ScarySai

As described, this sounds like a /traps mastermind.

He knows, but based on conversation in the AT Discord and personal messages with some people, the main fear is they go way too far with the pre-emptive nerfs. Dark melee's main claim to fame is huge self damage buffs from soul drain. Reducing the benefit too much would be a weird contrast with the rest of the set, or potentially make the ability worse than a spammable like spin, with a much longer CD, and can't crit.

I agree, with a full superior avalanche set on a fully purpled dark/shield build, +4x8 longbow, unless it crit, LTs were usually still alive after a fully mired, fully AAO'd, -res'd due to proc in drain, ageless primed dark consumption. I would often have to finish them with shield charge and maul anyway. It was still fast, it's still good damage, but I don't see anyone calling beam rifle game breaking, I don't see anyone calling claws game breaking, and yet both of those things do much more impressive AOE while still giving the boss/EB/AVs quite a whooping, moreso when damage buffed.

On one hand, it's probably still going to be better than what we have now, but on the other hand: I don't think nerfing +Damage contribution for Dark is fitting for the set, it's entire claim to fame is being able to buff itself so much with surrounding enemies, then go to town. It's why it synergies so well with /shield, because it doubles down on that while adding another AOE to a set that had very bad AoE until now. On the other, I don't understand the concern with this becoming the next game-breaker like TW or WM due to DC's damage, It's not -that- impressive, claws, katana, spines, any given blaster, most high end corruptors ect, will be outclearing Dark Melee just because of cooldown timers, and they aren't typically as dependent on fully saturated buffs. It really depends on how that curve is going to work/cap out. If the damage hit isn't too significant over what's on test now, fine. If it's hitting for half-strength, I'd be a bit disappointed.

I'm merely concerned about how this might interact with /shield, brute fury and such. Dark's playstyle often depends on those fully saturated +Damage buffs to achieve those high-end results we see in pylon threads and spreadsheets. Are you able to get into detail regarding how the formula will work? Also, thanks again for this, it's nice to have a decent AoE filler via shadow maul with Dark, finally.

Won't that be a considerable nerf, considering how important Soul Drain is to Dark Melee?

I just bind SC to V and have in it a tray next to soul drain and just added maul to my '4' key since I only have the three attacks in my main tray. Dark's rotation is pretty minimal. >.> Also, Soul Drain's kind of a big deal, people. It's basically the only reason the set is even competitive.

This goes double for shield builds. @macskullSame, single procs were actually useful in short-recharge abilities. I'd be fine with proc bombs going away if those rules were restored.

Then to clarify: There's no evidence to suggest they're going to mess with the recovery portion of the ability in a significant way (This would run counter to the idea of a "Dark Equilibrium.), and the second half of the statement is referring to the risk/reward of the ability for some builds. Not you, personally.

It's still an endurance tool. If you use it for pure damage and run out of end when it's on CD, that's on you.

Feel free to propose your idea in a different thread.

I've been looking for an excuse to remake my dark/shield scrapper. This looks like a sign to get it ready. Stalling on big packs when charge was on CD was always its weakness, this basically alleviates that problem. The crit removal will solve crazy screenshot bait posts from popping in, but won't damage general play too much, since trying to game it around the crit proc seemed clunky in my testing as opposed to just firing it off after a drain. There's a huge dropoff after TW and WM, so I'm not too concerned about it matching spines/katana's performance.

Pre-i24 rules would be nice.

If that's the case, then glad to hear it. The fact it could crit was the only thing I found broken about it. Thanks CP.

What level was the mob, summers? That's important. Those numbers are unimpressive if it's +0 or +1. @Galaxy Brain The thought just occurred to me, but have you considered running a test without using consumption as a way of seeing how just the shadow maul change impacts the set?

All things being equal, Fire melee would probably do a lot better with /shield bolstering it, dark's +damage from soul drain is doing a lot of the work in these tests, don't forget.

Thank you very much!

Very nice work, Galaxy. It's nice to have some actual data to look at instead of raw feelings.

Dual blades is above it as well, IIRC. Not sure if the AV chain is, but the Blind>Ablating>Sweeping>ablating chain most likely is with some built-in cleave, and two -res IOs as a cherry on top. Would it be a top performer, though? In the time it takes for Consumption to come back and for the mauls to fire off, a lot of classes have likely outdamaged it. It's insane burst, but only if fully soul drained and endurance is completely topped off. Since ageless is a factor in dark consumption's performance, Assault core should be mentioned for other sets, as that sort of closes the gap of dark's +damage advantage. The changes are really powerful, but I don't see how they are any more unhealthy for the game than permadoms, fire farming, other power builds and such - not that I necessarily want those things gone, but I think the ship has sailed on any idea of trying to keep things 'in line' outside of some serious outliers like TW.

As far as pylon times and killing bosses goes, Dark Melee is indeed a very impressive performer when it can leverage soul drain. In terms of clearing missions, or competing against other primaries with damage buffs, I would dispute it's claim to being a 'top performer' right now, especially if we remove /shield from the equation, but I can at least understand where you are coming from, here. As for the above poster (It won't let me quote him.): I'm in agreement, a lot of different sets needed this way more than Dark melee did, but since they're clearly doing DM now, we might as well embrace it and discuss the pros and cons.

If this is the case, then don't touch Bombardment, please. It's pretty amazing as is, would be a shame to lose that. I suspected the stats were supposed to offset the bonuses, and that's fine. Some builds will be perfectly fine with it, and others won't be, either way, it won't be a dead set, and that ranged defense is going to be amazing for a lot of people.

Should follow your own advice. Had you been less disrespectful I might have finished reading your post and be humoring a discussion with you right now.

In this context, it isn't. Any build with ageless cannot use the damage with your suggestion, any build with good recovery is gimping it's AOE, any build with endurance reduction is also potentially gimping itself. It's totally backwards, it is nonsense. The current idea makes sense, you can argue it does to well, and I disagree, but the philosophy behind it makes sense. Your idea does not. I've considered it, and have come to the conclusion that it is backwards and nonsensical. It's nothing personal, I'm sure you're a nice guy, but the idea is not a good one. You're not going to one shot a boss on +3/4 - especially without critting a fully saturated mire+AAO (Shield only), but if that's the metric we're using, I can name you a few things that not only do more damage in the same amount of time, but are up far more frequently. And that goes double if DM isn't being paired with /shield.

"lol handouts." Fixed that for you.

Not really, no. That's your reward for reaching the point where end is no longer an issue. What's the problem? This thing doesn't hit nearly as hard as people hype it up with just 25% of your bar gone. This thing isn't a total NUKE unless you are capped on end, which is far more of a restriction than most better, spammable AOEs have to deal with, especially after the crash removals on nukes. You're already punishing people who put time into maximizing their endurance before using the ability with this suggestion. You're simply doing it in reverse, rewarding poor endurance management while removing the utility vs damage tradeoff, which strikes me as nonsensical.