Blaster Secondary: Darkness Manipulation

[Spectre7878]

Hey Devs

 

Can you please look at dark manipulation and make it a tad better. It really needs a overhaul like you did with electric manipulation. 
 

Death Shroud should become a damage

-to hit debuff +end recovery 

 

that would make me happy

[Parabola]

Darkness Manipulation could benefit from a fairly extensive rework in my opinion. Moving the sustain to Death Shroud would help (it's probably unlikely they would give it -tohit as no other version has this) but there are many other problems with the set:

 

• Prenumbral Grasp: Joint slowest casting of the tier 1 manipulation powers alongside Subdual in Mental. Probably fine though as these tend not to be the most important powers.
• Smite: Very good dpa, possibly the best power in the set as things stand.
• Death Shroud: Moving the sustain to this would make the set far more user friendly. It would likely have to be reordered into a later slot if this was the case.
• Shadow Maul: This is the worst of the pbaoe powers from any of the manipulation sets by a distance. The only really comparable power is Ripper from Plant and that has twice the arc, casts faster and costs less end for only marginally less damage. And Plant has another pbaoe in Thorn Burst. One possibility would be to replace this with a version of Engulfing Darkness from Dark Assault to give a radial pbaoe (Blasters generally can do without spending time in melee lining up cones). Or if we keep this and add another pbaoe (see Dark Consumption below) then it needs the buffs to cast time and arc that the other versions of the power now have.
• Soul Drain: This just isn't an appropriate power for Blasters. Blasters are a burst damage, 'kill them before they can kill me' archetype, and this is particularly true if you consider how they play without IO's. The standard Build Up variants facilitate this by allowing the Blaster to spike their alpha damage, hopefully reducing the return fire before the enemy are notified. Soul Drain forces you to stand in the middle of the enemy and aggro everything before you can launch your alpha strike. Soul Drain is a fantastic power on armoured archetypes that can get away with being in prolonged fights but it isn't a good fit here. Replace this with a Build Up clone.
• Touch of the Beyond: If the sustain is moved to Death Shroud then this needs to do something else or be replaced entirely. Assuming we stick with the power in name then turning it into a ranged or melee hold similar to Positron Cell or Freezing Touch would I think be fitting and useful. Terrorize unfortunately doesn't have the stopping power that a hold does in the middle of a melee.
• Dark Consumption: If this set gets a toggle sustain then this becomes an even more peripheral power than it already is. Blasters don't need this kind of end recovery power and without that aspect this is just a very long recharge pbaoe with a tiny radius and piddling damage. Electricity Manipulation has Power Sink but that has a slightly different niche for sapping builds and is a better power in nearly every aspect. Dark Consumption could do with being replaced but I'm not sure what with. If we kept Shadow Maul in it's existing slot then a version of Engulfing Darkness could go here instead.
• Dark Pit: This seems comparable to similar powers in other sets and is fine.
• Midnight Grasp: Again this seems fine, the most directly comparable power is probably Future Pain which has higher dpa but costs more end.

[ABlueThingy]

I would not like it if Soul Drain was turned into a basic Build Up clone, we have too many Build Ups as it is.

Frankly we should be looking for ways to get rid of Build Up and Aim and Taunt and Confront and Placate type powers that are cloned across sets. 

 

 

[Replacement]

I'm not a fan of giving it the Dynamo treatment.

 

I would rather see Dark Consumption moved around and turned into the Sustain.

[Spectre7878]

I have been playing my dark dark build and he really isn’t as bad as I thought he be. I do have endurance issues. So I am hoping that sets will help with that. I would be ok with Dark Consumption (and powers of such) had a faster recharge and could leach off defeated foes. Touch from beyond endurance recovery is nice, though it could be a tad more. I get that we don’t want every set to be a cookie cutter of the next.