Dark Armor is the best?

[Syntax42]

I haven't played CoH/V since Villains was released some time ago.  Back then, I had a Stone Armor Brute that I like for its survivability, but I remember it was very vulnerable to psionic damage.  The Going Rogue expansion got me interested in playing again, but this time I want something with even more survivability than a Stone Armor melee.  I would be posting this in the official CoH forums, but my account is not active yet and it seems like that is stopping me from logging in there.

I looked through the power sets and decided I definitely want to play a Tanker for their increased defense and taunting over Brutes.  I feel like I will contribute better to the team that way.  The other thing that I considered was psionic defense and resistance.  Stone Armor could get soft-capped psi defense, but had almost no resistance.  Willpower could get a little bit of both, but not enough to be very effective.  Dark Armor had the most of both, and it had a lot of other resistances and defense.

I realize Dark Armor has a few weaknesses.  First, the lack of knockback protection can be taken care of with a couple IOs and Acrobatics.  The lack of energy resistance isn't as much of a vulnerability as some would make it seem like.  At around 30% before IOs, it is better than Willpower's energy resistance.  IOs could boost it up a decent amount.  The overall defenses and resistances are not capped, but grouping with almost any buffer can cap defense or resistance for everything except psionic.  For example, Thermal or Sonic can give out 20-30% resistance buffs, putting you close to the cap for energy resistance. Force Field can send you over the soft-caps for defense.

My conclusion was that Dark Armor's psionic defense and resistance makes it the only tanker who can theoretically have capped mitigation against anything.  It may take a buffer or two, but no other armor set can reach capped mitigations against psionic, even with buffs.

[ineffablebob]

One thing that you didn't mention is total HP. One big gap in Dark Armor tanking is the lack of a +HP power. You can make up for that somewhat with IOs, but unless you've got a Cold buffer dropping Hoarfrost on you, you're always going to have less HP than Invuln/Stone/Ice tanks. That extra HP helps a lot when there's enough enemies to get past your defense.

Personally, I still like Stone for survivability. Yes, there is the psionic weakness, and in addition you need to do quite a bit of IO slotting to get around the Granite debuffs. Still, if you're slotted for recharge so you always have Earth's Embrace up, and with any buffer that can do some decent healing, very little is going to faze a Stone tank.

[Derek Icelord]

I'd also add that Willpower can have some awesome regeneration, especially on a Tanker. Dark Armor's big save is its Dark Regeneration heal power, but like ineffablebob said, the lack of +HP means you're going to need it. And don't forget that if you softcap the DEF to Psionic damage, that lack of resistance isn't going to come into play very often. If you're playing with a level pacted Sonic Resonance or Cold Domination Defender, that changes things, but for solo I'd say Stone Armor or Willpower will server you better.