Dark/Elec tank

I have a load of irons in the fire right now with no less than 4 tankers between level 12 and 40... not to mention about 15 other characters I'm also working on. I find that if I don't come up with a build that looks really cool I don't get motivated to actually level the character and it sits unplayed until I work out what it's going to be when it's finished. So, in order to rectify that situation...

I just dusted off a low level Dark/Elec tanker I rolled up awhile ago and I've been trying to work out a build for him and had some questions for some of you more experienced dark tanks.


First, I assume for Dark Regen you want to maximize acc/heal/recharge and if you've room toss in the Theft of Essence proc? I'm kind of leaning toward a mix of Theft of Essence & Miracle there.

Secondly, what's the consensus of Cloak of Fear/Oppressive Gloom? I'm thinking right now of grabbing CoF and tossing in 5 Siphon Insight for the S/L def and leaving OG out; is that a mistake? Slots are getting pretty tight to take both and slot them adequately.

One other thing, does Cloak of Darkness suppress in combat like other stealth/defense powers or does it keep it's full defense amount?

Thanks for any thoughts you have.

Unslotted, Dark Regen will fill your health bar on about 3 or 4 enemies, so recharge and accuracy should come first before healing. I'd aim for max recharge, 30-40% accuracy, and as much healing as remains.

When you find yourself fighting a single AV, some healing enhancement is nice. Theft of Essence is definitely a good idea though.

I much prefer Oppressive Gloom to Cloak of Fear. The stuns are more likely to stack with other attacks from your team, the end cost is tiny compared to Cloak of Fears very high cost, and Cloak of Fear comes with low accuracy.

In short, Cloak of Fear is very slot hungry, needing accuracy and end redux to function, but Oppressive Gloom isn't. One acc in the default slot is great. The health loss from Oppressive Gloom is minimal, and also I think decreases against higher con enemies. I think that bug is still there.

I've got a mid 30s Dark/Elec. He's a bit more end heavy then my dark/dark was so far.

I'll echo most of what's been said before. Less concern about Dark Regen; more concern about acc/rech/end redux. Mind you the first thing I drop into it is the proc before anything else, then I build from there.

I don't mind the stun stagger from OG and it pairs nicely with a few of the other powers in Elec Melee. Now you can stun Lts and Bosses. OG is one of those one slot wonder powers.

As Finduilas mentioned, Cloak's defense doesn't supress. It makes it so much nicer when working towards the soft cap. I think my next tank is going to be Dark/MA to get crane kick's +10% defense.

Thanks for the answers guys; so you consider OG the better choice? Hmm, that might free up some slots; my current thought was 5 Siphon Insight in CoF for the 3.75% S/L def, although I realize that's more "set mule" than effective slotting with the low tohit debuff. Moving those will give me the slots for a Mocking Beratement or Perfect Zinger set in Taunt which comes close to the S/L bonus while giving better overall bonuses.

My DR slotting shows 56% acc/80% heal/58% rechg/53% end... I think I'll play with that a bit to get the recharge/end up a bit more.

Rangle says:

Quote:

As Finduilas mentioned, Cloak's defense doesn't supress. It makes it so much nicer when working towards the soft cap. I think my next tank is going to be Dark/MA to get crane kick's +10% defense.

If I were building him from scratch now I'd probably think seriously about MA; that 10% def from Crane Kick is pretty dang nice on my baby SR/MA. I rolled this guy up a few months ago when I was looking for something to try /electric with... I rolled an Ice/Elec (currently level 40 as of a Numina last night) and the Dark/Elec (level 25 right now) since I wasn't sure which would work better.

I've found that /Elec seems a bit... lacking in ST damage but it has a bunch of AOE. Of course that makes building S/L def a bit of a challenge with fewer places for Kinetic Combat. The Ice/Elec tanker has been interesting, I had him soft capped to S/L/E/N by level 30 and he's either invulnerable or a grease spot with very little in between. Such is the life (or death) of a pure defense character.

Hmm, well now I just need to figure out the puzzle to get my "wish list" to come closer to the possible reality.

If the Stun stagger from OG bothers you, the Immobilise proc from Razzle Dazzle will help some.

And Electric Melee is great for using multiple Eradications (4 pieces + 1 other Dam/End frankenslot): +Endurance, +Energy Defence (covering your resistance hole) and +HP. What you lose on Kinetic Combats you gain here.

Cloak of Fear has an interesting potential combined with the fears from presence power pool. 2+2= 4 mag AOE fear + pick up a single target fear in case you missed an especially annoying enemy, or AOE is recharging. You even pick-up another taunt on the way, while not as good as the tank primary one, it adds up. The problem is that fear does not mix well with the damage aura - perhaps one can run both Gloom and fear instead of the damage aura for maximum active defense. While potentially powerful, it still costs 3 power picks to work.

I aim for this on my young Dark/Dark scrapper, but have not picked up the power pool yet.

The tank that uses the most end....I so hated this powerset before there where IO's....now, not so much.

I find that people tend to drastically overstate the endurance demands of a Dark Armor tanker. The toggles are actually fairly cheap, and most of the endurance woes come either from attacking with your secondary (which has nothing to do with Dark Armor) or from using Dark Regen. Granted, Dark Regen has a very steep endurance cost and it is the centerpiece of the powerset, but even so it is manageable.

Add in Theft of Essence proc and it's more than manageable, it's almost criminal.

It's fairly demanding should you include Cloak of Fear in it. If you take all the other powers in the set including Cloak of Fear, (but not OG), your base end/sec cost before any end reduction is 1.92 end/sec. You'll be at 1.48 end/sec with OG instead of CoF. That doesn't include Tough/Weave, and whatever else you wish to throw into the mix. I'm not saying it's unmanageable. My Dark/Dark tank currently gets over 4.08 end/sec recovery if memory serves me right, so it can be managed. (As for Dark Regen, as I mentioned earlier the Theft of Essence proc is usually the first thing that goes into it.) But I think you should plan to get some +recovery and +end bonuses in the build.

I will agree that yes, most players fail to adequately give their attacks enough end reduction compared to the recharge time.