Cloak of Fear vs. Oppressive Gloom

I'm bringing up a Kat/Dark (level 28 at the moment), and I've been doing a lot of reading on the combo. A recurrent theme amongst /Dark guides is the "endless debate" regarding the merits of CoF and OG. I wanted to try to get some input from veteran /Dark players as to this debate.

Since I'm specifically interested in how the two will work with Kat/, it bears mentioning that I'm geared towards AoE more than ST (I'm actually skipping both Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly in favor of a DA>GC>FS>DA>LD attack chain, minus the LD for prolonged ST fights). With the AoEcentric build, I'm of course running and loving Death Shroud. My understanding is that DS seriously crimps CoF's main selling point, while still allowing the -toHit to do its thing.

Will CoF keep stunned mobs from wandering away? Is it worthwhile to keep CoF up and DS down while fighting large numbers of mobs, then switching (CoF down and DS up) once the hard targets are clear?

Anyone who wants to chime in on this topic is more than welcome, and I'd also welcome any kind of general debate between the two powers, as opposed to their utility with just Kat/.

Thanks in advance!

My experience was that Oppressive Gloom was better for Katana/Dark through the mid levels, but Cloak of Fear was better in the end game.

In the mid levels, I started with Cloak of Fear. But I just couldn't afford the endurance, or the slots to make it work better, and ended up respec'ing into Oppressive Gloom when that became available. MUCH better. Oppressive Gloom costs almost no endurance, since it hits your health instead. It pulses every two seconds instead of five, and has better accuracy, so it did a much better job of keeping the minions out of the fight with even the default slot. And I do think that it was preventing significantly more damage than it was causing, though I never tracked it, so it depends on how much you trust my butt-o-meter. The main danger was actually for Divine Avalanche - my target would often wander away through a crowd, forcing me to give chase, and sometimes delaying me enough to drop my double-stack, which was a danger. Also, it was simply annoying to me having them wander away and get unstunned, fire off a ranged attack (to which my defense was low), and then run back in.

In the late game, I respec'd into Cloak of Fear again. By that point I was heavily frankenslotted for endurance reduction and had enough slots to make things work. I was VERY happy with the switch. It didn't cause an endurance problem. I felt that the attacks from feared-but-attacked mobs caused less incoming damage than from the wandering stunned/unstunned mobs. Again, no actual numerical analysis was made, just my impression. I wasn't taking the damage from my own power, which by that point, with all of my defenses and resists coming together, was really starting to be noticeable. And the biggest breath of fresh air was not having to worry about Divine Avalanche. Feared mobs stay put. Oh, and of course that means they stayed in range of The Lotus Drops, and since I wasn't chasing stunned mobs, I could stay in the center of the melee. So my damage output was higher.

IO'd out with soft-capped defenses, I'm convinced that Oppressive Gloom would do more damage to me than it would ever prevent. Cloak of Fear is only moderately useful, but it seems more useful than beating myself in the face with my own power. And hey, it's kind of fun seeing cowering mobs.

I haven't ever run them at the same time, so I can't comment from experience on how well they work together. But my educated guess is that you really wouldn't want to do it. Sure the mobs won't attack you, but either way they wouldn't have been attacking you MUCH. In the mid levels, adding Cloak of Fear is spending a ton of endurance for just a little more mitigation. In the upper levels, adding Oppressive Gloom is beating yourself in the face to prevent negligible amounts of incoming damage. I'd stick with one or the other. Doesn't hurt to try if you're curious, though.

With minimal slotting of stun sets, OG can help with endurance management.
I dont think you can say the same for CoF

My IO'd ma/da never had CoF. It went against the concept of the character.
I run missions on that toon with difficulty set at +2 X8. Im starting to think that OG might be more of a drain of my health that I realized before.
Wandering mobs dont bother me so much, but meh, whatever floats your boat.

Im workin on a 40 kat/da with no IO investment and with CoF. Endurance is a real concern still and Im hestitant to make a final decision on that toon until/if it gets some IO upgrades. Or at epic lvls and physical perfection.
I think this toon works as good as it does just from DA. It really makes /da soo much better. Getting defense so you dont have to spam your heal soo much goes a long way in terms of damage per endurance and resting. All that crap.

I think each toggle does its job in damage mitigation. Whether or not you want to stun or fear is a concept thing for me. Id never run them together.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf My favorite combo is Faceplant/DebtCap with the TeamWipe Ancillary

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari Yeah, I like Blasters too.

Werner, did you have Death Shroud on that character?

Once I soft capped my Kat/Dark I just skipped them both. My only wish is that I could fit in more melee defense. Being able to cap melee defense with a single Divine Avalanche would be great.

I've been tweaking my spines/dark IO build for a long time now and I'm still not happy with it. One of the many problems I'm having is the OP v CoF debate.

Now, my current SO build has oppressive gloom, but I find I rarely actually use it, mainly because most minions die within seconds of jumping into a group, rendering OP pretty useless other than for self harming. For this reason, I can't see much use for OP in my IO build especially with my extra resistance and defence.

Now Cloak of Fear sounds excellent, until you look at the accuracy and endurance drain of it. Even if I were to slot it for accuracy, I can only hit about 120% and the default end drain of 0.52/s is kind of crippling to any DA build. SO unless I steal a load of slots from other powers, its definitely more of a hindrance than help.

So having said this, if I were to skip both powers, I could stick Conserve Power in their place and never have to worry about endurance problems again.

What would you guys suggest, baring in mind that my currently proposed IO build with conserve power has 1.65/s end drain and 3.73/s recovery?

EDIT: Thought it'd be easier to just post up my build so here.

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I have run both on my DM/DA and BS/DA.
I have kept CoF on the DM/DA for concept and never notice the end as he has 119 end plus huge recovery.
I have CoF again on the BS/DA as I found the OG stagger too anoying and would get a mob or two out of the AoE attacks every now and then.

On my spn/da I have OG and use it as a set mule for absolute amazement, rarely run it as anything left standing after the 1st batch of AoE's will not be affected by a mag2 stun.

So it might be better to try both (what with the massive number of respec we get now) and then decide.