Even with the Necro changes, essentially beefing up the henchmen considerably you are going to need a strong AOE heal. Poison unfortunately is on a single target heal. At higher levels it is going to be considerable.
I 100% agree with the Shadow Maul replies. My tanks Shadow Maul is stuffed with Procs. Touch of Fear with 4 procs also hits like a Truck. SR/DM is a nice combo, but SD/DM provides so much more. SD/DM Tanker is an insane unkillable machine.
VEATS have always been in a special place for me, especially the Night Widow. Fortunas also are a great support friendly too. VEATS need another look at and they are very overdue for it. I keep my Widow nearby, whenever this may occur.
Panacea proc is the only benefit the pets will get. All others have been tested. Interesting enough the status/regen resistance IO, slotted in resistance will benefit them as well.
It all depends on your set pairings and how you build them. Dark/Dark can be loaded with procs to the guill, and still give you survivability that is stupendous. My Shield/Dark is awesome sauce, and his damage is Uber. The choice is how you build them, as I see too many tanks who hit like wet paper bags.
You listed Dark/Dark as a possibility, which is pretty strong. I would suggest Shield/Dark as a possibility to your list. My Shield/Dark is my favorite and is such a great pairing.
As a veteran player of COH past, I feel that the devs gave Homecoming the buff it needed. They all do this with volunteer donations, and have done a fantastic job. They gave to us what COH needed and more. There will be those unhappy about the changes, and the good thing is you can go to play other servers. My 2 cents is keep up the great work.
Shield/Dark with Against all Odds and Sould Drain, with all your powers procced out is insane. To have all that survivability of a tanker and put out absurd damage is OP'd.
I do not know if you attempted to change anything in that prior build, but you still have way too many glaring holes. This build is suboptimal for any type of play and you will be taking dirt naps a lot. Stealthrider said it best with all his helpful comments and I strongly suggest to look up the Night Widow guides in this forum.
I do have a Dark Tanker myself and mine is loaded with procs in Death Shroud, Cloak of Fear, and a few in Opressive Gloom. TOF and Shadow maul as well with the ST attacks. This with the healing and Resistance gives you a serious can of whooping. Now yes the endurance is out of control, but I run the Vigor paragon radial and it's cured. Try it out it's a mean machine lol
Like Wumpus Said earlier with the Buffs to Necro,Bots,and Mercs BM is at the bottom of the barrel. Necro with a high recharge Spammable Soul Extraction is now king.
Striker you made some great points and I have always placed the Soul Boundd BU proc in the Grave Knights. Overwhelming force still goes into the zombies so they can slip and fall on their vomit 🤢 lol. The Lich is stuffed with procs and does really nice additive damage. The changes really beefed up the dead for sure and my final build is very proc sational.
With my experience I would not slot hold procs, you would essentially be digging into needed slots. Now that the MM builds especially for Necro there is not much room to play. I think after much rebuilding and reslotting you essentially have two paths. You can have a very high recharge build and abuse Soul Extraction or Franken Proc these cadavers with how beefy they are now.