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Use the temporary travel power rewards from early Safeguard missions to avoid having to get a real travel power for a long time.
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#5496 out of 7621

Epic Power Pools – Darkness Mastery

Last Modified: July 28, 2010

Oppressive Gloom

They're stunned, I'm not impressed.
Score2 of 5

Summary

Keep nearby enemies disoriented while you take continual damage for as long and you leave this toggle on. Hmm… it drains endurance and it drains life at an alarming rate. When I took it on the test server, I found the power to work too slowly, in too small of an area, and drained life far too fast to really be useful.

Worst of all, you have to be in melee range which isn't the best place for a defender to be most of the time. If you take it, it will probably be situational at best and would combine well with the situations where you're hanging out just behind the tank spamming heals. That way, you're constantly healed and the enemies are kept under control.

Skip it unless your other powersets compensate for this power's deficiencies or you're ultra desperate to avoid Stalker strikes in PvP.

Dark Consumption

The ultimate irony. Sapping a Sapper 😀
Score4 of 5

Summary

You damage nearby enemies and gain endurance (more enemies = more endurance).

The range is fairly short which isn't a problem for a Dark Defender since you can lock them down, walk into range and use it when needed. The other interesting thing to note is that it appears that the programmers forgot to turn off the Critical effect on this power (since this power was primarily designed for scrappers). Sometimes when you use it, you'll do double damage just like a Scrapper.

How to Use

Unslotted Strength2.6 x Brawl

It's tempting to forget that it's there and always hold it for the "right time", but that's a waste. Run into melee range, launch it, then retreat. If you're already in melee range because you're soloing or shadowing a Tank/Scrapper, just launch it whenever it comes up. You can always use more endurance, but more importantly, it's an AoE attack that's over twice as strong as brawl unenhanced.

Of course, the best use for it is to use it in combination with your Nova attack to regain all the endurance you just lost. Just be sure to keep a blue inspiration on hand and you can fire your nova whenever you want, pop a blue, and hit Dark Consumption to get rocking again; no down-time.

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

City of Heroes: empty enhancementCity of Heroes: empty enhancementCity of Heroes: empty enhancement( 3 Slots )
I was able to make this perfectly usable with 3 slots. 4 would be better, but only if you have them to spare.
90%
 
Recharge (90% Minimum)
Default: 360 sec
With max 100% enhancement: 180 sec
It's a useful power, but only if it's recharged. Bring it back as fast as you can.
40%
 
Accuracy (40% Minimum)
Default: 75%
With max 100% enhancement: 150%
You get nothing if it misses. Slot up some accuracy.
25%
 
Endurance Modification (25% Minimum)
Default: 25%
With max 100% enhancement: 50%
25% is good, but not a lot especially if you use this right after a nova attack. Granted, you'll get 50% or better from more than one target hit, but I like to have good results with even a single target.
0%
 
Damage (0% Minimum)
Default: 28 points
With max 100% enhancement: 56 points
For a power with such a long recharge, it's kind of a waste to bother with damage.

Help

The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.

Dark Embrace

Damage resistance. Finally!
Score4 of 5

Summary

A nice and welcome shield against major forms of damage (smashing, lethal, toxic, and negative energy). The resistance begins at ~25% so becomes significant with a few enhancements. By adding this to your arsenal, you get critical resistance to the most common forms of damage (lethal and smashing), and, most importantly, you will now have resistance and defense against all forms of damage in the game! Assuming you have Shadow Fall from the Dark Miasma set of course.

It's kind of hard to see the armor in the picture… I wonder if I had my graphics turned down.

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

City of Heroes: empty enhancementCity of Heroes: empty enhancementCity of Heroes: empty enhancement( 3 Slots )
3 is enough to max the resistance and lower endurance at the same time. However, you can get away with 2 if you don't worry about the endurance drain though I used 4 because this was the only power it made sense to slot a -KB proc IO.
80%
 
Damage Resist (80% Minimum)
Default: 27%
With max 60% enhancement: 43.2%
You have it for protection, might as well get your money's worth
30%
 
Endurance Reduction (30% Minimum)
Default: 0 end per second
With max 100% enhancement: 0 end per second
As with all toggle powers, make sure to drop the endurance drain of this power some.
0%
 
Recharge (0% Minimum)
Default: 4 sec
With max 100% enhancement: 2 sec
It already comes back really fast. Not a huge priority.

Help

The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.

Soul Drain

Damages them, gives me accuracy and increased damage... Nice.
Score5 of 5

Summary

Whee! Hit everything around you with decent damage, but gain damage potential and increased accuracy for each one you hit! I use this with my dark scrapper as well, and it's very powerful.

How to Use

Damage from Activating Soul Drain2.8 x Brawl

A great combo is to fire powers continuously until you start running out of endurance, hit Dark Consumption to gain end back, then Soul Drain to do damage and gain accuracy and damage potential (since after using Dark Consumption, you'll already be in melee range). It's a great way to keep the battle going strong .

I glow with power for as long as the soul drain is in effect.

It's easy to make the same mistake with this as is done with Dark Consumption, but there's no reason to hold it. Use it whenever you can during a battle and definitely before starting an attack chain. First of all, it's a fairly strong attack, and second all your next attacks have a damage and accuracy bonus.

Increased Damage (per target target hit)8%
Increased ToHit (per target target hit)2%

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

City of Heroes: empty enhancementCity of Heroes: empty enhancement( 2 Slots )
2 only if you're strapped for slots. 3 would be better.
40%
 
Accuracy (40% Minimum)
Default: 90%
With max 100% enhancement: 180%
Does no good if it misses. Even though the accuracy of this power starts out high, add some extra for best results.
40%
 
Recharge (40% Minimum)
Default: 120 sec
With max 100% enhancement: 60 sec
It takes a while to come back, but can significantly increase your attack power so bring it back as soon as you can.
25%
 
Endurance Reduction (25% Minimum)
Default: 19 end
With max 100% enhancement: 9.5 end
It's a pretty spendy power so lower the endurance at least a little.
0%
 
Damage (0% Minimum)
Default: 30 points
With max 100% enhancement: 60 points
You're not firing this off for the attack so don't waste your slots. By the time you get this, you won't have a lot of slots to spare anyway.

Help

The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.

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