Dark Armor Angst

Love the thread title.

This would have been a great pic if you weren't actually the one who started trolling by answering rudely to his comment, as he only tried to help.

Technically, he's completely right in his follow up too. If you don't buy IOs to compensate for something that's not there, then surely you don't buy any sets as the bonuses aren't in the set, and even common IOs should be out of the question as the enhancements bonuses aren't in the base build either.

You're someone special alright, playing petless masterminds to brag about it on the forums and type snarky answers at people because they dare assume you, GuyPerfect, would be a mere commoner who follows the normal trends. These fools !

Just to say it, this is why I've always insisted on not taking Aid Other on a Buff/Debuff set that doesn't have a heal power, and why the devs decided to make Tanker Taunt an AoE, since they didn't feel it was right to make them go to the Pool for Provoke.

Not to say that it doesn't take two to argue, because it does. But some people don't mind the fact that Dark Armor doesn't have any knockback protection, and feel it's part of the unique challenge of the set. The same with those who like the look of Cloak of Darkness granting them total transparency. Some like it, some don't.

Which is why I think customization is a great solution in this case since it is optional.

I was worried there for a moment. Almost thought I'd posted that picture preemptively.

Though I don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you that three quarters of all the rep I've received was positive? I knew I shouldn't have replied to that PK thread...

My main is a Broadsword/Dark Armor scrapper, and I don't really mind not being able to see his costume in-combat, but I can see why others would. This would be a good thing to apply customization options to, like others have said, and to be honest, if they did so, I'd probably make my costume more visible too, but it's not something I lose sleep over.

With me no longer needing a prerequisite for a travel power, I chose Cloak of Darkness over Combat Jumping for the things it provides that CJ doesn't (stealth and perception, namely). I found Combat Jumping to be redundant to my build, but before I got the vet reward to forgo a travel prerequisite, I chose it as the lesser of two evils, since Jump Kick was even more redundant, and needed a greater investment of slots to reach its maximum effectiveness. I chose to go with a Karma IO in Parry for my knockback protection, which I find works well enough in all but the most extreme cases of knockback.

I also heavily use set bonuses to offset weaknesses in my Scrapper's build, but this is because my BS/DA scrapper is my main. I typically save the decisions on which set bonuses to go for until late in a character's development, when I have a better idea of what its weaknesses are.

And as for Granite Armor having a Psionic hole, I planned on dealing with that on my Dark/Stone Brute after getting Granite the same way I dealt with it before getting Granite. That would be Minerals, synergizing with the stacking ToHit debuffs from my primary. I find that, pre-Granite, Stone Armor is, like Willpower, a "jack-of-all-trades" mitigation set. It skews mostly toward Defense (Rock Armor, Crystal Armor, Minerals) which synergizes well with the Dark Melee primary, but also offers Resistance (Stone Skin, Brimstone Armor), and Healing/Regeneration (Earth's Embrace, Rooted). I planned on saving Granite for a panic button when soloing, and keeping it on constantly to serve as main tank on teams, relying on my teammates to deal with psionic foes.