Sounds horrible in terms of Endurance. :/
I am considering Dark/Energy Melee, mainly for the massive amount of stuns to combine with Oppressive Gloom
Relying on having to actively provide your own survivability is imo better than passively relying on it. Your challenged more because in order to survive you have to act and make the right decisions in time. You can enter groups, select the enemy that will cause the first main negative effect and take them out before proceeding to the next and gain survivability that way.
Stone Melee is a quick set and because it's a quick set your attacks don't allow much time for end recovery. As far as cons are concerned that's it. Its possible that your more like a 100 metre sprinter.
Dark Armour has a end thirsty heal and you can run too many enemy affecting toggles (except oppressive gloom) at once to really counteract end recovery. So if you can 2 end slot anything, 2 end slot the self heal and 2 end slot the damage aura. If you take CoF of which I'd imagine might be a mag 3 fear then 2 end slot that too.
What I didn't think of taking was Cloak of Darkness (I wonder if they'll change it). Def to all, stacked to the tohit debuff of CoF and stacked to another +def, its notsobad and the additional perception is always good but the stealth I regard bad and as it is with my Brute the res to immob can come from combat jump anyway. I'd still fancy the additional perception...perception helps you make better tanking decisions and act against blinds.
A problem with relying on utility with dark armour is that there is a lot that you rely on which needs a tohit check. As a Tank, one can be debuffed to hell, and I know it and the now and again instances of build up don't cover all of those times. So without something extra your relying on yellows. Plus tohit powers also give me my plus perception 
Seeing as hastened conserve energy would be nice (dark regen at less than half price!); I would also get Foc Acc. I won't have Foc Acc on all the time though but instead use it as and when needed which will automatically be the start of any fight.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
It'll be powerful defensively, but it'll be utter hell to keep a healthy blue bar.
I'd go so far as to say that the +Recovery Uniques and/or the "Chance for End" Proc would be virtually [u]required[u] for a well-built Dark/Stone Tanker.
My advice would be to ignore +defense, skip Cloak of Darkness and build for as much +Resistance, +Regen and +MaxHP as possible... that means taking the fighting pool for "Tough", and Fitness for Health/Stamina.
Assuming that you're skipping Cloak of Darkness, you can grab the Leaping Pool for Combat Jumping and Acrobatics to fill your Immobilise and Knockback Protection holes, which leaves you one power pool "free". Focussed Accuracy and Conserve Energy are the obvious Epic pool choices... FA will make your heal hit even when heavilly debuffed, and Conserve Energy is of obvious use given that both Stone and Dark are very, [u]very[u] endurance intensive powersets.
In terms of survivability, when slotted you'll be looking at 71% Smashing/Lethal, 55% Negative, 47% Fire/Cold, 31% Energy, 24% Toxic and 79% Psionic Resistance. The Self-Heal is trickier to slot effectively due to requiring heavy amounts of accuracy and endurance reduction... but with good use of Set IOs it will be up every 15/16 Seconds, cost around 17-18 Endurance and will recover half your HP for every foe within 20 feet.
Personally I would never put these two end heavy sets together.
And CoD: this gives you -1 threat level, which will make it harder to hold aggro while running it.
I really should do something about this signature.
Excellent responses guys, that's just the sort of feedback I was after thanks.
Death_Badger: I'm not keen on the look of EM. I have it on a brute and dominator, although they were deliberately EM for the pom-poms look .
There's a lot of disorient in the set, but am I right in thinking that whirling hands is the only aoe? Still its available earlier. What percentage chance to disorient is it? At this point I'd rather have some variety in mitigation (with SM knockdowns) rather than % chance to stun in EM.
Shannon: Ok so I'd have the potential to burn through endurance with constant attacking. I think I've got the hang of endurance management (slotting, toggle use, etc.), so I think I can live with that. I was aware of the large end cost on dark regeneration too; I'm kind of hoping that it won't be needed so much with the stuns available.
I know how useful fear is after playing my dark corruptor up to 40, I just don't know if I'll take cloak of fear. Cloak of darkness. I do like stealth, lets me position myself and fight when I choose to. However I'd picked it because of the immob resist, completely missing it would be available in combat jumping . Am I also right in thinking that the stealth doesn't suppress during combat? If that's the case then I guess this would affect how well you grabbed/maintained aggro too. Might need to think about taking it. I'll second the need for perception too; I hate those widow smoke bombs 
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A problem with relying on utility with dark armour is that there is a lot that you rely on which needs a tohit check.
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Hmmm I suppose so. Damage aura, heal, fear and disorient all need to hit a target. So the control side of dark armour needs to be slotted so that it's going to hit and not eat all of your end.
Maelwys:
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it'll be utter hell to keep a healthy blue bar.
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Yeah I'm getting that impression . I think I'm going to leave out cloak of darkness, because of the overlap and the stealth issue. I'm used to 'franken slotting' powers with my d/d corr, so I'll treat dark regeneration like twilight grasp. Thanks for the numbers, are you basing these off existing values scaled for tanks, or are they guesstimates?
PRAF68: Yeah I guess it'll be a challenge , but at the moment, that's what I'm after. I take it the -1 threat comes from the non-suppressing stealth?
Ok, you've all been a great help, thanks. I'll think about this (and maybe dark/ice) and try them out on test for a few levels. I'll try to feed back any opinions later.
Cheers,
Mike.
The Resistance values are the existing values, but scaled for Tankers.
The Heal values are taken from my own slotting with the Scrapper version of Dark Regeneration on my Spines/DA (which I have no reason to believe will be any different for Tankers). Note though that unlike Twilight Grasp,Dark Regeneration REALLY NEEDS heavy Endurance Reduction slotting. Unslotted, it costs over a third of your Endurance bar. My personal favourite slotting method is:
Sciroccos D: Acc/Dam/End (+21.2% to all)
Sciroccos D: Acc/Rech (+26.5% to all)
Multi Strike: Acc/End (+26.5% to all)
Numina's Conva.: End/Heal (+26.5% to all)
Numina's Conva.: End/Rech (+26.5% to all)
Numina's Conva.: End/Heal/Rech (+21.2% to all)
= 74.2% Acc, 21.2% Damage, 121.9% End, 47.7% Heal, 74.2% Rech
(Set Bonuses: +10% Regen, +12% Regen, +1.88% HP)
The Stealth component of CoD is inconsequential really. But it gives you stealth, which you don't need. Plus +Perception, which you can get from a cheap IO slotted in "Build Up", plus Immobilise Protection, which is available in Combat Jumping. It also costs a fair amount of endurance to run, wheras a Perception IO is "endurance free" and Combat Jumping costs virtually nothing.
Personally I view Cloak of Fear as mutually exclusive with Damage Auras, Oppressive Gloom and herding/tanking in general. It makes foes flee, which is bad for aggro control as well as your stun/damage aura effects.
Cloak of Fear is not like Burn. As a herding Dark/Dark Brute I am very happy with it. I don't cause any wander with it on.
I went on test respecing in CoD into my Brute and got close enough to effect with my damage aura almost before any response. I would worry about the people who would be up some Dark Tanks butt.
Extra tohit is a bit of something on my wishlist and you get +per with powers that give that. I have been playing around with finding out just how much tohit I'd really prefer in PVE....45% XD
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
I've been having a look at the inital numbers in MHD update 14, they have upped CoF to a mag3 fear from a mag2. The base res numbers have gone up to 30% bar psi which is no 50% base rez. The numbers for death shroud have gone down inline with the tank modifier.
CoF and OG would both be useful, CoF possibly more due to the fact that the foes don't wander off like they do with OG. How ever the .52/s end usage stings a bit.
The stealth toggle is useful, but as stated above it will reduce your threat level so it will be harder to hold agro. But still I'll be making a DA/?? tank and taking all 9 powers but not running all 7 toggles at the same time. Thinking of EM for the stuns, maybe DM (as I know the set well and can get by just taking 5 powers) or maybe fire at the outside.
Righto, new characters for I12
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I'm looking at all the options that'll be available. There have been a couple of recent posts on the American forums about Dark Armour tanks, and I think I'd like to give one a go. At the moment I'm looking to pair it with Stone Melee, but I have no experience of either of the sets.
The main reason for picking this combo is the combination of Oppressive Gloom and Fault, for regular high mag aoe stuns. I tend to go for PvE characters with strong utility sets (Corruptor, Defender, Controller), so the control aspect appeals.
I'm not going to go for a definite build until the set gets confirmed / finalised, but I'm thinking of something like;
1 Dark Embrace (Toggle: Self +Resistance(Smash, Lethal, Negative, Toxic))
1 Stone Fist (Melee, Moderate Damage(Smashing), Foe Minor Disorient)
2 Death Shroud (Toggle: Point Blank Area of Effect, Minor Damage over Time(Negative))
4 Heavy Mallet (Melee, Superior Damage(Smashing), Foe Knockback)
6 Obsidian Shield (Toggle: Self +Resistance(Psionic, Sleep, Hold, Disorient, Fear))
8 Dark Regeneration (Point Blank Area of Effect, Minor Damage(Negative), Self: +Health)
10 Swift
12 Combat Jumping
14 Super Leap
16 Cloak of Darkness (Toggle: Self Stealth, +Defense, +Perception, +Resistance(Immobilize))
18 Health
20 Stamina
22 Fault (Close(Targeted Area of Effect), Foe Knockback, Disorient)
24 Murky Cloud (Toggle: Self +Resistance(Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative, Endurance Drain))
26 Oppressive Gloom (Toggle: Point Blank Area of Effect, Foe: Disorient, Self: -Health)
28 Acrobatics
30 Build Up (Self +Damage, +Accuracy)
32 Soul Transfer (Self Rez, Special)
35 Tremor (Point Blank Area of Effect, Moderate Damage(Smashing), Foe Knockback)
38 Seismic Smash (Melee, Extreme Damage(Smashing), Foe Hold)
So I'd love to hear how any of you tanks out there are viewing dark armour and what you think the pros/cons of stone melee are.
Cheers,
Mike.