How do YOU slot Dark Servant?

Having trouble deciding, so what IOs do you put in it and why...?

Thanks for sharing.

I think answers are going to vary with the amount of slots one allocates.

On my Dark/Sonic/Leviathan whose slots are tight I have Fluffy slotted with

One Lysosome HO, one Endoplasm HO, one generic level 50 THD IO and one generic level 50 heal IO.

My Necro/Dark Mastermind uses a full set of Lockdown. Does this make fluffy a hold spamming crowd control machine? No, not really, but I wanted the ranged and AoE defense bonuses.

My Dark/Dark Defender uses Cloud Senses for the recharge and defense bonuses, which is probably the more practical choice, in spite of being a level 30 set. To-hit debuffs and high defenses are an effective combo that I try to maximize with Dark Miasma.

I have to find a reason to NOT slot Cloud Senses, that's my default, 4-6 slot.

4-slot Cloud Senses (making sure one of them is the damage proc).

Going for soft-capping: 6-slot Siphon Insight for the 3.7% Defense for S/L/AoE and the 1.88% Defense for Cold/Fire/Melee. This also hits ED capping for -ToHit for Fluffy so he's a virtual Tanker.

I go with either Cloud Sense or Siphon Insight based on what I need defense wise or the recharge bonus. Either way your getting a hit debuff over 40 as well.

Accurate tohit debuff is the way to go for sure. I would use those sets even if fluffy only had one power, Chill of the Night, that could use it. From my recollection, fluffy's Chill of the Night is the second strongest persistent -tohit AoE right behind hurricane.

The other nice thing about the Accurate ToHit Debuff sets is that they effect almost all of its powers. Pets' powers only inherit enhancement values (and procs) from sets that could be slotted into those powers.

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.

-120 tohit debuff will bring you nothing useful. mobs without debuff resistance will die anyway, mobs with tohit resistance will be capped somewhere by 30-40%.

so, what can fluffy do?
1. -tohit. hardly worth the effort. all dark skills have -tohit anyway. darkest night -20, fearsome stare -13, twilight -5. and even base -tohit on all fluffy skills are 2x -30 and 2x -5. that more then enough to do the job.
2. hold. 2-3 sec longer hold is nothing useful too.
3. heal. now we talking business. 238.81 unsloted, twice the number if sloted. other healing skillsets dream about such numbers.

therefore 5 touch of the nictus and one recharge reduction.

K, enjoy your healbot. You'll be needing it.

4-6 slot cloud senses. Accurate to-hit debuff is king in fluffy.

The heal is just icing on the cake; good to have but you can't count on it.

There is no wrong way to slot it but not getting hit trumps a heal any day. Especially when you are getting healed whether you are getting hit or not...

I hadn't thought about how much to-hit debuff he throws out, so thanks for making me re-think Fluffy!

Yeah, Chill of the Night is excellent. I always advise anyone looking for Dark Servant slotting advice to max out the ToHitDebuff aspect first since 1) it's very strong on the Dark Servant and 2) he's always doing it. Slot for heal or hold if you have room left over after you max out the debuff.

Twilight Grasp is a powerful heal and it's nice to have a pet that can use it along with yours, but as others have said you can't control when or how often Fluffy will use the heal, so slotting predominantly or exclusively for heal is not the best approach in my estimation. I don't prioritize slotting on the hold for the same reason - sure, in theory I could stack holds with Fluffy, but he may not use Gaze when I want him to. That said I usually try to spare the slots to put at least one set IO in to partially enhance the healing as I'm fond of resummoning Fluffy in the middle of mobs to help out a struggling Tanker or Brute. Even then, Chill of the Night is likely more helpful than the heals.