Dark Mastery Soul Consumption

[Snarky]

This level 44 last power in Dark Mastery.... is it a piece of crap?

[Hedgefund]

I took it on a Dominator to try it out.  The uptime is low, it has a base recharge of 600 seconds (that's 10 minutes) and the HP buff last 60 seconds.

 

I really rarely used it, mostly because these powers with hyper long recharges sort of get forgotten about.

 

It might be a decent power if someone uses it well.  Like, if you take some damage during an alpha strike and there are enough enemy live bodies around, it could give a reasonable heal. 

 

Bottom line, I'm not going call it a piece of crap, but I will say I'm not likely to take it again since I personally didn't get much utility out of it. 

[tidge]

I'm not a fan. I've taken it (and its parallel) on non-Blasters, and I didn't really like it on those either.

 

What I see as the downsides:

 

1) It comes so late in a build that if it is a power that is tactically important, then the build probably has some sort of defect that ought to have been addressed by making other choices before you got to this point.

 

Often, if I think I need Soul Consumption for Blaster survival, I opt for Fire Mastery instead to get Rise of the Phoenix. I find it mentally easier to worry about dying after the character is already dead.

 

2a) It has a 5-minute 10-minute base recharge.

 

No matter what else the build is doing with Global Recharge, you've got to slot this for Recharge or you may as well not have picked the power.

 

2b) It has a base Accuracy of 1.0

 

No matter what else the build is doing with Global Accuracy/ToHit, you've got to slot this for Accuracy or you may as well not have picked the power, if you are playing against +N where N is greater than 1.

 

2 (combined) It is a slot-hungry power. I just don't like trying to find slots to invest in a power taken after level 35.

 

3) It's a relatively shallow PBAoE, which may or may not jive with what else the (here) Blaster is doing in combat.

 

4) The pre-requisites for being able to choose Soul Consumption are IMO mediocre. The first pick will probably be Murky Cloud, which I think is a pretty good toggle. I kinda like Fearsome Stare, but it isn't really a power that a Blaster needs (as a %damage attack), and I feel like it should have at least a second slot invested if you want it to do what it does well. The other two powers are serious meh... I could see either of them for concept, but neither is really helping a Blaster go wild IMO.

 

 

Edited September 22 by tidge
Its recharge was worse than I realized!

[Jacke]

What @tidge said.  Maybe some builds will take Dark Mastery.  But it won't be for Dark Consumption.

 

Especially when a Power has a Base Recharge so big a build will be lucky for it to have a final cycle time of under 3.5 minutes.

 

Powers with that sort of final cycle time that don't have a equally long duration are only good as Panic Button Powers.  Example: Mastermind Traps Detonator.  And even fitting one of them into a build (fixing the Epic Pool Pick and taking 1 of 24 Power Picks) demands it be good enough for that investment.  Dark Consumption ain't such a Power.

 

 

Edited September 22 by Jacke

[tidge]

4 minutes ago, Jacke said:

Especially when a Power has a Base Recharge so big a build will be lucky for it to have a final cycle time of under 3.5 minutes.

 

Powers with that sort of final cycle time that don't have a equally long duration are only good as Panic Button Powers.

 

If I can duplicate the effect of a click power with an inspiration, the power had better have a cycle time on par with how long it takes me to get enough inspiration drops to combine into the inspiration I want. Macros to combine inspirations don't require me to wait until I can pick a T9 or Epic power.

[Jacke]

Also, a Power that can't get a cycle time down to about that of a T9 Nuke in a build (around 60s), especially with a much shorter duration, is really only useful as a Panic Power.

[Seed22]

On 9/18/2024 at 5:26 PM, Snarky said:

This level 44 last power in Dark Mastery.... is it a piece of crap?

Yes.

 

Low HP with regen power means its leaving a lot to be desired, and the recharge is rough so its really a Wish.com version of Soul Absorption or whatever its called in Darkness Affinity.