Dark Armor the new Nemesis Plot?

PleaseRecycle · 05-07-2012 06:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leo_G

*shrugs* I've read this many of times but tend to ask just how much that damage actually matters. Like I said, if the foe does quickly, in a few hits, just how much damage goes off before the enemy is dead? Getting off a tier 1's amount of damage in the time it takes to defeat the foe *IF* they stay in range is considered 'huge'?

Damage auras enable you to pay single target endurance to do ten target aoe damage for zero animation time. "Huge" is an understatement if anything.

Samuel_Tow · 05-07-2012 06:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill

Anyone else find it really sad that this should ever be called "a trick?" I mean, honestly, this should be common sense.

It should be, until you realise that in most situations, you need all three of Dark Armour's shields anyway. Everything and anything you fight will deal physical damage and most things in the upper levels will have some kind of elemental or energy component to their damage, and pretty much everything since I18 will also have status effects.

That's what people told me to do with my Stone/Stone Brute, too. Then I fought Arachnos, who usually had, within the same spawn: Bane Spiders who deal physical damage, Fire Tarantula who deal fire damage, Mu Mystics who deal energy damage and Fortunata seers who deal psychic damage, all of whom have status effects when they show up as lieutenants.

The problem with trying to account for what damage type your enemies will be using is very similar to trying to match your Dual Pistols ammo to exploit the weaknesses of enemies you're fighting - knowing who does what damage is NOT trivial and combat spam scrolls by quite fast. Enemies don't deal the kind of damage you'd think they'd deal - Spectrals aren't Smashing/Dark, they're Dark/Psi, for instance. And even when you do know who does what, half the time you end up having to run all toggles anyway, or otherwise leave yourself exposed to a major component of incoming damage.

If all or even most enemy factions were as simple to fight as the Warriors or the Rikti, this wouldn't really be considered a trick. It's only a trick because there are so few situations where it actually works.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Techbot Alpha · 05-07-2012 06:20 AM

Pretty much what Sam said, really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger

GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon

NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

bpphantom · 05-07-2012 06:31 AM

As has been said and seems to be agreed on now, Dark Armor is great. Not SuperZOMGAmazeballs... but solid, manageable and very, very good. It's also a ton of fun.

My SS/Dark Brute who was my 1st, but not last, journey into Dark Armor: http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/downl...43FE03D6AE0A85

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ClawsandEffect · 05-07-2012 06:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leo_G

*shrugs* I've read this many of times but tend to ask just how much that damage actually matters. Like I said, if the foe does quickly, in a few hits, just how much damage goes off before the enemy is dead? Getting off a tier 1's amount of damage in the time it takes to defeat the foe *IF* they stay in range is considered 'huge'?

Using the attacks in your primary (or secondary in Tanker's case) uses more endurance than running Death Shroud.

If running Death Shroud means you can defeat the same group of enemies using fewer attacks, you save endurance in the long run.

If you're running a ST focused character, you can focus your attacks on LTs and bosses and let AoE splash damage and your damage aura take out the minions. That's how I use it on my BS/DA scrapper at least. I frequently don't even have to target the minions because Death Shroud kills them while I'm hitting any bosses in the spawn.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

PRAF68_EU · 05-07-2012 07:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
Yes.

City of Data has proven that a damage aura is a huge chunk of your total damage output.

*shrugs* I've read this many of times but tend to ask just how much that damage actually matters. Like I said, if the foe does quickly, in a few hits, just how much damage goes off before the enemy is dead? Getting off a tier 1's amount of damage in the time it takes to defeat the foe *IF* they stay in range is considered 'huge'?

This. If you have something that does a point of damage to every mob you ever fight over the course of the game, it's inevitable that it's all going to add up to a lot of damage. However, how often does that damage actually contribute to the DEFEAT of the mob? Chances are that a mob that goes down in three hits will go down in three hits with or without the damage done by the aura.

I really should do something about this signature.

PleaseRecycle · 05-07-2012 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU

This. If you have something that does a point of damage to every mob you ever fight over the course of the game, it's inevitable that it's all going to add up to a lot of damage. However, how often does that damage actually contribute to the DEFEAT of the mob? Chances are that a mob that goes down in three hits will go down in three hits with or without the damage done by the aura.

It shouldn't take a giant amount of reflection to see why this is wrong. In general the more granular the damage you can do, the better. Bigger chunks more often lead to overkill. As Claws said there's also the fact that while you're beating on the boss, the aura is killing everything else. There remains the fact that the aura costs what a single target attack would cost so anything it hits past the first target is pure gravy. If you're somehow not yet swayed, take note of how many farmers choose non-aura sets.

UberGuy · 05-07-2012 07:40 AM

If you're fighting a single foe at a time which all have relatively low HP (minions, LTs and bosses), then no, the aura isn't going to make a lot of difference unless averaged over many foes, which is potentially deceptive.

If you're fighting a single, high-HP foe, then that DPS can become a significant contribution to how fast you defeat it unless your single-target attack chain is fairly spectacular. When you consider that it adds directly to the DPS of your attack chain with no cost in activation time, and deals its damage every few seconds, a damage aura can represent a lot more DPS than you can gain through other means. Slotted Death Shroud is around 12.5 raw DPS (on a Scrapper), assuming no procs are added to it. That's a pretty big increase if you've already tweaked out your attack chain.

Where a damage aura likely affects performance the most is against lots of foes with relatively low HP. That situation probably describes what most melee characters spend most of their time doing - being surrounded by 3-17 standard mission foes at a time.

Blue
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Nightfall: 50 DDD
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Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
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Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

Leo_G · 05-07-2012 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect

Using the attacks in your primary (or secondary in Tanker's case) uses more endurance than running Death Shroud.

If running Death Shroud means you can defeat the same group of enemies using fewer attacks, you save endurance in the long run.

If you're running a ST focused character, you can focus your attacks on LTs and bosses and let AoE splash damage and your damage aura take out the minions. That's how I use it on my BS/DA scrapper at least. I frequently don't even have to target the minions because Death Shroud kills them while I'm hitting any bosses in the spawn.

Right, I mentioned Tankers (and Brutes) and ST focused tactics. It can contribute greatly but it's more circumstantial than standard AoE attacks, especially on a Scrapper which doesn't have a taunt wrapped up in that aura.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle

It shouldn't take a giant amount of reflection to see why this is wrong. In general the more granular the damage you can do, the better. Bigger chunks more often lead to overkill. As Claws said there's also the fact that while you're beating on the boss, the aura is killing everything else. There remains the fact that the aura costs what a single target attack would cost so anything it hits past the first target is pure gravy. If you're somehow not yet swayed, take note of how many farmers choose non-aura sets.

Not pure gravy. The toggle still costs endurance even when not doing damage. When you take into consideration normal play (one of the players posting about being very squishy), one isn't going to be constantly surrounded by maximum amount of foes. The player could be moving to or away from attacking foes. And farming isn't standard play...I cannot agree that the game can be funneled into such a mindless task as that.

My point was, damage auras aren't as huge a contender as many make it out to be. That isn't to say damage aura's aren't great, but if they were as huge as being made out to be, sets without damage auras or ATs that exclude them would be at a serious disadvantage and that just isn't the case.

Krogoth · 05-07-2012 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect

Yes.

I'm not 100% positive, but I believe it adds enhancement value to each power. It does do it globally though, it's lowering the end cost of Tough as well as the in-set powers.

However, due to the nature of the bonus coming as a secondary effect of a power set, it will NOT be subject to ED (because it is not actually enhancement value)

It is global, but how it works is a global endurance discount like vigilance or conserve power. You can track it in game with Combat Attributes, it shows up in the base section right under global recharge.

Samuel_Tow · 05-07-2012 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leo_G

Not pure gravy. The toggle still costs endurance even when not doing damage. When you take into consideration normal play (one of the players posting about being very squishy), one isn't going to be constantly surrounded by maximum amount of foes. The player could be moving to or away from attacking foes. And farming isn't standard play...I cannot agree that the game can be funneled into such a mindless task as that.

Damage auras on squishy characters are a whole other kettle of fish, and one I actually HUGELY disagree with. I've had dozens of people try to demonstrate to me how running damage auras on Blasters helped stay alive, but for me, they always got me dead. And when they didn't get me dead, they ended up doing nothing because I spent almost no time near my enemies.

The damage from damage auras adds up, so they work best for characters who spend a lot of time surrounded by many enemies, as most melee folk tend to do. For melee, damage auras are an under-appreciated help. For squishies... Well, put it this way - I've yet to see a Blaster damage aura that's worth using for its damage.

---

Sideways of the point, damage auras screw with your Streakbreaker. Under normal circumstances, a miss at 95% to-hit forces the following attack to always hit. With a damage aura, however, that forced Streakbreaker hit goes to the damage aura and your next attack might still miss.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

UberGuy · 05-07-2012 08:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Sideways of the point, damage auras screw with your Streakbreaker. Under normal circumstances, a miss at 95% to-hit forces the following attack to always hit. With a damage aura, however, that forced Streakbreaker hit goes to the damage aura and your next attack might still miss.

If you think that's bad, tanker Gauntlet has the same effect.

Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

Techbot Alpha · 05-07-2012 09:25 AM

Hmn, edited my build a bit now, chopped out the more expensive DA auras, put CoD in at a later level and added more end red to the AoEs.

How much difference, in reality, does -1 end cost really make?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger

GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon

NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Leo_G · 05-07-2012 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

For squishies... Well, put it this way - I've yet to see a Blaster damage aura that's worth using for its damage.

Well, not that I changed tunes, but on my DP/Fire blaster, those 2 auras (blazing aura and hot feet) add up when I'm in the center of foes using Hail of Bullets. I think that thing take 4 seconds (!) to animate so more likely than not, I've spent at least 1 and a half seconds getting in then getting out of that spawn, so I'll probably have at least 5 or more seconds of the damage auras going off.

HoB itself adds a damage bonus and the time it takes to use gives Blazing Aura and Hot Feet 3 tics of damage and HoB has been known to sometimes barely kill minions. The auras make those dead minions more a certainty.

Now I want to play my DP blaster some more

Nalrok_AthZim · 05-07-2012 10:03 AM

No.

No no no no no no.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wolfgang_Tao

So when are you guys going to do something with dark armor? After poking around in mids for a while I quickly came to a conclussion, Dark Armor is pretty freaking horrible.

No.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wolfgang_Tao

Ironic that my first lvl 50 was a Spine/Dark Scrapper. (Yes, I remember having to keep a kin or two on pay roll for SB because of end consumption) ((Also note: this was pre-IO days)) But after looking it over again with Mid's I still don't see any builds that make me say "Wow, that might be fun to play". I decided to muck around with a Dark Tank, still not sure what Secondary to take, I did manage to get a Dark/Ice up to about 35ish but am leary of putting any Set IO's in it. Yeah I know, just get it to lvl 50 and take incarnate stuff to make it work.. bleh - and people wonder why farmers make so much money.
This set could really use some help IMHO, I guess the Tier 9 power as "Soul Transfer" should be taken as a sign?

None of that qualifies as criteria for a set revamp. Dark Armor is immensely powerful. If you don't feel that the set is good, then it's not for you. That doesn't mean it's a bad set.

Read some guide, watch some videos, and if you want MAXIMUM RESIST REGEN POWER DEFENSE HNNNNNNG then you need to go roll the FOTM and stop asking for changes to things that don't need changing with no evidence to back your claims. At least come back with something more than "it looks bad in Mid's." So does an FF/AR Defender but I've seen people play that combo like a furious blaster.

You touch-a my Dark Armor I break-a you face.

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Samuel_Tow · 05-07-2012 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha

How much difference, in reality, does -1 end cost really make?

That depends - are you talking constant toggle drain or individual power cost? If it's constant toggle drain, 1.0/s is HUGE. That's probably as much as Stamina grants fully slotted, though I'm speaking off memory. If you're talking about an individual power, you probably want to see what that power's EPS and EPA metrics are to tell. Remember that constant recovery doesn't just matter to offset your combat costs, but it also counts in recovering from one battle to the next. If your recovery is good outside of combat, you won't have much downtime.

Err... EPS stands for Endurance Per Second and counts the power's entire cycle of recharge plus animation, measuring use over time. EPA stands for Endurance Per (something of) Activation and counts endurance use only against the power's animation time, measuring how much of a chunk that power takes out short-term. These do matter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leo_G

Well, not that I changed tunes, but on my DP/Fire blaster, those 2 auras (blazing aura and hot feet) add up when I'm in the center of foes using Hail of Bullets. I think that thing take 4 seconds (!) to animate so more likely than not, I've spent at least 1 and a half seconds getting in then getting out of that spawn, so I'll probably have at least 5 or more seconds of the damage auras going off.

HoB itself adds a damage bonus and the time it takes to use gives Blazing Aura and Hot Feet 3 tics of damage and HoB has been known to sometimes barely kill minions. The auras make those dead minions more a certainty.

I tend to count the effect of damage auras as significant mostly in longer fights, by which I mean spending 10-15 seconds in the company of many enemies. Outliers such as Hail of Bullets (which also grants a defence buff for the duration, so that's kind of cheating) do exist, but even at best you're running in and out and taking away seconds that the damage aura damage needs to build up. You may also have some kind of defence soft-capped, I don't know

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Rajani Isa · 05-07-2012 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UberGuy

CoF is the only expensive toggle in the set. Its other, more standard armor toggles are cheaper than normal.

Drop the stealth toggle once in combat.
[/QUOTE]

I think DA made the most out of ED (rather, with it's accompanying Global Endurance Cost Discount).

And the stealth toggle gives it's full value of Defense, always, which can stack nicely with other buffs, and even more importantly, it's your immobilize protection, especially if you don't go jumping.

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Leo_G · 05-07-2012 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

I tend to count the effect of damage auras as significant mostly in longer fights, by which I mean spending 10-15 seconds in the company of many enemies. Outliers such as Hail of Bullets (which also grants a defence buff for the duration, so that's kind of cheating) do exist, but even at best you're running in and out and taking away seconds that the damage aura damage needs to build up. You may also have some kind of defence soft-capped, I don't know

Well, more likely than not, there won't be anything for the damage aura to damage because it's all dead. But in the case it's not, I usually am not out of the spawn by then. Either reapplying Suppressive Fire's hold on the boss or popping inspirations after the candy rain. More stuff ends up dead then.

And not quite soft capped. Thanks to Frozen Armor and some set bonuses, (s)he has a significant amount of smashing/lethal defense (about 35%), a good portion of ranged (can't remember, like 28%) and some decent recharge and occasionally capped max HP (Hoar Frost). Even then, the way I play the character, she doesn't often use ice armor powers while running her fire auras and he doesn't often use burn and fire powers while using his ice. Only when either ascends to arch-demon status.

Still, I don't consider the auras to be hinge-worthy...they're nice to have and *great* if you set up the battle field to abuse them but that takes time and (with teams) coordination. You might find yourself more frustrated when someone throws out a KB power or kill the weak foes quickly (*DP blaster raises hand* guilty!).

That reminds me! They're changing the PPM formula for the store bought enhancements? What will that do to the Lockdown +mag hold proc? My blaster's survival hinged on that proc! She was able to 1-shot hold bosses at least 80% of the time! Without that, I'll have to lower her difficulty to no bosses

UberGuy · 05-07-2012 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha

Hmn, edited my build a bit now, chopped out the more expensive DA auras, put CoD in at a later level and added more end red to the AoEs.

How much difference, in reality, does -1 end cost really make?

As in "one Endurance point per second" improved in the build? Because that's potentially a huge difference in how something plays.

Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

UberGuy · 05-07-2012 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leo_G

Without that, I'll have to lower her difficulty to no bosses

What power is it slotted in, and how much slotted (not global) recharge is in it? Include Alpha, if you use Spiritual.

Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

ClawsandEffect · 05-07-2012 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU

T Chances are that a mob that goes down in three hits will go down in three hits with or without the damage done by the aura.

Very frequently that enemy that goes down in 3 hits will go down in 2 hits with the damage from the aura.

Low HP enemies generally take 2 hits to bring down to a sliver of health, why would you want to spend an additional 5 endurance to take away that sliver when you can let your aura do it for you for 1/20th the cost?

Melee ATs and things like Controllers that can hold enemies in place benefit greatly from having a damage aura. Things like Blasters? Not so much.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Techbot Alpha · 05-07-2012 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by UberGuy

As in "one Endurance point per second" improved in the build? Because that's potentially a huge difference in how something plays.

Sorry, I meant 1 endurance in attacks, mostly the likes of roughly 4 vs 3 end, or 5 vs 4.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger

GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon

NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

UberGuy · 05-07-2012 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha

Sorry, I meant 1 endurance in attacks, mostly the likes of roughly 4 vs 3 end, or 5 vs 4.

Ah, OK. Well, to actually try and help with a quantitative answer, how often do you actually activate the attack, say, while executing whatever you use for a standard attack chain? (If you don't bother with a fixed attack chain, it's probably close enough to just use the enhanced cycle time (enhanced recharge time + activation time) of the power. Divide the activation cost by that to get the (rough) cost in EPS that the power costs you. From there, you can figure out what you're saving with the enhancement slotting.

My apologies if that was all terribly obvious.

Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

Dechs Kaison · 05-07-2012 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha

Sorry, I meant 1 endurance in attacks, mostly the likes of roughly 4 vs 3 end, or 5 vs 4.

One end reduction in each of your attacks will do far more than one in each of your toggles.

The sum of DA's toggles is 1.41 EPS (without CoF). A single target attack chain can cost in excess of 3 EPS. Which number would you rather reduce by 33%?

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Techbot Alpha · 05-07-2012 11:42 AM

I've never been any good with DPS, EPS and EPA and all that...I only know the acronyms ^^;
Ok, will make a few more changes then. Ta.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger

GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon

NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.