I strongly recommend you read the guide found my signature. Yes, it's a bit dated, but it has more then you need to get started.
Now, I strongly prefer DM/DA, but any primary will work well.
Katana/DA is rather popular and very effective.
Personally, I'm taking a liking to Electric/Dark Armor, which may go really well with a Steam Punk theme as well.
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I currently run a DB/DA brute and Elec/DA scrapper. I like DA more on the Brute, mostly due to the extra HP the brute has. Fury also lets me slot more for end reduction in attacks earlier which is helping a lot. The scrapper is a lot of fun though. Beating on enemies 'til I'm near death, then using Lightning Rod on a nearby spawn and filling up with Dark Regen while everyone's on their ***.
KM seems to be a popular pairing with DA, with stacking stuns, and might go well with the steampunk concept.
They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!
@Starflier
I forgot to mention. I prefer Dark Armor for scrappers since I find Mez toggles reduce Fury. This can be less of an issue with come primaries. Fast animating short recharging primaries (Claws, Dual Blades) are less of an issue.
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I like DA. It's a lot stronger than it tends to get credit for. Good places to start for information are Des' guide and also Dechs Kaison's stuff.
In terms of pairings, lots of people will point you toward specific primaries to shore up the "weaknesses" of Dark Armor, but you can get away with whatever. My brute is SS/DA and used to have some serious endurance issues, but robust IO slotting made that much more manageable. And of course once I added Incarnate stuff to him he became an unstoppable one man army with no real weaknesses. So, go with whatever is concept-appropriate and enjoyable for you, Dark Armor played well is strong enough that you don't need your primary to "make up" for anything.
Pluses: Dark Regeneration is the best self-heal in the game. Solid resistances across the board, including Psionic damage and very strong endurance drain protection means that there are no enemies that pose a special danger to you. Death Shroud is a great source of both passive damage. Cloak of Darkness gives you easy access to stealth, +perception and is a decent defense toggle. Soul Transfer is an amazing self-rez and requires no additional slotting to be very, very useful. Your choice of crowd control toggles can help protect you and your teammates. Can achieve incredibly high survivability constantly with heavy IO slotting.
Minuses: Can be rough on your endurance bar, especially since Dark Regeneration can eat huge chunks of end. No knockback protection. Both can be addressed with Inventions. The set as a whole responds very well to heavy IO slotting and can seem unimpressive without it. Responds well to pool powers to beef up your layered defenses, which may mean that you need to limit how many attacks you take from your primary. Recolored DA toggles can look bad very easily. 
Well, i have had several DA toons. My Spines/DA scrapper was a favorite for over 2 years until he retired in favor of my SS/DA brute who took the pedestal for 6 months until I tweaked out my SS/FA brute.
I can honestly say I never had one bit of trouble building fury on my SS/DA brute and while he sits in semi-retirement he still comes out for a bit of smashing fun. His build is copied below if you want a peek. Soft capped to S/L with 8 pts of knockback and he is just a beast!
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/DA is awesome on anything. Des, Dechs and Nalrok are your go to guru's for the set. I know the first two have a guide up, the third might as well someplace.
Dark Regen is your best friend, but you have to take him along with his smelly, rude roomate: "Good Timing." 
Also, drop the Theft of Essence proc into it as soon as you can, doesn't mitigate the end cost entirely, but from time to time a big spawn will fill your blue bar along with your green.
I found CoF to be more workable on my scrapper than OppGloom, but opinions vary on this. If I were running say, KM (any AT) or WM (brute or tank), or anything with tons of stuns, I might go the other route.
Many folks take both and use them alternately depending on what best fits the situation. I'm not that advanced, I need me some fire and forget toggles. 
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Cloak of Fear is only worth taking if you have the slots to spare to heavily invest in it. If you can only devote 2 or 3 slots to it, it isn't really worth taking. |
Originally Posted by MayorOfAngrytown
I found CoF to be more workable on my scrapper than OppGloom, but opinions vary on this. If I were running say, KM (any AT) or WM (brute or tank), or anything with tons of stuns, I might go the other route. |
My general rule on Cloak of Fear is: Either take it and put at least 5 slots in it, or skip it entirely. CoF needs a lot of accuracy slotting and a good amount of end reduction slotting as well. If you can't put enough of those things in it due to slot shortage, it's not worth taking in my opinion.
(Caveat: If you go with Cardiac for your Alpha, you might be able to get away with fewer slots, but that doesn't help you when you're leveling)
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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I agree that CoF should be slotted. You can get away with 4 slots (depending on the rest of your build). I believe Werner has a Dark Armor build that only 2 slots it.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Cloak of Fear is only worth taking if you have the slots to spare to heavily invest in it. If you can only devote 2 or 3 slots to it, it isn't really worth taking.
My general rule on Cloak of Fear is: Either take it and put at least 5 slots in it, or skip it entirely. CoF needs a lot of accuracy slotting and a good amount of end reduction slotting as well. If you can't put enough of those things in it due to slot shortage, it's not worth taking in my opinion. (Caveat: If you go with Cardiac for your Alpha, you might be able to get away with fewer slots, but that doesn't help you when you're leveling) |
That stated, since CoF uses Fear, To Hit Debuff, and targeted To Hit Debuff sets, it has a lot of options for slotting. The question is "which bonuses do you want to focus on;" Energy defense? S/L defense? +Max End?
My support for CoF is more about the defense. Defense + ToHit debuffs go hand in hand. If you add defense to your build, you want CoF.
Granted, as Claws stated, CoF has poor base accuracy. If you don't hit your targets, CoF is just wasting endurance.
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Yep. I put a L53 Endoplasm and a L50 Nightmare accuracy/endurance in it, which with the Cardiac Alpha gives me:|
Originally Posted by Desmodos
I agree that CoF should be slotted. You can get away with 4 slots (depending on the rest of your build). I believe Werner has a Dark Armor build that only 2 slots it.
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65% accuracyIt still seems worth a power pick that way, but I don't recommend that slotting unless you're super tight on slots. It does feel underslotted when fighting uplevel enemies. I'd really like another slot or two.
72% endurance reduction
38% fear
As another reason to take Cloak of Fear when you're going for a defense build, a high defense Dark Armor can probably take more damage from Oppressive Gloom than it prevents. The opposite is true for most builds, of course, so this isn't general advice to stay away from Oppressive Gloom, as it can do a great job for very little cost most of the time.
As for general observations, I find that Dark Armor is often more survivable than simple number crunching would indicate. I'm no expert on stealth mechanics and maybe I'm just a poor observer, but it feels like compared to other toons, my Dark Armor much more frequently is ignored by half the spawn for a little while when he starts attacking. Then you get the fear or stun aura messing with the minions, breaking up their attacks. It seems like the result of all that is you just don't get hit by much of an alpha strike compared to other characters.
I'm also a big fan of damage auras, and miss them on toons that don't have them.
I also like how the set looks when all toggled up, though I'm not sure how well you'll be able to turn it to steam. You can always turn a lot of effects off, I believe, and just keep what looks right.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
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I've played around with it on my DA/Ice tank, and if you go with the palest gray tone you can use it does a passable impersonation of a steam cloud. |
Originally Posted by Werner
I also like how the set looks when all toggled up, though I'm not sure how well you'll be able to turn it to steam. You can always turn a lot of effects off, I believe, and just keep what looks right.
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If you use the right aura you can get a very convincing steam powered DA scrapper going.
Although if you're spitting out that much steam at all times it's a safe bet you're malfunctioning somehow.....
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
malfunctioning? why of course i am, i always got the feeling that steampunk type devices were marginally reliable at best and needed constant tinkering, and add steam venting from the contraptions to my "gameplan" when first designing them, and it all works perfectly.
thanks for all the help everyone. i believe i will go DM/DA (though that may change) when the booster comes out. here's hoping i can shut off some of the armor effects in the cc. thanks for the guide Des, good stuff there, think i will go with CoF over OG and stack the fears, fears have always been one of my favorites in this game, maybe i'll even pick up the presence pool for some more fear if i have the power slots available.
i have always preferred res sets to def sets for my melee's, have become quite adept at making the most out of FA, and just ran a brute up to 50 with ElA, which was surprisingly easy considering the lambasting i've seen ElA take on these forums sometimes. seeing as how DA is even more frowned upon by some, i take this as a challenge and look forward to dinging 50 with my steam powered juggernaut!
Oh yeah, that was the time that girl got her whatchamacallit stuck in that guys dooblickitz and then what his name did that thing with the lizards and it cleared right up.
screw your joke, i want "FREEM"
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I think you must mean EA Energy Armor. I've never seen anyone blast ELA.
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Originally Posted by Traegus
lambasting i've seen ElA take on these forums sometimes.
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It is? Not that I get around much on the forums, and I definitely don't talk to people in the game. I just figured that by now people knew Dark Armor was good. I suppose Dechs wouldn't need his "Dark Armor Sucks!" video if everyone was on board, though.
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Originally Posted by Traegus
seeing as how DA is even more frowned upon by some
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"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
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While Dark Armor basing is all but gone these days, I still find many players who don't understand it's full potential. I still get comments like "I had no idea that could be done with Dark Armor." Mind you, I'm not doing anything folks aren't doing with other mitigation sets, just that the perception persists that Dark Armor can't do things that Will Power or Shields are doing.
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Originally Posted by Werner
It is? Not that I get around much on the forums, and I definitely don't talk to people in the game. I just figured that by now people knew Dark Armor was good. I suppose Dechs wouldn't need his "Dark Armor Sucks!" video if everyone was on board, though.
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SI Radio has many DJs and listeners whom hold City of Heroes close to their hearts. We will be supporting many efforts to keep CoH ALIVE!!
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I have one of those, didn't get far with it. I was trying for a Snow/Fog look. It almost worked.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
I've played around with it on my DA/Ice tank, and if you go with the palest gray tone you can use it does a passable impersonation of a steam cloud.
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Agreed on the slotting comments, btw. CoF needs 'em in one way or another.
ok, so here's a request for the lowdown on Dark Armor, i have been playing this game for over 7 years and have yet to actually roll and play a DA character.
and if you think it would work better as a brute then a scrapper, then let me know that too, maybe even a stalker, but i want to avoid a tank, i've done plenty of those.
i have a concept toon waiting for the steampunk pack, and due to seeing another wonderfully created toon in game who recolored DA to look like sand/sandstorms, i'm hoping i can do the same kinda thing and emulate steam. but i have no idea what paires well with it, what works with it's strengths, what mitigates it's weaknesses, etc, etc...
i'm not looking for reasons not to play it, i'm kinda dedicated at this point to seeing a DA toon all the way thru, so if you really hate DA, i respect that, but i'm gonna try it any way
so DA vets, let me know what your experiences are, what your recommendations are, what you think are the pluses and minuses are, and........well everything else, i know, i'm not asking much here. i was thinking maybe elec melee or claws, or something i can justify with a steampunk themed toon. i don't care too much about a leet toon or anything, just something i can comfortably solo, as i d that alot.
looking forward to all your opinions
thanks in advance!!!
Oh yeah, that was the time that girl got her whatchamacallit stuck in that guys dooblickitz and then what his name did that thing with the lizards and it cleared right up.
screw your joke, i want "FREEM"