Justaris

While I can see the Resistance being useful - and I do have Cardiac on one of my DA tankers for this reason - it's certainly not "almost mandatory" for endurance reasons. I'm always amazed how people overstate the endurance demands of DA. When you take CoF out of the equation, DA is actually much easier on endurance than most other Tanker primaries in terms of toggles. The other big endurance hog, of course, is Dark Regeneration, but some intelligent slotting and a Theft of Essence proc largely obviate that.

I doubt it's a sign of things to come, more likely it's a sign of inflexible tactics on the part of whoever was leading. I get that it was a Master run, but that's all the more reason to have an extra Tanker (and, moreover, to have the most advanced and powerful character available to a given player).

If they'd wanted a specific alt they knew you had to fill a specific role that would have been one thing, but in this case... they were just wrong.

Actually that last bit isn't really true. The toggles in Dark Armor are actually very easy on the endurance, costing less than most Tanker toggles, and it's very easy to run them without any issue. The real endurance hogs in the set are Cloak of Fear and Dark Regeneration, though the latter can be almost entirely mitigated by a Theft of Essence IO proc. As with most endurance issues, the problem usually lies with poorly slotted attacks.

The relatively low energy resistance and the lack of debuff resistance (especially to recharge and tohit debuffs) are significant issues for the set. Fortunately, they're both easily overcome in a variety of ways. The obvious way to overcome the low energy resistance is to build in Defense with IOs (either S/L/E/N or posiitional) and doing so takes Dark Armor from being good to being ridiculously good. As for the lack of debuff resistance, you can utilize +acc powers and inspirations to keep up your tohit and Hasten (and IOs) to aid your recharge. An Ageless Radial Epiphany destiny incarnate power helps quite a bit here too.

To answer the earlier question: yes, Sonic has alternate animations if you prefer not to scream. The alternate animations have the powers emanating from the hand rather than the mouth.

It's the same thing. The effect boosts any power that can be enhanced for Defense.

This applies to any power to have that could be slotted for Defense, whether it be a primary, secondary, pool or ancillary power. This applies whether the power affects you, another player, or the team.

This does NOT apply to Defense gained from IO sets.

In general, the more Defense powers you have, the better a high-tier version of either of these alphas is likely to be for you.

Transaction completed!

For sale, Gladiator's Armor: +3% Defense to All / +Res (Teleportation) PvP recipe available. 2.5 billion. You name the level.

Send pm or contact in-game at @Justaris

The key elements are a ToE proc in Dark Regeneration, adequate knockback protection and defensive softcap from IOs. I personally went typed (S/L/E/N) for my IO set bonus defense but positional defense is a bit stronger if you can work it in. I'd also recommend Soul Mastery for Darkest Night.

What you've outlined there are fairly good arguments. I personally like the Cardiac alpha for mine and that's more for the Resistance than for the Endurance Reduction (although that helps too). My tanker is Dark/Elec and all my Defense comes from either pool powers or IOs (well, and Shadow Cloak). If you're playing a secondary that has a Defense power in it, like Martial Arts, then I'd say Agility is a clear winner.

I've also been considering Resilient for much the same reasons as Cardiac, but I'm just not convinced the extra Resistance would be worth the loss of the Endurance Reduction and the secondary effects just don't interest me.

In short, I think for a DA tank the best choices are probably Cardiac Core or Agility Core. You might be able to make a case for Resilient as well, but I think playstyle and what you have for your secondary and your ancillary are going to be major factors here.

I have to say, usually I like to offer my services at these things but rarely do I go in for bidding myself.
However, the prospect of having someone offer design tips and 'makeover' to my private SG base is an extremely attractive proposition.

I'm gonna have to start saving my pennies.

Yes

On susceptible mobs, slows can be very useful, but you won't want to make that the primary focus of your build as there are too many enemies that either heavily resist slows (such as AVs) or ignore them altogether (such as Warwolves). That said, on many mobs a good slow will give you some breathing room and making kiting them child's play.

Warshade.

My Dark tank is a lot of fun too, but have to say Warshade.

I'll volunteer for this (to be auctioned).

I have experience with pretty much all of the task/strike forces in the game and have multiple characters across nearly all the servers, including several level 50s on Victory. My presence on Victory is primarily blue-side, but I do have one villain and could move a few heroes to vigilante given enough notice if a particular role was required for whatever the buyer wanted to do. I'm an avid badgehunter and would be more than happy to help organize and educate with respect to that aspect of the game as well. While I don't have the ability to offer a Master run TF team for the auction as my own schedule is somewhat erratic, I would also be more than willing to be a participant in such a run.

For reference, my Victory server characters:

• Tin Mage Mk. V (Dark/Elec Tanker, 50, +3)
• Babel Tin Mage (Sonic/Pain Corruptor, 50)
• Bulwark Tin Mage (Shield/Stone Tanker, 50)
• Spectral Tin Mage (Illusion/Empathy Controller, 50)
• Orion Tin Mage (Gravity/TA Controller, 38)
• Tectonic Tin Mage (Earth/Energy Dominator, 35)
• Phoenix Tin Mage (Fire/Energy Blaster, 34)
• Hyper Tin Mage (KM/EA Brute, 31)
• Big Time Barnes (AR/Traps Corruptor, 30) - villain
• Jagged Tin Mage (Spines/Elec Scrapper, 22)
• Forever Tin Mage (Time/Beam Defender, 18)
• Glacial Tin Mage (Gravity/Cold Controller, 18)
• Shadow Tin Mage (Dark/Psi Defender, 16)
• T1N M4G3 (Psy/Mental Blaster, 9)

I'd be interested in helping out with something like this.

Always great to see everyone coming out for these things, especially the performances they put on in the arena. Grats to the winners, it's always reassuring when you lose to such great people! I'll have to step up my game for next year.

Indeed it has, good to see you posting again.

A) Soft-capped, Dark Armor is extremely tough, and the -dam effect in Kinetic Melee should be helpful as well. You'll want to make sure you get -KB IOs and a Theft of Essence proc to easily address the biggest shortcomings of the set.

B) Generally speaking you want to take whichever works better with your secondary. Since you have stuns in the secondary, those will stack with the stun from OG. Alternatively, you may be able to use Cloak of Fear as a mule for IO Sets, so just see what you can work out with the build. Some people feel that stuns scatter enemies, but I've never found that 'drunken walk' scatter to be significant.

C) Soul Transfer is very good. It is an incredibly powerful stun and it gets you right back into the fight. As Dechs likes to say, with Soul Transfer they have to kill you twice to beat you.

D) I rather like Soul Mastery for Darkest Night.

Hmm, this is a fairly vague request (questions like "what's good" don't really have objective answers), but I'll do what I can with it.

1) I'd seriously consider going with Storm and putting in the playtime to learn it, as it's going to be one of the best choices for solo play. Radiation or Time (if you have it) would also be decent choices, although really anything can work well and several other secondaries that aren't as well-suited to solo will really shine on teams.

2) Wormhole is an excellent power and I'd strongly recommend it as it is one of the main reasons to pick Gravity Control in the first place.

3) Dimension Shift is situational but not useless. There are actually certain TFs where it can be exceptionally useful. Not a power you want to be using on every mob, certainly but not necessarily a must-skip.

4) Knockback is only a problem when the player using it is careless or doesn't know what he/she is doing. Storm Summoning is one of the easier sets to mess up in this respect since a bad Stormie can make things rough on everyone, but a good Stormie is a juggernaut.

Good luck!

Not true, you only need to run a patron arc, and this can be done by any redside-based character (villain or rogue, but not vigilante).

Actually, we had just this situation occur on a Master run I was on. The vigilante in question did indeed go to blue Ouro, but was not kicked from the team. We just had to wait while he worked his way back to the mission. So this tactic can still be used by Vigilantes, unless for some reason this has changed in Issues 20.5 or 21.

Also, make sure the entire team is in the mission - I have had runs where someone was afk or something and wasn't in the mission with the rest of the team. Since the game moves the entire team to a new area, it won't do so until everyone is on the same map.

I know Dark Armor was taken out of the running in the original post, but if set to light colors and specifically if Shadow Cloak is set to no fade/pulse, DA really doesn't hide your costume all that much and can be roleplayed to be any number of things other than darkness (sand and snow work particularly well, in my opinion).

It takes a bit more investment than some other secondaries such as Invuln, but my DA tank certainly fits the criterion of being indestructible. With a defense-based IO build going for either positional defense or S/L/E/N typed defense (the former being a bit more difficult and expensive, but also more effective), combined with good resistance numbers including healthy resistance to psy and some good endurance drain resistance, and add to that the more powerful self-heal in the game, and you've got a monster that is extremely difficult to kill, with a self-rez that stuns everything in the vicinity and allows you to regain aggro again with any stacked debuffs or effects now gone off of you (meaning really, you have to kill the character twice to make him/her lose aggro).

Just my little argument for DA, take it or leave it.

More or less the above. I got mine before the rise of Incarnate stuff and I imagine that should make it much easier. We used to Ouroboros out after the ambushes were triggered in order to re-enter the mission and fight them in a controlled manner with pulling tactics to avoid squishies dying, but with Judgment and Destiny powers in play and everyone +1 that might not be necessary.

If you do plan do this with characters who don't have those advantages, I'd recommend using that tactic.

Actually, they did try making the mob AI better and the result was that anyone who had a less-than-stellar build was utterly gimped. The ensuing backlash from the players over that is likely still coloring the direction the Devs take, and given the inclusive angle they have opted to take, designing the game so that players can advance in power but not to the point that players without the time or inclination to grind heavily are obsolete, it is unlikely they would undertake another upgrade on the enemies since this could easily leave SO players in the dust, something they have promised specifically on numerous occasions wouldn't happen.

It is more likely that as the Incarnate system matures that higher-tier Incarnate content will begin to assume the presence of lower-tier Incarnate content and the enemies will therefore ramp up in difficulty and AI but only within that system, leaving the rest of the game balanced around SOs. Personally I like that approach.

As for the GDN and ED, if your friend is still upset about those changes then it is highly unlikely that he will be able to be open to what is good about this game. I happen to think that those changes were good and necessary changes to be made (others disagree, naturally), but the implementation of those changes was quite frankly very poor and left many people understandably upset.

However, that was years ago and the game today barely resembles the game then. The Devs have managed to give us an avenue towards becoming almost ridiculously powerful without trivializing all content or making certain ATs head-and-shoulders above the rest as was the case back in Issue 4. I know many people who declared their characters 'unplayable' because they couldn't herd entire maps or solo Archvillains or whatever. If that's your friend, then I wish him luck and happiness grinding for raids in WoW.

It really is a different paradigm. It is apples and oranges, and if you compare WoW-style endgames then naturally WoW will have the better WoW-style endgame. CoX isn't trying to compete with that, it is doing something else entirely, but if he doesn't or won't see that then no argument you can make is likely to be terribly persuasive. Or, if he does see that and just decides he prefers the raid-centric model, you are likewise up a creek.