Dark Armor Reassessment

[Yellowjacket]

1 hour ago, marcussmythe said:

Im really curious to hear back on the soft-control experiences.  Is there anything that would otherwise kill you that the soft control lets you survive?  If so, what?  My expectation is if it helps anywhere, it will help with the energy damage/def debuff crowd (Im looking at you, P.P.D.)

The short answer is yes, but it's hard to quantify unless you're specifically testing for it. You could run the same mission with and without Cloak of Fear / Oppressive Gloom and see the difference, I've never really thought to try until just now. I imagine the effect is marginal, honestly. Possibly more useful at lower levels when AoE crowd control is more scarce.

 

Out of the box the two powers are arguably weak and situational, but there's some great synergy between them and various attacks / pool / epic / incarnate powers / IOs that make them very effective.

 

In the end, if you're not building for synergy with Oppressive Gloom or Cloak of Fear,  I would consider Electric Armor or one of the other Resist-based armor sets.

[marcussmythe]

For me, COF is a given - for the debuff alone!  But you have a very good point about Elec or Rad as an endgame resist armor, based purely on their strength in energy resist if nothing else.

 

Ill probably end up with a ‘cloak of all the things/presence/vigilante/control incarnte’ approach, if only because it seems more fun than yet another (for me) resist/defense math exercise

[Cutter]

4 hours ago, marcussmythe said:

For me, COF is a given - for the debuff alone!  But you have a very good point about Elec or Rad as an endgame resist armor, based purely on their strength in energy resist if nothing else.

 

Ill probably end up with a ‘cloak of all the things/presence/vigilante/control incarnte’ approach, if only because it seems more fun than yet another (for me) resist/defense math exercise

Honestly that's why I'm doing this build. I've got plenty of "by the book" tanks - at some point it needs to be time to try something new, and DA felt like the set that best lends itself to that.

[TeeEight888]

Sorry to necro but would this build work on a Brute? I love Fiery Melee/Dark Armor but turning Dark Embrace and Murky Cloud on at the same time already drains my Endurance FAST.

[Gulbasaur]

On 1/1/2021 at 6:06 AM, TeeEight888 said:

Sorry to necro but would this build work on a Brute? I love Fiery Melee/Dark Armor but turning Dark Embrace and Murky Cloud on at the same time already drains my Endurance FAST.

Dark is heavy on endurance, having lots of toggles. Slot your attacks as well as your toggles for endurance reduction and use IOs like performance shifter and panacea for the endurance bonuses.

 

Dark melee is dark armour's natural pairing as it has a beast of an endurance refill power, which basically lets you wear down your endurance bar twice over a long fight. Dark armour is a beast of a set, but it also hammers your endurance bar so doesn't naturally suit every single damage set.

[Xandyr]

I have a DA/MA tank. He's pretty unstoppable.  I ran him in a couple of farms just to test him...health and end barely moved. 

 Martial arts helps due to the +Def storm kick gives, and of course the tanker IO +resists.

[Parabola]

6 minutes ago, Xandyr said:

I have a DA/MA tank. He's pretty unstoppable.  I ran him in a couple of farms just to test him...health and end barely moved. 

 Martial arts helps due to the +Def storm kick gives, and of course the tanker IO +resists.

Yeah DA/MA is up there in the list of toughest all around tanks. You can layer soft controls, defences capped to all positions, mostly capped resistances, arguably the best heal in the game and if you really want it a self res. That's a lot of layers of protection.