Dark/Shield

Returning player, I know nothing of the sets and incarnates and all that yet.

Finally decided on a main character for the first time since before CoVillains came out. A Dark/Shield scrapper. I have no idea if that build is good or bad or makes any sense... I've never been a number cruncher type. I just liked both sets on paper for a long time and the other night it dawned on me that there's a specific dark shield under elemental shields that looks like a wicked awesome magic gauntlet. Viola, my character.

Now... I come to the forum lords seeking their wisdom in the ways of the end-game. I would like to pack it full of endurance regen and -recharge set bonuses on top of perma hasten so my two PBAoE's in dark are available often.

I'm also very curious what to do with Siphon Life... what kind of enhancements would get the most damage/healing and a decent amount of accuracy out of that power? I like Shadow Maul but the animation time makes me think I should skip it for an end-game chain and Siphon Life will have to be maximized (or close) as an attack, but I still want as much healing as possible.

Any input welcome.
A quick run down of the new enhancement types and terms would be awesome.

Slot Siphon Life as an attack and use it in your regular attack chain.

Once you are softcapped or close to it even a small heal every 10 seconds or so will be more than you need most of the time. And when stuff starts getting through your defense enough that a larger heal would be desirable, Siphon Life won't be enough to save you, even fully slotted for healing.

If you manage to softcap yourself without putting a full set of something in Siphon Life, perhaps a set of 5 Crushing Impact and a generic Heal IO would work for you. You can boost the effectiveness of IOs now to well beyond their starting point, so a single level 50 IO can be quite effective.

Hello again C&E,

How does this interact with the old wisdom of stopping at two or three enhancements on a single stat due to diminishing returns? Say I put two SO's with +33% damage in something, and six IO's with +11% damage in them. Both would be 66% damage but the SO's would be fewer sources. Would the SO's do more damage due to not paying for diminishing returns?


EDIT--
NM... playing with mids is answering questions faster than I can type them. I see the enhancement set tab and it has plenty of sets in there to keep me busy for the rest of the day (which is when I'm supposed to sleep.)

I'm looking at Mids and a few powers won't take sets at all, like Active Defense in shield. Is this an error or is there a reason those powers won't take set enhancements?

Well, your first goal with a Shield Defense character is to get to the soft-cap on all 3 positional defenses (Melee, Ranged, and AoE)

So, in order to achieve that goal you'll want to look at things like taking the Fighting pool for Tough and Weave, maybe the Leadership pool for Maneuvers, and Combat Jumping.

After you've got all the defense you can get through power choices, you'll want to start looking into IO set bonuses that will help you achieve your goal of soft-capping.

Positional defense bonuses usually come at the 6 slot mark of the various sets that provide it, so you'll probably want to 6 slot all your attacks so you can slot them.

The most commonly used sets for that include: Mako's Bite(ranged), Touch of Death(melee), Obliteration(melee), Eradication(ranged AND AoE), Scirocco's Dervish(AoE), and Gaussian's Synchronized Fire Control(all 3). You will also want to slot a Steadfast Protection Resistance/+Defense, which gives you 3% defense to everything.

There are other ways you can do it, but that is the most straightforward and least confusing.

DM/SD is a wonderful combo. Prepare for a very fun great journey.