Siolfir

Stop trying to BS people. It's a good set. It is not Granite Armor v2.0, and claiming otherwise is just as misleading as saying that it's garbage that's been nerfed to oblivion... probably moreso.

You have limited resistance to anything but S/L even in Defensive, your oh-so-vaunted defenses are torn apart easily by debuffs (the most common source of which is one of the damage types you have the least defense against), the absorb mechanic acts as a preemptive heal on a longer-than-normal heal recharge, DNA Siphon also has a longer-than-normal heal recharge timer and requires multiple targets around to really be effective, which is a problem that the tier 9 also suffers from.

For a short burst you can approach Granite, sure - but then so can Stalker Ice Armor using Icy Baston. In other sets and for longer bursts try counting the tier 9 performance of Invulnerability - the HP crash of which can be put off for just shy of 6 minutes with Burnout.

Like I said, you want it and you're ignoring benefits that other sets have to try to get it.

And for what it's worth, Offensive Adaptation makes the set slightly worse than Fiery Aura for both damage and survivability unless you get good mileage out of the -regen against AVs and GMs.

If you want another Fiery Aura you'll be disappointed. If you want a set that lets you decide on the fly (to a limited extent) whether you want to be a Tanker, Brute, or Stalker then you'll like Bio.

Tankers have a larger -resistance penalty as it follows AT modifiers.

And you've been spearheading any sort of push for removing the -resistance, so saying you expect it is misleading - you want it would be a better wording. The -damage penalty provides a ~15.4% reduction in damage dealt compared to Efficient Adaptation, and Defensive Adaptation has already been reduced in effective twice since your video.

While you have a very good point, RttC's Taunt duration is so short (1.25 sec) that against +2s (80% effectiveness) it wears off right as it pulses again, and against anything above that it simply won't hold aggro without attacking. If the mission was set to +2/x8 but the mobs were +3 they could have just been going to find new targets anyway.

I think that what they're saying is that the RangeMod in your formula is an inverse of distance in theirs. With DebuffMod and AIMod typically unknowable on the player end but identical when using the same powers against the same mob, that would make them functionally equivalent.

On topic, I like having Taunt to get aggro on BAF to prevent sequestering when someone else is taunting and gets their second warning, or to bring things to the edge of patches in MoM. It has a use, but in a limited role... and I think the -range isn't resisted by AVs but I haven't specifically checked. I just know that if they're at range they come in closer.

I can't guarantee anything, as I haven't tested it myself. But the conversation and two posts from Starsman in the official thread (snip from one below) seem to indicate that it stacks, and it wouldn't be the first time that Mid's had a flag set wrong and provided incorrect values (see: Patron Ranged attacks for Stalkers always counting the critical):

Specifically? I don't have the original numbers to say anything about how the defense/resistance changed, the in-game numbers are missing a lot of entries (including the strength of the procs, which fire at a 100% rate for damage and heal in any powers that can be slotted for damage), and many of the posts by Synapse talking about them are worded along the lines of "significantly reduced" and things like that.

The -regen was cut in half (to -100%), the -damage now only works in Defensive Adaptation, the strength of the +resistance and +defense in Evolving Armor while in Defensive Adaptation was reduced (I forget the amounts), DNA Siphon was reduced in effectiveness across the board, and penalties were applied (-7.5% resistance to Offensive for Brutes/Scrappers/Stalkers, -30% damage to Defensive) when not in Efficient (or no adaptation as it was originally - Efficient was added later and several things that were just "on" got attached to it). Those are off the top of my head, but it's not comprehensive and not specific on most of the values.

And it's still a good set, although I'd dispute the spreadsheet-only claims that some have made that it leaves everything else in the dust once you include pool powers.

You're showing a video "to show off the strengths" or to show how the set performs in general? Because those are two vastly different things and one is far more valuable to the discussion than the other. As for it being "unkillable", you mentioned that it's far above average... when average is fairly close to being unkillable for most sets on a decently-built level 44 Tanker.

The lack of DDR and only having S/L defense while in Defensive means that you either start in Defensive and deal with the damage penalty or you don't have any defense against the enemy groups that debuff heavily because you'll be negative and in cascade failure even before you switch to enable the defense.

And I bring up the mez protection since this is the first armor set since issue 7 that didn't have comprehensive protection. Yes, every set prior to that had a mez hole of some sort, but there was a serious cave for little to no good reason and they set an expectation with Willpower and Shield Defense.

Willpower was given immobilize protection due to frequent complaints while it was in beta despite Combat Jumping being available to easily cover the gap. I still have no idea why Shield was designed without a hole since the concept doesn't cover any means of mez protection unless it's because it was the set after Willpower and they remembered all of the complaints.

You would've been worse off exemplared to lower levels - slows (from the Air Thorn Casters) don't hurt the set much but Quicksand from Earth Thorn Casters is going to cripple a set with no defense debuff resistance and you'd probably notice your hit points dipping a bit more.

It's a good set, especially in defensive, but it's hardly unkillable and has its flaws - lack of comprehensive mez protection, a staple since Willpower despite some ridiculously stupid justifications to shoehorn it into both WP and SD, is one of them. Lacking defense debuff resistance - and lethal defense, since lethal damage is the source of most of those debuffs that you'll run into - are the ones most people will notice.

Disclaimer: I haven't played the Stalker version of the set past level 8 since I got bored running around solo. Everything I say here is second- or third-hand.

I did chat on beta with someone talking about how great Genetic Corruption is, though - since its duration is longer than its interval it will stack if you're by yourself and sleep bosses when slotted for sleep, and it will take the chance for Placate proc in any case preventing things from attacking you (no, you won't get extra crits from the Fortunata Hypnosis proc since placating a mob != you being in hidden status).

It should be autohit, since it also carries the -damage in the set; as for the sleep effect it only has a chance to sleep but the percentage increases in Offensive mode... which means that you'll be doing more damage while fewer things are attacking you. Numerically it looks inferior for survivability compared to Scrappers but due to the mez you'll probably end up roughly the same or maybe a bit ahead, while doing less damage from the lost -resistance.

I don't remember offhand, but it has a small base s/l defense. I want to say Weave-level?

So it's more like building S/L defense on Dark Armor instead of Fiery Aura.

Edit: I finally got to check on beta; the S/L Defense I was thinking of is part of Defensive Adaptation only and doesn't exist in the other forms.

Your video was from before the initial round of nerfs, then? I didn't watch it, but the -recharge (and +recharge) were removed in the first set of changes.

The DoT on Shadow Maul is delivered prior to the end of the animation; this may or may not be the case with Sky Splitter but I can't say for certain since I didn't bother getting Staff - City of Data information would indicate to me that this is also the case. In Shadow Maul's case, it also is a cone AoE and thus even if one target dies can still deal damage to others.

Energy Transfer's only damage if your target dies is to you, and neither of the powers you mentioned are as slow as Total Focus - another frequently-wasted power due to its excessive animation time and single-target nature.

Defensive also had the heal procs reduced in effectiveness. At least according to the patch notes: I ended up trying the Stalker version and didn't get Adaptation before I got tired of soloing. Although according to global chat on beta the Stalker version probably offers more survivability than the Scrapper and Brute versions due to being able to slot the chance for Placate proc, although you lose damage because you don't have the -res.

It was .63 seconds. And you're excluding Hasten in your "use it tops" rate for ET; you weren't likely to get perma-Hasten without external buffs or going really far back in builds but you could use it a lot more often than every 12 seconds.

Barrage is still the worst DPA attack in the set despite the damage increase and DPA reduction in Energy Punch - which pushed Bone Smasher past EP once Arcanatime is included if you're strictly using SOs (procs favor EP's faster animation). Note that I'm excluding Stun as an attack because it has no point in existing in the set - pre-i13 it was okay for stacking in PvP, but with two 60% chances and a 100% chance for stun in your three highest DPA attacks it's useless in PvE and there's no mez protection in PvP anymore.

So tack on the res as an "if defeated" line item in Temporal Selection. It either rezzes the target or buffs them. Because Time needs all the help it can get. >.<

It's not just Ice Armor that allows for (pseudo-)tanking on Stalkers - my DM/Nin did just fine tanking an ITF (before being respec'd and using the IOs to softcap my ElM/Nin).

Use Vengeance, then.

I blame all the Time Manipulation characters running around. Don't they know that there are consequences to playing around with these things?!

*hides Water/Time Corruptor*

You don't even have to color it green - it is by default.

They don't fire once per 10 seconds, like procs in auto- and toggle-powers are supposed to do?

As for which to take, the playstyles are vastly different; decide whether you want to be the irresistable force or the immovable object and you have your answer.

Rain of Fire is a special case since it uses the 10 second "I'm in an auto power" rate as the recharge instead of the power's recharge, but in the regular AoEs the worst case is still better than 20% for a large AoE slotted at 100% recharge.

Flares and Neutrino Bolt are two powers that have a combined animation time and base recharge that will hurt their PPM rate compared to the random chances, but every other power will have an increased chance to fire.

Proc changes will be based off of slotted recharge in i24, not actual recharge. Most powers will see an increased proc rate compared to the random chance procs.

Dehydrate builds stacks if it doesn't consume them, too. I'm not sure if you took that into account when saying that it's bad to use it "on the fly"; if it's up and you're still building stacks it doesn't hit a reset button.

Neither of those chains works for Water Jet x2 - Water Burst and Dehydrate will both use the stack that you build with the first part of the chain. I also don't think you'll be able to get Dehydrate's recharge down enough to fit around Hydro Blast, but that's theoretically possible.