One Dark Armor change

Arcanaville what is your opinion on CoF costing as much as it does vs the near non-existent benefit it gets when its supposed to be the signature power of the set.

No disrespect but people were playing DA back in the day when there were only SO's.. And running acrobatics for knockback protection..

DA is a great set as is, as it offers layers of protection and lots of extras, and one that really benefits from IO's. The heal is fine, and considering how powerful it can be when used properly, it should use lots of end.

If there is one power that could be tweaked, it would be cloak of fear. For what it does vs. end use, especially when the set also has opressive gloom, cof is a joke of a power.

But before they even think of playing with DA, they should buff super reflexes which has really fallen far behind all the other sets due to IO's, and now the defense busting mechanics the devs have been introducing to offset defensive builds from said IO's.

You go through the game, some enemies have a lot of defense and some tohit debuff you. Four of Dark Armours powers rely on tohit checks. If their not hitting then they're toggled on consuming end for no reason or Dark Regen gets used, missing completely and gazumps endurance in what could possibly be a long fight due to air whiffing. One of these powers is already low in acc.

Yes you could pop insps or you could have build up but not every DA will have that as an option until 26 or 28 let alone 20, and yes you could try breaking up spawns. Under the same exteme circumstances I've been through with every other tank cept Elec.

I remember Castle soloing in DA with his Firetank earning great xp/time not long before certain buffs came that made that, well we might differ on what is great xp/time easier to do. I remember what it was like to do that before the change and after the change. It would be better if I could compare a Fire/Fire with a Dark/Fire which'll both have build up but as it is I compare to Dark/Dark whose soul drain comes after 25, not available when needed but potentially libel to miss too. It was definitely harder with my Dark/Dark than it was for my Fire/Fire before Fiery Aura got its buffs based on the same slotting principles with SOs, not using powers I wouldn't have at the level range and to top that fitness wasn't inherent when I tested with Fire either.

In the same level range of 20-25 which I exemped to Tsoo and Warriors weren't an issue at all, but they weren't that bad for any of my other tankers. I laughed at Banished Pantheon pretty much with everything but Fire/ and now Dark/

Sure one can tank with Dark Armour but is it balanced. I am no longer convinced. Thats what I am saying. I think that asking for tohit debuff resistance is less of a buff than asking for more tohit or more acc because problems versus +def are still there. Its a subtle change in my mind to bridge a small but existing gap.

CoF and OG are the primary offenders, as has been mentioned.

(To the OP, Dark Regen is fine in my opinion and I have only had IOs in my D/D Brute over the last month. His trek to 50 was on SO's, though it was many years ago)

CoF and OG come late, do effectively the same thing and for that reason, are effectively mutually exclusive. OG is a one-slot wonder but does nothing against anything but minions while ToF is a little more universal (with the -ToHit Debuff) but needs a lot of slots and is endurance heavy. If you have one, you rarely need/want the other and these are Tier 7 and 8 powers. In addition, neither are particularly mandatory for DA to function at a high level. To me, it's a fundamental flaw in the powerset.

Since you can't break the cottage rule and combine them (which, to be honest, is what I would love to happen: the effects of Cloak of Fear with the endurance cost, accuracy and HP drain of OG). I think what really needs to happen is to differentiate them, as Celidya tried to do in his/her rather well thought out post.

My suggestions:

CoF - The accuracy and endurance issues are well-documented so I won't go into that. If we wanted to do the easiest "fix", it is simply to adjust these two values to more reasonable levels. CoF, at its best, mitigates melee minion damage and has a very slight effect on enemy ToHit values. Paired with high-ish Defense, CoF can round out soft-caps in Defense but as enemy levels go up, the less effect that -ToHit has. This secondary effect, when you want it the most, is at its least effectiveness.

I don't think there's a lot of argument that CoF when slotted > OG for the majority of situations but the rub is the need for slotting to make it even on par with OG (which isn't exactly receiving rave reviews) and OG comes later and by virtue of Tier level, ought to be a little more game changing.

Thus, my suggestion for CoF is to have it dependent on nearby bodies, much like other Dark powers and as Celidya mentioned. Arcanaville mentions it being a PBAoE click power and I would agree, for balance reasons and because it ultimately cuts down on End usage that CoF is currently over the top on.

CoF would be something of a "Fear nova", that has a ToHit check to see how many bodies are around and then a PBAoE that gives an additional % chance to increase the Mag level of the Fear per enemy hit. See rough numbers below. Long recharge, normal accuracy for the initial ToHit check and then superior (90%) Accuracy on the PBAoE. Between the need for bodies, two ToHit checks and non-certain higher Mag Fears, CoF now becomes a crowd control power of varying effectiveness. Of course, no damage is dealt and depending on how long the duration needs to be, it can be an escape power or a lead-off. Numbers/specifics can be worked on but the general rule is more bodies=a better chance you're going to affect Lts and Bosses. It will still be virtually worthless against AVs and GMs but CoF already was this against them.

If I had to put numbers on it now:

Recharge: 120 seconds
Duration: 15 seconds
Endurance Cost: 20
Accuracy: 75%/90% (first ToHit check, second PBAoE)
Range: 8/15 (first ToHit, second PBAoE)
Max Targets: 8/16 (first ToHit, second PBAoE)
Effects:
0 Targets: 50% chance of Mag 2 Fear
1 Target: 75% chance of Mag 2 Fear, 15% chance of Mag 3 Fear
2 Targets: 100% chance of Mag 2 Fear, 30% chance of Mag 3 Fear
3 Targets: Mag 2 Fear, 45% chance of Mag 3 Fear, 10% chance of Mag 4 Fear
4 Targets: Mag 2 Fear, 60% chance of Mag 3 Fear, 20% chance of Mag 4 Fear
5 Targets: Mag 2 Fear, 75% chance of Mag 3 Fear, 30% chance of Mag 4 Fear
6 Targets: Mag 3 Fear, 40% chance of Mag 4 Fear
7 Targets: Mag 3 Fear, 50% chance of Mag 4 Fear
8 Targets: Mag 3 Fear, 60% chance of Mag 4 Fear

Alternatively, you could also make duration based on the initial ToHit check but that's a lot of complexity for the power and it softens the need for Fear enhancements. Likewise, accuracy and recharge would be highly prized for a power of this kind.

As for OG, it will be the tried and true minion suppressant, but with the -ToHit formerly given to CoF, making it slightly more universal in effectiveness. If you want to slot it for -ToHit, you can make it more defensive. If you want to slot an Immob Proc in it, it can be a pseudo-hold 20% of the time.

Thus, what CoF would do for you in this scenario is have a great chance to Fear minions outright (but only when bodies are there and the click power is up) and possibly Fear Lts and Bosses while OG is 'ol reliable with the minions (though it does make them wander away) and gives you the -ToHit against everything, as a more universal measure of protection. Both mitigate damage in their own way but CoF is a more burst mitigation vs large crowds while OG is a constant melee mitigator.

You can play with the numbers for CoF all you like, it's just a guesstimate.

I dont know about the toggle to click change, that makes it too much like regen which I dislike compared to old school regen. Besides it would totally get in the way of attack chains. I find that when I need to use a click power to survive thats when mr. lag always decides to show up despite having super low ping times the rest of the time. Whethers its inspirations or click powers it always happens to me at the worst of times. So for this reason I am about as anti-click as you can get these days.

Now if we could only get an invite a dev to this discussion button added to the forums it would be awsome.

I'll idly note that I run Cloak of Fear as a -tohit debuff. But I'm weird.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

This is the change I would advocate for Dark Armor:

Add -3 Knock-back protection to Obsidian Shield, no KB resistance.

It would not make you immune to knock-back, but it would take a really strong knock-back to actually knock you out of your feet.

There are situations where almost every enemy has knockdown, making it unbearable to tank without KB protection. Since Knockdown is knock-back with less than 1mag, a -3 should protect you from those and from weak knock-backs.

Enemies with powers like Power Push and Energy Torrent will still knock you down. This would serve as a more acceptable penalty for the set, a better middle ground between the squishies that always get knocked down and the other melee sets that are literally immune to knock-back.

BTW, I would also do this for Fire Armor, in their case it would go in Fire Shield.

While the idea is rather well thought out, i don't really like the idea of turning CoF into a clicky power for several reasons:

-the visual effect, it's actually the main reason i take CoF on all my DA toons: floating ghostly skulls coming out of the ground around me ? Pure win. Actually the aura could do absolutly nothing at all and still cost 0.52 end/sec, i'd still take it for the visuals, that's how much endurance doesn't bother me with any decently build toon
-i don't think DA needs more clicky powers. Dark regen is already a fairly long animation, as it was stated above, on top of forcing redraw and being a "rooting" animation. With such a power the beginning of the fight would be, jump in, fear, then dark regen to recover from the alpha, then start to attack, that doesn't really sound great. On top of that it doesn't help with attack chains, build up, etc.
-stacking it with presence pool would be a bit much IMO. A scrapper/brute/tank with pbaoe fear potential greater than most controllers ? Not counting the Dark melee fear

Not debating the value of the fear itself but, such changes would mainly bring some survivability, which DA doesn't really need, as pointed quite often, it's one of the most well rounded sets and in a good spot in terms of survivability compared to other armors. DA is a good powerset, it has no huge resist hole, no OP strong point (hello 90% res farming), and a bit of everything for potentially the best scaling out of all powersets as it doesn't need a whole lot of something but mixed buffs to shine, exactly what is easily provided in general team/raid environement.

I think if the auras have to be changed (and again, they are probably the only powers to deserve a change), it should be in the area of utility and efficiency rather than mitigation itself.

The glaring points for me:

-we should have an incentive to use both auras and get some benefit out of it, they're rather high tier and signature Dark powers, i can't think of any other set in the game with two key powers being mutually exclusive/overlapping like that
-they should be interesting enough to be serious picks to consider, but not mandatory enough to be forced: they're not key elements to the set survivability and they have never been, making them a cornerstone of the powerset would be too much i think, especially as they are both visually intrusive and do not fit all players
-their slotting potential should be balanced, as stated above, currently CoF is a "many slots or nothing" power and OG is pretty much a one slot wonder unless going for a stun set bonus.
-they shouldn't bring more mitigation or stacking with other powers than they already do, as they already do it well: greatly reducing the damage coming from minions and offering stacking potential is not something to underestimate. OG allows any crappy mag 2 stun from primaries to one shot stun a boss, CoF allows to passively turn all minions into "nothing" if you cut your damage aura and stop using AoE. That is awesome synergy with Dark Regen and allows to take on a boss with capped heal power and very little added damage provided we pay attention to keeping the fodder alive and feared

I'm not sure how to achieve that, though i think it has to be in the theme of the set: small effect with a single mob, great effect with a crowd. I think it should be something like a stat buff, as devs seem to like it these days, for the amount of mobs in the auras. Nothing as critical and powerful as the specialized sets based on that. How about a little To Hit buff per target withing range of CoF ? Minor Endurance reduction buff per target in range of OG ? Something like that, which would require no huge change to the powers (visual, animation), nothing really noticeable in end game with full IOs and incarnates, yet helpful enough to make it smooth for the leveling process.

While probably not doable, i would love some special mechanic, something like, each target affected by CoF and/or OG triggers some combo point, and each one of them reduce a bit the endurance use on Dark Regen, rewarding the player for using all the tools and stand in a crowd where DA is as its peak performance, however it's highly unlikely to happen, and would be a lot of work/change for something that isn't really needed anyway. If some dev power has to go on existing powersets, there are much more critical issues out there, as it was pointed above. DA is already in a comfortable spot in the food chain of defensive powersets.

One key element to think about as well would be to reduce/remove the negative effects of the auras: OG tends to scatter the mobs, CoF might occasionally make them run a bit between their cowering phase, or stay on the spot while the player moves. That doesn't fit too well for a melee set where most players will want the mobs to stay around them and come into melee.

JayboH: for the endurance, please consider one thing as well: most powersets have a native endurance recovery power, that's why DA appears so "bad" sometimes, let's take a look:

Dark armor: Nothing outside of tier 9 involving a death
Electric armor: pretty much infinite endurance with a lot of tools
Energy aura: same
Fiery aura: consume, very effective
Invulnerability: nothing, tier 9 is barely better than DA self rez has an endurance recovery tool
Regen: Quick recovery
Shield: Tier 9, lack of hard crash makes it decent
SR: same as Invuln, no real tool outside of tier 9 and the crash is prohibitive
Willpower: quick recovery
Ice armor: Energy absorption, hibernate
Stone armor: special enough to barely fit in there because of the granite special mechanics


So out of 11 defensive powersets (i don't count Ninjitsu as it's stalker only, and the power changes make for a whole different story for stalkers), 7 have innate endurance recovery tools they can use without huge penalties. 6 of them have virtually infinite endurance because of clicky powers to restore all their endurance.

By design DA doesn't have any real endurance recovery power (Tier 9 is about as much of a little gimmick for that as it is for Invuln and SR) and it's one of the 3 only sets designed to have that weakness. It is, however, the ONLY single set in the game able to have such a huge HPS with a single power, and it's the only set with Regen who can heal several health bars in a single fight. The only other set without a real tier 9 designed to keep you alive is Fire, which isn't exactly a survival reference.

That said, i really think that, yes, the endurance usage is balanced. DA can't be compared for that to sets with innate endurance recovery tools: if DA didn't have the need for some blue outside help, it would make powersets like electric armor quite pointless because these sets not only have lower cost with most of their powers, but they have special powers designed to fill their blue bars. They trade utility, CC or massive heal power for that luxury to spend the blue with no limit.

If an armor set needs help, that's SR, as it combines the lack of heal, the lack of endurance recovery, and a rather random survivability with a high end cost as well. Dark Regen is not supposed to be spammed, it's a costly "heal !" card that needs to be used with proper thought and not abused unless dedicating enough ressources to make it possible. And unlike SR, DA can achieve great survivability and performance. Invuln is in a pretty good shape as well and it doesn't have endurance recovery either. And oddly enough, most of the powersets with infinite endurance and no blue bar issue will drop on the floor well before a well played DA toon.

Balance ? It's there, and that's exactly why DA doesn't need a "buff" or a nerf: it has limitations, it's not perfect, but someone picking DA makes the choice to have powerful tools and no health issue, but to depend on the blue bar for survival, as much as someone picking EA or ElA makes the choice of going all out and never worry about endurance, yet they'll have to play more carefully with their health bar.

And that's the beauty of diversity, some players will prefer one or the other, and nobody will be forced because of concept as you can turn anything into a dark blob and add enough electric auras and stuff to make DA look like something else. And honestly, with more than HALF the powersets having recovery tools, and only 2 of them really having endurance woes, i'd rather have it stay like that. Some peoples like to have some challenge and not just run blindly into stuff. It took me 3 years of tinkering, building, saving, respecing and thoughts to come up with a build with no endurance issues for my spines/dark scrapper, that made me more proud and happy of the character than any other character i ever had. That's the kind of stuff that should stay in the game. Don't remove the challenge and diversity, anyone who enjoys the playstyle of Dark Armor will find a way to make it work. It can be done ! It's not even that hard. Anyone who doesn't like it anyway will move back to other powersets and not give it much thought.

Oh yeah, and if it even matters, DA is probably one of the worse sets in PvP i think.

That said, i strongly support the change proposed above: lower the animation time of auras. This might as well be done for the whole set. The amount of time a DA toon with pool powers has to spend toggling up after a death is quite ridiculous Or just allow them to be cast on the run in PvE zones.

Seems like there are the same arguing points about DA. I'll address each with my personal opinions... but first, a general opinion about the set.

I find DA to be balanced, a bit of a swiss army knife of a defensive set. It has 2 mez powers... which is awesome. It has a strong heal that has a .... you know what, I'll stop myself right there. The best thing about DA is that it has a personality. It has a little of everything, yet, no other set really feels anything like it. Damage aura, debuffs, mezzes, PBAoE damaging heal, stealth/defense, good resistances... especially against the weird stuff. It even has a self rez -- but a rez that feels more like an on purpose self-sacrifice power (I mean come on, who doesn't want to run in, die, then resurrect to the image of everyone stumbling around as you have fun - the set is just plane fun). But I think it gets misunderstood a lot... and here's why:

DA is a role player, one that I think is great on teams. Its powers are typically designed to help everyone. For instance, ...

CoF: There are a couple of ways to look at this power: A mag 2 fear that has an extremely high endurance cost or as a defensive toggle that can be resisted by harder enemies(-5% tohit is like gaining 5% defense, but the enemy can resist it whereas personal defense does not get resisted). This seems to be the main complaints. Let me address each one individually:
The constant mag 2 fear around you may only mitigate minions by itself, but it is great for teammates that use fear based attacks (Illusion controllers, anyone?). It allows for the mezzes to stack and control more difficulty enemies... typically bosses or EBs. Also (for those who only want to solo), you can stack it yourself. Anyone has access to the Presence pool and can pick up intimidate or invoke panic (for a PBAoE mag 4 fear festival). I am sure this is rarely done, but anyone with the Dark Armor set has the tools to double stack fear to mez up to bosses (or for a chance to mez elite bosses) while solo. I find this aspect of CoF to be very useful and not necessarily an endurance hog (.52end/sec isn't the end of the world after slotting it to about half that).

As for the -ToHit...

The -ToHit is awesome for everyone. A defensive toggle will only help you (great for the soloist, not explicitly for teammates), but by debuffing everyone around you is effectively giving your entire team more defense. Sure, it can be resisted, but say you 4-6 slot this power for the endurance reduction and -ToHit (I doubt people would care to make fear duration last longer, but I wouldn't be against it necessarily), even with SOs you can expect the end result to be somewhere around .27-.31end/sec and -(7-8)% to hit. That's like giving you and your teammates another weave, before enemy resistance of course.

OG: Just like CoF's fear, the mag 2 stun only affects minions. Worst yet, it acts as minion scatterer. But unlike CoF, it's a hard rez (by that I mean, the minions won't attack you), and it's endurance cost is practically nothing. Sure, you take a little bit of damage, but nothing that I have experienced as life threatening (you do have a heal, after all). The other thing that makes OG so great is that so many AT sets have powers that stun. Once again, you're able to provide stacked mez to your teammates, or simply take matters in your hand and stun them yourself. Just looking at the tanker secondaries, 8 of the 13 available sets have disorienting attacks. Although it's a low probability, Flurry and Boxing have chances to stun and are available to everyone in the power pools. Any of these attacks, when hit, will apply at least another mag 2 stun onto your enemy, certainly mezzing them in the process. As for the scattering problem, take an area slow or area immobilize power for the Epic Pools if it's too hard to handle wandering enemies. Otherwise, I love that DA has two mitigation toggles. Two toggles that aren't necessarily difficult to double stack if you wish to design for it... but here's the thing, you don't have to. I rarely take CoF... why? Because OG is enough for me and for how I plan to play my characters. Other times, I may want to go the fear/debuff route and will skip OG. That's ok too, I have options. But don't say they can't be paired together. If I'm soloing or am an alpha dog of the team, I may use my OG+PBAoE stun (if that's the toon I'm playing, which I usually am) to mez all the bosses and below around me. This leaves me with a one on one battle with the few who remain standing (EBs, AVs, or simply those that I missed). When I'm standing toe-to-toe with these guys, it's nice to know that I am applying that -8% tohit debuff. Even if it's resisted 75%, an extra 2% defense can go a long way. Especially if you are nearing softcap.

As for the OPs concerns, I would rather see Dark Regeneration be as extreme as it is as opposed to looking like just another Armor set self heal. I love that with the right slotting (recharge, heal, endurance, accuracy) I could have a heal that is up roughly every 10-15 seconds that can propel me from the brink of death back up to (or near) full life. Again, that's the fun of DA. It's everywhere, and it has extremes (such as high endurance cost, and high hit point swings). With DA there is strategy involved in the chaos. But most importantly, it is different. And it shouldn't be changed.

Good posts by Celidya and boppaholic.

I concur that DA does suffer from Endurance issues and has no native recovery (I almost barged in and shouted "Are we forgetting Dark Consumption!" before realizing that's DM, not DA... :P) but they're not exceptionally bad if slotted correctly (even without IOs).

As I was looking back on my earlier post, and scrap any massive CoF changes, what has been reiterated by others is the general lack of "need" for either CoF or OG. Celidya points out that DA is in a pretty good spot without them (no glaring holes, no extreme strengths, etc.) and I believe Arcanaville's Scrapper Secondary comparison back in I7 or so made DA out to be among the best Scrapper armors without factoring in CoF or OG at all. That CoF and/or OG are essentially unnecessary just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not saying every power needs to be "must-have" in any set but Tier 7 and Tier 8 powers ought to have some pretty attractive points. Additionally, as mentioned, they overlap roles quite a bit.

Celidya's point on making CoF and OG more "utility" and less "mitigation" is a fine distinction/change but does adding minor secondary characteristics change the fact that the primary effects of both powers do essentially the same thing? I'm fine for adding secondary characteristics but when you take a power for its secondary effects over its primary, that tells you something. I'd actually put Cloak of Darkness in that boat, too (I use it for the Def, not the stealth) but it also offers Immob protection so it gets a pass from me. I already use CoF for the ToHit Debuff almost exclusively (Fear is just gravy) which is why OG has absolutely no appeal to me in its current form. It does nothing I don't already have/want.

OG is the real offender here. CoF has its drawbacks but with better accuracy and lower endurance cost (which is in the realm of possibility), what does OG offer? Stunning minions just doesn't add anything by itself. Certain Combos, like Energy Melee/Mace, Hand/Lightning Clap and the like might give OG more of a supplementary role to stunning Lts/Bosses but OG only has synergy with about half of the melee sets. Should the power be able to stand on its own or is it just a fact of life that OG will need certain combos to make it worthwhile?

This just popped into my head so it might not be great but what if there was some kind of "adjustment" you could do to OG while it was toggled on so that you could trade more of your HP for stronger mag stuns? Level 1 might be the current iteration but Level 2 would do a Mag 3 Stun but take a larger portion of health per tick and Level 3 would do a Mag 4 Stun but really sap you. At level 50, it's like 4 HP/mob in range for what we currently have. What if it doubled at "level 2" and quadrupled at "level 3" so that you're losing a lot of HP to keep those bosses stunned. That kind of flexibility wouldn't affect those that wanted the power to stay as it was (it has no change at "level 1") but for those that want to do some management mid-battle, you could greatly mitigate damage from Lts and Bosses. Of course, you could easily kill yourself, too. Fortunately, Dark Regen is in the same powerset. I don't know how that would be implemented (3 different OG power buttons with their various potency?) but it was just a thought. Of course, switching between "levels" would have to be instant and with no animation, otherwise it would be a hassle but if the two other levels were greyed out until OG was activated, then you could switch at will while OG is up, that might work.

How playable would a Dark Armour be if you had no Dark Regen?
Then remove CoF and OG (most do anyway).
Then remove Death Shroud?
Yet still have it costing as much in endurance, as if you had all that.

How playable?

Then how many other Primaries that tanks get can say that they can have almost half of their primary completely negated by one secondary effect in their 20s?

None I think, thats a balance issue.