Dark Tank/Scrapper end usage

If this game is still based around SO's, then how can a toon manage the endurance comsuption of a dark themed toon? I've deleted 2 b4 and looks like i'm headed to a 3rd and i REALLY want a dark toon. 2 Spines/Dark and now a Fire/DArk

1) I always get stamina and the proc. (although, it shouldn't be NEEDED if the game isnt based around using IO's for toons)

2) I have 2 level 25 common end red's. per toggle and 1 or 2 per attack.

I feel like it needs a couple Auto powers or lower ticks of end usage. Every 2ndary is a toggle and i can't even pull off an attack chain w/o popping blues. Most of the people i talk to in-game agree so i thought i'd post about it and see if anything can be done.

Also, if anyone has any ideas as to how to manage it, please feel free to share BUT please, don't just say get him some IO's. I can do that, but it shouldn't be needed, like people love to point out how IO's aren't needed.

before IOs I shut off any toggles I didn't need at the moment.

If you're fighting Trolls or Warriors you don't need Murky Cloud, because nothing is going to hit you with E/N/C/F damage.

If you're fighting Psychic Clockwork, shut both of your armors off, they do nothing BUT Psi damage, which Obsidian Shield gives you resistance to.

There are things that do a mix of damage that you need to stay toggled up for, but you can get away with occasionally shutting some off.

If you run Cloak of Fear, that's a huge end drain for a power that doesn't do much.

Dark Armor's resistance toggles are actually on the low end of the spectrum at .21 a second. Most toggles are .26 a second. Shield Defense is the only other one I can think of offhand with costs that low.

And really, you only need 3 toggles to function: Dark Embrace, Murky Cloud, and Obsidian Shield. The rest of the toggles are optional. Cloak of Darkness adds some defense and immobilize protection, but you can run Combat Jumping for Immobilize protection, which is a much cheaper toggle.

I have a Broadsword/Dark Armor that is softcapped now, but befopre he had any IOs his end drain was beastly but managable.

I ran him some earlier. I know all the powers are optional, but i like to select my toons powers. I'd hate to pick up CJ when his actual powers look so cool but hurt the toons performance more than help. It sux, too, that i can't even slot accuracy in my powers due to all the end red's. If i do save some end, i miss every foe. I'm so disappointed in the dark sets performance.

IO's undoubtedly help and IO set bonuses help heaps. However, you are right in thinking that a Dark Armour can run on SOs alone. I have a Dark/Dark brute that is still slotted with only SO's and it runs perfectly fine. Now this may be because of the Endurance Recovery power in the Dark Melee set (Dark Consumption), though I still think with good end redux in toggles and attacks like you have listed, and very tactical micro management of which toggles your running like ClawsandEffect has mentioned, you should be able to cope. As you level up I would keep replacing the common IOs in your build with higher ones. As you probably are aware the level 25 common IO's are only 32% while the 50s are something like 42%. By the time you get those slotted and have mastered your micro management, you should be right as rain.

you honestly only need 4 powers out of dark and one of those is a heal. if you want the stealth toggle pick it up but you don't have to. i have a db/da scrapper that i run once in a while that has 5 powers from da, but also has an extra toggle or 2 due to tough and cj, and i don't really have any issues at all unless i don't stop for a sec to eat a blue or rest for 10 secs.

/DA isn't exceptionally end hungry.


First time i've heard that on /DA.

Turning toggles off/on may help but i deleted already. Went the way of Plant/Storm. Got an Ill/Storm, and tho /Storm can be big on end, it is more managable in my experiences. Also made an Ice/Fire tank to try. Not sure on this one tho. New to the sets.

Let's look at some numbers- I know, I'm answering someone I put on /ignore, but hopefully something constructive will result.

With no slotting:
The defensive toggles are .21, .21, .21, .26 .That seems reasonable.
Death Shroud is .52 end per second and Quills is .52 end per second.
Dark Consumption is 34 end every time you use it.

Your defensive toggles are not the problem- the end reduction I have in Death Shroud would pay the full cost of Cloak of Darkness.

The heal and the offensive toggles are your endurance destroyers. And that it's hard to argue that the heal is overpriced when it takes 1/3 of your end bar and returns 3/3 of your health bar.

At some point I calculated [and I think this is wrong, looking back] that having a Damage Aura on was like having an AOE attack on auto that went off every ten seconds... and didn't interfere with your attack chain. So having Quills, Death Shroud and Spine Burst was like trying to pay the cost of three AOEs, plus run a singletarget attack chain. Looking at it now, looks like you get the damage of an AOE in ten seconds, at 1/2 or 1/3 of the price of an AOE. Still, the moral is clear: if you wouldn't be using Spine Burst in the next 10 seconds or so, you shouldn't have your damage auras turned on.

So Spine/Dark has every kind of big endurance hog there is- two damage auras, one giant heal, four passive toggles and a couple of AOE's. Other than "play Claws/Dark" what can be done about this?

1) If you get a damage aura, slot it heavily or don't run it at all. If you must run generic IOs or SO's, one acc/three damage/two end (or two dam/three end) gives optimum DPE.
Obviously with cheap frankenslotting you can get 1.5 acc/three damage/three end or the equivalent pretty easily.

2) Your first three slots in Dark Regeneration go to endurance recovery. If you have six people around you when you fire it, you will almost certainly get three hits even with NO accuracy. More than three hits is wasted because one hit = 1/3 of your HP. 17 endurance is bad, but 34 endurance is unlivable.

3) If you team, use your team- make sure you get any end boosts or heals going around. If you have END problems limit your AOE attacks to when they are most useful.

4) If you solo, big bunches of minions are your friend. At one point when I was soloing in the teens I was going to Perez, just sitting in the middle of blue-con groups and when they were about 40% health, firing off Spine Burst. They all dropped before they thought to run. Two blues is the same XP as one yellow.

5) Speaking of attacking... if you're just sitting in a group, running Quills and Death Shroud, you are doing as much DPS as hitting each of them with Storm Kick every eight seconds. If you have endurance problems, you can attack by just standing there catching your breath and it works pretty well.

Before someone says it, I want to be clear that I meant 3-4 training enhancements for accuracy. Once you get to SOs, you only really need two total, and only if you don't have other means of boosting your accuracy.

And thanks, Leo_G. I should have pointed that out.

Thanks for the replies. I need to clarify a couple things. I can/do know how to slot toons, as i have many, many toons i play just fine and never use/need blues like i have with /dark armors. You're welcome to team with me any time if you doubt me. I've prolly PL'd half of you on Justice, so you should know.

1) I was 30, when i deleted. I had 1 acc in each attack and 2 end red and 1 damage in each attack and 2 end red per toggle. Still missed alot on mobs my level to +1 and would run low on end thru 1 attack chain.

2) Like someone mentioned earlier, i should've just pop the toggles as needed. I was running a few at one time. I love the look of dark, so i tried to use each toggle. Like i said, if using the powers hinder the performance, i think that sucks because no other build i've ever played done this. (after stamina)

Now on a side note, i have an elec/sd IO'd out the rear with all the recov procs, 4 sets of purps and 4 7.5% rechs, and so forth and so on. I run 6 toggles with him and never touch a blue. Now, where's the argument on not "needing" IO's?

3) I disagree Leo, big time. ALL OTHER powers aren't the same. Many have way lower end ticks per power and nowhere near as many toggles running. Take INV for example. It has what, 3? Before pools. No end issue there, even if i did screw up the build, huh..

4) And, Fulmens, i really don't care if you put me on iggy. It doesn't make my day one way or the other. But thanks for pointing that out. Maybe someone else will follow suit. Please, feel free to iggy me for not agreeing with you. Having ones own opinion is rare these days, i know. Esp, in the market forums where "its all me" or "how much can i make"... Have a good life, sir.

Adding a second accuracy gives 95/89.775 or 6% more damage.
Adding a second damage gives 166.66/133.33 or 25% more damage on average.
(For people who SLOTTED a second damage and want to slot a third, that's 195/166.66 or 20% more damage.)

I mean, we're kind of in the position of two atheists arguing about how many angels can dance on the point of the pin, because starting with 1 acc/2 endred/1 damage isn't something either of us believes in, but I think the math is on my side, on average.

Some people hate missing enough to make significant sacrifices to the gods of accuracy. But none of them are willing to make the Cafepress "Fulmens' Acc Weenie Club" t-shirt. And that annoys me.

Actually, that's a rule of thumb for *any* character you run with. OP, if you screwed up DA the way you did, every other set minus Regen, will drain your endurance just as badly.

That's what i disagreed with, Leo. Like i said, not all AT's endurance usage are the same. Therefore they all won't drain ednurance just as badly.



And Fulmens, i HAVEN'T changed any. I'm not a flip floppy person and have no reason to change. If you hadn't been an *** and was like, "i know i have this person on iggy, but" ..... That was an uneeded comment to start off with when replying to a post. Just reply and shutup about extra useless info. So, please, keep me on iggy and don't reply to my posts with useless crap.

Just going on my opinion and IG experience, DA feels particularly end heavy. The only other set I've run into that feels that end heavy is SR, but then again that is on a level 14 MA/SR scrapper, just hitting the 'Stamina Gulch' (14-20 tend to be particularly painful levels, even slotted for acc and end red)

I had a lvl 32 DB/DA Brute who I deleted out of frustration. DB was doing fine damage, but he was getting absolutely slaughtered by stuff. Mostly by Longbow, and this was before their nasty -Res nades. They just gunned him down, over and over. AND I was still running out of end.
SO slotted, acc and end red in attacks, end red and res in shields. I only had the three shields and the damage aura. That was it. So *shrug* =/

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

The main issue I have with Dark Armor is Dark Regeneration and it's end usage. I would prefer this power to use endurance based on how many enemies are hit.

1 enemy hit = 33% of end cost
2 enemy hit = 66% of end cost
3 enemy hit = 100% of end cost

I also think Cloak of Fear is a nice concept power but I find it's not very efficient. Especially when Oppressive Gloom provides nearly the same mitigation (scrapper/tanks, brute's CoF is mag 2 IIRC) for less endurance. If I were looking at Dark Armor I would try to find a way to put more -tohit in the set and up the defense on Cloak of Darkness but even then the lack of potent def debuff resistance can be another weakness.

Basically, I find DA has too many weaknesses when compared to other sets and not enough pros to offset the weaknesses. I would enjoy the set much more if it wasnt a jack of trades and focused more on resistances and using DR to mitigate damage.

Very simple solution here.

If you can't figure out how to make Dark Armor work for you....don't play it.

Advice was given and largely ignored, at which point the problem is with the person ignoring said advice, not with the powerset.

I don't disagree with you. DA is pretty unplayable without a ToE: +End.

It's not the toggles that kill DA, it's Dark Regen being an end hog coupled with the low resistances of DA which means the DR crutch needs to be used often. Turn DR into something like Healing Flames and the set would be far more enjoyable, which also explains why DA plays like any other resistance set once u get ur hands on a ToE: +End.