Sell me on Dark Armor

[Microcosm]

To start off, someone correct me but it seems that Stalker DA is straight worse than Scrapper DA. Normally with resist sets you lose the damage aura but get defense from hide in the trade-off. However, they also replaced the stealth power (because, you know, hide) with Shadow Dweller. That seems fine, until you realize the latter's defense bonus is lessened so that hide plus Shadow Dweller equal the Scrapper stealth...at least that's what mids says. So you've lost the damage aura and picked up net 0 defense for the loss. Am I missing something there?

 

Beyond that, why do some people claim this armor set is the best resist set? Outside of dark Regen when surrounded by mobs, it looks ok but not better than others. The stun toggle won't work on bosses and up, and the tohit toggle will do next to nothing on AVs where you'd really want it because of their resistance to debuffs. The t9 is a rez, 'nuff said. So is it just dark regen? Why do you use DA?

[StrikerFox]

The only small advantage is Shadow Dweller can work with Concealment's Stealth power. Which isn't much of an advantage at all I guess. I made Spines/DA Scrapper and Stalker builds on Mids', back during live, and their numbers turned out to be very similar. Their stat totals below. At a glance, it's hard to tell which AT is which.

 

 

Also Dark Regen doesn't necessarily need mobs. If slotted correctly, it can get full hp off two targets. The mob just helps with the Theft of Essence, endurance proc.

Edited February 16, 2020 by StrikerFox

[oldskool]

8 hours ago, Microcosm said:

To start off, someone correct me but it seems that Stalker DA is straight worse than Scrapper DA. Normally with resist sets you lose the damage aura but get defense from hide in the trade-off. However, they also replaced the stealth power (because, you know, hide) with Shadow Dweller. That seems fine, until you realize the latter's defense bonus is lessened so that hide plus Shadow Dweller equal the Scrapper stealth...at least that's what mids says. So you've lost the damage aura and picked up net 0 defense for the loss. Am I missing something there?

 

Beyond that, why do some people claim this armor set is the best resist set? Outside of dark Regen when surrounded by mobs, it looks ok but not better than others. The stun toggle won't work on bosses and up, and the tohit toggle will do next to nothing on AVs where you'd really want it because of their resistance to debuffs. The t9 is a rez, 'nuff said. So is it just dark regen? Why do you use DA?

Straight up worse is just subjective evaluation of the sets.  What do you value in a character you make?  Stalkers are already weaker at AoE as a feature of the archetype.  Sure, there are some primary sets that break the mold but AoE isn't what the AT is great at.  So losing out on the AoE damage boosting capability of Death Shroud isn't a big surprise given the nature of what the Stalker is.  

 

In a world of IOs, Dark Armor is whatever you make of it.  My Stalker actually ends up with slightly better defenses and resistances than my Scrapper.  The characters aren't identical so the primaries offer different slotting opportunities between the two to bolster certain strengths or shore up weaknesses.  In the case of these two characters the Scrapper is better at AoE due to Death Shroud, but that was obvious to me well before I ever bothered building it.  

 

I find Dark Armor a fun set to use, and I have characters across several ATs with it.  Personally, I think that Tankers made out well with getting Dark Armor and it is the best version of the set given their higher mitigation values.  Any Tanker set that can get a pulsing damage toggle to increase AoE contribution is worth looking at in my opinion and the ability to cap almost all resistance totals without a T9 is pretty awesome too.  

 

Edit: You do touch on a point of Cloak of Fear being a bit overrated.  While it does offer a to hit debuff its base cost is very high and its base accuracy is very low.  Its basically an endurance sink if you don't plan for it properly while having mediocre results in actual play.  Oppressive Gloom is often underrated though.  Soul Transfer too.  Revive powers are also going to be a personal preference thing, but Soul Transfer isn't as useless as the origin post suggests.  

Edited February 16, 2020 by oldskool

[Microcosm]

9 hours ago, StrikerFox said:

The only small advantage is Shadow Dweller can work with Concealment's Stealth power. Which isn't much of an advantage at all I guess. I made Spines/DA Scrapper and Stalker builds on Mids', back during live, and their numbers turned out to be very similar. Their stat totals below. At a glance, it's hard to tell which AT is which.

 

Also Dark Regen doesn't necessarily need mobs. If slotted correctly, it can get full hp off two targets. The mob just helps with the Theft of Essence, endurance proc.

Yeah, that's what I mean. It gets all the same defensive values while losing the damage aura for better stealth? To contrast, electric and ice lose their damage aura but gain some defense from hide; rad and willpower lose their taunt/debuff powers and pick up the same defense. It seems unfair to dark that it doesn't get the same trade.

 

That is good to know on dark regen. It looks like it can do almost 60% heal against a single target. Even with a tohit check, with the recharge time it has it looks like easily the workhorse of the set.

 

5 hours ago, oldskool said:

Straight up worse is just subjective evaluation of the sets.  What do you value in a character you make?  Stalkers are already weaker at AoE as a feature of the archetype.  Sure, there are some primary sets that break the mold but AoE isn't what the AT is great at.  So losing out on the AoE damage boosting capability of Death Shroud isn't a big surprise given the nature of what the Stalker is.  

 

In a world of IOs, Dark Armor is whatever you make of it.  My Stalker actually ends up with slightly better defenses and resistances than my Scrapper.  The characters aren't identical so the primaries offer different slotting opportunities between the two to bolster certain strengths or shore up weaknesses.  In the case of these two characters the Scrapper is better at AoE due to Death Shroud, but that was obvious to me well before I ever bothered building it.  

 

I find Dark Armor a fun set to use, and I have characters across several ATs with it.  Personally, I think that Tankers made out well with getting Dark Armor and it is the best version of the set given their higher mitigation values.  Any Tanker set that can get a pulsing damage toggle to increase AoE contribution is worth looking at in my opinion and the ability to cap almost all resistance totals without a T9 is pretty awesome too.  

 

Edit: You do touch on a point of Cloak of Fear being a bit overrated.  While it does offer a to hit debuff its base cost is very high and its base accuracy is very low.  Its basically an endurance sink if you don't plan for it properly while having mediocre results in actual play.  Oppressive Gloom is often underrated though.  Soul Transfer too.  Revive powers are also going to be a personal preference thing, but Soul Transfer isn't as useless as the origin post suggests.  

Sorry, I should clarify: it feels like it was singled out to not get anything in return for losing its damage aura unlike the other sets that have an aura. In a vacuum, the Scrapper version is the same defensively but also has a damage aura, which doesn't seem reasonable considering how the other armors were ported, and I immediately felt robbed when I started throwing together a build. I similarly don't like /rad as much on a stalker because I value Beta Decay a lot, but the trade seems fair since it at least gets a small amount of extra defense.

 

The rez is definitely a preference thing, as are the crashing t9s. What is underrated about Oppressive Gloom? Are you stacking it with another stun? I see its value against minions since it is mag 2, but minions aren't generally the big concern.

[Coyote]

Dark Regeneration can also be slotted as a PBAoE power with like 2 slots devoted to healing and Theft of Essence, and then 4 for damage, and it helps with the low AoE damage that Stalkers usually have.

 

Oppressive Gloom is okay without another stun power, but not that great... but add in any other source for Stunning, and you can stunlock a Boss by combining the two while also stunlocking all Minions. It has low enough Endurance cost and high enough duration that you can really depend on it with just 1 slot with Accuracy or Acc/Stun, so getting that much value out of a 1-slot power with a low Endurance cost and 100% uptime is sweet. The self-damage isn't something I worried about, as I recall from another character with it.

[siolfir]

On 2/16/2020 at 12:11 PM, Microcosm said:

Sorry, I should clarify: it feels like it was singled out to not get anything in return for losing its damage aura unlike the other sets that have an aura. In a vacuum, the Scrapper version is the same defensively but also has a damage aura, which doesn't seem reasonable considering how the other armors were ported, and I immediately felt robbed when I started throwing together a build. I similarly don't like /rad as much on a stalker because I value Beta Decay a lot, but the trade seems fair since it at least gets a small amount of extra defense.

It doesn't get nothing in return - yes, the defense values are the same but it comes as an auto power and Hide, neither of which have endurance costs. Sure, it's only the cost of a single toggle, but Cloak of Darkness is the second most expensive toggle in Dark Armor.

 

Now is it really a fair tradeoff? No, but that's because Shadow Dweller is also weaker than Cloak of Darkness with lower values on +perception, immobilize resistance, and immobilize protection - the justification for that is that as an auto power it should be weaker than a toggle, combined with the fact that it was ported at a time when the devs felt that Stalkers needed to give up a lot for Hide. Just to make it even sillier, the stealth from Hide suppresses during combat but the stealth from Cloak of Darkness does not, so a Stalker fighting near another spawn will cause them to aggro and a Scrapper, Brute, or Tanker won't.

 

But despite that, Dark Armor as a whole is a good set where the only holes are knockback protection (easily solved through IOs) and endurance costs (making the reduced cost a little easier to swallow).

[Leogunner]

On 2/15/2020 at 10:32 PM, Microcosm said:

To start off, someone correct me but it seems that Stalker DA is straight worse than Scrapper DA. Normally with resist sets you lose the damage aura but get defense from hide in the trade-off. However, they also replaced the stealth power (because, you know, hide) with Shadow Dweller. That seems fine, until you realize the latter's defense bonus is lessened so that hide plus Shadow Dweller equal the Scrapper stealth...at least that's what mids says. So you've lost the damage aura and picked up net 0 defense for the loss. Am I missing something there?

But the aforementioned stalker combo (hide+SD) costs 0 END. 

[Microcosm]

1 hour ago, Leogunner said:

But the aforementioned stalker combo (hide+SD) costs 0 END. 

Yes, that does seem to be a benefit for the set given its reputation for heavy end cost. I was thinking of building a savage/dark for the end redux from savage, but now I'm leaning toward something with stuns to pair with Oppressive Gloom.

[StrykerGaming]

On 2/17/2020 at 1:11 AM, Microcosm said:

Sorry, I should clarify: it feels like it was singled out to not get anything in return for losing its damage aura unlike the other sets that have an aura.

Having a damage aura would defeat the purpose of a Stalker and it's Hide power. Stalker is about stealth and ambush attacks, this above all else is the most important aspect of this AT. Anything that gives out automatic damage like an aura while NOT in combat is counter-intuitive to the AT. I'm using a Dark/Dark Stalker. I'm thankful I don't have anything that would give away my position because of some random attack from an aura. Especially when I'm less than a foot behind them getting ready to give them some surprise loving. 😉

[Microcosm]

37 minutes ago, StrykerGaming said:

Having a damage aura would defeat the purpose of a Stalker and it's Hide power. Stalker is about stealth and ambush attacks, this above all else is the most important aspect of this AT. Anything that gives out automatic damage like an aura while NOT in combat is counter-intuitive to the AT. I'm using a Dark/Dark Stalker. I'm thankful I don't have anything that would give away my position because of some random attack from an aura. Especially when I'm less than a foot behind them getting ready to give them some surprise loving. 😉

Oh I'm very aware of that. The issue for me was that normally when a set loses the damage aura it gains hide which has defense, so you're trading damage for defense. Dark, because of how they also redid the Cloak of Darkness power when porting to Stalkers, actually nets the same defense as the scrapper version while losing that damage. It has been pointed out, however, that the defense it does have, while equivalent to the scrapper level, comes at 0 endurance cost, which is for sure beneficial especially on an end-heavy secondary.

[StrykerGaming]

44 minutes ago, Microcosm said:

Oh I'm very aware of that. The issue for me was that normally when a set loses the damage aura it gains hide which has defense, so you're trading damage for defense. Dark, because of how they also redid the Cloak of Darkness power when porting to Stalkers, actually nets the same defense as the scrapper version while losing that damage. It has been pointed out, however, that the defense it does have, while equivalent to the scrapper level, comes at 0 endurance cost, which is for sure beneficial especially on an end-heavy secondary.

I believe the problem is, and it's not just with this game, has to do with DPS reigning as king and is sexy that everyone must have it. If damage isn't being done, a said ability or power nearly useless or unusable. For example, tanking. Thank goodness here in this game, tanking is able to do decent to good damage, yet still fulfills its role as a damage sponge in defense of the team. However, in other games, tanking doesn't appeal to players so much because it lacks the monstrous damage players desire. So what do they do about it? Well, in SWTOR, (before the egregious changes to the gearing system), they'd load up with all DPS mods/enhancements/relics/implants/ear pieces/main hand/off hand (shield) while retaining the tank armorings (that had the tank set bonus) and play as "tanks" doing 7 to 8k (sometimes more) DPS, AKA Skank Tanks. While the pure tank's output was 2.5k DPS on average.

Damage is the name of the game, I know and get it. However, when dealing with defense & Resistance powers...damage is secondary, sometimes tertiary, defense and resistance...damage mitigation is primary. If one cannot mitigate damage one does not survive long enough to matter how much DPS they are capable of. For a stalker, its best mitigation is its ability to remain hidden and drop devastating attacks from stealth. When you have two defensive powers that give you defense, that is a boon in my book. Especially when you can align that with tough & weave & maneuvers. The higher one can get their defense near hard cap, the better their survivability and longevity to maximize their DPS capability.

 

My suggestion is if anyone is looking for maximum and constant damage output, a Stalker is not the way to go. Blasters, Corrupters, Sentinels, Brutes, and Scrappers are. This does not mean the other unmentioned ATs aren't either. Stalker has specific set of skills that, in my opinion, are more finesse than they are raw power that the other ATs offer. Especially so when they are used from stealth. A stealth AT requires a mindset of knowing when and where to attack during any engagement. This applies to all games that have stealth capable classes.

Edited March 2, 2020 by StrykerGaming

[Microcosm]

19 minutes ago, StrykerGaming said:

I believe the problem is, and it's not just with this game, has to do with DPS reigning as king and is sexy that everyone must have it. If damage isn't being done, a said ability or power nearly useless or unusable. For example, tanking. Thank goodness here in this game, tanking is able to do decent to good damage, yet still fulfills its role as a damage sponge in defense of the team. However, in other games, tanking doesn't appeal to players so much because it lacks the monstrous damage players desire. So what do they do about it? Well, in SWTOR, (before the egregious changes to the gearing system), they'd load up with all DPS mods/enhancements/relics/implants/ear pieces/main hand/off hand (shield) while retaining the tank armorings (that had the tank set bonus) and play as "tanks" doing 7 to 8k (sometimes more) DPS, AKA Skank Tanks. While the pure tank's output was 2.5k DPS on average.

Damage is the name of the game, I know and get it. However, when dealing with defense & Resistance powers...damage is secondary, sometimes tertiary, defense and resistance...damage mitigation is primary. If one cannot mitigate damage one does not survive long enough to matter how much DPS they are capable of. For a stalker, its best mitigation is its ability to remain hidden and drop devastating attacks from stealth. When you have two defensive powers that give you defense, that is a boon in my book. Especially when you can align that with tough & weave & maneuvers. The higher one can get their defense near hard cap, the better their survivability and longevity to maximize their DPS capability.

 

My suggestion is if anyone is looking for maximum and constant damage output, a Stalker is not the way to go. Blasters, Corrupters, Sentinels, Brutes, and Scrappers are. This does not mean the other unmentioned ATs aren't either. Stalker has specific set of skills that, in my opinion, are more finesse than they are raw power that the other ATs offer. Especially so when they are used from stealth. A stealth AT requires a mindset of knowing when and where to attack during any engagement. This applies to all games that have stealth capable classes.

Appreciate what you're trying to say, but I think you're misreading me. I'm totally ok with losing the damage from the aura, as that's how Stalkers work. Other Stalker secondaries get some extra defense in addition to the ability to control crits from Hide. Dark Armor, however, does not. This is because Cloak of Darkness was also changed in the port over to Stalkers to become Shadow Dweller, losing a chunk of defense in the process. To contrast, Electric, Ice and Fire all have damage auras on other ATs which they also lose on Stalkers to pick up Hide and net greater defense numbers in the process (Fire has a completely different power changed, but that's another story). From that perspective, Dark appears to be singled out to lose an amount of defense on the Stalker version unlike any of its peer sets, just because. The fact that Shadow Dweller is auto and requires no endurance was thrown out as the reason it makes sense to lower the defense.

[StrykerGaming]

31 minutes ago, Microcosm said:

Appreciate what you're trying to say, but I think you're misreading me.

Not really. I was speaking in-general about the state of 'DPS' that is desired, as I see it, the most desired attribute in a game. The lack of it makes certain powers and abilities less desirable as it does certain classes in group setting or soloing.

 

As you stated in your OP and reiterated here how Dark Armor was itself, changed for the Stalker. Each AT that has access to DA has changes for them. This is evident on all powers that the Stalker has access to. They had to accommodate these powers to fit the Stalker's motif. Just like they do for the Tanker or Scrapper/Brute.  I applaud the developers for having the foresight not to shoehorn ATs into these powers at the cost of their primary abilities. This is, in my opinion, what separates CoH from the other games I've played over the years. In this, the AT is the focus for the powers to build upon not the other way around (if that makes any sense to you).

 

Again, changing Cloak of Darkness over to Shadow Dweller was to accommodate the abilities of the Stalker and become synergistic to the power Hide as well as the others. Otherwise, it may well have become far to powerful of a defense coupled with Hide and the other abilities that come along as you level up. Right now, I'm sitting at 33% def (IIRC with lvl 15 DOs) on my lvl 12 stalker. Resistance is low double digits too. That's pretty stout for this level. I can imagine what it will be like when its at 30 to 40.

 

BTW, after all these years, this is my very first Stalker. I don't know why I never played one before; however, I'm considering a re-roll on one toon that I played on live as my scrapper main. Stalker AT fits better to that character's reason for being what they are. 😄

Edited March 2, 2020 by StrykerGaming

[StrikerFox]

CoD doesn't work with other concealment abilities while Shadow Dweller works with everything. If teamed with Dark Miasma, Illusion and/or Storm players, Scrapper/Brute/Tank Dark Armor players won't get def buffs from Shadow Fall, Group Invisibility and Steamy Mist?

 

It's only 3 power sets but I think they're pretty popular, with each crossing over between 1-4 different ATs. Fenders, Trollers, Corrs and MMs. I can't find that post that shows the most played primary/secondaries of each archetype. 

[Microcosm]

I thought they just didn't get extra stealth from those powers but did get the defense/res? Never tested it.

[Coyote]

You can't run multiple Stealth toggles, usually, so usually you can't benefit from the +Def from multiple Stealth powers. However, the exclusion is on having the powers activated, so you do get benefits from toggles (or clicks) that can be running at the same time, usually because someone else is running them, like Steamy Mist (toggle) or Group Invisibility (click). For example, an Illusion/Storm Controller would be getting +Def from Steamy Mist AND the +Def from Group Invisibility... but if they toggled on Superior Invisibility, then Steamy Mist deactivates. But the Group Invisibility bonus remains.

[StrikerFox]

6 hours ago, Microcosm said:

I thought they just didn't get extra stealth from those powers but did get the defense/res? Never tested it.

Just tested it and you're totally right.