Welp. A lot changed.

I recently bought Going Rogue (primarily for the month's subscription time) to see what all has changed in the, oh, 5 years I've been away. :P

I remember being on top of by Dark/Dark Defender and writing a guide for him, being pretty active and doing number crunches but so much has changed that I have no idea where to begin.

IOs seem straightforward, though my level 50 D3 has no salvage. He's still rolling in influence from back in the day. Set items/Incarnate stuff seems impossibly far away for a toon that is still operating on +2 SOs and still has the Fitness pool. (I recently respec'd after seeing the Inherent Fitness change)

So, I guess my question to all you Darkies out there is the following: I last played in I7 and have no idea what really changed to the power sets. Fluffy seems to go to melee now, still isn't permanent and Defenders now do more damage or something if they're not teamed up?

Don't count on any more Guides: I'm too out of the loop. :P

Hello hello. My old Dark/Dark defender is in the same boat as yours. However, I have rolled up a Fire/Dark corruptor and started her on the path to Incarnate-dom and IOing, so I'll try to offer some general advice. I'm sure smarter folks than I will respond later .

Dark Miasma hasn't changed much in a long while. Your general knowledge of the powers and how they function should be enough for you.

Big change to defenders is that now vigilance gives you a scaling damage buff depending on team size (it goes to zero around 4 teammates, biggest when you're solo)- so it should be less painful than you remember to solo.

Do a search for "Frankenslotting" IOs here on the forum. There is a fairly good guide on it. IMO it's probably the easiest "bang for the buck" that you can get out of IOs without dumping a lot of cash. Essentially you slot IOs like mini-Hami-Os. Look for (for example) ToHit Debuff sets for Darkest Night. Mix and Match the ToHit Debuff and ToHit Debuff/End Redux IOs from various sets to get your powers maxed out in less slots than it'd take with SOs. Ignore set bonuses and aim for cheaper sets. repeat for other powers so that you can max out the attributes you want from that power.

You can also look at level ranges other than max level and see if you can pick up a 49 Dark Watcher's Despair ToHit Debuff IO for less than that level 50 was going to cost you. The difference is fairly trivial.

The ToHit Debuff, Accurate ToHit Debuff, Fear, and Accurate Healing sets tend to have more supply than demand, so they should be fairly cheap to get your mitts on. Some of the ranged damage sets don't have a lot of desireable set bonuses, so they usually are in the same boat (Detonation, Air Burst, etc).

If you have some seed money, take a peek in the market forums. There are some nice guides as to how to make a fair amount of cash through marketeering (essentially buying recipes and salvage, crafting and then selling the IO for profit) if that's not objectionable to you. HeffronCM (I think?) has a link in one of his posts to a spreadsheet to help keep track of how much you need to sell a crafted IO for to make a profit. Worth a look. Once you get rolling with it, it can take 15 minute or so out of a play session to buy/craft/list.

Once you take the plunge into Set IOs, personally, I'd build for +recharge. I suppose you could try to build for ranged or lethal defense, but it doesn't seem worth it to me for the cost. I also went Spiritual (recharge) for my Incarnate Alpha slot, which essentially adds a recharge SO to each power and some of it ignores ED. Worth a look at any rate as you'll be getting shards just by doing the incarnate unlock arc in Ouroboros (Mender Ramiel) and then earning shards for just playing the character.

You'll want to unlock yer alpha slot first thing. Mender Ramiel? in Ouroborus gives the arc.

There's greater option's on setting your difficulty now.. you might put it on -1 mob lvl for the incarnate arc.

You'll want to do the intro to Vanguard in RWZ (@10mins) and maybe the intro to IO's at a University (@20mins)

Once a week you'll want to do the "Weekly" task force for some rare incarnate salvage.

The biggest things that'll help your SO build would be getting a Miracle: +recovery and the first level alpha incarnate.

Rikti mothership raids are prolly the best way to get incarnate shards and Imperious TF's (require's unlocking Cimoroa zone)

lots of new fun stuff.

ooh, and you can auto complete a mission every 3 days (non-badge/non-timed) if you have a troublesome one.

Wow, here's a name I haven't seen for a long time.

Dark Miasma has virtually not changed.

The alpha incarnate slot, which is a global enhancement, helps with the endurance suckage (cardiac). It's not hard to make them either -- just do the arc with Mender Ramiel in Oroborous, and do a few TFs. Spiritual for recharge also works.

You can get status protection! For periods of time. No more toggles get mezzed off and then you die. The Destiny incarnate slot, Clarion buff.

Solo much got better, with a 30% damage buff from vigilance. Add Assault and voila, instant 45% damage boost. Add in IO set bonuses...muhaha...

It's not particularly defender related, but mastermind's heal radius using twilight grasp is now the radius used by corruptors and defenders.

Then there are those of us who think 2 billion is a nice starting point.

Your fine with SO's go to pd and join up for a lot of baf trials and use your money to get physical xp.


However tell anyone who asks that you have standard io's because they don't understand that this game is based around SO's.

Also not directly Defender related, the Epic Pools all had another power added. Also, via side switching (available through that Going Rogue you purchased), heroes can get unlock the villain equivalent, Patron Pools. Once you have unlocked these, they become permanently available even if you switch back to being a hero.