csr

Wait... doesn't the chance to proc get divided by the Area Factor? [Edit:] Looking over my builds in Mids' the change results in exactly one CotS being left in my 140+ character builds. Paired with an Entropic Chaos in Mesmerize for a Mind/TA Controller build.

Assist works, it just doesn't work well solo as the Galvinic Sentinel won't hold aggro over you if you're attacking. So you'll soon have the foes targeting you, and assist with ally-targeting powers doesn't work if they're targeting you, since you're not an ally. You can however assist the GS and use it to choose targets for your attacks, as opposed to using assist for your buffs. This will be sub-optimal, since the pet AI is poor at choosing targets, but it works better than having to re-target all the time. A combination of this and attacking normally with a bind to switch back to the pet for assist-through-pet seems to work best solo.

My only feedback from my most recent testing is just a re-iteration of what others have said: I don't like having to switch to targeting the pet while fighting. If only you could assist through foes when they are targeting you instead of a teammate...

I'd say Domination is the main cast-while-mezzed power. Add Kuji-In Rin and Inner Will to the list as well. And I believe Indomitable Will from the APPs (Controllers and Dominators) can also be cast while mezzed. There are actually quite a few of them. (And should be a few more, as I think all the "classic" T9s from Armor sets should be cast-while-mezzed.)

To get an idea of why it's a bug, go on Live and eat a red pill before casting Fade and see what it does to your +Res from the power. Now imagine what Fulcrum Shift does to it.

The phrase "Each successive jump along the chain will [...] the next target for less" in each of these powers is no longer true and may be misleading. Something simple such as "The first two targets receive stronger X" still misses by a bit, but is closer to the truth.

Except it's actually two powers - Soul Drain then Dark Equilibrium - and the first of those has a long cast time. So you're talking about 3-1/2 seconds as is. Please take that into account on the DoT duration.

Indeed, I thought about doing some runs myself. But I think 4 or 5 would be my limit. The number you've done is beyond me. The next time I log to test DM I'll try to sneak in a practice run at the least, though I think it needs more like 3 practice runs minimum before the times would be really meaningful to compare.

First, thanks for taking the time to do these. I think Dark Melee is apt to benefit a bit more from IOs than most. For example, in this chart DM is only about 1.7 minutes per run behind Battle Axe, yet in the previous SO:IO differentials that you posted it gained about 3.1 min/run more than BA did. If that held for IOs in DM2 then it would move ahead of BA. As a result I think it isn't unreasonable to assume that for those of us that use IOs DM2 should now be in the neighborhood of sets such as BA or perhaps even Rad (in your differentials DM gained about 7 min/run on Rad with IOs and in this latest DM2 sits about 6-1/2 min/run behind Rad). Also, we should be cautious about taking the results of 10 runs by one person as being an especially accurate gauge of the sets performance. It's the best one we have here, but there are undoubtedly some play-style biases and very likely even in this much play time (6 hrs), some random fluctuations. I wouldn't be surprised if a 2nd set of runs with DM2 were better than BS or worse than MA, for example.

Wow, DC/DE took a beating. Heck, it's almost down to where I suggested in the Tanker patch testing. 😄 [That was DS 1 on a 60s timer (to match Energy Absorption/Energy Drain), but with no change to the END recovery.] I now have the set AoE on par with Martial Arts and better than Energy Melee (I'll say it again because it bears repeating... boy does that set suck). By my metric it now gets right on the average buff from the Tanker Inherent while moving up from being an outlier off the bottom for AoE to just one of several poor AoE sets. And keep in mind that Soul Drain means it does better damage with Pool attacks than most sets, so it gains some ground on them there. I think some additional improvement might be in order for the set, but I think it should be put into the set's worst power - Touch of Fear - instead of back into Dark Equilibrium.

Devouring Darkness. Or alternatively... whatever name gets us the next patch the soonest.

I played a bit more at L25-26 then L40 on a Shock/Elect Defender. The testing I did was to try to maximize the value of Faraday Cage. Based upon what I saw I think the buff duration needs to be pushed out to about 10s so that at the extreme Recharge you can recast it as you move and have it perma. And the tick rate should be dropped to 2s or less so that those entering the cage get the buffs more quickly. The buffs shouldn't stack of course.

I think "that other guy" was just me again. I've tried three shots at explaining the SD mechanic in this thread. Mids isn't clear, but does list both the 40% and 8% +Dmg, as well as the +12% ToHit. What it's missing is anything about the +8% being per target. The +ToHit is confusing too, since it is really two buffs combined: +10% (8.5% for Corruptors) for hitting at least one plus another+2% (1.7%) for each target up to 10. Even the detailed info in game doesn't tell you how the two buffs are applied, it just lists their magnitudes.

Typo.

You are laboring under a false belief about how Soul Drain works. There are two buffs. One that is 40% if you hit at least 1 foe and one that is 8% for each foe hit. That means the Soul Drain buff starts at 48% for the 1st foe hit and 8% each for the next 9. (Scrappers get 50+10 per and Corruptors 34+6.8 per due to different Damage Self-Buff Modifiers,)

Well, in that case Sorcery's Mystic Flight and Force of Will's Mighty Leap fail the test. Each is exactly the same as its travel pool equivalent and then has a nice bonus power on top of that. By comparison Speed of Sound doesn't match Super Speed as you don't get the stealth. And the bonus power has two major drawbacks that Translocation didn't get. First, it has a cooldown. And second, it lacks the hover component like Translocation while not being tied to a primary power that provides +Fly, resulting in the loss of utility that I noted before. Furthermore, a tp power on SoS is of less value to begin with, since SoS is much faster than Mystic Flight. As a result I'd say SoS is inferior to Super Speed despite the bonus power. I'd be OK with that, if it weren't for the two previous Origin pool travel powers being better than their travel pool equivalents. The best fix for this may in fact be to buff Fly and Super Jump so that Mystic Flight and Mighty Leap are inferior to them as SoS is inferior to SS. [Edit:] To be clear though, I still think Jaunt is just plain bad. It's better than nothing and free save for the activation time and END cost, but in an absolute sense, it's just plain bad.

Again... SD isn't TGTS * PCT for the buff, it's (TGTS + 5) * PCT. Though it still requires that you hit one foe or you get nothing. Right now the average infinite-horizon buff for SD is 25 to 28% larger than that for standard BU even with just 1 target. That's 95% chance to hit times 60% as much buff from a single target as "normal" BU times 300% the duration divided by 1.34 to 1.37 cycle time ratio. (The 25% is for 500% total Recharge while the 28% is out-of-the-box.)

The only complaint I have about the set is that the lack of a hover component on Jaunt makes it hard to use for vertical travel. Without it you can't use the trick of aiming for the top edge of a ledge or railing and using the hover component to get on top of it - you just fall straight to the ground. As a result you either need to stop and adjust your camera so you can hit the higher level or tp up above it and fall down. And since Jaunt can't be chained, that isn't always possible. For example: I couldn't get up the bluff in Talos from the docks by Andrea Mitchell with Jaunt, I had to find a place not too steep to climb. This means the added bonus travel in this set is far less useful than that in Sorcery as it doesn't really up your speed (which it does to a large degree in Sorcery) or vertical travel capability by much.

I think the END% scaling should be toned down as well, with the power scaling from say 35-80% of the damage it does now instead of 10-100% (you need some END to cast it, so it's never 0). I think it's being cast with more END% on average than might have been expected. On my two test runs I averaged around 96% (Incarnate /Regen Brute) and 70% or so (L32-33 /SR Scrapper against END draining Freaks). The latter case is ironically the one that makes me think the scaling should be reduced, as I was actually eating blues to buff my damage on a power with +END as a major component.

I think the idea is that Dark Melee was a clear outlier at the bottom of the list of AoE from the Tanker +Area perspective (it gained about half as much as the next lowest set in that regard). I believe Capt P just wants to bring it up so that it's no longer an outlier but still near the bottom. If that's the case, then I think he's gone a bit too far and I suspect there's a reduction in the buff to DC coming soon.

I guess AP has crashed. I was trying to test whether or not Faraday Cage can be cast while mezzed. It appears to be the case in brief testing. Can anyone confirm or contradict that? [Edit:] With AP back up I was able to get on my toon in AE and confirm that Faraday Cage can be cast while mezzed. That makes it quite a good power.

It appears to be roughly 4s (I'm guessing 4.25s) duration with a 4s tick rate (so you can be without the buff for a fair bit of time after entering the cage).

I played my L32 Dark/SR Scrapper with a new build on beta a bit (part of the Freakalympics arc set at +1x3). She kicked those Freaks' butts. The AoE wasn't as good as on my DM/Regen Brute, as this toon was often running DC with 40-70% END. When run as a SD/DC pair with high END the damage was pretty impressive and wiped out even the +2 Minions. Shadow Maul was quite good even on this 14s Rech/1.56 DS setup (it'll be better with the next with slightly better damage and 11s Rech). I was easily hitting 2x as many targets with it as the smaller version, and with the minimal work of the take-one-step-back tactic I hit 4 or 5 routinely. Getting anywhere near the 10 target cap was pretty much impossible though; those Freaks just refused to stand on each others' shoulders (I did trick some into flying by jumping on crates and back down, but it really wasn't worth the trouble to get the extra 1 or 2 targets). A major improvement in fighting larger spawns on this toon. Running at x3 or higher is now a reasonable alternative to just running arcs at x1 and going for speed.

A PBAoE Terrify would certainly be nice. It's 40s recharge would make it fill roughly the same niche as DC with Fear in place of the +END and less damage to make up for the END% scaling. For Stalkers only in this case. Though Touch of Fear on other ATs could use a bit of a buff too.

An off-the-wall suggestion to help Stalkers: Make Touch of Fear a slow spreading chain attack and possibly add damage (the latter would only be paired with a reduction in the DC buff).