Faultline_EU

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I *think* that rooted increase the rate at which you regenerate, not the amount of life regenerated each tick. And from what I saw, turning on rooted makes a real difference. I will do the fall test as soon as possible, just to check the rooted value for the Brute.
BTW, I asked you why you don't seem to like your dark/stone brute on the brute forum

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That is correct. Normally ticks are every 12 seconds and it takes 20 ticks to get back to full health (I think). Things that increase your regen rate drop the amount of time between ticks, not the HP gained for each tick. With rooted on, this means a tick every 6 seconds.

Of course I suspect rooted for a Brute offers less than 100% regen boost - 75% I would imagine? I don't really know to be honest tho.

Oh, rooted will also offer knockback protection and protection from being stunned/held etc. Much better than acrobatics by a long shot.

Rooted is one of the powers in the set you can never be without. In combat I never take it off. More and more things will mez you as you progress, which is probably why it doesnt seem so good to you right now.

I did much the same as you as well, took combat flight for the extra defence and only ever used rooted when facing enemies that held me (like madness mages). Then I found out how good rooted was. The regen is 100% increased, so instead of getting back to full health in 240 seconds, you do it in 120. Still a long time, which is probably why you don't really notice and increase but it is significant.

Most melee attacks are actually stronger than the ranged attack of a mob so you get a bit of a benefit if they attack at range. If you want to draw them into melee, hide behind something. With stone it is often much easier to pick your spot (ie the middle of the group) and just jump in to save you having to move after.

Faultys tip of the day - if you are running and turn on rooted you actually carry on at normal speed for a couple of seconds before the slow hits. With a bit of practice you can start running towards a group, turn it on just before you get there and end up in the middle of them with it on. Usefull if you don't have tp and I still use this tactic. Get the timing right tho as I have on occasion turned it on a tad too late and ended up stunned in the middle of them.

You sure she's beating you with the bat in that first pic and not about to shove it somewhere??

I'll definitely be there.

There were only about 6 people still logging on even before CoV came out. Thats dropped to about 2 at any given time now. Even PB has moved on. Not disbanding PIE and as I said Faulty shall remain til the end but unless someone wants to take charge of a full on recruitment drive...

You're welcome to stay with the few of us left but if Org or any of your alts want to move onto a more active SG, I don't blame you at all.

Sundae is all woman I'll have you know.

Thanks for all the offers guys, much appreciated. Hate having to choose - may have to pull a name out of a hat. If I had a hat (although I could borrow one).

Not sure I'll be on before the weekend now (silly real life) but I'll be in contact with one of you then.

I'm sad to say that my SG - P.I.E - has reached the end of it's days. We had some fun and got a couple of dozen people to 50 but its time is drawing to a close. My fellow SG leader Dawnrazor (and many others) has moved to CoV and the rest have just moved on, leaving only a few remaining die hards.

Like the leader he is, Faulty shall stay with PIE til the bitter end. My new project - Liquid Blue - is however looking for a new SG and when she finally comes out of retirement to face the changes of ED, Sundae will most likely want to join as well.

So if anyone would like to offer a home to a little level 6 Ice/NRG blaster being built for PvP and probably a level 40 PB as well at some point....

Really, that extra slot in the shields give at most about 0.7% resistance. Not exactly huge. Get about 2% if you use the slot in Incadescence.

The option of using the slots from glinting eye is a good one. The BI of the two attacks is about the same but proton scatter takes longer to recharge. It hits multiple targets tho...

Do you need all those slots in the attacks? Assuming 3 dmg, how fast do they recycle and could you drop a slot from one or two of them (the recharge) to form a usefull attack chain that way?

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I play a 3form PB and focus on melee in human form. I would not want to live without my beloved "village idiots". I think of them as another - devastating - melee attack and they rarely miss with my current 1acc/3dam/1end/1rec slotting.

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I love them too and use them in the same way. It used to be nice to have the choice to go extreme damage but not have them up very much, up a lot but lower damage or somewhere in between. With ED, there is no choice really anymore - medium damage and medium recharge. Least with other powers you can buff them to the cap and still get max damage. Never going to happen with my seekers now.

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No damage buffs in this game, sir...

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Quite right, I must have been dreaming that. Thinking about it, it would be nice tho.

Photons are more useless now. Their sucky AI was offset slightly by the very high damage but now even that has been lowered due to ED. They need to fix the AI so you do actually get full damage out of them (rather than 2/3 as one ALWAYS wanders off somewhere and doesn't attack) and maybe raise the damage of each one to make up for the reduced damage output now.

Anyway, if you are looking for slots I'd say take them from the shields. The fourth in each shield isn't helping much. You are actually better off putting the fourth slot from quantum shield in incandecence (I think).

As for build up - I'm contemplating slotting damage buffs to make it easier to hit the cap when using Dawn Strike now? Anyone know if that is worth doing?

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Even without Granite on. I would feel a little embaressed as a tank if I could only handle 1/3 of a mob and not go after the real nasty villians. Especially with an Empath and Kinetics on the team.

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Only a third of the aggro, an empath healing him and he still needs dull pain a few times - oh wait, the healer was probably too busy healing the rest of the team for the damage done by the bosses he wasn't taunting.

I think things are the same as they always were - sometimes you're needed and sometimes you're not. Depends on the team and the mission. I've definitely been on many a mission where I may as well have gone off and had a coffee for all the good I was doing - mobs locked down or arrested so fast I had nothing to hold aggro on.

Other times it can be fairly obvious that I am all that's stopping a team faceplant. Reckon you just have to become as good at tanking as you can. Sometimes you won't be needed to do that job and others, people will be pleading with you to come and tank something for them.....

If you read further on in the thread, he also gets a lot of flak for not giving details about the mobs he was facing, his poor tanking (only getting a 1/3 of the aggro and targeting strongmen rather than illusionist and dark ring mistresses) and for saying he did fine even tho he knows he was using a bugged power.

I've been having a look at this thread on the US boards and was wondering what people here thought about the tanks role after I5 and ED?

Personally I feel things have changed. I no longer expect to be able to hold 100% the aggro - taunt doesn't work as well and I'm usually busy trying to keep myself alive. I do expect to be able to take the alpha strike better than anyone else on the team and to be able to hold at least 75% of the aggro. I focus on doing that and have faith that the rest of the team can handle the leftovers.

I definitely don't think the AT is useless and I still feel like I'm a benefit to the team. Do other people feel the same?

I also wonder if new tanks will even notice? Having been playing an empath down in the hollows recently it struck me how similar high level tanking is now, with me having to buff and heal the tank a lot and the team not expecting them to hold more than 1/3 of the group at best.

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...but with a heart of stone .

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Oooh, I'm hurt by such a cutting remark - or I would be if my heart wasn't made of stone.

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Aww Pyra, maybe you can catch the bouquet. Don't worry I won't fight you for it, all these heroes are to big for Aerie to marry. Well, most of them

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Faulty's pretty short you know....

Been a while since we teamed but sad to see you go Quant. Take care.

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That's just dumb then. What's the point of a Psi defence power if it isn't good enough to help against AV's.

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Well it was fairly limited even before when it had 55% defence, especially if the clockwork king was about +2. I fondly remember my first go against him. It was me and an Inv tank. The team got ready, we braced ourselves, ran in... and he one shotted us both. Team wipe 8 seconds later. Should have used EE first.

My tactics got better after that.

Oh it's nowhere near enough, it just takes some of the edge off. Guess we stone tanks have the advantage of 200% extra regen from rooted which is a big help (tho not as nice as the 300% we used to have). But even with that I need to be hitting Fault, Tremor and encasing people in stone constantly.

I did pop to the car park in PI when testing my new build and went against 3 LTs, a death mage and a possesed scientist - all level 50. I just stood there. Before I5 and ED, I would barely have noticed them. Took about 30 seconds or less to drop me to the red this time.

I thought maybe I'd write a quick guide about tanking using only normal stone armours and my initial observations on ED. This may help those pre-granite people out there and might also help those tempted to try a more challenging approach to stone tanking.

Please note, I do not mean I don't have Granite armour, just that I prefer not to use it. Why you might ask. Well tanking is not just about staying alive (and staying alive is very easy to do in GA), it's about keeping everyone else alive too and thats harder in granite. I still use GA when things get tough (and for AVs, learnt the hard way never to try them without it)

First up, my current build.

Archetype: Tanker
Primary Powers - Ranged : Stone Armor
Secondary Powers - Support : Stone Melee

01 : Stone Fist acc(01) dam(3) dam(3) dam(5) recred(5) recred(7)
01 : Rock Armor defbuf(01) defbuf(7) defbuf(9)
02 : Stone Skin damres(02) damres(9) damres(11)
04 : Earth's Embrace recred(04) recred(11) recred(13) hel(13) hel(15) hel(15)
06 : Mud Pots endred(06) endred(17) tntdur(17) dam(19) dam(19) dam(21)
08 : Rooted hel(08) hel(21) hel(23)
10 : Taunt tntdur(10) tntdur(23) recred(46) recred(46) recred(46)
12 : Swift runspd(12) runspd(25) runspd(25)
14 : Health hel(14) hel(27) hel(27)
16 : Boxing Empty(16)
18 : Tough damres(18) damres(29) damres(29)
20 : Fault acc(20) acc(31) recred(31) recred(31) recred(33) endred(33)
22 : Stamina endrec(22) endrec(33) endrec(34)
24 : Crystal Armor defbuf(24) defbuf(34) defbuf(34)
26 : Recall Friend Empty(26)
28 : Teleport endred(28) rng(36)
30 : Brimstone Armor damres(30) damres(36) damres(36)
32 : Granite Armor damres(32) damres(37) damres(37) defbuf(37) defbuf(39) defbuf(39)
35 : Tremor acc(35) dam(39) dam(40) recred(40) recred(40) endred(42)
38 : Seismic Smash acc(38) dam(42) dam(42) hlddur(43) endred(43) recred(43)
41 : Mineral Armor defbuf(41) defbuf(45) defbuf(45)
44 : Stone Cages acc(44) recred(45) dam(50)
47 : Fossilize acc(47) acc(48) hlddur(48) hlddur(48) hlddur(50) recred(50)
49 : Hover Empty(49)

Defence
You'll need everything you can get and then some. Every armour optimally 3 slotted and Tough from the fighting pool in my case. This should roughly give you 26% defence to S/L/E/N/Psi and 40% resistance to F/C/S/L

Attacks
Or should that be what attacks? With all the effort going into defence you don't have much room for attacks. This build is not one for people that like doing damage. Also not great for when I exemp below level 35.

The Basics
Even with all the armours, rooted, EE, Health etc.. it's often not enough on a large team against big spawns. The trick is to use your other powers to improve your survivability.

With Stone Melee, Fault and Tremor are the two main ones for this. Keep them on their back and they can't hit you! With good timing, you can make sure that 90% of mobs in melee range don't hit you for a good 10 seconds. Fault also stuns.

Seismic smash has a hold affect so is slotted for recharge and hold rather than damage. With my epic hold, I can take 2 minions or one Lt out of a whole fight. It also stacks with seismic smash to allow bosses to be held (and even AVs for short periods).

This is obviously just for stone melee but other secondary powersets should have similar powers you can use to the same affect (tho I believe some may not).

You should also take a selection of Insps - a few purples to boost your defence when needed and a few greens for emergencies. I usually have a break free as well for those occasions I forget to turn Rooted on in time.

Testing
With all the problems recently I've not had much chance to test yet and have only really run two good missions, both against Carnies.

The first was against lvl50s on an eight man team. Holding one spawn was not too much of a chore, the problems came when a second group was aggroed. The two reasons for this were the Dark Ring Mistresses and their Psi attacks and the fact that the second group was not in melee range and I was having to rely purely on my armours for defence. I hit the red a couple of times in those situations but an Insp or two was usually enough to see me through.

Mission two was against lvl 52/53s. The lag made this one tough. Smaller team (6 people) so less bosses which helped and was indoors so didn't often aggro a second group. Surprised how well this one went but it was a good team with scrappers clearing bosses fast and the healers doing a fine job.

Final thoughts
It seems as if it is still entirely possible to tank out of granite. No where near as easy as in I4, but achieveable (at least as far as my testing so far has shown).

ED has helped in some ways as I have a few more slots to play with and it forced me to vary my slotting slightly (something I might never have bothered to try before as it worked fine as it was). On the downside, it has forced me into a strange build. I've had to drop most attacks and several other powers I liked just to muster enough defence to make Faulty playable. He could barely solo before, not a chance now.

I think this is an issue as most people will just go for the perma-granite build instead. Powers like Minerals (a defining power for stone) has become virtually useless. It seems a shame that these changes should make half of the primary powers barely worth taking.

So why do I not go perma-GA? Well I've played this way all the way to 50 and I enjoy the challenge.

I used my I5 repec on Wednesday to get into my ED build. Once I've had a bit of a chance to test it and maybe try a few different enh combinations, I'll post my results/build for anyone interested in non-granite stone tanking.

Initial thoughts are, it's harder to stay alive.

Big gratz Prox.

I've not really had chance to test the seekers or Dawn Strike under ED but I would imagine both are worse now. Seekers can't be buffed and now you can really only 3 slot for damage which makes them a little less useful (when they do actually hit something).

Dawn Strike is similar. You'll have to buff it a lot to hit the damage cap nowdays and I'm not sure how effective it is otherwise....

I did wonder if it was a replacement travel power.
The damage unslotted is okay, but Nova is so weak that you really want to be hitting stuff hard (or just never use the two AoE attacks and stick with single target to reduce aggro).

In I5, a shot from each AoE would only leave a sliver of hp for minions when they had 5 dmg enh slotted. I'm reserving judgement now that I have replaced two of those damage with recred as I haven't had a chance to test it out yet....

Can I ask why you have taken Bright Nova but not slotted the attacks at all? Just curious.

In that case, back on track it is.

Regarding picking your spot, I have always been in favour of my spot being the centre of the spawn. Whilst taunting and hiding behind a tree/pillar/door etc.. to draw them is good on a team that knows each other, it often makes life harder on a pickup team.

If everyone waits for you to carefully gather all the mobs up, it's fine. Seven times out of ten though, scrappers will charge off at the first sign of movement or blasters will open up. You now have the group spread out and harder to manage.

I much prefer jumping (or tp'ing in my case) straight into the spawn whilst they are nice and compacted. Means I'm in charge of when the fight starts and already have control of most of the mobs. Course you do risk sometimes aggroing any nearby mobs with this approach...