One Dark Armor change

Personally, I think one change and one change only would make Dark Armor a far more viable set, even for tankers - and don't point me to that one video of a Dark Armor tank that is listed in the owner's sig because we all know he is defense softcapped...

Cut the heal and end cost of Dark Regeneration in half. That's it. Oppressive Gloom can cause a person to use Dark Regen more often in certain situations and builds dependent on level and slotting if you think about it.

Leave the end cost of Cloak of Fear alone - everything in the whole set is balanced outside of dark regen. The heal is TOO HIGH and unnecessary which is the whole argument against the gigantic end burn, not even considering the tohit check requirement.

REMEMBER that we need the set to be viable to Freebies that only have access to SOs, and you need to weigh the cost of Acrobatics on top of everything else.

Remember that the Cloak of Fear issues and Dark Regen's values are not the only hurdles people need to make up for. Knockback protection is another big hole (yes, easily fixed, but still, we need to remember Freebies with their SOs.) The number one complaint even after the revamps years ago has always been end cost - always. The toggles are fine, even with Cloak of Fear, considering how useful that power is. Dark Regen is the true endurance destroyer, considering how often you need to use it with the low resistance values of the set. Cloak of Fear and Opressive Gloom are the tools that make up for those low resist numbers - and running them all, at all times, should be the main goal in my eyes, like every single other set in the game. It's Dark Regeneration, even fully slotted with level 50 vanilla IOs for end cost, STILL takes a big bite out of your end.

Thoughts?

Meh, the only thing that makes me not want to play my DA Brute is the graphic effects. It's a perfectly fine and more-than functional set, but man I hate looking like I just got done rolling around in a pile of dirt.

I colored everything purple because the character was supposed to have some correlation to my Warshade (which I won't go into) and the effects just look way to dumb. I know someone who plays their /DA as Sand and honestly it looks more like sand than any cool netherworld infusion. If the effects were at least "as cool" as Warshade effects, that alone would make me enthusiastic enough to dump lots of time and inf into my DA Brute.

Mechanically speaking, I have no issues whatsoever with the set; Though I can agree with the OP's point that the heal from Dark Regen might be excessive most of the time, I don't feel like this is a viable suggestion as the scale of the heal (iirc) is on a per-target basis, so when it comes to the end game you're going to want the most 'bang for your buck' against a single target.

It's pretty easy to build up reasonable recovery on DA so I don't really see any reason to reduce the endurance cost of Dark Regen- You shouldn't be using it frequently enough for it to negatively impact your end bar anyways. DA has great survivability and mitigation.

If anything doesn't need to be changed in DA it's the HEAL. And DA is fine as it is, if you can't play it, there are enough sets around with a lot of recovery, heals, def, resists, whatever. Dark Regeneration is one of the best, if not the best heal in the game, the point of it being high is to actually be useful when there's only a single target around. DA is one of the most balanced and interesting armor sets around and is perfect like that.

My expereince with DA is limited to my baby (think 21 atm? would need to log on and double check) tank. You say that cutting the heal and end in half would make it better, especialy for tankers and I disagree. My tank converts greens to blues because even without the heal I burn through end like mad (maybe full SOs or some IOs would help that, but anyway) as such, I'm prepared to pop a blue to heal to full, I'm not prepared to pop a green which is half or less as good as my heal just to save a blue. Plus hard targets can still beat me down, and it's nice to have dark regen save me with a single target (so long as it hits anyway... like I said before, need slots/SOs...)

Quote:

Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler That...was a Herocon 09 exclusive easter egg. The powerset will not have doves associated with it. Namely because you guys would want to color tint the damn doves, or make them hawks/ravens/flying sharks/etc and that's just a headache I do...not...want...to deal with.

One change to DA? The accuracy in Cloak of Fear. .67 base accuracy is awful, and screws up my streakbreaker even with tons of global accuracy and accuracy enhancement in the power.

I think if the heal was cut in half you would still get plenty out of it in most situations. We need to consider SO builds due to freebies and not everyone can/will grab physical perfection and superior conditioning; some are arguing that it needs to be fantastic against the few times in the game you encounter AVs/GMs but I still find those situations to be too rare to balance a set around.

It's fine as it is.

I disagree. My DA/KM Tank is only 32, but the effectiveness of Dark Regen (which unlike Stygian Circle only requires enemies in range, not that they be dead) even with SOs is far and away the biggest asset of the set. All the toggles are a bit END heavy, but so are most toggle sets without adequate slotting. I have 2 IOs on her (Steadfast Pro:-Knockback and +def) and I pretty much never worry about her dying. I pop blues pretty regularly even with my attacks slotted for END reduction, but that's mostly because I fire off the heal after taking alphas then periodically throughout a fight to keep up. With DA, if they can't kill you between uses of Dark Regen, they can't kill you. It's pretty solidly balanced with just SOs in it. I can't wait until I get her fully Incarnated out and start IO building her.

If DA needs any changes it's to that ghod awful fear aura (they fixed the stealth aura killing your costume which is awesome). Super high END cost & crap for accuracy, I wanted to make it work because I love fear powers in principal and in this concept, but it just ain't happening on this build.

Hmmm...on my KM/DA Scrapper, I haven't found a problem with Dark Regen. This is why you slot 3 ENDRED in it when you're working with SOs.

DR should have it's endurance set to scale based on targets hit.

1-2 Target hit - 33% end cost
3 Targets hit - 66% end cost
4+ Targets hit - 100% end cost

That would be my suggestion (and has been FOOOOOREEEVVVVERRRRR)

Interesting idea. I'm not sure how I feel about changing the heal, I don't use it too often because I don't have OG so I can't comment on that.

Two things I think should change that would make DA a better set:
Cap Negative Energy resistance
Allow me not to waste time creating a costume that will be obscured by the set's powers.

Let's keep this discussion to performance if that's alright with you guys.

I still think the only change DA needs is for it's Negative Energy Resist to cap. Other than that, DA I find fine exactly where it is now.

I don't think this change makes Dark Armor better or worse. It changes how you use and possibly slot Dark Regeneration, but for every situation it makes DR better, there's another it makes it worse. As such, I don't think this is a change that makes sense overall.

Its a different kind of heal, and it takes different play tactics and slotting to leverage, particularly at the early levels. But that's part of what gives Dark Armor its unique character. I would not want Dark Regen to become essentially a power people just spam like Reconstruction, except it has to hit things. I like the fact that its *minimum* heal is still very strong, and you have to think about it to get the most from it.