Happy_Thoughts

It sounds like what you really want is controller with empathy as your secondary. Disabling enemies as your first strategy provides much better team support than running straight for the first-aid kit immediately.

The splash damage thing is a myth. All targets hit by Lightning Storm take full damage. My Ice/Storm controller enjoys this a lot.

Lightning Storm and Tornado both hit up to 5 targets each hit (or tick in Tornado's case) if the enemies are close together.

Just to clarify something here, slotting for slows only affects movement speed debuffs; it does not affect whatever recharge speed debuff a power has.

Mud Pots affects run and jump speed of its targets, but has absolutely zero effect on recharge rate.

Dark Blast does have some disadvantages compared to other blast sets.

The set only has two single-target non-snipe attacks, where most sets get three. It also lacks Aim.

Much of the damage it generates is damage over time. Some people really don't like that; if you're one of them, the set probably isn't for you. Personally, I love the crazy amount of damage spam it can generate.

Dark Blast also trades some damage power picks for utility powers. I find the utility powers to be quite situational. Dark Pit is a minion-only stun, so unless I have another area effect stun to stack with it I usually skip it. Torrent, like all area knockback powers, ranges from highly useful to terribly disruptive depending on how the player uses it. Life Drain is a fairly weak self-heal that's somewhat useful if your primary lacks a self-heal and you have the slotting to support it.

Now that that's said, I must tell you that I love the set. Where it really shines is large packs of enemies. Tenebrous Tentacles and Night Fall simply melt large numbers of enemies (as long as you actually slot them as the attacks they are, which some people seem reluctant to do).

It's also a fantastic set to pair with one that uses toggle debuffs, as Tentacles can keep the bad guys immobilized within the debuff field(s) and prevent your anchor from running off.

Oh, and if you're into procs, you can plop 3 in Tentacles and 2 in Night Fall. They obviously aren't a constant source of damage, but each has its own chance to fire on each enemy so often one or more will get multi-procced. That's just beautiful when it happens.

One last thing that's important to note: Tentacles is a cone-area immobilize, but unlike most area effect immobilizes it does NOT prevent knockback/knockdown. This means that you can't leverage it to make full use of powers like Tornado, but it plays very nicely with powers like Freezing Rain, Ice Slick, and other persistent knockdown powers as it keeps them in the patch but does not keep them standing.

If you do try Dark Blast, I highly recommend playing it to at least level 23 before deciding whether or not you like it. That gives you the opportunity to play with well-slotted Tentacles and Night Fall, which to me is the true joy of the set.

This is a myth.

While intentional misinterpretations and sarcasm are fun, I guess, I'm sticking to my position that Flash Arrow doesn't actually provide as much defense as defensive toggles. Unless you were comparing a primary power to a pool power for some reason.

I of course won't dispute how effective it seems to you.

Just for clarification (especially since the original poster isn't as steeped in defenders as some of us) what you described after this statement is a Radiation/Sonic defender, which is very different from the Sonic/Radiation variety.

It really, really doesn't.

This may be part of why you're not killing as fast as you'd like. Tentacles and Nightfall are your mass killing (or mass melting) tools, but they're not really slotted for the job. I would ditch the dampened spirit enhancements in these; the extra to-hit debuff (~3%) won't be noticeable, and just about anything you do will net more than 4% (combined) extra damage in these two powers. Maybe consider recharge since they're only at 41% currently, and/or damage procs.

This is only true in some situations.

You can only get 40% if ALL of the following are true:
- Two powers (which need to be slotted separately) are used
- There are fewer than 10 enemies (Disruption's target cap)
- All enemies are within Acid Arrow's teeny tiny radius (8 feet)
- All enemies are hit by Acid Arrow (as it requires a to-hit check)

In many situations, the resistance debuff advantage is either very slight or nonexistant. I certainly wouldn't describe it as "dominating."

Don't confuse ignorance with desire.

I suggest choosing which of these two you want to be; they are mutually exclusive.

Only in some situations.

Acid Arrow's radius is really small, and requires a to-hit check. As such, you're much less likely to hit a lot of things with it.

Disruption Arrow's maximum targets is, inexplicably, 10 rather than the standard 16 for that type of power. So if you have more than 10 enemies, some won't be affected by Disruption.

If you have a tightly-packed group of 10 or less, and hit all/most with Acid Arrow, then, yes, you'll be debuffing resistance a little better than Enervating Field. But you're also taking and slotting two powers to do so, rather than one.

Dark/ is definitely *not* lacking in damage. It lacks big kaboomy numbers, but the tentacles/night fall combination simply melts large groups of enemies, and keeps them in place (and in your debuffs) to boot.