Fire/Dark feedback requested - It's good to be back!

[Acrizer]

Hello! I'm trying to recreate my old live Fire/Dark from memory and I'm feeling awfully rusty. What I most remember is perma hasten, defense soft cap, being an endless font of stamina, and it taking months of camping the auction house for the set pieces I wanted to become available. But now it's a whole new world. After trying to recreate it and then tweaking it repeatedly (Hasten didn't look like it was doing much with the other things I had going on) I figured I need some new eyes. I'd really appreciate any help.

 

This character is going to either be duoing or running raids/TFs. I can't put my finger on anything specific, but I really feel like I'm dropping the ball with this build in some ways. Mostly in End usage and underslotting a couple powers. If the last few levels look like dump choices, they are. The removal of the Fitness pool back in the day left holes to be filled.

(Mids is refusing to export 😕 I hope an attachment isn't too offensive)

 

Corruptor 4 (Fire Blast - Dark Miasma).mbd

[Wimbochismo]

Heya, welcome back! If anything attachments are desirable depending on what version of Mids people are running. I'll try to give a breakdown of the highlights and things to shoot for in Fire/Dark.

 

When it comes to defense, there are build options for: low defense, softcapped S/L, softcapped ranged or some combo thereof. Since it looks like you're going s/l defense, you're doing pretty good. If you pick a s/l defense Epic shield, I highly suggest taking Tough to cover the most common s/l resists as well. Some of the resist sets are also great sources of s/l defense.

 

I'm also going to highly suggest Hasten for this build, if not perma Hasten. The highlights of /Dark revolve around putting out multiple Tar Patch's and Howling Twilight uptime as a debuff. In Fire/ you want to be able to cycle your heaviest hitting attacks and have the recharge to do that. Inferno and other aoe's cooldowns are important. Corruptor's also have a slight recharge advantage by splitting the Scourging Blast ATO across 2 powers and getting the recharge twice.

 

After a quick eyeball at your build, I think you need to just pair down what you have and redistribute some focus.

1. With enough recharge you should be able to drop Flares since it's the lowest dpa attack.
2. Fire Breath is usually a skip with the long cast time.
3. Drop Petrifying Gaze.
4. Drop Leadership and Leaping for Kick/Tough/Weave and Hasten.
5. Put 2 regular recharges in Hasten.
6. Pull out all but 2 slots from Stamina and all those slots from Brawl and put them in powers you're using.
7. Split Scourging Blast set in 2.
8. Focus on sets that increase recharge.
9. Gaussian's build up proc goes in Aim.
10. If you need more random one-off type powers, pick something like Hover for your last LotG mule. Or slot it more and use it as well.

That should at least get you moving in the right direction.

[Acrizer]

I appreciate the feedback. 

 

A couple of my earlier builds were doing some of the things you suggest. One of my concerns was endurance drain from toggles (I'm also toggling dark powers). But maybe this just shows why I feel I need help. In this slight edit to an earlier build, I have perma-Hasten, perma-tar patch, 1.2 seconds downtime on rain, about the same toggle/end rec balance, .1% less s/l def. I'll note that I like Flame Breath because sometimes I want a more controlled multi-target attack (habit from teaming with a mind dom using sleep to divide and conquer groups). It's also home to some end rec and recharge. This one uses up those dump slots to save a little bit of recharge time. I won't mourn the loss of teleport target, but it's a nice QOL power. Still a little shy on S/L soft cap, but there's to-hit debuffs and some attempt at piling on some recharge slows to help reduce incoming attacks.

I still have Leadership (3.7% of my defense). If I could make that up somewhere else with a slot or two, I could get TP back and maybe lose 3 seconds on Hasten (which is less time than it would probably take me to notice it's down).

 

I'm curious about the Gaussian's Build Up. Wouldn't running it in something like Tactics mean it's tapped for a chance to proc every 10 seconds (I forget the tic length on toggles)? As opposed to Aim which is reliant on a click?

At any rate, here's the next version. Again, I appreciate feedback.

 

Corruptor 5 (Fire Blast - Dark Miasma).mbd

[Wimbochismo]

I think I see part of the issue. In Mids you're turning on toggles that you may not necessarily be using. I've conditioned myself to do things like turning off Sprint/Fly/etc when engaging in combat to help manage my end. Same thing for Darkest Night, it's not actually something you use all of the time. Teams tend to move fast. When it comes to applying -tohit, DN is something I only apply if I have time, endurance, or the team has stopped moving for an extended period. Otherwise, your most quick and reliable application of -tohit is actually Fearsome Stare.

 

I made some changes for you for these reasons:

• Dark Servant needs accuracy to hit. He also only has 1 sporadic hold power, which means hold procs have a low chance to go off. However, everything he does has -tohit, so tohit procs have a high chance of going off. My personal preference is to boost his -tohit and healing for his Twilight Grasp.
• Twilight Grasp needs accuracy. It's a bit better with full slotting rather than frankenslotting.
• Don't forget to +5 your recharges by pressing + on numpad. You only need 2 recharges for Hasten.
• I've given you the accuracy and resistance uniques in Weave which help a ton.
• Knockback reduction, like in Fly, is often overlooked.

Make a note of which toggles I have running in my version. With this, your net endurance recovery is around 2.15... which is all that you need even considering Incarnates.

 

4 hours ago, Acrizer said:

I'm curious about the Gaussian's Build Up. Wouldn't running it in something like Tactics mean it's tapped for a chance to proc every 10 seconds (I forget the tic length on toggles)? As opposed to Aim which is reliant on a click?

 

This is the main reason you do want it in Aim. If it is in Tactic's it will unreliably go off who knows when. Aim has a long enough recharge that Gaussian's is almost guaranteed to proc when you click it. This also means you're double stacking the boosts for a heavier hitting single target chain or Inferno/Fireball aoe combo.

Corruptor 5 (Fire Blast - Dark Miasma).mbd

[Wimbochismo]

I think that build should work well. It may have a bit of issue with debuff resistances and status protection. Ranged defense would usually help you avoid some of this. Incarnates should also help out.

 

One thing you miss out on as a Corruptor is perma Soul Drain from Dark Mastery if you go with a s/l defense shield. It's a fairly significant dmg boost. I was bored, so to show you other options I threw together a build. It's similar to yours but instead has 42.7 ranged defense. The extra dmg/rech in Blazing Bolt is just to make it fit into the attack chain seamlessly.

 

Corruptor (Fire Blast - Dark Miasma).mbd

[Acrizer]

I appreciate the time and effort. You've certainly offered some ideas and insights I'll be using going forward. Reminds me why the wife and I always pointed to the COH community as the best.

 

Taking a look at your alt build in interesting. I've never considered the Concealment pool with dark because I always thought toggling a stealth power would de-toggle any other stealth powers like Shadow Fall. I might have to test that. I've also never really looked at Soul Drain because of its usage requirements. Much food for thought.

 

Again, many thanks!

[Wimbochismo]

2 hours ago, Acrizer said:

Taking a look at your alt build in interesting. I've never considered the Concealment pool with dark because I always thought toggling a stealth power would de-toggle any other stealth powers like Shadow Fall. I might have to test that. I've also never really looked at Soul Drain because of its usage requirements. Much food for thought.

 

Glad to help! Plenty of things have changed and building is finicky.

 

It was somewhat recently changed so that now all stealth powers will stack. However, on you only the power with the highest stealth radius, defense, threat level will take effect. I think I missed that in the build, so ranged defense is actually 39.4. In a team when you're sharing the buff, the defense etc. will still stack up.