ClawsandEffect

I'll throw my 2 influence in here, as I know Dark Armor pretty well.

I can't actually open the build, as I don't have Mid's on my work computer, but I know what most of the sets do so I can help a bit.

First off, I'm going to mention this because I think you may be under a misconception on something: You DO realize you can use an IO set more than one time in a build, don't you?

From the top down:

-Storm Kick is slotted fine.

-Titanium Coating is a terrible set if you're building for S/L defense. For 6 slots you get 1.25% S/L. Reactive Armor gives you the same amount in 4, and gives you E/N defense as well (which you want because Energy is your weakest resistance)

-Kinetic Combat instead of Touch of Death in Cobra Strike.

(Between those two slotting changes, you've saved 4 slots to put somewhere else.)

-Murky Cloud is fine

-Pull 3 slots from Focus Chi and replace the remaining with 2 Rectified Reticle and a generic Recharge IO.

-Crane Kick is fine.

-Take 3 of the slots you've saved and put another set of Reactive Armor in Obsidian Shield. 3 reasons: 1) you want end reduction in it, 2) it will give you more defense, and 3) it is also your Psionic resistance toggle, so you want some resistance slotting in it as well.

-Don't waste money on an IO for Boxing, as I assume you don't plan on using it.

-Stick the remaining 4 slots you've saved in Tough and add yet another set of Reactive Armor.

-Kinetic Combat in CAK.

-Add a Kismet +Acc to Combat Jumping. Add a KB protection from either Karma or Blessing of the Zephyr as well. You want at least 12 points of KB protection on a Dark Armor.

-Now, here's a slotting I like for Dark Regen: 3 Eradication (acc/Rech, Dam/Rech, Acc/Dam/Rech), and 3 Theft of Essence. You want one of those Theft of Essence to be the Chance for +End. I'll explain why. That proc checks to fire once for every target in range of the power when you use it, and has a 20% chance to fire for each one. The best part? It can go off multiple times in one use, meaning it will occasionally GAIN endurance for you and will consistently reduce the amount you spend on the power (which has a huge end cost). The Eradication will give you E/N defense, which you want more of.

-Move the slot the 3 piece LotG is in in Cloak of Darkness over to Weave, and put a Def/End in it.

-Assuming you have Fly for concept. Put a Blessing of the Zephyr KB protection in it instead.

-I like 4 Eradication in Dragon's Tail, with the remaining 2 filled with a random pair of IOs. More E/N defense.

-Drop the Chance for +To Hit from Cloak of Fear, it's pretty much useless.

-Petrifying Gaze is fine, that's how I'd slot it too.

-Hasten is taken a little late. I'd look into it a little further and see if you actually need it.

-Do NOT Put the Miracle +Recovery in Soul Transfer. It only works when you use the power, and you have to die to use that power. Put it in health Instead. I'd put 3 Eradication in here instead. It gives you HP back for each target you hit with it, and stuns the bejeezus out of them, so you don't really need to slot it for healing.

-At least 3 Thunderstrike in Dark Blast. It's a damage power, slot it like one.

-You only need 4 Enfeebled Operation to get the S/L defense bonus. I'd pull the other 2 slots and put them elsewhere.

-Health looks fine, but I'd add a slot for the Miracle.

-Put another slot in Stamina.

Hope that helps you out.

I'd add more defense than you have.

Recharge is great, but there are things in the game that can and will kill you before you can react with a heal. Dr. Aeon for example, can one shot a scrapper at HP cap. His Energy Transfer deals around 2800 damage, and a scrapper maxes out at 2409.

I'm working on a build that will soft-cap Smashing/Lethal defense, have almost 800% passive regen, and will be perma DP capable with around 66% global recharge.

I'll share it when I get what I want to do nailed down.

Melee defense will be virtually useless for a good chunk of the game.

Why? Machine guns debuff defense, and there are a LOT of machine guns in the game. Regen gets precisely 0% defense debuff resistance. When you're fighting stuff like COuncil, who are known for liking to stand back and shoot at you, their machine guns are going to strip away all that melee defense you built up, leaving you an easy target for their buddies that did close to melee.

The solution? Slot for Smashing/Lethal defense instead. If you use Kinetic Combat and boost them instead of Touch of Death you can accomplish 2 things: 1) Save a few slots that you can use elsewhere, and 2) Get some defense to those damn machine guns so your defense won't get stripped away as quick. It'll still happen, but it won't happen instantly like it would if you had no lethal defense.

Also, the 3 slot bonus for the scrapper ATO is S/L defense, and you get 5% if you make them Superior. If you split them between 2 different powers you can get an easy 10% S/L defense.

Just food for thought.

Also, Tough and Resilience are worth slotting now. I used 4 Reactive Armor in both and my Claws/Regen is sporting 32% S/L resistance and at least 15% to everything else.

As far as your 6 10% regen bonuses, there's an easy solution for that: Replace the other 2 LotG in Moment of Glory with generic recharge IOs. You don't need to slot MoG for defense, and you don't need the HP bonus for 3 slotting LotG (you're well above the threshold for perma Dull Pain, which will keep you permanently at HP cap) LotG +Rech and 2 Generic recharges that you've boosted will have MoG coming back much faster than your current slotting.

As far as finding slots for Tough and Resilience:

-Pull one out of Weave and Maneuvers. You're Regen, you don't need the extra end reduction, and you only lose like 2-3% enhancement by dropping those two. You won't even notice a drop in your overall defense, as it won't even be a whole percent.
-Pull some of the slots from Tactics and replace the Gaussian's set with an end reduction and 2 Rectified Reticle. If you slot for S/L instead like I suggested it makes more sense anyway, Rectified Reticle gives you 1.88% to S/L, while Gaussian's only gives 1.25%. You can keep the CFBU in it if you like.

That's about all I can see without opening the build in Mids' (which I can't do from work). Hope it helps.

I need to get more packs.

I actually WANT the costume pieces, so getting them all is a win/win for me.

The sleeveless Elementist robe made for an awesome addition to a costume I was working on just before buying the pack I got it in.

Didn't get much else worthwhile though.

You can split them 3 and 3 for 10% more S/L defense if they are all Superior.

That's what I plan on doing with my StJ/WP brute. Your needs may differ with FA wanting more recharge, but the recharge doesn't do a StJ/WP much good. The 10% S/L defense is a huge benefit, because it lets me focus slotting on other things, and I won't have to put so damn many Kinetic Combats in the build.

It's a pretty simple process.

Look at what your character needs to fill any deficiencies first, and address them. IF you went with Energy Mastery you will probably have Superior Conditioning and Physical Perfection. In that case I would go with Agility.

If you went with any other APP, perhaps Cardiac would be more useful.

Without being able to look at your build and see for myself if you have any problems with it that's about the best advice I can give.

Dialog options would be cool.

But how many people would a dialog tree like the one that took me 15 seconds to scroll past piss off if they have to navigate something like that every single time they want to go punch stuff in the face?

I LIKE the story in the game, and a dialog tree like that would even annoy me.

It's a case of something that would be great for one part of the playerbase, but would be an unmitigated rage-inducing annoyance for another.

I've gotten 3 in the last week or so, after a drought in which I got 0 for almost a year.

Randomness and all.

There's also thw message that merging servers sends to potential players.

Would you start playing a game that just merged servers together after 8 years? I wouldn't, on the assumption that the game will not be around long enough to make it worth my time to play.

It doesn't matter if the game actually dies within 6 months or not. The press release telling people CoH merged a bunch of servers together would be all that is needed to keep people away from the game.

And there is also the fact that I, and many players like me, LIKE my quiet server. I don't want to play on a server that has so many people on it I lag just trying to travel to a mission. If I wanted to play like that, I would be already.

I actually need to revisit my build in the near future.

With the advent of Enhancement Boosters I should be able to beef up the enhancement values of my crapton of Eradication sets. Awesome set bonuses, but the enhancement values of the set are kinda "meh" because the set caps at level 30.

I'm also looking into building a more or less identical character as a Brute, now that it's possible. More HP and a damage aura that taunts will be a huge benefit. Fury buffing the damage of Death Shroud is nice too.

Also: I haven't run an Incarnate trial in several months now. Once I got my character to where I wanted him Incarnate-wise I didn't bother any further. That might change once Dark Astoria is live, but I'm going to be Premium for at least a month so it's a non-issue at the moment.

I run through at least Wincott and Flux on every single heroside character I create.

Some of them I run the whole shebang on, depending on how quick of a pace they go through it at.

You get 39 merits by level 13 if you do the whole Hollows arc.

Afterward I usually start on the TFs starting with Positron and then getting Synapse the hell out fo the way as soon as possible.

I still run Striga and Croatoa as well.

I'm growing to despise DFB. There is an entire crop of new players who don't even realize there is anything else to do at that level.

I strongly recommend putting Death Shroud back in the build after you have your endurance issues sorted out. That power alone accounts for more than a quarter of your character's total damage output.

I'm also not a fan of typed defense on Sword/Dark characters. Positional covers more possible attacks and it's just as easy (or easier) to get good amounts of. If you go with typed, it's pretty much guaranteed you are going to leave a hole to Fire and Cold damage. Positional defense fills that hole nicely. Positional also covers the majority of Psi attacks, and even though you have good resistance to Psi, getting your recharge floored because it's all hitting you kinda sucks.

My BS/DA solos AVs while running 11 toggles, and I've never run him out of endurance in his current build. If I think about it I'll post a build and explain how I handled the endurance issues. Cardiac Alpha was a huge help, but I had my endurance under control before Incarnates even existed.

I assure you, it is VERY possible to do what you want to do here without giving up important powers like your damage aura. If you like, I can give you a demo of my BS/DA on Pinnacle this evening. He's damn hard to kill, and even if he does get killed he pops right back up again.

I may have to send it as a PM instead, since this is my last day as a VIP for a little while.

So, scrappers should get Ninjitsu because it isn't fair to NOT give it to them.

But stalkers shouldn't get Shield Defense?

It's very simple people.

There is a secondary that every other melee AT gets that stalkers do not get. (Shield Defense) And the devs have been pretty clear that they don't intend to give stalkers Shield Defense.

It is therefore perfectly fair for there to be a secondary that stalkers get that no one else does. (Ninjitsu)

It isn't a matter of something needing to be scrapper exclusive for parity. It's a matter of 3 ATs getting something that one doesn't, and that one having something the other 3 don't get.

I don't know how you're looking at it, but from my perspective that is absolutely fair.

Best mileage use: Put the Superior version in a low damage mez power like Freeze Ray or Screech.

If its base recharge is over 12 seconds it will fire every time you use the power, turning an otherwise situational power into a viable damage power.

I concur with Jibikao on this one.

I for one would like to see Ninjitsu remain stalker exclusive.

I'd much rather see Ice Armor ported to scrappers. Spines/Ice FTW.

Eradication is a PBAoE set with decent recharge values.

I have them in: Slice, Whirling Sword, Head Splitter (full sets in each), and I have 4 each in Dark Regen and Soul Transfer. For a little over 15% additional Energy Defense, and almost 10 extra endurance. It also gives me a couple hundred more HP.

Might not work out as well for a DM/DA though, my BS/DA is slotted for positional soft-cap. He is soft-capped to melee with 2 Parries, soft-capped to ranged at all times, and is sitting at 43% to AoE. He also has the best self heal in the game, 1900 HP, a self rez that will stun the bejeezus out of anything nearby while filling my health back to full, and a couple other goodies.

Yeah, he's pretty tough. Defense debuffs SUCK for him though.

I'm quite confident you could build a DM/DA to be just as tough, just about as easily. Especially if you get 6 Scrapper's Strike and Catalyze all of them. Split them between 2 powers and you get an easy 10% defense to S/L. Pretty sure it would be possible to soft-cap a DM/DA to S/L/E/N doing it that way.

Cool, thanks for the info guys.

I'm going to get him up to a level where I can run repeated Synapses on 2xp Weekend. Good defense and decent resistance to energy seems like a good combo to fight Clockwork with.

He's level 5 at the moment, so I can't really say how much I like him yet, but I kinda like the name I picked out for him. I named him Arc Nemesis.