I play a dark/dark stalker. He is my only 50 villain and I still play him more than any other villain. His primary build utilizes Opressive Gloom. His secondary build utilizes both the fear aura from the secondary and the single target fear from the primary. I still use his primary build the most. I have OG slotted with accuracy and stun duration, as its end use requirements are very low. I use the Absolute Amazment to hit debuff proc in it. I also use the KB proc in it from Stupefy. I find myself able to survive most encounters that don't include alot of -recharge. Thats what kills me the most, something that slows my Dark Regen. Dark Armor is disliked by alot of stalker players because they do not want to have to toggle off protective armors in order to rehide. I can understand this. Its not for everyone. I think I am a great team player because I do not focus on the Assassin Strike, but rather the mitigation I give. Dark Melee is so powerful, just its single target attacks add plently damage to the team. I would never dream of skipping Assassin Strike however even in an experimental build. The AS is too important in EB encounters. Plus the initial fear effect it gives takes most minions out of play.
Basically you play a Dark Armor stalker knowing youre going to take damage. If that bothers you, you shouldnt play it. I play all my blasters knowing they will take damage too, so I am used to this style.
-Largo
Founder of A.G.O.N.Y. Supergroup on Victory
Member of Thought Sanctum VG on Victory
Member of St0rm Batallion SG on Guardian
Yeah, I have to say, the /dark armor side is a bit frustrating if you would like to use oppressive gloom and/or cloak of fear. The trick is not that the set is resistance: it's that it has these two powers that both protect you and completely reveal you. As the aura mitigation is actually intrinsic to the balance of the set, you have a couple tactics as a stalker:
Leave the auras off, assassinate, then re-toggle them once you are visible. The activations are a tad longish, so be ready to take damage.
Use the auras, and play as a scrapper. Hide then only functions as stealth, to keep stuff off of you before they're in punching/stabbing/kicking range. This actually works really well on teams, as the auras give the team mitigation as well as you. (And with the way teams share aggro, your invisibility means less once trouble has started anyways.) With this tactic you can pretty much forget about assassin strikes, though.
Ditch the auras and build with invention sets toward defense. I'm thinking of trying this on my ninja blade/dark armor stalker, but finding certain recipes is taking forever and a day. Theoretically, having okay defense on top of okay shields and excellent healing may prove handy.
Mine is a Spines/Dark. Solo, he switches tactics from jousting to AS>retoggle to mez-everything>detoggle>placate>AS. On teams, he'll play 'scrapper' and just leave toggles on and throw crits at range then get in close and mez/melee.
Obviously, this can only be done with a certain kind of build. He has ranged attacks from primary and PPPs, frankenslotted auras as well as the presence pool. Thanks to the IOs, the accuracy and endurance cost of them isn't so bad (around 95% for acc and endurance) and the duration is high (around 60% enhanced except CoF which is 95%) and the bonuses from fear sets give around 15% to terrorize duration too. It's not the greatest control but it's very noticeable and synergizes with demoralize too.
If the team is already control heavy with doms, he'll save his efforts and just AoE crit.
I have a friend who has an Elec/Dark, and she uses the Knockback from Lightning Rod and Thunder Strike for mitigation while she toggles on Cloak of Fear and Oppressive Gloom. On good teams where mobs are destroyed within a few seconds, though, she focuses on damage.
Too many alts to list.
I still have my spine/dark Stalker, made it as a sister of my spine/dark Scrapper, and I still like to play it. Dark isn't a bad set, it's just not a Stalker set but it's very viable if you learn how to use it when you think outside the box as a Stalker.
I have a dark/dark stalker and I enjoy the play vastly more than my Spines/Nin.
I have the fear aura but not the stun. I have it slotted for fear and am currently picking up the pieces to change that to -toHit instead. which I strongly recommend.
Solo, I don't use the aura much, but in groups it is spectacular, and if I ever have to do an escort or get lots of ambushes that screw with my stealth anyway, I still have solid protection. It makes me feel rather scrappy. And I enjoy it for that.
The big heal is pretty amazing too.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
I'm considering a MA / DA stalker, having read the back-and-forth on Martial Arts as a stalker set. What I'm actually curious about is how players of stalkers view the sets (such as Dark Armor) that find their damage mitigation in ways other than +def.
It's my impression that many players feel that +def has a great deal of synergy with Hide -- if you don't get hit, you can return to a Hidden state, allowing you to Assassin's _____ or crit more often. Are other forms of mitigation (+res, or the control auras in Dark Armor, for example) entirely gimped in comparison? What cleverness have you wrought in order to make Dark Armor (and, by extension, other sets aside from Super Reflexes and Ninjitsu) more viable for stalkers?
Thanks in advance, all!