Jebe_the_Pirate

It's a trade off with +max health vs resist dmg. In the above example, the character with more health will die after 4 hits of the same amount and type while the character with resist will still be alive. However the more health gives you mitigation against dmg types for which you have zero resistance. It all depends on what you value more.

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I could deal with it being this way if it was a tanker set but its not one.

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Do you mean the numbers you're getting are not tanker numbers or you in fact believe DA is not a tanking set?

That aside, I often get the impression that some believe the amount of endurance used in Dark Regen is too much because if it in fact hits 3 mobs, the amount healed is usually overkill, even without healing slotted. Whether or not this is generally perceived is another matter.

I'm going to throw my hand in with a change to CoF being what I would consider anyting near necessary. I don't think the endurance usuage being too high or the magnitude on the fear too low. If anything I think the base accuracy can be increased imo.

I would stand against combining the control toggles, or combining either one with death shroud. To me, that would make DS too powerful for it's end usage.

I won't get started on a new Tier 9 either.

All in all, each armor has it's problems, endurance being one of DA's but this one is managable and with IO's negligable.

I have the thorn blade that I sport with a spiked targe and the talsorian sword with a tech shield. I didn't want to farm another 100 merits for the talsorian shield as I really want the rularuu wep/shield.

I agree with Sailboat, that's endurance overkill. Drop Conserve power completely, and you might consider freeing up slots from stam too. You can get by with 2 standard IO's since base Quick Recovery gives you 5% more endurance recovery than base stam.

Yeah, that's what I figured. Part of the reason I didn't go with positional was the amount of slots it would take but it seems like you still manage to get respectable def numbers.

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Just got to 50 and played "back up" tank to a stoner on the STF.

He died, I stepped in. I didn't even get a scratch.

I have mine slotted for about 40% melee defense, 30% ranged, and 34% AoE, as well as 76% S/L resist. It's like being a stone tank without all the walking slowly, -damage, and -rech.

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I'm curious about your build because I slotted my dk/dm for typed defense, reaching ~71% S/L Resist, all other resists at 50-55% enhancement and ~46% S/L defense thinking it would be easier to soft cap due to kinetic combat. Did you take CJ+CoD+Weave?

If you took swift, you can slot a fly in that to help alleviate the speed issues with hover. I don't think Kruunch will be slotting hover for extra defense, seeing as he stated he didn't want to slot too many other powers for defense and the gains in those outweigh the defense gained from hover alone.

I have hover on my shield scrapper which you team with and I love it since I've hit up to 4 mobs with headsplitter in one hit. I didn't know if there were issues with range but maybe it is hover causing it. I may have to include CJ with hover on the second build for the added flight control.


Edit: Oh and I CAN shield charge with hover.

+7.65% max end is a good start. Hopefully you'll get the +max end accolades. I have something like 23% and I'm still missing Portal Jockey but I have to make sure once I get home since I can't really view the build in comfortable detail at work. In particular, I want to see the end reductions and recharge reductions. Sorry it took me so long to reply, I don't normally view the forums on the weekend.

God, I must sound like Desmodos' fan boy but yes, it's true. My dk/dk tank is proof that you can take the set and NOT have end hog issues, even while running 9 toggles and attacking and using Dark Regeneration and still be soft capped.

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Dark Armor is really in pain with energy damage. I remember playing a DA brute back when they RWZ was more popular and almost dieing every time I jumped in for the alpha.

It was one of the few high-40s characters (which I had several accolades for) that I actually deleted.

It is good against exotic damage types and average/bad against common ones. I can't remotely see it being a good reliable tank if you are only playing one. If you are playing a bunch of tanks though, and want to have one in the closet for the occasional psi enemies, it would be fine.

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IO's can pretty much cover up the Energy damage hole via defense. As a result, energy damage is no where near as big a pain as it used be.

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If you slot your armors with 4-slot Reactive Armor and 4-slot Kinetic Combat in your melee attacks and combine with combat jumping, weave and shadow of darkness you can soft cap.

I love my dk/dk but I too have been considering making a new dark tank with either SS, mace or stone.

What about Dark? Sure Fearsome Stare is not available till lvl 12 but come on, it's two levels. And if you go Dark/Sonic, its attacks' resistance debuffs stack with tar patch.

Here's what's available by lvl 12

Tar patch- Resist debuff w/Big slow
Twilight Grasp- AoE Heal w/regen debuff, to-hit, dmg debuff
Darkest Night- big dmg debuff w/ big to-hit debuff
Howling Twilight- AoE Stun that happens to rez any/all dead allies around you. Big regen debuff.
Shadowfall- This one you can put off till later. Def to All/Res Buff to Psi/Energy/Dark
Fearsome Stare- Big to-hit debuff than happens to fear/ Alpha Breaker.

What ST attacks do you have?

Are you still running your AoE toggles with single bosses?

Does your slotting consist of standard SO's, IO's or set IO's?

The -to-hit debuff is what makes a D3 great. However you will not need to slot your secondary attacks with them. You'll get enough from your primary and any base debuffs from your secondary blasts. Slot the blasts like blasts.

Like a stated before, you want to slot for max end over recovery. You'll still end up with +recovery from bonuses on sets and any uniques. the problem is there are no +max end uniques. Stacking +max end with accolades give you more recovery than stacking recovery. I know that sounds weird but recovery is based off your max end, not base end.

That's a pretty expensive build. What are you working towards?

You stacked 43% recharge but only 1 slot in Hasten?

I'd advise for more +max endurance over +recovery where available. Also might consider slotting FS with Accurate -to-hit debuff instead of fear if you're using it as your opener/alpha breaker.

Might consider adding more slots to Shadowfall to increase defense/resistance or both.

You took Tenebrous Tentacles but no Nightfall? They make a good 1-2 punch.

If you can get past the endurance issues and the lower accuracy of CoF, it turns into a great power with the mitigation is provides. Though the amount of -to-hit it provides is small, it in effect couples with your defenses. And remember you can always take advantage of the fear effect when you're not running your aoe toggles.

Personally, I'll take OG when I can stack it with a melee set that offers stuns.

Things that will help your survival and endurance issues...


Slot for +max end bonuses over recovery, and stack those with accolades. You'll get +end recovery with other bonuses and slot the recovery uniques into health.

Slot the +chance for end unique from Theft of Essence into Dark Regeneration.

Slot for defense bonuses (S/L defense will help greatly, here's why) and stack with Cloak of Darkness/Combat Jumping/Weave if you take any/all of these.

Frankenslot for end reduction in toggles and look for any dam/end, acc/end, etc IO's.

I've applied this approach to multiple scrappers, tanks and defenders with at least two of each in Dark Armor or Dark Miasma, all endurance heavy sets. My endurance issues are equal to or less than my non-dark toons while running ALL toggles. These are things I've learned from several different sources, Desmodos being one of them.

That's just scrappering as a whole. It helped when I reread the duration difference between AAO and RttC. Holy crap that was making me go splat more times than a virgin at a peep show.

I'd be willing to test, it may have been that I targeted a mob outside of the aggro cap but I don't want to make excuses because I've seen this with other tanks.

Fair enough. Sorry about that.

Based on what's been said, I'm leaning towards taunt( the auto hit power and successful to-hit rolls,and successful gauntlet applications) being a tag+multiplier variable which is used against damaged done on a target mob. It would help explain why at times a player other than a tank will continue to be targeted by a mob after taunts and within taunt aura range.


Edit: If one of those scrappers was mine, I HAVE pulled off of you if I was ST'ing a mob and land a headsplitter crit. I just didn't have the heart to tell ya

I agree with you on everything except the diminishing returns. I suspect it may have more to do with proximity.

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*grin*

But yeah you'll notice the Fire Tankers who are chiming up have fairly thorough IO'd builds.

Most newbie Fire Tankers I've seen think that just adding Tough/Weave will turn them into a Stoner.

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No, but it can turn a DK tanker into an Invuln... without the def debuff resist or god mode tier 9. Kruunch can attest.

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I can attest that you were squishier then my Spines/Fire Scrapper.

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Correction, you and RotP can attest. c wut I did thar?

I have to admit those runs were almost as fun as jetskis. Laughing till I was blind from answering tells about what a "hitler" I am was worth it.

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*grin*

But yeah you'll notice the Fire Tankers who are chiming up have fairly thorough IO'd builds.

Most newbie Fire Tankers I've seen think that just adding Tough/Weave will turn them into a Stoner.

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No, but it can turn a DK tanker into an Invuln... without the def debuff resist or god mode tier 9. Kruunch can attest.

I have Psychic on one build and Elec on the other. I love elec so much I took 4 out of 5 powers. I stack holds (with Pet gaze), stack stuns (with Howling Twilight), recover endurance, and have resistance to the 3 most common damage types (one of which is stacked with Shadowfall) in the game. To say there is no synergy is to not try elec mastery. Ok maybe there's some overkill but it's just more tools for the trade. My reasoning for this is...
My two holds coupled with fluffy's hold begin to stack. Now if you have a controller (or overkill, another d3 with 3 holds) on the team and you're taking on an AV...guess what, you have a held AV. I can't recall how much if at all, PBU increases hold mag but this may be an alternative. I didn't take Dark Pit but am still able to stun stack which comes in handy for more control. I still melee but I am not bound to melee, have a lot of control (which comes naturally with dark miasma, as does the debuffing) and do plenty of damage. My D3 stands for Dark Debuffing Damager. Sure it's cheezy but it is what it is.

Here's what I think of the others...

Dark Mastery- Obvious thematic synergy. Great if you find yourself in melee and plan on staying there. I was convinced of how well it doesn't play with dark blast, specifically the cones. I can't remember who said it to me (maybe darkity) but playing a D3 should be more dignified than constanly hopping into melee to stun then hopping out to cast cones.

Psychic Mastery- Somewhat thematic synergy, especially if you try to mimic the council vampyri. I have the hold (again, stacking with pet gaze) and armor on one of my builds. Combined with shadowfall and IO bonuses, gives me 70% psionic resist (not that I was looking for these bonuses, it was a package deal ;p). It's not necessary but nice to have when everyone else is complaining about the clockwork king or mother mayhem. You'll be the last one standing (unless your team is made up of dark scrappers/tankers ;p).

Power Mastery- Like stated above, Conserve and PBU are what make this set. It also helps to have 30% resist to S/L before enhancements.

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I do know that I don't want to use Gloom and I probably won't use Moonbeam either. I want to go the debuffer route

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Gloom is a great power, and so is Moonbeam. Dark being what it is, it's perfectly safe to use moonbeam mid combat. One of my builds has moonbeam and both have gloom.

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1) I know that I won't be a blaster. Do I want to put Acc Debuff in things like Dark Blast/Tentacles/Nightfall?

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Although you're not a blaster or blaster level damage, you still have blasterish powers and should be treated as such. You may come to realize once you've cast all your alpha busters and any toggles running that you have nothing to cast except for attacks. That's where your cones, dark blast, gloom and moonbeam come into play. Like it was said above me, slot these for damage or recharge, not -to-hit. I put a positron's blast-chance for energy damage in each of the target aoe's and love it. I know you might not have the influence for those but it's worth noting.

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2) How do you use Fearsome Stare nowadays? If I'm going to use other cone powers & Darkest Night, is it best to include it toward the end of an attack chain?

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I open with this, using Darkest Night if I want to pull more mobs to the group or on a tough mob. I also slot Fearsome Stare for -to-hit, not fear. My tactic is to open with FS, lay down a tar patch on the highest concentration of mobs then line up cones for Tentacles and Nightfall.

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3) Is Blackstar worth it now that you can use it in conjunction with something like Dark Consumption?

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Blackstar is fun but optional. I have it in one of my builds but don't use it often, mainly if I feel like using it because I want to see the animation, not out of need. But you can use this as a closer, or after a group rez to buy team members more time to get their toggles running.

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4) What's the recommended slotting for Dark Servant now? I'm assuming +Rech is a big one.

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Again, I slotted for -to-hit, it's fluffy's biggest asset. With the new pet AI, he'll charge into melee, or you can summon him into melee.

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5) Do I want hasten? Do I want Recall? I'm not sure about extra power pools. I think Tactics would be handy, but I'm not sure.

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Hasten is nice. Yep, SS and shadowfall = invis. I have both Assault and Tactics team build (but no hasten, ;p). However, now you're running into several toggles, which can be a problem if you don't slot for end reduction AND/or IO bonuses for +max endurance.

One thing I would like to add about Recall Friend is although I don't have it in either of my current builds, it is a nice tool when you want to rez everyone at once on those disaster pulls and you're the only one left standing. It's a bit of a novelty and sure if and when that happens and you raise everyone back from the dead and shower you with praises but complain about how ridiculously overpowered Dark Miasma is, you'll find yourself becoming a taxi for the lazy bums. The reason I don't have it currently is because I hardly experience an event I foresee which will require me to rez everyone in the group. Usually it's 2 or 3 squishies who are next to each other at the feet of a steam punk boss.

I can never get the cross-server market to stick in my head. I think it's due to overexposure to WoW. ;p

38~% is a nice amount of defense. If you're currently running AE teams then it should be fun unless the mobs are single-type stacking debuffs. I have more but I may have dfferent plans with my tank.