Dark/TA Question about power selection.

[KaizenSoze]

I have a dark blast/tactical arrow concept blaster.

 

I had a costume idea first, then powers second.

 

This is my first blaster using tactical arrow.

 

My problem is that I have an embarrassment of riches in control.

 

I can stack 6 mags of immobilizes or 9 mags of holds

 

Two mag 3 immobilizes.

Three mag 3 holds, two of them aoe.

Slow patch

 

What are your thoughts on what powers are useful?

 

I have no choice on the immobilizes.

 

But the holds are up for debate.

Abyssal Gaze has a 3 sec cast time, but does high damage.

Ice arrow is quick but low damage.

ESD arrow has a long recharge and suppresses your end for a bit.

 

As for slows, glue arrow feels like a better caltrops in terms of ease of use.

 

How often do blasters actually use their control powers in PvE?

[Novacat]

Last question first: A lot. Many are soft controls though, built into so many other powers. But, even five seconds of hold is a lot of time to a high damage squishy. Controls could save you a lot of hurt, or make things easier for teammates. 

 

Glue Arrow is caltrops but with more range, really. The disadvantage is you're firing it, though; caltrops tend to be more of a "in front of you before the fight" affair, so you'll find glue just a bit less utilitarian. On the other hand you loose it unto whatever's smashing its face onto your tank and you've got a debilitating AoE DoT you didn't have to run in and target to deploy.

 

ESD is a powerful hold and drain, but it's more of a control-nuke: needs some slotting to shine, and not up every fight. if you can spare the mods and use Radial Muscle for added end-mod, it can be worth doubling up on that hammer with some more slots; maybe Endmod + End/Accuracy IOs mixed with three from a Hold set. Get that thing up around 120+% drain so you'll have a decent chance of affecting purple minions properly, though don't go overboard trying to maximize.

Should you decide against the other two holds due to the drawbacks you noted, ESD stands on its own rather well in this fashion; not something to use on lonely elite bosses, but a quick way to shut up everything around them if the nuke wasn't enough. Also, pretty nasty hit against 'robotic' types.

 

Don't discount Flash Arrow: this slightly-faster-cast copy of smoke grenade stacks up with your dark powers nicely. Use it before a fight, it doesn't need much slotting at all to be useful, so 2-3 is enough if you've got some accuracy bonuses coming in from elsewhere. The severe -perception means it does stealth duty as well

Edited February 10, 2020 by Novacat

[eknudson]

I have a Dark/TA blaster-- she's my main blaster. And unfortunately I'm not a huge amount of help on power selection because I took nearly everything!

 

On the blast side, I found umbral torrent to be pretty useless without the sudden acceleration kb to kd IO. Then it became just fantastic. I often lead with it. Everything's knocked down, and then follow with tentacles and maybe even blackstar, as things get up they probably won't be able to hit me.  You can skip a single target blast. You do not need all of DB, gloom, moonbeam, abyssal gaze, and life drain.  My blaster is only level 41 and doesn't have a huge amount of recharge at this point so I skipped gloom. Some will tell you it's the best single target attack in dark blast, but the damage per animation is not that much better than DB and I just find the DoT annoying.

 

In TA, it's all good. And many power picks barely need slotting to be good so you have loads of slots to put in dark blast. Much of TA is better for solo/small group play than large teams, though. On large teams slows aren't that great, flash arrow is only occasionally helpful, and there's often another character focusing on control. Net arrow isn't terrible for a pick you have to have.   Stacking immobs with TT can save you at times. Glue arrow also keeps things away, and takes a couple nice damage procs.  Two holds is really good against hard-hitting bosses-- especially ones that you can't easily slow or immobilize (think warwolves).  A group hold is surprisingly handy and slotted with 3 damage procs ESD arrow hits pretty darn hard.

 

You're kind of a blastroller more than a straight damage character. That's where your strength lies, IMO, so lean into it. 

 

Edit per the above-- flash arrow is I'm pretty sure autohit in PvE, so it really needs no additional slots to be very good. But yes, lead with it for ~6% -ToHit and then all your other powers doing around 5% -ToHit and if you have any defense whatsoever it quickly stacks up to make you very hard to hit.

Edited February 11, 2020 by eknudson