Single target damage for a dark/dark?

Heya, As a dark/dark Aff Controller, i pretty much destroy everything in AOE, but i lack any solid damage outside of pets and fire ball/blast spamming,

Am i better off sticking to this or would replacing my single target hold (Which i can only afford to keep a single slot in) with the immobilize be worth it?


Oh, and once mids is updated i am probably going to make a dark/dark guide, So i need all the info i can get for different play-styles ya?

Shadowy Binds (the ST immob) and Dark Grasp (the ST hold) do almost exactly the same amount of damage. However, the ST immob animates faster and recharges faster, making it more spammable. The downside to Shadowy Binds, however, is that it's a DoT, but that's not a big deal against hard targets like bosses and AVs.


I'm not sure what's up with your build that you've only got 1 slot in Dark Grasp. If you're using that to help you control bosses anyway, adding a couple slots of damage will give you a significant boost. If you're not using Dark Grasp that much as it is, though, Shadowy Binds will do more DPS for the same level of slot investment.

Your absolute best ST DPS though will come from Shadowy Binds slotted for good acc and max damage.

Note that Haunt also does a lot of DPS and only has to be cast once every minute or two, depending on recharge. Make sure you've got it slotted for damage.

A build that only puts one slot in the single target hold would be questionable in my book. Controllers should, uh, control. The ST Hold is a key control power. It can be slotted for damage (and I do slot it for damage), but its main purpose is control.

Yes, the Immob does a little bit more damage, but the control is much worse. If you plan to solo, I agree that it is a great idea to add the single target Immob to your build.

I'd be curious about your build if you can't fit in more slots for the Single Target Hold and even fit in the single target Immob, too.

Oddly enough, I'm one of those folks who doesn't support the current trend to turn Controllers into super-duper damage machines. I prefer my controllers to focus on control and support. If I wanted to make a damage dealer, I would pick a different AT. There's nothing wrong with making a controller into a damage dealer, if that's what you want to do, but I'm kind of a purist. So, if that's what you want to do, just ignore me . . .

On the other hand, I do have a few of my controllers who are designed to maximize damage, and those usually take the single target Immob (if available).

A Dark/DAff's ST damage largely comes from the ST hold, ST immob and Haunt post teens IMO. The shades do almost as much dmg as you do, and there are two of them

I would also NEVER 1 slot your ST hold, it's an absolutely key power in any controller build. I would and have slotted it for both hold and DMG though. I tend to focus on controlling the whole area (-ToHit to floor their acc) and using Possess as my primary ST control (using it to keep all LT's confused.) while using the ST hold to lock down the boss while the haunts help me beat him down. Once my new pal "Mrs. O'Leary" gets slotted out and her AI is changed from Defensive so that she actually attacks something that isn't doing dmg to me or herself :: roll eyes :: that should help too.

Arg

Whatever you do, put some slots in ST hold.

As for the ST damage, im pretty happy with it. Usually St Hold - Fireblast - AoE inmob (I dont have the ST one) does the trick. With haunts and umbra, even purple bosses melt fast enough. Helps if you focus on them while aoeing the minions

Oh trust me, i wanted to slot it, The build is just a tad bit too tight right now. I'll post it once mids finally gets updated


EDIT

Here's my build. Recharge and ranged defense are the IO sets i want.

Sorry for the large image and double post, but the build is built around the upcoming buffs to fade and soul absorbtion.

Some quick things that comes to my minds with your screenshots:
- Remove the recharge from fireball
- remove the 2 slows from Tar Patch
- Controller ATO in Fearsome Store makes me cry. FS begs you for tohit debuff enhancements. Put the ATOs in the stun
- I left my Soul Absorption and Fade just one slotted, they seem fine with that
- knock protection zephyr into super jump
- If you still need more slots, shadow field works fine with 4basilisk + lockdown proc, TG is fine with 3 slots...

Hope this helps

Here's the direction I took my dark/time. I would call my single target damage pretty excellent and most of it comes from dark/ and from /fire so I think it's fairly comparable. Now, several things:

Pull the will of the controller proc out of living shadows and replace it with cloud senses. Yes, the cloud senses proc is hard to get on the market, but you can just buy it with merits if you need to. Having done that, for goodness sake put another slot into possess and another slot into wherever you put your will of the controller set. For two slots you're passing on 10% ranged defense. Not a good trade! Incidentally, I strongly agree with others who say that -tohit and fearsome stare go together like Dr. Pepper and trout. Shadow field is a great place for will of the controller in its entirety and if you wanted to keep lockdown you could find a way to slot dark grasp more.

I would drop one of the slots from tar patch. Well actually I'd drop two, but if you want to keep two recharge in it then lose the slow but add an impeded swiftness proc.

Red fortune and thunderstrike are questionable in a purpled build. Thunderstrike makes some sense if you want the ranged defense, but if you're only five slotting red fortune just drop it entirely and slot shadow fall with three or four lucks of the gambler. I would also consider saving a couple slots on umbra beast: he is a good source of damage, but I found that in the end the extra slot for the soulbound proc didn't seem quite as competitive as more damage procs in spammables.

So, on to single target damage. Yes, you want to have shadowy binds and fire blast. Depending on the circumstance, I either alternate those two or throw in dark grasp as well. Even on a monster recharge build SB-FB-repeat is gappy but I feel like when I don't need the hold it seems to do slightly better DPS. Haunt is theoretically part of the ST chain yet I feel like I get better results when I instruct them to kill one boss and I focus on another boss, in terms of spawn clearing. Against a single hard target when you can bring all of it to bear, though, it definitely gets pretty hurty.

This is all, like, my opinion, man, but it would drive me nuts not to have at least two reliable, single target "blast" type powers and the nice thing about shadowy binds is that it does a lot more than just damage.

Skipping living shadows basically came down to the fact that /time gets something even better: distortion field. It's like baby's first shadow field in that it is far worse at holding enemies and instead of -tohit it slows movement, but that isn't the whole story. The whole story is that it's autohit and you can keep two of them out at once for five proc chances each. If something is foolish yet sturdy enough to sit in my distortion field for forty seconds after casting, it will have twenty five procs rolled against it. All that for one cast of one power with a twenty foot radius. Where damage is concerned it just blows living shadows away. Having said that, I do not establish containment as easily as many controllers, nor do I keep spawns locked in place. Dark/anything other than time should by all means use living shadows as its proc dispenser instead.

My new build, A few notes


Immobolize is slotted with gravitational anchor due to the fact that i can chain the hold and fireblast relatively easily, and it makes a good setup for containment.

i am still unsure about umbra and the shade's slotting, they are Perma however.

There are 5 slots in posi in fireball and full thunderstrike in fire blast. I will probably end up getting a set of apocalypse and eventually put it in the ST immobilize, but right now i'm broke. Also, i would like to know if i should change the slotting of any of my secondaries, i will probably keep the slotting of the primaries as they just "Seem" right to me.

How are you liking all the procs in the immob?

Keep in mind that fade and soul absorption are being reworked. At the moment fade is set to become 9.38% def (all), 9.38% res s/l/neg/psi, 60s duration, 210s recharge. Soul absorbsion will will have a large upfront bonus to +rec/+reg, a higher target cap with smaller bonuses per target, work on living things as well as dead ones, 45s duration 160s recharge.
Very tempting to perma them!

edit: So I found out that the ATO procs get a reduced proc rate when put in an aoe, making living shadows a bad choice for it. Going to need to rethink my build a bit... How is the ATO proc in shadow field working? Does it have a 100% chance to go off every 10s?

Looks good to me, DarkBlaster. I hope it hits the notes you were after.

Vimes, I haven't done any specific testing or anything but in my experience it seems like the will proc essentially just works like a standard proc in shadow field. It tends to hit some but not all of a spawn when you drop it, and after that it's hard to tell since I usually hit the display limit on overhead numbers pretty rapidly between all the other procs, dots, heals and teammates. I certainly wouldn't say it appears to substandard.

Due to the recent patch, im probably going to sell the luck of the gamblers in shadowfall and end up putting some recharge IOS in fade to make it close to perma

And a further note, most of the builds except the latest one accounted for the buffs, dark/dark is ungodly tight o.o