Dark Side Rage Analysis

Max Rage level is 60. This is baffling, given that you're liable to hit that well before you've unlocked the endgame (Bar playing Daert, I suppose, whom may fall a bit short at level 57 or so), even if you ignore the wholly optional islands. I'm not sure if that's a deliberate choice or another example of Dark Side's lack of polish. It's even more cringe-worthy with Bagyr, due to how fast he'll gain Rage experience.

That aside, this is inarguably the best Rage has ever been in the series.

In broad terms, it's most similar to Warriors of the North's handling: you have 9 Rage moves, they're each on a separate Rest period (There's no Olaf-set equivalent to be an exception), you have a single Rage experience meter, and there's some conceptual divides to the Rage moves that have limited practical relevance. Unlike Warriors of the North, none of your Rage moves is plot-gated aside the initial acquisition of Rage being plot-gated. Unusually, you actually get three Rage moves to start with: Orc Strike, Jealousy, and Necro Pack are all available right away. In conjunction with Dark Side's Rage moves having minimum Rage level requirements, your first several Rage levels tend to go into upgrading your current set instead of purchasing new moves.

Conceptually, there's three lanes or sets of Rage moves: an Orc set, a Demoness set, and a Vampire set. This is reflected in animations, with Blacky (Your Rage-providing buddy, though you can rename him once if you like) having a different form he takes on for each such set, but in practical terms the sets only matter through Action Rage's Rest reduction starting with your class-associated set, then doing another set, and then adding in the final set. You can argue each set has some trends, I suppose, but it's not like there's a large enough sample of moves for such a statement to be particularly meaningful. It's not like the classes/characters have exclusive Medals for boosting their associated Rage moves, either.

The complete separation on Rest periods is huge, finally doing away with the problem where some Rage moves are more or less impossible to justify using because they're directly competing with other Rage moves. Back in The Legend, Reaper's Black Hole was not only overpriced, but it competed with the actually-excellent options Soul Draining and Rage Draining, making it almost impossible to justify using it. Back in Armored Princess, Rest was global and so less-desirable moves like Lava Call never found themselves being used by virtue of them interfering with your Rage access as a whole. Back in Warriors of the North, the competition between Viking Vortex, Ice Blades, Lord of the North, and Loki's Aid tended to mean that at any given moment at least one of them was basically impossible to justify using because it meant not having access to something better for several turns afterward.

In Dark Side, there's only one Rage move I think is objectively a junk move (Cupid the Demon), and I still find it worth using in longer battles where everything else is in its Rest period. This is especially true of Bagyr thanks to his potentially-unlimited ability to spam Rage moves within a single turn, held back solely by RNG and personal Rest periods, but even for Daert and Neoline this situation crops up semi-regularly. So while it would be nice if Cupid the Demon was a better move, it's not a move where you could remove it from the game and have it be basically 100% improvement for the player, which is a huge change.

Also, much thanks to Quaranyr in the comments section; originally this post was stitched together from me screenshotting Rage level-up offers and doing my best to keep track of everything. As such, it had holes, errors, and I didn't do my usual final stats followed by talking about the move a bit more broadly. Now it's complete -including info on level-up options that are supposed to exist, but can't be accessed without modifying the game due to bugs. Among other bugs not readily discovered by playing the game...

Orc Strike

Basic stats
Rage: 4
Rest: 2
Damage: 80-100 Physical
Lethality: 4% Physical

Does Physical damage to a single chosen enemy. Some of this damage is percentile, in addition to the more conventional damage, but the percentile damage is still Physical and thus modified by Physical resistance.

Something worth explicitly mentioning: Bagyr's Blood Rage does double the percentile portion of the damage when it triggers.

Orc Strike is your archetypical basic attacking Rage move, just like so many others across the series. It's the best of the bunch; in the early game it's basically a slightly stronger Earth Blade with no anti-mage bonus or a Crushing Blow with no push, but once you get into the midgame where the raw damage fails to keep up with growing stack sizes suddenly the Lethality component ensures Orc Strike is one of your best opening moves. It's my favorite basic attacking Rage move in the series, being the only one that isn't irrelevant or pushed into a supporting role as the game advances. It can easily do 10,000+ damage to enemy stacks in the late game, with only other percentile effects able to reliably keep up.

Early on, you should be focused on getting finishing blows to rank up Lord of the Darkness, particularly as Orc Strike is your best option initially for getting finishing blows. Jealousy can't do it at all, and Necropack is more expensive and better used trying to soften multiple targets, and later in the game Orc Strike will rarely have the opportunity to get finishing blows off.

Overall, though, Orc Strike is straightforward in its utility. Really really good, but straightforward.

Damage upgrades
Damage 1: Damage: 150-170, Lethality: +1%, Rage: +3
Damage 2: Damage: 240-300, Lethality: +1%, Rage: +3
Damage 3: Damage: 400-500, Lethality: +1%, Rage: +4. Rest: +1
Damage 4: Damage: 700-900, Lethality: +1%, Rage: +4
Damage 5: Damage: 1100-1400, Lethality: +1%, Rage: +5, Rest: +1
Damage 6: Damage: 1700-2100, Lethality: +1%, Rage: +5

Max Orc Strike. It's just that good.

Lethality upgrades
Lethality 1: Lethality: +10%, Rage: +8

In conjunction with maximum damage upgrades, Orc Strike ends up with 20% Lethality, which is a quite nice amount and ensures that even in the endgame when Orc Strike's regular damage is fairly meh it's still a fantastic opening move for softening up enemies.

If you're offered this in the early-to-midgame, you might want to put it off, as 10% Lethality for +8 Rage can be a poor trade at the time. You should take it eventually, though, as it's doubling Orc Strike's final Lethality value all by itself, and in late-game battles the Lethality rating will easily account for 95% of your damage output.

Sadly, there's a second Lethality upgrade in the code that's supposed to be unlocked by having all the damage upgrades, but the check is coded wrong so you'll never see it in-game. It would add another 10% Lethality, another 16 Rage cost, and more awkwardly would add +1 to the Rest period. Still, 30% of a stack's Health instantly gone would be a really big deal late in a run, so it's unfortunate that bugginess means the option is unavailable.

Increased Control upgrades
Control 1: Rage: -10, Rest: -1

You should take it. Orc Strike is just that good.

There's actually another Increased Control upgrade in the code, but it's inaccessible because the second Lethality upgrade is inaccessible, as you can't get Orc Strike's Rest duration high enough to trigger it without that additional Rest. Oops.

Final Stats

Damage: 1700-2100 Physical

Lethality: 20%

Rage: 26

Rest: 3 (2 with sufficient ranks in Action Rage)

If it weren't for bugs, its final stats would have Lethality raised to 30% and the Rage cost raised to 32.

Still, this is very solid, the best basic attacking Rage move in the series, both from a 'playing to win' perspective and from a 'good design' perspective.

Also, I phrase Action Rage's influence on Rest as requiring 'sufficient ranks', because as we'll be seeing when we get to Might Skills, Action Rage has the unique quality that which Rage moves it affects at a given rank actually depends on your class/character. As such, I can't just say 'at Rank 1, X Rage moves get the reduction'.

Orcish Rage

Basic stats
Rage: 8
Rest: 4
Area: 3 tiles (Triangle)
Damage: 100-200 Astral damage
Rage per target: 2

Hits all units in a radius for Astral damage. For each unit hit, also generates a certain amount of Rage.

Orcish Rage is basically Rage Draining from waaaay back in The Legend, but much better-designed.

Two mechanics points: to be completely clear, the number of targets does matter for the Rage generation: at base, it can't actually even pay for itself, because it can only hit 3 targets for 2 Rage apiece while costing 8. Secondly, Orcish Rage is very nicely coded (Unusually for Dark Side) and calculates the final Rage modification appropriate to the cost and the generation: if you spend 10 Rage and generate 12 Rage, the game just tells you the final +2. It's really nice and clear, and it avoids the player having to plot around avoiding weird inefficiencies in the move's behavior.

Orcish Rage itself is kinda shaky in its utility. Its damage is serviceable when you first unlock it, generally, but it fails to keep up with growing stack sizes, and once that falls away Orcish Rage is stuck just being a Rage generator. There's a mid-early period where that can be useful if you've been leveling Orcish Rage, but past that point every class/character can consistently generate enough Rage naturally that Orcish Rage struggles to find relevance.

The main caveat here is that for Bagyr it bounces back into relevance once you hit the point of being able to use Rage multiple times per turn. At that point it can be a nice gamble for when you're running low on Rage; if you trigger another Rage usage, Orcish Rage can potentially have fed the successive move where a different move might've left you inadequate Rage to use another move in the turn.

But for Neoline and Daert, an argument can be made you should avoid leveling Orcish Rage unless your other options in a level are worse.

Also note that unlike Reaper's Rage Draining, Orcish Rage does have friendly fire. This makes it particularly unappealing if you're fond of getting into melee combat in spite of everything I've said about ranged combat being largely superior.

Damage Upgrades
Damage 1: Damage: 120-240, Rage per target: 3
Damage 2: Damage: 140-280, Rage per target: 4, Rest: +1
Damage 3: Damage: 180-340, Rage per target: 5
Damage 4: Damage: 220-400, Rage per target: 6, Rest: +1
Damage 5: Damage: 280-480, Rage per target: 8
Damage 6: Damage: 340-560, Rage per target: 10, Rest: +1

Minor, but you should certainly at least take the first one given it's free.

Area Upgrades
Area 1: 7 tiles (Circle), +8 Rage
Area 2: 19 tiles (Diamond), +16 Rage

Note that since Orcish Rage's Rage costs are only modified by these area upgrades, the first doubles the cost and the second doubles it again. They also both more than double the strike zone, so in an enemy-dense environment it works out nicely, but if there's not a zillion enemies it's not so hot a tradeoff.

If you're considering using Orcish Rage at all, ever, you should probably at least take the first upgrade. It dramatically improves its ability to pay for itself or, in the early game, potentially finish off multiple targets where the base area could only catch one enemy.

Increased Control Upgrades
Control 1: Rest: -1
Control 2: Rest: -1

Yes, like Rage Draining back in the day, you can't lower the Rage cost on Orcish Rage. Unlike Rage Draining you can actually increase it via the radius upgrades, which is a bit annoying.

In any event, it's worth taking if the alternatives in a level are terrible, since it doesn't cost you anything.

Final Stats

Damage: 340-560 Astral

Rage per target: 10

Area: 19 tiles

Rage: 32

Rest: 5 (4 with sufficient ranks in Action Rage)

Personally, I tend to not really pursue the damage upgrades much given the relatively low payoff, but if you go for the full upgrades the final result isn't bad. A bit disappointing when compared against Reaper's Rage Draining, but not bad. Dark Side is sufficiently fond of enemy battlegroups that are 10+ stacks clustered conveniently that it's easy to have Orcish Rage net positive on Rage, for one.

Orc Shield

Basic stats
Rage: 30
Rest: 4
Damage: 200-350 Physical damage
Shield 'leech': 10%

Strikes all enemies for Physical damage, and then generates a shield on a chosen allied unit which blocks all damage until it's destroyed. The shield is derived from a percentage of the damage done.

Orc Shield's targeting is slightly unintuitive, as you target an ally, which is just jarring when it comes to an attacking effect.

A mechanics oddity: if you place Orc Shield on a unit that's allied but not under your control (eg Demon Portal-summoned units), the unit gets confused and always immediately Defends when its turn rolls around. Looking in the code, this is a consequence of Orc Shield being derived from Ice Prison. This isn't too big a deal since Orc Shield is ideally used on valuable units instead of disposable ones, but it can be an unpleasant surprise to run into it if you wanted to shield a disposable summon precisely because it's the only thing you expect to get hit.

Another mechanics point is that Orc Shield will actually damage Objects. This can be annoying if you want an Object to stick around (The AI will often slow itself down by pursuing and destroying Objects), but the Health 'leeching' extends to such Objects so it's usually advantageous, increasing the shield's strength for free. Do keep in mind that generated Objects don't properly have an assigned 'team', so it'll eat Objects you made for your benefit too, such as Volcanoes.

On a different note, it's worth pointing out that where Glot's Armor didn't care about the qualities of the unit inside of it, Orc Shield does. This means Orc Shield's protection goes further when leveraging favorable resistances (eg an Orc Shielded Imp will have the shield last twice as long when sustaining Fire damage as compared to equal Physical damage), and it also means the Defense of the unit underneath actually matters. As such, Orc Shield is, somewhat counterintuitively, better placed on eg Orc Chieftains than on Furious Goblins. This is actually quite nice, as a problem throughout prior games was that a lot of Level 5 units were not only inherently not that great once Leadership got high enough you're fielding several copies (Made worse by how the series is largely reluctant to give you access to Level 5 units early enough to properly leverage their individual durability) but made even more bad by contextual elements like being immune to Resurrection. I think Orc Shield might be the first mechanic in the series to really encourage you to buy a Level 5 unit and then try to use it as your meatshield!

Conversely, where Glot's Armor was guaranteed to block at least one full attack, Orc Shield is not. If an attack does more than the shield's HP in damage? The shield goes down and the unit underneath takes the remaining damage. In conjunction with the fact that the game doesn't provide immediate feedback on how much damage the shield just absorbed -it simply displays a zero if the attack was fully absorbed- you end up having to rely on either crunching the numbers yourself or getting a feel for roughly how much damage a unit it likely to take in a given situation for determining whether a shielded unit is really safe to hurl into the fray or not. It can be a bit frustrating, particularly when you're only a little bit off in your guess but it still leads to a casualty or the like.

Nonetheless, Orc Shield is really quite the nice move.

Damage Upgrades
Damage 1: Damage: 350-500, Rage: +5, Rest: +1
Damage 2: Damage: 500-650, Shield 'leech': +5%, Rage: +10
Damage 3: Damage: 650-850, Rage: +5, Rest: +1
Damage 4: Damage: 800-1050, Shield 'leech': +5%, Rage: +10
Damage 5: Damage: 1000-1250, Rage: +5, Rest: +1

Generally should be more of a priority than increasing leech rates since more damage will also equal more shield rate.

Shield Leech Upgrades
Shield 1: Shield 'leech': +10%, Rage: +10

Shield 2: Shield 'leech': +10%, Rage: +10

Shield 3: Shield 'leech': +10%, Rage: +10

The first two upgrades are coded poorly, unfortunately; you can only be offered the first one if you've taken the first damage upgrade but not yet any later ones, and you can't be offered the second one until you have the third damage upgrade but cannot be offered it anymore if you go past that damage upgrade, as they check Orc Shield's damage in the form of 'is it exactly X damage?' when they're meant to check if it's at least the damage. As such, you can be permanently locked out of the entire line if you take a second damage upgrade before grabbing a leech upgrade, and can still be locked out of the latter two even once you're past that hurdle. This latter scenario can happen pretty readily, as by the time the second leech upgrade is available there's going to be a lot of upgrades in the pool; even if you prioritize grabbing leech upgrades, you can easily never have it offered before the fourth damage upgrade and then whoops you've locked yourself out of improved shield leech forever!

On the plus side, that first leech upgrade is the most impactful one, but still, 50% leech is very good for minimizing casualties in the late game, letting you easily generate thousands of shield HP against typical late-game battlegroups.

Increased Control Upgrades
Control 1: -10 Rage, -1 Rest

Control 2: -10 Rage, -1 Rest

Generally appreciated more for the Rage cost reduction than the Rest reduction given the innately high Rest on Orc Shield and the swiftness of battles in Dark Side.

Final Stats

Damage: 1000-1250 Physical

Shield 'leech': 50%

Rage: 75

Rest: 5 (4 with sufficient ranks in Action Rage)

500+ shield HP for every enemy on the battlefield? Nice!

... also very expensive, mind, but Bagyr in particular can easily shoulder that cost, and Dark Side loves to give you Rage Potions if you really want to start a hard battle off with Orc Shield. Which is worth doing, to be clear!

Jealousy

Basic stats
Rage: 10
Rest: 4
Duration: 2
Control Range: 1

Leash Range: 2
Level: 1-2

Generates an indestructible statue in a chosen open tile. An enemy unit that lacks Persistence of Mind or Spell Immunity within its Control Range radius will become hostile to all units, as if Frenzied, for the duration of the statue's existence. If the affected stack is wiped out or otherwise ceases to be affected by the statue, the statue can immediately do the same to a new unit, if there's any enemies in its range. Units under the influence of Jealousy strongly prefer to attack units within the Leash Range of the statue, and will almost always pass their turn Defending if no other units are in that radius. Only one statue can be on the field at a time: if a new statue is placed, any existing statue will vanish.

Jealousy, like so much of Dark Side, is a bit buggy. Sometimes the statue vanishing will cause the affected unit to become permanently omni-hostile, instead of freeing it from the effect. This is particularly worth noting for how it interacts with the AI: the AI forces will ignore a Jealousy-ed unit, so as to avoid wastefully just beating up their own forces, but if it's omni-hostile with no Jealousy statue, the AI is suddenly eager to dogpile onto what used to be their unit.

Though while AI units will normally ignore a Jealousied unit, AI Heroes will frequently do silly stuff like slap Helplessness on the Jealousy victim. Jealousy is thus especially useful in Hero fights, potentially protecting you from the Hero's spellcasting turn. On top of that, a Jealousied unit doesn't provide an enemy Hero a chance to cast, so it can also be useful for manipulating the timing of when the enemy gets a chance to cast or even prevent them from casting entirely if you've finished off or disabled enough other stacks.

Another weird quirk of Jealousy is that if a summoner unit generates units while under the effect of Jealousy, the resulting units will be permanently hostile to all. Strictly speaking I think this is just a general behavior with hostile-to-all units, but stuff like Frenzy normally blocks off a unit's willingness to use Talents, so it's only Jealousy you're likely to see it routinely/at all.

A minor quirk of Jealousy is that it's possible to arrange for a unit to leave the statue's radius (Such as through Infernal Exchange, or pushing or pulling effects), and the unit will remain hostile and fixated on attacking units within the statue's radius, even if it's far from the statue and has much closer targets. This mostly discourages trying to manipulate a Jealousied unit's position significantly, but notably the Jealousied unit does not, as one might expect, default to running to rejoin the statue. As such, it's feasible to eg Jealousy one archer, then Infernal Exchange it so it's blocking off another archer, and while the result will be neither of them will try to fight each other, the Jealousied archer also won't move from its position if there's nothing to attack in the statue's radius, thus temporarily taking two ranged units out of the fight with one Jealousy. 

By far Jealousy's most important quality, though, is that it doesn't care about Leadership. This makes it a tremendous boon for handling battlegroups that are far larger than what you're supposed to be dealing with, letting you take a key ranged unit out of the fight, or stall a key melee unit while it blocks off a key ranged unit so neither of them is creating problems for you, while you use percentage effects and so on to wear down the rest of the force. It also means its value only climbs as you get deeper into the game, since it effectively auto-scales to the enemy.

Also note that you don't have to worry about your troops coming under the statue's effect. Feel free to drop it next to one of your own units if that's the best position.

Further note that Jealousy works on many units that are supposed to be immune to mental effects but lack Persistence of Mind per se. It works on the Undead, for example. The exceptions are Plants, Ice Creations, Gremlins, and Bosses; they're all properly immune.

Range Upgrades
Range 1: Leash Range: +1, Rage: +6
Range 2: Control Range: +1, Rage: +9

Range 3: Leash Range: +3, Rage: +6

In-game, these upgrades are given simple, confusing summaries that make it sound like they're all affecting the range at which the Jealousy statue can grab control of a unit. In actuality, only the second one -the one I've labeled as improving 'control range'- does that. The other two instead make the affected unit willing to attack targets further out from the statue.

I honestly tend to skip these upgrades, personally. Widening the radius the statue can grab people in makes it harder to control exactly who the statue affects, and while you can place the statue further away to work around this I personally tend to use the statue itself as part of pinning units to prevent them from attacking, making that undesirable a solution. By a similar token, since a unit affected by Jealousy is omnihostile, raising the radius they're willing to attack units in can be constrictive, since you'll want to keep your own units out of that radius. Notably, there's the cognitive load aspect that the game doesn't display either radius; at the default leash radius of 2, it's easy to accurately eyeball the zone you shouldn't walk units into, but it's that bit easier to slip up at a leash radius of 3 and with a leash radius of 6 it's entirely possible to actively count tiles and still get it wrong!

To be fair, battlefields in Dark Side tend to be large, especially late in a run, and as I've emphasized repeatedly the player should generally default to ranged-heavy forces anyway. If you want to take that first leash range upgrade so enemy units can't get out of reach of the Jealousied unit so readily, feel free. I'd say the same about the second leash upgrade, but it's locked behind the control range one, and I really do feel that's a pretty big hit to Jealouy's utility, so...

Level Upgrades
Level 1: Level: 1-3, Rage: +5, Rest: +1
Level 2: Level: 1-4, Rage: +5, Rest: +1

I personally tend to take the first rank because a lot of the units I most want Jealousy affecting are Level 3 units, like Bowmen, and because it's not a huge burden to burn one level on a just-in-case-it-works scenario, but I'm a lot more skeptical on bolstering the Level range all the way up to 4, especially with the Rest and Rage increases; a wider Level range gives you less control over what Jealousy affects, and it's fairly rare for a battlegroup to have only Level 4 units be possible to affect with Jealousy.

Duration Upgrades
Duration 1: Duration: +1, Rage: +4
Duration 2: Duration: +1, Rage: +4
Duration 3: Duration: +1, Rage: +4

The base duration of 2 is painfully low, but 4-5 is generally more than enough for most purposes; grabbing at least one is definitely worthwhile, a second is probably worthwhile, the third is a bit shakier.

Though a meta reason to consider going max is the consideration of 'default upgrades' -that Rage moves have one of their upgrade lines prefer to show up more than the rest. For damaging moves this is normally the damage upgrade line -a fact I suspect most players notice all on their own, honestly- but for Jealousy these duration upgrades are its 'default' upgrade line. So a player might wish to grab them all just to get them to stop shoving themselves into your limited list of three upgrades to choose from.

Increased Control Upgrades
Control 1: Rage: -7, Rest: -1

Control 2: Rage: -7, Rest: -1

As always, you might as well if you don't have a higher priority.

Final Stats

Duration: 5

Control Range: 2

Leash Range: 6

Rage: 39

Rest: 5 (4 with sufficient ranks in Action Rage)

If you do as I do and skip the second Level upgrade and the second and third range upgrades, you also won't be able to get the second Control upgrade, resulting in a Rage cost of 26 and the same Rest period. I find the modest reduction in cost very worthwhile, especially since it frees up Rage levels to go elsewhere. With only 59 Rage level-ups to work with compared to the 86 total player-accessible non-competing Rage upgrades, you need to be somewhat picky about your choices.

Anyway, Jealousy is fantastic. An argument can be made it's an evolution of Christa's Gift and I wouldn't disagree, but it's so much more versatile and interesting I like it a lot more.

I sort of want to complain about it not caring about Leadership and whatnot, but I'm not sure there's a truly good solution to that issue, and in practice Dark Side seems to have embraced the idea that in the late game the player will be taking on armies far and away superior in Leadership and then absolutely stomping them regardless. So even though in some abstract ideals sense it's an obvious 'gamebreaker', it's really not actually that notable in practice. I'm unsure how intentional this truly is given all of Dark Side's issues, mind, but... in a strange way, it works out.

Flames of Passion

Basic stats
Rage: 11
Rest: 3
Damage: 10% Fire
Conversion: 40%

A single target enemy that lacks Persistence of Mind takes percentile Fire damage. Then a friendly stack of the targeted unit type is generated out of a percentage of the damage done in an adjacent tile, which lasts 3 turns. The unit can act in the same round it was generated.

I like the subtle heart image made by the flames.

I specify 'that lacks Persistence of Mind' because Flames of Passion works on Undead, Cyclops, etc. To the best of my awareness, only Plants, non-Cyclops inorganic units (eg Ice Creations), and units with the regular Persistence of Mind Ability are actually immune. Irritating that the units actually vulnerable to Fire damage are the only units who aren't buggily vulnerable. Oh well.

That said, Bosses and Gremlins are also immune to Flames of Passion. Not that this is particularly a surprise, but it's worth being explicit.

Note that the game rounds down when determining how many members the produced stack will have. ie if you did 100 damage at 40% conversion rate to a unit whose Health is 21... you'd get only 1 member in the resulting stack, even though the damage you did is juuuust under the Health total of two copies of the unit. Surprisingly, this rounding down has no qualifier for ensuring you summon something: if you do so little damage it shouldn't add up to even one member of a stack for you, you won't get a stack at all. This will only rarely crop up; many of the bulkiest and/or most Fire-resistant enemies of the game are immune to Flames of Passion (eg Black Dragons, Red Dragons, Archdemons...) and/or only show up as enemies late enough that their stack size and your Flames of Passion strength should be great enough to produce at least one unit. (eg you don't fight Demons until very late in the game) It's a surprising bit of consistency; most games will, in equivalent situations, round down but then force a minimum of 1, rather than rounding down to 0.

Something important to keep in mind for maximizing Flames of Passion's utility is that a Flames of Passion summon only dies when its final turn actually ends. Thus, if you want it to last just a little bit longer to absorb some more punishment in this turn... have it Wait. There you go, you've extended the duration you're getting use out of it.

A weird, surprising mechanics point is that Puppeteer absolutely works with Flames of Passion summons. You won't see it very often because Flames of Passion summons last only briefly, and also are prone to being murdered by enemy stacks due to their resulting small size, but it can be used to get you a seed population of unusual units from unusually early.

Also, just as Blood Rage affects the percentile component of Orc Strike, so too is Flames of Passion able to do double percentage damage, and in its case this will of course roughly double how many units are in the stack it spawns.

Flames of Passion seems lackluster when you first get a hold of it, but is probably the second-best or best of your Rage skills once you're past the midpoint or so of the game, due entirely to its percentage damage. Early on, it'll be flatly inferior to using Orc Strike or one of your attacks with no percentile component, unless you want a short-lived distraction. Late in the game, Flames of Passion can easily be your single hardest-hitting Rage move and still generate a distraction -only by that point the distraction will actually be pretty tough!

So let's talk upgrades.

Damage Upgrades
Damage 1: Damage: 15%, Rage: +6, Rest: +1
Damage 2: Damage: 20%, Rage: +6, Rest: +1
Damage 3: Damage: 25%, Rage: +6, Rest: +1
Damage 4: Damage: 30%, Rage: +6, Rest: +1

Worth every level.

Notice that Orc Strike ends with 20% Lethality vs 30% percentage damage on Flames of Passion. Orc Strike's 1700-2100 damage when fully upgraded isn't able to make up the difference when the percentage component can easily be over 10,000 damage late in the game. (Mind, this is due to bugs blocking off a Lethality upgrade...)

Also notice that Blood Rage means Bagyr can randomly chop off more than half of a stack with Flames of Passion. Yikes.

Conversion Upgrades
Conversion 1: Conversion: +3%, Rage: +6
Conversion 2: Conversion: +3%, Rage: +6
Conversion 3: Conversion: +3%, Rage: +6

Conversion 4: Conversion: +3%, Rage: +6

I have no idea what the devs were thinking with the conversion upgrades. They're tiny boosts in performance that are directly inferior to increasing the damage, as increasing damage also increases the size of the generated unit. The only good point is the lack of an attached Rest increase, and it's not much of a good point. If your other options in a level are worse, sure, go ahead and take it, but uuuugh.

Increased Control Upgrades
Control 1: -10 Rage, -1 Rest
Control 2: -10 Rage, -1 Rest

Worth it! Take them all!

Final Stats

Damage: 30% Fire

Conversion: 52%

Rage: 39

Rest: 5 (4 with sufficient ranks in Action Rage)

The Conversion upgrades are awful enough I'd recommend largely skipping them, but you may wish to take the first one -the second Increased Control upgrade requires 31 Rage cost, and you can't reach that without taking at least 1 Conversion upgrade. If you do that and skip the other three, you'll end up with a much more manageable 21 Rage cost and only drop your conversion from 52% to 43%. I'd say that's a pretty good trade.

Flames of Passion itself is great in part because it's the first time a Rage move that summons combat units is really good, in no small part because the aspect of it generating units based off a percentile damage attack means it scales into the late game very well instead of falling behind. Armored Princess had a relatively smart solution with Mystic Egg ultimately using most of Amelie's Leadership as its foundation when sufficiently upgraded, but then hamstrung it through a combination of Armored Princess having a horrendous Rest system and through making it a delayed summon attached to a vulnerable egg that didn't scale its HP well and that produced a random unit that you had no control over; by contrast, Flames of Passion copying the target gives the player control over what gets generated so they can endeavor to fit it to the situation, it works instantly, you have full control over the resulting summon, and of course Dark Side's Rest system means even a sub-par Rage move can't be completely crowded out so even if Flames of Passion were actually awful it would still be more viable!

It's one of the better examples of why I wish Dark Side had gotten more polish; there's a shocking amount of extremely smart design like this buried behind the bugs, shoddy translation, and all the other myriad problems from it being inadequately polished. Imagine what a more polished Dark Side might have done!

Cupid the Demon

Basic stats
Rage: 10
Rest: 3
Pain Mirror damage: 5% Magical
Curse Chance: 20%
Duration: 3

Spawns a high-flying unit which each turn picks a target enemy, which it casts Pain Mirror on and removes one random positive effect from if the target has any. It then rolls for whether to cast each 'curse' in its list on that target, with its initial 'curse' list being Pygmy and Hex. If every 'curse' fails their roll, the game randomly picks a valid 'curse' to apply anyway. All 'curses' are Spells cast at Level 2. Cupid's Initiative is one, and while he picks his target randomly he prefers to target larger stacks and stacks with a higher base Leadership number.

One buggy aspect of Cupid the Demon is if you use it during the turn of a unit that's already Waited, it has a habit of eating the unit's turn, particularly if it's the last unit of the turn. A related oddity is that if the turn order has changed such that the current unit is moving before a unit it 'should' be moving after and you use Cupid the Demon, the turn order will be immediately recalculated, interrupting the turn of the unit you're currently in control of. This can be seen most readily when dealing with Berserkers, since they automatically go berserk and double their Initiative when more than half the stack has died; normally the turn order will go-

Unit doing damage to the Berserkers->the unit that was next->the now berserking Berserkers, since they've jumped ahead in turn order->whatever would have gone next if the Berserkers weren't berserking

Whereas if you use Cupid the Demon before the Berserkers get their turn, 'the unit that was next' will have its turn pushed back until any berserking Berserkers have gotten their move. This won't crop up too often, not least because Vikings are virtually nonexistent in Dark Side and there's just not that many ways for the turn order to readjust in a relevant way, but it's something to keep in mind in the handful of situations where it can mess up your plans... or be exploited, for that matter.

Note that the Pain Mirror damage listed is, as with the Spell, a percentage of the damage last done by the unit. 5% is thus nearly nothing unless the unit somehow did utterly ridiculous damage to one of your units. And as with Pain Mirror in Spell form, it has to be real damage. A unit that attacks an Ice Spike for 10,000 damage will still only take 1 damage from Cupid the Demon's Pain Mirror. Or possibly zero damage. I'm pretty sure I've seen that.

One major flaw with Cupid the Demon is that it doesn't work on magic-immune units at all, in spite of being a Rage effect. This doesn't crop up very often, but it does mean that it'll never help against eg Black Dragons. So if you're facing a battlegroup made entirely of Spell-immune units? Don't bother using it unless you just want Rage experience and literally everything else is on cooldown. Also note that Cupid the Demon can't affect Gremlins at all.

Overall, Cupid the Demon is an interesting idea, but it's probably the least useful of Dark Side's Rage moves. You can't control what it targets, the imp itself acts extremely late in the turn, and its effects are generally fairly minor. Pain Mirror will usually be inferior to using an actual percentage effect (ie Orc Strike, Flames of Passion), even if you try to set it up so an enemy gets a chance to do huge damage beforehand. Stripping a buff is only occasionally key, and it's not like Cupid the Demon prioritizes targeting stacks that have been buffed. Hex is random and only benefits you if an afflicted unit is allowed to attack, which you should be endeavoring to avoid. Pygmy is the only reliably solid thing it can do initially, and you can't count on it.

Note that Cupid the Demon doesn't try and hover over its target or anything. As such, where the lightning ball Rage moves of prior games could get in each others' way, multiple Cupid the Demons can all elect to target the same unit without getting in each others' way. This... is actually a bit of a disadvantage, since eg if one succeeds in a Pygmy on a target and then the other Cupid the Demon goes for the same target that means no possibility of a Pygmy cast on another enemy. It can be lucky if a particular enemy dishes out a lot of damage, though, since they might be hit with a reasonably powerful Pain Mirror twice. But most of the time, it's a flaw.

Damage Upgrades
Damage 1: Pain Mirror Damage: 10%, Curse rate: +1%, Rage: +4
Damage 2: Pain Mirror Damage: 15%, Curse rate: +1%, Rage: +4
Damage 3: Pain Mirror Damage: 20%, Curse rate: +1%, Rage: +4
Damage 4: Pain Mirror Damage: 25%, Curse rate: +1%, Rage: +4

I don't really consider these upgrades worth it. The first one is okay, since you're doubling Pain Mirror's damage output for a minor cost increase, but past that... eeeeeh.

Unfortunately, Cupid the Demon has a unique mechanic where taking a damage upgrade increments a counter and the upgrades that aren't damage or increased control upgrades all require at least one point on this counter to be offered and lower the counter by one point when taken. So if you want more than one of the following upgrades, you'll have to upgrade damage more.

On the plus side, this does mean if you want to largely ignore Cupid the Demon, either not upgrading damage at all or upgrading damage once and then grabbing one non-damage upgrade is a way to avoid Cupid the Demon upgrades clogging up your options.

As an aside, it should be noted that Cupid the Demon cannot trigger Blood Rage, making it that bit less appealing to Bagyr in the late game.

Curse Variety Upgrades
Curse Variety A: Adds Slow and Doom, Rage: +8, Rest: +1
Curse Variety B: Adds Weakness and Helplessness, Rage: +8, Rest: +1

The A upgrade is worth considering. Slow and Doom slapped on enemies for free can be quite the big deal, taking a slow melee unit out of the fight or giving you the opportunity to stack loads of damage on a key target. Weakness and Helplessness are more meh, and due to the mechanics of Cupid's 'always use at least one curse' fallback behavior adding more options is actively reducing the odds that he'll cast one of the high-impact curses.

Also, if you were wondering why I labeled these A and B, that's because these aren't actually a linear upgrade chain, but an unrelated set of upgrades; it's possible to be offered them both at the same time, in fact.

Curse Rate Upgrades
Curse Rate 1: Curse rate: +9%, Rage: +8, Rest: +1

The in-game wording of this is... confusing, and for the longest time I thought it -and the +1% effect on the damage upgrades- were referring to improving Hex's rate of forcing the target to miss. But no, it's improving the odds that Cupid will cast his effects.

That's still a bit whatever, but vaguely useful, particularly if you take both variety improvements.

Duration Upgrades
Duration 1: Duration: +2, Rage: +8, Rest: +1

Honestly, I'm not sure why you'd bother. Every time I've been offered this it showed up so late that battles had already reached the point of almost never lasting long enough for the additional duration to matter particularly.

Increased Control Upgrades
Control 1: -10 Rage, -1 Rest
Control 2: -10 Rage, -1 Rest

The second one requires you've taken literally all of Cupid's other upgrades to be able to see. I suspect most players have never had it offered.

Final Stats

Pain Mirror damage: 25% Magical

Curse Chance: 33%

Duration: 5

Curses: Pygmy, Hex, Slow, Doom, Weakness, Helplessness

Rage: 38

Rest: 5 (4 with sufficient ranks in Action Rage)

If you take my advice and ignore the duration upgrade, ignore Helplessness and Doom, and only take 1-2 damage upgrades, Cupid the Demon will end up quite spammable while not really losing out on much effectiveness per-Cupid on the field. Bagyr in particular appreciates having some Rage move he can regularly throw out after he's already gotten everything on cooldown on turn 1 or 2; I suspect keeping Cupid the Demon cheap and spammable is really just optimal for Bagyr.

Necro Pack

Basic stats
Rage: 10
Rest: 3
Damage: 80-100 Physical/Magical
Curse chance: 20%
Radius: 1 lane

Generates a 'wave' that travels from a chosen empty tile in a direction of the player's choosing, inflicting Physical/Magical damage to all units along the way, with hit units having a chance to become Cursed for 3 turns. (Which lowers Morale)

Necro Pack is really just Evil Shoal, except you start out only firing a single straight line (You have to upgrade to reach Evil Shoal's radius) and it's mixed damage with a Curse chance. I'm fine with that, even if Necro Pack tends to fall off in utility in the late-game.

One weird mechanics change is to the wave expansion behavior. If you fire off the wave in a position where eg the first left lane's initial appearance point will be blocked by impassible terrain, then the entire left-side portion of Necro Pack will fail to spawn at all. This mostly crops up in some of the odder Keeper fight maps, but it can weaken certain angles that Evil Shoal wouldn't have had any issue with. I'm not sure if that's an overlooked glitch or a deliberate change. I can't imagine why it would be a deliberate change, but Dark Side has some confusing decisions so I can't discount the possibility.

Damage Upgrades
Damage 1: Damage: 150-185, Curse: +5%. Rage: +5. Rest: +1
Damage 2: Damage: 285-355, Curse: +5%, Rage: +10
Damage 3: Damage: 485-605, Curse: +5%, Rage: +5, Rest: +1
Damage 4: Damage: 750-935, Curse: +5%, Rage: +10
Damage 5: Damage: 1080-1345, Curse: +5%, Rage: +5, Rest: +1
Damage 6: Damage: 1475-1835, Curse: +5%, Rage: +10

Yeah, I have no idea why Necro Pack has such weird damage numbers.

If you're playing Bagyr, these are all absolutely worth taking. If you're not, it's a trickier question: in the long haul, Necro Pack won't keep up with enemy stack sizes, being relegated to being used when your better options are all on cooldown, but in the early to midgame if you've been investing strongly into Necro Pack it'll probably be your overall strongest Rage move by a fair margin (As in, much stronger than an equivalently-invested other move available equivalently early), especially since Dark Side is very fond of having extremely large numbers of stacks in enemy battlegroups. Even into the late game, a fully upgraded Necro Pack can be decently competitive with Orc Strike and Flames of Passion: if you're hitting fourteen stacks successfully (Plausible), Necro Pack will be doing over 20,000 damage and Cursing a portion of your enemies. Compared to Orc Strike doing 10,000 damage and nothing else to a single target, that's actually quite good! And even once enemy stacks are large enough Orc Strike can be doing 20,000 or more damage itself, Necro Pack won't weaken as you tear up enemies. Not until entire stacks are dead anyway.

Complicating the issue is that Necro Pack is, if you're not Bagyr, the Rage move you're most likely to be struggling to cover the costs of. It's easy to end up putting off upgrading it so you can keep affording it, and then find that once you want to accept upgrades to it they're not being offered or they're not pulling it back into proper relevance.

It's a tricky decision.

Radius Upgrades
Radius 1: Lanes: 3, Rage: +10, Rest: +1
Radius 2: Lanes: 5, Rage: +10, Rest: +1

Yeah, it takes a couple of upgrades to get Necro Pack to Evil Shoal's starting radius.

You should absolutely take the first upgrade as soon as possible, though, as it dramatically improves its reliability. With just one lane, you'll rarely manage to hit more than 2 stacks, and will often be stuck hitting only 1 stack. With three lanes, though, you can often catch all 5 enemy stacks in their initial formation for regular-size battlegroups, and 10+ stacks for larger battlegroups. This makes it drastically more cost-efficient in real terms, even though its raw cost has gone up.

The second radius upgrade is good, but less essential, though with the advantage that by the time it's being offered +10 Rage is a much more reasonable burden to bear. The first radius upgrade can easily be the very first upgrade you're offered for Necro Pack, in which case you probably have too little maximum Rage to afford it at all. Ouch.

Increased Control Upgrades
Control 1: Rage: -10, Rest: -1
Control 2: Rage: -15, Rest: -1

If you're investing deeply into Necro Pack, these are essential. If you're not... well, you won't be offered them anyway.

Final Stats

Damage: 1475-1835 Physical/Magical

Curse chance: 50%

Radius: 5 lanes

Rage: 50

Rest: 6 (5 with sufficient ranks in Action Rage)

If someone had told me Dark Side brought back Evil Shoal and actually made it work really well throughout the game, I probably wouldn't have believed them. But it did! By the end of the game its damage has fallen off pretty hard, but nowhere near as badly as Evil Shoal does in The Legend, and the Curse chance attached to it gives it a little bit of autoscaling relevance even then.

Ironically, though it's associated with Daert, he's the one that has its value drop off hardest; Morale reductions don't improve Spell damage, after all, and his capacity to annihilate armies directly with his magic ultimately eclipses his army's contributions to an extent unmatched by the Mages of the prior three games. If the game wanted a given character's 'proprietary' Rage moves to be particularly useful for them -I'm unsure whether it was a design goal, mind- this would've been better off inflicting Plague or Bleeding. I don't consider this a big problem or anything, to be clear; mostly, I find it mildly amusing.

In any event, while you could avoid upgrading Necro Pack to preserve Rage level-ups for moves that stay relevant later in the game, I have difficulty supporting such an idea; Necro Pack is hugely impactful for the first third of the game if properly-supported, has no upgrades that are bad enough to be inherently worth skipping, and Cupid the Demon and Dark Cloud are both overall weaker/less beneficial to invest in.

Dark Cloud

Basic stats
Rage: 16
Rest: 4
Duration: 1
Friendly fire: 100%
Freeze strength: 10%
Freeze area: 1

A triangle of clear, passable tiles is filled in with a Dark Cloud, which blocks off the terrain and Freezes any adjacent units both when it's initially summoned and when it disperses. These tiles cannot be passed through by Soaring or Flying units, either.

Dark Cloud is Dark Side's idea of a Rage wall. Unlike prior Rage walls, the enemy can't do anything about Dark Cloud; it can't be attacked to break it, or otherwise ended prematurely. It also can't be trivially bypassed by Flying units, making it much more widely relevant. The fact that it instantly inflicts Freeze on nearby targets can also be invaluable for buying time even if you can't place Dark Cloud in any kind of chokepoint, particularly when dealing with slower enemies. These qualities help a lot. 

Dark Cloud has some key flaws, though. Firstly, its shape is awkward, shockingly so. It's surprisingly common to be unable to place it anywhere useful, even on battlefields that aren't very crowded. Secondly, the Freeze effect is indiscriminate, which makes it undesirable to try to use it as a last-minute barrier; slowing down and injuring your own units isn't all that great a prospect. Thirdly, it re-inflicts Freeze when it disperses, which makes it constrictive to your own future movements, particularly if you have trouble keeping its duration in mind. (The game doesn't keep track of this for you)

Freeze Strength upgrades
Freeze 1: +20% Strength, +4 Rage
Freeze 2: +20% Strength, +4 Rage

Note that Freeze strength's percentile is relative to base Freeze values. Thus, the base Freeze strength of 10% actually means that it only does 0.5-1% damage. Dark Cloud's percentile damage is pretty much worthless if you don't pour levels into upgrading its strength, and is still pretty limited even if you do. I personally don't consider it worth the Rage cost increase; if I want more damage from Rage moves, I'd rather focus on... any of the other damaging Rage moves. Even Orcish Rage.

Freeze Area upgrades
Area 1: +1 Area, +10 Rage, +1 Rest

I find the idea here horrifying. It's already a giant pain to use Dark Cloud without impairing your own forces, and this makes it even harder.

Duration upgrades
Duration 1: Duration: +1, Rage: +6, Rest: +1

Duration 2: Duration: +1, Rage: +6, Rest: +1

Duration 3: Duration: +1, Rage: +6, Rest: +1

Actually useful: the one-turn duration is often inadequate for stalling a key enemy, and against already-slow enemies delaying refreshing their Freeze is useful in its own right. Probably the best of the upgrades for Dark Cloud, in fact.

Friendly Fire Upgrades
Friendly Fire 1: Friendly Damage: 55%, Rage: +4

Friendly Fire 2: Friendly Damage: 10%, Rage: +4

Just... don't let your units get caught in its radius. These aren't worth it. At all. Especially since its base damage is already tiny!

Increased Control Upgrades

Control 1: Rage: -15, Rest: -1

There's actually two of these upgrades in the code, but the second one has a minimum Rage cost requirement that is one greater than the highest possible cost on Dark Cloud, and so you can't actually be offered it. Oops.

Final Stats

Duration: 4

Freeze strength: 50%

Friendly fire: 10%

Freeze area: 2

Rage: 45

Rest: 7 (6 with sufficient ranks in Action Rage)

If the second Increased Control upgrade actually functioned, its final cost would be a more reasonable 30 Rage, and its final Rest would be 6 or 5 when backed by Action Rage.

Personally, I usually grab the first duration upgrade and nothing else; 22 Rage and a Rest of 4 after Rage Control is a fair deal for 2 turns of a Freeze-inflicting wall, but the rest of the upgrades are so dubious... I'd argue a fully upgraded Dark Cloud is really just worse than an unupgraded Dark Cloud, unfortunately.

On the plus side, where prior Rage walls almost all had problems keeping up with enemies into the late game even if you burned lots of Rage levels on them, Dark Cloud is out the box suitable for endgame situations; if you pin enemies with it, they're stuck no matter how powerful they are if they can't fly, and the biggest utility of the Freeze is the Speed penalty, which never improves anyway. So in spite of how painfully dubious its level-up options are, Dark Cloud is probably still the most useful and best-designed wall in the series -only Lina's Ice Spikes come close. And not that close.

Black Hole

Basic stats
Rage: 20
Rest: 5
Damage: 300-600 Astral
Stun: 33%
Fade: 60%
Radius: 2

Hits all units in a radius for Astral damage, with a chance to Stun each target. The damage and Stun chance drops off by a percentage ('Fade') for each tile out from the center, and units outside of the center will be pulled one tile closer to the center if there's nothing else in the way.

Note that the pulling effect is based solely on the initial conditions, and isn't 'smart'. If two units are lined up to one side of the center and could both be pulled toward the center via the same route, the closer one will be pulled and the further one will be left alone, because the closer one was in its way when you used the skill.

Note that 'fade' is the percentage it drops by, not to. Base fade is thus slightly less than 2/3rds damage being lost one tile out from the center.

In spite of sharing a name and general concept with Reaper's Black Hole, Blackie's Black Hole is much more useful. Part of this is simply that Dark Side is fond of battlegroups with large numbers of stacks, making multi-target splash attacks much more reliably powerful, but it's also tremendously helpful to not have it Rest-competing with anything. I often choose other Rage moves before Black Hole against battlegroups with a mere 5 stacks, but unlike Reaper's Black Hole it's not a 'I can never find an opportunity to justify it' thing; I end up using it on turn 3 or something, not Turn Never.

Another part of it is that Black Hole is versatile. You want high area damage? Black Hole has you covered. You want to pull a key enemy to a key location, or drag a group of enemies backwards? Black Hole is there. You want to block off Talents and/or slow down the enemy army in general? It's not reliable, but that Stun chance will happen with reasonable regularity if you're hurling Black Hole at large enough groups.

This both means Black Hole can justify itself in multiple different situations but also means it can justify itself multiple times over. Once you've got its base Stun to 100%, you can use Black Hole to ensure a key unit's Talents are blocked off for a while also doing a bunch of damage and dragging other units back. Other Rage moves can compete on individual elements, such as using Jealousy to avoid an enemy pointing their Talents at your forces or being able to get more damage out of Necro Pack, but in situations where multiple of Black Hole's factors are relevant... you're going to use it. Simple as that.

It also helps that it's not outrageously expensive like Reaper's Black Hole is, of course. That makes a big difference. As does the Rest overhaul.

Dark Side has a good Rage system, okay?

Damage upgrades
Damage 1: Damage: 600-900, Rage: +5, Rest: +1
Damage 2: Damage: 900-1300, Stun: 66%, Rage: +10
Damage 3: Damage: 1300-1700, Rage: +5, Rest: +1
Damage 4: Damage: 1700-2800, Stun: 100%, Rage: +10

Remember: Stun chance drops off from the center, so even with 100% Stun chance Black Hole is only guaranteed one Stun in the bunch. And only if you actually have a target at the center, which you might not if you're focused on maximizing targets or are trying to use Black Hole to manipulate enemy positions.

Even so, being able to 100% reliably force a Stun on a target once you do have it maxed is incredibly useful, and any bonus Stuns helping slow down enemy melee is nice. With upgraded Fade, you'll Stun enemies outside the center fairly regularly!

Note that while the damage looks far greater than eg maxed Orc Shield, since it drops off away from the center the actual totals will be quite different. eg with unmodified Fade, against an idealized clump of 7 enemies forming a circle, max Black Hole damage will be about 4,760-7,840, whereas maxed Orc Shield damage in that situation will be 7,000-8,750. You really need to invest in the area upgrades and Fade improvements for Black Hole to truly be damage king. And even then, it'll lose to Orc Shield once the enemy formation starts breaking up, as far as raw damage goes.

That's fine, since Black Hole does so many other things.

Radius Upgrades
Radius 1: Radius: 3, Rage: +12, Rest: +1
Radius 2: Radius: 4, Rage: +12, Rest: +1

Bizarrely, you don't need the first to unlock the second, and should in fact ideally avoid taking the first one at all -I'd say 'to reduce the final Rage cost and Rest period', but for some reason taking one of these locks you out of the other! So in practice the radius 3 upgrade is just a trap choice where you can choose to have a smaller final radius for no real benefit. Yikes.

Just one more example of Dark Side being rushed and this having a negative impact on its design.

Anyway, the radius 4 upgrade is key to making Black Hole great, allowing it to hit every stack in eg 15 stack battlegroups where initial conditions have them all clumped together.

Fade Reduction Upgrades
Fade 1: Fade: 50%, Rage: +8

Fade 2: Fade: 40%, Rage: +8

To be clear: the first one is reducing the Fade rate to 50%, meaning damage is halved for each tile out instead of losing 60%. That's a nearly 50% increase in damage done outside the center, and same for Stun chance outside the center, so it's actually quite worthwhile. By a similar token, the second tier means Black Hole only loses 40% of its damage and Stun chance for each tile out. Generally the damage upgrades should be prioritized first, but Fade Reduction is absolutely worth pursuing.

By the way, the second Fade Reduction upgrade requires you took the radius 4 upgrade and not the radius 3 upgrade, so taking the radius 3 upgrade lowers Black Hole's final potential twice over. Oops.

Increased Control Upgrades
Control 1: Rage: -15, Rest: -1
Control 2: Rage: -15, Rest: -1

Take them! Take them all!

Unless you've not been investing in Black Hole. But why would you do that?

Final Stats (Assuming you took the radius 4 upgrade)

Damage: 1700-2800 Astral

Stun chance: 100%

Fade: 40%

Radius: 4

Rage: 48

Rest: 6 (5 with sufficient ranks in Action Rage)

If the radius upgrades worked as intended, the final stats would be 60 Rage and a base Rest of 7, more in line with prior ultimate attacking Rage moves. As-is, 48 is very affordable well before the end of the game; this is part of why Black Hole is great, because unlike several of the 'ultimate attacking Rage moves' in prior games it never shoots past your maximum Rage or hovers right below it to make it impossible or nearly-impossible to use.

Mind, Dark Side is sufficiently generous with boosts to maximum Rage the intended cost of 60 would still be quite reasonable!

I like Dark Side's Black Hole, and the contrast with The Legend's Black Hole is impressive; how far Rage has come in design quality is wonderful.

Now if only Dark Side hadn't been flagrantly rushed...

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That's all the Rage moves in Dark Side, but we're not quite done;



This graphic puzzles me.

It's very obviously a variation on Rage Control's first rank, but it's a brand-new graphic to Dark Side's spritesheet -it's not found in prior games' sheets- and it has versions for when you can't use a given Rage move and so on, indicating this was meant to be a real Rage move. Unlike the other graphics in the Rage portion of Dark Side's spritesheet, it doesn't have a little head to indicate that it's attached to a particular character, either, but it goes unused entirely. It seems likely to have been intended to be a 'typeless' (Not associated with one of the player characters) Rage move, perhaps one that generated Rage? Which suggests the Orc/Demoness/Vampire divide was meant to be more meaningful at some point, to my mind.

I'm really curious what this was about.

It does occur to me it might simply have been a filler graphic used before the actual Rage move icons were made, and simply never removed from the sprite sheet. I'm skeptical of that particular theory, but it's not impossible.

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Now we're done with Rage.

Next time, we get started on Companions in Dark Side, starting with Bagyr's.

Because Dark Side has a whole different Companions system from any prior game.