Screwloose

"Meh" doesn't mean anything, but I would characterise it as a sort of text representation of a verbal shrug. Try saying it and shrugging at the same time you will get the feeling, kind of unimpressed acknowledgement.

It goes with "Heh" which is sort of a half laugh.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

[ QUOTE ]

I am no expert on powers, and just curious why you wouldn't stay in the same pool. With Fury up I think I have gotten close to at least 80 dmg with Jump Kick. The animation is a little annoying to wait through, but then so is Shadow Maul...

[/ QUOTE ]

For a Brute you should really be looking for two types of attacks. Ones with Fast Activation times and short animations that allow you to thorw a lot of attacks in a short space of time and build up a lot of Fury and ones that have a high base Damage to get maximum effect once you have a head of Fury under your belt.

Jump Kick doesn't really qualify for either of these. It doesn't have a fast Activation time and short animation so it isn't good at building Fury and it's damage is okay, but not exciting so you could be using something with a similar Activation time and a higher base Damage.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

InfernalNight provided the following figures from the new Prima guide, so if you trust them


Figured this was as good a place as any for the Prima guide numbers concerning Dark Armor (this is supposed to be accurate as of Issue #6):

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DARK ARMOR END ACT RCHG
Dark Embrace 0.104 0.67 4
Death Shroud 1.04 1.17 4
Murky Cloud 0.104 1.17 4
Obsidian Shield 0.104 1.17 4
Dark Regeneration 33.8 1.17 30
Cloak of Darkness 0.13 1.17 20
Cloak of Fear 2.6 1.17 4
Oppressive Gloom 0.156 1.17 8
Soul Transfer 0 1.17 300

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


END = Base Endurance Cost
ACT = Activation Time
RCHG = Base Recharge Time

</pre><hr />

What they mean is a bit of a guess. I am suspecting that the defensive toggle cost is in End per second and the offensive toggle cost is in End per Pulse, but overall it does seem that DA End costs are way down on historical values.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Okay did a little testing on the Live server last night.

I have CoF slotted 2 Acc, 1 End, 1 Fear and 2 To Hit Debuff.

First thing I did was track down some spawns of Level 50 and level 49 CoT and Malta in PI. Minions were Cowered, LTs and Bosses weren’t. Minions would Cower indefinitely if not attacked. Seems the same as when I5 came out.

Then to test whether the Fear effect stacked with itself I went to the Rikti Crash Site and found a spawn of level 45 Crey. Again on first contact Minions were Cowered, LTs and the Boss weren’t. After giving the LTs and Boss a good long soak of the CoF none of them were ever Cowered. With a Fear Enh and the increased effect from the level difference the duration of the effects should have lasted long enough to stack if it was going to.

The Brute version might be different, but the Scrapper version seems to be the same as it was since I5.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Cloak of Fear has been nerfed a couple of times. As of I5 it only Cowers Minions, it hits a level+0 mob 50% of the time and the To Hit debuff was reduced (from 25% to 10%). IMHO it is line ball as to whether it is worth the End cost to run and requires 3 Acc and a Fear Enh to give a 90% Cower vs level+1 mobs, leaving you with two slots to Enh the To Hit debuff or cut the sizeable End cost. If you are not prepared to 6 slot it or if you run Oppressive Gloom, which will stun all the Minions anyway, then don't take it.


[/ QUOTE ]
Have you tested this recently? I have a Dark/Dark Brute (basically the same with respect to power stats, as far as I can tell), and I have noticed that Lieutenants are *definitely* getting cowered. Just today I cowered a +2 Lt (red); this is without ToF (I don't have it), without Fear duration enhancers (my slotting is 3 endreduce, 1 acc), and as far as I know I don't have any other fear effects).

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting. No I haven't had Screwy out recently, been having too much fun in CoV, but I am signed up for some Hero action this evening so I will have a go and see whats what.

[ QUOTE ]
Did this change in i6, or is the Brute version different? (Or should I be shutting up in Fear that they overlooked passing a nerf along to my character?) As is, I find CoF very useful as damage mitigation, even given that I run it with Death Shroud and therefore do not get its full benefit. Um ... I mean, its a worthless power; hardly worth taking!

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah damn worthless, in fact no one should ever play DA, go away, nothing to see here.

I'll let you know what I find out about CoF.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

[ QUOTE ]
Bug… In an upcoming patch, flying entities that are disorient will no longer behave oddly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Err, I appreciate any bug fix, but in what way won't they behave Oddly?

Will walking and jumping mobs also not behave in this Odd manner?

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
When enemy AI moves, it selects a point and says "I'm going here" and it then goes there unless something forces it to stop or a scatter effect is enabled.

If you stun an enemy directly after it says "I'm going there" and starts moving, it will continue on its way there at full speed, over any amount of obstacles. A disorient technically doesn't debuff movement, so the AI moves at full speed.

Once it's reached the targetted destination, it will wobble around as normal.

It's a byproduct of the way the AI handles movement, and yes, it's a problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mostly true.. however it doesn't explain why some enemies will remain flying in place (no "I'm going here") after being stunned, or mearly drift down slowly...

[/ QUOTE ]

Fly in place is "I am going nowhere". Mob Fly is a passive power not a Toggle one. If Stun was also -Fly, -Jump and -Speed then it would have to cost more End or last a shorter duration.

Drift down slowly is the Fly equivalent of Stagger in Small Circles.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Thanks mate.

Those numbers are interesting. If accurate that is a very big reduction for Dark Regen.

Any indication what the End cost for the toggles is rated in? The offensive toggles seem too big for End per second and the defensive toggles seem too low for End per tick.

End cost for Oppressive Gloom is definitely less than any of the shield toggles, which makes me think that maybe the Offensive toggles are rated at End per Tick and the Defensive ones at End per Second, which is really handy for comparing them.

Regards, Screwloose.
“I am not young enough to know everything.”

From my Dark Armor Overview for I5.

Cloak of Darkness - Stealth (Moderate), Melee Defense (Moderate), Ranged Defense (Moderate), Resist Immobilise, Increased Perception.

Available at level 20 if you want a Stealth power then take this one. It provides basic Stealth (which in CoH is really just a reduction in the range at which mobs will aggro on you), resistance to Immobilise powers and an increase in the range at which you will see other Stealthed characters.

The Base Defense for Cloak of Darkness was lowered significantly in I5 and slotting a Single Origin Defense Enhancement now gives around 0.605% additional Defense, IMHO not a good return. Cloak of Darkness is still a good power for what it does, but I would slot other powers first if I was looking for threat mitigation.

Like many powers that do several things at once Cloak of Darkness isn’t cheap on End so it might be worth an End Reducer, otherwise slot only when you’ve got nothing else to slot.


Overall this looks like a pretty solid guide to me, and suggests that DM and DA for Brutes is almost exactly whte same as it is for Scrappers, which means that anything written for Scrappers should have useful info in it as long as you remember the basic tennets of SMASH.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Just wanted to say been using these numpad keybinds since I got my 2nd tier pets and they are tremendously helpful.

Great work.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Hmm, with the limitations Tankers already face on generating Aggro I would have thought that 17 was a little on the low side for a Hard Aggro List limit.

Surely being able to have an Aggro List of around 2 max sized spawns wouldn't be a game breaker given the small number limitations on the number of targets most *-Voking effects have?

The most immediate thing that springs to mind for me is that this is really going to cramp the style of people who find using the amount of discipline required to fight one spawn at a time unfun or just impossible.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Heh, Stealth Minstrel was my cup of tea. Bors Albion was a hard PvP school (% .

Not sure what I like the look of in the Stalker sets, I guess I will have to give one a go.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

[ QUOTE ]
Wow man great guide, but it means almost nothing now that ED is out.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you don't like the guides people write then how about you try thinking for yourself?

[ QUOTE ]
Any chance of a respec to the guide?

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Since Regen works exactly the same for any Primary you could start by reading any of the post ED Regen build threads in the Scrapper forum. If you look carefully you will see that they all do almost exactly the same thing and with a little thought on your part you should be able to come up with something that works.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

IMHO there is not difference with power selection or slotting for Invuln no matter what your primary is, but the Hunter Gatherer BS Invuln guide for I5 isn't bad.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Dull Pain: How it works, How to use it. By Stupid_Fanboy [I5]

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Shai basically nailed it, if you don't want to use Leaping as your movement power then Hover is cheap on power choices, but will cost you a few extra slots to get a decent combat movement. It won't work against everything, but it is pretty good in 80%+ of circumstances.

Check out Romances Spines DA guide and my Dark Armor Overview for Issue 5 (links in the Scrapper guides and faqs thread) for more DA and Spines DA info.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Looks pretty good.

I would 6 slot TempInvuln before I put any slots in RPD, you get a much bigger return in Res from the toggle.

I would not slot Build Up with a To Hit Buff, anything that you need more than the Base To Hit Buff to hit is going to be so much higher level than you that you aren't going to do it any damage any way.

I might want to move the slots around to try to get a few more in the attacks earlier. With the general reduction in the effectiveness of Scrapper secondaries the best way to suirvive a fight is to KO the mobs before they can KO you. Your Res and Def just aren't going to keep you up if you can't generate sufficient damage to KO mobs quickly.

Otherwise it looks pretty solid.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Thanks for all the nice words, just adding some info on End costs dredged up from the Testing Server forum by Hejtmane

[ QUOTE ]
Ok this is what I got from the boards during I5 updates so take them for info gathered from the boards from the test server

DE .2
MC .2
OS .3
COF .4
DS .71
COD .39
OG .12

[/ QUOTE ]


regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

On the Katana side no. On the Invuln side yes.

There were no direct changes to Katana so whatever you were doing before is fine. You might want to consider taking Divine Avalanche if you didn't have it.

Invuln like all the Scrapper secondaries was nerfed. For the new numbers and some slotting suggestions have a look for a post in the Scrapper Guides and faqs thread by BuffyASummers.

Also there was the /Invuln - How Will You Slot thread which seems to have had a lot of good Invuln discussion in it.

Most people seem to be responding mainly by slotting Invincibility heavily for Def.

regards, Screwloose.
"I m not young enough to know everything."

[ QUOTE ]
This is a great guide, Screwloose.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks. And thanks to everyone else who has posted positively or constructively.

[ QUOTE ]
Cloak of Darkness and the Leaping pool;
Super Jump is my movement power, so I chose Combat Jumping (+def, res. to immobilization) as my first Leaping pool power. CoD does the same things and more (stealth and perception), making having both of them (as I do now) redundant. On the other hand, redundance might not necessarily be a bad thing, and my other option to unlock SJ is Jump Kick, a simple (moderate damage, I think. Not 100% sure) knockback attack. I already have plenty of attacks in my primary. Besides, JK requires me to redraw my sword after I use it, slowing down my attack cycle. On a side note, I don't have Acrobatics because I too see Knockback as more of an annoyance than a threat.

[/ QUOTE ]

CoD does have the drawback of doing several things in the one power. This bumps up it's End cost and means that if you are getting any of the things it does from another source it starts to look lack lustre.

You are not really going to get much use out of Combat Jumping or Jump Kick as far as I can see, but the added mobility of Combat Jumping and it's cheap End cost would probably swing me towards it.

I use to run CoD so much that most of my regular teams knew that if I was visible I wasn't ready to start fighting. Now I tend to turn it on and off as seems appropriate.

[ QUOTE ]
Death Shoud, Cloak of Fear, and/or Oppressive Gloom;
I currently have Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom. I chose not to take Death Shroud at my last respec because the DoT would negate Fear's attack stoppage if I were using both of them at once. With Lieutenants no longer being affected by CoF, I'm reconsidering that. As you said, fear resistance is rare. That makes it useful for me in PvP. On the other hand, in PvE, OG is now more effective at stopping attacks, and is not interfered with by DS. But, like the last issue, redundance isn't necessarily bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was very harsh on Cloak of Fear when the I5 changes were first posted, however with more time to think about it I feel that it is probably in the same scale as other Scrapper Threat Mitigation powers so it just got hit in the general defensive reduction that all powers got.

DS and CoF aren't totally exclusive. Cowering minions have a Retaliation Check cycle and they get one retaliation each Retaliation Cycle, which seem to be about 10 seconds to me.

This means that mobs with slow recharge attacks are less affected by Cowering than ones with fast recharge attacks.

And if you or your team are doing any AE damage then the mobs only get to Retaliate once in their Retaliation Cycle no matter how many times they got hit so you might as well hit them lots.

However a little like CoD CoF does several things at once and if you have something that does some of those things, like Op Gloom nullifying Minions, then CoF starts to look a little less effective.

I kept both CoF and OpGloom, but run CoF a lot less freqently these days.

[ QUOTE ]
Then there are my Fitness powers, which I'm absolutely happy with, and issues with my ancillary pool (Darkness Mastery) such as "Torrent (less damage, but has Knockback), Dark Blast (more damage, but nothing else), or both?", but those are beyond the scope of the guide.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am an almost idelogical anti-Stamina poster, but even my Spines DA scrapper has Stamina. I've not felt a burning need for it on my MA SR scrapper, but no doubt it would give me certain advantages with him too, I just don't feel they are worth giving up 3 powers for.

I like Darkness too, it suits my desire to have lots of tactical tools to use in play. I went with Dark Blast, Pet Gaze and Tenebrous Tentacles. Dark Blast replaced Brawl in my attack cycle, a Single Target Hold is great for shuting down annoying mobs like Malta Sappers and TenbTentacles is just cool looking (% .

For my perspectives and some links look for my Scrapper APP's overview linked to in the Scrapper guides and faqs thread.

[ QUOTE ]
What do you think I should do?

[/ QUOTE ]

Read lots, have fun (% .

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

I believe that he is one of the influx of posters disgruntled by I5 who are taking every posible chance to post extravagant complaints about I5 and personally I am not dignifying his rants with a response.

If he said something relevant to the thread or of any substance then I would consider responding, but until then I am trying to not feed the Troll.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

[ QUOTE ]
As far as I can tell throughout this entire post is more of a repeat of a long ago abilities. A lot of the information is good. However, its misleading and is not reflecting the true results of I5.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you for your opinion, as Dark Armor was the Scrapper Secondary powerset least changed by Issue 5 it is perhaps not surprising that much of this guide is unchanged from previous guides.

[Some Material Snipped]

[ QUOTE ]
I would actually have to classify DA/DM as the worst class within the game currently with no solution in sight other than a major edit.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am afraid that I5 is pretty much here to stay, while there may be minor changes this is now the level of power that you are going to have to get use to playing with. Possibly fortunately for DA users as they were nerfed the least they are actually use to playing at a power level closest to I5.

I would agree that as the DM DA combination of powersets contains a lot of tactical tricks it can be hard to master for those who were looking for easy straight forward fights, but IMHO it is very effective in the hands of someone who learns to use its tactical tools.

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Much harder to say for Dark Armor than Regen, or even Invuln, as the early powers tend to Defend against a particular type of threat rather than simply add to a general pool of Threat Mitigation like Regen’s range of HP Recovery powers does or broadly vs a wide range of threats as the combination of Temp Invuln and UnYielding does.

With CoD falling behind as a place to put slots and Dark Regen generally needing only about 3 I think that the main place you are going to get your primary Threat Mitigation is in the Resistance toggles. You should try to get those at least 3 or 4 slotted as soon as you feel you can. Dark Embrace first then maybe give some priority to slotting attacks (Death Shroud or your Primary) then Murky and Obsidian when you feel happy with your attacks.

If you decide to go for Cloak of Fear I would try to get it 6 slotted asap as I don’t think that it is very effective otherwise.

It’s not really any different for Spines. My pre and post I3 Spines DA build are at the end of my Spines guide.

I haven’t changed my build at all for I5, mostly because I am just lazy. If I was concerned about being super efficient then I would take the slots out of Cloak of Darkness and drop Cloak of Fear, but when I thought about it I really didn’t know what to do with those slots and that power choice so I just left it

Regards, Screwloose.
“I am not young enough to know everything.”

Dark Armor Overview for Issue 5

regards, Screwloose.
"I am not young enough to know everything."

Dark Armor Overview for Issue 5

The following is an overview and commentary regarding the Dark Armor powerset. It is entirely my own misguided opinion. I must acknowledge the great debt I owe for anything of worth in this document to the many wonderful and insightful posters in the Scrapper forum and the many robust discussions fostered there.

This will be a largely qualitative rather than quantitative guide, if you want numbers and slotting suggestions for any Scrapper Secondary then you should have a look at BuffyASummers Scrapper Secondaries in I5 Post.

Dark Armor is a varied powerset providing a good base of Resistance powers and a number of other threat mitigation and utility powers with a bit of a controllerish edge.

Dark Amor has a reputation for being End intensive, which is not entirely untrue, but which has been somewhat reduced in I5 and which can be further reduced by careful use of the right power at the right time. My basic rule is that if I am finishing fights with lots of HP and no End then I was probably running too many threat mitigation toggles.

I would recommend any serious student get as many views of a powerset as they can, and as long as you keep in mind the changes to the powerset as summarised below any Dark Armour related guide will be able to give you ideas.

As always I would advise people that the point of making a character is to have fun, my idea of fun is almost certainly not exactly the same as yours and you should be guided by your own sense of what will and won’t work for you at least as much as what some bizarrely named internet forum non-entity has to say.


Dark Armor Changes

For those already familiar with Dark Armor I include this summary of the significant changes to Dark Armor over the last few Issues (3, 4 and 5).

The only important changes to Dark Armor IMHO are to Cloak of Darkness and Cloak of Fear.

Cloak of Darkness becomes not a great return for slots in I5. The power is still not bad, but a Single Origin Defense Enhancement gets you 0.65% additional Def, so not a high priority for slots.

Cloak of Fear has been nerfed a couple of times. As of I5 it only Cowers Minions, it hits a level+0 mob 50% of the time and the To Hit debuff was reduced (from 25% to 10%). IMHO it is line ball as to whether it is worth the End cost to run and requires 3 Acc and a Fear Enh to give a 90% Cower vs level+1 mobs, leaving you with two slots to Enh the To Hit debuff or cut the sizeable End cost. If you are not prepared to 6 slot it or if you run Oppressive Gloom, which will stun all the Minions anyway, then don't take it.

Changes which are interesting, but are unlikely to affect your choice of powers or slotting:

All toggles can be run simultaneously.
Dark Embrace gives Resistance to Toxic.
Murky Cloud protects from End Drain, this is actually quite nice.
Obsidian Shield protects from Fear.
Cloak of Darkness gives Immobilise resist and increased Perception vs other Stealthed characters.
Soul Transfer got a couple of improvements, but not enough to change anyones mind who was or wasn't going to take a Self Rez power.


The Powers

Dark Embrace - Resist Smash, Lethal (Very High), Resist Negative Energy, Toxic (High)

You get it at level 1 and it is not a bad level 1 power. Dark Embrace provides quite reasonable protection vs the most common Damage types in the game and some protection vs Neg Energy. You would do well to slot this strongly and quickly.

Death Shroud - Negative Energy Damage (Minor PBAoE DoT)

Available at level 2 this power does damage to all mobs in melee range to you.

While it has a reputation as a high End cost power for an AE Attack Death Shroud is not unreasonably End heavy. It does damage equal to the average Scrapper Primary PBAE attack over a period the same as the recharge of the PBAE and for less End.

Running Death Shroud early in a fight means that mobs you engage towards the end of the fight will take fewer single target attacks to KO and mobs that might have hung around on a sliver of HP attacking you and your team will KO possibly without you ever having to target them.

Death Shroud can be hard to run continuously at low levels, but will always give good value for End whenever you are in melee with 2 or more mobs. Like any power once you can slot Single Origin Enhancements it really comes alive. I would slot it pretty much like I do any attack, currently I am running with an Acc, an End and 4 Damage.

Death Shroud is a good addition to any Primary. It adds AE damage to powersets that are lacking in it, ie Martial Arts and Dark Melee, and adds Neg Energy damage to powersets that deal out the more often and more strongly resisted Lethal Damage, ie Spines, Claws and the Swords.

Murky Cloud - Resist Fire, Cold (Very High), Resist Negative Energy, Energy (High), Resist Endurance Drain.

Available at level 4 this provides good Resistance to a wide range of damage types and Resistance to Endurance Drain, which is very handy at higher levels.

This is a power that you should take and slot at least partly. Worth 3 or 4 additional slots, but you don’t have to hurry to get them in, late 20’s is fine. While the majority of damage in CoH is Smash or Lethal some factions of mobs do use high percentages of non S/L damage. And in the level 40+ range some use entirely non S/L damage.

Obsidian Shield - Resist Psionics (Extreme), Resist Stun, Sleep, Hold, Fear (High)

The primary Status Effect resistance power for Dark Armor. It becomes available at level 10 and you will probably find that between level 16 and 18 the Tsoo will make you want to take it.

It gives you high base Resistance to Psi damage, which is rare, but handy to have when you come across it. Worth an additional 3 or 4 slots, but you can wait until the late 30’s to get them in.

Dark Regeneration - Negative Energy Damage (Minor), Heal (Very High)

Available at level 16, but hard to use effectively until you can get a few SO Endurance reducers in it. Dark Regen costs 48.5 End per activation so is a bit of a pain to use without at least 2 End reducers in it. However once you can get the End cost down a bit it becomes a great power, especially for when that opening volley of damage drops your HP bar to Red.

Dark Regen returns about 30% of your HP for each mob hit. This means that it is a good idea not to miss (I slot an Acc), that it works pretty well vs groups of mobs, and that unless you want to try to use it vs single mobs slotting Heals is probably not worth while.

I would hesitate to slot Recharge reducers as the base recharge of 30 seconds is short enough for any reasonable fight.

Cloak of Darkness - Stealth (Moderate), Melee Defense (Moderate), Ranged Defense (Moderate), Resist Immobilise, Increased Perception.

Available at level 20 if you want a Stealth power then take this one. It provides basic Stealth (which in CoH is really just a reduction in the range at which mobs will aggro on you), resistance to Immobilise powers and an increase in the range at which you will see other Stealthed characters.

The Base Defense for Cloak of Darkness was lowered significantly in I5 and slotting a Single Origin Defense Enhancement now gives around 0.65% additional Defense, IMHO not a good return. Cloak of Darkness is still a good power for what it does, but I would slot other powers first if I was looking for threat mitigation.

Like many powers that do several things at once Cloak of Darkness isn’t cheap on End so it might be worth an End Reducer, otherwise slot only when you’ve got nothing else to slot.

Cloak of Fear - Mag 2 Fear PBAoE Aura, PBAoE Accuracy Debuff(10%)

Available at level 28 Cloak of Fear is one of the main unique powers that Dark Armor gets, and while not the game changer that it use to be can still be used effectively if well slotted.

Cloak of Fear pulses every 10 seconds with a base 50% chance to hit every mob in melee range. Each mob hit gets a Mag 2 Fear effect and a 10% To Hit debuff which lasts 10 seconds. If the mob is a Minion the Fear will cause it to Cower stationary and if damaged the Minion will retaliate about once every 10 seconds. LT’s, Bosses and more powerful mobs will not Cower unless they are hit with another power that puts a Fear on them, but do have their Accuracy reduced.

I use to be a big fan of Cloak of Fear because it was so Dark Scrapperish and possibly because it was overpowered. I have several issues with the current version.

Firstly I like my Threat Mitigation powers to be reliable. When I turn on Focused Fighting it always gives me an increase to my Def, when I turn on Temporary Invulnerability it always gives me an increase in my Res. When I turn on Cloak of Fear I pay a pretty heavy End cost to get a chance that mobs near me will be less of a threat.

Secondly I feel there is a now too much overlap between this power and the next, Oppressive Gloom. Cloak of Fear use to affect LT’s, which Oppressive Gloom doesn’t, and it use to have a significant effect on mobs that it didn’t Cower and now it doesn’t. Basically if you are running Oppressive Gloom then the extra that you get for the quite high End cost of Cloak of Fear is IMHO not worthwhile.

On the other hand some people don’t like Oppressive Gloom because the Stunned mobs will wander, and sometimes Super Leap, away.

If you want to use Cloak of Fear and have it reliably hit mobs then you will want to find 3 Single Origins worth of Accuracy for it. If I was going to try to incorporate Cloak of Fear into my build as a regularly used power then I would probably slot it 3 Acc, 2 To Hit Debuffs and an End.

Oppressive Gloom - Mag 2 Disorient PBAoE Aura, Self –HP.

Available at level 35 Oppressive Gloom is Dark Armors other mob control style threat mitigation power.

Oppressive Gloom has a low End cost, a very minor HP cost and is effective without a lot of slots. A single Acc can make it perform strongly; I prefer an Acc and a Stun Duration.

Oppressive Gloom stuns Minions that come into melee range. I think this is great. Some people don’t like it because Stunned mobs can tend to wander away, but while they are wandering they aren’t attacking and I often find they will take one ranged shot at you then run back into the OpGloom field and get stunned again.

OpGloom is particularly good for Martial Arts Scrappers who throw a fair number of Stuns already.

Soul Transfer - Neg Energy Damage (Moderate), Heal (Very High), Endurance Bonus (High), PBAE Stun, Special Temporary Invulnerability and Special Temporary Debt protection.

Available at level 38 this is a Self Rez. Personally I am not thrilled by Self Rezes and this one is a bit quirky, as suits the Dark Armor powerset.

You can only use Soul transfer when there are mobs nearby. Sounds Bad. Using it throws a strong PBAE Stun and makes you temporarily immune to all damage. Sounds Good. That temporarily immune to damage thing, it doesn’t always work. Sounds Bad.

I5 added a period of grace from Exp Debt to all Rez powers and inspirations to encourage people to try to get back into fights and not just lay on the floor until the fight was over then get up. I believe for Soul Transfer that period is 90 seconds.


What Powers should you take

Well I think all the Dark Armor powers do what they do reasonably well, I have personal reasons for not being excited about a couple, but overall none of them are total duds.

IMHO you will want at least all of the Resistance shields and either Cloak of Fear or Oppressive Gloom to construct enough threat mitigation to be a viable Scrapper.

Death Shroud adds End effective DPS to any Scrapper.

Dark Regen is a great oops power for when you get hit hard early in a fight.

Cloak of Darkness is a good Stealth power, which if you chose Dark Armor for concept or theme reasons is something you would probably want, it stops you getting Immobilised as easily and it gives you a small amount of Defense as a bonus.

And Soul Transfer is a quirky Self Rez that if you want one will probably do the job for you.


Slotting

Powers generally need to be slotted well to function well and most of the Dark Armor powers follow this rule.

I would suggest that you -

Slot any toggle (except Op Gloom ) with an End Reducer.
Slot anything that needs to roll to hit with an Accuracy Enh.
Slot all Resistance powers with as many Resistance Enh as you can spare.
Slot powers that primarily do damage with as many Damage Enh as you can spare.

5 Single Origin Damage Resist Enh in Obsidian Shield will hit the Scrapper 75% Cap for Psi Resist, otherwise you can’t Cap any Resist slotting the Resistance shields so go crazy.

Death Shroud I would slot like any attack, I prefer 1 Acc, 1 End and 4 Damage.

I would recommend at least 2 End reducers in Dark Regen, you might want to put 3, and an Accuracy.

Cloak of Darkness leave with an End reducer in the base slot, don’t slot unless you have nothing else to slot.

Cloak of Fear you will need about +100% Acc to hit anything reliably. You can slot 3 Single Ogirin Acc Enh or get Focused Accuracy. Or forget it.

I have found that Oppressive Gloom functions well for me with only 2 slots, Acc and Stun Duration.

Soul Transfers primary ability will work probably just as well without slotting. If you are getting KO’ed enough to be thinking a lot about how you are slotting your Self Rez power then I suggest you may have other problems you should be concerned about.


Summary

Dark Armor gives you a pretty varied and interesting set of tools to keep your Scrapper upright and kicking [Bleep]. It has powers that work by messing the mobs over before they can mess you over. It gives you the opportunity to take a Stealth power without using a power pool. Dark Armour has rare and interesting Resistances to Psi damage, Fear and End Drain.

What doesn’t it have? Dark Armor doesn’t have resistance to KnockDown/Back. This drives many players crazy. Personally I find KD/B to be more of an annoyance than an automatic death sentence, but if you are already pushing the bleeding edge then any disruption to your combat actions can result in a KO.

The two easiest ways to mitigate KD/B are Acrobatics from the Leaping Pool and Hover from the Fly Pool. Both are toggles with some End cost. Hover doesn’t stop you getting KnockedDown/Back, but it does eliminate the need for you to struggle back to your feet, which is about 95% of the disruption a KB/D hits you with.

Dark Armor has no passives. Everything is a Toggle or a Click. This means if you want an effect you are paying End for it. Working out which powers you need to get through a fight and just using those is a part of learning how to use Dark Armor effectively. As I said earlier my general rule of thumb is if I am finishing fights with high HP and low End then maybe I can consider turning off a toggle.


Primaries

Finding synergies between your primary and secondary is something that can give you a lot more bang for your buck. In no particular order:

Spines – Offensive AE and Defensive AE, what could work together better. And the Spines Recharge Debuff will add to the control powers of DA to make you an even better oblique defender of your teams squishies.

Dark Melee – the funky powers primary and the funky powers secondary, sounds good. The Fear and To Hit debuff of Touch of Fear and Cloak of Fear stack, all good. Dark Consumption can help offset your sometimes out of control End costs.

Katana and Broadsword – Mathematically To Hit Debuffs and Defense work really well together, making Divine Avalanche/Parry and Cloak of Fear a synergising combo. Also I can sort of see a tactic using Cloak of Fear to pin a pack of mobs then Broadswords high single target damage to KO them one at a time while their friends look on horrified, could be slow and boring but might be safe.

Martial Arts – MA’s Stun will stack with Op Gloom to make you a Stunning machine.

Claws – can’t see anything particular good, although if you get Follow Up running permanently it should give a decent boost to Death Shroud as well.


Pool Powers

Pretty much whatever Pools you liked for your other characters you will like for your DA Scrapper.

Hasten doesn’t add much to DA as most of the powers are toggles not clicks so Recharge isn’t really an issue.

If you find you like having Stamina on other characters then you will probably need it on your DA Scrapper. If you don’t like having to manage End then I would recommend that you still try to get Stamina, if it doesn’t worry you that much then you may be able to do without.

Fighting. IMHO DA provides you will all the defensive options and capabilities you will need to survive most reasonable fights. If however you want to fight mobs greater than level+2 with some security or to solo spawns meant for teams of more than 4 players then some additional threat mitigation would probably be worthwhile and the Fighting Pool provides it.


Movement Powers

Many DA’s end up in the Leaping Pool to get Acrobatics and fill Dark Armors lack of KnockDown/Back protection. If you really hate getting knocked down then this might be for you.

Super Speed is another popular choice. Since many Scrappers take Hasten it is easy to take another power from the same pool and the Aggro reduction from Cloak of Darkness stacks with the Aggro reduction from Super Speed to make you practically undetectable to normal mobs. Some mobs, like snipers and Rikti Drones will still see you, but you can bump right up to normal mobs and they won’t see you.

Fly and Teleport are probably less taken, but if you like them as movement powers there is nothing wrong with them and other than the IMHO minor things mentioned above there is little to recommend any particular movement power to a Scrapper so chose something you are comfortable with.


Auxiliary Power Pools.

See my Scrapper APP's; A brief overview.


Good Luck and have Fun.

Regards, Screwloose
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”