this power worse than what it was. When I first tried Dimension Shift, the mobs would just stand there doing nothing (the graphic is hard to tell but at least they just stood there). Now I don't know what they did and why did it but phased out mobs will still attack you even though they deal no damage. It is very very confusing IMO. It's confusing enough to figure out which ones are phased.


I really wish they could make Blackhole and Dimension Shift better.