You know... You could ask me instead of padding your postcount. 
Yes its a surivable combo. Can be heavy on the end however(unless you learn to manage your shields).
Great AoE yes.
CoF... Eh... Some like while others don't. Me? Fear is very situational. And I prefer Oppressive Gloom over Cloak of Fear. OG stops most minions while CoF just slows down the attacks a bit(especially since your damage auras will remove the fear). Then again CoF can affect lieutenants while OG only affects minions.
Take both if you can.
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I heard spines/dark does great aoe and that the cloak of fear Was divine. Any thoughts?
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Fixed that for you 
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spines/dark is a nice little combo, requires more thought an planning than your usual claws/regen. But can be made to work very nices.
To answer your question, yes it is
You might want to wait for i12 to discover other AOE style options
I was wondering if spines/dark would be a survivable combo. My playstyle as a scrapper is to wait for the tank or whoever else it is that wants to take the agro to take it and then I jump in and blast the whole group to atoms^^ I heard spines/dark does great aoe and that the cloak of fear is divine. Any thoughts?