ScarySai

No, thank you. It can already have 100% uptime, nerfing it to make it do the same thing with less stats isn't good. Edit for clarity: The recharge is accurate to the game results. You can absolutely reach this level of recharge for the ability in the game.

Fact of the matter is that dark melee is pretty dependent on 1: Being surrounded to get it's damage buff, and 2: shield secondary to reach reasonable clear speeds, simply because it does not have access to a lot of AoE. The concerns this will ever be OP like TW are absurd to me.

Thanks for the update, I'm going to have to think about the numbers there. Any ETA for when this might be in our hands for testing? Understand that it's pending internally still, but a rough guesstimate.

Depends, if it's like lightning rod (Something they tried to compare it to before) where it doesn't crit, but hits SUPER hard, that's fine. If the damage is nerfed too much in addition to losing crit though, that's a problem.

Not yet, I'd really like to see that, though. We can't test it now so we can only be left to our imaginations and interpretations of the chicken-man's word.

I'd like the two posts above this a hundred times if I could.

Removing crit will be a huge nerf by itself, reducing the damage curve will be more than enough. I touched on it a little, but I'm not interested in writing an essay and derailing the thread further with discussing an idea that isn't on the table for feedback. @KelvinKoleThat's another good point, but I have to see the actual numbers before I can say how bad/good of a decision it is, that's what makes it so frustrating.

My problem is how vague the statement is there, I'd really like some added detail regarding that formula so some proper math could be done ahead of time, in lieu of being able to test it. If the +damage isn't DR'd too much at around what just maxed out soul drain can do, then whatever. If it's balanced in such a way that just a full drain without anything like assault or AAO supporting it isn't worth it, that's a problem. Edit: Also, I don't know how to add a quote to a post after already submitting on these boards, but @flip shares my problem with the idea, Dark Melee is centered around those saturated damage buffs, that's the set's gimmick. I would prefer it's base damage be weakened if it means that fully saturated mires really reward the player's use of consumption, but again - I need to see what the plan is before I can suggest anything.

Getting your recovery buffed would nerf your damage, it's unreliable, it's impractical, it creates a dependence on consumption restoring enough end to last, and would make a legacy set unneccesarily clunky, all because you disagree with an existing, formerly skippable ability being brought up. If you want to propose some weird endurance-based set, there's another thread for that, but you're not going to transform Dark Melee into that set, so what you are proposing isn't really feedback to these changes so much as a complete tangent that misses the entire point.

For good reason.

Again, the ability still works as an endurance consumption tool, but you lose damage out of it when it's used that way. If you have good endurance management or recovery buffs from one source or another, it can function as a powerful attack. If you're not rocking full endurance, this thing's damage isn't anything to write home about. The unique aspect is still there, the power still functions the way it was intended to function, but now has the bonus effect that CP is adding to it. Your concern is unfounded while the solution proposed is clunky and doesn't work.

This idea is bad, stop already. @MyrmidonSpot on, you can tell very easily who in this thread has never played dark melee and is just working off bad mids math, and who actually plays the set. DM without shield isn't anything to write home about right now.

On one hand, it is pretty powerful and is a bit of an outlier. If it got nerfed I wouldn't be surprised or really care, as I don't really like /time that much. On the other, I don't want them to change too much of what Paragon left behind, unless it's to bring bad/old sets up to speed. Sure, it can be seen as OP, but it's nothing new for this game. The idea this game will ever be dragged back to the i5 idea of balance would never pan out, so I don't want us to start nerfing every power that crosses the community's perceived line.

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.