Dark/Dark power selection help.


GavinRuneblade

 

Posted

I'm making a Dark/Dark stalker and I'm curious about power selection for her. I tried poking around the forums, but didn't find much about it. My highest level character is only level 30 and I don't play that often, so I don't need some crazy max level build. Basically I just want to know what powers, if any, I should avoid and what pool powers to aim for. I'm going to team occasionally, but play mostly solo. Thanks in advance.


 

Posted

Lets see:

For Dark Armor, the only 2 powers "skippable" are Shadow Dweller and Soul Transfer.
I recommend choosing between either Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear, you don't need both.

With that said, when we got inherent fitness, I needed power choices to add that would be useful with just the base slot, so I took Shadow Dweller, and Soul Transfer at that time, well after I already got to 50. I do enjoy Soul Transfer.

For Dark melee, pretty much take any powers that fit your concept. I personally skipped Shadow Maul and Touch of Fear.

I say just do not skip Smite, Siphon Life, and Midnight Grasp. They are your best "scrap it out" type powers, powers you want to fill the attack chain with. Shadow Maul is a cone power that you need to line up to get it to affect more than one foe.

If you take cloak of fear, touch of fear would stack and give you the ability to fear high level foes. If thats your idea of fun. I decided to just kill them quicker. So I omitted those.

For power pools, I definately took leaping to give me Acrobatics for the KD protection. If you have access to a Steadfast unique, then you might not need to go that route. I just have to say it sucks playing a stalker that gets knocked down, that is the one weakness that is most glaring with dark armor.

If you have power choices left after primary and secondary and leaping, I suggest fighting pool for tough. However, if you try to run tough AND your status effect toggle, you might run into endurance issues, so you would have to decide then what is most important for your concept. I did not take tough.

I ended up doing Ghost Widow's arc, and taking Soul Mastery. Lots of good power choices there that fit my concept.


-Largo

Founder of A.G.O.N.Y. Supergroup on Victory
Member of Thought Sanctum VG on Victory
Member of St0rm Batallion SG on Guardian

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Largo View Post
I say just do not skip Smite, Siphon Life, and Midnight Grasp. They are your best "scrap it out" type powers, powers you want to fill the attack chain with.
Just chiming in to say, listen to this advice it is bang on the money. Also, your highest damage attack chain will be MG -> Smite -> SL -> Smite -> Repeat.

You absolutely slaughter things if you have those well slotted. If you can only afford one expensive melee set, put the best damage proc you can into smite since you'll use it so often. The cheapest will be Mako (don't go for Touch of Death that pile of garbage only has a 15% chance to go off whereas every other damage proc in the game is 20% or higher) but that's not really "cheap".

I also recommend skipping touch of death and I only took shadow maul because I wanted the bonuses from some PBAoE sets. It comes in handy when exemplared back down low.

I recommend getting tough and weave, as well as combat jumping (which you want for acrobatics anyhow). A little defense goes a long way on a resist-based set like this. If you can afford to buy the IOs getting some Smashing and Lethal defense is helpful too.

If you have endurance trouble the aoe stun is better than the fear. If you don't, then I like the fear better because it protects you from lieutenants with the -tohit, and the stun does nothing at all except to minions. But it really needs end reduction and if you have tough, weave, plus 3 dark armor toggles, etc you might not be able to afford it. In that case the stun is better by far.

I also recommend Haste. Because you have a few really good attacks you want up as much as possible, plus the dark armor heal, you will definitely appreciate having haste.

On the heal, if you can get 2 villain (or hero, booo) merits and pick up the chance for +end proc from the theft of essence healing set. That sucker uses over 25 end each time you click it, but the proc can give you 10 back per enemy when it triggers so I found it is really worth running 2 weeks of villain tips. (if you are ok with using the market, get a luck of the gambler 7.5% recharge instead, sell it, buy the theft of essence proc and keep the extra money).

Things to avoid:
Presence pool
heal pool
stealth pool (only good if you need more places to put expensive IOs or for PvP)

On the Patrons, I also went for Soul, just for concept. But the hero pools offer some very solid options. If you have low money and need endurance go body mastery for superior conditioning and physical perfection. If you want more damage, blaze master has fireball, which is a great AoE. and, if you go leviathan, the waterspout is very nice and I like hibernate as a 1-slot power choice that lets me recover endurance super fast without resting.


"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.

 

Posted

Awesome, thanks for the help guys! I've only been playing this account for 3 months. I had an old account for a few months a long time ago, before IOs. I'm hoping this time I will stay a bit longer lol. I just started looking into IO sets for my level 30 Claws/Regen Scrapper and man are they expensive. I have about 200 mil Inf saved up across all my characters, and making small amounts of money like that isn't to difficult. I will definitely be coming back here for more info once I get high enough with this character to start piecing together sets. My Claws/Regen scrapper was originally a Stalker, but got remade around level 20. Hopefully this one works out better. For now the info you guys have given me will help immensely. Thanks again, both of you.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by sploitz_fg View Post
Awesome, thanks for the help guys! I've only been playing this account for 3 months. I had an old account for a few months a long time ago, before IOs. I'm hoping this time I will stay a bit longer lol. I just started looking into IO sets for my level 30 Claws/Regen Scrapper and man are they expensive. I have about 200 mil Inf saved up across all my characters, and making small amounts of money like that isn't to difficult. I will definitely be coming back here for more info once I get high enough with this character to start piecing together sets. My Claws/Regen scrapper was originally a Stalker, but got remade around level 20. Hopefully this one works out better. For now the info you guys have given me will help immensely. Thanks again, both of you.
Hit the Marketing forum for guides on earning boatloads of money fast and easy. A few simple notes:

Level 50 characters earn more than double anything else, even 49s.

Vendor all common recipe drops and enhancements. Sell salvage and most recipes at 1 inf. They will move fast for an average of more than vendor price. In the long run this is easy fast money.

The new Alignment Merits (Hero and Villain) you get from doing tip missions are like printing money. You can do 5 missions per day (20 hours) and after 10 you get a morality mission, finishing that gives you a merit. two alignment merits let you buy any recipe from what you know as the Task Force reward pool. The keys are Kinetic Combat triple, Luck of the Gambler 7.5% recharge, and Basilisk Quad all sell for 150m-200m. You'll very fast learn that some missions are easier than others, run them at -1/x1 difficulty setting to blow through them fast and just get your merits.

Log out your character in Oroboros whenever possible, when you log back in for a while you'll get bonus recipes at the mission complete roll. Sometimes even two per mission.

Mission Architect is a great way to make money at low levels. Instead of salvage and recipes you get tickets. You can use these on random rolls. Testing has shown that bronze rolls in the 30-34 and 35-39 ranges make the most money over time (especially 35-39).

for fastest levelling and best money, get into the Weekly Strike Force at least once per week, you get double merits and a massive experience bonus sometimes more than 1 level. And at level 48 it was a full half level of experience. You can convert the "reward merits" to "alignment merits" and use them for buying luck of the gambler recipes to sell on the market. Craft them before selling for even more profit.


"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.

 

Posted

I didn't know about buying recipes with alignment merits. I'll have to check how many I have. And posting things at 1 inf is genius! lol. I usually just vendored anything I knew wouldn't sell for much. This games market is so weird sometimes. It's crazy that I can sometimes sell a common salvage for over 100k, then a day later the recent prices are around 1k. But, I have made a ton of money from just buying high level SOs and recipes for 1k or less, and then vendoring them for 10-30 times more. That's how I tend to start up all of my characters finances. That way they can buy TOs, and then DOs, right away. I've also been blowing money on normal IOs as early as possible, just for the early game stat boost. Never done a weekly strike force, definitely have to check that out. And Oro is another part of this game I have no knowledge of, lol. So much to learn. Oh well, off to the wiki. Thanks again for the help!


 

Posted

Ok, I have a follow up question. One of the hardest things I ever have to do with my characters is choose what order to pick my powers. I got enhancements down pretty well, but I'm never quite sure at what level I should take certain powers. So, here is my preliminary power path. I'm going Body Mastery at first because I'm starting out Blue side. Never had much care for playing a villain, lol. If endurance ends up not being a problem I will work my way Red side for Soul Mastery. Anything I need to change?

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Scarlette Dawn: Level 48 Mutation Stalker
Primary Power Set: Dark Melee
Secondary Power Set: Dark Armor
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Smite -- (A)
Level 1: Hide -- (A)
Level 2: Shadow Maul -- (A)
Level 4: Dark Embrace -- (A)
Level 6: Assassin's Eclipse -- (A)
Level 8: Build Up -- (A)
Level 10: Combat Jumping -- (A)
Level 12: Placate -- (A)
Level 14: Super Jump -- (A)
Level 16: Obsidian Shield -- (A)
Level 18: Siphon Life -- (A)
Level 20: Dark Regeneration -- (A)
Level 22: Boxing -- (A)
Level 24: Tough -- (A)
Level 26: Weave -- (A)
Level 28: Cloak of Fear -- (A)
Level 30: Acrobatics -- (A)
Level 32: Midnight Grasp -- (A)
Level 35: Murky Cloud -- (A)
Level 38: Soul Transfer -- (A)
Level 41: Superior Conditioning -- (A)
Level 44: Physical Perfection -- (A)
Level 47: Hasten -- (A)
Level 49: Shadow Dweller -- (A)
------------
Level 1: Assassination
Level 1: Brawl -- (A)
Level 1: Sprint -- (A)
Level 2: Rest -- (A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- (A)
Level 2: Health -- (A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- (A)
Level 2: Stamina -- (A)




 

Posted

I think you're taking Boxing, Tough, and Weave too soon. I'd move up: Acrobatics, Hasten, and Murky Cloud to those spots.

I personally would be afraid to run Cloak of Fear, Tough and Weave at the same time. With your resistance toggles, Dark Embrace and Obsidian Shield running first, thats a lot of endurance to recover at 28.

I guess I just think its silly to take pool power defenses when you still have secondary powers you need (Murky Cloud).

Like Gavin was saying try to get those +Endurance procs slotted to get your endurance issues under control.


-Largo

Founder of A.G.O.N.Y. Supergroup on Victory
Member of Thought Sanctum VG on Victory
Member of St0rm Batallion SG on Guardian

 

Posted

Hmm, I didn't think about that. I guess I'm just accustomed to my Claws/Regen's recovery rate at 30. (3-slot Quick Recovery and 3 or 4 Slot Stamina) So something like this then?

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Scarlette Dawn: Level 48 Mutation Stalker
Primary Power Set: Dark Melee
Secondary Power Set: Dark Armor
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Smite -- (A)
Level 1: Hide -- (A)
Level 2: Shadow Maul -- (A)
Level 4: Dark Embrace -- (A)
Level 6: Assassin's Eclipse -- (A)
Level 8: Build Up -- (A)
Level 10: Combat Jumping -- (A)
Level 12: Placate -- (A)
Level 14: Super Jump -- (A)
Level 16: Obsidian Shield -- (A)
Level 18: Siphon Life -- (A)
Level 20: Dark Regeneration -- (A)
Level 22: Acrobatics -- (A)
Level 24: Murky Cloud -- (A)
Level 26: Hasten -- (A)
Level 28: Cloak of Fear -- (A)
Level 30: Boxing -- (A)
Level 32: Midnight Grasp -- (A)
Level 35: Tough -- (A)
Level 38: Soul Transfer -- (A)
Level 41: Superior Conditioning -- (A)
Level 44: Physical Perfection -- (A)
Level 47: Weave -- (A)
Level 49: Shadow Dweller -- (A)
------------
Level 1: Assassination
Level 1: Brawl -- (A)
Level 1: Sprint -- (A)
Level 2: Rest -- (A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- (A)
Level 2: Health -- (A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- (A)
Level 2: Stamina -- (A)


 

Posted

That looks solid.


-Largo

Founder of A.G.O.N.Y. Supergroup on Victory
Member of Thought Sanctum VG on Victory
Member of St0rm Batallion SG on Guardian

 

Posted

Awesome. Thanks again for all the help.


 

Posted

There is one reason to take boxing early and that is if you exemplar back down low often. My dark/dark flies and I took Air Superiority early to fill the gaps in attacks at low level. But now we have multiple builds available so we can have a low-level build and a high-level one too =)


I also agree that the build you posted looks ok. Certainly better than what I use, lol. I never took Murky Cloud so my /dark is vulnerable to negative energy hehe.

I keep telling myself I'll fix that but never getting around to it.


"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.