Keep nearby enemies disoriented while you take continual damage for as long and you leave this Toggle on. Hmm… it drains endurance and it drains life at an alarming rate. When I took it on the test server, I found the power to work too slowly, in too small of an area, and drained life far too fast to really be useful.
Worst of all, you have to be in melee range which isn't the best place for a defender to be most of the time. If you take it, it will probably be situational at best and would combine well with the situations where you're hanging out just behind the tank spamming heals. That way, you're constantly healed and the enemies are kept under control.
Skip it unless your other powersets compensate for this power's deficiencies or you're ultra desperate to avoid Stalker strikes in PvP.
Dark Consumption
The ultimate irony. Sapping a Sapper :D
Score
3 of 5
Summary
You damage nearby enemies and gain endurance (more enemies = more endurance).
The range is fairly short which isn't a problem for a Dark Defender. The other interesting thing to note is that it appears that the programmers forgot to turn off the Critical effect on this power (since this power was primarily designed for scrappers). Sometimes when you use it, you'll do double damage just like a Scrapper.
The biggest problem is that you always want to hold the power for the "right time" and never end up using it. You have to remind yourself to just go for it and fire it as an attack at the end of your chain or use it in combination with your Nova to regain endurance rapidly.
How to Use
Unslotted Strength
179% of Brawl
Run into melee range, launch it, then retreat. If you're already in melee range because you're soloing or shadowing a Tank/Scrapper, just launch it whenever it comes up. You can always use more endurance, but more importantly, it's an AoE attack that's almost twice as strong as brawl unenhanced.
Slotting
Slotting Priority
> = |
Waiting 6 minutes between uses sux. Give it 80%+ for an ~ 3 minute wait time instead.
It has to hit to work so give it at least 30%
Unslotted endurance recovery is a little weak. Give it as much as you can though 30% or better should be pretty easy with Set IOs
Well... You could enhance damage, but it seems pretty pointless for a power you can only use every 3 minutes at best.
Dark Embrace
Damage resistance. Finally!
Score
4 of 5
Summary
A nice and welcome shield against major forms of damage (smashing, lethal, toxic, and negative energy). The resistance begins at ~25% so becomes significant with a few enhancements. By adding this to your arsenal, you get critical resistance to the most common forms of damage (lethal and smashing), and, most importantly, you will now have resistance and defense against all forms of damage in the game! Assuming you have Shadow Fall from the Dark Miasma set of course.
It's kind of hard to see the armor in the picture… I wonder if I had my graphics turned down.
Slotting
Slotting Priority
> =
Shoot for 50%+ The more, the better.
It's already fairly low so don't sweat it, but take any reduction you get from Set Bonuses.
It only takes 4 seconds to come back after it drops, so not a huge priority.
Soul Drain
Damages them, gives me accuracy and increased damage... Nice.
Score
5 of 5
Summary
Whee! Hit everything around you with decent damage, but gain damage potential and increased accuracy for each one you hit! I use this with my dark scrapper as well, and it's very powerful.
How to Use
Damage from Activating Soul Drain
224% of Brawl
A great combo is to fire powers continuously until you start running out of endurance, hit Dark Consumption to gain End back, then Soul Drain to do damage and gain accuracy and damage potential. It's a great way to keep the battle going strong .
I glow with power for as long as the soul drain is in effect.
It's easy to make the same mistake with this as is done with Dark Consumption, but there's no reason to hold it. Use it whenever you can during a battle and definitely before starting an attack chain. First of all, it's a fairly strong attack, and second all your next attacks have a damage and accuracy bonus.
Increased Damage (per target target hit)
12.5%
Increased ToHit (per target target hit)
5%
Slotting
Slotting Priority
> > |
2 minute recharge by default. Give it 80%+ for reuse every minute or so.
It has to hit to work so give it at least 30%. Note that by the time I got this power, I had enough that I didn't need to slot any accuracy to get 30%+.
Lower it if you can because the activation cost is pretty high. 30%+ preferred.
You've already got tons of accuracy and the default ToHit Bonus is plenty. No need to take it further.
You're not firing this off for the attack so don't waste your slots. By the time you get this, you won't have a lot of slots to spare.
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