"Dark Armor sucks. It can't tank anything."

Kinetic Melee should end up filling that "TK melee" roll.

It doesn't bother me that Dark Armor doesn't cap either negative energy or psi resists as you get large doses of both.

Dark Armor Rulez !!!

(Just watched 2 minutes of the OP video and didn't read further, the following might have been already pointed out.)

Not really impressive, to me. Tanker fighting +4/x6 for less than a minute before cutting to another fight... Meh. Endurance was going down very fast against the carnies, and without knowing the build it might have well be a completely IOed out character (in which case a complete +4/x8 fight, bosses enabled, start to finish, should be the benchmark IMHO).

DA is a great powerset, the video is a poor example of it unless this is a SO character (in which case that would be indeed impressive, but I suppose that's not the case as he hardly got hit).

What about /Elec as a primary? Granted, any +END it gives is trivial, but every little bit helps. Plus, it has two AOE knockdown powers for extra mitigation.

Ok, watched again, the whole thing this time.

Starts with malta, targets minions and lieutenants, no zeus anywhere, no commando boss, can't tell if there's a gunslinger boss as if there's one he was never targeted (only see words long enough to be minion or lieutenant).

Continues with carnies, no MIs or dark mistresses to be seen.

Continues with KoAs, zoomed out too far to see if there's any boss.

Comes back to malta, then carnies, still the same deal as before.

Shows tanking 4 giant monsters, which is something some scrapper builds can do (Werner posted vids of it for anyone who'd want proof).

Shows fighting ~10 or 16 sappers (didn't bother to check), which is a very realistic situation you'll definitely run into ingame (actually no, never*, but I guess it has value in highlighting how potent the end resist in DA is).

Continues to fighting arachnos, no fortunata or tarentula mistresses are present, tabs to a Bane Spider boss and while the quality on youtube is too low, the word is definitely too long to be "boss", and his HP bar goes down too fast for it to be a boss.

Back to the carnie fight, end is getting lower and lower. We never see the end of that fight.

Cut back to the malta fight, end gets real low and it takes more than a minute to finish the last 3 remaining lieutenants.

In other words, we never see a boss except for the one occasion where it's a downgraded one. If everything was really in +4/x8 then there was some mob manipulation as there'll always be at least one boss, downgraded or not, and there's none in the carnie fight. We never see the most troublesome mobs in the factions fought (malta zeus with swarm missiles, fortunata mistresses with tactics, tarentula mistresses with extremely high def debuff, dark mistresses with extremely high def debuff, master illusionists). Action cuts back and forth so the viewer can't see how bad the endurance management gets (except for the final part against maltas which is played straight, and shows how painfully it gets).

It all seem very edited to try to make it look good, but looking at it objectively it's just not very impressive, and to go with a passive-aggressive, dare I say cocky "Dark Armor sucks." title for it... Well, I don't know how to conclude that sentence, but in a few words, this video didn't deliver. +4/x8 no bosses just isn't it, especially as I'm sure DA can do better than that.

About the only nice thing I can find to say is it's done with FM, so it's not like there's secondary mitigation here. Other than that, it's all bait and switch to me.

*Edit : right, there's that one mission with only sappers... So I guess it can happen. Once.

Edit 2 : removed a sentence as I'm sure it'd be nitpicked on while ignoring my other points.

Good lord, I have never watched this video. I do not plan to. I do not need to. Because edited/non-edited, setup/actual, manufactured/real, it just DOES NOT MATTER.

I have been running a dark/dark for the last week or so from 1st, now at 32. am completely S/O'd, except for a -KB I/O in combat jumping, and a +End Proc in the major heal. Look, I still have some end problems in a long fight, but I am running every single toggle in the dark armor set, +CJ. Oh, and the good news is at 35 I get the dark melee AoE attack that refills my end bar. And, and, and (think commitments) Dark armor has decent end drain resist, unlike most brutes/tanks/scrappers. Is it perfect, no. Do I need to watch a video to run the play in my head, no. Will it get better I/O'd out, yes.

Oh, and as long as I am reposting here let me add this about dark armor: I would argue, in my opinion, that Dark armor is neither a defense set (obviously) or a resist set. It could actually be argued that it is a heal based set. (maybe not argued successfully, but still.....) Here is where Cloak of Darkness comes in handy. With my aforementioned tactic of jumping into a spawn, hitting taunt, and waiting. I generally take a huge alpha. If my health is gonna bottom it will be here. Hit heal, and I am back up to full health, even if at 1% health. Suppose the baddies are still clawing at me hard? As a dark/dark, I work my combat punch little heal, wait 15 seconds for my major heal again (I am not I/O'd yet) What I cannot afford is any more agro. The CoD makes sure I get no more. While my taunt and 3 agro auras ensure I hold all that I already grabbed so my team is okay. It, in effect, becomes part of my personal agro management tool box. Until I want more agro, I do not collect more agro. Even if the next mob is darned close. They cannot see me until I want it and am ready for it

Please, for the love of god, get off this one guy's video. It has nothing to do with whether dark armor is an overall good set. At most it shows what one person can/cannot do with a toon, and in this case a video.

Dark Armor is still better than Ice IMO when it is fully IOed out but with OPed sets like Shield or Stone it is hard to justify rolling any other.

Dark Armor is a good build, but tough to run just SO'd out. Kind of like a regen scrapper, a lot of work, but if you know what you are doing it shines. Now, some sets benefit more from I/Os than others. Because of the way it is set up Dark Armor benefits a lot. Kind of like the old spy plane the blackbird. At less than supersonic it was tough to fly, literally rattled. Once it hit mach 2 the metals actually stretched from the heat, everything sealed up, and she glided through the air like a knife through butter. Became a dream to fly, or so they say. Dark Armor is like that, it is built for the end game, with armors/defenses ready to be I/O'd. Especially dark/dark. It benefits from just touching it with I/O's. Anything you put into it I/O wise gives back in play. Go defense, go resist, go recharge, they all bring out beautiful highlights. Or you can run it on the cheap, but yeah, beware, it rattles some and is tough handling.

Do +4/x8 Cimerorans next!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion Please, for the love of god, get off this one guy's video. It has nothing to do with whether dark armor is an overall good set. At most it shows what one person can/cannot do with a toon, and in this case a video.

Unfortunately, I have to agree. Make an alternate build, try the same thing with SOs. This has nothing to do with balance or how well a set performs. It shows the power of IOs... Hell, I can make a DM/EA Stalker who can tank just as well.