/Dark sucks?

It seems to have very un-useful powers, Cloak of Fear and Death Shroud and that Oppressive Gloom.

I was thinking about trying to get my resistances at the cap, if not, close to the cap. How can I get them closer/or at the res cap?

I was probably gonna try to get some more def from pool powers and set IOs, but is there any easier reccomended ways to get some more defence? Or are these the only two options?

I have a 48 Claws/Dark Scrapper which I've left for some time. But, I just can't help thinking that /Dark sucks compared to the other secondarys?

Any suggestions or reccomendations?

---

Definitely doesn't suck.

---

*facepalm*

/Dark is a great secondary just because it is not /SR it doesn't mean it sucks.

---

* shakes head *

And you listed some of the most interesting/useFULL powers in the set...

---

I'll be the first to tell you Dark does not suck. Oppressive Gloom is one of the better damage mitigation powers scrappers get that is not resistance or defense. The heal is the most powerful heal in the game by a wide margin. Death Shroud adds a LOT to your damage output over time. Dark is also one of 2 sets available to scrappers that resists Psi damage and fears. Before Willpower came out it was the ONLY set that had either.

If you're looking at just the resistance and defense numbers of the set you're looking at it the wrong way. Dark's other damage mitigators are what really make it shine.

You can get Smashing/Lethal resistance closer to the cap with Tough, but that's about it.

It is possible to soft-cap 2 out of 3 positions, but it will be very expensive and possibly gimp the rest of your build to do it. If you can get to around 20-25% defense to all positions you should be in good shape.

Dark doesn't suck at all, you just need to wrap your head around the idea that it isn't like any of the other sets scrappers can use.

(waiting for Desmodos to post in here )


EDIT: Okay, I guess I was the third to tell him.

---

Maybe he means sucks alot of endurance? I will say this its the most endurance intensive set I have ever played. I just wish there was a little more leeway with the endurance costs.

---

Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator

Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!

[ QUOTE ]
(waiting for Desmodos to post in here )


[/ QUOTE ]

ditto

---

Dark sucks.

Damn cloak of darkness hiding my costume.

Damn me being too weak and number-obsessed to just skip the damn power.

---

A- Theres no such thing as a bad scrapper secondary,
B- I love my spines/dark its awesome,

So with that said -

DARK SUCKS!!!!!

(you know I'm serious cos I used 5 exclamation marks)

---

[ QUOTE ]
(waiting for Desmodos to post in here )

[/ QUOTE ]

Folks seemed to have it covered, so I wasn't going to, but since you mentioned me


[ QUOTE ]
It seems to have very un-useful powers, Cloak of Fear and Death Shroud and that Oppressive Gloom.

[/ QUOTE ]


Vallatabanan, here's why everyone's gonnna differ from you. The powers you listed as "un-useful" what most Dark Armor enthusiasts love love about Dark Armor.

Death Shroud is a great endurance management tool. When fighting 3 targets or more, it allows you to focu on meaner targets, requireing less attacks on minions. Less attacks means less endurance burned.

CoF or OG mitigate minion damage and can be stacked with your primary for great mitigation against LT and Bosses.

Use Dark Armor's tools to their fullest, invest in some IOs and I think you'll be amazed at how strong Claws/Dark can be.

Try the Dark Armor sections of the guide in my Sig. Claws/DA is a popular set, you should have no trouble getting advice

---

Okay, on a serious note, I'm somewhere between borderline hate and just plain meh when it comes to CoF and OG.
And wheres my Knockback protection?

But Death shroud is the reason I took the set.
It also offer Great Survivability.
Straight out of the box, with no IOs, my experience was that this set was more survivable than any other secondary I have played other than /Inv.

Of course that could mean I just made mistakes with the other sets, (I never use mids to plan a build till mid 30s, it means I've at least tried the set 'raw') and IOs really do change the playing field considerably (Oh, theres my Knockback protection)

Seriously, listen to Des, she's knows of what shes speaks, Dark Rawks!

---

Oh yes, dark sucks... the life from my foes. Here's the resistance for decent slotting.

Smashing: 34.34
Lethal: 34.34
Fire: 34.16
Cold: 34.16
Energy: 22.77
Negitive Energy: 45.67
Psionic: 56.92
Toxic: 22.90

That may nto seem like much, but with dark regen you can heal for 1/3 your max health per enemy hit every 30 seconds (unslotted). Assuming you have the endurance to power it, that means if a group can't kill you in 30 seconds, they can't kill you at all.

Add to that either cloak of fear or oppressive gloom and the enemies aren't bloody likely to kill you at all. Heck as I write this I've got Dark Regen on autocast while five banished pathion zombies attack me. They can't kill me. And I'm level 26.

---

"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton

Madam Enigma's History

Well, with IOs it actually gets more impressive.

<ul type="square">
Smashing: 47.4
Letha: 47.4
Fire: 43.2
Cold: 43.2
Energy: 23.1
Negative: 46.3
Psionic: 57.8
Toxic: 33.1[/list]

---

^^ I know. I've had to tank the Clockwork King during synapse TF's because the tank was an invuln and died close to instantly vs the psi damage AV. Watching arrogant invuln tanks fighting psi enemies is always amusing to me. They usually claim nothing can hurt them, and then they end up taking a dirt nap or ten.

---

"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton

Madam Enigma's History

Made a claws/dark as my first toon back in I4. Still have him to this day. One thing I like about this character is whenever I get bored I just use a respec, make something completely different, and still rock the house with it.

---

[ QUOTE ]


I have a 48 Claws/Dark Scrapper which I've left for some time. But, I just can't help thinking that /Dark sucks compared to the other secondarys?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think I would label the whole secondary as "sucking" because you are having some issues. I give you credit for coming to the boards and asking for some input, but don't write off /Dark just yet.

---

To be fair, at low levels /dark isn't so great. At low levels it has meh resistances and no way to recover health, but still has huge endurance costs. When you get dark regen it's like night and day. And once you can slot 3 end redux and an acc into dark regen it's like night and day again. But before then? I found /dark to be very squishy. It's a late bloomer so may appear to 'suck' at first.

---

"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton

Madam Enigma's History

[ QUOTE ]
To be fair, at low levels /dark isn't so great. At low levels it has meh resistances and no way to recover health, but still has huge endurance costs. When you get dark regen it's like night and day. And once you can slot 3 end redux and an acc into dark regen it's like night and day again. But before then? I found /dark to be very squishy. It's a late bloomer so may appear to 'suck' at first.

[/ QUOTE ]

I get where you're going with that, but it kind of needs clarification. While I agree Dark Armor changes radically once you have Dark Regeneration, DR is available at level 16; hardly what I would call late in the game. DR is rather unmanageable until level 22 and access to SOs/lvl25 IOs.

Mez auras are the next major advancement for Dark Armor, CoF at 28 or OG at level 35. Though CoF is available at level 28, it will probably be around level 35 before you can slot it up to be fully effective.

Compare to SR that needs to wait until level 35 before it can plug it's AoE defense hole, Dark Armor isn't quite the late bloomer. While yes, you will definitely see a jump in survivability from level 35 on, you can still do rather impressive things in the mid-20s just by leaning on Dark Regeneration.

---

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To be fair, at low levels /dark isn't so great. At low levels it has meh resistances and no way to recover health, but still has huge endurance costs. When you get dark regen it's like night and day. And once you can slot 3 end redux and an acc into dark regen it's like night and day again. But before then? I found /dark to be very squishy. It's a late bloomer so may appear to 'suck' at first.

[/ QUOTE ]

I get where you're going with that, but it kind of needs clarification. While I agree Dark Armor changes radically once you have Dark Regeneration, DR is available at level 16; hardly what I would call late in the game. DR is rather unmanageable until level 22 and access to SOs/lvl25 IOs.

Mez auras are the next major advancement for Dark Armor, CoF at 28 or OG at level 35. Though CoF is available at level 28, it will probably be around level 35 before you can slot it up to be fully effective.

Compare to SR that needs to wait until level 35 before it can plug it's AoE defense hole, Dark Armor isn't quite the late bloomer. While yes, you will definitely see a jump in survivability from level 35 on, you can still do rather impressive things in the mid-20s just by leaning on Dark Regeneration.

[/ QUOTE ]

I should clarify too. I find the trip from 1 to 16 sometimes takes longer then the trip from 16 to 30. And post 30 things really start picking up. At level 25 my DM/DA seems like mini-god mode, but then that's half way through his career. And I still feel the crunch of endurance frequently. DM helps the endurance issues with dark consumption, but at base that's only up once every 3 minutes.

SR on the other hand I find is good most of the way through the levels. Low levels it's ok, but once you get DO's it starts picking up. And I didn't really have much of an issue with the aoe hole till I fought nemesis constantly. Even then I just ran into melee with them, causing them to keep trying to lance me.

On the other hand, back in issue 4 my claw/sr was perma debt till level 30. However back then my dm/da was painful to play due to dark regen costing a third of my endurance bar AFTER 3 slotting end redux SO's.

So part of the 'late blooming' is also 'later issues then when I started'. I love that they reduxed it's end costs by a large margin.

---

"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton

Madam Enigma's History

Come on guys, you should have just said dark sucks and let it go. Dark doesn't suck!

---

I started a claws/dark last night. The character is 9 at the moment, and is nothing but pure frustration. I have to constantly pop respites or I die. It's like the dark embrace toggle isn't even doing anything. And Death Shroud? Heh, don't get me started.

I came to this forum to seek input rather than just outright delete the character and chalk it up to another bad experience. Then I found this thread saying how awesome not only dark armor, but claws/DA gets. So tell me, when does it stop sucking so horribly? I've played Doms with better survivability than what this character has so far.

---

[ QUOTE ]
I came to this forum to seek input rather than just outright delete the character and chalk it up to another bad experience. Then I found this thread saying how awesome not only dark armor, but claws/DA gets. So tell me, when does it stop sucking so horribly? I've played Doms with better survivability so far.

[/ QUOTE ]

You only got to level 9 and you're complaining about lacking survivability? It won't even get close to tolerable until 22 and SOs, just like for every Scrapper.

---

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I came to this forum to seek input rather than just outright delete the character and chalk it up to another bad experience. Then I found this thread saying how awesome not only dark armor, but claws/DA gets. So tell me, when does it stop sucking so horribly? I've played Doms with better survivability so far.

[/ QUOTE ]

You only got to level 9 and you're complaining about lacking survivability? It won't even get close to tolerable until 22 and SOs, just like for every Scrapper.

[/ QUOTE ]

I beg to differ, /dark is by far the worst set I've tried. My willpower, regen, and fire characters were never this bad. And if it actually takes SO's to make the character playable...sheesh.

Note that I'm not disputing it gets good later. I know it does from other scrappers I've played with. I'm just making the point that from my perspective, the set blows hard at the very low levels. I'm sure once I get the self heal it will get a LOT better, but until then.....yeah.

---

[ QUOTE ]
I started a claws/dark last night. The character is 9 at the moment, and is nothing but pure frustration. I have to constantly pop respites or I die. It's like the dark embrace toggle isn't even doing anything. And Death Shroud? Heh, don't get me started.

I came to this forum to seek input rather than just outright delete the character and chalk it up to another bad experience. Then I found this thread saying how awesome not only dark armor, but claws/DA gets. So tell me, when does it stop sucking so horribly? I've played Doms with better survivability than what this character has so far.

[/ QUOTE ]Welcome to pre-22 on every single scrapper, tank, brute, and stalker ever. Until you get to SOs, your defensive powers aren't running at full effectiveness.

Some tips to get you there:

<ul type="square">[*]Know that until you get to *at least* DOs, your defenses are still paperthin.[*]Set yourself up to have Stamina at 20, Dark Regeneration at 16, and Obsidian Shield at 10. Murky Cloud can be put off for a while unless you plan to do a Synapse TF, or like fighting clocks.[*]Use DR sparingly until you get it at least three-slotted with Acc/End/End SOs (or equivalent IO slotting)[/list]
My experience on DA is with a tanker, not a scrapper, but those really did the trick for me (ignoring the specific level at which to get powers).

---

Apostrophe guidelines.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I came to this forum to seek input rather than just outright delete the character and chalk it up to another bad experience. Then I found this thread saying how awesome not only dark armor, but claws/DA gets. So tell me, when does it stop sucking so horribly? I've played Doms with better survivability so far.

[/ QUOTE ]

You only got to level 9 and you're complaining about lacking survivability? It won't even get close to tolerable until 22 and SOs, just like for every Scrapper.

[/ QUOTE ]

I beg to differ, /dark is by far the worst set I've tried. My willpower, regen, and fire characters were never this bad. And if it actually takes SO's to make the character playable...sheesh.

Note that I'm not disputing it gets good later. I know it does from other scrappers I've played with. I'm just making the point that from my perspective, the set blows hard at the very low levels. I'm sure once I get the self heal it will get a LOT better, but until then.....yeah.

[/ QUOTE ]Your /regen was good pre-SOs? The only thing good about it for me pre-SOs was that I wasn't sucking wind. Hell, she hit the floor more often than my *blaster* did pre-SOs. It's quite simply that your defenses aren't fully developed, and you're rushing into melee because all your attacks are melee attacks.

And if you think /dark is bad pre-SOs, don't even *bother* with /SR or a Warshade.

---

Apostrophe guidelines.