skippable dark/dark powers?

Fear, unfortunately, doesn't set containment. Immobilizes, holds, stuns, and sleeps do.

Fearsome Stare is an excellent power I'd encourage you to work into your build. It's a 15% to hit debuff in addition to the Fear. I find it safer to open with than Mind's Terrify.

Yep, Fearsome Stare is your Alpha-B-gone move. I'd never remove it, it's the #1 AOE mez in the set. Plus ToHit Debuff IOs are relatively cheap and come with some nice bonuses.

You skipped three of the best powers in my opinion. Fearsome Stare is an essential control power - a great Alpha attack that neutralizes a full group while debuffing their To-Hit. Worry about Containment later after the entire group is controlled.

Possess? A Deceive/Confuse clone with a better animation that draws NO AGGRO so you can take foes out of the fight before it begins. Possess is wonderful for that straggler who is outside of your AoEs. My Illusion/Rad guide discusses all the great uses of Deceive, and that would apply to Possess, too.

And you skipped Haunt? A couple of pets who do pretty good damage and can be a great aggro puller?

I would consider these three powers to be staples of the Dark Control set.

My heart almost sunk when I read this!

I couldn't imagine what my survivability would be without FS. It's a must have on my farming fire/dark corr and my team built dark/ice and dark/dark defenders.

Sorry for the double post, But lets also not forget that, since possess has a quick animation, you can actually see yourself using it seriously in a combat situation without losing too much DPA

As you all see, I was still only level 42. At that point I did skip those powers I stated. Was always thinking of getting Fearsome Stare, but wasn't sure if it had room in my build, which is almost always built in preparation for level 50+. Atm, I'm level 45, and WILL be getting it at 47 (instead of Seismic Smash). As for possess, its great for those who don't mind skipping on a possible good drop. As for me, I'm greedy, plus I don't have room for another power.

Just wanted to clarify: Are you under the impression that you don't get drops from mobs that have had confuse/possessed mobs defeat them? Unless you're planning on doing ZERO damage to those mobs AFAIK that's simply not true. :-) As long as you are doing some form of AOE (spamming Living shadows with or without procs works GREAT for this), you most certainly DO get the drops as well as a highly disproportionate amount of the exp from the mob defeated/damaged by the possessed/confused mobs.

Seriously, Confusion based powers are the best thing for buffing your XP/inf/drops over time. Possess is one of the best powers in the set IMO. Having a single target confuse is a huge benefit, esp when you can use it to reposition trouble mobs (they will run over the the main body of the spawn to attack someone), turn buffing/debuffing mobs to your side etc.

Arg

This is truth. especially when leveling up. Confusing ruin mages, tsoo sorcerers, and other irritating mobs in invaluable at times.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Maybe you don't understand confuse powers and how they work. I suggest you take a look at my Illusion/Rad guide (link in my sig below) and the lengthy discussion about Deceive. I did my best to help folks understand how the power works and why skipping it is a bad idea.

As Argentae said, you will not miss out on drops from foes defeated by Confused foes unless you have done NO Damage whatsoever. As long as you do any damage, you get some amount of XP and drops from the foe defeated.

I'm curious why your build is so tight that you have trouble fitting in what I would consider essential powers.

Is the new mids out? My updater doesn't show it.

There's no harm in it if you're planning to team a lot. On an 8 man the trickle of single target DoT you're adding isn't anything to write home about.

If you find yourself soloing you'll go nuts though.

Just to make your life even more difficult : Seismic Smash is also an awesome power.

What are you spending your power choices on? Do you have a load of LOTG mules or something?

I have been working on a Dark/Dark, much of the time duo-ing with my buddy's Dark/Time 'troller. We've done a few TFs, and have also done missions just the two of us. Neither of us have the single-target Immob, but we both have the vet attacks.

While doing damage isn't fast, we've been doing fine, getting missions done in a reasonable time.

2 != soloing

I just find the lack of the immob very noticeable before I get the Epic blast on low damage controllers, even with the 2 Vet attacks.

I understand what you're saying, I'd like to have the ST immob for dmg when soloing, but it's really not needed as Dark/ really isn't a low damage controller at all. 6 slotted Haunt is a very high dmg power indeed.

I've leveled up Shadow-Fallen largely soloing, and some teaming with my kids and (vary occasionally with a PUG). My best xp tends to come from soloing missions. I just changed from +0/+5 to +1/+5 and really had no trouble clearing the mission. Even with all 3 Vet attacks I don't use them much on +1 and up mobs because of the accuracy issues. I HAD Tactics in the build, but swapped it out for Combat jumping so I could get the last LotG slotted.

I've found that by waiting until most of the minions are dead and THEN bringing in Haunt, the shades (maxed out for DMG) do an excellent job of helping me take down the LT's esp if they are all confused and beating on each other while I spam Living Shadows and pick one at a time to beat down with the ST hold.

If there's a boss in the spawn then I'll target Haunt on him before I start in on the spawn and they will pretty much keep him occupied while I lock down (FS + DN + Tar Patch + Living Shadows) the rest of the spawn.

I don't even have the Beastly Puppy yet and I'm having a blast soloing.

Arg

I was thinking the same thing...actually not knowing his build makes me want to claw my face lol. I want to help out...the build sounds...like it needs a few hits of Aid Other...or maybe Absorb Pain lol.

Or Clear Mind.

(I kid! I kid!)

Psssst........I was being a smart-aleck.

I have Ring of Fire on my Fire/Kin for use as a damage power.

Skipped Crush on my Grav/Time, and Illusion doesn't have one so that's a moot point.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

I know.

I figured that those worms which has been returned to their can from earlier in the thread could do with another yard break

That was wrong.

Funny!

But wrong.

Arg

This kind of caught my eye. Wondering why these 2 powers are looked at this way.

IMHO, the patch hold isn't that bad. Time Manipulation has a similar power. Granted, the Time Manipulation version has faster recharge. I've chosen to use it as a power to slot my controller AT IOs in. I figure it will let me slot more damage-oriented stuff in my other powers and the psi proc might give the hold patch a little damage.

As for Black Hole, I am not understanding why it is "garbage" when it seems like I have at least gotten it to perform decently for me as I have been testing out its usefulness to me.

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