Dechs Kaison
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The Supermassive Black Hole (or, Everything I know about Dark Armor)
It's not scrapper specific, but it's there. -
You can find the full guide here.
Quote:Introduction
A long time ago, I posted my first Dark Armor Sucks video. Within a few months, I noticed that people would occasionally refer to my Dark Armor guide. At the time, my response was always "Can you give me a link to that guide?" as I had not actually written this yet. I didn't even plan to write one. My guides are typically more broad in scope, taking into account an entire archetype or more. Further, at the time I had only played Dark Armor as a Tank. I still had a lot more to learn about the set before I could claim enough proficiency to write a guide on how to play Dark Armor.
Today I'm finally sitting down to write the guide that so many people have claimed to exist (I'm still trying to figure that one out). By now I've played Dark Armor through two Tanks, two Stalkers, one Brute and one Scrapper, each with a different melee powerset. I feel comfortable giving advice that applies across the board.
I can teach you how to turn a simple Dark Armor character into a Supermassive Black Hole.
But Why a Supermassive Black Hole?
For you non-science types out there, a black hole is essentially a spot in the universe with such a strong gravity that nothing can escape from it. Anything you throw at it, or anything that even passes by close enough, gets sucked in and condensed, never to be seen again. Not even light can get through a black hole.
Good Dark Armor characters have quite a few things in common with black holes. They are awesome and alluring. Their existence is typically an anomaly. There's been a good deal of study done on them. There are people out there who still believe they just don't exist.
A supermassive black hole is like the next level of black hole. It's what a black hole would be if it had enough stuff thrown at it. You find them at the center of galaxies. They're the biggest and the nastiest of black holes.
And you can be the biggest and nastiest of the Dark Armor characters out there. -
Quote:oh snap.jpgOriginally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
I think the Rikti monkey has some deep-seeded envy issues for being the inferior brand of alien in COH.
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Quote:Fine, fine. I'll see what I can come up with.Originally Posted by AlienOne
Excellent video...
I kinda wish MORE of our Kheldian friends would post videos like this... I love watching a good Kheldian kick ***.
"Alien" -
Quote:They are well deserved. That is some quality videography there, especially timing those zoom shots with the music. That's to say nothing of the actual character's performance.Originally Posted by Diggaroo
Wow, thanks for the compliments!
I noticed the shout out in the info section, and I greatly appreciate the mention. I'm glad I could have helped.Quote:Originally Posted by Diggaroo
And Dechs, this character wouldn't be possible without your guide. No, seriously. I mean that. Thanks -
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is how it's done.
Very well done video. -
I'm thinking it'd be great in Shockwave. I'm not a fan of Posi Blast.
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What I can easily do is offer you mine to compare against.
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Quote:I'll fix you you fix'd fix'r.Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy
Fix't.
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Here. Mine's a brute, but the powers translate almost perfectly.
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Quote:Thanks for humoring me.Originally Posted by Auroxis
Alright, but I find it unlikely to portray all relevant scenarios.
Here's what I just put together:
Your build is superior in survival to my brute as long as you are in a position to use Aid Self. If you can't reliably use Aid Self, then you still have the edge in S/L environment, but my build starts to look better everywhere else.
In my defense, all my attacks are slotted better than yours. Further, had I focused more and softcapped to S/L, I actually come to within 10% of your sustainable DPS when you can use Aid Self.
I just wanted to see it because I had a hard time believing it, and again, I appreciate you taking the time to humor me here.
My point has always been that Dark Armor really thrives within the invention system. It's easy to add defense to a build that already comes with good resists and an excellent heal. You can't add resist or much in the way of healing with IOs.
If we take this to tanks, you see Dark Armor's survivability increase even more. -
I don't plan to argue the merits of different x and y scenarios. I intend to analyze the dps each build can sustain itself against.
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Quote:Ok, here I have to hesitantly disagree. Give me your best Claws/Invuln (minus purples and PvP IOs) build and I'll compare its survivability to my Claws/Dark (Same build restrictions).Originally Posted by Auroxis
Dark has less survivability tools than an Inv, but it gets a damage aura to make up for it.
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I'm pretty sure Dark Armor gives them all a run for their money.
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Quote:What this guy said.Originally Posted by DreadShinobi
Don't skip Forge, Heat Ex, or Melt Armor. Seriously, they're core powers in thermal.
Hell, I'd skip one of the heals or the exotic resist shield before I'd skip Forge. -
Quote:That's why you have a bind that drops and executes the power anyway.Originally Posted by Redlynne
You know, there are times when it's an incredibly bad idea to drop Dwarf Form so as to pull off a Stygian Eclipse move. I'm thinking mez heavy environments, where a single breakfree might not be "enough" to meet the need.
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Welp, there's always Dark/Fire. I heard it sucks. But I have posted the build for it.
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Not so much the short response I'm worried about. Quick posts from a phone tend to sound snippy.
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Alien,
Posting from my phone, please excuse brevity. I feel like you are reading too much into my reply. I didn't mention the single enhancement because I don't see a problem with that.
As to the other stuff. How many people did street justice appeal to? They also sold street justice. That development time was justifiable. A new set category that can be used in one power on an AT that is not very popular cannot be justified. A new hami o to enhance acc and resist? Much more feasible. At least demon mms could also use it. -
Quote:Except this isn't something they can be wrong about.Originally Posted by Morganite
Wouldn't be the first thing I've thought they were wrong about.
They are the ones that define what exploits are. You are never supposed to be able to hit the ED cap for an attribute in two enhancements. This is only happening because the Nucs were never intended to be used in this manner.
This isn't even the first exploit of this nature that got fixed. I used to have hamis in my Protector bots that were for enhancing -defense. Like the Nucs, they were enhancing +defense on an improper enhancement schedule. Yes, it bothered me when they changed it, but I adapted and moved on. I couldn't fall back on any other sets to get my defense like we can with Eclipse and its resistance.
Let's face the music here. We cannot reasonably expect development time to be spent developing an entire set category for just one power.
You'd be better off asking for Kheldian's Grace to have +resistance enhancement values and able to be thrown into Eclipse. -
Quote:I'd consider it a waste of endurance. When it comes to dealing damage with my MM, if I get a break between spamming provoke, caltrops, acid mortars and poison traps, I'll lay a trip mine. Trip mine for me recharges in 10 seconds before my Alpha slotting; slamming more recharge set bonuses into attacks I can't fit into a build won't help me any.Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Because not everyone likes Tankerminding? I don't have provoke on Alpha. In fact, I would consider that a waste of damage and slotting. I slammed more recharge set bonuses in his attacks, and settle for toe-bombing mobs into dust. Works just fine for me.
And no, I do not find Provoke and Trip Mine to be mutually exclusive.
This I take care of with Nemesis Staff and Blackwand. They do the same damage for a mastermind as they would for a blaster, which is pretty huge, especially when compared to the piddly primary blasts. I don't find I need to do this any more often than the powers recharge.Quote:Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme
As a serious reply, I cannot count the number of times I've dropped a low health runner while my bots were otherwise occupied.
Ah, Mace Mastery, that explains a bit. That branch is terribly light on the damage. If you want to push out a bit more damage, look to Mu Mastery. The Electric Fences deal more damage than Photon Grenade and have the immobilize component (it is also the only AoE immobilize available with -kb to keep your bots from throwing things around). You lose out on the defense shield, though.Quote:Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme
I have a great deal of fun using my wide area web from the Mace Patron Pool (or whatever the hell it's called) and then hitting the whole group with a Photon Grenade while my bots unleash their lazery, flamey, missiley fury upon their immobilized butts.
Soul Mastery is another good pick, as you will get two AoE attacks that do more damage than Photon Grenade. Both are cones, so you have to intelligently line them up, but again, one is an immobilize.
When this bug happens to you, use the command /releasepets and then resummon.Quote:Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme
Not to mention the number of times it has saved me when my bots got bugged and stood there doing nothing while I got pounded on. I practically soloed all the last part of WWD 4 without my bots because they were bugged. I wouldn't have been able to do it with just my Nemesis Staff.
Alright, you're up to half of my statement. If your defense for "taking primary attacks" is "I need to keep busy," then my response will still be "What are you doing with your secondary powerset?"Quote:Originally Posted by Kirsten
Fair enough, but as Techbot stated, not everybody likes tankerminds. -
Quote:It's considered an exploit by the developers. I can confirm this from conversation with them on the subject.Originally Posted by Morganite
Eclipse? It's supposed to be enhanceable for everything it was getting enhanced for. The only questionable part to me was that it was giving schedule A enhancement instead of schedule B, but that's pretty minor by comparison.
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Quote:Ok, how the hell did I get Provoke and a secondary powerset before level 35?Originally Posted by Kirsten
...Unless you aren't level 35 yet. Then you're just SoL.
More serious response: Please read what I typed the first time. Patron/Epic powers were the afterthought, not the main portion of the statement. You did a wonderful job of refuting a tenth of my argument, and for that I applaud you.
I had no intentions of refuting your irrefutable argument, as it is irrefutable, as irrefutably stated in your statement of argument.Quote:Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme
This does not address my irrefutable "PEW! PEW! PEW! LAZERS!" argument.
If you want to go "PEW! PEW! PEW! LAZERS!" then I have no way to say "you're doing it wrong." -
Hey, this is completely off the topic of the thread, but I'd just like to throw some general advice out there.
If you stop feeding the trolls, they eventually go back under the bridge. -
Quote:I've heard that Dark Armor Sucks on a Brute.Originally Posted by Neutral_Nexus
My goal for this new brute is trying to be a decently powerful, all-around brute for spawns, possibly AVs, can tank when he needs to, and possibly some PvP encounters with friends(Though this certainly isn't the focus). What powersets should I be looking at for this sort of thing?