I have wanted dark blast for years, and rolled one. Dark/Dark. Unfortunately it does not fit my Blaster style. I hang a range, and will do everything I can to stay at range. Dark Manipulation has a ton of great tools for Blappers though. As a challenge I may try to make a tanky dark blaster and Blap with them. But it will take weeks of effort, and 1/3 of my high level I/os i have available will have to be slotted in it for the duration of the test. So....not this week lol.
Dark blast is a little, teensy disappointing to me (I started a blaster altitis thread earlier). It all does smidges of to-hit debuff which isn't bad. For concept I like how I built my blaster so far, I get the feeling that fire or energy would be deadlier. I do like the hold.
Dark manipulation is wonderful. I like blapping. I like the smite, shadow maul, and sands of mu trifecta. I know the animations are long, but in large teams with heavy controls, piles of foes melt. If I wanted to I could endlessly, tirelessly spam tenebrous tentacles and the single target immobilize. I see this as a great asset in certain AV fights. I like the ranged kb power, too. The blaster gets to 'push' the strays back into the teammates kill zone if necessary. The build up and recovery powers lead up to my burning itching desire to nuke nuke nuke.
I saw the term 'blender' earlier for fire blasting defenders. My dark/dark could easily be referred to as a blastroller with the hold, immobilizations, kb push, and -tohit.
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HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
i love the dark blast set on a blaster, dark manip is ok but not my style, i currently have a dark/energy blaster though thats pretty sweet
I'm iffy on Dark Blast. It trades AOE power for utility abilities in line with the traditional layout of Darkness based power-sets. Thing is, Blasters sort of rely on being able to take out a group of minions quickly and efficiently so that they aren't overwhelmed by them. I know it has the two cones, but the arc length is kind of small on both of them when considering they are your only good AOE options. The set will probably need to stay at ranged in order to use it's cones effectively, meaning it won't mesh well with a blapper oriented secondary. I would probably pair it with /Ice, /Devices, or /Mental in order to give it some more ranged AOE options, as well as an ancillary pool that offers some survivability or AOE or both. Oddly enough, I don't think Dark Blast and Dark Manipulation work very well together, at least not when I consider other options you could pair it with.
Dark Manipulation, on the other hand, seems like a premier blapper set. It has a quick and powerful single target attack chain that also debuffs enemies in a meaningful way, with Dark Consumption and Soul Drain turning you into an absolute monster. Dark Pit will probably take some time to set up properly, but it will offer great mitigation against surrounding minions while you chew through the boss. Better yet, combine it with Oppressive Gloom from the Soul Mastery pool and just stun the whole spawn indefinitely. I would probably pair up Dark Manipulation with Fire Blast or something equally AOE heavy to melt the crowd of stunned minions so that you can better focus on the boss.
I made a Dark/Dark blaster, just now at 28. I prefer to play at range. Been interesting so far...
I am a big fan of the changes they made to Blaster Dark Blast. While hover-blasting, I find "cornering" mobs with Umbral Torrent followed by Tenebrous Tentacles to be extremely effective. The hold is nice for taking out pesky LTs, the damage over all isn't bad, and Life Drain is great fun.
Dark Manipulation is not my style AT ALL. But I'm a sucker for themes, so I went with it. Penumbral Grasp is being abused, and to great effect. I haven't touched the melee attacks (Sands of Mu takes care of anything in close range). Soul Drain and Dark Consumption are reserved strictly for teams or if I clearly have the upper hand. I have a feeling the next few levels will be very slow, but I plan on taking the Soul mastery PPP, which should fill out an attack chain.
I've said it before: I am thoroughly disappointed at the melee/PBAoE focus of Darkness Manipulation, and I hope it does not serve as a stencil for future Blaster secondaries. While melee has it's place on blasters, I'd much prefer a power set like Ice, Mental, or Energy, where there is a decent balance between utility powers and melee/PBAoE powers.
@Winter. Because I'm Winter. Period.
I am a blaster first, and an alt-oholic second.
I made a Dark/MM/Elec Blaster using hover and ranged defense. It is "OK" it's not stellar but it is fun and does have some interesting utility.
I like the 4 cone attacks. I like how I can use T_T to immobilize them and Umbral Torrent to bunch them up against a wall or object plus Psi Scream and Static Discharge for damage. I also like that this blaster has a non-interruptible self heal.
The downside is that all the cones are long animating and have differing arcs and ranges. You can easily get into a bad situation and get killed before you can do anything about it because of the animation times and I really dislike the fact that T_T followed by Umbral Torrent simply "blows the middle out of the spawn".
I don't care for the way that Dark Manip is set up. If it had defender values on it would work well but as it is it doesn't offer enough utility that and the powers that you should be relying on are also long animating.
I'd give my sword to get a primary that had a standard tier 1 and 2 single target blast, a tier 3 heavy hitter with range 80 and an animation 1.5 seconds or less, Aim, 3 cones with Arcs and ranges that could be made to mesh well or 3 TAOEs with similar ranges none having animation times over 1.5 seconds (one of which could be the t9 power) and a single target control that animates quickly and has range 80 so that I have a chance to mez a mezzer before he can mez me.
I'd give my shield for a secondary that had lots of fast animating attacks (all 1ish-1.5 seconds), no tier 1 immobilize (unless it was an AoE immobilize like web envelope), build up, and t9 that hit hard and animated in 2 seconds.
I'd throw the damsel in distress in gratis for power sets that give me the survival tools that all the other ATs have built into their power sets instead of having to rely on a tray full of inspirations.
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-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
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My Dark/Dark/Mace Blaster bounces in and out of melee when solo, and hands out at the fringes of melee on teams. While it isn't the best for killing huge piles of opponents at once, at least not at the moment, I have higher hopes for the future when I can add procs to Tenebrous Tentacles.
With decent recharge, and by that I mean enough recharge to make Soul Drain Perma, you really don't need more than the two Cones unless you -have- to have a constant AoE chain. I always find myself using Drain Life or Abyssal Gaze in any case, and usually by the time I'm done the cones are ready again to throw enemies across the room and then lock them there.
In the end, my build relies heavily on Soul Drain, Defense, and solid IO bonuses in order to keep shelling out damage, and I think it's got a nice enough combination of single target, AoE, Ranged, and Melee attacks to make for a well-rounded blaster.
I'm still trying to decide on whether or not to get Clarion (and which branch of Clarion to take) or Barrier for his Destiny. Reactive with Tenebrous Tentacles' DoT ought to be fun, though as will being able to Void Nuke, regular nuke, pop a blue insp, retoggle Scorpion Shield/Weave, and then get a full Blue bar in the next mob with Dark Consumption.
Too many alts to list.
now that i think about it the kb on umbral torrent can get slightly annoying if you have no walls to blast into
i think i would have prefered a merge of dark pit + night fall instead of torrent + night fall (since torrent was a very skipped power on every dark blast corr i had)
I was sad to see how badly gutted Blaster Dark Blast was of the things I loved about Dark Blast on my Defender. However with some of its goodies already stolen for Soul Mastery, there was little they could do short of coming up with all new powers.
Dark Manipulation on the other hand is a lot of fun. It's very different from any Blaster I've made before but I chose to pair it up with Radiation Blast for some very potent PBAoEs. So far, the combination is surprisingly strong so I'll be taking it higher to see how it plans out.
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
I've been playing with my Dark / Dark blaster almost exclusively since Freedom launched.
I have to say I'm having fun with it - up to lvl 25 so far. As others have said, the two sets are missing some of the power types that seem to be present in other blast / manip sets, but in my opinion, this only adds to the gameplay - I like the fact that I'm having to rethink my usual blaster strategy.
I'm specifically loving Abyssal Gaze - on the face of it, just a single target hold, but I'm finding it great for mob control.
As with all things like this, it's all subjective - but I just seem to be able to be more creative with the attacks on my Dark Blaster than I am on either of my other blasters.
Just my opinion mind... 
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I felt as though I out done myself with my dark/dark blast concept, even her look and costume makes me wear rose tinted glasses but even without the love for the concept I think figuratively speaking dark/dark is in no need of a buff/change/nerf but there are too many powers that require a lot of slot love ideally and not enough slots.
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now that dark blast/dark manip have been out for a few weeks, what does everybody think?
have you rolled a dark/* or */dark blaster?
what do/don't you like about the sets?
most recent 50 - psy/mm blaster