Celtic Hearts Guide to Claws/Dark Armor!

Celtic Hearts Guide to Claws, Dark Armor, and Claws/DA

Hello there, and welcome to my guide. Seeing as this is the first such guide I’ve ever written, please bear with me a bit. A little background info, I’ve been playing this game pretty solidly for about 3 ½ years now. I took about a 6 month break once, but obviously came back. I started way back in Issue 1, so I’ve seen and been through just about everything the game has to offer. Despite my longevity, I only have 2 Level 50s, a Rad/Rad Defender, Celtic-Heart, and of course my Claws/Dark Armor, Spirit of Croatoa. I’ve taken every AT but my Khelds to at least level 32, so I know a bit about the game.

On to the actual guide now. Spirit was definitely much more fun to play than my defender, and really helped to revitalize my interest in the game after playing for so long, so I decided to put my (semi) expertise to work and create this guide. A few caveats however: I do NOT PvP. Ever. I don’t care how good (or bad) this is in PvP, so I won’t even touch it. This is PvE only. Also, I am not a mix-maxer at all, and while I do dabble in IO’s and sets, they are totally optional in my book. They help, definitely, but aren’t necessary. I don’t care overly much for strict numbers, especially now that anyone can see them, but I will go ahead and put them in the guide for the sake of completion. All numbers are according to a Level 50 Character, unenhanced.

Section 1: Claws
First, Claws. Claws is a fantastic set, with quick animations, low end costs, and great AoE and DPS both. I don’t have much experience with the other scrapper sets beyond knowing about them and seeing them in action on other peoples toons, but if I had to rate them, I’d but Claws damn near the top of the list. Plus, especially with the new weapon models, they just look cool. On to the powers.

Swipe:
Avg. Damage: 43.76
Activation Time: 1.5s
Recharge: 1.7s
End Cost: 2.91
Available: 1

I remember back in the day when Swipe was terrible. It had a long animation that didn’t mesh with the set, and low damage. Its better now, but still not great. I recommend taking it at first but respecting out of it as soon as you can. It’s a fine power, but you won’t need it once you start filling out your attack chain.

Strike
Avg. Damage: 62.56
Activation Time: 1.17s
Recharge: 3.2s
End Cost: 4.16
Available: 1

Strike is one of your bread and butter attacks. I currently have it third in my standard attack chain, since it lack the secondary effects of Slash and Focus. It’s a great, simple attack that does decent damage and a very fast-and brutal-animation. Take it, use it, love it.

Slash
Avg. Damage: 82.58
Activation Time: 1.3s
Recharge: 4.8s
End Cost: 5.49
Available: 2

Slash is the yin to Strikes yang, but with a bit of a twist. I use it first in my chain because it has a small -def effect to it. Its nothing dramatic by any means, but every little bit helps. Just like Strike, take it, love it, use it.

Spin
Avg. Damage: 62.56
Activation Time: 2.5s
Recharge:12.10s
End Cost: 9.15
Available: 6

Your first, and only for a while, AoE attack (not counting Death Shroud, but you shouldn‘t have DS by level 6 anyway, so my statement stands), Spin is pretty decent. Not earth shattering by any means, but a nice opener attack. Its basically like Striking everything around you. Don’t expect to see huge drops in health with this, unlike your Spiney brethren who can melt through mobs and mobs of minions with a Built Up Spine burst. However, the nice thing about Spin over Burst is it recharges much faster, allowing you to use it a couple times in a fight, especially with the difference in Follow Up vs. Build up. More on that next.

Follow Up
Avg. Damage: 50.5
Activation Time: 1.63s
Recharge: 12s
End Cost: 7.8
Available: 8

Oh Follow Up. Sweet sweet Follow Up. At first, I was dismayed at the lack of a “proper” Build Up power in Claws, and so I put this off until the 20s. Huge mistake. Follow Up is the other power in Claws that makes Claws awesome sauce. It’s a standard attack, the lowest in your armory, but when it lands, you get a 37% increase in your damage and a 10% boost to your Acc for 10 seconds. Now then, compared to the 100% damage increase you get from Build Up, that seems pretty paltry, right? Well consider this. The recharge on Build Up, unenhanced, is 90 seconds. The recharge on Follow Up is 12 seconds. Yes, 12 seconds. With just one Recharge in there, you can easily have Perma Follow Up. AND its an attack, so it’ll help out with DPS. This is how you can stand with the big daddies of Spines and Broadsword. They may have better burst damage than you, but with Follow Up, your sustained DPS makes you far more lethal in those longer fights. So put this sucker on Auto-Fire and let the good times roll.

Confront:

Its freaking Confront. A single target Taunt. Why? Because the Devs have a sense of humor. Don’t take it.

Focus
Avg. Damage: 102.6
Activation Time: 1.53s
Recharge: 6.4s
End Cost: 6.82
Available: 18

Oh Focus. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. First, it’s your second highest damaging attack, so that’s awesome. Second, its almost guaranteed knockdown. Not Knockback, which is a pain in the butt (literally. Hah! I made a funny), but knockdown, which adds a delicious level of soft control. On big enemies like the Behemoth Overlords and the big Council robots, it is VERY easy to keep them constantly flipping over and over, which means they aren’t attack you. Third, its RANGED. Yes, ranged. Granted, you wont be sniping with this, but when runners start to run, BAM, they won’t run far, because assuming you don’t kill them outright (you probably will. If they are running, that means they’re probably low on life), you’ll at least knock em down long enough to run over with the coup de grace. Lastly, it just looks cool. Focus is the second in my standard attack chain after Slash, but I use it whenever it comes up. It is the second defining power of Claws. If I could, I would marry Focus and have like a million of its babies. It’s THAT good.

Eviscerate
Avg. Damage: 122.31
Activation Time: 2.17s
Recharge: 8.38s
End Cost: 8.84
Available: 26

Hmm. Eviscerate. I have mixed feelings about this power, I’ll go with a straight Pro/Con list here and let you decide.
Pros:
Its your single most damage attack, with a bullet, even higher than Focus.
It’s a Cone, and a pretty decent one at that. Its pretty easy to get at least 2, maybe 3 mobs with this. 4 is pretty uncommon, and I’ve never hit the max of 5, but still.
It’s got a higher chance to crit-15% flat, as opposed to everything else with 5% for minions and 10% for Lts. And Bosses.
The animation is pretty cool looking

Cons:
That cool animation is its main drawback. Its almost TWICE as long as every other attack you have. While you’re flipping around in the air, you could have fired off a Slash and a Focus for more damage. In a set that is defined by its quick animations, its simply bizarre to have such a lengthy attack. It kills me.

I have thought about respecting out of Eviscerate more times than I can remember, but I have ultimately stuck with it. It not a part of my standard attack chain, I use it rarely, but there are those times where it’s handy. If you see a great opportunity with 3 guys standing right in front of you, its great. Its also the closest thing you have to a Burst attack, so I usually use it as my opener again a boss after Follow Up connects. That said, if you absolutely think you need some other power, then this is moderately shippable. But its totally up to you

Shockwave
Avg. Damage: 62.56
Activation Time: 1.53s
Recharge: 12.10s
End Cost: 10.52
Available: 32

Another power I have mixed feelings about. I mean, it’s a GREAT power. it’s a HUGE AoE Ranged Cone, capable of hitting a TON of bad guys at once, all for Strike level damage and a quick animation. A favorite and time honored Claws tradition is to jump into a mob, Follow Up, Spin, jump back a bit and use Shockwave. Huge amounts of AoE goodness. So whats the problem, you ask? Knockback. I would use this power a TON more than I do if it weren’t for that irritating knock back. I mean, ok, I know its not THAT big a deal, especially since you do have Focus to make a follow up attack, but MAN is it a pain in the butt (Literally! Haha, I ma. . .Wait, I already did that). Plus, other scrappers and especially Tankers will hate you for it. That said, its still a great power and a definite keeper. Just. . .use with caution, that’s all


Section 2: Dark Armor
Dark Armor used to have a really bad reputation back in the old days. The fact that you couldn’t stack armors, the way Fear worked, the insane HP drain on Oppressive Gloom, and just being generally Endurance heavy all contributed to this. Times have changed, however, and the Devs listened. Nowadays, with a little careful Endurance managements, Dark Armor is considered one of the best Scrapper secondaries around, and for good reason. It has strong resistances, an absolutely KILLER self-heal, a damage aura, and really nifty utility powers. It takes a little time for it to really shine, around the mid 30s with Oppressive Gloom, but its still pretty strong up until then. Be warned, this is THE most toggle heavy set in the game. All but two of its powers are a toggle, so if you get Toggle Dropped, you’re kinda screwed.

Dark Embrace
End Cost: .21/s
Resistance: 22.5 Smashing/Lethal, 15 Negative/Toxic
Available: 1

The armor you HAVE to take, but it’s the armor you need. It provides good resistance to the most common damage types in the game, while also providing a small boost to a couple of more exotic types. I can only think off hand of two 2 villain groups that use Toxic, the Vahzilok and Hydras. Still its nice to have. There is really no reason you should ever shut this one off.

Death Shroud
Avg Damage: 21.51
End Cost: .52/s
Available: 2

I was skeptical about Death Shroud when I first took it early in my career. It seemed like it sucked a lot of Endurance, didn’t do much damage, and drew a ton of agro. Well, its all true, but its still a great power. But despite how early its available, you should definitely take it later when you are able to counter all those problems. Stamina and slotting help with the Endurance and Damage, and Cloak of Fear/Oppressive Gloom help with the agro. After that, it’s a fantastic power, as all those little ticks of damage really add up until it becomes the most damaging power in your arsenal, doing more damage over time than all your attacks save Focus.

Murky Cloud
End Cost: .21/s
Resistance: 22.5 Fire/Cold, 15 Energy/Negative
Available: 4

Your elemental shield, this power while indispensable later in the game, can definitely be put off until the 20s. Before then, elemental damage is so rare, and you need so many other powers, that it’s best just to wait. This power also highlights one of the main weaknesses of Dark Armor: a huge Energy Resistance hole. If you look at the numbers, you get 22.5 base resistance to Smashing, Lethal, Fire, and Cold, and a solid 30 against Negative. Energy, however, which is more common than you might think, has a mere 15. Its not a huge deal, but you’ll find yourself hurting against a lot of later energy types, especially once you start the Praetorian arcs. Still, just like Dark Embrace, there is no real reason for you to ever shut this off

Obsidian Shield
End Cost: .21/s
Resistance: 37.5 Psi, 10.38 Hold, Sleep, Fear, Stun
Available: 10

Obsidian Shield is both a great power and a lousy power. Its great because it grants resistance to one of the most painful damage types in the game, Psionics. Psionics have a tendency to hurt other people quite a bit, as there are precious few powers in the game that confer any kind of defense or resistance to them. This is one of them. While other people moan about the Carnival of Shadows or the Psychic Clockwork, you give a hearty laugh and proceed to shred them into little bits. It’s a lousy power, however, because while it does provide standard protection against the more debilitating (and toggle dropping) mezzes, such as Hold, Sleep, and Stun, it does nothing about the more irritating ones, namely Immobilize and Knockback/down. The former isn’t THAT big a deal, the latter is a pain in the. . .well, you know how it goes. There’s a couple ways to get around this, however, the simplest and easiest is to go with Superjump as your travel power. The only logical prerequisite is Combat Jumping, which provides your Immobilize protection, as well as a minor defense boost and nice positional movement. At this point, you have two options for Knockback protection. You can either A) continue with the Jump pool and get Acrobatics or B) go buy a Karma or Steadfast Protection IO that protects against KB. Either way is perfectly fine. The problem with teh former is that its yet another power choice you may not have room for, and its yet another toggle. The problem with the latter, is, of course, it costs money, generally 7-9 Mil. I went with the latter, though I always feel like I should have gone with the former. But then I start sucking air and realize I made the right choice. But then I look at a shiny IO I might want and am short of cash. Its totally up to you.

Dark Regeneration
Avg. Damage: 12.51
Recharge: 30s
Endurance Cost: 33.8
Available: 16

Ah yes. Dark Regeneration. I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the game. That isn’t sarcasm or hyperbole. Dark Regen is the most powerful heal you will ever see. You can literally be at 1 Hit Point, and as long as you have 3 baddies around you, you’ll be back up to full. Even 2 will get you healthy enough to fight. Right out of the gate, though, you’ll notice a problem. You see that number next to Endurance Cost? Yup, that’s not a typo. Unenhanced, its takes a THIRD of your End bar to use this power. A THIRD. This is why Dark Regen is considered such a End thirsty set, though the mass of toggles don’t help. Also, you need to actually HIT the enemies before you can suck their life away, so if you only have one boss in front of you whaling on your face, and you miss, you’re hosed. This is why we have Enhancements though. This is definitely a six slot power. I’ll talk about enhancements below. Once you DO get it enhanced, however, this will be your most awesome power. I can’t think of how many times I’ve been in the deep deep red, hit this, and been back in action with a full life bar. Try doing that with Reconstruction or Healing Flames! Uh! ::crotch thrust::

[I[Cloak of Darkness:[/i]
End Cost: .21/s
Available: 20

Cloak of Darkness is. . .ok. It’s a pretty nice Stealth power, that doesn’t make you slower. Like other Stealth powers, it doesn’t make you INVISIBLE, just very hard to see. If you get right up next to a mob, he will see you. It also confers a measure of Immob protection, if you need it. It also has a very minor defense component to it, which can help a bit when stacked with Combat Jumping and Weave. Otherwise, it is entirely skipable. I got it as one of my very last powers. There are a couple instances where I wish I had it earlier, but I don’t really use it that often. Besides, I like my costume.

Cloak of Fear
End Cost: .52/s
Mag 2 Fear
Available: 28

Cloak of Fear is pretty nice once you get it, though a bit thirsty. It’s one of your two different Mez powers, and in my opinion, the weaker of the two. For the hefty end cost, it will Fear all minions around you, making them tremble in fear until they’re attacked. Sounds great, right? Well, it is and it isn’t depending on whether or not you want to use Death Shroud. The constant ticking damage of Death Shroud makes Cloak of Fear really not all that useful, especially compared to Oppressive Gloom. It also has a minor To-Hit debuff on it, but nothing spectacular. I say get it at 28, use it until 35 (sans Death Shroud), then spec it out for Death Shroud when you pick of Oppressive Gloom.

Oppressive Gloom
Avg. Damage: 6.26
End Cost: .08/s
Mag 2 Stun
Available: 35

Speaking of which, here it is. The other defining power of Dark Armor, after Dark Regen. Oppressive Gloom will stun every minion that comes near you, leaving them stumbling around, unable to attack. It does this for a piddling .08 Endurance a second. No, that’s not a typo. It’s that small. On the downside, however, it does cost HP, with every tick hitting you for the above listed damage. Now, before you freak out, the HP you lost from this power is piddling. PIDDLING. Health with a single SO in it will heal it back, not to mention it keeps minions from pounding on you, thereby reducing your health in a much more significant way. If someone put a gun to my head and told me to get rid of Oppressive Gloom or Dark Embrace, I’d probably ditch Dark Embrace. The massive amount of damage mitigation you get from this power makes shields your secondary line of defense. Granted, it doesn’t do diddly squat against Lts. Or Bosses, but when you can effectively take the minions out of the fight to focus on the bigger bads, it helps a lot. This is the second turning point in Dark Armor. The first was Dark Regen, which helped, but you still struggled. After this, you become a mighty powerhouse of awesome. It’s almost like turning on Easy Mode.

Soul Transfer
Avg. Damage: 62.56
Recharge: 5min
As a Tier 9, Soul Transfer is pretty lame. it’s a self rez that requires you to be in the middle of a mob for it to be effective. Its most obvious use is for those times when you mis-judge the timing on your Dark Regen following an Alpha strike. And honestly, for this reason alone I’ve kept it. I mean, sure, its pretty rare when it happens, but when it does, its very handy. It also hits everything in its radius with a massive Mag 30 Stun, allowing you time to get your toggles up and running again. If it helps, consider Oppressive Gloom your Tier 9.

Section 3: Pool Powers

Just a quickies overview of the various pool powers and whether or not you should get them/need them (generally not)

Concealment: Not needed. You already have a Stealth power, and the rest aren’t that great. Maybe you might want Phase Shift, but if you need to Phase, chances are you can just Dark Regen. Or just go ahead and die and Soul Transfer. Whats a little debt?

Flight: I like Flight as a travel power, I really do. The feeling of not only freedom, but of real super heroness makes it worth it. Plus there is that whole “Fly to the ceiling, hit R, grab a soda” method of travel. However, with a weapon scrapper like Claws, Fly doesn’t really mesh well. You don’t really need to hover ever, and Air Super puts away your claws. Yes, I know redraw doesn’t actually effect animation time, but it drive me nuts. Besides, as fast as you’re attack recharge, Air Super is an extra attack you really don’t need. Though the perma juggling potential with Focus is something to think about. That said, I say no to Fly.

Fighting: Some Darks swear by Fighting. Boxing and/or kick are pretty useless, but Tough is nice, as is Weave. The numbers for Tough are roughly half what Dark Embrace gives for Smashing/Lethal. When slotted up, this gives you about 50% resistance to the most common damage in the game. Not bad. Weave. . .well, I have yet to experiment yet with fully with adding defense to my build. Weave gives pretty paltry defense, the same that Cloak of Darkness and Combat Jumping give, about 3.75. Fully enhanced, that’s about 6% defense. Pretty low. When combined with fully slotted CJ and CoD, that’s about 18% or so. Not bad, but in my opinion, not worth the slots. Definitely go ahead and take Tough, but only take Weave if you really have the room. For the record, I did.

Fitness: Obviously. Stamina is an absolute must have for Dark Armor. I know some people are all “No power is EVER NEEDED blah blah blah” but you know what? This is. Even with a bunch of recovery sets and end redux and a low end primary, I STILL find myself sucking air if I go to far to fast. As for the lead ups, definitely take Health. You can throw in a Healing IO and call it a day, negating the bad effects of OG. As for Swift vs. Hurdle, that’s up to you and your travel power. Take Super Speed, Hurdle is the better bet to get a little vertical movement. If you go Superjump, take Swift for faster in mission movement.

Leadership: No. You already have enough toggles, and the numbers for Scrapper are the lowest I believe when it comes to Leadership.

Leaping: This is my vote for your travel power, and here’s why. Combat Jumping is a great little power, offering Immob protection, positional movement, and some small defense. Superjump is arguably the best Travel Power, offering good speed (which Fly lacks), Vertical Movement (which SS lacks) and costs little end (which TP has in abundance). Also, you have access to Acrobatics, which give you protection against that pain in the [censored], Knockback. You don’t NEED Acrobatics, but without it you’ll either need to invest in a KB Protection IO (that’s what I did, actually), or find yourself on your butt a lot.

Medicine: Nope, don’t need it. You’ll be too busy killing to heal your teammates, and Dark Regen is more than enough healing for you,

Presence: Nope. You don’t need any taunts, and you have enough mezzing in both Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom

Speed: I vote no on Speed. You don’t really need Hasten with Claws, and Superspeed lack any vertical movement, which drives me absolutely bonkers. And don’t even get me started on Flurry or Whirlwind

Teleport: Too much endurance for a travel that just doesn’t synergize well. Recall friend is handy though. . .

Section 4: Ancillary Power Pools

I don’t really know enough about these bad powers to make a really informed decision, I’ll be honest. I took a couple powers in the Dark Mastery set, but I never, ever use them. If anyone has more experience/knowledge in this area, feel free to help out


Section 5: Enhancements and Slotting

This section just gives some basic thoughts and tips bout enhancing your powers.

A basic rule of thumb regarding enhancements. First, don’t buy Trainers. Ever. Seriously, just don’t do it. When it comes to Duals, if you have the money, then go for it. But if you don’t then don’t worry too much about them. The teens are hard, plain and simple, so just muscle through them best you can with what you find. Although, if you DO have the money, either because of your SG or a high level alt/friend, or even because you got lucky and found a killer piece of salvage early, I would recommend skipping out on Duals and going straight to Inventions. They are just as good as Duals, and don’t expire. Replace them every 5-10 levels as needed still, but don’t fret too much about it. Do this until you hit 32.

At this point, you should hopefully have the cash to completely IO yourself out. You can also start thinking about sets. Now, I am not a number cruncher. I am not a min maxer. I really could care less about Purple sets and ultra rares and all that. I am a casual gamer who simply does not have the time or inclination to get balls out on IO sets. That said, even with my very casual play style (and the help of some friends), I have nearly all my powers decently Setted out, which gives me some nice bonuses. I don’t know enough about all the different sets, so let me just share what I have and what works for me. I know there are other guides out there that can give a much better understanding than I can.

First of all, your attacks. One of the nice things about Claws is that they are fast and cheap. This means that you don’t need to six slot your attacks immediately. You’ll want to eventually when you start filling out sets, but before then, all you really need are 3 Damage, 2 Accuracy. End Redux helps your endurance, so you might consider putting that sixth slot in some of your powers like Spin and Focus, but I don’t really think its necessary early on.

When it comes to Sets in your attacks, I have Strike, Slash and Follow Up with full Crushing Impacts, which give me some nice bonuses to recharge, accuracy, and health. For Spin, I have a couple Cleaving Blows, enough to get me a Recovery Bonus, and the rest Sciroccos Dervish. Focus has the wonder Thunderstrike Set, complete with Recovery, Accuracy, AND Energy Defense. Shockwave was Positrons Blast, giving me the triple whammy of accuracy, recovery, AND recharge, plus a nice little extra damage bonus every once in a while. These are just suggestions, however, so feel free to take em or lose em.

For your secondary, all you need are 5 slots in Dark Embrace and Murky Could, with 3 Resist and 2 End Redux. I threw in a couple Impervium Armors to get me the Recovery Bonus. Obsidian Shield only needs three, a couple Imperviums, again for the Recovery, and an End Redux. Dark Regen is your six slotter, as I mentioned, and you want this bad boy slotted up ASAP. Before you start dabbling in sets, I highly recommend a 2/2/2 set up, with 2 Acc, 2 Recharge, 2 End Redux. Some people do differently, but I think that’s the best set up. I definitely have this thing frankenslotted, with 3 Miracles, 2 Numinas, and a standard End Redux in there for good measure. I have neither of the uniques in there, but if you can afford them, go for it. Cloak of Darkness needs but one slot, just throw in a Defense or an End Redux, your call. Oppressive Gloom, for all its awesomeness, really only needs a couple slots. I put two in there for a couple Rope a Dopes which gave me a decent Regen boost. Soul Transfer, throw a couple Recharges in and be done.

For your pools, its pretty straight forward. 3 End Mods in Stamina, slot Tough and Weave like any other defensive power, with a couple End Redux and a couple Resist/Defense. Tough should take precedence over Weave, however, if you’re short on slots

Section 6: So why Claws/Dark Armor?
Because it ROCKS, that’s why! Seriously though, Claws and Dark Armor have GREAT synergy together. The most obvious is that of Endurance. Claws uses very little endurance when compared to sets like Broadsword or Spines. Dark Armor uses a lot of endurance because of its reliance on toggles and because of Dark Regeneration. Thus, Claws helps to offset a lot of that end use.

Also, Claws is very AoE oriented, with three AoE attacks. It is very good for wiping out minion quickly. And minions are what DA is great at dealing with, between the small ticks of damage from Death Shroud, the stunning from Oppressive Gloom, and the need for multiple baddies for Dark Regen and Soul Transfer to be truly effective.

Also, Claws has a great Single Target game, with strong single target attacks and a perma mini Build Up in Follow Up and awesome damage and knockup via Focus. You’ll be amazed how quickly you can chew through bosses. This single target awesomeness makes up for Dark Armors weak single target defense.


Alright, that’s it for now! Feel free to leave comments and suggestions, I’m sure this isn’t the first draft! Hope it helps!

Hi Celtic! Thanks for the writing up this guide. I don't know Claws very well, but I have been meaning to try one.

I do have a couple comments on your Dark Armor information. Seems pretty complete and accurate! I appreciate the way you talk about some of the misconceptions around /DA's endurance heavy reputation.

Dark Embrace/Murky Cloud/Obsidian Sheild: Don't forget Toxic Tarantulas! Psi and Toxic resists don't make up for the Energy hole, but they sure soften the blow. Murky Cloud has a nice resistance to Endurance drain. Also, your Endurance costs on these powers are high. Each of them are about 0.1/sec.

Death Shroud: I tend to take this earlier than you recommend, but I can see your point about putting it off. Frankenslotting this with a mix of Multi-Strike and Cleaving Blow, both relatively inexpensive PbAoE IO sets, can go a long way toward making it viable in the twenties. Even pre-Stamina, just slotting it with a couple EndRed and managing the toggle a bit (shutting it off when not facing three or more baddies or when you can't manage the aggro) goes a long way. Like you stated, Death Shroud can quickly add up to as much DoT as any of your other attacks.

Cloak of Darkness: It's worth mentioning two things here: CoD gives you a place to put a Defense IO if you have the deep pockets to afford those tasty LotG +Rech and Karma KB protection IO's. Also, CoD gives +Perception, making fights against enemies that others may hate (Night Widows, Redcap Fiends) much easier.

Cloak of Fear: This can get really long and be a thread to itself, but I wanted to pass along a couple comments from my own Katana/DA guide.

[ QUOTE ]
Desmodos had some good clarifying information about the way I explained CoF in another thread.

[ QUOTE ]
You wrote a great guide, didn't want to derail it with yet another OG vs CoF debate, hence I did not post anything there.

[ QUOTE ]
First, Death Shroud (and your katana, I should hope!) is constantly attacking targets around you, which temporarily supresses the terrorized effect and basically turns this into an accuracy debuff. If the Fear is still active by the time your attacks finished, the target will go back into a terrorized state, but opponents that take damage from Death Shroud or another attack will still get an opportunity to attack you, although with a small accuracy penalty.

[/ QUOTE ]

The above statement, bolded part in particular reads like your stating feared mobs get to retaliate for each attack they receive, which is false. You are correct in that feared mobs can attack you if disturbed but their response is not tit for tat. Typically, I can get off 2-5 attacks before feared mobs will attempt to retaliate a second time, or several Death Shroud tics if you will.

I like to think of feared mobs as being on some sort of attack timer, preventing them from attacking until the timer runs out, allowing for the attack and resetting the timer. Unfortunately, I've yet to come up with any reliable reproducible test method for this as Fear seems to vary considerably from mob type to mob type, I.E. Mook, Family, and Council Marksman will run away to snipe from a distance, but instead of attacking, run off to some corner and cower. Air, Fire, and Earth Casters from CoTs behave similarly. Clockworks seem to have no fear resistance what so ever, while other robots seem to have some level of fear resistance. Against Nemesis, CoF is virtually useless.

With all the above variables, I still prefer CoF over OG as the wander effect from the stun annoys me to no end.

[ QUOTE ]
It also has an accuracy penalty and a short Fear duration combined with a long activation cycle of 5 seconds.

[/ QUOTE ]

This statement is also mis-leading. Yes, CoF tics every 5 seconds, but base duration for the fear effect is 7.5 seconds, though the effect does not stack. This makes the fear effect of the power quite perma while mobs remain in melee range.

Slotting for fear duration, while not practical, can have some rather entertaining effects. While under HO slotting, I attempted heard an entire room of council once and was confused as to how I failed to herd single one upon exiting the room. A SG mate laughing hysterically informed me I'd feared the entire room. It lasted about 3 seconds before the room rushed us.

The Tohit Debuff portion lasts for 5 seconds.

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CoF is definitely worth trying out on a Dark Armor Scrapper, without a doubt. I might even sneak it into the build on my newest DA toon. I'd advise at least using the power before dimissing it. Like I mentioned above, I've had it in and out of my build a few times, both pre- and post-OG, and decided to skip eventually. But I don't discount it's effectiveness!

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Thanks again! Nice work.

-Bobi

I'm leveling this build currently, it's one of the more entertaining scrappers I've tried. Good guide, but there is one thing that stuck out and is bothering me. Eviscerate can be far less situational if you jump prior to the attack. The cone will often hit 3-5 enemies if you do this, making the damage more than worth it. Just thought I'd point that out.

Not to quibble, but Follow-up gives a base +10% boost to [u]To-Hit[u], not Accuracy. There's a big difference there and it should be noted/corrected in your guide.

Thanks for the guide! Good Job. I have absolutely no experience with DA, so that was good reading (I'll figure out what it actually says after I try a DA set) but I found the claw section rather informative.
My claw/regen just turned 50, and as I am trying to figure out how to respec/final build this was rather helpful. I took swipe at lvl 49 to see if I was missing anything, I tend to agree with you on that power - it just doesn't fit in. And confront is right out - don't even think about it. Eviscerate is a bit of a quandry. I really hate the long activation. The rest of the set does much better. The only reason I have not yet respec'ed out of it is that in a longer battle, I hate to wait on an attack to recharge, and I hate to use anything other than claws (say boxing or air superiority) because of the 'taking out the claws' animation / activation. With that in mind, what I do is to use all my other claw attacks first, so by the time I use evisc' I have probably used folllow up twice already.
Another trick I use is hasten. When I pop hasten, I can pretty much stay with my first three or four attacks - all quick activation, heavier damage, some build up and def debuff, and no knockback (although I have seen focus actually knockback on some weaker foes - but not very often). It really is a beautiful feeling. The real problem with this is the recharge on hasten. And zipping into a mob on SS - getting in the alpha strike before they know you're there - priceless. I can zip in on an AV and have him flat on his back before he can even react. As for flurry and whirlwind, just say no...

Small note, CoD no longer completely covers the costume. I only note this because I thought it did, and almost skipped the power because of it. With i16 CoD can be made very minimal with the right color choices. This is a great guide, and one of the few I have ever read all the way through.