Weekly Discussion 48: Dark Armor!

[drbuzzard]

I have only played DA on a sentinel (for the sake of completeness). As I have found for most sentinel defensive sets, a nice job was done to make them more balanced and pleasant to play. In the case of sentinels you get obscure sustenance for your self heal, but it also enhances recovery for a while (and it particularly nice in that it only needs one target to give you a good heal+regen and is PBAOE with decent radius). Now I suppose if I did have to question anything on the sentinel version, it would be the actual presence of cloak of fear and oppressive gloom at all in the set. You're on a ranged AT, which simply doesn't have melee attacks (before EPPs) so melee mez fields are pretty much utter wastes of powers. In my case that simply meant I had powers which could be skipped without any downside. However, as someone did mention, no power should be a no-brainer to skip. 

 

I also like tanks, and have built most armors to 50 now, except stone, DA, and invuln. Stone I suffered through to 50 once on live, and I'm not masochistic enough to do that again. Invulnerability still is remembered with godlike durability, which it no longer has (and perhaps it shouldn't anyway, and is fine as is) and I prefer the memories to doing a new one and not getting that feel like it was. Then there's DA. Nothing about this really appeals to me. I'm not a big fan of mezzing characters, and that's the only really noteworthy aspect of Dark Armor except for stealth (on a tank?!? WTF?!?), a very solid heal, and a big fat glaring hole to one of those most common damage types (energy- that's gonna leave a mark). It's particularly strong against psi- why? I don't get why it's not strongest against NE, but whatever. So if I'm skipping the mezz auras what am I looking at? A resistance set with a bad damage hole, and and knockback hole I have to patch. I'm better off with fire for more general resistance coverage (just that energy hole is enough reason) and more damage, or electric for better overall resistances, good endurance recovery, a decent heal, and knockback protection. I was seriously considering a DA tanker, but simply could not justify it. 

[Cutter]

2 hours ago, Naraka said:

Wasn't DA made during the era of 1 toggle at a time or some such?  I didn't play back then but I would assume the utility was in choosing which effect you wanted to persist rather than trying to compound all effects of the set together.

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.

 

2 hours ago, Naraka said:

That being said, many have complained how Cloak of Fear and Death Shroud counteract each other, I'll remind you that Stalkers don't get Death Shroud and they have access to an AoE fear in demoralize so perhaps the focus on synergy shouldn't be dead focused on just the two powers' interaction but rather the tactics you're deploying.  I mean, if you turned Death Shroud off and just ran Cloak of Fear, would you really be leveraging the effect that much more if you're spamming Spin or Whirling Sword?  Or perhaps you're leveraging it enough because the effects of your other AoEs help suppress movement through effects like knockdown thus Death Shroud is adding damage onto that.

 

To clarify what I'm saying is, if your goal is to suppress foes, why run Death Shroud?  If you want to deal damage, some of the utility of suppressing foes is dampened but that'd be the case with most AoE powers used but you can still compound other effects like KD with both to achieve similar effect and deal damage.  Expecting anything more and you're running into limitations of the terrorize mez effect, not Cloak of Fear specifically to which then it might be better to review the terrorize effect.

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.)

 

4 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

We don't need every set to have the ease of play of Willpower and the strength of Bio and the AoE of Fire.  If you don't like the challenge, don't play the set.  If you can't meet the challenge, don't play the set.  Don't take the challenge away simply because you can't figure it out.

 

Please stop the power creep.  Maybe Dark Armor is the shortest kid in the class, but he is still tall enough to ride the ride.

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?

[SwitchFade]

So it looks like the tally this far is,

 

1. END rework, slightly less costly

2. Heal rebalance

3. Unique mechanic/flavour improvement by power to allow for usefulness and variety

4. Profit.

[Cutter]

56 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

So it looks like the tally this far is,

 

1. END rework, slightly less costly

2. Heal rebalance

3. Unique mechanic/flavour improvement by power to allow for usefulness and variety

4. Profit.

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 🙂

[ForeverLaxx]

14 hours ago, Nanolathe said:

I apologise to you. This is not a judgement of you, your values, or your character. I do not wish to come across as someone that just wants to take away what you like. I see your perspective. I didn't mean to single out your preferred playstyle as what should be considered the "wrong" way to play. As stated above, Oppressive Gloom's effect is the more powerful of the two and has more synergies to exploit, so I can see why some people would be more attached to the power than Cloak of Fear's relatively weaker suite of synergistic selections.

 

However, this is me looking at the failure of Dark Armour as a powerset from a design perspective, and the overlap of CoF and OG is part of that. I chose to try to salvage Cloak of Fear because it's the more interesting design space to explore, since fear effects are so completely underrepresented in game. 

 

I understand that you have an attachment to the power, being part of your character's niche. But I don't have any attachment to it. In fact, I actively avoid Oppressive Gloom and playing Dark Armour not because the set is weak (with IOs it really isn't), but precisely because the power selection dries up between 28 and 38. (actually from 20, since Cloak of Darkness can jog on too). Just buffing the powers that suck doesn't stop them competing with each other, nor stop me seeing it as uninspired design... as wasted design space. It's a special kind of powerset that manages to set a whole third of its 9 powers as easily skippable without any negative impact on performance... as long as you like Combat Jumping. 

 

Reminds me of Mastermind Primaries. 🙃

Oh, I don't think you're judging anything about me or my character, so we're fine there. I'm just wary of changes that could fundamentally make null particular character concepts that aren't someone's super-niche or rare pick (like a petless MM. Yes, I have one, and until they make Whip Domination a set I'll continue to have one). I think the deal with Dark Armor is that they wanted to put in the effects other Dark sets had that made them stand out. The devs of yore decided that "darkness" was nebulous enough to encompass a bunch of different effects. Damage over time, stealth, lifesteal, fears, stuns (minorly), and tohit debuffs seem to be what they wanted from a theme perspective, so the OG devs put as many of those into Dark Armor as they could. This does mean that the set has a bit of an identity crisis and sometimes seems to work against itself at times.

 

But that mishmash of parts can create interesting synergies, like my Dark Armor/Stone Tank being a melee-ranged stun machine that can lockdown bosses forever. Cloak of Fear can be combined with Touch of Fear to affect normally resilient foes, though admittedly fear has far fewer in-AT synergies to leverage. It's unfortunate too since I think Cloak of Fear is more thematic to what Dark embodies than Oppressive Gloom is, but CoF is just not useful. The ToHit debuff isn't that great, even if you're using it as pseudodefense and I've never liked the graphic effects of it (though I know plenty of other people do love being a mass of screaming faces). I'm not sure what to do about either of these powers, be that a removal or overhaul of what they provide or how they work.

 

If I had my way, I'd probably move the ToHit Debuff to Death Shroud. I doubt many, if any, people skip their damage aura and this would just be a flat boost to DA's survivability. Spines has a damage aura that has soft survivability in the form of -recharge, so having some survivability stats on a damage aura isn't out of the question. Doing this also opens up more set possibilities, which is neat. The immobilize protection could probably be moved to one of the other armor toggles. Not everyone likes Combat Jumping or having to take a Stealth power just to not get rooted, and even as a tank, Cloak of Darkness comes in pretty late for a very common mez effect resist. Otherwise I think the power is fine -- it lets people who want stealth for sets or concept keep it. Now I'd like to keep Oppressive Gloom for reasons stated above, plus I like the "drain health" aspect (it's not even that much; will basically never get you killed). It's boring, but a chance for increased mag is probably warranted so even those who aren't leveraging synergies can justify trying it, and I'd look into maybe seeing if they can apply a slow to targets as well so they don't stumble about too far. For Cloak of Fear, I'd redesign it into a click power rather than a toggle. Perhaps something like Fiery Embrace, where it adds bonus Negative damage to your attacks with a mag2 fear on each attack, duration scaled with the base recharge of the attack power in question. Not sure if that'd be possible, but it would keep people who take it for the fear satisfied (I hope) while giving the player control over when it's active, limiting how much the set steps on its own toes. Yes, you'd "break" your fear just by attacking in order to stack it, but a boss getting off one attack instead of 3 is still worth it, I think.

[Cutter]

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!

Edited May 1, 2020 by Cutter

[Heraclea]

12 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

We don't need every set to have the ease of play of Willpower and the strength of Bio and the AoE of Fire.  If you don't like the challenge, don't play the set.  If you can't meet the challenge, don't play the set.  Don't take the challenge away simply because you can't figure it out.

 

Please stop the power creep.  Maybe Dark Armor is the shortest kid in the class, but he is still tall enough to ride the ride.

This is not how it is presented to new players.  Instead, you're presented a menu of armors you can give your new tanker, scrapper, or brute.  Nothing there tells the player that soem of these choices are only for advanced players who are at minimum familiar with the inventions system and basic game mechanics, and ideally have access to a treasury of accumulated in-game resources.  Nothing there tells them that this path is much harder than that one.  

 

I think instead that all the sets ought to have rough parity of baseline performance.  I don't want to make them all the same either.  I am fine with all of them having separate strengths and weaknesses.  One basic problem with Dark Armor is that the things that it does differently from other sets don't work very well, and don't work together as an ensemble. 

[Metatheory]

30 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

This is not how it is presented to new players.  Instead, you're presented a menu of armors you can give your new tanker, scrapper, or brute.  Nothing there tells the player that soem of these choices are only for advanced players who are at minimum familiar with the inventions system and basic game mechanics, and ideally have access to a treasury of accumulated in-game resources.  Nothing there tells them that this path is much harder than that one. 

C'mon, it's not THAT hard 😄 Not enough to warrant an 'advanced players only!' warning, at least.  

 

For those worried that DA is an under performing set I'll just drop this here:

Yes, it's a totally tricked out build, but it's also a no insps no deaths solo +4/*8 ITF for heaven's sake! Not something I would be mad enough to take on...

 

I draw your attention to the second post where the OP regrets not taking Oppressive Gloom and describes perfectly why even out of the box - minions only - they believe it would have negated the biggest issue they faced, caused by the debuffing of the minions. 

[Naraka]

11 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

...and a big fat glaring hole to one of those most common damage types (energy- that's gonna leave a mark). It's particularly strong against psi- why? I don't get why it's not strongest against NE, but whatever. 

This is actually kind of funny.

 

It doesn't have a big glaring hole to energy...it's just not mid-to-cap resistance to energy.  It still has 30%/24% resistance to Energy damage which isn't nothing.  It's a solid base to build other resistances on top of if you choose to go that route.

 

Also, it is rather strong to negative energy.  I guess in this era, if you're not a flea's gasp from cap, it's not considered at all?

 

11 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

electric for better overall resistances, good endurance recovery, a decent heal, and knockback protection. I was seriously considering a DA tanker, but simply could not justify it. 

And to compare, DA's energy resistance is a "hole" but Electric Armor's heal is "decent"?  With slotting, it only reaches Regen's or Fire's heal AT BASE (50% heal on a 60sec cooldown w/ slotting vs 25% heal on a 40sec cooldown w/o).

 

Mayhaps a bit of exaggeration is occurring? 

 

12 hours ago, Cutter said:

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?

I'd wager it's the -ToHit since a lot of the benefit of the fear is limited to lower ranks (maybe bumping it to have a chance to affect Lts?) which most builds are set-up to obliterate quickly.

 

On the contrary of the builds I'm working on (My Spines/DA Stalker and my new DA/EM Tanker), there is a bit of strategy to targetting.  Targets tend to be the harder targets first then migrate down to the weaker foes which hopefully aren't doing too much in the meantime.  Since DA was originally a Scrapper set, I'd wager that was the direction meant to take: kill the bosses, obliterate the fodder after.  There's also strategy in holding onto the weaker foes to feed powers like Dark Consumption/Soul Drain, Dark Regeneration, and other mechanics like Momentum and Contamination aided by having more foes around to trigger the effect.

 

Of course, this is ignoring the meta that has kind of always been a thing since early in the game's life: AoE is king.  If you're not AoE'ing things down, you're lagging.  But for my builds, the Stalker and my ST focused Tanker, it works hand-in-hand which might be why the set people view as having no synergy with it's thematic pairing, Dark Melee, is viewed so poorly when in reality, it was more a set to aid ST focused strategies.

 

If I were making a pie-in-the sky suggestion, giving CoF a kind of "power boost" effect for fear powers + having 2 modes for the aura, one that suppresses until you're outside of combat for 6sec that basically places a PBAoE patch down upon entering combat that slows and fears and stacks mag with the always on aura that generates stacks of the "power boost" when foes are in your aura's range.  It would particularly work well with certain Stalker strategies as well as kind of introduce other aspects of "hide in the shadows and then strike" philosophies that have roots in the set (I see you hiding in the corner, Cloak of Darkness).  It also has thematic ties to "draining power from foes" other posters pointed to and it has a genuine different feel from other sets although it likely wouldn't be a meta-strategy since that mostly revolves around mob rushing and steady AoE DPS.

[Naraka]

3 hours ago, Heraclea said:

This is not how it is presented to new players.  Instead, you're presented a menu of armors you can give your new tanker, scrapper, or brute.  Nothing there tells the player that soem of these choices are only for advanced players who are at minimum familiar with the inventions system and basic game mechanics, and ideally have access to a treasury of accumulated in-game resources.  Nothing there tells them that this path is much harder than that one.  

 

I think instead that all the sets ought to have rough parity of baseline performance.  I don't want to make them all the same either.  I am fine with all of them having separate strengths and weaknesses.  One basic problem with Dark Armor is that the things that it does differently from other sets don't work very well, and don't work together as an ensemble. 

It's because it's more an exaggeration.

 

To be frank, Dark Armor isn't any more "harder" than Invulnerability or Ice Armor.  It's different, which is likely the key goal, but overall, it's not like DA is hardmode thus needing a disclaimer.  Also, Dark Armor is for Stalkers too!!

 

Lastly, the issue I have is that "baseline performance" isn't actually baseline.  It's what *YOU* consider baseline.  The set has a perfectly fine baseline.  The issue here is you've shifted what "baseline" means and then make the argument that parity is needed while discounting the unique aspects the set does provide.  I feel this whole line of debate has a disingenuous foundation that puts a more confrontational facet on the forefront which makes it harder to see others' perspectives.

 

As for your last point, I don't think it's so much that what DA does differently it does badly (it doesn't do it amazingly but if it did it probably would make the set broken), I think it's that what DA does differently the meta doesn't want or care about.  The meta doesn't want extra mez because no one wants extra mez.  Unless you're a Dominator, the only important aspects truly desired are things that facilitate offense and defense can be shored up with IOs.  Not saying that is what is being requested for here (but you could almost come to that conclusion with the requests for supplementary +recovery/END) but no amount of buffing its niche will likely appease the masses.

[Chance Jackson]

reduce endurance costs, make the mez toggles worth getting, I don't personally think the resistances need to be touched though

 

I made a TW/DA brute but rerolled to TW/Rad because of the endurance costs

[drbuzzard]

2 hours ago, Naraka said:

This is actually kind of funny.

 

It doesn't have a big glaring hole to energy...it's just not mid-to-cap resistance to energy.  It still has 30%/24% resistance to Energy damage which isn't nothing.  It's a solid base to build other resistances on top of if you choose to go that route.

 

Also, it is rather strong to negative energy.  I guess in this era, if you're not a flea's gasp from cap, it's not considered at all?

 

And to compare, DA's energy resistance is a "hole" but Electric Armor's heal is "decent"?  With slotting, it only reaches Regen's or Fire's heal AT BASE (50% heal on a 60sec cooldown w/ slotting vs 25% heal on a 40sec cooldown w/o).

 

Mayhaps a bit of exaggeration is occurring? 

 

 

Keep in mind I said tanker. If you're dealing with team tanking, under 50% resistance to a damage type means you melt (unless you have a pocket support person keeping you alive). Under 30 simply means it's too close to meaningless. I have multiple tankers with resistance builds and I know exactly how they play. I know exactly when I'm running into a damage type which constitutes a hole. 

 

Energy resistance under 50% doesn't do much at all for a tanker who has to hold aggro of spawns doing energy damage (which is, well, about every incarnate spawn for example).  I forgive you for not knowing how tanking works, it's a fairly common lack of knowledge out there. I see it all the time. The amount of defense in dark armor is minimal, so we're talking resistance keeping you alive (and a powerful heal admittedly), and when the third most common damage type is resisted at 20% out of the box, with a whole 32% after enhancement, you've got an issue. Of course just the tanker set purpled out will get you to ~40%, but still 40% hurts a lot when you are eating damage from a x8 spawn. Making up 50% (to get to cap) energy resistance with sets simply is simply impossible. 

 

Pointing out it is strong to negative energy is rather a laughable refrain as that's one of the most uncommon damage types. I do a lot of ITFs, and that's at least one place you do see a good bit of negative energy damage. However, when dark would theoretically shine, the same places also have plenty of energy damage, so you'll melt anyway. 

 

Electric armor is very easy attain 90% resistance to energy, smashing, lethal.  Fire and  cold  can be done with some IO work (not a fortune either). It also gets psi resistance up pretty high as well.  Even its value for negative energy is better than the energy resistance of dark (base 30% between conductive shield and grounded). The only real hole in electric is toxic, which is very uncommon damage. I know math is complicated and all, but if you are only taking 10% damage, the effectiveness of a heal is amplified commensurately (also, note the heal includes a significant regeneration boost by the amount of damage incoming). Measuring a heal in a vacuum is basically specious. What one has to measure is the ability of a set of keep ahead of incoming damage.  

 

I don't doubt someone could leverage the mez fields into some solid survivability, but as stated, I don't care for mezzing builds. I've watched dark armor in practice, it tends to be a bit soft for tanking. 

[Metatheory]

8 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

Energy resistance under 50% doesn't do much at all for a tanker who has to hold aggro of spawns doing energy damage (which is, well, about every incarnate spawn for example).  I forgive you for not knowing how tanking works, it's a fairly common lack of knowledge out there. I see it all the time. The amount of defense in dark armor is minimal, so we're talking resistance keeping you alive (and a powerful heal admittedly), and when the third most common damage type is resisted at 20% out of the box, with a whole 32% after enhancement, you've got an issue. Of course just the tanker set purpled out will get you to ~40%, but still 40% hurts a lot when you are eating damage from a x8 spawn. Making up 50% (to get to cap) energy resistance with sets simply is simply impossible. 

Because the mez auras matter.

 

An SO'd dark tank doesn't dive into a bunch of +4 incarnate mobs and start taunting. It's gonna die.

 

But running on +1/+2 that 32% - in combination with the one of the mez auras - gets the job done. Maybe with the odd corner pull or whatever, but when the minions come streaming round the bend they are either stunned or feared pretty much instantly. So their damage can be ignored. Now the 32% is only needed to defend against the boss and the lts. And - btw - you do have a little bit of def from probably combat jumping or hover as well as CoD (you did take CoD, right?) and against +1/+2 that does help.  And now you can get to work mezzing the lts or the bosses, with your Fault, or your Touch of Fear, or Stone Fist, or AirSup, or Shockwave, or Energy Punch, or or or.... you get the idea. DA requires layered mez, in combination with its heal, to get the job done (or an IO build). You don't just stand there and eat the damage. You switch as much of that damage off as possible through mez, control and then beat on the main threats while Death Shroud whittles down the rest.

 

So you can say that you've watched DA and its a bit soft for tanking, and I would agree so far as it's true if you ignore the mez auras. But ignoring the mez auras, writing them off as not useful, is not how to get the set to perform. It's sad to read in this thread a lot of comments about a third of the powers are skippable. It's for sure true of the self rez, but for the rest the opposite is true. Pick either cloak, gloom, or both, leverage complementary powers from your other main or epics/power pools and tank/scrap/blast/stalk your heart out 🙂

[drbuzzard]

As I said, I don't question that the mez auras can be leveraged to make a survivable build. I just don't enjoy mezzing builds. On the base stats as a pure resistance set (not including the mez), dark is lacking. That was my point. I skipped it because it requires a play style which doesn't appeal (though I do have a lvl 50 incarnated out BR/DA sentinel, and it works just fine- not my best sentinel, but a perfectly acceptable one). 

 

I have seen it work, and I have seen it not work. As is probably accepted as fact by now, it's a bit trickier to build for and play than most other defensive sets which are fire and forget. 

[Metatheory]

8 hours ago, Cutter said:

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)

Making Soul Transfer usable while alive is an interesting idea. Probably not as a lvl 30 stun though 😄 (I know, that's not what you suggest here). Are there team buffs from armour sets? Shield has one IIRC, but not sure if there are any others.

[Metatheory]

3 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

As I said, I don't question that the mez auras can be leveraged to make a survivable build. I just don't enjoy mezzing builds. On the base stats as a pure resistance set (not including the mez), dark is lacking. That was my point. I skipped it because it requires a play style which doesn't appeal (though I do have a lvl 50 incarnated out BR/DA sentinel, and it works just fine- not my best sentinel, but a perfectly acceptable one). 

 

I have seen it work, and I have seen it not work. As is probably accepted as fact by now, it's a bit trickier to build for and play than most other defensive sets which are fire and forget. 

Right. You pretty much have to enjoy mezzing builds to enjoy DA. And to enjoy finding those synergies between your attacks and your layered defences.

[Replacement]

1 hour ago, Metatheory said:

Making Soul Transfer usable while alive is an interesting idea. Probably not as a lvl 30 stun though 😄 (I know, that's not what you suggest here). Are there team buffs from armour sets? Shield has one IIRC, but not sure if there are any others.

Rad armor has a pbaoe heal.

[Cutter]

1 hour ago, Metatheory said:

Making Soul Transfer usable while alive is an interesting idea. Probably not as a lvl 30 stun though 😄 (I know, that's not what you suggest here). Are there team buffs from armour sets? Shield has one IIRC, but not sure if there are any others.

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.)

[Werner]

TL;DR - 4 points KB protection, small endurance tweak

 

I personally think Dark Armor is fine as is, and I'm strongly opposed to any more power creep in an already very easy game. But it isn't my game. It's a casual-friendly game, and I do hear comments both on and off the forum from people who try Dark Armor, but find it a painful for leveling, and endurance seems to be the common complaint. Setting my personal feelings aside, then, I have to agree with this:

On 4/28/2020 at 6:45 AM, ArchVileTerror said:

I am very much for accessibility and enjoyment for players who do not want to obsess over optimization.

Specifically in this discussion:  I am for some kind of adjustment to Dark Armour to either improve the Set's usefulness, or to reduce the impact it has on Endurance.

I think maybe the safest thing to make Dark Armor more accessible without affecting my top-end capabilities much would be 4 points of knockback protection. It's still a weakness then, but most of the time that's plenty. So most of the time the casual player will be fine, and they'll just occasionally be reminded they have a weakness, enough to maybe consider addressing it without being "forced" to. Meanwhile, I save only a single slot in my top-end build, and I'm still slotting for additional knockback protection. I can always do something useful with a single slot, but it'll be pretty minor. 

 

Endurance seems to be an even bigger complaint. And maybe that could also be slightly tweaked for casual enjoyment without affecting me much. I already have more than sustainable endurance because that's what IOs and incarnate powers can easily do for you. Add a little more on top of that, and maybe I won't change my build at all, or maybe I'll trade it somehow for something else, but it'll probably be something small.

 

Any significant buffs to the effectiveness of the powers, though, I'm having a hard time agreeing would be good from a balance perspective. And I definitely don't want any dramatic changes, like "What if instead of the damage aura, we had an endurance recovery drain attack? And instead of a fear aura, we had some sort of absorb shield? And how about just a regular magnitude heal that doesn't require enemies to hit?" If you're going to buff or change, please keep it simple, and keep it small. Please don't change my favorite armor set into something different, even if it is quirky and in some ways problematic. 

 

I don't see the overlapping effects of Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom as a problem, though. I see it as giving you the option of pursuing either fears or stuns, and supporting either. Just because you wouldn't normally pick both doesn't make me feel "what a waste", it makes me feel "choices are good". But the way Cloak of Fear interacts with Death Shroud is... yeah, someone wasn't thinking that one through when they designed the set. Or perhaps more likely they expected you to run one or the other situationally. I remember being told that even though Death Shroud let the minions attack through Cloak of Fear, they did so at a reduced frequency, which is at least something. I never tested it myself to see if it's true.

 

Since possibly relevant, I've only played Dark Armor on Scrappers and Brutes.

Edited May 1, 2020 by Werner

[ArchVileTerror]

I'm not really contributing to the discussion when I ask this . . . but has this been the biggest Weekly Discussion for the forums so far?  Feels like it, anyway.

[Cutter]

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!

[Metatheory]

1 hour ago, Werner said:

even though Death Shroud let the minions attack through Cloak of Fear, they did so at a reduced frequency

They have a chance to attack back when damaged, with a base 5% -to-hit effect. Not sure what that chance is, though. I assume at least 50%.

[Jacke]

Wow, what a discussion.  Read it all.

 

Answering @Galaxy Brain 's question, I take Dark Armor for its theme, its stealth, its self-rez, its damage aura, and its massive heal.

 

I also think Dark Armor needs improvement.  A bit more than @Werner advises, but I agree with his view that power creep should be avoided--but unfortunately, some armour sets have already creeped off over the horizon.  It's not that you can't do well in Dark Armor (even unchanged, I plan to make a Dark-Dark toon for every AT, many more with just one Dark powerset, and many of both with Dark Armor).  But as it stands now, Dark Armor is lacking and it should be better.

 

I like the idea in its theme of strengthening the character while weakening enemies, but that theme is poorly represented by the current Dark Armor powers.  As @Cutter said, Dark Armor doesn't really live up to its own identity.  Dark Armor should be changed to lean into that theme more effectively.

 

City of Heroes must be balanced around SOs because they are a stable point of design that's been in City since its launch.  As well, IOs need to and will change and for that reason alone IO builds shouldn't be used as the balance point.  I agree with @SwitchFade, Dark Armor certainly underperforms on SOs.  As @Myrmidon said, no set should require IOs to be competitive.  As well, Dark Armor even adds challenges beyond other armours for IO builds.  As @ArchVileTerror said, Dark Armor just needs to be improved enough so it isn't so hindered.

 

So I'm going to take @Cutter's suggested changes from above and tweak them.  My changes in bold (as well as correcting some effects being protections). I agree with his sentiments in the leading paragraph.

 

On 4/30/2020 at 11:32 PM, Cutter said:

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 multiply N resist by 1.5 times for all versions of Dark Armor
• Murky Cloud - (SAME) toggle, +resist (fire/cold/energy/neg), resist (end drain) --- (NEW) nothing multiply EN resists by 1.5 times for all versions of Dark Armor
• Obsidian Shield - (SAME) toggle, +resist (psi), +protection (sleep/hold/disorient/fear) --- (NEW) add +protection (immobilize); add +4 KB protection, +4 KU protection
• 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; add small +End per target hit partly scaled to current HP/HP max
  • 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 +protection (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; add Mag 2 Immob, chance of Mag 1 Immob
• 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!

 

As @drbuzzard said, Dark Armor's hole to Energy damage make it unsuitable for tanking.  I have an IO build that gives a Dark-Dark tank just short of 70% E resist, but that may not be enough for a tank with all the E damage out there and it doesn't fix things for SO builds.  Sentinels have the worst armour sets for resists, but an Electric Armor Sentinel without slotting has 21% N resist, better than the unslotted Dark Armor Tank's 20% E resist.

 

I also think think that Dark Armor is a bit weak in what it should be strongest against, N damage, with an unslotted Dark Armor tank having just 40% N resist, less than its own P resist of 50% and much less than Electric Armor's unslotted 82.5% E resist.  Electric Armor's two toggles both provide 35% E resist each, so Dark Armor's two toggles providing 30% N resist each isn't overpowered.

 

Increasing Dark Embrace's N resists and Murky Cloud's EN resists by 1.5 times  gives these unslotted resists, compared to unslotted Electric Armor resists.

				E resist	N resist

Dark Armor
Tank				30%		60%
Brute, Scrapper, Stalker	22.5%		55%
Sentinel			21%		42%

Electric Armor
Tank				82.5%		30%
Brute, Scrapper, Stalker	61.9%		22.5%
Sentinel			57.8%		21%

 

This is a reasonable change.

 

Adding to Dark Regeneration +End per target and scaling it to current HP was @ArchVileTerror's idea and I think it's a good one.

 

@Werner's idea to add +4 KB protection to Obsidian Shield as a minimal protection is good too.  I added the same KU protection.  I also think that +4 KB/KU protection should be added to Fiery Aura and Stalker Ninjitsu, which both currently lack it.

 

I also like @Greycat's idea of giving Dark Armor PBAoE Tenebrous Tentacles in Oppressive Gloom.  As @Nanolathe says, there's precedence with Stone Armor's Mudpots, which also provides a Mag 2 Immobilization.

 

BTW, @parabola, toggle drop is solved by a toggle turn-on macro, which I have for all my armours and stealth.

Here's mine for Dark Armor:

 

/macro +Sh "powexectoggleon Assault$$powexectoggleon Tactics$$powexectoggleon Maneuvers$$powexectoggleon Weave$$powexectoggleon Tough$$powexectoggleon Murky Cloud$$powexectoggleon Dark Embrace$$powexectoggleon Cloak of Darkness$$powexectoggleon Obsidian Shield"

/macro +Clk "powexectoggleon Cloak of Darkness$$powexectoggleon Prestige Power Surge"

I put +Sh in Power tray 3 slot 10 and +Clk in slot 9.
As I rebind WERD to be the movement keys, I then bind them in a keybind file that I load and are effectively this.

/bind S "powexectray 9 3"

/bind F "powexectray 10 3"

I do this for all my toons, just adjusting the macros.  That way, after self-rez or any other reason the toggles are down, I press F until all the toggles are running.

 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Jacke

[Metatheory]

Hopefully the last time I will say it 😄 You can't just look at the res without considering the mez. DA has better protection than it looks 'on paper'.

[drbuzzard]

2 hours ago, Metatheory said:

Hopefully the last time I will say it 😄 You can't just look at the res without considering the mez. DA has better protection than it looks 'on paper'.

Actually boosting NE resistance is an extremely moot point since it's so damned rare, but I could get behind it because it would thematically make a lot of sense. I don't understand why DA isn't the king of NE resistance. It really should be by a large margin, not a small bit (as it is). I think this wouldn't be a change that actually hurt anything. 

 

I rather think sometime in the future we might see a psionic based armor, and it should be the king of psi resistance, not dark.