Dark Astoria the Hard Way

What about something simple, like Spring Attack as an opener? That mass knockdown might help diffuse (or at least taper) Alphas, and give you a second or two to grab the targets you want (while also consistently putting you right where you want to be in the middle of packs.

I tried to solo Praetor Sinclair (AV version) from Take Control of Imperial City? The mission from Belladona's arch in Night Ward. He kicked my SS/FA/Dark's butt (actually didnt killed me really but I cant find a way to kill him).

Melee Radial can Taunt, if you can leverage the taunt. However, rebuilding as brute would likely be better; Taunt AND Core.

CoF was better as a Brute than CoF as a scrapper, unless that's been changed ("fixed") since i9.

Hey. I know next to nothing about the Incarnate stuff yet, but do Hybrid or Interface proc on damage auras? Specifically I'm thinking of Hybrid Control and Spectral Interface.

I'm pretty sure that at least Reactive Interface procs in damage auras. I'm pretty sure that I can set groups on fire by merely wading into them. I assume that it gets a chance to proc every 10 seconds like any other proc in a toggle, but haven't measured it.

So with (random example) Kat/Dark/Dark Spectral Core Interface Control Radial Hybrid, assuming the toggle is up you'd have a cone Immob (with a 70% chance to stack another immob), a fear aura, a stun aura, and a damage aura which fears and immobilizes and stuns every feared and immobilized enemy in range once/10s? Also all your attacks would have a chance to fear, two chances to immobilize, and a 100% chance to stun feared/immobilized targets...

Of course, I don't know the duration or magnitude of the Control stun, which is pretty important here.

To avoid the entire taunt aura can of worms and simply respond to the first post, do you have anything against breaking line of sight? That is basically a sure-fire cure for DA woes. My staff/elec found that very same Dream Doctor mission to be surprisingly brutal and my post-mortem opinion was that it was my own stupid fault for not immediately abandoning the pets. Their idiocy encouraged me to tackle more than one spawn at a time and when you're dealing with six or more various BP bosses it usually isn't going to go well. Well-timed retreat is a great antidote for that.

Even when you're alone, though, it works wonders against multi-sorrow spawns. As another poster suggested it can be easiest to start from the lieutenants and work up to the bosses, but as far as I'm aware none of us were ever forced to sign a contract to the effect that we'd be standing in the middle of the spawn for the entire fight. Kill a couple lieuts, find some cover so debuffs can wear off, take out a boss, find some more cover, finish the last ancient of sorrow and mop up the rest. It may not be the fastest method, but on the other hand it can indeed be faster than recovering from a death.

So I was finally able to get on and spend some quality time with the Banished Pantheon at +4 x8.

First, it's not really +4. I have my setting maxed, but I am at +3 due to my incarnate powers. That really waters down the challenge. I find that tip missions at +4 x8 are much harder than DA missions. But then they don't give Incarnate rewards.

The most important thing when fighting this group is to get *out* of the fields they drop, particularly the lightning field. The frost field is severe but easy to see. If you jump into a group and you are in a lightning field you have only a short time to get out of the field before you are dead. This kills me faster than defense debuff.

My typical spawn: Pull with Laser Beam Eyes, hop back around line of sight, kill the mask minions that appear first because they are so fast. One LBE or a small kick will one shot them, and the radiation masks are disproportionately dangerous. If I can get the spawn to group at the corner I can hit Focus Chi and Shield Charge. That will clear all the minions and Lts. Then I just kill the bosses. If it's double radiation bosses I might have to kite and Aid Self one or two more times.

If Ion is up the process is much easier. That will kill off all the minions and severely damage the Lts. I can then jump up and finish the Lts, kite around the corner and Aid Self, and then hop back in to finish the bosses. You have to start kiting early - when you are at 2/3 health - because you have to survive the DoT damage to use Aid Self.

I use Rebirth so when that's up I have more staying power. The heal is bigger, I can use it with the DoT damage, and the early Regen is very good.

I can see why you'd have problems. Your build is a bad one for this kind of group because you can't kite. Your heal requires multiple targets so you can't break line of sight and heal up and, if I recall correctly, you don't have a ranged attack to pull with. That must be annoying. Since you skipped your big attacks you also lack knockdown.

How is your damage? One thing that helps is I can one shot minions, 2 shot Lts. and take out a 54 boss in four or five attacks. This helps when kiting since I can eliminate a strung out spawn almost as fast as they come around the corner. I also have a mini nuke with Shield Charge that has good mitigation which you lack.

If I did this on my Katana/Dark scrapper I think I'd slot up Energy Torrent with the new anti-knockdown set. Not only would that give you excellent mitigation that wouldn't scatter the enemies, but the extra 4 points of knockback protection doesn't suck for your build. You could pull a group, hop back to a corner, and do a massive knockdown to open before you jump in. By the time the enemies got back up your fear should lock them down and you can throw your heal in relative safety.

Was linked to this thread from another thread in the AT/Powers section.

Just so you know, I have kind of taken notice of your builds in the past and have had them shape other characters of mine.

That said, kudos. Although things being in yellow-red make me feel if I can fight these guys at +2/x8, I have the potential to achieve the same +4 with level shifts, it's still a feat none the less. One I have never done in the DA content.

But watching those videos, I have to say I absolutely *hate* your build

I couldn't stand playing a katana character with only Divine Avalanche, Sting, Gamblers and Lotus as my only frontal attacks. Oh man, how you can stand punching those same attacks with little variety is beyond me >_>

Also, the character feels functionally weak. Without abilities to knock the foe back (I noticed in several instances at the beginning, where mobs were out of your reach or running away, knockback would have made you seem less putzy trying to deal with it) or even presence (not the pool) to keep them attacking you, it took away from some sense of bad***ery characters of that caliber tend to have.

But if you're going for basic attacks that don't move the target like Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly, why not make your Katana a Stalker? Sub in Lotus for Flashing and stick Assassin's Blade in there. Since you're primarily ST anyway, that would quickly eat through those tough targets.

I need to reply to more of your comments and to more people in more detail, but...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leo_G But watching those videos, I have to say I absolutely *hate* your build

Yeah, I totally understand. I'm an attack chain minimalist, which also equates to boring. It does FEEL week playing it both due to lack of knockdown and lack of DPS. Sure, it gets the job done (except that it didn't), which is most of what I care about, but it gets the job done in kind of the lamest, most boring way possible. I'm OK with that, but I understand exactly why you and perhaps most people would hate it.

And there's little reason for it. Set bonuses and such are almost as good with the regular attacks. If I can come up with a good chain with just Golden Dragonfly, I might do that. Otherwise, I'll probably go back to my old standby of DA GC GD GC DA GC SD GC. It's a bit iffier when stacking Divine Avalanche, but it allows for a lot more variety. Want to shorten it under 10 seconds to keep the double stack? DA GC GD DA GC SD. Need more Damage? DA GC GD GC SD GC. Need lots of damage? Well, I probably won't have the recharge on Katana/Dark, but GC GD GC SD.

And I'm leveling up as a Brute right now. It'll take a while, but the equivalent on a Brute build wouldn't have nearly as much running.

And I'm thinking Water Spout (Edit: Well, for Scrapper. Not sure what to do with Brute since that's not an option.), even if Energy Torrent would require fewer build changes. I'm thinking 45 degrees just won't be enough, particularly when I get nailed down in ice patches. Water Spout's chaos would probably make things a bit more interesting.