DA/Fire or DA/Stone?

I'm attempting to get a toon to a substantial level with Dark Armor. I want to know what would best synergize/complement it. With the Fire Melee I think it would be good with 2 AoE auras and all that fear and AoE goodness. But I recently read a guide for a DA/Stone that sounded like a good idea too because of the AoE stun you get from stone melee (but not till lvl 35) and the knockup as a form of control.

I want to hear your opinions. I have a feeling Dark Armor isn't the best tanking primary because I've seen a few DA tanks that are mega squishy. If neither of these are good... should I just stick to leveling my currently lvl 10 Spines/DA scrapper?

Stone gets Fault at 20, not 35.

DA/Fire will be an AoE damage beast. DA/Stone will be more survivable. If you plan on mostly teaming, I think /Stone would give you more tools to protect yourself and the team. Fault is an amazing power.

Dark Armor isn't the toughest primary for Tanks, but it's still a capable set that should be handle whatever the game throws your way.

I recommend avoiding da/fire or specifically da/fire/pyre. I have a 50 da/fire/pyre with a good # of IO's (25% def to all, lots of recharge and recovery - not a billion inf build, but 300MM easy) and simply put, without fire armor's extra buildup, the damage output isn't amazing, the survivability isn't amazing, there's no extra mitigation beyond COF/OG (fire melee's extra mitigation is.. more damage) and all in all it's "meh".

Not TERRIBLE. But not as good as my fire/fire/pyre and less survivable than some of my scrappers.

I'd rec da/stone or da/wm, fwiw.

Stone is more of a single target set. There are two AOEs in Stone (Tremor and Fault) and one of those doesn't do any damage (Fault). It's a good mitigation line and excellent for single target damage.

If you are set on Dark Armor (and I've seen Dark Armor run really well with a little care) I would suggest War Mace. It's mitigation is as good or better then Stone (lots of disorients and knockdowns) and has more AOEs in its repetoire.

Note: Dark Armor and WM are both endurance hogs (as is Stone for that matter but for a different reason) so be prepared to frankenslot a lot and/or IO for recovery.

The biggest hurdle in learning how to play DA is learning how to time the gigantic heal. Hit it too soon and it won't be up when you REALLY need it, and if you wait too long you might be dead by time the heal actually hits (there's a delay)

Also, pick up a Theft of Essence: Chance for +End IO as soon as you reasonably can. Dark Regeneration takes a full third of your end bar to use unslotted. The Chance for +End checks to go off for every target in range, you can actually come out ahead on endurance if it goes off enough times.

Dark Armor isn't the hardiest set as far as resistance and defense is concerned. You CAN soft cap it to 2 out of 3 positions, but you might have to give up too much elsewhere to do it, and it will likely be expensive. DA has other tools to mitigate damage, though, in Oppressive Gloom and Cloak of Fear.

Given a one-or-the-other choice I would say go with DA/Stone/Stone. Stone Melee has a lot of mitigation in knockdowns and stuns to help keep DA alive and Stone Mastery also has an AoE stun if I remember right, which will stack with Oppressive Gloom to stun anything up to and including a boss (mag 5 when stacked together)

That's my take on Dark Armor, I have 64 levels of experience with it on scrappers, a 50 and a level 14, so I hope it helps a little bit.