How are people making such montster dark/ defenders?

I have to admit I have one dark/rad fender at 50 (and a dark/ice corr at 25ish), so I don't have a ton of experience. My fender hit 50 maybe in i6? At that point, I left her to sit mostly (she is alpha unlocked with no slotting). But here on the forums I have been reading about people saying their dark/ can do +2/8 solo and mine doesn't seem to be able to much of that kind of thing.

Is there a trick to making your dark/ super uber? How are people getting such great performance? I know I need to IO out my fender for at least some good range defense, but my damage doesn't seem to be that great.

I should say one last thing, I don't think I have even tried a fender solo since they buffed the damage when soloing, so is that it?

Thanks for any insight.

Perma hasten

LOL. I appreciate the response, but my dark/ must not be cool at all because perma haster wouldn't solve my problem. Maybe you gave me one piece of the puzzle...I feel like Sherlock Holmes now!

Huge -Tohit that floors the hitchance of everything in sight, massive heals and exotic resists make them impossible to kill. Tarpatch, Reactive radial interface (gives a chance to proc fire damage on every damaging power) and lore pets (the best ones do damage comparable with top-tier melee builds) help to kill things.

I have heard of dark builds that can tank GM's and what not... though I haven't really played in Mids with Dark to figure out the secret... the one tidbit I got advice wise was the which Epic/Patron pool to take and I think I heard electric.. though Mace Mastery seems like a better choice for the Def in Scorpian Sheild... I would really need to crunch numbers before I could offer any real help.

Note that even with reactive interface, you still won't be mowing down hordes of enemies the way top-tier scrappers/brutes can. My corrs and fenders solo +2/x8, but slowly.

If mez is detoggling DN, clarion destiny will fix that (gives mez protection that can be made permanent).

If you have to chose between defense and recharge, go with recharge. Defense is still worthwhile on high-end builds that can build for it without losing rech, because 1) purple patch reduces your tohit debuffs, and 2) there are situations where you have to take hits without from undebuffed enemies (speedruns, Lambda warehouse/lab, fighting over the aggro cap etc.)

I JUST started playing a Dark/ Defender in the last few months and am a big, fat fan. I paired mine with /Rad to compliment the multiple debuffs Dark/ already brings to the table (also havent played Rad within the last few years). I went Dark Mastery and its currently sitting at 62% +recharge and at 30% defense to all except Psi, 24%. I pop a small purple and jump into melee, not much touches me in addition to Darkest Night doing its job.

Solo it does great damage, especially with Aim/Soul Drain combo...teamed it does great with debuffs and a monster AOE heal. Im not sure why it took me so long to play a Dark/ but it was a fun ride and still is at this point for TFs.

/Rad allows for the addition of a slew of procs like damage and Achilles' Heel: Chance for Resistance Debuff IO. I havent done Dark Blast in awhile, but sure you could add some items to beef up your damage output.

It may be that the problem isn't the set, but the build and tactics.

For the build, I'd go something like the following with either MU for SLE resist, or Power for Force of Nature Tier 9.
Edit: Scratch Burnout.

You may, or may not, also get more mileage from a Dark/Dark, with the immobilize keeping your toggle from running.

Defensively you'll be just shy of the soft-cap with a small luck. Medium luck will soft-cap you, large luck Incarnate cap. Vengeance will also incarnate-cap you. Just make sure someone else dies first, then go crazy. With soft-cap backed by resists to SLEN and massive healing you should be very very difficult to take down. All of that before your debuffs. Add the debuffs and the trial should be come trivial.

As for tactics, that can vary, but generally speaking I'd open with Fearsome stare -tohit slotted, followed by DN and TT (if it's a dark/dark). That opening will vary from mob to mob, play style to playstyle. Take on some harder missions solo until you find what's most efficient for you.

For herding or pulling I'd open with DN while moving backwards so that it hits after I'm out of range, then drop a Tar PAtch and pull the targets into it. After they clump up nice and cozy in the Tar Patch I hit them with Fearsome Stare -tohit slotted, and TT (if dark/dark). If you're not Dark/DArk, then instead of TT you just start blasting.

If you go Dark/Dark I'd say fight +2x8 no bosses. If you go Dark/Sonic, I'd say go +3x4 or +4x2 with bosses. For Dark Blast, you want hordes of easy targets, for Sonic Blast you want less hordes and more hard targets. Other blast sets vary as well, you'll want to match your difficulty to not just the primary, but also the secondary.

You should be able to adapt the below build to which ever blast set and patron/APP you like.


Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.952
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

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Burnout only affects primary and secondary powers. I got burnt by that already. :|