Dark Armor Tanker: Torn on a secondary

[BuiltDifferent5]

So I’ve been reading up a lot on Dark Armor for a Tanker recently and I’m stoked to give it a run. I love how you can pump up resists with decent defenses and have a giant heal up every 15-20 seconds.

 

I’m also leaning into the “Tanktroller” aspect of it and looking to take Oppressive Gloom and use disorients and knockdowns.

All that being said, I’ve settled on two secondaries that I feel can help lend into this tanktroller set up that brings some disorients/KD’s of their own and can help mitigate Dark Armor’s endurance costs (paired with Cardiac Alpha). The two are:

 

**Electric Melee**: I think this is a combination that l have a “Shadowstorm” theme for. Brings KDs (or KB>KD) with Thunderstrike, Lightning Clap, and Lightning Rod. Thunderstike and Lightning Clap both bring AOE disorients to stack with Oppressive Gloom. Lightning Rod is an awesome engage tool that is just fun, but has a nice control aspect as well. Comes with  proper Build up as well, which the other secondary I am looking at lacks. Lastly, all Elec Melee attacks drain enemy endurance, but ALSO have a chance to return some of that endurance to the hero. This could be a nice way to help alleviate the high end costs of Dark Armor. Surprisingly, I can’t find much info on this combo!

 

**Staff Fighting**: This is a cool “Dark Dragoon” theme.  I personally dig Staff’s sound effects and animations. Precise Strike and Sky Splitter both being disorients to stack with OG, although they are both only single target. Staff has good KD’s though with Eye of the Storm and Skysplitter. Staff has the endurance reduction stance, but I would mostly stay in form of the body in order to max resists out (can potentially get to 90% to ALL), which Elec melee can’t do. Guarded Spin can also help soft cap melee defense. This one seems to be a bit more popular!

 

Staff Fighting seems like it may be the “tankier” option and Elec Melee seems to have a bit better damage and control. Which one would you rather have on your team? 🤙

[DocMidknight]

  If I might suggest a dark armor/rad tank, it's insanely strong and probably my favorite build currently

[BuiltDifferent5]

3 minutes ago, DocMidknight said:

  If I might suggest a dark armor/rad tank, it's insanely strong and probably my favorite build currently

I love that suggestion Doc! Rad Melee is the bees knees and I could see it and dark being **chefs kiss** together. My only reason for not including it is my farmer is a Rad/Fire Brute, so I just use Rad Melee quite a bit 😂

[DocMidknight]

  I can see that with the rad/fire farmer build, I run 2 rad/fire brutes also then I made my dark/rad tank and well.......he farms fire, s/l.....arachnos, thorns, carnies, malta, BP. I'm no tank expert but I know what I like and I really like the dark/rad pairing for content and more

[BuiltDifferent5]

5 minutes ago, DocMidknight said:

  I can see that with the rad/fire farmer build, I run 2 rad/fire brutes also then I made my dark/rad tank and well.......he farms fire, s/l.....arachnos, thorns, carnies, malta, BP. I'm no tank expert but I know what I like and I really like the dark/rad pairing for content and more

I could totally see why. Brings an extra heal and quasi damage aura. Both Devastating Blow and Atom Smasher disorient as well, which works with OG. If only the animation time of Devastating Blow was a little bit faster 😂

[Hjarki]

Electric Melee has abysmal damage and while Lightning Clap is nice from the standpoint of being a 'tanktroller', the set has very little to recommend it otherwise.

 

Staff has fantastic AE, terrible single target. You can also use Form of the Soul to deal with the endurance problems of Dark Armor. However, without any features like -regen, you'll find fighting AV/GM takes forever. You'll also only be stunning single targets.

 

Radiation Melee is another option, particularly due to the ability to slot Theft of Essence into Radiation Siphon. However, it's again a very low damage set.

 

Stone Melee is probably a stronger option purely from the standpoint of "Tanktroller", but the endurance demands would probably be non-negotiable.

 

You could also consider playing a Stalker or Sentinel instead. Stalkers all do good single target damage and you'll save a bit of endurance since you won't have the damage aura (arguably you could just not take the aura on a Tanker). However, Staff no longer has an endurance management option as a Stalker and Electric loses Lightning Clap. Radiation Melee doesn't lose much of anything you need. Likewise, a Beam/Dark Sentinel will cover all of what you need in an endurance-friendly package. However, neither Stalkers nor Sentinels receive taunt auras.

[Parabola]

I've tried both these combos. Elec melee looks very cool with dark armour but in all honesty it really needs some help on any AT other than stalker. It manages the trick of sacrificing single target performance for more aoe and then not actually being very good at aoe. Avoid until buffed.

 

Staff is decent without being great. It has a ton of utility and really benefits dark armour in particular. I was put off it the first time around by the forced redraw every time I used dark regeneration, but redraw 2.0 should have fixed that problem. I might revisit this as I loved the theme I had (might go brute though to change things up a bit).

 

Another suggestion is energy melee. This also layers on stuns, both aoe (less reliably) and single target (guaranteed). It is also very endurance efficient as energy transfer is free. This is another one I have in brute form and it works well enough.

[Sovera]

If you like Staff then go for staff since it fixes Dark Armor's endurance guzzling. Rad Melee guzzles endurance which will be very painful combined with Dark Armor.

 

If you can live with Dark Melee then it fixes Dark Armor's endurance problems as well (almost like they were meant to be paired, uh).

 

 

Other suggestions would be Fire Melee for raw goodness and having TWO pbAoEs that are a game changer. IMO the best secondary Tankers currently have.

[Nemu]

10 hours ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

**Electric Melee**: I think this is a combination that l have a “Shadowstorm” theme for. Brings KDs (or KB>KD) with Thunderstrike, Lightning Clap, and Lightning Rod. Thunderstike and Lightning Clap both bring AOE disorients to stack with Oppressive Gloom. Lightning Rod is an awesome engage tool that is just fun, but has a nice control aspect as well. Comes with  proper Build up as well, which the other secondary I am looking at lacks. Lastly, all Elec Melee attacks drain enemy endurance, but ALSO have a chance to return some of that endurance to the hero. This could be a nice way to help alleviate the high end costs of Dark Armor. Surprisingly, I can’t find much info on this combo!

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As did this one.

 

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Me.

 

Because I'm the most Electrifying poster in all of thread entertainment!

 

If you smelllllllllllllllllll....

 

what the Nemu... is cooking

[Warboss]

Personally I'd stay away from Rad Melee unless you really hate Endurance. If you want soft control (and damage), I'd go for Fiery Melee... I know, I hear you saying "But your sig Warboss, you're biased",  hear me out. Put Avalanche (at least the KD proc) in FSC, use Overwhelming Force's Damage/KD in Combustion, use Kinetic Combat's Chane to KD in your ST attack/s (at least one, be careful with more St attacks with it, as the KD will start stacking), take Mu Mastery's Electric Fences (slot with Bombardment's chance for Fire Damage) to keep OG'd goons from wandering off (and light them up), and Ball Lighting for more AoE fun (which if you're not KBing mobs, you can slot Ragnarök's chance to KD for more mitigation/control (it's also fun to toss this at a distance to initially aggro another mobs (and watch them flop around a bit, or toss it as your run towards them, then land it the middle with FSC!)). With this set up you'll have mobs flopping at your feet, I don't recall if OG works well on Lt's, but it won't matter after a couple of passes with FSC. Use Greater Fire Sword and/or Incinerate on Boss and above.

 

Or, just go Battle Axe and start juggling the mobs.

 

Or, just go War Mace and stun everything.

[Sovera]

Battle Axe would be nuts. I eats endurance even through Recovery Serums ticking. Pairing with Dark Armor sounds like fuel for nightmares 😄

[BuiltDifferent5]

@Sovera @Warboss I’ve definitely been looking at Fiery Melee as well. I’ve been torn on pairing it with either Shield Defense or Dark Armor.

 

Is there one you’d recommend over the other? How are Fiery Melee’s end costs compared to something like Axe? Fiery Melee does seem like it can hit like a truck. Doesn’t bring any disorients or natural mitigation it seems but, like Boss said, you can slot a lot of KD in it.

[Sovera]

12 minutes ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

@Sovera @Warboss I’ve definitely been looking at Fiery Melee as well. I’ve been torn on pairing it with either Shield Defense or Dark Armor.

 

Is there one you’d recommend over the other? How are Fiery Melee’s end costs compared to something like Axe? Fiery Melee does seem like it can hit like a truck. Doesn’t bring any disorients or natural mitigation it seems but, like Boss said, you can slot a lot of KD in it.

 

No, the 'lots of KB' that was mentioned was from outside sources so it can be applied to any other secondary and not specifically to Fire Mele, and yeah, no soft CC or otherwise, but you won't need them to be honest. It his like a truck and you will kill ALL the minions in the first seconds of BU (+gaussian) + Combustion + Fire Sword Circle. That's mitigation too if stuff isn't alive to hurt you 😄

 

I haven't played either Shield or Dark Armor enough to give an opinion on which, but if you're considering Shield then consider Stone Armor as well for easy sailing from level 13 onwards.

[Warboss]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

Battle Axe would be nuts. I eats endurance even through Recovery Serums ticking. Pairing with Dark Armor sounds like fuel for nightmares 😄

 

... or Stone Melee. The three are pretty mean to your blue bar. I usually recommend them for advanced Tankers when they want a challenge.

[Warboss]

28 minutes ago, BuiltDifferent5 said:

@Sovera @Warboss I’ve definitely been looking at Fiery Melee as well. I’ve been torn on pairing it with either Shield Defense or Dark Armor.

 

Is there one you’d recommend over the other? How are Fiery Melee’s end costs compared to something like Axe? Fiery Melee does seem like it can hit like a truck. Doesn’t bring any disorients or natural mitigation it seems but, like Boss said, you can slot a lot of KD in it.

 

There is only FIERY MELEE. I only play the other sets to make the rest of the TTer's think they're good as well...

Edited March 25 by Warboss