Cutter

Doing a total 180 from the rest of my posts here, I figured I'd share what feels like a "success story" build! It leans HARD into theme, and hits some solid numbers to boot. Note that I haven't actually run this yet, but I fully intend to respec my Dark/Savage tanker into this once I shop for the pieces I have never ever ever bought before (with the intent to keep, anyway). FWIW, I don't see this as invalidating the idea that DA could do with a revamp. This is a pretty unconventional approach with a number of very deliberate choices made in the service of patching the energy hole and addressing end use (i's still heavier on end than I'd like, tho Cardiac - not toggled below - does help some).

Thanks! I can't believe I didn't think about spectrum for parts of it (especially with the minor blast of spectrum outfits on the best costume thread!). Definitely some elements in there to consider.

I have a burning need to revamp my first ever HC hero, Titan's Light. He's a Dark/Shield Scrapper, and has been sitting on the bench for a while. Dunno what it is, but something feels lacking (and I've come to despise the unchangeable black on the boots - it mars the entire colour scheme). Bio and current costume presented below. I'm open to anything, with one caveat: his attacks must be bright yellow (or at least sunshiney!).

Looking to roll up a Sentinel, and happened to pause on the AT description. What did I see? Were Sentinels supposed to have a Placate-style ability at some point? And if so, what happened to it?

Dunno, but it's the first one I can think of where I've had both the interest and some level of experience to contribute!

I most like the bottom-middle look.

I'll hop on the Spectrum costume bandwagon. This is Ceramic, my Bio/Stone Tanker. (I didn't turn on the damage aura or adaptations here - those are all white to represent pottery dust).

@Sleepymoth, looks good! I like the colour choices.

I'm working on that with my Water/Regen. Slow going cause I kinda shelved him for a while. Recently respecced into KO Blow and Arctic Breath, both fully procced out, and man do those add to his capabilities.

Rad gets a team heal and +HP in Ground Zero, which is the only other directly team-affecting buff power besides Shield's Grant Cover. (There are of course a number of sets with debuffs that benefit the team.) So while there's not a major precedent, there is some precedent. (As an aside, waaaaaay back in the "buff tankers" beta threads, I had made a suggestion to add some team support utility to all the tanker primaries as a way to increase the value of multiples on a team. Maybe it doesn't work for all of the armour sets, but it could work for some, and DA seems like a good candidate.)

OK, It might be too early, and too much for the scope of the thread, but I'll dive in with a terrible first pass at a Dark Armour revamp anyway. I'm not going to argue that these are any better or worse than what others might suggest; just taking suggestions from a few different posts, plus some of my own thoughts, and putting things together in a way that feels OK to me. I mean this to be used as a jumping-off point for perhaps more focused discussion. Up front: this isn't directly doing anything to end costs (save for DR), and it doesn't take away the KB hole or the energy weakness. What it does do is address the less chosen powers to make them more appealing, add some late-blooming recovery tools and team supports, and hopefully better bring out the intended flavour of the set. Death Shroud - (SAME) toggle, foe minor dot (neg) --- (NEW) foe -tohit Dark Embrace - (SAME) toggle, +resist (smash/lethal/neg/toxic) --- (NEW) nothing Murky Cloud - (SAME) toggle, +resist (fire/cold/energy/neg), resist (end drain) --- (NEW) nothing Obsidian Shield - (SAME) toggle, +resist (psi), +resist (sleep/hold/disorient/fear) --- (NEW) add +resist (immobilize) Dark Regeneration - (SAME) pbaoe minor damage (neg), self +HP --- (NEW) slightly reduced end cost; +HP values adjusted: first target provides significantly more HP, rest provide less (1st target = 2.5x, 2nd-10th targets = 0.5 each; total 7.0) vs live (1st-10th targets = 1.0x each; total 10.0) --- this allows for more creative slotting and better effectiveness vs single targets, with less "wasted" healing at full saturation Alternate suggestion: allow overhealing to turn into an absorb shield. Dunno if that's even possible but...? Cloak of Darkness - (SAME) toggle, self +stealth, +defense (all), +perception --- (NEW) remove +resist (immobilize) Cloak of Fear - (SAME) toggle, pbaoe fear (mag 2), foe -tohit --- (NEW) foe fear (chance of +1 mag); power accuracy improved to 1.00X (from 0.67X); adds minor psychic damage to attacks Oppressive Gloom - (SAME) toggle, foe disorient (mag 2), self -HP --- (NEW) foe -spd, -dmg; foe disorient (chance of +1 mag); self +recovery Soul Transfer - (SAME) self rez, pbaoe foe disorient (mag 30) --- (NEW) useable while alive: mirror of Soul Absorption in controller Darkness Affinity (team +regen +rcv; foe -tohit) I know there will be critiques and criticisms; please keep them kind and as constructive as possible!

That about sums things up! If we're ordering the list by priority, I'd push the flavour piece to the top, but that's just me 🙂

I started playing just after the era of independent toggles, but I believe (don't quote me) that it only applied to the shields. You had to choose between Dark Embrace OR Murky Cloud OR Obsidian Shield. I don't know if the damage and mez toggles were also part of that "pick one" design. I think you might be on to something with how the terrorize effect plays out, not just with Death Shroud but with attacks in general. If I really wanted, I can stop attacking, turn off Cloak of Fear, and let Death Shroud chip away. Eventually, assuming I can withstand the incoming damage, the mobs will fall down. The converse - stop attacking, turn off Death Shroud and just run Cloak of Fear, results in , again assuming I can withstand the (now slower) incoming damage, an eternal stalemate. The mobs are suppressed, as you put it, but if I want to progress I have to attack, which breaks the fear and lets the mob hit back. Question: is the value of CoF is in the fear effect, or in the -tohit? The answer might guide further discussion. (Pie in the sky hypothetical: turn CoF into a high mag pbaoe clickie. Need some breathing room? Scare everyone for 10 seconds and pop a quick rest mid-battle.) Much of the recent discussion has moved on from the endurance and KB issue to addressing the set's identity (i.e. the skippable, flavourful 1/3 of its powers). I don't see how making more of a set's powers legitimate choices is a bad thing. Dark Armour may be the shortest kid in the class, but is it possible that's because he's on his knees?

For anyone wondering, or seeing it happen in Mids: Membrane does not buff the DDR given by Active Defense. /sadface

It's almost... almost... like the set was built with a "let's plug in a bunch of random mechanics that all vaguely seem darkity-dark-dark" approach, rather than a measured analysis of what each power actually does and how the powers interact with each other.

A run-by fruiting?

Some really good material overnight! I struggle with the idea of removing or wholesale changing powers. I'd still much rather tweak to retain the core functionality while improving effects and contribution to theme/identity. That said, I can completely see the argument being made against the overlapping aspects of Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom. If there was a way to make them work together, feed off each other... e.g. fear ticks apply a slow/-tohit on stunned mobs, stun ticks apply a -def/-res on feared mobs... dunno, that's a not-thought-out early morning idea that prolly doesn't fly, but I'm putting it out there anyway for discussion. The better ("better" being wildly subjective of course) plan is still tweaking the underperforming/skippable powers to be (a) more desirable, (b) more useful, and (c) more in line with the set's as-described flavour of draining enemies to strengthen the user. Again, the goal as I see it is taking what's unique about DA and making it stand out, cranking the flavour knob as it were. I don't want to see DA homogenized with the rest of the armour sets - frankly that's where it is now in powers-taken terms: defenses, mez prot, damage aura, done. The cool stuff is left on the bench.

@Heraclea, would you be willing to share that build? I've got my old main reimagined in that spec, and he's languishing at 35. I have not invested in him beyond a couple -KBs and the Theft of Essence proc at this point, but do have a full IO build planned out. Gotta say I find myself in agreement with your speculation about Savage's end discount - it's not enough on its own. Dark Regen frankly is the star of the set; without it DA would be far more painful. A "regular" heal like Fire's, or a +HP like Ice and Invul get, or even a weaker mob-targetted one like you see in Rad or Bio, just wouldn't cut it in Dark Armour. It needs that strong of a heal because the rest of its protections let it down. And I'd argue that it's a questionable design decision to build a set around a horrifically expensive heal that, in a lot of cases, needs to fire as soon as it's off cooldown. That's a massive chunk out of the old blue bar, especially at low levels. It doesn't get a whole lot more palatable with advanced slotting either. Screenie of my intended final build's slotted Dark Regen (feel free to critique!): Even with a massive end redux, including Cardiac, it's still a significant hit every time I use it, basically 1 end/second out of my total. I can't think of any other sets where that cost is effectively required to compete. Please feel free to (nicely) tell me I'm wrong tho; there's always more to learn!

I would agree with this. Allowing DA's powers to keep doing what they do, but better, is the ideal I'm shooting for. Earlier I'd suggested buffing OG with a chance to proc an extra +1 stun mag, and a +rcv to take the sting out of the -hp. How would that feel?

I never said it would be easy 🙂 And honestly, it's not something that's likely to ever happen because of the sheer scale of the project, as you say. Guess I got a little sidetracked with this one!

I already more or less conceded the point on the KB hole getting filled. As noted there are ways to deal with it. The "big picture" analysis that I would like to see - and which I'm pretty sure would benefit more than just DA - involves looking at all the status effects, conditions, and damage types, and finding a way to review them against the different armour sets and their strengths/weaknesses. For example, to stay on thread & using made-up numbers, if it's determined that DA's weakness to energy is on display against 70% of the game's content, and its strength to psionics is on display against 7% of the game's content, that would be telling. Similar analysis would of course be needed to accurately compare against the other sets, to determine if that's normal behaviour across them or if it's an outlier.

Solid. I really wanted that belt, but it's not available under jackets!

I didn't take T9s in any of those analysis builds. I was looking only at the end management and survival side of things. In hindsight that was a mistake with Ice/, as Hibernate acts as another heal (for both green and blue bars), and - with better than basic slotting - can be built to maintain aggro through a Hibernate nap. As far as Dark's T9 goes, it seems that in general the original armour T9s tend to be skippable due to harsh drawbacks or niche use, while newer sets are built with softer crashes and more likely use. I suspect that that's a long-term goal for an overall "armour set T9 review". Much like blast set nukes had their crashes removed, I wonder if the devs don't have something on the whiteboard to address that on a global scale. For now tho, it's why I suggested adding some "use when alive" functionality which has been made part of some newer sets. In the specific example I used (a port of controler DAff's Soul Absorption) it also happens to enhance the feel/theme of the set as a "drain-to-buff" ability. These are good questions. I'm sure at one time there was a closer approximation of balance between the sets and their tradeoffs, but between powerset proliferation, incarnates & general game evolution, whatever balance there might have been has fallen off. I don't have numbers in front of me to say how many mobs/factions inflict the various conditions, KBs, and damage types. Nor how many missions they appear in. Nor (if it's even possible to parse out) which of these the players tend to fight more often than others, outside of farm settings. ("PI Council radios LFM", anyone?) Having even the first set of stats would be a good start in addressing the holes to find out if they are in fact holes in any meaningful sense, and then if they are, just how big are we talking here?

Option 3 has been my preference. It does good things to the set without, as some detractors have rightfully pointed out as a concern, pushing DA to homogenization with the other armour sets.

You mean, like making Cloak a terror-inflicting variant of Entangling Aura? 🙂 And adding a +mag chance to OG? 🙂 (Not actively being facetious here either - any voices asking for the cool unique parts of the set to be buffed to usefulness are gladly supported!)