Dark Manipulation

It would make sense to have Cloak of Darkness to go with Soul Drain, so you don't get attacked before actually using the power.

Replace Soul Drain for Build Up, only thing I ask for in this set up. Far more utility for different playstyles with Build Up.

No thank you, Soul Drain is soooo beautiful.

I concur. Blaster + Soul Drain = Squeeeeee.

Well, fair enough, I can see preferring the big hit to the big area. Lately I tend to view blaster aoes as proc delivery systems as much as they are damagers in their own right. Between posi's and reactive, things like fireball, ball lightning, bullet rain and the actual rain powers are just going to apply a lot more bonus damage to a lot more targets than any secondary aoe can keep up with. If you more often run on higher difficulties and have no problem with hanging out in the middle of spawns I could see the attraction to having bigger initial impacts.

Well, all I can say is that to me it makes more sense to go by either the position the attack is defended by or the applicable invention set category you can slot in it. Otherwise by similar reasoning it seems that you'd have to call a power like focus a melee attack.

One thing you all should consider is that Shadow Maul is worthy using even as a ST attack. It's actually the second hardest hitting attack in Dark Melee if you hit one target, with 8s rech and 8.53 end cost.

Let's compare Shadow Maul with other AoEs being discussed (using Tanker numbers since they share these powers):

Shadow Maul: 8s rech, 8.53 end, 95.9 dmg
Combustion: 15s rech, 13 end, 57.8 dmg

Actually screw comparing it with other AoEs, if they keep Shadow Maul with the same numbers on rech/end (because Bone Smasher for example is different on melee ATs and Blasters), you can see in City of Data that Shadow Maul is a 2.2638 damage scale attack while some blaster melee STs hit for only a bit more or less:

- Fire Sword, 10s rech, 10 end, 2.36 dmg scale
- Ice Sword, same stats, but 1.96 dmg scale
- Bone Smasher and Havoc Punch have a 2.6 dmg scale on Blasters but they take 14 seconds to recharge and cost 13.5 end

And Shadow Maul can easily hit 2 - yes long animation but it's a cheap attack and it's not wasted even as a ST attack on the melee ATs - actually it's a cone with ST attack stats, so it's more part of the Dark set attack chain than an AoE thrown there like Combustion, with the bonus of being able to hit 2 easily and more if you line up (with practice you can hit 3 regularly, I have several dark melee toons).

I don't think their idea was to include a good AoE power in the Dark secondary, but rather making like /EM and /Elec, the two secondaries that have three solid attacks. They may change the recharge and end cost, since Smite on melee ATs is a 1.36 dmg scale attack that recharges in 6 secs while Charged Brawl/E. Punch on Blasters are 1.96 dmg that recharge in 10, and supposedly Smite is the equivalent to Charged Brawl/Energy Punch, so if they change SM to match rech/end of the 2nd tier attacks you get at level 10 (Havoc/Bone Smasher) just like SM will be available on Blasters, Shadow Maul will end up doing more damage than those even used as a ST attack. The price you pay for that is the long animation time, the bonus you get is being able to hit 2 consistently and 3-4 sometimes (ok hitting 5 is very rare unless you're on an ambush farm or something).

So SM is kind of a different power, since although being a melee cone, it has a rech/end/dmg ratio of a good ST attack. On scrappers, it actually does close to Golden Dragonfly's damage (148.4 vs 164) except you get SM at level 2 and GD at lvl 32. And GD is a 20 degrees cone with 12 end/12s rech, SM is a 45 degrees cone with 8 end/8s on scraps.

So I think SM is a great power for Dark Manipultation, ok I'd prefer Siphon Life but I like SM enough. I think the skippables there will be Death Shroud and Touch of Fear (edit: Dark Pit too, it has REALLY sucky stats, I'd never used the power so I thought it was a mag 3 stun).

If I were going to make changes to the presumed powers and their effects for Dark Manip it would be these:

1. Penumbral Grasp should be primarily a -Dmg/-Regen power rather than an Immob. That does away with the Immob overkill of the natural Dark/Dark combo, makes it unique, and still has the same extra value of the ST Immobs in AV fights. Alternatively, it should have normal END cost and Immob that is of side effect duration like MG so that it is more useful in an ST attack chain and doesn't lose as much of its value to the Immob overkill in Dark/Dark.
2. Death Shroud should be renamed something such as "Dark Shroud" and made analogous to Lightning Field with a 20' radius and small side effect (say -2.625% to -5.25% ToHit).
3. Shadow Maul should be replaced with Cloak of Darkness.
4. Dark Pit should be moved up two spots with Touch of Fear and Dark Consumption sliding down one each. Dark Pit isn't great, but it's unique and so I think the sooner it is available the better.

Whew, before this thread crashes and burns, remember that the devs don't clearly define what's a melee attack and what's a ranged attack. So we're left with several arbitrary and often conflicting definitions:

1) A melee attack is a damage power in a "Melee" set (scrapper primary, etc.)? Or
2) A melee attack is a damage power with a range of 7/10/15/20/25 feet or less? Or
3) A melee attack is a damage power that doesn't accept range enhancements? Or
4) A melee attack is a damage power that checks against melee defense? Or
5) A melee attack is a damage power that accepts melee damage or PBAoE invention sets?

Some definitions are more useful than others, but at least make recognize that there's big potential for miscommunication here.