ScarySai

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.

I don't get this, since pretty much every single /devices player who takes the power hates the taunt component, the pet sets it can take have a decent amount of ranged defense+Recharge, and the stated intent of the change was not to make it rip threat from tanks. This isn't really a compromise that should be made: The power was never intended to be a taunt, and the few who strangely decided to slot it that way would be able to easily access similar set bonuses.

Claws/bio is my favorite scrapper, and clears missions like if you gave Zoom a chainsaw. Dark has viable AoE now, and much better Pylon potential than a claws scrapper, but claws will still absolutely destroy dark on any given AOE fight. People are heralding this like it's the next TW/bio, it really isn't.

You're sacrificing utility for damage, especially in situations where you don't need the endurance, but that ability is sitting off CD doing nothing on your bars. I don't get the complaint, here. A worthless ability and a once-a-minute ability of questionable value are now not total junk. There are claws stalkers with better AOE than DM without shield backing it. Plenty of suggestions on that front have already been made about that in more appropriate forums.

I personally don't see the changes as broken, it's incredibly strong for a secondary like shield, that had really good synergy with the old DM, perhaps you could make the case that it's growing in power rather fast, but you need to remember that /shield isn't the only armor option available to dark melee, and with most other armor sets, it's performance is wanting. I'd say 18 or 20. Enough important primary and second abilities are usually available at this time to determine if the character is right for you, only the most back-loaded sets are still 'crippled' around this point, Masterminds are a good example. A lot of the time, they're kinda crap until 32.

You madman! ._.

Probably because it sounds better on paper than it actually is.

I think the fact that people are trying it on beta now and still think Shadow Maul is slow says a lot about how dreadful it's DPA was before the proposed changes. Also: Tip to beta testers: When surrounded, jump before using shadow maul. Works wonders, learned it with sweeping cross when I was playing my STJ/bio.

DA's shortcomings are only really a problem in a world without IOs. For a punishing climb up (Less-so if you know what you're doing), you gain one of the best armor power sets in the game. Only Rad armor even comes close defensively. If it were to get an end reduction, I wouldn't be opposed to it, but I don't consider this a high-priority issue. And that's the major consideration, here, at the end of the day.

Without any reliable ways to softcap it (without seriously gimping your build, at least), it won't matter how good it's stats are if it still has the taunt aura. That's the problem.

I've always done the 'reply to yourself' trick, but it isn't exactly a fun time to do it twenty times in a row, still.

Dark Armor is one of those things that is a sad time while leveling, but it really rewards you for putting up with it long enough to IO it out.

It'll be a good set either way, I like the damage and recharge values, so just reducing the pure damage one (since it's overkill) to slip some endurance in there would be perfect. Either way, it's a much better set than the endurance ones.