Keep in mind my comments are somewhat dependent on the concept of your brother's character and the primary he choses.
If it's for a scrapper, I would recommend Dark Armor over Electric Armor. Dark Armor will require more endurance management as a new player but the end result will be a more survivable character.
For a brute, I would not recommend Dark Armor. Regardless if you choice CoF or OG, either will compromise your ability to generate fury. This can be overcome, but unless your concept demands it, why bother.
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Well both are fine defense sets but it also really depends on what the attack sets are. A Katana/Dark plays differently from a Dark/Dark.
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I beg to differ. CoF/OG work as 'melee attack resistance' of a sort. (around 10ish foes around you will have a greatly compromised ability to attack you.) You won't have a time when the ranged folks stop shooting, so that's fury. As are punches.|
Originally Posted by Desmodos
For a brute, I would not recommend Dark Armor. Regardless if you choice CoF or OG, either will compromise your ability to generate fury. This can be overcome, but unless your concept demands it, why bother.
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....and since you can mez about 10 enemies, crank your difficulty and go to town! Fury rains down like sweet droplets of smashiness.
But what do I know, I just played a EM/DA brute to 50, specifically trying to go the mez for mitigation route. And you know what? Full fury from level 10 on to the top.
But I'll go back to the first question.
Electric Armor: pure resistance armor. A minor self-heal, tools that make endurance not a problem. This set resists all damage but toxic. (That resist comes in the tier 9) The tier 9 makes you extremely tough, but has a bad burnout.
It's top mitigation is vs. energy, but is a bit softer vs. common types of damage like smashing/lethal. It can mitigate damage via draining endurance from foes. It's THE most immune to endurance drains. Oh, and some mez protection requires you to touch the ground. It has a damage aura as well.
Dark Armor: pure resistance in theory. It has the best self-heal in the game. seriously, from 1% to 100% in many cases, without much slotting. It can befuddle groups directly surrounding you. It has, strangely enough, highest resistance vs. psychic powers, followed by neg. energy resistance. It has decent toxic resistance, but low energy damage resistance. Resists on a whole are a bit low...the heal/mez auras compensate for this. It has excellent endurance drain resistance, but is also high on endurance costs. It has no tier 9 'god mode' power, but instead an enemy-targeted self resurect. The damage aura is there too. You'll want some KB protection, though, as the set doesn't have that. ...Oh, almost forgot the built-in stealth; that is a matter of tastes, but it's there.
I hope that helps.
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Originally Posted by Desmodos
Keep in mind my comments are somewhat dependent on the concept of your brother's character and the primary he choses.
If it's for a scrapper, I would recommend Dark Armor over Electric Armor. Dark Armor will require more endurance management as a new player but the end result will be a more survivable character. For a brute, I would not recommend Dark Armor. Regardless if you choice CoF or OG, either will compromise your ability to generate fury. This can be overcome, but unless your concept demands it, why bother. |
In general, I agree with you - especially for someone coming back to the game.
They might not be fully ready for the kind of investment and planning that goes with Dark Armor.
That being said, depending on your build goals and primary, Brutes do have access to Darkest Night.
A bit more endurance to run than CoF, but allows for incoming attacks to generate fury while providing a very reliable and powerful form of mitigation - it's also auto-hit unlike CoF.
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We may simply differ in opinion here, but I'll re-emphasize. CoF and OG decrease incoming damage, which is great for survivability but hampers Fury generation. Yes, it is true that only applies to mobs in melee range but those are mobs against which Dark Armor (and Brutes in general) are most effective. You can overcome this with rapid attacks (a good idea anyways), keeping mobs at range, and fighting spawns with more than 10 mobs (target cap for CoF and OG, assuming you're not running both). But again I ask, why bother.|
Originally Posted by Seldom
I beg to differ. CoF/OG work as 'melee attack resistance' of a sort. (around 10ish foes around you will have a greatly compromised ability to attack you.) You won't have a time when the ranged folks stop shooting, so that's fury. As are punches.
....and since you can mez about 10 enemies, crank your difficulty and go to town! Fury rains down like sweet droplets of smashiness. But what do I know, I just played a EM/DA brute to 50, specifically trying to go the mez for mitigation route. And you know what? Full fury from level 10 on to the top. |
Of all the brute secondaries I've played, Dark Armor is the only one with this issue. I have a Claws/DA Brute that fares considerable better than my DM/DA Brute due to the rapid recharge nature of Claws, but she struggles compared to my Claws/WP. If a players in on the fence about a secondary between Dark Armor and something else, then as a Brute something else is a better choice. If Dark Armor is not essential to your characters concept, why add the extra obsticale?
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That's interesting, since DM would be my first choice for DA brute that could run Darkest Night without much issue.|
Originally Posted by Desmodos
Of all the brute secondaries I've played, Dark Armor is the only one with this issue. I have a Claws/DA Brute that fares considerable better than my DM/DA Brute due to the rapid recharge nature of Claws,
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I'd be interested in seeing your build, I've got a DM/DA Brute at L33 and the biggest issue is the lack of AoE - everything else seems fine so far.
At the moment, he's using OG, but only when he gets overwhelmed. I generally leave it off and take the alpha strike from large packs of mobs and then activate OG as needed.
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In general, I build my Brutes same as I do my scrappers. I do move things around a bit every issue, but if you look at the builds in my guide you'll find how I generally slot DM/DA. Also keep in mind I prefer CoF over OG; of the two, CoF is actually worst on this issue since it's Mag 2 for brutes.
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Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
I'd be interested in seeing your build, I've got a DM/DA Brute at L33 and the biggest issue is the lack of AoE - everything else seems fine so far.
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I think mids must be off then, I'll check in game.|
Originally Posted by Desmodos
In general, I build my Brutes same as I do my scrappers. I do move things around a bit every issue, but if you look at the builds in my guide you'll find how I generally slot DM/DA. Also keep in mind I prefer CoF over OG; of the two, CoF is actually worst on this issue since it's Mag 2 for brutes.
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I'm looking at mids and the scrapper versions of OG and CoF are listed as Mag 2.
The Brute version has CoF at Mag 3 and OG at Mag 2.
Have you given darkest night a try, with no use of OG or CoF?
EDIT: Just checked at character creation screen. Mids is accurate for the magnitudes on Brutes for CoF (3) and OG (2).
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Error on my part. My point was simply that CoF is a higher magnitude on Brutes vs Scrappers. For scrappers, the magnitudes of CoF and OG are the same.|
Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
I think mids must be off then, I'll check in game.
I'm looking at mids and the scrapper versions of OG and CoF are listed as Mag 2. The Brute version has CoF at Mag 3 and OG at Mag 2. |
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| Have you given darkest night a try, with no use of OG or CoF? |
Keep in mind, I LOVE Dark Armor. If I have a brute whose concept works best with Dark Armor, that's what I'll play. The issues are not insurmountable. My point is specific to someone whose on the fence.
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That I agree with.|
Originally Posted by Desmodos
Yes I have. I usually end up taking Soul Mastery on all my brutes, personal preference. Thing is, you can take Soul Mastery on any primary you play. If you're not running CoF, Soul Mastery doesn't adding anything to Dark Armor that it doesn't add to every other brute secondary. Puts you back to the original question, "If it's not essential to your character's concept, why bother?"
Keep in mind, I LOVE Dark Armor. If I have a brute whose concept works best with Dark Armor, that's what I'll play. The issues are not insurmountable. My point is specific to someone whose on the fence. |
I'll check out some of your builds, I'm trying to find a slotting I like for Dark Regen that tries to maximize as much of the enh values as possible + the Theft of Essence proc.
DM/DA almost begs to run tof/cof combo. Any other /da combination and Id suggest OG.
Both mez toggles have their issues though, whether you want the "drunken stupor" of OG or the "scare" effect of CoF is player preference.
I personally find the "scare" of CoF horrible, mobs will run to the other side of the map, while OG's "stagger" will have mobs stay relatively close.
I think the frankenslotting I have on 1 /da toon with the +end proc is
2 Theft of essense, (the +end proc of course) and the acc/end/recharge
This gives 10% regen
2 Harmonized healings, heal/end/recharge and end/recharge
For a 1.5% recovery bonus
1 Doctored wounds heal/end/recharge
1 Touch of nictus acc/end/heal
total values
heal 76%
acc 37%
recharge 63%
endurance 95%
700 pt heal
18 sec recharge
17 end cost
Not bad but im sure theres better slotting.
I just bought a ToE acc/end/recharge, a 3 slot bonus will give me a 1.8 max endo bonus.
Ill probably drop the ToN out to fit that in.
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Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf
My favorite combo is Faceplant/DebtCap with the TeamWipe Ancillary
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Originally Posted by Dispari
Yeah, I like Blasters too.
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Weird. As a stalker (my only /DA melee currently) I find that I use the fear to prevent them running. If they do run, they only run for a few seconds before they freeze up again. Way, way, way better than running and running and running and running and oh hell they're so far away I can't even keep them targetted anymore.
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Originally Posted by JamMasterJMS
Both mez toggles have their issues though, whether you want the "drunken stupor" of OG or the "scare" effect of CoF is player preference.
I personally find the "scare" of CoF horrible, mobs will run to the other side of the map, while OG's "stagger" will have mobs stay relatively close. |
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Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
I have been working on building up a nice inf base on my 50 scrap and brute, when I finally got my brother to come back to the game after being on WoW for the last 4 years. He has narrowed his choices down to elec or da, but can't decide which he want's to play more, and I can't really help him, as I've never played either set. He also hasn't decided whether to play a scrapper or brute.
ANy advice that can be provided would be a great help.
Willpower has more passive regen than Regen does. Who thought that was a good idea?
Can we get a fix for Energy Melee instead of more new sets?