I have a level 41 energy/dark brute, so first off - good choice! I love playing my brute and I'm sure you will too.
personally I had every DA power except 1, i would say they're all great but only go for either cloak of fear or opressive gloom, no need for both. and CoF has pretty high endurance usage so i respeced it out for opressive gloom.
murky cloud is more useful in later levels, so although you can select it early on, save it till later.
with energy melee again I went for all except taunt and stun which sounded a bit useless to me.
Dark Regen is the saving grqace of DA, take it, slot it, use it, love it
Additional. This is for a brute, as a scrapper CoF and OG are more usefull, but they stop people hitting my brute which can be annoying
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
Beware the huge endurance-drain of DA... sure, Obsidian Shield will protect you from extrenal end-drain - very handy against Sappers - but it won't protect you from the heavious drain of the stacked toggles. Even with 3-slotted Stamina, you'll find yourself running low if you don't have a Kinetic on hand... if your primary has an end-drain power - such as Dark Meele does - take it and use it heavily. Otherwise, prepare to slot a lot of powers with endurance-reduction ench...
There is a reason Dark Consumption is in the DM set... basically allows the whole DA set to keep going.
I use Cloak of Fear as a hold when triggering Soul Drain and Dark Regen. Oppressive Shield I tend to use against Sappers and Spec Ops as a way to get them to stop zapping me with end drain.
On the whole I find Cloak of Fear much more useful..
BTW I have every power in the DA set and use them all.
I'm gonna give dark armor a try are there any powers to avoid at all costs?
prob go energy as primary.
Many thanks.