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I also have a miracle +recov to help, and I use OwTS as an end recovery power 
Now I can attack all the time!
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Note that unless one slots One with the Shield for endurance modification, all of the recovered endurance will exactly be consumed by the crash. Even with three endurance modification SOs, the net recovery benefit is relatively small.
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Thanks Speed_Force ... actually you get well beyond the softcap on my build (Debuffs in Dark Melee), but very nice alternative.
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Yes and no.
It's true that much of the time the debuff from DM will help close the gap but there are enough situations in the game where the attackers will avoid your melee attacks that you may notice the hole in the defenses.
- Enemies attacking from Range. Until you are able to close into melee and successfully hit them, they would still be attacking you at the lower defense values with Range and AoE attacks.
- Too many enemies in melee range. You can have up to 17 enemies attacking you at one time and it is essentially impossible to maintain DM's -tohit debuff on that many targets for very long. Especially if new enemies are cycling in to replace the ones you defeat as fast as they fall.
When fighting on a map set for 4+ players, you can often encounter multiple spawn points where you will have more enemies attacking to see this happen.
If you have a defender in the group adding to your +def or others in melee range to bolster Phalanx Fighting then you are fine, but if you are soloing a map like that (easily done after I16) or teamed with blasters then the lower Defense might become an issue.
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Mmmmm the "no" part is so few and far between to be negligible on my SD Tanker. Keep in mind that I'm talking about making up only 3-5% tops, which the debuffs easily do. My opener is usually SD + SC + DC, which pretty much hits all the mobs in melee range with at least one debuff if not both (covering that little gap easily).
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Neither Soul Drain nor Dark Consumption have any -ToHit components so of the attacks that you list, only Shield Charge is adding any mitigation and that for only 2-3 seconds through it's knockdown effect.
The only AoE power in Dark Melee which applies -ToHit is Shadow Maul which can only hit a maximum of five targets at a time. So if you are surrounded by a group of say 15 enemies, several of them will have an additional 3-5% chance to hit you due to your defenses not being at the cap.
On average, that translates to 60-100% more damage that you will receive from those attackers than you would have received if your positional defenses had been at the cap.
While it's a small difference, I learned a long time ago that CoX is a game of numbers and small numbers can quickly add up to noticeable changes in how the game plays and "feels".
Yeah my bad ... but again it never seems to crop up as a problem (and melee is capped which might be the difference here).
Virinv (unsual name, but then I look at my name) beat me to the punch. The scrapper guides that I looked at for the Dark powers also confirm this.
Soul Drain and Dark Consumption do not debuff accuracy. All the other powers do, including Shadow Maul, but the two main AoEs do not debuff accuracy. Not sure why the Devs would take it out of those two powers... well actually I could imagine why, but yeah.
For the most part, you will only be debuffing the tohit if the person you are directly attacking, or those that you hit with Shadow Maul. All the others would not be.
Oh and with Soul Drain, I decided to continue to use Gaussian in that power even though it doesn't add anything to accuracy. Mainly for the set bonuses that it provides. On my current build, I have the Kismet unique, plus 70% to global accuracy. So slotting accuracy is not needed on that power.
But for normal builds, you would want to slot Soul Drain with something that gives you accuracy. You can't afford to miss with this power.
Just did an STF with him (although there was a Stone Tanker in the group as well).
He whizzed through the TF itself and skads of Arachnos weren't a problem (this was one area I was nervous about). Although the Stoner took the main tanking parts, the AVs that I had direct agro on from time to time (Dr. Aeon, GW, Scirroco and Mako and all of the lesser ones) were handled with ease.
Lord Recluse ate through me like cheese but this was usually picking up for the Stone Tanker when he went down and I had no support, so not really surprising there. The only concerning part (to me) was the L54 Banes seemed to have their way with me as well which I wasn't too pleased with.
I have a question?
Many of the builds list LotG + 7.5% recharge multiple times. I thought this was a Unique that could only be slotted once.
It seems though, since it has been used fairly pervasively, that I may be misinformed, and instead of asking a question I just embarrassed myself.
[b][color=plum]Mind Cloak, Dark/Psi Defender, 50, Victory
[color=red]Llew Silverhands, Inv/NRG Tank, 50, Virtue
[color=gold]Star-Spangled Youth, DB/WP Scrapper, 50, Virtue
[color=cyan]Forceful, Grav/FF Controller, 50, Virtue[/b]
You'd think it would be a unique but no, LotG: +Recharge is not unique.
You can have up to five of them in any one build before their bonuses stop applying.
However additional 7.5% bonuses from sets are not counted with the LotG IOs so theoretically you can have up to five of those bonuses as well.
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You can have up to five of them in any one build before their bonuses stop applying.
However additional 7.5% bonuses from sets are not counted with the LotG IOs so theoretically you can have up to five of those bonuses as well.
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LotG: +Recharge doesn't count against the rule of 5?
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You can have up to five of them in any one build before their bonuses stop applying.
However additional 7.5% bonuses from sets are not counted with the LotG IOs so theoretically you can have up to five of those bonuses as well.
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LotG: +Recharge doesn't count against the rule of 5?
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What's important for the "rule of five" is the name of the bonus. You can only have five "large recharge" bonuses. Luck of the Gambler has its own name, "Luck of the Gambler: Recharge" (or something similar. Since it's not the same as the name for other 7.5% recharge bonuses, they stack.
In other words, you can have five LotGs and five 7.5% set bonuses for a total of +75% rech.
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The only concerning part (to me) was the L54 Banes seemed to have their way with me as well which I wasn't too pleased with.
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I'm not 100% certain, but since the Banes are summoned by Lord Recluse, I believe they inherit some of his buffs. The 30% +tohit buff from the blue tower (which seemed to be inherited when my softcapped SR scrapper last faced them and LR) made 45% melee defense feel like 15%...and they hit hard.
Their level difference (+4) to us also amplifies any inherited +toHit over their base of 50%, since it gives them an accuracy boost against us at L50. As bosses, they get even more built-in accuracy boost.
Note: I was using combat logs to estimate their tohit buff, someone with a power analyzer could confirm/deny my observations (assuming the attribute monitor is correctly designed to show any inherited buffs).
I've been working on SD/DM tank and a DM/SD brute as well...still below L35 but already quite fun! 
I have a Scrapper and now a Tank with these sets. It's a very good mix. Shields gets a heal from Siphon Life, and Shadow Punch becomes a Shield attack. Debuff To Hit aids Defense. Nice PBAoE's, but I would just slot 4 full sets of Obliteration.
Quixotik
"I did not say this. I am not here." -Guild Navigator
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The only concerning part (to me) was the L54 Banes seemed to have their way with me as well which I wasn't too pleased with.
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I'm not 100% certain, but since the Banes are summoned by Lord Recluse, I believe they inherit some of his buffs. The 30% +tohit buff from the blue tower (which seemed to be inherited when my softcapped SR scrapper last faced them and LR) made 45% melee defense feel like 15%...and they hit hard.
Their level difference (+4) to us also amplifies any inherited +toHit over their base of 50%, since it gives them an accuracy boost against us at L50. As bosses, they get even more built-in accuracy boost.
Note: I was using combat logs to estimate their tohit buff, someone with a power analyzer could confirm/deny my observations (assuming the attribute monitor is correctly designed to show any inherited buffs).
I've been working on SD/DM tank and a DM/SD brute as well...still below L35 but already quite fun!
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Ah that would make sense then ... SD is notoriously weak against mobs that have large +toHit. I've done L54 bosses before and in greater numbers with this build and hadn't any major issues, so I'm thinking you are correct about their bonuses.
Sarrate: Ahh thank you for clearing that up, I'm going to have to rethinking some of my slotting now. Any insight into the Banes that Recluse spawns?
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You can have up to five of them in any one build before their bonuses stop applying.
However additional 7.5% bonuses from sets are not counted with the LotG IOs so theoretically you can have up to five of those bonuses as well.
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LotG: +Recharge doesn't count against the rule of 5?
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As I said, LotG 7.5% Recharge bonuses count as their own set and the Rule of 5 does apply to them in that any more than 5 LotG IOs will not apply.
However, as their bonus counts as it's own set, you can also have up to five 7.5% IO set bonuses as well.
And that is not a bug, the Devs have said that that is the way those bonuses are supposed to apply as the LotG is flagged in the system differently form the standard set bonus calculations.
Just ran an ITF last night on the SD/DM Tanker with about halfway built between the original posted build and my advance build.
Health never dropped below 80% ... including soloing a tower and the pack of Warshades/Bright Novas at the top of the Oracle. I had two Dark Defenders with me at Romi so hard to tell how good versus how debuffed he was, but Romi never touched me.
Performed amazingly.
I did notice the larger Warshade mobs made filling the cones harder (especially inside the caves doing the shards).
Also in large group tanking, not having Taunt or a ranged power makes protecting the team a bit tougher. A fast recharging Shield Charge helps but who wants to waste that on two mobs beating up the Blaster in the corner? 
... I highly suggest Taunt though for this build for those people who want to full group team a lot (moreso then for most other Tanker builds I've tried).
Finally I was running with 2 Membrane Exposures in Active Defense ... this got my Defense Debuff Resist to between 56% and 82% depending if Active Defense was double stacked or not.
Enjoy.
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Do those powers actually debuff? I'm not seeing anything about -tohit in the power description, in Mids, in City of Data, on the Paragon Wiki and in the powers info ingame. Yet I'm seeing people talk about it here a lot, so I must be missing something?
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Nope. Many of the DM abilities debuff hit, but not Soul Drain or Dark Consumption.