Dark is solid control and really not far behind plant in aoe control, in some aspects I'd say it is better. Many people don't like the umbral beast pet - that's the biggest draw back for it I'd say. I don't play with sounds on so I'm not bothered by the dog.
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I play with Pandora or Spotify on so sounds are a non issue to me. Does fear break easy or am I doing something wrong? I have a low level dark/ma on beta and it seems like things randomly break out of fearsome stare (i think that's the name), shoot me, and then go back to being feared.
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Originally Posted by MikeRobe
Dark is solid control and really not far behind plant in aoe control, in some aspects I'd say it is better. Many people don't like the umbral beast pet - that's the biggest draw back for it I'd say. I don't play with sounds on so I'm not bothered by the dog.
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Hiruko --Scrapper lvl 50-- katana/regen
Dream Demon--Up and coming MFWarshade
How is it slotted? If you attack them, they get a chance to shoot back but it is delayed. I have a fear proc in mine so I do damage - this allows them to shoot back at me when I fear them and they get hit by the proc. Fear is an odd control but it is powerful. It lasts longer than "hard" controls and the spawns are heavily debuffed when they can attack back.
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That's WAI. Fear is a soft mez, and mobs will attack less often but will still return fire when attacked. Fearsome Stare is still good because it's an AoE -tohit with decent debuff values, so even if things keep attacking at the same rate (and they don't) they're less likely to hit you anyway.
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Originally Posted by nicoliy
I play with Pandora or Spotify on so sounds are a non issue to me. Does fear break easy or am I doing something wrong? I have a low level dark/ma on beta and it seems like things randomly break out of fearsome stare (i think that's the name), shoot me, and then go back to being feared.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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On my dark/dark dom I found the most reliable method of controlling a mob was to fear them, then move in and fire off the PBAoE stun, heart of darkness. While the to hit debuff in the fear is nice, and slotting to hit debuff in fearsome stare is a better strategy than slotting for fear duration, its not quite enough mitigation on a squishy character like a dominator. |
Originally Posted by nicoliy
I play with Pandora or Spotify on so sounds are a non issue to me. Does fear break easy or am I doing something wrong? I have a low level dark/ma on beta and it seems like things randomly break out of fearsome stare (i think that's the name), shoot me, and then go back to being feared.
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Solo, at higher levels my general tactic was to get in range so fearsome stare would hit all the mobs in the group, fear them, then move into point blank range, fire off gather shadows -> heart of darkness -> engulfing darkness. That way gather shadows buffs both the stun duration on HoD and the damage on engulfing darkness. I would then follow up with single target attacks until HoD was up, hit it again and continue until done.
At lower levels, when the stun was not up often enough I stuck to smaller groups, feared them, then used the single target confuse and hold as necessary.
Dark control/dark assault suffers from two problems on a dominitor. First, the to hit debuffs area lot lower than they are on other AT's that get debuffs like this - dom's have pretty much the worst debuff modifiers in the game. Second, except for fearsome stare all the debuffs are very short duration. Living shadows debuff is only 8s long and the debuff in heart of darkness lasts only 10s. All the debuffs in dark assault last 8s or less except for midnight grasp, which is a decent 20s duration - but its also only single target.
The upshot is that you are not going to stack up as much debuff as a corruptor/controller would so you need to either lock as much down as you can, build for defense of some kind, make sure you can heal back the damage you take or some combination of those 3. My solution was to build for a reasonable amount of smashing/lethal defense (I think I hit about 33%) and to take both life drain as well as hoarfrost from the ice mastery pool so I have a HP boost and a heal. Until then my dark/dark dom felt a lot squishier than my plant or earth dom did even with perma dom.
Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13
I agree a dark/dark is not the best; I tried one of these and a dark/psi when I first got dark control. dark/psi is waaaaay better than dark/dark (for me)
As a poster mentioned above, the fear in Dark can be hampered by the DoT nature of Fire. Both sets are great in their own right but have you considered Fire/Dark? I feel the sets have more synergy than the inverse. Also consider that the Presence Pool is getting a serious boost in I24. The PBAoE fear wont be as good as Fearsome Stare (it lacks the -tohitdebuff that FS carries) but it's going to be ALOT better and PBAoE is where Fire/Dark likes to live. Smoke carries a modest -tohitdebuff if your worried about that sort of thing.
So some of the things you give up for Fire Control can be mitigated, others like the confuse cannot be. But don't dwell on what you're losing so much as what you gain. Damage! And lots of it. Dark assault has power melee attacks that hit hard and you'll be better able to leverage them while you're up close and personal cooking mobs with Hot Feet. It's a sizable DoT aura that makes up about 28% of my Fire/Darks overall damage. Imps, while mildly wild and dangerous to you (they aggro quickly) are more of a threat to your enemies.
Perhaps the greatest bonus you'll notice with fire is the new and improved BONEFIRE w/-KB-Proc. This one is a real game changer, evenafter the great proc nerf of 12'. Instead of being an "I win button" it is now Fire's version of Ice Slick (only better because it does good AoE damage as well as controlling mobs). That's something Dark Control CAN'T give you.
So to review qucikly, Fire Control/Dark Assault gives you equal if not better control options with Bonefire Proc, far superior damage output, a fast pace knuckle clenching playstyle and with issue 24, a great way to keep FEAR in your build. I'm not taking anyting away from Dark Control/Fire Assault. It can be a beast in the right hands. For my money however, Fire/DA is the Bee's knees. And whatever you choose, I wish you the very best in your endevours.
When there is no room left in Hell, the Dead shall walk the earth.
So with my water blaster project almost complete, I am planning out my I24 follow up. This time I will be making an expensive Permadom of some flavor. I've narrowed it down to two options, but don't know which to pick (I like both concepts).
My choice is between Plant/Thorn or Dark/Martial Assault. As far as goals go, I want to control/lock-down spawns and then, well dominate them. This is PVE only and should be both great on large, challenging spawns solo and useful in itrials.
With all that said, what are the pros and cons of the choices I'm looking at. All I really know is that Plant as a primary is king. Is Dark that far behind plant in control performance?
Does anyone have any suggestions or insights on the two choices (I know MA isn't out, but I like the feel based on my beta testing).
Thanks for any help you can offer.
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Hiruko --Scrapper lvl 50-- katana/regen
Dream Demon--Up and coming MFWarshade