Shadow Maul cone...

Dark Melee has really drifted to the middle of the pack for single target damage. Even herding to inflate Soul Drain its single target DPS is not top tier. I am not seeing Siphon Life, as good as it is, making up for the set's utter lack of AoE.

Is there any chance we can see a buff to Shadow Maul's cone to make it equal to the cone used by Guarded Spin from the Staff set? Instead of a 45 degree cone with a 7 range make it a 90 degree cone with a 9 range. It won't be as good as the standard PBAoE, but at least Dark Melee will see some tolerable AoE from it.

Isn't the problem with Shadow Maul (and Dark Melee in general) more a "number of targets" problem than a "shape of cone" problem? I often get all five enemies in the cone...but five at a time is all Dark Melee ever gets.

It seems to me expanding it to up to 10 targets affected would be a more immediately useful change.

I dropped shadow maul a long time ago for my DM/SD build. The animation sequence is far to long for my tastes and can lock you down. As for single target damage issue. Even without soul drain saturated I am not having any issues, comparatively speaking. Midnight Grasp, Smite, Siphon Life, Smite, repeat works wonders. Long as you have enough recharge to run it smoothly.

Why do you need more AoE with DM/SD? After each Shield Charge there is no more mob to worry about. Just a boss or two, and maybe a lt or two who can easily be dispatched with a single strike after that. Soul Drain + Against all odds + Shield charge is the end of most mobs even at +4.

My shield charge is up every 24 seconds and soul drain is just shy of being perma with a 2 second gap.

Is it fair that DM get improved AoE? What other set directly gives you endurance (while doing damage) and buffs your damage for 30 seconds a pop (while also doing damage)?

If you want AoE damage it seems to me your best option comes from leveraging your defensive powerset and ancillary power pools. That's what I did on my DM/ElA/Sould Brute and taking down spawns is pretty simple.

Soloing Pylons is not the standard by which developers balance power-sets.

I don't have any trouble with AoEs when I have [Fire Ball]. Perhaps... get fire ball?

While AoE is very desirable these days, I think Dark Melee is balanced enough without having it in buckets. I see Dark as very much a self support attack set, you've got endurance management, a self heal, -tohit to enemies and a strong ST fear. The single target damage certainly feels higher than the average set and the fact it severely lowers downtime between groups and even adds to survivability in a fight (especially on a high recharge build) I feel makes up for the fact that, by itself, it can't just one shot every Minion in sight.

Dark Melee's strength doesn't lie in and of itself, but what it adds to your other powerset/s and the character's overall performance. Look at your secondary set and wonder what it would be like with no endurance problems and a small self heal added while paired up with a single-target focussed set. I for one like it paired with Regeneration, Shield and Fiery Aura and I know it's a powerhouse of survivability with Invulnerability and Energy Aura.

I hate having to do huge quote brackets that go on and on. So forgive me that I do not quote block anything for the response.

Toying with other sets I've found Dark Melee to be more than just good in ST damage than most other sets. Maybe we have a severe difference in play style and results.

Soul Drain is about 2 seconds shy of being permanent for my build. It along with Dark Consumption are both fabulous powers. As already explained by someone else. For being damage dealing attacks that also boost Damage/To-hit, or Endurance. They're great.

Shield charge is overpowered. This was said a lot even when it was not 'working as intended'. Then when it got 'fixed' people were going to swear off the set. None of this changes anything about Dark Melee. My experience is tainted? My first 50 was a Scrapper DM/Inv and had no issues. Once /SD came out I deleted that character for my DM/SD to fit my character concept more. My DM/Inv did exactly what he was built for. No die and deal great ST damage. Currently I am leveling up a DM/Inv Tanker who so far has had no issues for content with the exception of some end problems here and there. He still does not have dark consumption though. Both of them are excelling at what they are built for. ST damage and survivability.

What's gone on so far in this entire thread is without touching on every attack in DM giving a -to hit buff as well as well as damaging. One of which even heals you.

Slot Soul Drain with 5 armageddons and a to-hit buff L50+5 IO and slot Dark Consumption with 3 erads + 2 scirocco/multistrike (or 5 oblits) and a L50+5 endmod IO.

Shadow Maul is good...but those 2 are AoEs that hit far more targets and can be made to deal above average damage. There's more AoE in DM than most people think.

There have been some good counter points here. Some I can see, some I just don't understand.

~ The argument that Shadow Maul is fine because people skip it and get their AoE from outside sources baffles me. From what I can tell many people that are arguing against a change to the cone size don't actually take Shadow Maul in their builds. I honestly can't fathom or respond to this argument; I just don't get it.

~ The point that Dark Melee can leverage Soul Drain and Dark Consumption as AoEs is an interesting point. I understand the point, but I have a hard time considering powers with a 120 second recharge and 180 second recharge to be serious AoE damage dealers. In order to even use these every spawn you will need to be perma-Hasten, and even then Dark Consumption is up every 40 seconds.

At its best a Dark Melee scrapper enter a spawn and hit Soul Drain and then hit Dark Consumption. At that point you will have (assuming target cap) +150% damage for Soul Drain (50% base plus 10% per target up to 10 is Red Tomax City of Data is to be believed.)

Soul Drain hits for 55.05 + (55.05 * .96) = ~107
Dark Consumption hits for 68.82 + (68.82 * 2.46) = ~ 238

The total damage in this cycle is ~ 345.

A minion at level 50 has ~430 health not including resistance.

After this you'll be sitting on a spawn that has many minions at 90 health, Lts at 507 health and bosses at 2235 health.

At this point you will either be using Shadow Maul or you will be hitting everything else with single target attacks for the next 40 seconds or so. I am not seeing this as a legitimate AoE strategy. The only other option is to go outside the set for AoE. That's fine, but all sets can boost their AoE with that strategy so I can't really see using that argument against balancing this set.

(Edit: So assuming we hit Soul Drain again in 30 seconds, that will kill of the minion if they have no resistance. So if we then concentrate on hard targets we can clear a spawn this way and let Soul Drain finish the smaller stuff. Two points here, that strategy doesn't work if the spawn is +1 or higher or has any resistance to negative. It also leave you with a 30 second gap before you can use Soul Drain to damage the next spawn.)

~ The point that Dark Melee has great single target damage is fine, but I haven't been able to get exceptional single target from Dark Melee/Shield. Yes, I use the pylons to measure the DPS. Single target damage is great early, but once the fodder dies off the damage just drops off and the time to kill the last part of the pylon drops dramatically.

To respond to the person that says pylon times aren't important, I don't disagree. Single target damage is only good for hard targets and stupid scrapper tricks. We are, however, discussing the single target advantage that Dark Melee has over other sets and using the pylon to do that is simply a decent substitute for how the set will perform against hard targets.

~ The point that Dark Melee has a a lot of utility is a good one. Having a good endurance management tool in the primary is a big advantage. Having a heal in your attack chain is a great advantage. I am less excited about the ToHit debuffs which substantially drop off as opponents scale up, and most people I have seen skip Touch of Fear because the game tends to scale to a place where single target debuffs and soft controls that require DPS loss aren't really useful.

Is this utility enough to warrant Shadow Maul's small cone? I don't mean to sound like a jerk but I am still of the opinion that Shadow Maul could use a small buff in the form of a bigger cone.