Cloak of Fear, Opressive Gloom, or neither?

I've been very slowly leveling my Dark/Dark scrapper for the past four years (altisis...), and he's now at level 48 and nearing the time for a final build. I've been messing on Mids, trying to work out the best build for him. I have a problem though. I'm torn between taking Cloak of Fear, Opressive Gloom, or neither of them. My build is pretty tight, and I can squeeze one of them in if I reshuffle slightly. So which of the two would you choose if you had to pick one of them, or would you skip them both if you were struggling to find room for either?

Contact me in-game: @CheeseSlicer

To me it would depend on Death Shroud or No Death Shroud.
With I would get CoF because the mobs cower inside the radius of DS, whereas OG makes them wander outside.
Without DS it doesn't make much difference except you may not like the red numbers coming off you from OG though it shouldn't be too painful for your level. I think it really comes down to the enhancement set bonuses.
I think (without looking) that the stun sets have better bonuses, I don't think the fear ones have a purple set.

If I had a stun to stack with it, I'd probably take Oppressive Gloom. If the character was built so that the extra End drain wouldn't be an issue and I didn't have a stun to stack with OG then I might take Cloak of Fear over OG. If I was building Defense a bit, but wasn't going to hit the softcap, I'd definitely take CoF for the To-Hit Debuff (if I'm recalling correctly that it has one).

If I seem to be favouring CoF a bit in the above statement - on my level 50 Spines/Dark I've found OG's HP drain to occasionally be dangerous in large groups. Of course, it's a Toggle Man build so it lacks in efficiency in several areas.

If I had to pick, Oppressive Gloom.

Fear is good, but once hit, they suffer a small tohit debuff, but can strike you.

OGs stun is however a nice little bit of 100% mitigation for miniuins and lieutenants, and a nice proc for immobolize is available, to sotp the wandering around.

Though I personally would take both, and with Dark Melee, you have a single target fear attack to fear bosses with that and your aura.

Quote:

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl [*]Watching out for the Spinning Disco Portal of D00M!*

I took Death Shroud and have it on whenever I solo.

I don't really have the slots free to use on either power if I took them. I'd probably only have the one slot that comes with the power. How does this sound? I could slot a Razzle Dazzle: Chance of Immob in OG. Would that Immob work often enough to stop most enemies wondering away?

I've got 22-30% Def to all, apart from Melee which is at 42%.

Contact me in-game: @CheeseSlicer

I just tested my build out at lvl 48 and without either CoF or OG, and it seems to work pretty well. I've only tested it out against +1 x3 Banished Pantheon mobs, so I don't know how it'd do against other enemy types yet. If its performance against Banished Pantheon is anything to go by though, life without OG and CoF seems promising.

Contact me in-game: @CheeseSlicer

On my first /dark characters i thought OG was the obvious cost: low end cost, "hard" control instead of "soft", better accuracy. However now i only use CoF as long as the character has endurance under control:

-it looks awesome
-mobs don't wander away when i want them all around me
-can 4 slot for 6,25% rech, some ok bonuses, and a damage proc included (every little bit helps ) while OG needs 5 and no proc
-the acc debuff is better than nothing when the CC doesn't matter

The damage mitigation is "lower" than OG but, more than enough. The whole point is to kill them before they kill me, and i do that just fine with CoF.

If you've got a tight build, go with Oppressive Gloom, especially if you're tight on slots as well.

Cloak of Fear needs to be at least 4 slotted to even be worth running with it's ridiculous end cost and horrible accuracy. Oppressive Gloom you can run effectively with just the default slot if you need to. (I have on my BS/DA AV soloer, that's how I know)

I'll take OG as my lvl 49 power. Claws, what do you suggest I slot in it? An end reduction IO, or something more exotic?

Contact me in-game: @CheeseSlicer

I really wish I could fit CoF in my Spines/Dark build but I don't have enough slots for it to be really effective

OK, thanks Werner. I'll take it as my lvl 49 power.

Contact me in-game: @CheeseSlicer

I love the look of Cloak of Fear, but I just don't have room for it, I don't have the end for it, and it wouldn't actually increase my survivability to any significant degree. Minion damage is not significant to a capped dark.

That extra -5 tohit or so would hit lieuts and bosses right? Not sure what kind of resists they would have but probably useless against AV's. Might be good to keep some minions and lieuts alive to give DR more chances to hit while takin down a hard target.

Excellent. Cheers for the tips.

Contact me in-game: @CheeseSlicer

Sorry to threadjack here, but is there any justification for taking them both if space allows for it?

I wouldn't do it. One or the other will do a good job of locking down minions. Not perfect, but good. And yes, admittedly, both together will do an even better job than either separately. But if you started with Oppressive Gloom, then it's probably not going to be worth the endurance to also pick up Cloak of Fear. If you started with Cloak of Fear, it's probably not going to be worth the self-damage to pick up Oppressive Gloom. I've not tried it, though.

Loving that another Cheese is threadjacking me lol.

I had in the late thirties on my toon, and wasn't impressed. As Werner said, it's better to get one or the other, or neither if you prefer.

Contact me in-game: @CheeseSlicer

Well it doesn't work like I thought it would
Darn mez takes turn so the bad guys still wander off



And I now officially hate OG