Suichiro

1) I PMed him, he's just not back on the forums yet.

2) Go right ahead. My art is for everyone and anyone. Unlike some other artists, I *love* it when my stuff is reposted all over. Just gimme credit for it when you do.

NNNOOOOOO!!

I will nevar kolor!

I can color stuff in Photoshop, but I hate doing it generally. It takes too much time, I get eye strain and I actually prefer black and white. I know, I'm insane. I'll generally color other people's work though. Somehow it's not as bad when it's someone else's lines.

And the fight between Halley's and Melanie actually happened in one of the Golden Giza Fight Nights. It was a team battle and Shutterbug took some shots of it. Fearing a tank is a mean mean dirty nasty trick, but that's exactly what Melanie is all about. Most of the pics are cute and happy, but the character herself is vicious and psychotic. ... I need to be able to enter the FNATGG more often...

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I love the look on Melanies face !

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I'm surprised that anyone picked up on that.

I only added her into the pic because I wanted some action in it. A re-occuring theme in my art is a distinct lack of static poses. I've been doing action shots and perspective for so long that I actually can't just draw normal people standing anymore. Sad... I know.

All I found was spam and some guy in Congo that wants to offer me his father's estate. Rowr, you big meanie. Stop filling my email with spam!

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Please do more art Suichiro!

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Okay.

This is unusual for me though. I'm far too lazy to ever be productive. I wouldn't count on seeing a lot of art from me here, overall.

Um... when I say it's NSFW, I mean it's *really* not. It's also not quite normal either. I can't say anything other than that.

If you wanna find my art, look up "Suichi Tanaka" on Google or something. There's only one Suichi Tanaka that does hybrid anime/amercian art around.

Inda style? *is confused*

While watching wrestling tonight I did this. I didn't spend a lot of time on it, but I suppose it turned out okay.

I have a lot of art, but almost none of it is even remotely related to CoH/CoV. It's also definately NSFW, so I really can't show anyone. I guess people will simply have to suffice on the few drawings I can find that are eligable to be posted here.

I have too many pics of Melanie I've drawn over the years, but only one sketch I did of my actual 'Massacre' Melanie character on CoV. Here it is:

Melanie's firebreath spell

--Suichiro

I have contact info for them, yes. Sue-chan runs a page that's easily accessable by everyone. Momo on the other hand doesn't have a page persay, but I can get in contact with her. She doesn't speak English, so I have to act as a go between.

If you want something from Momo, I can try to get you together, just PM me.

For Sue-chan, go here:
http://www.sue-chan.com/

Sue-chan can always use some commission work and she's *impossibly* nice of a person. She's adopting a shelter dog soon and she's using some of the money to go to his adoption fee.

I don't really draw my own characters, but I'll upload the one sketch I did of Melanie for you to see. (well, besides my avatar one)

--Suichiro

You should be fine with that. CanoScans are decent quality and generally get the job done. You have true 1200 optical dpi with that, which is half of the nicer versions. It's always the lower of the two numbers. Generally, unless you're willing to start paying upwards of 150-200 dollars, you can't afford great quality scanners. Anything you can get that works well and is under 100 is a nice find.

If you know how to use Photoshop or other digital darkroom software, I wouldn't use the automatic correction services it comes with. If you don't, then the auto correction will make your pics come out nicer than a straight scan. It's just always preferable to do it manually if you have the ability to.

Plug it in and let it run a few scans. If you like what you have, then you got a good deal.

If you can afford it, you want something flatbed with a true >=2400dpi optical scan. Not "enhanced" scan at >=2400dpi. It'll list the specs on the box and you want to make sure it's the optical scan that's at least that high. That'll insure that your scans will be of decent quality. Plus you want it to be a flatbed scanner, not a combo scanner/printer/fax/etc. It should do scanning and that's about it. Handheld ones are just out of the question.

I've really fallen in love with my Fire/Dark corruptor, 'Massacre' Melanie, over the months of playing CoV. She's the evil version of my Fire/Fire blaster, I find the calling of the Rogue Isles too great to resist. I had previously gotten a commission of her from an artist named Momo and more recently from another named Sue-chan. Since I'm extremely happy with how they turned out, I'm sharing them here.

While she's not a very well known character, she did place in the finals of the "Ladies of the Dark Isles" swimsuit contest on Virtue a while back. Her outfits really run the gamut, but this is her main outfit.

'Massacre' Melanie's normal in-game screenshot

Melanie by Momo, digitally colored by me.

Melanie by Sue-chan, ink and markers.

--Suichiro

You've got it exactly. I don't need recharge, nor do I need hasten. I drop everything I fight within one attack chain. If I'm fighting high cons and can't drop them with one chain, it doesn't matter much because I've got mezzes and -Acc to keep me safe. It's not slow by any means, but it's methodical. I find that I'm busy using all my powers to their utmost, and am never wanting for my damage attacks to recharge faster. If I'm not attacking, I'm debuffing. If I'm not debuffing, I'm healing.

It's also because I herd. Once my powers are used and everything is dead, I'm not gonna be attacking again until at least 30 seconds later. In that time I'm gonna be herding even more mobs into another BURNfest. I rarely ever fight a single spawn. I commonly fight 3 spawns at once, and sometimes upwards of 5. All that collecting gives my powers time to recharge and it's much faster than doing the spawns seperately, so my XP rate is great.

It's personal preference. You have *plenty* of room in your attacks to slot 2 recharge SOs if you want. You can also squeeze in Hasten if you wish, pretty easily.

While I don't see the point in doing a single target build for a Fire/Dark (why not just go with Ice/Dark instead?) there's a couple of things you should take note of.

First, swap Hurdle and Combat Jumping. Having Hurdle first helps you get around for those 2 levels while you wait for CJ. In the lowbie levels that makes a big difference. They aren't great until they're paired together at 12 anyways, so pick the one that's more useful earlier. Immob shouldn't be that big an issue so early in the game.

Second, taking Flares is purely a personal preference, but consider taking Fire Breath instead of Flares. While Flares is cheap on endurance, it's not good damage. Even while rounding out an attack chain, Flares does only half of the damage that Fire Breath does and even less when slotted. You'd have to cast Flares *three* times to get the same damage out of Fire Breath and both have long animations. Fire Breath also has an inherant accuracy bonus to boot. Your final chain will go Blaze, Fireblast, Fire Breath, Fire Blast and will drop things quickly. Flares will badly slow you down and when you're fighting 3 mobs at once, you can't afford to be wasting all your time on trying to drop one. Dark affords you great safety, but it's still not advisable.

Third, Dark is endurance heavy. With something eating your endurance all the time, Dark can go two ways. One, you can burn all your endurance and kill *everything* or two, you can use the same endurance and do much better damage to drop things faster. Fire is no slouch on single target damage, but you will be hurting for blue when paired with Dark.

Finally, even slotted up fully, Rain of Fire with Tar Patch isn't enough to drop a spawn by itself. It comes very close, but not close enough. Even one AoE might be enough to do the entire job, but if you ignore them you're depriving yourself of that killing ability.

You can choose to build and slot how you choose, but if you want single target damage I recommend doing Ice instead. Unless you're going for a concept build, I don't recommend a single target Fire/Dark build. You're needlessly hurting yourself in the long run. It's like a MasterMind without pets. It can be done and some people enjoy it, but it's completely ignoring useful and good powers avalible to you.

But then if you're doing a concept build, I doubt you'd be reading this guide in the first place.

Travel Pools and Fire/Dark

Speed Pool:

Hasten: A great power for nearly everyone. It'll allow your mezzes debuffs and Fire chains to come up more often allowing you to destroy everything even quicker. Fire/Dark is end heavy however and this will be tough to balance without some blues in your tray.

SuperSpeed: Not a very hot travel power in CoV. The amount of vertical leveling and road debris make SS tougher to get around with. On the positive, SS stacks well with SF's stealth to grant you complete invisiblity. This is an amazing tool to have at your disposal and the extra speed allows to to break LoS faster, thusly having much more time to setup your Tar, BURN combo.

Flurry and Whirlwind aren't that great powers, since Flurry does bad damage for what you're capable of, while whirlwind no longer unroots your animations. There is some amount of melee control in whirlwind, but you have better powers to negate damage with.

Jumping Pool:

Combat Jumping: A great low level power that adds jumping hieght and immobilization resistance at the same time. Stacked with Hurdle, CJ is a great unsupressed mid combat movement power. Also CJ will stop you from being immobilized during your pull, something that can be deadly if it happens.

Super Jump: Not as good of a travel power for a Fire/Dark, being squishy and all, but you do have stealth in your pocket to help overcome the aggro you can step into using this power to travel across zones. SJ however, is fast, it's got great vertical movement and it's very hard to be slowed down during it. Overall it's the easiest travel power to get around CoV with.

Acrobatics: Acro gives you KnockBack resistance and Hold resistance while the toggle is on. It's great for a Fire/Dark because it not only resists holds which will kill your game, but resists KB as well. Combined with CJ, you've got a good amount of mez resist to things. At least enough to setup your BURN adequetely. Note that there's a *lot* of sleeps, disorients, end drains, etc in the later game that Acro will do nothing against.

Jump Kick is considered to be a terrible power and it rightly is. It's got bad damage, a terribly long animation and the KnockDown it does isn't reliable. You have better powers to pick.

Teleportation Pool:

Recall Friend: A great power for being a taxi and everyone loves Recall. It's also got a secret use for you, as you can Recall your Dark Servant later in your career. This will allow you to make sure that he takes an alpha strike and not you, or that he stays in melee with that nasty EliteBoss. Very useful to have.

Teleport Foe: A strange power to use for most, but this has a lot of uses for a Fire/Dark. Because your game revolves around your Tar Patch, it's a great power to make sure that people stay in it. It's also good for pulling a single minion or Lt at range and when mobs get stuck in walls, you can yank them right out. If something runs from you during your BURNing, well, just TP him right back into the fire!

Teleport: Hard power to get around town with and hard to use in general. I suggest getting a bind together with TP to allow you faster and easier usage. TP is end consuming but is the fastest point A to point B travel in the game. It also ignores any type of immobilize or slow and is great for repositioning yourself mid-battle when a furball breaks out.

Team Teleport: Most likely not going to be of use to you in your carreer. It has some very interesting and useful attributes in dedicated team play, but to a lone Fire/Dark? No.

Flight Pool:

Hover: Good for staying out of melee range, but you shouldn't really care too much about that with your debuffs up. It resists KB inherantly which can be very nice. Movement is too slow to use in general even 3 slotted for speed. It's a great power for most squishies, but you shouldn't really notice it as a servant of the BURN.

Air Superiority: A good melee attack to take. It does decent damage, it's animation is quick and it's KD is reliable. It's everything Jump Kick isn't. When that boss runs through your Tar to you after everything else is dead, you can keep him on his back the whole battle. Single target powers are generally only of use to you against the high cons that survive your onslaught, but the -fly is great against the floating mobs you'll encounter every so often. Just AS them into Tar and never sweat them again.

Fly: The slowest of all travel powers. It's also the safest travel power. It's end heavy and supresses to terrible speeds during combat. It's not a bad power but really has no synergy with Fire/Dark other than the KB resistance.

Group Fly: In the same boat as Team TP.

Overall Jumping Pool provides the most synergy with Fire/Dark, followed up by Teleport and Speed Pools. All are useful in their own way. Only Fly lacks much common power with your build, however don't let that stop you from taking it if you enjoy flying. Travel pools are always a personal choice, but for those who really want to max out their potential, you may choose your synergy with an informed mind.

Pulling advice:

When scouting out your potential DN pull, remember to keep in mind your target and your goal. Mobs will typically be spread out all over the room and your DN anchor will most likely run right towards you. This can make for a messy situation at times when you want to max out your AoEs.

Always pull towards the smaller gate. If there's 3 places in a room you can pull to, pull towards the place with the tightest "corridor" or between boxes, etc, to pack those mobs in as tightly as possible. This'll make sure that all your AoEs hit as much as they can. This also helps to make sure that mobs don't run and spread out in front of your Tar, instead of being *in* your Tar.

Break 'Line of Sight.' There's plenty of things in the game that are tall enough to break LoS on. A box, a pole, a tree, a corner, a dumpster, etc. Try to find the biggest and most stable thing to pull towards. A corner is nice because it's a total LoS break, along with having only one real way a mob can try to run towards you. A box isn't so good because mobs may be able to see over it and shoot you, or run around both sides of the box instead of one side. With some readjustments, you can successfully pull around even the smallest of objects, such as light poles and columns. Once you get good at this, you can pull multiple times in a room. Pull spawn one to a corner where spawn two is. Pull the new bigger spawn to a box where spawn three is. Pull them all to a corner where you setup your Tar Patch for some massive BURNing!

Keep your DN anchor targetted. Once you anchor your DN on a mob, keep that mob selected. Knowing where your anchor is at all times is essential to make sure that you've got a group of -Acc and -Dam mobs to BURN, not a group of angry mobs that are going to instantly destroy you when you break LoS to fire. If your anchor runs away from the pack, re-anchor something else. Keeping DN up on the group is the most important. If you run too far to see your anchor selection while pulling, you've run too far. You can out range the DN toggle and when you do, the mobs that were aggroed will remember who aggroed them. That'll be you. Angry, un-debuffed, and making a beeline straight for you. Not a pretty picture. Keep your anchor within sight and keep him in the pack.

Learn to 'Distance Pull.' If there's nothing to break LoS on, then you'll need another tactic. This assumes you wish to DN pull, rather than simply attacking the spawn at it's current location, which might be the better choice. Judge carefully. DN anchor a mob, and run backwards. Lay a Tar Patch in the path of the mobs as you run and if you stay out of their firing range, they'll follow you in that straight line all the way into the Tar. Once you see them mired in Tar in the distance, rush back to them and start your chain. This'll have the same effect as a corner pull out in the open, with no way to break LoS. So long as you stay out of their range, they won't even be able to take shots at you.

Use LoS to your advantage. As a Fire/Dark in the late game, you have 3 different powers that you don't even need a target for. This is perfect for a particular nasty enemy group such as Malta or Arachnoids. Setup your DN and pull, breaking LoS. While you wait around the corner, turn your camera so you can see them running down the hallway/corridor/etc. You can drop a Tar Patch around the corner where you want it, and they'll mire themselves in it. Then you can cast Dark Servant in the middle of the mobs once they're good and stuck. They'll instantly aggro the servant, but with DN and his Chill of the Night -Acc field running, they'll never hit him. Finally you can then cast Rain of Fire on them, causing them to flee slowly. This is your time to round that bend, pop Aim and BURN them all to the ground. You controlled them, debuffed them, and started your damage chain all without even being a valid target to shoot.

An experienced note: Certain mobs resist slows very well and are of particular danger to you. Slag Heaps, Council Warwolfs, Carnie Strongmen and Arachnoids in particular all like to stay in melee and they'll run right past your Tar like it was a puddle on the sidewalk. Take care when attacking these, and excersise judgement when pulling any spawns that contain them. Having 2-3 Warwolfs that ran immediately to you, while the DNed pack isn't in range yet is immediate debt. Use a combo of Fear, Holds, Fluffy, and HTwillight to mez these mobs until the situation is under control.
Also, Malta Gunslingers have proven to be nasty, as they TP out of your Tar Patch, as well as seem to resist your Dark debuffs. They'll cut through your -Acc like butter, so try to stack mez on them instead. Similarily, *** Thorn Casters from the Circle of Thorns will always run out of your Tar Patch. They won't willingly stay in it like other mobs, so take them out quickly.

I suggest practicing your pulls and anchor trains against -2s or -3s in the open zones, away from normal traffic. A pack of -3s isn't much danger to you, while not being so low level that they immediately run from you instead of aggroing you. This will allow you to hone your skill at your leasure and practice distance pulls as well as the tougher light pole and column LoS pulls. All in all, remember to keep your surroundings in mind. Awareness is key for a Fire/Dark to succeed in their careers. If mobs get behind you, or there are mezzers in the group, or you get an ambush or accidental aggro, it could be doom. If you know about them as it happens, you can adjust and use your Dark powers to keep the situation under control, nuking everything in a tightly packed armageddon. While the mobs not in your BURN, tremble helplessly awaiting your attention.

Slotting advice:
Fire Blast
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Flares:
As with most of your damage dealing powers you want 3 Damage and 1 Accuracy. More Accuracy if you really want to hit.

Fire Blast:
3 Damage, 1 Acc

Fireball:
3 Damage, 1 Acc, 1 End Reduction

Rain of Fire:
3 Damage, 1 Acc, 1 End Reduction. The Accuracy in RoF makes it hit much more often against higher level foes and ones with good defense. It substantially raises the killing potential of RoF more than Damage alone.

Fire Breath:
3 Damage, 1 Acc, 1 End Reduction

Aim:
3 Recharge, when you can spare the slots, you might invest in 3 To-Hit buffs as well.

Blaze:
3 Damage, 1 Acc, if range bothers you on it, slot Range as well.

Blazing Bolt:
3 Damage, 1 Acc. For mid combat uses, slot 2-3 Interrupt Reduction. For pulls or alpha strikes, perhaps slot End Reduction.

Inferno:
3 Damage, 1 Acc. You really shouldn't be needing to nuke more than it recharges naturally. If you do need to, you aren't making use of your Dark powers well.

Dark Miasma
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Twillight Grasp:
3 Heal, 2 Acc, your choice of End Reduction/To-Hit Debuff/Recharge. With 2 Acc, it rarely misses and the To-Hit Debuff will help more than the Recharge will.

Tar Patch:
3 Recharge, 3 Slow.

Darkest Night:
3 To-Hit Debuff, 1-2 End Reduction

Howling Twillight:
HT is such a good power as is, you can slot nearly anything and it'll help, or leave it as it comes. Suggest 3 Recharge so you can use it's disorient without worrying about it not being up to rez a teammate.

Shadow Fall:
3 Resist, 1-2 End. The Resist on SF is nearly 30% to En/Dark/Psi when 3 slotted. Plus resist to Fear and non-slowed stealth, it's good to keep it up all the time.

Fearsome Stare:
3 To-Hit Debuffs, 1-2 Acc, 1-2 Fear. Fear lock isn't nearly as important as stacking -Acc. Mobs fear for a decent amount of time as is, and it's more than enough to setup your debuffs. Fear will still be a good debuff weapon to bosses that resist fear as well.

Petrifying Gaze:
3 Hold, 1-2 Acc. As your only hold, it's important for it to hit, if you're gonna count on it.

Black Hole:
2-3 Intagibility, 1-2 Acc. Most people don't take this power. If you do, you want the Intangibility to stick. Slotting Intange enhancements makes it so you can successfully Black Hole high con mobs and EBs/AVs/Heroes.

Dark Servant:
3 To-Hit Debuffs, 3 Heal. Dark Fluffy is your tank. He recharges perfectly in time when he runs out, so he needs no Recharge Enhaments at all. Slotting this way makes it so that people don't hit him very well, and he heals both of you well. He spams his hold at random so slotting his hold isn't reliable unless facing only one mob.

This build slots heavily for To-Hit Debuff. When stacked up on mobs, even EBs and AVs will miss. When nothing hits you, you don't need to worry as much, and BURN at your leisure.

I don't like to post builds because it takes a lot of the fun of customization out of your own character. Since I did go and write a guide to this though, I'm responsable for at least giving you a sample of what power I took and when. Every power was taken in the order that I felt most needed it. Getting Darkest Night early in the game was the best thing I ever did with my Fire/Dark. Even though it eats endurance alive, it's the best protection you'll get from your secondary, hands down. At level 12, you're set up for the DN anchor pull to Tar, BURN, repeat. This makes the teen levels go by so quickly you'll have Stamina before you know it.

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Exported from Ver: 1.7.5.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
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Name: MassacreMelanie
Level: 41
Archetype: Corruptor
Primary: Fire Blast
Secondary: Dark Miasma
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01) --> Fire Blast
01) --> Twilight Grasp
02) --> Fire Ball
04) --> Tar Patch
06) --> Rain Of Fire
08) --> Fire Breath
10) --> Darkest Night
12) --> Recall Friend
14) --> Teleport
16) --> Hurdle
18) --> Health
20) --> Stamina
22) --> Shadow Fall
24) --> Aim
26) --> Fearsome Stare
28) --> Blaze
30) --> Howling Twilight
32) --> Inferno
35) --> Petrifying Gaze
38) --> Dark Servant
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Suichiro's Guide to BURN! The Fire/Dark Corruptor

This guide will teach you the basics of the AoE centric Fire/Dark Corruptor: Debuff, Cripple, Fire, Laugh.

Okay, so it really depends on your playstyle for a Fire/Dark, it's possible to make a single target machine as well, but with a combo like Fire/Dark why go for anything other than AoEs?
Unless perhaps you're doing a concept build, but you wouldn't be here looking in this guide if you were.

I have much experience with fire and AoEs from my Fire/Fire blaster in CoH. I now have a hugely successful lvl 41 Fire/Dark Corruptor in CoV. How I run my corruptor is a total commitment to control, debuff, and damage and the Scourge caused by DoT. She runs circles around anyone and anything in teams and she solos like the best ATs in the game. Brutes can't keep up with the speed and level of destruction she causes and aggro is never an issue with such massive debuffs. I solo everything including Elite Bosses like a champ. I've never wanted to solo an AV/Hero, so I have no information on ease of that. She's such a destructive force and Scourge is such a good tool for killing that I've given a special name to the game she plays. It's called BURN, akin to Brute SMASH, only if played right, BURN has proven to be better in my experience.

In order for a Fire/Dark to best achieve both maximum damage and maximum safety, they need to stick by their AoEs. Darkest Night is a potent AoE toggle that'll keep your hide intact. All your biggest damage dealers come in AoE flavor and are mostly wasted on single opponents. If you can debuff and kill one mob, you can debuff and kill 15 just as easily.

The BURN game at level 40 is simply the same game you play as a lowbie. Tar Patch mobs so they can't run, then AoE them and hit Rain of Fire for some massive scourge. Laugh. Repeat. The more advanced version of this requires a few tools in your arsenal to work well. Fireball, FireBreath, RoF, TarPatch, DarkestNight. The other powers, FireBlast, Blaze, Aim, Inferno, TwillightGrasp, ShadowFall, FearsomeStare, HowlingTwillight, PetrifyingGaze, and DarkServant are all there to simply make the game easier.

Use ShadowFall to keep yourself stealthed, it's also handy for those en/dark/psi mobs. There's more out there than you think. You find a group and a corner to pull to, toggle DN on a far spawn and then pull to the corner. DN will aggro anything else that the toggled mob runs near on his way to you. Drop a TarPatch on the corner and watch the mobs go running into it. Once they're all well mired in the Tar, hit FearsomeStare on them to even further stack -Acc on them. It'll insure your survival even more. More health = Less downtime. Heal with Twillight Grasp if you need to. Now they're all stuck in Tar, Debuffed with DN and Feared. Hit Aim, then unleash Fireball, Firebreath and RoF on them and watch the BURN. They'll get a few attacks off at you at this point, but with so much -Acc, nearly nothing will hit you. What little does, is debuffed by DN so it doesn't hurt hardly at all. When Rain of Fire hits, instead of trying to fight you, they'll all run, trying to get out of the Tar. They'll never make it out. If anything survives, clean up with your single target powers. If there's a nasty Lt in the group, use PetrifyingGaze to lock him up first.

The beauty of fighting this way is that nothing can get within melee range of you unless you wish it to, and most all of the ranged attacks will miss. There's no reason to not use FireBreath in this instance, as it doesn't matter if you're 2yrds away or 40yrds, the game sees range as range. Period. FireBreath also has a very long range for a cone. If you're still worried about it, pop a range enhancer in there. The damage it can do with Aim on is amazing, I can wipe out nearly half a minions HP with FireBreath alone. That goes a *long* way to being able to wield the deadly alpha you're capable of. FireBreath also changes the caliber of damage you're dealing. Going from being able to wipe out a bunch of even con minions, to being able to decimate +2s with ease.

If the spawn gets too hard to handle, hit HowlingTwillight and run. Slot up TwillightGrasp and you can pretty much heal half of your HP with a single use. Inferno makes for an awesome way to clean up a spawn that's going bad. Just pop one CAB after you use it, and anything that's left can be used to heal yourself off of. If they're still in Tar, they won't be able to run after you or close into melee still. Once you get DarkServant, he can further debuff, tank and heal you after you Inferno as well, providing yet another layer of defense to yourself.

Once you get used to the DN pull, Tar, BURN, you can repeat it quite fast. In the time it'll take you to wipe out the spawn, all your powers will be back in time for the next. If you can't pull anywhere, simply fear the spawn while you're stealthed in SF. Toggle one of them with DN, drop Tar under them, and go to town. Always toggle with DN if you can. It's one of your most important powers and makes a noticable difference if it's not on.

For single target higher con fights (Bosses EliteBosses, AV/Heroes) it's really quite simple. Toggle them with DN, hit fear everytime it's up, keep them in Tar and then just slowly cycle your strongest attacks on them. Heal when you need it and keep going. It's a steady pace, but it's quite safe. Remember, FearsomeStare has a nice -Acc on it, so use it a lot for the debuff, not the fear lock. Between DN, FS, and the debuff on TwillightGrasp, you can make even AV/Heroes miss more often than not. And DN gimps the damage to well acceptable levels. I've never ever lost more than 75% of my health in a single shot as a corruptor, even when foolishly fighting Infernal at melee. If you're not getting one-shot as a squishy, nobody on your team is.

As for endurance usage and power slots, I have a travel power, and the two prerequisite fitness powers + stamina. I'm a creature of quick action and not a long term fighter. My end usage is minimal because I have times where I'm not firing off powers, as I'm searching for a new group to BURN. I can run DN and SF all the time, without any trouble. I have everything but Blazing Bolt, Flares and Black Hole. Blazing Bolt slows down the game while waiting for it to charge. It's also single target which is not the point of the build. Blaze does a much better job of single target damage. Flares is simply too slow and compaired to the usefulness of the other powers, is not worth the power slot. Black Hole I might actually be able to use, but I prefer my other powers instead.

In teams, focus mainly on debuffing Acc with FearsomeStare while you try to setup DN. Though we know that toggle anchors on a quick team are hard to keep on. Heal yourself with TG, and everyone around you including MasterMinds and every MM Minion will love you. You'll probably take a bit more damage, because of the lack of multiple stacked -Acc and DN, but you can heal more often to overcome this, something which will earn you much love from your group as well. Good AoE damage, constant source of powerful healing and the ability to cripple the hardest of AV/Heroes into whining little babies.

For those who want a rundown of the powers individually:

Flares: Single target, low damage
Not so hot damage, but low end use and decent range.

Fire Blast: Single target, med damage
Good single target damage. Fast, recharges quickly. Decent range.

Fire Ball: Targetted AoE, med damage
Staple of your AoE game. Decent damage, very fast activation.

Rain of Fire: Non-targetted AoE 'drop', low/severe damage
Minor AoE damage that turns into massive damage with Tar under it. Each seperate tick of damage has it's own chance of scourging. (Note: if you really plan on using RoF to it's fullest extent, 3 slot damage and 1 acc. Trust me, it's not wasted. This is not the same creature as CoH was.)

Fire Breath: Targetted cone, med/high damage
Harder to use than FireBall, longer activation time. Very good damage and another staple of your AoE game.

Aim: Self Buff, +Acc +Damage
Not always needed, but makes your alphas much better and will allow your heal to hit much more often.

Blaze: Single target, high damage
Massive single target damage, very short range. Your own choice, but personally I prefer this to the snipe only because of the safety that /Dark provides you with.

Blazing Bolt: Single target, high damage, great range
Extreme single target damage, slow activation, hard to use mid battle. Good for support on a team when aggro isn't on you, or taking out a pesky Lt.

Inferno: PBAoE, extreme damage
AoE Nuke. Kills nearly everything. You don't need this really, but it's always nice to have a nuke handy for a hairy situation. There are times where you'll congratulate yourself for taking it.


Twilight Grasp: Single target debuff, -acc -damage -regen, PBAoE heal on you
Very potent heal. Great solo and on teams. Slot it with multiple Accs, you *don't* want this to miss. This power has everything you can want all in one glorious debuff/heal.

Tar Patch: Non-targetted 'drop', -res -speed -jump -fly
The basis of the BURN game. -Res is nice, but it's mostly used for mob control. -Res is more effective on bosses, AVs, etc. Learn to use this effectively and your entire corruptor game is set. Ambushes? No problem. Set a tarpatch in a hallway/corner and watch the ambush race each other to be the first in to die.

Darkest Night: Targetted AoE anchor debuff, -acc, -dam
Slow to activate, targetted anchor debuff. This power will keep you alive through the most hellish situations. So long as it's up. Learn to play around DN and you'll be nearly unstoppable. Breaking line of sight and pulling with DN will be great skills that will help you to gather those mobs real tight, just how a Fire/Dark likes them.

Howling Twilight: Targetted cone disorient, -regen, PBAoE multi rez on you
Slow to activate but damn near the best combat rez in the entire game. Your choice to get this or not, it's useful solo for it's disorient, and teams will kiss your feet when you stop the Team wipe in it's tracks. But you don't need it at all for the BURN game to work. This will drop most fliers on the ground during the disorient and has a great addition of a severe -regen debuff to make those AVs/Heroes crumple over and die.

Shadow Fall: Toggle stealth, PBAoE +res buff on you
As a squishy, stealth is more useful that you might think. Allows you to plan your attack first, not get wiped while trying to see around that corner. It's also got a very nice +Res to Dark/En/Psi/Fear. You'll be laughing when Aurora Borealis dares to stick her head in your buisness. The Circle are toys for you to play with at your whim.

Fearsome Stare: Targetted cone fear, -acc debuff
Nice wide cone Fear. Useful for setting up your attack, useful for retreating, useful for it's nice -Acc. It's useful. This becomes your alpha when there's nothing to pull to. You don't need mobs to be locked up for long, just long enough for your debuffs to engage.

Petrifying Gaze: Single target hold
You don't need this power, but it's a good way to help the dominator or Ice/ Corruptor to stack holds. It's a great way to get rid of that pesky Tsoo Sorceror or that Earth Thorn Caster. I could go either way, but I like having it in my pocket.

Black Hole: Targetted AoE intangiblity
Teams will probably hate you for using this mid battle, but it'll save the day an make you the envy of everyone when you stop the 'Total Party Kill' in progress. But then, as a master of AoE debuffing, a situation like that shouldn't occur, right? This is completely tangental to most of the other powers in /Dark. The radius is quite large on it, and is quite useful right out of the box as a panic power.

Dark Servant: Summoned pet, spams TG, PG, Tenubrious Tentacles, PBAoE damage field and -acc on him
You'll want this. A pet who can take your aggro, heal you, and further stack -Acc on those bosses and AVs? Sign me up! Take note though, that you will have to keep recasting it, so it requires maintainence. And as with all pets, it'll go off and aggro stuff you didn't intend on at times. It'll also most assureadly ruin any DN anchor pulls you set up. But still, always nice to have around.

Note that your bane is spread out mobs. This build's only failing is mezzes, which is normal for any squishy at all, and spread mobs. If the mobs are all spread out, then DN isn't debuffing them all, and your AoEs can't alpha strike them all, wasting precious damage. They'll also be more likely to make it out of Tar, or worse yet, not even be in it.

This isn't a PvP build, this is a carefully constructed PvE build that maximizes all your powers to their fullest, and takes advantage of the Scourge that DoT creates. That's not to say that my own Fire/Dark hasn't taken down her good share of Tanks/Scrappers/Blasters solo in PvP, but this isn't a build meant for that. Everything has it's place in the game, you debuff to help you live, you live to setup your Tar, you Tar to help your fire, and your fire helps you to BURN!

--Suichiro

Mayhem missions are very awesome. I think everyone is in agreement here on that. A few things I noticed immediately:

1. Escorts. I beat down some Crey in the Bricks map and got a key. Entered the building and captured and informant or somesuch. At this point, he was as usual, a kidnap victim and was following as per normal. I left the building to go take him back to the way point, when my Dark Servant got distracted attacking an invulnerable civilian. Between this and some unknown cause, my kidnapee decided he did not want to follow me anymore. He made the usual "Where are you?" comment, but was no longer interested in following me or paying attention to me at all. No stealth powers were on, as I needed to turn off Shadow Fall in the first place to get him to follow at all. I could not complete this objective since he wouldn't budge.

2. Pets and civies. While I love the fact that I can attack civilians and I don't mind that I can't kill them, I do mind that my pets do the same thing. Only since a pet is not smart enough to think on his own, and if not a MM, you cannot stop him short of un-summoning him, this creates a situation where a pet will attack a civilian forever. This is not a happy place for Dominators nor /Darks who may need that pet for backup when being attacked by spawns of Longbow. Especially at those high levels. Recall friend still works, but not everyone has it, nor may have the time un-interrupted to do so.

3. Heroes. I finished the bank vault and was on my way to defeat the hero, when I see that said hero is an Elite Boss Malaise! I fight him along with his spawn of Longbow and nearly take him down, but his HEAVY mezzes, Spectral Terror and Phantom Army are simply too much to deal with. You cannot defeat these pets nor can you run from them in the crowded space of the bank. Even as a /Dark who resists Psi and Fear, plus a pet to back me up, it was far too difficult. The difference between the normal mission and the Hero at the end was far too great a jump. I like that he's a hero and it's hard, but perhaps a better sliding scale? Boss versions of Heroes instead of EBs at lower settings? Lts<Boss<EB<Hero? This was on Malicious.

Also, after dying to him twice, upon the third time I came back to the bank to beat him, he had completely vanished. I used the rest of my time trying to find him and gaining more time in order to search, but he was nowhere to be seen. I could not finish the Mayhem mission at all. This was *very* disappointing.

4. Jail cell doors. These things are way way too tough to beat. I understand that they're re-enforced doors and that they're supposed to be tough, but it takes me at least 3-4 minutes to break through one. And this is in a timed mission, nonetheless. Also, why do they still explode? It does heavy damage to a squishy and just doesn't make sense. The vault door is much bigger and more complex yet doesn't explode. I don't see the logic. You must also defeat a new door everytime you die. While this does make sense, so that you don't immediately escape, the likelyhood of dying to an EB is high, solo. And you must spend your precious time wailing away at a door that will also do severe damage to you every time. This is not fun at all, compared to the greatness that the rest of the mission provides. I would like to see a lowered HP count on the door, and no damaging explosions from a hunk of metal. This would still make life difficult and annoying to be caught, as well as eat up time, but in a much more acceptable manner. On a team, where you can have friends to help it's not nearly as much of an issue, but this is bad for solo play.

I love the Mayhem missions, they're so much fun that I can't wait to do another. But due to bugs and a drastic shift in difficulty mid mission, I died twice, and was not able to complete a single objective at all. I would love for some of these issue to be addressed before the missions hit live.

They seem to act like SuperReflex Stalkers, in that they have a much higher evasion to certain sets than others. I don't know if there's a difference between melee and ranged for them, but I do know that I can hit them with single target ranged attacks pretty well. Once I start throwing AoEs at them, even Aim doesn't help Firebreath hit them at -4 to me. That's without being debuffed from Smoke Grenade.

--Suichiro

[ QUOTE ]
I believe it's 45% aoe.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see it listed as 22.5% def to AoE, with 3 SOs being 35%. Regardless, we know something's wrong.

--Suichiro

So you're telling me that 35% def to AoEs is making -4s dodge 30 some odd ticks of 130%acc ?

--Suichiro

Curious if anyone even saw what I posted earlier about acc slotted rain of fire missing...

Anyways. I tested this out right now.

I'm a level 39 Fire/Dark corruptor. I found a level 35 Lt. Night Widow to beat on.

I hit tar patch on her to keep her in the Rain of Fire as long as possible, I hit Rain and she consistantly dodged all exept 5 ticks on average. She dodged most all of Rain of Fire at -4 levels to me! Consistantly. And my rain is slotted for acc at about 130% acc if my calculations are right. Rain is also a pet that cannot be debuffed via smoke grenade, so that's not an issue.

I have a demorecord of this small little battle. I beleive they have *massive* def to AoEs like a Stalker does. I was able to hit her at -4 with single target attacks okay, but my AoEs would just whiff. This is not typical defense. This is not just a "hard to hit mob." This is not fair. A defense level that high combined with hide abilities is not a fair fight at all. And this is at -4! Without the aid of aim or buildup or a tray of insps, I cannot fathom fighting them at all.

_Castle_, I like the other Widows. I like the Night Widows too. Please look into this level of def.

--Suichiro