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*sigh*|
Originally Posted by JayboH
I freaking love these videos. Dark Armor sucks when having over 30+ lethal defense in a set that doesn't get anywhere near that with it's intended design, using the lowest endurance draining primary with mitigation built in and using no SOs at all for the freebies.
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Let's take the basic loadout of all Brute Armors:
Fiery Aura
Dark Armor
Invulnerability
Willpower
Regeneration
Stone Armor
Electric Armor
Shield Defense
Energy Aura
Super Reflexes
Now, let's pit them against Psi:
Dark Armor
Willpower
Electric Armor
Shield Defense
Super Reflexes
Regeneration (via heals)
Stone, Invul, Fiery and Energy are out as they have no resistance to Psi (unless you decide to toggle out of Granite and turn on Minerals).
Let's pit them against endurance drain:
Dark Armor
Electric Armor
Super Reflexes
Shield, Regen and Willpower are out because they don't have the huge drain resistance (or the defense to just avoid the drain). The remaining sets will eat floor after that Sapper decides to ruin their day unless the Fiery Aura Brute is quick on his Consume and the Sapper's hold misses.
Which of any of the aforementioned sets can go from 1 health to full health in less than a second? Dark Armor. Which of the aforementioned sets can stun an AV? Dark Armor. Which sets can, with a single IO, fill their endurance bar AND their health bar? Dark Armor.
Give some credit where credit is due, man; there are things Dark Armor can stand up to that no other sets can (like the Sapper Onslaught in Dechs's first video, or a wall of Psionic damage, or DEATH), and it even has resistance to Toxic Damage.
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"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
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For what it's worth, that underplays, in my mind, the largest strength of dark armor- I know there are mixed feeling with CoF's end usage and OG's wandering syndrome, but the two together can all but shut down all damage and debuffs from all but higher ranking foes. If the primary offers fear/stuns, that can be extended even further.
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Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
*sigh*
Let's take the basic loadout of all Brute Armors:...... |
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I'll put forth that only a moron would believe that Dark Armor is the only set that can withstand a Sapper onslaught, a wall of Psi damage, or that it is the only set with resistance to Toxic damage. Let alone the only set that can do all of the above.|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
<mixed listing of correct and incorrect "facts" snipped>
Give some credit where credit is due, man; there are things Dark Armor can stand up to that no other sets can (like the Sapper Onslaught in Dechs's first video, or a wall of Psionic damage, or DEATH), and it even has resistance to Toxic Damage. |
It's not the best set for drain resistance, by the way. It's about even with Stone Armor for endurance drain/recovery resistance, but requires more toggles at a higher total endurance cost than just Rooted (which has the same amount of drain resistance that DA gets) + Granite, so I put it behind there, and both lag far behind Electric Armor's capped recovery/drain resistance. One of the sets you included, Super Reflexes, has absolutely NO endurance drain protection beyond hoping you don't get hit, yet every set can get a load of defense from IOs.
I'll give you that at its base, Dark Armor handles Psi better than any other set, with Willpower's layered approach being debatably better. But every set has a means of dealing with it - whether in heals, +maxhp (effectively extra resistance), resistance (the only area Dark Armor excels at handling Psi compared to the others), or defense.
Less hyperbole, more facts.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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Yeah I think I went after a marksman since they slow my abilities to a crawl there. CoD only grants 5% def I think - also I only use CJ when I get immobilized for the most part, which is the other part that CoD grants, only at a much higher end cost.|
Originally Posted by Nihilii
JayboH - I think you're not playing to your strengths. Look back to your first death ; a few seconds before, you broke away from the crowd to go fight a single minion. That means all the mobs that were under OG/CoF suddenly weren't. You also had a good 4-5 seconds to use DR, and instead you went and locked yourself in Tremor's long animation.
I know it's not always easy to have proper timing, and much like Regen, Dark Armor is much more reliant on everything going just right than other powersets, but I think there's room for improvement there. You also keep CoD off, which I guess is to make a point about DA without defense? Regardless, CoD is a part of the powerset, and ignoring it doesn't make more sense than it would to play, say, Willpower without Fast Healing. You also had CJ toggled off, no defense toggles, no Hasten. Bit of a stretch to want to take on the hardest difficulty while ignoring most of the powerful mechanics in the game, if you ask me. This would make a good point against the over prevalence of defense and recharge in this game rather than against Dark Armor. Frankly, considering the limitations you set for yourself I don't think you're doing all that bad. |
Thanks for the compliments, and yes that was the whole point, and is always the main point several of us make against the OP, since his videos always prove that dark armor had very little to do with anything - it's always high defense IOs that are being shown off.
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Energy Aura should be higher than SR against endurance drain.
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Originally Posted by Siolfir
One of the sets you included, Super Reflexes, has absolutely NO endurance drain protection beyond hoping you don't get hit.
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What if I got rid of the end cost IO and tossed in a vanilla recharge? I have a tier 4 Vigor Radial so that also affects things. I would be very interested in build ideas for this character.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Well, it would be helpful to compare your build and your wife's build, to see if they really are comparable in expense and efficiency. For example, your posted build isn't optimal in a few areas. Without increasing the cost of the build much or at all, Dark Regeneration can be slotted a lot better for someone that intends to attempt x8 soloing. Rather than slot with in accuracy IO and a set of Touch of Nictus (minus the proc I assume), which *heavily* overslots for heal, I would frankenslot DR with one accuracy IO, one end/rech IO from Numina's, an acc/end/rech from ToN and ToE, and heal/end/rech from Doctored Wounds and Miracle (all cheap).
Your slotting ends up with Dark Regen having 68.9% accuracy, 83.32% end, 97.49% heal, and 47.7% recharge. Mine gets to 79.9% accuracy, and 95.84% end and recharge, and 40.5% heal. That slotting is just as cheap, but far superior in almost every situation. The only thing its inferior to is heal strength: yours heals for about 61% per target, mine for 42% per target (separate from any other set IO buffs). Because Dark Armor is a different kind of and less straight forward set, different players can experience vastly different performance. If you had just used my slotting instead of yours you definitely would have avoided that first death. Perhaps not the second, but that's just with one cost-neutral single power slotting change. |
I appreciate those that are not resorting to insults - my video/pic/comments are solely in regards to how a set can be argued as fantastically awesome if you build a character that uses their primary slots and pool powers to make a character that is survivable instead of actually using the set we are talking about as it was designed with SOs.
Again I do notice and appreciate those that are discussing the topic without all the snarkiness.
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? End bar? Oh, is that the Theft IO you are talking about?
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Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
Which sets can, with a single IO, fill their endurance bar AND their health bar? Dark Armor.
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You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom
There is a few other noticeable things in my video now that I watched it back - one, the devs were right regarding how the new Interfaces secondary effects are broken. I am VERY excited for the upcoming patch that fixes Spectral. The video proves exactly what was being said, that the immobilize from Spectral does nothing with the current code.
I wanted Spectral for a few reasons: it's thematic for dark, and it will help me deal with OG wandering. I wanted it for this character mostly for theme and because I love damage procs, but also to later test it for effectiveness to see if it would be something I would want over Reactive for my fire scrapper, to deal with the Avoid in Burn.
I also noticed how I could probably sacrifice a little when it comes to end cost as my blue bar was fine.
I never slotted this character to resist psi - I just never had an issue with it vs most of the game. Dark armor's strengths are completely nullified in iTrials unfortunately, outside of dark regen. I suppose fault + OG have allowed me to stun iTrial mobs from time to time though.
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I admit I should have ignored the marksman that can slow my abilities to a crawl in that one shot - that was a mistake. I didn't use my barrier or any of the huge tray of purples sitting there for the reason of the video's point though. My whole point was to show how silly it is to argue how awesome dark is when you build other powers outside of the set to make up for the weakness. |
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Nothing you have said or your video shows that Dark Armor is squishy. It just shows that Dark Armor, when poorly built and played (thanks Nihilii for saying just about everything I would have), cannot stand up to +4/x8 Council.
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My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
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whoever said dark armor sucks was wrong, nice video, i just like to point out that no set in the game sucks at all, all of them have their own unique way, its just a matter of preference and all can have their potential found with a bit of time and consideration, i personally love dark now that ive seen this video and plan to make a dark/ss brute with fire mastery app.
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Originally Posted by JayboH
? End bar? Oh, is that the Theft IO you are talking about?
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And my whole point has been "Dark Armor doesn't suck," not how awesome it is.|
Originally Posted by JayboH
My whole point was to show how silly it is to argue how awesome dark is when you build other powers outside of the set to make up for the weakness.
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Your whole point, however, is undermined pretty heavily by not using some of the fundamental strengths of the set, but still managing to do very well against +4/x8 mobs, something not intended at all.
Where to now?
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The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
Yes it was, I didn't set out to suck at it. I am also not arguing that dark armor sucks and never have - I have questioned the massive end cost of dark regen though in the past.
My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
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I must not have been clear. Being able to solo +4/x8 was never intended game design, and despite your poor build choices and some minor mistakes, you still managed to do it.
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Originally Posted by JayboH
Yes it was, I didn't set out to suck at it.
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Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
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Not really, I died several times in that mission.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
I must not have been clear. Being able to solo +4/x8 was never intended game design, and despite your poor build choices and some minor mistakes, you still managed to do it.
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I did make two changes just now to dark regen per Arcanaville's suggestions. I replaced the end cost IO with a recharge IO, and replaced a ToN Acc/Healing with a Numina End/Recharge, so now it looks like this with my Tier 4 Vigor Alpha:
75% Acc, 100.5% end cost, 97.4% recharge, 80.7% healing.
I am about to fire it up again and see if the extra recharge and end cost changes are going to make a nice improvement.
My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
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Gravity. Force Fields. But yeah, amongst the Real Boys, no set sucks.
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Originally Posted by sypher_vendetta
whoever said dark armor sucks was wrong, nice video, i just like to point out that no set in the game sucks at all,
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I still think Poison could be tossed in there even with the Venomous Gas fix and changes from Issue 21, but at least it is a little better. I took a BR/Poison to 50 at least so I didn't hate it THAT much.
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Originally Posted by Talen Lee
Gravity. Force Fields. But yeah, amongst the Real Boys, no set sucks.
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Originally Posted by Talen Lee
Gravity. Force Fields. But yeah, amongst the Real Boys, no set sucks.
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Gravity i like but never got one to 50 so i didnt notice anything good or bad just a thematically cool set, never touched force fields in my life so no comment, poison needs work even after the venemous gas changes.
i probably would have to agree to your comment Talon if you could explain your experiences or views regarding said sets.
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The attack in Gravity is super slow and the dimensional shift power is hated by most. Force Field powers outside of the main 3 shields are very situational and are easily skippable.
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Originally Posted by sypher_vendetta
Gravity i like but never got one to 50 so i didnt notice anything good or bad just a thematically cool set, never touched force fields in my life so no comment, poison needs work even after the venemous gas changes.
i probably would have to agree to your comment Talon if you could explain your experiences or views regarding said sets. |
My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom
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Originally Posted by JayboH
The attack in Gravity is super slow and the dimensional shift power is hated by most. Force Field powers outside of the main 3 shields are very situational and are easily skippable.
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thanks for the explanation Jay.
now i understand the reasoning to some sets are better left alone lol.
Changes with what I listed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2uBhfXwvKk
Watching it back, with the changes I just need to adjust when I hit the heal because I wasn't counting for long animation times. Again I would love assistance with slotting suggestions.
My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom
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It's Talen. |
Originally Posted by sypher_vendetta
Gravity i like but never got one to 50 so i didnt notice anything good or bad just a thematically cool set, never touched force fields in my life so no comment, poison needs work even after the venemous gas changes.
i probably would have to agree to your comment Talon if you could explain your experiences or views regarding said sets. |
Gravity lacks a workhorse control before level 26 making the levelling experience painful and Wormhole's recharge time is longer than the other workhorse controls. It gets extra attacks which are generally unnecessary, which are themselves long-cast considering their damage output. Forcefield is largely obviated by cold domination and runs itself out of a job early on. And I have a hard time having sympathy for a debuff set that has been soloing AVs without inspirations with only SOs.
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You must be talking about a controller only, because there is very little mitigation in Poison.
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Originally Posted by Talen Lee
And I have a hard time having sympathy for a debuff set that has been soloing AVs without inspirations with only SOs.
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Nope. Mastermind. Back in the day, pre invention system, /poison (usually thugs), was ranked right up there with bots/traps for av soloing.
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I don't think Dark Armor sucks. Dark Armor is just a bit gimmicky and it's wonderful when you have two running the toggles.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.