please Re Vamp Blaster Dark Mastery

[Snarky]

Blaster Dark Mastery is a waste of a pool.  

 

If there was ever a version of the game this set was good for, it is not the current world.

 

The armor and Fearsome Stare are thematic and Fearsome Stare is possibly useful.

 

The last 3 powers, the "best" powers in the set only for higher level characters?  Flush a toilet.

 

a ST confuse, a group intangible that is as likely to get you kicked from a team/TF as to be useful, and a super long recharge small AoE "Soul Consumption" that is a .... wait, what does it do?  I read the description yeah, but when I use it NOTHING happens.  Sure, if i track the combat stats I might see something.  But it has NO effect.    

 

Yes, there are other epic choices.  But what is the point of making an epic so bad that only an idiot takes it?

[kelika2]

that ranged soul drain thing def/corrs got would be awesome

[Captain Fabulous]

I really do not understand the logic behind making pool powers so useless. Low damage, low stats, ridiculously high recharge and end costs, and locked behind tier walls. There's a lot of potentially good powers in there, but ultimately nearly all are simply not worth taking other than for flavor at the expense of effectiveness.

Imagine the kind of build diversity we could have if they were actually worth taking and didn't require wasting power slots on stuff we don't want/need just to get to the useful ones.

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, kelika2 said:

that ranged soul drain thing def/corrs got would be awesome

beautiful, but maybe asking too much.  it is a "build up" power.  rightly fitting into Corr epic to mitigate no build up in secondary.  but 3/5 of Blaster Dark Mastery is pretty useless.  i got no use for a ST confuse on a Blaster.  none.  Black Hole is beyond stupid at this point.  The crown Jewel of Dark Mastery is....  like farting in Thanos' face.  it is an action, it does something.  

 

literally every other ancillary pool works better than Dark, backwards and in high heels.  

 

Dark Mastery does not get a single damage dealing power.  compare with every other ancillary/patron  

 

Force Mastery has TWO "oh crap" buttons so good I regularly take both.  Dark Mastery's is so bad even if you take it you may as well...fart in Thanos face....

 

It is a crap set.  probably cobbled together at the last minute by a hungover Dev on a deadline.  

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

a ST confuse, a group intangible that is as likely to get you kicked from a team/TF as to be useful, and a super long recharge small AoE "Soul Consumption" that is a .... wait, what does it do?  I read the description yeah, but when I use it NOTHING happens.  Sure, if i track the combat stats I might see something.  But it has NO effect. 

It's an AoE self-heal and END recovery. I don't feel like searching for any characters I may currently have that has it to check for function though, but if it isn't healing and recovering you while draining a little health and END from your enemies, then you should report it as a bug.  (Though I would not be adverse to it also picking up a self-rez function for when things go bad, it is already a combination of 2 other Dark powers.)

 

Edit: Hmm. City of Data says it boosts max HP and END, not heals it. My mistake. Probably why you aren't seeing anything happening. (Though it does have a heal component, that may be getting lost in the boost to max HP....)

 

Edit again: As for the rest, Murky Cloud provides 19.25% damage resistance against fire, cold, energy, and negative energy at base value.  Possess can be slotted with Contagious Confusion to affect multiple enemies. Fearsome Stare is a useful Mag 3 enemy lockdown. And Black Hole is useful if you need to suddenly make a group of enemies just stop doing anything. (So not great for teams, but helpful for soloists.)

 

Edited September 22 by Rudra

[Snarky]

16 minutes ago, Rudra said:

It's an AoE self-heal and END recovery. I don't feel like searching for any characters I may currently have that has it to check for function though, but if it isn't healing and recovering you while draining a little health and END from your enemies, then you should report it as a bug.  (Though I would not be adverse to it also picking up a self-rez function for when things go bad, it is already a combination of 2 other Dark powers.)

 

Edit: Hmm. City of Data says it boosts max HP and END, not heals it. My mistake. Probably why you aren't seeing anything happening. (Though it does have a heal component, that may be getting lost in the boost to max HP....)

 

Edit again: As for the rest, Murky Cloud provides 19.25% damage resistance against fire, cold, energy, and negative energy at base value.  Possess can be slotted with Contagious Confusion to affect multiple enemies. Fearsome Stare is a useful Mag 3 enemy lockdown. And Black Hole is useful if you need to suddenly make a group of enemies just stop doing anything. (Sofront

 

I like how you delved deeply into the verbage written about Soul Consumption, then had to do that again.  While disregarding someone who has used it.  I know you will not listen, I only need to get cut off once in traffic to realize what kind of driver is in front of me...  but I say for everyone else.  Soul Consumption is a CRAP power.  DO ANYTHING ELSE and your chances of survival will be better.

 

I never said Murky Cloud was bad.  It is the standard (more or less) resist toggle

 

Possess is a ST confuse.  Neither Dark Blast primary or secondary has confuse.  No synergy/stacking.  If you want to argue it is good because you can start proccing it to the gills go ahead.  6 slot that turd and enjoy.

 

You say Black Hole is good for soloists.   You know how a solo Blaster gets groups to leave them alone solo at level 41+ (min level for power)  I will tell you.  Killing everything. Glad to educate the masses.

 

i never said Fearsome stare is bad.  It is a cone with a fear (stacks with Dark Sec sustain) and -to hit (stacks with almost all Dark powers)

[lemming]

34 minutes ago, Snarky said:

You say Black Hole is good for soloists.   You know how a solo Blaster gets groups to leave them alone solo at level 41+ (min level for power)  I will tell you.  Killing everything. Glad to educate the masses.

The only one of those powers I kinda got to work I think was Dimensional Shift where you can join them.  And it still sucked.  Yes, just kill them.  (Or hold them, then kill)

[Rudra]

37 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I like how you delved deeply into the verbage written about Soul Consumption, then had to do that again.  While disregarding someone who has used it.  I know you will not listen, I only need to get cut off once in traffic to realize what kind of driver is in front of me... 

And I enjoyed how I was trying to explain why you may not have been seeing anything, not arguing that it wasn't a helpful power, but you instead chose to assume I was arguing against you on that point. So thank you for that. I agree that Soul Consumption in Dark Mastery needs help. I was under the impression it was a merging of Dark Consumption and Dark Regeneration, and when I saw it wasn't, I corrected myself.

 

37 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I never said Murky Cloud was bad.  It is the standard (more or less) resist toggle

My mistake. I thought you were.

 

37 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Possess is a ST confuse.  Neither Dark Blast primary or secondary has confuse.  No synergy/stacking.  If you want to argue it is good because you can start proccing it to the gills go ahead.

I wasn't saying it was a good power. I was saying that we can turn it into a passable AoE confuse. I never take it.

 

37 minutes ago, Snarky said:

You say Black Hole is good for soloists.   You know how a solo Blaster gets groups to leave them alone solo at level 41+ (min level for power)  I will tell you.  Killing everything. Glad to educate the masses.

I said it was helpful for soloists. You know how my Blasters get groups to leave them alone? They kill everything. You know what my Blasters do when too many spawns wind up jumping my Blaster? I grab whatever mezzes I may have and through it at them, then move to a 'safe' location to keep fighting. I know other players that do the same thing. Glad to educate the masses.

 

I wasn't arguing with you, I was attempting to provide clarity to others. Just because you may be called snarky doesn't mean you have to automatically be so to everyone.

 

Edited September 23 by Rudra
Edited to correct "may" to "move".

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

And I enjoyed how I was trying to explain why you may not have been seeing anything, not arguing that it wasn't a helpful power, but you instead chose to assume I was arguing against you on that point. So thank you for that. I agree that Soul Consumption in Dark Mastery needs help. I was under the impression it was a merging of Dark Consumption and Dark Regeneration, and when I saw it wasn't, I corrected myself.

 

You told me if the power was not doing what it advertised report it as a bug.  i never said it was not doing what it advertised.  i said I used it and it is a complete piece of shit no one should take.

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

 

 

I said it was helpful for soloists. You know how my Blasters get groups to leave them alone? They kill everything. You know what my Blasters do when too many spawns wind up jumping my Blaster? I grab whatever mezzes I may have and through it at them, then move to a 'safe' location to keep fighting. I know other players that do the same thing. Glad to educate the masses.

 

I wasn't arguing with you, I was attempting to provide clarity to others. Just because you may be called snarky doesn't mean you have to automatically be so to everyone.

 

I have had Blasters in 4/8 Fire Farms leaving the slow ass tanks and going off to solo spawns.  How overwhelmed are you getting soloing that you need black hole?  Help me understand, so that we can provide this clarity to others.

[Rudra]

25 minutes ago, Snarky said:

You told me if the power was not doing what it advertised report it as a bug.

Correct, when I was running off memory and thought the power was a fusion of Dark Consumption and Dark Regeneration. I was mistaken, as I found out when I went to City of Data and saw what it did. At which point my comment was an attempt to figure out why you may not be seeing anything happening. The only reason why I ever notice a +max HP effect is that suddenly my health is lower than it was as a percentage on my screen. Depending on how much my character is healed at the time, I don't notice it. That is why for the longest time I thought Dull Pain had no heal and and was worthless. Had Soul Consumption worked the way I thought it did from memory, if you weren't seeing anything, then the power needed to be reported as being bugged.

 

25 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I have had Blasters in 4/8 Fire Farms leaving the slow ass tanks and going off to solo spawns.  How overwhelmed are you getting soloing that you need black hole?  Help me understand, so that we can provide this clarity to others.

Then my hat's off to you, because none of my Blasters can solo +4/x8 anything. If I wind up getting 2 spawns on me at once, as sometimes happens, it is a frantic battle to murder everything in sight before my health finishes bottoming out. Trying to kill them off with a nuke doesn't work because they are too spread out for my ranged nukes to drop enough of them or too far away for my PBAoE nuke without getting even more spawns aggroed. (Edit again: Most of my characters lack Judgements, and even the ones that do, very few use Ionic.) And on those occasions when it is 3 spawns like sometimes happens at corners and rooms of some maps, if I lack the ability to tell at least one of those spawns to shut up for a little bit, because my only mez is my immobilize from manipulation, then I'm often dead before I can get out of everyone's range. While a niche use, powers like Black Hole keep my character alive. (Edit: So again, helpful to soloists. That doesn't mean it is a great power.)

 

Edited September 23 by Rudra

[Snarky]

28 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Correct, when I was running off memory and thought the power was a fusion of Dark Consumption and Dark Regeneration. I was mistaken, as I found out when I went to City of Data and saw what it did. At which point my comment was an attempt to figure out why you may not be seeing anything happening. The only reason why I ever notice a +max HP effect is that suddenly my health is lower than it was as a percentage on my screen. Depending on how much my character is healed at the time, I don't notice it. That is why for the longest time I thought Dull Pain had no heal and and was worthless. Had Soul Consumption worked the way I thought it did from memory, if you weren't seeing anything, then the power needed to be reported as being bugged.

 

Then my hat's off to you, because none of my Blasters can solo +4/x8 anything. If I wind up getting 2 spawns on me at once, as sometimes happens, it is a frantic battle to murder everything in sight before my health finishes bottoming out. Trying to kill them off with a nuke doesn't work because they are too spread out for my ranged nukes to drop enough of them or too far away for my PBAoE nuke without getting even more spawns aggroed. (Edit again: Most of my characters lack Judgements, and even the ones that do, very few use Ionic.) And on those occasions when it is 3 spawns like sometimes happens at corners and rooms of some maps, if I lack the ability to tell at least one of those spawns to shut up for a little bit, because my only mez is my immobilize from manipulation, then I'm often dead before I can get out of everyone's range. While a niche use, powers like Black Hole keep my character alive. (Edit: So again, helpful to soloists. That doesn't mean it is a great power.)

 

Well… long story short.  Whatever that power does.  It us a very long recharge and gies off like a wet sparkler when you wanted an m80

 

and the Blaster that was in the fire farm was a Fire^3.  Built for just more damage.  It can roll into 50 mobs and either eliminate them or trigger their fear reaction if they live.  Thing is flat vicious 

[kelika2]

4 hours ago, Snarky said:

beautiful, but maybe asking too much.  it is a "build up" power.  rightly fitting into Corr epic to mitigate no build up in secondary.  but 3/5 of Blaster Dark Mastery is pretty useless.  i got no use for a ST confuse on a Blaster.  none.  Black Hole is beyond stupid at this point.  The crown Jewel of Dark Mastery is....  like farting in Thanos' face.  it is an action, it does something. 

Blaster it up by making its initial damage higher while having a low buff or following the DoT nature of negative energy damage for even more dot stacking

[Uun]

13 hours ago, Snarky said:

Possess is a ST confuse.  Neither Dark Blast primary or secondary has confuse.  No synergy/stacking.  If you want to argue it is good because you can start proccing it to the gills go ahead.  6 slot that turd and enjoy.

I'm not sure why they did it, but they tacked on a 30% unresistible debuff to damage, tohit and a laundry list other things that lasts 30s (the controller/dominator version doesn't have this). The confuse only lasts 9.5s. It seems to me that Possess is more valuable as a ST debuff than as a confuse. Is that enough to sell me on the set? No.

[PoptartsNinja]

11 minutes ago, Uun said:

I'm not sure why they did it, but they tacked on a 30% unresistible debuff to damage, tohit and a laundry list other things that lasts 30s.

 

IIRC this was done because the live devs thought blasters would complain about the loss of EXP due to confuse damage, so they figured there'd be less annoyance if they debuffed the confused mob's damage and ToHit. Since Damage and ToHit debuffs don't scale with enhancements the way confuse does, they made the debuff long enough to cover a super-overcapped confuse duration.

[Uun]

32 minutes ago, PoptartsNinja said:

IIRC this was done because the live devs thought blasters would complain about the loss of EXP due to confuse damage

Had to be the HC devs. Dark Mastery was just ported to blasters in February and this version of Possess (which also went to masterminds) didn't exist previously. 

[Snarky]

6 hours ago, Uun said:

I'm not sure why they did it, but they tacked on a 30% unresistible debuff to damage, tohit and a laundry list other things that lasts 30s (the controller/dominator version doesn't have this). The confuse only lasts 9.5s. It seems to me that Possess is more valuable as a ST debuff than as a confuse. Is that enough to sell me on the set? No.

Thanks i will discuss this in Blaster forum.  Is it good enough to take for uses on AVs?

[Uun]

49 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Thanks i will discuss this in Blaster forum.  Is it good enough to take for uses on AVs?

Haven't tried it. Might be worth going on test to try it out. Could be quite potent if you slot it with recharge, since the debuff stacks.

[tidge]

We were recently discussing this Epic set in the Blasters forum, mostly about the 600 second Soul Consumption, with the consensus that it really isn't likely to be worthwhile to take. As a power, it isn't radically out-of-line with most of the non-Patron level 44 powers, and as a fan of the Presence pool's Unrelenting, I can almost see how those powers' attributes echo.

 

Personally, I wouldn't revamp this pool unless literally nobody is taking the powers. It's not as if Blasters haven't gotten a LOT of great things since launch. The recharge of Soul Consumption can stand as a sour testament to the original Blaster T9 nukes.

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

We were recently discussing this Epic set in the Blasters forum, mostly about the 600 second Soul Consumption, with the consensus that it really isn't likely to be worthwhile to take. As a power, it isn't radically out-of-line with most of the non-Patron level 44 powers, and as a fan of the Presence pool's Unrelenting, I can almost see how those powers' attributes echo.

 

Personally, I wouldn't revamp this pool unless literally nobody is taking the powers. It's not as if Blasters haven't gotten a LOT of great things since launch. The recharge of Soul Consumption can stand as a sour testament to the original Blaster T9 nukes.

I disagree. Obviously lol.  But seriously.  Force Mastery has two “oh crap” powers that do at least something.  One puts you in a protective situation where you cannot attack and are difficult to attack.  Although it has its limits.  Critters in the Labyrinth will cut right through it.  Although…. Taking the stupid targeted AoE dimension shift away but keep the concept.  Have that power Dimension Shift the User!!!  I know what you are thinking … wait, lets not make a useful power.  But i encourage everyone to get away from the OG Devs drunken hatred of letting people use powers in a super powered game.  Consider the theme, the similar powers in places like Force Mastery and do not rush to condemn.  Unless you are condemning whoever coded this set while on a two week bender.  

[Luminara]

11 hours ago, Uun said:

I'm not sure why they did it, but they tacked on a 30% unresistible debuff to damage, tohit and a laundry list other things that lasts 30s (the controller/dominator version doesn't have this). The confuse only lasts 9.5s. It seems to me that Possess is more valuable as a ST debuff than as a confuse. Is that enough to sell me on the set? No.

 

Look at it again.  The parenthetical target info at the end of that line.

 

(self only)

 

I was tempted to make a blaster just so I'd have another character with a Confuse, because Confusing enemies to get buffs puts all kinds of happy on my face... until I saw the bug reports (one in March and one in April, shortly after the power went live).  Noped out of that plan so fast I had to break out the BenGay for my back.

[Uun]

7 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Look at it again.  The parenthetical target info at the end of that line.

 

(self only)

 

I was tempted to make a blaster just so I'd have another character with a Confuse, because Confusing enemies to get buffs puts all kinds of happy on my face... until I saw the bug reports (one in March and one in April, shortly after the power went live).  Noped out of that plan so fast I had to break out the BenGay for my back.

Holy crap,  I knew about the bug but they never fixed it?

[tidge]

11 hours ago, Snarky said:

 I know what you are thinking … wait, lets not make a useful power.  But i encourage everyone to get away from the OG Devs drunken hatred of letting people use powers in a super powered game.  Consider the theme, the similar powers in places like Force Mastery and do not rush to condemn.  Unless you are condemning whoever coded this set while on a two week bender.  

 

From my PoV, the non-Patron Blaster pools appear to have a rather odd assortment of powers that don't quite overlap (with each other), and somewhat echo primaries/secondaries which inspire them.... avoiding certain types of powers. Despite my crack offering side-eye to the hugely improved Blaster nukes, Defiance, etc, I'm not actively trying to make Blaster's Dark Mastery be bad, it is more (from my PoV) that there isn't much else to work with given the constraints without making Dark Mastery more like another pool. I see it sort of like the Presence Pool, for which it makes very little sense (to me) to generally want two of those first three powers (which have anti-synergy, for the most part), except to get access to the last two.

[Jacke]

My main AR/Devices Blaster is the only Blaster I've taken to any Level (long ago L50 and strongly Incarnated).

 

From that, I know for Blaster Epic Pools that Arsenal Mastery, Force Mastery, and the Patron Pools (especially Mace Mastery and Mu Mastery) are good enough.

 

But damn, Dark Mastery is just bad.  Fearsome Stare and Murky Cloud look okay,  But Possess is bugged, Black Hole is wrong, and Soul Consumption, well, it spawned a whole thread from being so bad.

[Snarky]

13 hours ago, Uun said:

Holy crap,  I knew about the bug but they never fixed it?

What is the bug exactly?

 

and why would they fix it?  Dark Mastery was designed as a pile of dog crap.  Having carrots in it just gives it color

Edited September 24 by Snarky

[Uun]

34 minutes ago, Snarky said:

What is the bug exactly?

See highlighted text in the power description (it debuffs you, not the target):

 

-30% Heal Dmg, Smashing Dmg, Lethal Dmg, Fire Dmg, Cold Dmg, Energy Dmg, Negative Energy Dmg, Psionic Dmg, Toxic Dmg, Ranged, Melee, Area, Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative Energy, Psionic, Toxic, Base Defense, Absorb, Endurance, ToHit, RunningSpeed, FlyingSpeed, Confused, Terrorized, Held, Immobilized, Stunned, Sleep Strength (self only) for 30s