Is Oppressive Gloom bad?

I dont understand why almost no scrapper/brute/tanker take it? Im absolutely new to Dark Armor but it "seems" to me that stun is a more reliable CC than terrorise and the hp loss doesnt seem so great. What have I missed?

Its more appropriate to walk into a group and watch them cower in fear than it is to walk into a group and watch them stumble around in a drunken stupor.

Well that's why I do it, anyhow.

I don't like the bad guys stumbling around. I don't like how they move out of range, both of my damage and of Divine Avalanche in particular. And if I were on a team, I'd think that would be annoying for the people hitting them with AoEs.

But I've backed off of an argument I used to make - that on a survivabilty build, you're going to take more damage from Oppressive Gloom than you would have taken from the minions. It's not that it's wrong; it's that it's irrelevant. If you're in any situation where Oppressive Gloom is doing more damage than minions would have, then you're 100% safe either way. When you really want one of the mez auras is when you're NOT perfectly safe. For instance, if my Katana/Dark has been defense debuffed through the floor. At that point, those little ticks from Oppressive Gloom are nothing compared to the damage they're preventing. And that's the whole point of the power.

I still like the fear more if I can pull it off in a build, but it's hard to argue with the one-slot wonder of Oppressive Gloom. I've at least always used it while leveling, because it's just so much easier.

Granted, I almost never team, but I've had the opposite impression as you. I thought everyone took Oppressive Gloom, and that Cloak of Fear was much more uncommon.

I pretty much agree with what Werner said. I always use OG while leveling my toons as it mitigates the damage enough for me, and the mob wandering doesn't bother me. I haven't been able to convince myself to use CoF, as the poor Accuracy and End cost always drives me away from it. One of these days I'll shoe horn it in to one of my dark toons.

I run CoF, I use 3 slots on it and I can get accuracy/end to be about 90% vs. +3s and endurance is about what it costs to run manuevers without end redux at that point.

I like it much better. It's a bigger drain on endurance, but they stay planted. CoF is more desirable in my mind, but OG is easier to work into a build...it's really a depends on the build kind of thing.

I always take both. CoF is a must for me because of my DA chars concept. Made once the mistake of respecing out OG from my DM/DA and got him faceplanted non stop on an infamous ITF run so respecced it back in and never looked back.

The way I see DA is that everything helps so I always take all DA powers bar the self rez.-

well I dont think it's bad but it has to be slotted properly to work well accuracy that is and it only stuns minions and some lts. Many brutes dont take that I know because a bunch of stunned minions means they are not attacking and addign to fury bar. Some people are not too keen on the idea that it affects their health to stun a bunch of minions especially when there a boss level mob on the case within said group that basically ignores Oppressive gloom. in the past I took it but rarely used it. On the current one, I'm undecided.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

Works great on MMs. Pets don't care about stunned mobs, and tend to pile onto the unstunned bosses+ anyway. And the damage is trivial compared to a) self healing and b) the damage not being dealt by the mobs in their stunned state.

OG is really a "right/wrong tool for the job" affair, like so many other powers in the game.

I have OG 5 slotted with the purple stun set on my long time stalker. It is awesome when well slotted. Kinda like Choking cloud on a rad defender, or hot feet on a fire blaster, it has its fans and its detractors.

I dont argue with the detractors because if too many people liked it, it would get hit with the nerf bat.

For Dark Armor, there are also many more melee sets that allow you to stack stuns than fear on bosses. With the improvements to the Presence pool, there may be less of an argument for that reasoning, but CoF is still a notorious end hog and the accuracy is terribad without proper slotting.

With the revamp to presence pool I'm hoping the devs will decided they overdid it way back when they nerfed CoF. If it had halfway decent accuracy and a reasonable end cost I would probably use it, but as is it takes too many slots for too little benefit IMO.

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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.

I think even with a "slightly" reduced from standard accuracy and, as you said, a non-extreme endurance cost it would go a long way towards making CoF used more often.

In general, I like it on squishies much better than on melee toons. On melee toons, regardless of AT I'm often herding or wanting to keep minions close. Stunned toons tend to wander off rather rapidly.

For squishies it is a melee damage mitigation that is hard to beat.

I pick up OG when I can, as was mentioned for a Traps mastermind it is AMAZING. OG, poison traps and the lockdown proc in poison traps. I can't think of more ways to lock down a full group of minions on 4/8 setting. Heck it works well on Incarnate stuff. I stand in front of incoming mobs during Baf AV fights so they get stunned as I attack the AVs.

I have it on my newly respec Traps AR Defender as well.

If you can slot it and it works with the build then I would take it. It is really one of those decent powers in this game. It does what it suppose to and the risk does equal the reward.

I was pretty hesitant to take it on my corrupter at first, but I ran out of powers I wanted so I went with it. Really been pretty pleased. Of course, being a Dual Pistols character it's actually really nice being able to jump into a spawn, have most of it stunned immediately while I fire off Hail of Bullets.

As for scrappers/brutes/tankers, I'd say it's because stunned peeps can wander off out of melee range which can be kind of irritating.

Oppressive Gloom is hilarious with stone melee Fault. I used to run entire missions without getting attacked once, on a brute.

I run both - in fact, I run all toggles except the stealth, plus Tough and Combat Jumping, with Stone Melee. It took awhile to get my endurance under control but now I never run low on end.

I use OG on my Claws/Dark stalker. I don't mind a bit of wandering around, since I'm killing things in 1-2 shots, 1 at a time. (Except when I hit Vengeance)

So I'v been playing my brute lately with both CoF and OG.


Cloack of Fear
Pro:
- It works incredibly good with an Illution troller poping Spectral Terror
- It debuffs tohit (and can recieve niffy accurate tohit debuff sets)
- It accually works quite nice with Oppressive Gloom. Feared foes dont move, even stuned, they start wandering when the fear is "broken" with damage but since they cant hit back they return to "feared" state fast.

Cons:
- It tends to be counterproductive with Death Shroud


Oppressive Gloom
Pro:
- HP loss is negligible
- Stun is hard CC and isnt messing with Death Shroud
- Since I am TW I really KD a lot, it really help a lot with the "wandering" stunned foes.
- It can carry purple sets but also works good without any slots (light endo)

Cons:
- Without any kind of snare/root the scatter can be annoying, mostly on high speed mobs like Council wolves or Speed drained Tsoos.






Surprisingly after 50 level of Dark Armor I am not asking myself if I should pick one or the other but if I should pick both or none, not sure I'm anywhere close to a decision...