You need to up your melee defense by a lot and carry purple insps on top of it, or get fort/cold shields/bubbles. At that point, you're fine.
Edit: Really I'd just carry two rows worth of insps. You can buy them before entering - every AE run I clean out my insp tray before going in and buy what I need. When the **** hits the fan, eat enough purples to get you near or above the softcap, and then kill them before they wear off.
Did I miss something?
I would rather not have to depend on the proper team build to keep me alive. Let's be honest, sometimes the buffs just arent available.
Any Hero Designer builds would be nice. My lethal/smashing is what im worried about, considering thats what the majority of the farms are nowadays. Yes, obviously I need to up my melee defenses, but what sets are the best? Which sets should I mix-and-match to get that perfect balance?
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Did I miss something?
I would rather not have to depend on the proper team build to keep me alive. Let's be honest, sometimes the buffs just arent available.
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Oh, I totally agree. But dark is a *resist* based set, not a defense set (even though it comes with CoD, which is not bad!) so it's tougher to get defense when you're starting from practically zero. Could be worse (ie: fire armor).
[ QUOTE ]
Any Hero Designer builds would be nice. My lethal/smashing is what im worried about, considering thats what the majority of the farms are nowadays. Yes, obviously I need to up my melee defenses, but what sets are the best? Which sets should I mix-and-match to get that perfect balance?
[/ QUOTE ]
Given you're starting from 0 and COD and Weave and CJ are all +def to all, you've got options. I think you will have a tough go of it though - I just set up my dark/fire/pyre tanker to be 33% def to melee. I could be 40% (heck if I dropped /pyre I could softcap) but I ran out of powers to IO mule - I'd rather KEEP fireball, for instance 
At some point I may get 2 sets of obliteration and hit 40% anyhow, we'll see.
This should get you started. Most common is either 6 slot touch of death (3.75% melee) or 4 slot Kinetic Combat (3.75% S/L) - you can build either direction, I prefer melee to S/L when I have a choice. 6 Obliteration (3.75% melee / 1.875% S/L) for the AOE's is standard, but expensive.
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Category..._Melee_Defense
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Category...Lethal_Defense
One note on the insp popping method - I leveled my fire/invuln scrapper as the main tank in 53/54 farms a few weeks back as soon as he got invincibility. I was already at about 15% S/L, so I'd build teams to ensure I got a fort or bubbles, and always had insps if buffers got lazy. He's softcapped now, but it worked extremely well.
Here is my current spines/dark armor build. He is pretty beefy
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/
[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]
Murcielago: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Spines
Secondary Power Set: Dark Armor
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leaping
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Lunge -- Hectmb-Dmg(A), Hectmb-Dmg/Rchg(3), Hectmb-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(3), Hectmb-Acc/Rchg(5), Hectmb-Dmg/EndRdx(5)
Level 1: Dark Embrace -- ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), ImpArm-ResDam/Rchg(7), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(7), ImpArm-ResDam(9), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(9), S'fstPrt-ResKB(33)
Level 2: Death Shroud -- M'Strk-Acc/Dmg(A), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx(11), M'Strk-Dmg/Rchg(11), M'Strk-Acc/EndRdx(13), M'Strk-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(13), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15)
Level 4: Spine Burst -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(15), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(17), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(17), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(19), Oblit-%Dam(19)
Level 6: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 8: Impale -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(21), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(21), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(23), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(23), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39)
Level 10: Obsidian Shield -- ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), ImpArm-ResDam/Rchg(25), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(27), ImpArm-ResDam(27)
Level 12: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(29), RechRdx-I(29)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(37), Zephyr-ResKB(37)
Level 16: Murky Cloud -- ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), ImpArm-ResDam/Rchg(33), ImpArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(33), ImpArm-ResDam(34)
Level 18: Dark Regeneration -- M'Strk-Acc/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(34), Numna-EndRdx/Rchg(34), Numna-Heal/Rchg(36), Theft-+End%(36), Nictus-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(36)
Level 20: Health -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A)
Level 22: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(25), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(37), P'Shift-End%(39)
Level 24: Build Up -- AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx/Rchg(31), AdjTgt-EndRdx/Rchg(31), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx(48), AdjTgt-Rchg(50)
Level 26: Ripper -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(40), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(40), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(42), Oblit-%Dam(42)
Level 28: Quills -- M'Strk-Acc/Dmg(A), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx(42), M'Strk-Dmg/Rchg(43), M'Strk-Acc/EndRdx(43), M'Strk-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43), M'Strk-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(45)
Level 30: Cloak of Darkness -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(31), LkGmblr-Rchg+(48)
Level 32: Throw Spines -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(45), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(45), Posi-Dmg/Rng(46), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(46)
Level 35: Oppressive Gloom -- Amaze-Stun/Rchg(A), Amaze-Acc/Rchg(39)
Level 38: Boxing -- Acc-I(A)
Level 41: Tough -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(50), Aegis-ResDam(50)
Level 44: Weave -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(46), LkGmblr-Rchg+(48)
Level 47: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 49: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Acc-I(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit
Virtue: @Santorican
Dark/Shield Build Thread
I have a lvl 50 Spines/Dark, who, at the moment, is running on an IO build of about 250 mill. Back before rare sets and AE, that was the cream of the crop. Most of my bonuses came in the fashion of Recovery bonuses, as anyone with a Spines/Dark knows, if it's one thing that will kill you, it's endurance.
So my current build has next to no problems with endurance.
I always run on full teams, mostly boss farms (keep the comments to yourself :P) and I shred through everything so fast that even blasters dont know what happened.
Although there's one problem: I want to be more 'tankish.' Dark Regen is my best friend, but sometimes on those 52 or 54 boss farms, the recharge just isnt fast enough. Now, I'm not saying I want to tank them myself, but when the case comes when the tank overaggros and the teams getting ready to wipe (a common occurence in AE), I want to be able to hold my ground.
Money is of no concern to me. I have all the time in the world, and my spines/dark is my favorite build to play. I'm looking for a build that really utilizes the rare IO sets. Does anyone have any insane Spines/Dark builds that combine survivability with damage and endurance in mind as well?
Any help is appreciated, thanks for reading