Dark Assault?

I looked back a few pages, but didn't see any threads that looked like they contained what I was looking for (or at least not in the first few pages of the thread). My question is fairly simple, though: do we know what Dark Assault looks like in terms of power choices yet?

I think the only thing we know for certain is that it has Gather Shadows (which is a self-buff that does +Dmg and +Special, like a combination of Build Up and Power Boost) and Life Drain.

Thanks for that, Snow.

Combine that knowledge with some common sense, and we're likely looking at something like this, right?

Tier 1: Dark Blast
Tier 2: Shadow Punch
Tier 3: Smite
Tier 4: Gloom
Tier 5: Gather Shadows
Tier 6: (Dark Consumption or Shadow Maul?)
Tier 7: Life Drain
Tier 8: (Night Fall or Tenebrous Tentacles?)(Hopefully not Moonbeam)
Tier 9: Midnight Grasp

Well Dark Consumption is in Soul Mastery so it won't be repeated. I also hope Moonbeam isn't in. Out of those multiple choices I'd say Shadow Maul and Night Fall but I suspect Death Shroud will be one of the powers.

Well, Dark Assault was mentioned as a mix of powers from Dark Blast, Dark Melee and Dark Armor. The only power from Dark Armor that makes sense would be Death Shroud.

Also, every Assault set who's theme has a sniper (Fire/Electric/Psi/Energy), gets the sniper. Moonbeam is, sadly, very likely to be in the set.

So, given that my prediction is:

Dark Blast
Smite
Gloom
Shadow Maul/Night Fall
Gather Shadows
Life Drain
Moonbeam
Death Shroud
Midnight Grasp

Which means it'll have fairly poor AoE, but they may be considering that the trade off for having a self heal.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

I don't think it'll get Dark Blast at level 1. Elec Assault gets Charged Bolts, Fiery Assault gets Flares... they don't get the really solid blasts until their 3rd or 4th power pick.

turns out i'm not that familiar with dark blast lol, my bad

I'm concerned about the lack of a true PB AoE attack. Mostly a blast set with only 2 punches and one of those is lvl 38.

So attack chain is going to be 2 ST blasts, 1 cone and 1 punch during early levels.

Moonbeam at 20?? No thanks. Either early or late for snipes, so you can take/leave it, not mid-career.

Could be some slow leveling, but I need to test this.

This needs fixing.

Having 35 and 38 both being instrumental must-have powers that define your single-target exploits chokes out late-game power choices.

I'm not on the beta forums, but I'd advocate:

Dark Blast
Smite
Gloom
Nightfall
Gather Shadows
Midnight Grasp
Life Drain
Moonbeam
Death Shroud

I'm not wild about Nightfall, but by concentrating the powers at the last two slots chokes out your chances for taking all five patron powers, which is why they bothered to give us patrons at 35. 35 and 38 should be optional and nice, they shouldn't be effectively essential to smooth operation.

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Midnight Grasp is melee. Pair it with Soul Mastery and you have two PBAoEs alongside Heart of Darkness from Dark Control.

Well there's Dark Consumption in Soul Mastery too. I wasn't including Death Shroud as a PBAoE. Then there's Dark Obliteration... But none of those are in Dark Assault anyway, so every other Assault set benefits just as well.

I took a Mind/Dark up to level 10 today on Beta and I've found that it actually defeats things quite quickly and safely.

The power that concerns me the most is Death Shroud. I just can't picture myself standing in the middle of the crowd with that expensive, small radius toggle. I jump in and out too often to get the best of dot aura.

I really don't think dot aura is a well designed "attack" for dominator. It works well on tanker/brute because they run in and start gathering mobs while damaging them with aura.

They need to at least increase Death Shroud's radius IMO. 8' radius just doesn't cut it for me.

I guess Dark Assault is designed to have less aoe, just like Energy Assault. I just wish Night Fall has higher base damage and higher recharge so it hurts more when we use it, or else we'll be jumping back and forth too much like a rabbit.

Looking at the list, an all-range Dark Assault is definitely viable.

Well there goes any inclination for making a /dark assault dom.

Echoing my dissapointment in the lack of synergy between nightfall and deathshroud (powers I quite like when separate).

Also dissapointed that we ended up with moonbeam; I've never liked snipes. Figured it was a 50/50 chance we'd get it, guess we lost the toss.

I would highly suggest those that can both test and leave feedback in beta. The things like power order and/or replacement can only happen there, they tend to lock such things down afterwards. On the plus side, there are so many 'dark' power pre-made in the game that swapping them in would mean far less dev time than in the case of most sets.

My personal suggestions to the devs, as per the beta thread;

1. Dark Blast
2. Smite
3. Gloom
4. Nightfall
5. Gather Shadows
6. Chill of the Night,(CoT ghost -acc aura toggle power, also used by dark servant) -30% acc downgraded to -15%
   or
   Dark Pit, revamped to be a medium damage neg. nrg attack, but only a chance of a mag 2 stun.(mag 3 in Domination) Perhaps renamed to "Shadow Pit" or the like to avoid confusion.
7. Life Drain
8. Moonbeam
9. Midnight Grasp

1. Dark Blast
2. Smite
3. Gloom
4. Nightfall
5. Gather Shadows
6. Moonbeam
7. Life Drain
8. Chill of the Night(CoT ghost -acc aura toggle power) -30% acc downgraded to -15%, radius increased to 15 ft.
   or
   Dark Pit, revamped to be a medium damage neg. nrg attack, guaranteed chance of a mag 2 stun.(mag 3 in Domination) Perhaps renamed to "Shadow Pit" or the like to avoid confusion.
9. Midnight Grasp

I don't think the set is too bad really. It's just boring, especially at later levels.

Imagine a Dark/Dark/Soul Dominator.

Open with three cones; Fearsome Stare, Living Shadows and Night Fall. Cast Shadow Field and Haunt. Then you can use ranged blasts or run into melee where you can use Dark Consumption, Soul Drain and Heart of Darkness, follow up with Smite and Midnight Grasp. Meanwhile, the Shades are taking aggro and lowering to hit; Umbra Beast is causing fear and using its powerful-looking melee attacks and lowering to-hit. Basically, that's a lot of persistent to hit debuff.

I think Soul Mastery is the best option for Dark Assault because it has two PBAoEs and Dark Obliteration. Its lack of a defence armour isn't too crippling either because of the to-hit debuffs.

I think Dark Assault is like Electricity Assault - it's not that good but provides useful synergy when paired with the equivalent Control set. For Electric that's -Recovery, for Dark that's -To hit.

I planned on rolling a Dark/Dark dom when this set comes out, with my planned concept of a Lunar Dominator, with powers granted by the gods of the Moon. I've heard this set is weak for a dom set and I'm wondering would I be better off in terms of synergy if I went Dark/Psi instead. My play style with doms is to play from range mostly, tho, and I understand Psi is heavy with melee attacks.

So which would be better paired with Dark Control? Dark Assault or Psi Assault?

I like /Dark but I personally feel that it doesn't mix with the set as much as I wanted it to. Instead of Dark/Dark I'm going for Dark/Thorns.

I am curious on this matter too.Last news i heard was that they changed it a little,how's the set looking now? So far i have a /fire and /electric,the first hits really hard while electricity always feels weak to me. If you have tried /dark,how would you rate it damage-wise?