Shadow Meld on a Defense 2ndary

[Brizzle]

Hey guys.

 

I have a DM/Ninjutsu scrapper and I have recently unlocked Soul Mastery.  So my question is:  is it overkill grabbing a power like Shadow Meld for a defense set when most of my positional stuff will be soft-capped?  

Thanks in advance for the help and advice!

[Saikochoro]

I personally wouldn’t take shadow meld on a armor set that has soft capped defense. I suppose you could use it in case of cascade failure, but at that point I’d rather just have a few lucks in my insp tray. If you just have a free power pick that you don’t know what to do with, then it certainly won’t hurt you to take it. 

[kelika2]

1 slot lotg wonder.  but otherwise no.  nin is fairly easy to softcap

[Haijinx]

helps when you are doing incarnate stuff

 

Helps when you get debuffed

 

It depends a lot on how many slots you have to throw around in your build.  Shadow Meld would be fine with just the base slot in this instance.   

[nihilii]

On 1/9/2021 at 11:41 PM, Haijinx said:

helps when you are doing incarnate stuff

 

Helps when you get debuffed

 

It depends a lot on how many slots you have to throw around in your build.  Shadow Meld would be fine with just the base slot in this instance.   

This. I will almost always get Shadow Meld if I'm getting Moonbeam, regardless of secondary; just because for 1 or 2 slots it has great value even on softcapped alts.

 

/nin has squishy DDR and can feel the pain against Incarnate content that defense debuffs. Activating SM as you run to the next group does a great job buffing you up for the first seconds of engagement, after which you have cleared enough of the crowd you control the rest of the fight.

[tidge]

On 1/11/2021 at 6:05 AM, nihilii said:

This. I will almost always get Shadow Meld if I'm getting Moonbeam, regardless of secondary; just because for 1 or 2 slots it has great value even on softcapped alts.

 

/nin has squishy DDR and can feel the pain against Incarnate content that defense debuffs. Activating SM as you run to the next group does a great job buffing you up for the first seconds of engagement, after which you have cleared enough of the crowd you control the rest of the fight.

Ditto for me (for both Scrappers and Stalkers). There is some synergy (mostly enemy dependent) between using a long-range Moonbeam while dashing towards an enemy group and activating the Shadow Meld for their alpha-strikes prior to melee engagement.

 

I think my builds are split roughly 50/50 between those only having Shadow Meld slotted with a single LotG Def/+Recharge and those with an extra slot of Recharge reduction. Personally, I find the (relatively) long activation time (for the duration of) of Shadow Meld to work against me wanting to use it 'regularly'; outside of the 'unlucky' DDR cascades for certain content (AVs, GMs) it is possible to become comfortable enough with their attack chains that you could trigger it as needed.