Does dark armor maybe in need of a buff

So reading this thread and getting ideas I looked at Paragon Wiki.

Cloak of Fear has some interesting options with IO's in the mix.

And Now I have a strong desire to roll up a /DA something. Any suggestions for seeing my foes driven before me?

My main toon is a Spines/DA Scrapper. Ever since I've rolled a Dark Armor, no other sets have ever looked quite as good. That being said, I'm not sure I agree with some of the 'Cloak of Fear' supporters here.

By the numbers, Cloak of Fear is arguably the worst power in the game. Yes, worse than Flurry and Jump Kick. Specifically:

-50% base accuracy: if you slot CoF with 3 lvl 50 acc IOs (or equivalent), it'll bring the acc juuust to 100%, meaning you'll almost always hit even-con minions. Fighting bosses or something higher than your level? Better hope you have set bonuses or friends with +tohit powers. But terrible accuracy is just the start of CoF's issues.

-Its fear doesn't stack. It works on minions and only on minions.

-8' radius. Obviously not worse than Oppressive Gloom or many other powers, but it exacerbates the biggest issue, which is...

-5-second activation period. This means that Cloak of Fear only fires or "ticks" its effects once every 5 seconds. That to-hit debuff that everyone loves on CoF? Assume CoF fires on count 0. Your enemy runs towards you on count 1, attacks on count 2-3, runs again on count 4. How much to-hit debuff did he get from CoF? 0% - his actions took place entirely between ticks. The small radius and long activation period work together to severely limit CoF's effectiveness.

To each their own however, every little bit helps survavability. My Spines/DA has a super-tight build, once taking OG over CoF, I've never looked back. Want a To-Hit Debuff? Absolute Amazement: Chance for ToHit Debuff fits into OG

After years of ignoring the set despite seeing players such as Des pwn mobs using DA, I have to say it's my favorite resistance based set. My Spines/DA is now my farming toon of choice and I like the set so much I'm thinking of making something DA on my second account too.

The only thing I don't like about DA is the stun aura, this is because as a scrapper my toon has no taunt and the double damaging auras cause mobs to scatter enough as is that I don't want them wobbling around.

I also like the idea of capping it on Negative energy resistance.

my bad, forgot Invul falls a bit short before Tough (I think Invul used to cap itself w/out Tough, can't remember...)

but still...it's funny that Invul requires 1 toggle and 1 passive to hit 63% S/L, while DA requires two toggles to get about the same number for negative energy...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gospel_NA Probably, other than the intense endurance consumption of DA, the lack of KB protection is annoying. I like hover with DA and of course I make room for KB protection IOs. I think, overall, that problem is pretty easily rectified.

aye, IOs fix many many things, but the set by itself, the lack of KB can be the deciding factor if you kick the bucket because you can't activate your heal.

I want to roll a DA Tank...just can't decide on a secondary =\

Oh also, to anyone who feels that dark has something to be envious of ice over, keep in mind that there are virtually no cold attacks in the game. Once a year you can fight enemies that use cold in the form of the winter horde, that's about it. Moderate negative energy resistance is a heck of a lot nicer than capped cold resistance.

I am just glad you can run the three armors at the same time now! Originally when I started my BS/DA I had to choose one armor and hope Dark Regen recharged fast enough.

However if I were to focus on one thing it would be Dark Regen. Perhaps you should get a double heal off the first target hit or some bonus level of healing. Just for balance. That's about it.

Wait... isn't Dark Regen the best self heal in the game?

The only changes I ever wanted for DA is to have Dark Regen's endurance usage applied based on it's healing. If you hit 1 target, then end consumed is for one target. 2 Targets, etc. And have Dark Shroud apply a tohit debuff.


But this was before IOs made endurance management a non-issue. Also before IOs, I wanted Soul Transfer removed for an Eclipse clone. Again, IOs made this a non-issue.

I keep seeing posts like this, and I think about leveling a Dark Armor character, but ultimately I decide against it. Not because Dark Armor is lacking, but because what it has over other sets isn't always something I want.

Basically I tend to compare Electric Armor and Dark Armor. Looking at them, I tend to call the Resistances a wash, mostly, though I think Electric might come out a bit better, but it's a matter of opinion. Electric has better S/L/F/C, it's energy resist is better then DAs negative, but it has no toxic resist, and slightly lower Psi. Only reason Electric might come out better is because there isn't a ton of toxic, and there is a lot of energy. But for discussion I'll call them close enough.

So beyond resists, you have to look at the utility that a set gives. Both sets have a damage aura, so ignore those. Electric has huge end drain and recovery resists, but Dark has good enough end drain to work. Other then that, Electric has a bit of slow resist, and +20% rechage passive and a couple good end recovery tools. Dark has a significantly better heal, and some defense, and a pbaoe mag 2 stun aura.

One comment on the heal in DA. It's great, and with TOE's proc it's generally fairly usable. But in a lot of ways it's overkill. You only have 100% of a life bar, the fact that Dark Regen can heal multiple bars in one go is somewhat pointless. So it is the best heal in the game, but in a lot of ways, I prefer Fire's heal, since you don't need a target to use it and it doesn't miss.

So looking at the overall benefits, Electric gives +recharge, slow resist and end recovery tools. Dark has a better heal, some defense, and a stun aura. If you look at it, Dark's utilities are all defensive, while Electric's are offensive. Which is why I tend to make Electric toons, and not DA ones. Because with IOs and pool powers I can get a lot of defense, but not quite so much offense. The last tick against Dark, IMO, is that if I did want a super tough toon, DA would be great, except the fact that right now, the only place I really need a super tough toon is for iTrials, and a significant chunk of damage in iTrials is energy damage, which is not so good for DA.

I LOVE Dark Armor. It is by far my favorite armor set. Been playing it since Issue 1. (I have a 50 Dark Melee/Dark Armor scrapper and a tank)

I find Dark Armor to be a very strong set, with good well-rounded resistances, a bit of defense, great heal, and toggles that turn minions to mush. I remember reading Arcanaville's amazing post years ago comparing the performance of the various armor sets, noting the strength of Dark Armor.

IO set bonuses changed things somewhat, but I found that it benefited Dark Armor (and other resistance-based sets) a lot, with all the +def you could get. (I feel that defense-based sets, like SR, got shafted a bit on that regard, as there is less +resist available).

My ONLY real complaint is actually not with Dark Armor itself, but rather the next generation of armor sets... namely Willpower and Electric. I find that these sets were relatively stronger than their older counterparts.

I like Willpower, and have a 50 DB/WP scrapper that I love, but it does feel much easier to survive bigger mobs with that set than DA.

Similarly, I find my 50 DM/Electric to be amazing. The S/L resistance of Charged Armor is higher than that of DA or FA. And it has surprisingly good psi resist... something I did not expect from a set that has such good S/L and capped Energy resist. Plus, Energize is great.

I am not advocating nerfing WP or Elec. I do, at times, wonder if the older sets should be buffed a little to balance them with WP and Elec.

Considering Electric's good psi resist, capped energy resist, heal, end recovery and conservation, higher S/L resist and KB protectiion, I don't think it would be unreasonable to give DA a buff in negative energy resist and maybe psi resist. Oh yeah, and give Cloak of Fear a normal accuracy... maybe have it cost less end.

If I were to debuff Electric to balance it with Dark, I would propose reducing Electric's psi resist, and dropping its S/L resist to match FA and DA.

But, given that I do like Electric play mine regularly, I would rather see a rebalance of the older sets.

Just my 2 bits.

-Kokoro