Dechs Kaison

Flattery will get you guys nowhere.

Nonsense! I never let my pets block doors for the team I'm not on.

On topic, however, I don't think I would shrink my henchmen. I like them big and bulky. I can keep them out of doorways. Besides, how is my Assbot supposed to be the harbinger of fiery doom if he's only three feet (or less) tall?

I'm just pointing out that your original post implied that everyone did, thanks to the wording of your choices.

Of course.

Doesn't matter much, though, because I just don't use that power often.

Then I'm not sure where your issues are coming from. I'm running a level 29 stalker right now. All DA toggles except Cloak of Fear, add in weave and combat jumping. I spam my attacks (gotta keep a few stacks of Divine Avalanche running). I'm not noticing any downtime either.

Seriously though, I don't care if you have endurance problems. Just don't assume that we all do.

Ok, these two I have a problem with.

I'm playing a Dark Armor character for crying out loud without stamina, and I have no endurance issues. Don't put so much bias into your choices.

Yes, Bill Z did all the work on that. See the "Results are in" threads. Fire Melee, in comparison to the other sets, was performing better* for brutes than it was for scrappers.

By better, I only mean "within that AT."

This is just some theory craft, I'm not sure how applicable this will be, but I'll give it my best.

Most defense debuffs are on the order of 7.5%. Let's assume you fight nothing but +2 enemies, who have combat modifiers of 1.22, bringing the debuff value up to 9.15%. Now it gets resisted by your DDR of 59%, meaning that each debuff that hits you is 3.75%.

Energy Absorption brings you up to 53%, meaning a buffer zone of 8% before cascading failure sets in and you die or hibernate. Assuming the previous paragraph is true, the cascade starts on the third debuff to land, so long as they all overlap.

At the softcap, fighting +2s, your chance of getting hit is somewhere at an average of 7.5% (minions to bosses). I don't feel like retyping everything in my softcap guide, so please just refer to that as far as how likely you are to enter the cascade failure.

And do you have faith in God above?

No. Fire is not bad because DoTs don't scale with crits.

Fire is just better for brutes since the DoTs are affected by fury and not by crits.

Fire still does the best damage out there.

Gah, that thread is a mess.

Don't get me wrong, there's a ton of good information in there, and not all of it mine. There is, however, a good deal of bickering and some incorrect information as well. Just be careful while stumbling through that thread.

One of these days I'm going to sit down and write the MFing Dark Armor Guide. But it'll wait at least until after I'm done leveling the DA stalker. I'd like to have a better feel for the set with lower modifiers.

I just like to point out that some tanker primaries can hold aggro through defeat.

Yes they do. I actually did a +4 MoITF on my DA tanker.

Granted, it was an accident but we said "What the hell, it seems easy enough" after the first mission.

Incorrect. Staying alive is optional. Holding aggro is not.

A tanker who is the last man standing has failed.

Resistances across the board better than WP, and most are better than Dark Armor's. I don't see how that could be defined as poor anywhere.

Nevermind the fact that it can sap its enemies dry, rendering them incapable attack. Also forget about the inherent recharge, the immunity to endurance drain, and the capability to have energize permanent.

Because +HP is the only thing that makes a tank, which is why almost half the armor sets have no means to obtain this.

Not with IOs you don't have the softcap. And if that's how you're going to compare, Elec can have the softcap to the most common types, or easily have 30% defense across the board, along with better resists and comparable (if not more) HP/sec than willpower, more recovery, and a more effective taunt aura. I call that a better tank.

Hey, you're the one who started with the hyperbole and misinformed attitude. Don't blame me for jumping on it. Don't blame the set for your failures as a player.

Sounds like operator error.

Yeah, but it allows you to use your higher end/activation powers more often. There in lies the real problem.