Darkness Manipulation tweaks... Lets discuss!

[Snowdaze]

Last night I had a discussion about Darkness Manipulation, a conclusion was reached that as a set it could use a little love, especially since it was left behind with the Shadow Maul update.

Lets face it, Dark Manipulation being the second least common picked set for blasters is odd, considering it a strong pick for scrappers, tanks, and brutes alike. 

I feel with just a few minor changes it could be a more balanced pick on blasters that are willing to get into the thick of things as a blapper. It's regen/recovery being packaged with it's single target fear also just feels odd and out of place.

 

My personal thoughts and suggestions:

T1: Penumbral Grasp (change to the fear power): Traditionally I understand that the T1 of a blaster is an immobilize with a damage component. However I feel this acts as a detractor to DM as the set now for all intents has 2 of these, the first one being forced, and the second Midnights Grasp (T9) just outclassing the rest of the set on damage is basically a "must take" power for any blaster that wants a heavy hitting melee attack.

For this reason, redundant single target immobilize, I feel that this is the prime placement for the single target fear. It falls into the control category, it's not as definitive as a hold, and any damage to the target potentially lets some damage through like and immobilize does by nature. Now naturally as a fear it wouldn't have a damage component, but there is precedent for no damage on a T1 in Temporal Manipulation.

I don't really feel like there needs to be much change for the ranged single target fear to be placed here, but maybe a slightly faster recharge for it's lower then average fear time.

 

T4: Shadow Maul (add utility, stun, open the cone a little): This is one of the elephants in the room, especially with the update to it on Dark Melee. As it stand right now it's the exact same as before the changes to the melee sets, this makes it highly unreliable and undesirable to people trying to get the most out of a character. My solution is to add some utility to it, leaving the longer recharge and animation time, so we take some some inspiration from Dark Pit (which we will get to later). Lets take the disorient component from Dark Pit, a Mag 2 stun and add it to Shadow Maul! a nearly 10 second duration seems a little extreme we are augmenting here not overpowering, so somewhere around a 7 second stun effect, and maybe open up the cone just a wee bit more to ~70 degrees, to make it actually hit more then one guy. This maintains the signature stunning ability of dark sets and provides a bit of flavor and flair to the blaster version, without changing any of the major DPS curves.

 

T6: Touch of the Beyond (make Kuji-In Toh clone): Right now this just seems weird to me... it by a LARGE margin is the weakest of the Regen/Recovery buffs for blasters. It's the ONLY offensive single target power in this category, and feels very much like an underwhelming pick just to get regen and recovery on a blaster. I personally like the concept of adding in a Kuji-In Toh clone in this spot for a variety of reasons, primarily the fear and psi resist, which are also signature to Dark Armor! It's not overpowered, it's a long duration click effect so you don't have to worry about end drain of an "armor toggle", thematically it is similar but counter to Energize in Energy Manipulation which is basically the "non-dark" side of energy sets. But all in all there are other options that could be done here to provide a better balance for the set, which is open for discussion.

 

T8: Dark Pit (remove and add Boost Range): I really am at a lose for words on this one. I like dark pit on defenders and controllers. But as a late game power choice that only stuns minions, requires a heavy slot investment to make it viable, and has absolutely no damage component... it's very hard to like on a blaster. By this time in the game you are generally whipping out damage AoE's left and right, and teams and some solo builds will regularly clear out minions in single volleys. I feel this presents a perfect opportunity to make another thematic link and add utility of a different variety! Suggestion: Boost Range! I choose this as it's provides a link between normal energy and negative energy, it's the EXACT placement for Boost Range in Energy Manipulation, and lastly it helps the blaster use things like Soul Drain, and Dark Consumption, powers where you have to be in the middle of things to get the most effect could be used from the edge of the fight with the same effect! As a secondary bonus, Boost Range would no longer be a unique power in a single set in the game, but it still would be limited to blasters. And I can't hide the fact I have thought about the fact that it would give a small boost to the range of the revamped Shadow Maul giving it a little more life in the later game with the ability to hit a little more. It feels natural in the set to augment other things.

 

 

I know this has been a sizable post and I tank everyone for reading, and giving consideration to my suggestions. I would like to open the floor to other suggestions or balanced changes. But please don't just say "NO" and quote something that's not constructive, please leave reasons and opinions why somethings should or should not be.

 

TL;DR: Please move on to the next tread, you clearly don't really have any positive or negative feelings toward Darkness Manipulation. Thanks for the +1 to the view count tough.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Snowdaze
added some formatting and quick summaries

[Razor Cure]

On 5/4/2020 at 4:35 AM, Snowdaze said:

Boost Range in Energy Manipulation, and lastly it helps the blaster use things like Soul Drain, and Dark Consumption

Boost Range does NOT work on aoes.

 

On 5/4/2020 at 4:35 AM, Snowdaze said:

by a LARGE margin is the weakest of the Regen/Recovery buffs for blasters

Agreed. I get they tried to make them different, but some sets like time, ice and fire have stupidly awesome powers that are recovery, +heal or absorb, +rech (maybe in another power).

[Snowdaze]

9 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

Boost Range does NOT work on aoes.

Hmmm, Ok, this is like a half truth, but you did make me think, since I have never used it on a PBAoE, I am tempted to take it to the test server and give it a full rundown. However, I am sensing what you are implying my be correct. By not work on aoe's you mean Boost Range does not affect "Radius". A fact that I had not considered them to be different mechanically. But now mentioned I do feel you may be right. So Boost Range wouldn't work on Soul Drain and Dark Consumption, it however would not be any less effective of a power then it is in Energy Manipulation. 

[Psyonico]

9 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

Hmmm, Ok, this is like a half truth, but you did make me think, since I have never used it on a PBAoE, I am tempted to take it to the test server and give it a full rundown. However, I am sensing what you are implying my be correct. By not work on aoe's you mean Boost Range does not affect "Radius". A fact that I had not considered them to be different mechanically. But now mentioned I do feel you may be right. So Boost Range wouldn't work on Soul Drain and Dark Consumption, it however would not be any less effective of a power then it is in Energy Manipulation. 

Correct, there is no way to increase the radius of an AoE, so PBAoEs are unaffected by it.

[Snowdaze]

1 hour ago, Psyonico said:

Correct, there is no way to increase the radius of an AoE, so PBAoEs are unaffected by it.

I feel the new changes to the tanker inherent in theory make increasing radius possible, but that is another topic all together on if Boost Range should be made to increase radius as well.

[Zeraphia]

This is a bit of a necro but I realized the same issues especially with this power:

On 5/3/2020 at 2:35 PM, Snowdaze said:

T6: Touch of the Beyond (make Kuji-In Toh clone): Right now this just seems weird to me... it by a LARGE margin is the weakest of the Regen/Recovery buffs for blasters. It's the ONLY offensive single target power in this category, and feels very much like an underwhelming pick just to get regen and recovery on a blaster. I personally like the concept of adding in a Kuji-In Toh clone in this spot for a variety of reasons, primarily the fear and psi resist, which are also signature to Dark Armor! It's not overpowered, it's a long duration click effect so you don't have to worry about end drain of an "armor toggle", thematically it is similar but counter to Energize in Energy Manipulation which is basically the "non-dark" side of energy sets. But all in all there are other options that could be done here to provide a better balance for the set, which is open for discussion.

In no other circumstance for a Blaster to gain their regen/recovery does it so strictly require that you hit an enemy with it. I know that there is additional accuracy baked in to this power, but if you miss, that is all she wrote for your regen/recovery. Basically, you are (from what I can see) at the mercy of a 95% chance, which as we all have seen, doesn't always guarantee anything. No other secondary has to deal with a to-hit check. 100% this should be changed.

 

The reason I'm afraid they did this was because the Devs wanted to preserve "Touch of Fear" which was originally there before they decided to replace it with the "Touch of the Beyond" power. I fully believe if the Devs actually got around to looking at this set, this should be one of the first powers to get a complete overhaul, because it so desperately needs it.

[Snowdaze]

3 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

This is a bit of a necro but I realized the same issues especially with this power:

In no other circumstance for a Blaster to gain their regen/recovery does it so strictly require that you hit an enemy with it. I know that there is additional accuracy baked in to this power, but if you miss, that is all she wrote for your regen/recovery. Basically, you are (from what I can see) at the mercy of a 95% chance, which as we all have seen, doesn't always guarantee anything. No other secondary has to deal with a to-hit check. 100% this should be changed.

 

The reason I'm afraid they did this was because the Devs wanted to preserve "Touch of Fear" which was originally there before they decided to replace it with the "Touch of the Beyond" power. I fully believe if the Devs actually got around to looking at this set, this should be one of the first powers to get a complete overhaul, because it so desperately needs it.

Thanks for the bump Zeraphia, I have moral objections over bumping my own posts to keep them relevant. I'm glad you agree with me about the regen/recovery, it really is painful what they did to what could have been full of potential. What did you think about my other suggestions?

[Zeraphia]

45 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

Thanks for the bump Zeraphia, I have moral objections over bumping my own posts to keep them relevant. I'm glad you agree with me about the regen/recovery, it really is painful what they did to what could have been full of potential. What did you think about my other suggestions?

My thoughts on the others...

On 5/3/2020 at 2:35 PM, Snowdaze said:

My personal thoughts and suggestions:

T1: Penumbral Grasp (change to the fear power): Traditionally I understand that the T1 of a blaster is an immobilize with a damage component. However I feel this acts as a detractor to DM as the set now for all intents has 2 of these, the first one being forced, and the second Midnights Grasp (T9) just outclassing the rest of the set on damage is basically a "must take" power for any blaster that wants a heavy hitting melee attack.

For this reason, redundant single target immobilize, I feel that this is the prime placement for the single target fear. It falls into the control category, it's not as definitive as a hold, and any damage to the target potentially lets some damage through like and immobilize does by nature. Now naturally as a fear it wouldn't have a damage component, but there is precedent for no damage on a T1 in Temporal Manipulation.

I don't really feel like there needs to be much change for the ranged single target fear to be placed here, but maybe a slightly faster recharge for it's lower then average fear time.

I'm of a different mindset to this actually. I actually *greatly* enjoy the utility of a single target ranged immobolize with decent DPA. The problem lies, that this does NOT have decent DPA due to its cast. I think the approach to this could be to reduce the cast to 1.07s-1.33s and improving its damage. I am pretty supportive actually over these powers, the utility they bring to being "pure ranged" is a huge DPS buff, you no longer have to chase down AV's solo with them, they're one of few controls that work via purple triangles, and they bring a lot of survivability due to how enemies have to use ranged attacks to hit you, where so much of the ATOs and IO's make ranged defense for Blaster plenty. So IMO, change the cast rate of the power and tweak the damage up a little and it's great, also stacking immobs is not a bad thing IMO, but I do think Midnight Grasp is a little "eh" because it wants you to be in melee thus don't really gain a huge benefit out of the immob. So I am sort of at a toss-up about this one. Your suggestion to changing it to a Fear power, eh, not feeling it. I get it, I even agree with your logic that it is thematic, but I think fears are neigh-useless and would make this power imo just a straight set mule unfortunately rather than a real utility (how I see Fear is that it acts like a lesser "sleep" where if you hit the target, it will fire back, you want that target to die right? So you're kind of going to waste the effect unless you really need that "deep breath" moment which... I find there are more reliable ways to achieve that.)

On 5/3/2020 at 2:35 PM, Snowdaze said:

T4: Shadow Maul (add utility, stun, open the cone a little): This is one of the elephants in the room, especially with the update to it on Dark Melee. As it stand right now it's the exact same as before the changes to the melee sets, this makes it highly unreliable and undesirable to people trying to get the most out of a character. My solution is to add some utility to it, leaving the longer recharge and animation time, so we take some some inspiration from Dark Pit (which we will get to later). Lets take the disorient component from Dark Pit, a Mag 2 stun and add it to Shadow Maul! a nearly 10 second duration seems a little extreme we are augmenting here not overpowering, so somewhere around a 7 second stun effect, and maybe open up the cone just a wee bit more to ~70 degrees, to make it actually hit more then one guy. This maintains the signature stunning ability of dark sets and provides a bit of flavor and flair to the blaster version, without changing any of the major DPS curves.

I like the new DM version of SM, I felt like it should've been ported over, but I think your suggestion is decent and well-thought out, but I'd rather this just be a pure AoE damage dealer with the large radius... I like the Stun idea though! An idea could be to replace it with Engulfing Darkness from the Dominator assault, but I can understand people being "married" to this and wanting it for thematic reasons, which I fully understand. But I definitely think the radius needs to be drastically increased, I'd even give it room for far higher than even your suggestion to 70 degrees, I'd say 90-120 degrees to be "competitive" as the only aoe power in the set. But then again, my ideas can be a little ambitious so I will say this is a great start/suggestion 🙂! 

On 5/3/2020 at 2:35 PM, Snowdaze said:

T8: Dark Pit (remove and add Boost Range): I really am at a lose for words on this one. I like dark pit on defenders and controllers. But as a late game power choice that only stuns minions, requires a heavy slot investment to make it viable, and has absolutely no damage component... it's very hard to like on a blaster. By this time in the game you are generally whipping out damage AoE's left and right, and teams and some solo builds will regularly clear out minions in single volleys. I feel this presents a perfect opportunity to make another thematic link and add utility of a different variety! Suggestion: Boost Range! I choose this as it's provides a link between normal energy and negative energy, it's the EXACT placement for Boost Range in Energy Manipulation, and lastly it helps the blaster use things like Soul Drain, and Dark Consumption, powers where you have to be in the middle of things to get the most effect could be used from the edge of the fight with the same effect! As a secondary bonus, Boost Range would no longer be a unique power in a single set in the game, but it still would be limited to blasters. And I can't hide the fact I have thought about the fact that it would give a small boost to the range of the revamped Shadow Maul giving it a little more life in the later game with the ability to hit a little more. It feels natural in the set to augment other things.

See, I would normally try to defend this, in that the Holds from some of the other sets are really great and keep my Blasters alive during the really "oh ***!" moments. However, given this is a Mag 2 Stun that even just decently-resisting Lei can totally ignore it... I think it needs to be either totally replaced or tweaked for better effectiveness. I like the Boost Range idea! Another idea is to take the Stun from Mag 2 -> Mag 3 so then it DOES stun Lei's and becomes a truly potent power! Just to add a bit here, there are other Stuns that ARE mag 3, this one being Mag 2 is a bit of an odd-ball to me and it probably took a hit for some reason due to a mechanic that honestly just doesn't merit the "hit."

 

I really like your suggestions with these powers 🙂 I just have slightly different takes!

 

EDIT: To be fair as well, the reason I spoke on the regen/recovery power before the others is because this is the specific reason I haven't made any with /Dark yet. The others have their own problems that make this set "meh" but, changing that power is an indefinite priority in my eyes to make it viable. That's why I find it so critical to agree on that and discuss it early on.

Edited May 19, 2020 by Zeraphia

[Snowdaze]

10 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

My thoughts on the others...

I'm of a different mindset to this actually. I actually *greatly* enjoy the utility of a single target ranged immobolize with decent DPA. The problem lies, that this does NOT have decent DPA due to its cast. I think the approach to this could be to reduce the cast to 1.07s-1.33s and improving its damage. I am pretty supportive actually over these powers, the utility they bring to being "pure ranged" is a huge DPS buff, you no longer have to chase down AV's solo with them, they're one of few controls that work via purple triangles, and they bring a lot of survivability due to how enemies have to use ranged attacks to hit you, where so much of the ATOs and IO's make ranged defense for Blaster plenty. So IMO, change the cast rate of the power and tweak the damage up a little and it's great, also stacking immobs is not a bad thing IMO, but I do think Midnight Grasp is a little "eh" because it wants you to be in melee thus don't really gain a huge benefit out of the immob. So I am sort of at a toss-up about this one. Your suggestion to changing it to a Fear power, eh, not feeling it. I get it, I even agree with your logic that it is thematic, but I think fears are neigh-useless and would make this power imo just a straight set mule unfortunately rather than a real utility (how I see Fear is that it acts like a lesser "sleep" where if you hit the target, it will fire back, you want that target to die right? So you're kind of going to waste the effect unless you really need that "deep breath" moment which... I find there are more reliable ways to achieve that.)

You like the range Immob, that's fine I work with that. I also think you are underselling the power of fear, I find I like it a lot. It reduces the attack rate, it's a half Immobilize half hold, sure they can retaliate but it's not after every attack, and the fact that fear powers have an absurdly high -tohit... there is a fair chance that when they do attach you back from a fear it's got a good chance of missing.

 

How about: Keep Penumbral Grasp if you find the ranged ST immob a blaster staple, and instead we can modify the Midnight Grasp at the T9 level give it the fear effect and rename it to something fearish related, you make a valid point that an immobilize at a melee range does little good to a blaster, but adding fear to the melee might be a little more impactful.

 

10 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

I like the new DM version of SM, I felt like it should've been ported over, but I think your suggestion is decent and well-thought out, but I'd rather this just be a pure AoE damage dealer with the large radius... I like the Stun idea though! An idea could be to replace it with Engulfing Darkness from the Dominator assault, but I can understand people being "married" to this and wanting it for thematic reasons, which I fully understand. But I definitely think the radius needs to be drastically increased, I'd even give it room for far higher than even your suggestion to 70 degrees, I'd say 90-120 degrees to be "competitive" as the only aoe power in the set. But then again, my ideas can be a little ambitious so I will say this is a great start/suggestion 🙂! 

I really don't want to over shadow the melee classes version of SM, as you said some people just love them some Shadow Maul. That's why my suggestions just nudged the power a little bit so it has some value over the old painful wiffing sound effect trigger. (And I say that because even if it did hit, it probably wasn't hitting everything you wanted it too)

 

10 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

See, I would normally try to defend this, in that the Holds from some of the other sets are really great and keep my Blasters alive during the really "oh ***!" moments. However, given this is a Mag 2 Stun that even just decently-resisting Lei can totally ignore it... I think it needs to be either totally replaced or tweaked for better effectiveness. I like the Boost Range idea! Another idea is to take the Stun from Mag 2 -> Mag 3 so then it DOES stun Lei's and becomes a truly potent power! Just to add a bit here, there are other Stuns that ARE mag 3, this one being Mag 2 is a bit of an odd-ball to me and it probably took a hit for some reason due to a mechanic that honestly just doesn't merit the "hit."

And I did consider just bumping up the mag and calling it good, but then I said to myself, we are on a blaster not a controller and this just seems completely out of place and under-performing, the only other three AoE disorients for blasters (that I saw with a quick glance) were Atom Smasher and Psychic Shockwave reasonably powerful PBAoE attacks, and Time shift which completely outclasses Dark Pit at the cost of a higher recharge time.

 

Thank you for your input and support.

[Zeraphia]

13 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

How about: Keep Penumbral Grasp if you find the ranged ST immob a blaster staple, and instead we can modify the Midnight Grasp at the T9 level give it the fear effect and rename it to something fearish related, you make a valid point that an immobilize at a melee range does little good to a blaster, but adding fear to the melee might be a little more impactful.

I really love this idea! 🙂

15 minutes ago, Snowdaze said:

And I did consider just bumping up the mag and calling it good, but then I said to myself, we are on a blaster not a controller and this just seems completely out of place and under-performing, the only other three AoE disorients for blasters (that I saw with a quick glance) were Atom Smasher and Psychic Shockwave reasonably powerful PBAoE attacks, and Time shift which completely outclasses Dark Pit at the cost of a higher recharge time.

Yes, but IMO it critically needs the higher mag, though I would be okay with gutting it for Engulfing Darkness or a really good power.

[Snowdaze]

17 minutes ago, Zeraphia said:

Yes, but IMO it critically needs the higher mag, though I would be okay with gutting it for Engulfing Darkness or a really good power.

Also considered this, but I feel blasters got enough AoE's in general so I was looking for utility in this slot thus my Range Boost choice. But Engulfing Darkness would defiantly make the set stand out for people that want a blapper build.

[macskull]

12 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

This is a bit of a necro but I realized the same issues especially with this power:

In no other circumstance for a Blaster to gain their regen/recovery does it so strictly require that you hit an enemy with it.

Elec and Mental require hit rolls on their sustain power as well.

[Snowdaze]

8 minutes ago, macskull said:

Elec and Mental require hit rolls on their sustain power as well.

But they aren't single target either. In elec's case you dont even need a target for it to give you the regen/recovery. And in Mental, well it can be crazy powerful if you get enough guys with it, but that is offset with it's longer recharge and shorter duration.

[MsSmart]

This is an interesting post by far...

 

The problem as I see it is one of balance with other ATs, why should a blaster attack be as good status effect mag level as those of a controller? I can support the notion it would help the blaster survive better if their status effect were more potent and could consistently hold minions and LTs in one shot, even controllers can't lock down bosses in one shot, so why should blasters.

 

I have an issue as well with blaster ranges not being so great, the original excuse by the developers to deny them status effect protections, and lots of opportunities to boost defense and resistance was that they had mega damage and range.

 

When you look at their range, they do not have the corner in this, their ranges are melee, 40', 80', and 150 snipe. Just about everything enjoys these ranges, in fact many mobs with status effect have ranges beyond 80' which does not strike me as appropriate. If you are going to help blasters survive better by having range, is that ranges have to be increased so it is a factor. First of all the blaster powers that are 40' need to be boosted to 100' and those at 80' boosted also to 100', so the blaster range as a defense can be actually significant. Since all others have a 150 base snipe, the blaster needs their snipe increased to say 180' which is especially important when fighting mobs with status effect powers that have near snipe or snipe ranges (The Rikti comes to mind)

 

Now let's look at blaster damage, is it truly that high? I suggest, if you are an alto-o-holic like me, to benchmark performance, take a blaster, defender, scrapper, and tank and choose a mob type, say Rikti,  Use a flashback to level 25 area and count how many attacks it took to defeat it which is the bottom line of dps. You may, to your horror, find the pragmatic statistics to show the blaster is not so great when realizing that a tank is essentially invulnerable, scrappers/stalkers, brutes are very very resilient  and the defenders and blasters have laughable defenses and protections as a baseline. I know that there will be a few braggarts that are going to make claims of tanking defenders with blaster damage, but for argument sakes just go and collect the information and find out for yourself. Once you have the information, you can decide if the total lack of status effect protection the very limited amount of power choices available to the blaster to increase defense and resistance worth the so call damage increase a blaster have over a tanker and scrapper? Also ask yourself the question from a defender perspective, is their horrid lack of status protection, and limited chances to increase defense and resistance worth their pitiful damage?

 

Lets try not to fall for the brainless position that blasters and defenders are supposed to be support and thus totally disposable and meant to be helpless when being attacked.

 

Now the OP makes excellent points on how lame many of the dark powers are and really need to be made pragmatically useful, if one observes the powers their stated function is to give the blaster some sense of protection, and when used they fall short, other ways of surviving is their area effect powers to take down the mobs before they close in and lock down and murder the blaster and this powers are plagued with defects that prevents these powers from being effective.

 

Now there is always a possibility that these viewed defects, are legacy designed characteristics to ensure challenge...

 

Sue

 

 

[oedipus_tex]

 

On 5/19/2020 at 8:27 AM, Zeraphia said:

This is a bit of a necro but I realized the same issues especially with this power:

In no other circumstance for a Blaster to gain their regen/recovery does it so strictly require that you hit an enemy with it. I know that there is additional accuracy baked in to this power, but if you miss, that is all she wrote for your regen/recovery. Basically, you are (from what I can see) at the mercy of a 95% chance, which as we all have seen, doesn't always guarantee anything. No other secondary has to deal with a to-hit check. 100% this should be changed.

 

 

If that is how the power is currently behaving, you may want to report it as a bug. I helped the dev team test to make sure the sustain portion works even on a miss.

 

Drain Psyche, the Psi Manipulation sustain, does cancel on miss. 

[Zeraphia]

On 12/20/2020 at 2:38 PM, oedipus_tex said:

 

 

 

If that is how the power is currently behaving, you may want to report it as a bug. I helped the dev team test to make sure the sustain portion works even on a miss.

 

Drain Psyche, the Psi Manipulation sustain, does cancel on miss. 

This was fixed actually! Proof the Devs read the forums, and I'm so glad that this change was implemented! Even if you miss the power now, it will still grant the regen/recovery bonus. (i27 update)

[Greycat]

On 5/3/2020 at 1:35 PM, Snowdaze said:

 But please don't just say "NO" and quote something that's not constructive, please leave reasons and opinions why somethings should or should not be.

No.

 

"There was once an old castle in the middle of a vast thick wood' in it there lived an old woman quite alone, and she was a witch. By day she made herself into a cat or a screech-owl, but regularrly at night she became a human being again. In this way she was able to decoy wild beasts and birds, which she would kill, and boil or roast." - Jorinda and Joringel, Hansel and Grethel and Other Grimm's Fairy Tails.

 

(What. I felt like being contrary.) 🙂

 

All right. In seriousness, yeah, Dark Pit kind of shares Clarity's problem of "it'd have been useful earlier." I don't really feel boost range *fits* with everything, but would have to chew on just what to replace it with. (Or not. Sometimes a "just take it" power comes in handy if you want to ignore it and throw the slots in something else afteward.)

 

 

[Snowdaze]

23 hours ago, Greycat said:

All right. In seriousness, yeah, Dark Pit kind of shares Clarity's problem of "it'd have been useful earlier." I don't really feel boost range *fits* with everything, but would have to chew on just what to replace it with. (Or not. Sometimes a "just take it" power comes in handy if you want to ignore it and throw the slots in something else afteward.)

 Thanks for the bump and your thoughts. If do happen "chew on it" any more, please come back and let me know what you came up with.