SpittingTrashcan

Pardon the pun, but when you're snapping at people who agree with you, it makes you seem as if you have a chip on your shoulder. It's not exactly conducive to discussion, and I assume that the point of this thread was to create a discussion rather than to hand out browbeatings to all and sundry until no one wanted to talk about the topic with you anymore.

Now, in case I haven't been clear, what I'd like to see preserved is the idea of Granite Armor as a defensive mode: it is a power that you can turn on to increase your mitigation and decrease your offense, or turn off to do the opposite. If there is something inherently flawed about this concept per se, then it is a flaw shared with every other mitigation toggle: they cost you endurance, which you could be using to increase your damage output, and instead divert that endurance to keeping you alive. The difference is in the degree. So I would ask you: if you were at all interested in keeping Granite Armor a defensive mode switch that can be left on for any amount of time, what degree of defensive bonus and offensive penalty would be appropriate?

Contrarily, I have no investment in the idea of Granite as the single armor that replaces all other armors in the set in perpetuity. I think that was an unfortunate design decision and I'd be happy to see it go.

I have no opinion one way or the other on Rooted; I manage to function without difficulty using the power as it is now, but it's clearly considered a hindrance. I wouldn't be particularly happy to see it lose mitigative effect in exchange for increased mobility, though. It's also worth noting that the -fly effect in Rooted actually has positive synergy with Teleport, and would have even more positive synergy if the benefits of the power were tied to being on the ground - else Teleport becomes "be a pinata for 4 seconds".

Incidentally, if your proposed Granite toggle has a forced detoggle after 120 seconds and an unenhanceable recharge time of 300 seconds, this means it would have a worse uptime ratio than SoW or OWTS, for exactly the same reason that you chided BrandX for forgetting. Toggles start recharging when they turn off; clicks start recharging when they're fired. Thus the recharge on Granite would need to be 180 seconds to get the 2:3 cycle of SoW, or 240 seconds to get the 2:4 cycle of OWTS - pick whichever you feel is most appropriate. Unless, of course, you meant that your version of Granite should have a 2:5 uptime ratio.

And as of I17 it joins the ranks of DC/HOF arcs that don't work, to the dismay of all concerned.

I've never written a text editor either, and you're not expecting a lot, because text editors already exist. I would never write a text editor when someone else has already done the job for me better than I could do it myself, and put it in a library that I can use. "Roll your own" is always a last resort.

As for your other issues, I think you might want to read my suggestions upthread. Perhaps I should make a new thread in S&I for them. On the other hand S&I is where ideas go to die.

Quite right. Shame on me for forgetting. And we all know how terrible a time Masterminds have with EB/AV enemies.

Like corruptors, defenders, or controllers, who also have just the most awful time against AVs.

When I upgraded my system and installed CoH on a solid-state drive, the improvement to the loading times for the old market interface was immediate and enormous. Slightly off topic, but I can't recommend a SSD enough for gaming - if you get the right kind (OCZ Vertex or Intel X-series) and use it for the right things (sequential reads, not random writes).

Anyway, as I said before, I'm glad that they removed the enormous preloading present in the old market interface, but I'm not at all hot on the other changes they decided to make while they were at it. The one justification I can think of is that the new market interface had to be written with a new set of tools in order to avoid preloading, and that new set of tools didn't allow them to keep some of the much-missed features of the old interface (horizontal item list, category/name searching), so they had to redesign using the tools available. That still doesn't explain some of the other questionable decisions, though (price persistence, I am looking at you).

Lucky man. Not even /stuck worked for me. Odd, really.

The Earth still orbits the Sun. The stars, however, do not.

I was affected by this. I did try jumping. It did not work.

Jinx.

And as the patches sometimes contain exploit fixes (such as, for instance, this very patch), it would not be smart to release the notes explaining the exploit and its fix until the patch is well and truly in place.

I'm the player of the Brute in the picture. I have a deep, abiding, longstanding familiarity with Drone behavior, and it is my personal opinion that their behavior has changed significantly as of Issue 17. And it's not just Drones - they're just a handy example, because they are well known for having no melee attacks whatsoever.

Of course we can go back and forth on this all day, but I'd call the subjective evidence strong enough to make this worth some developer attention.

As I said, this is the primary reason I chose Stone Armor in the first place. You're "only" talking of removing the unique mitigation capability of the set. You're "only" talking about removing the option that made Stone Armor my choice.

This is simply not true, and I can prove that it is not true, because my own build is designed to function both within and without Granite Armor. And yes, I do use Granite Armor situationally, and no, I did not build to circumvent its disadvantages, and yes, when I say situationally I do mean situations that last for more than two minutes at a time and do benefit from resistance more than they benefit from defense. So I suppose I'm the exception that makes you say "virtually", and some kind of fool to boot, but that's how I play it and that's how I like it.

I like Stone Armor as it is, and I don't agree with your assessment of the broad issues with the set. I don't like your proposed changes, and I don't like any proposed changes that purport to be an improvement while clearly intending to throw away the absolute defense mode that attracted me to the set and has become its signature. You'll probably see a number of others object to your proposal on the grounds that they've fine-tuned around Granite-only builds, but that is absolutely not the case with me. I'd be happy to see Granite's mitigation shifted around the set, as I said, but I would not be happy to see it eroded, and I would not be happy to see the situational opportunity to trade speed, power, and mobility for pure protection removed or limited. Yes, I want to be able to turn it on and keep it on for as long as I can tolerate the hindrance - in fact, I'd be entirely okay with the hindrance being heavier and less "escapable" as you put it. Have Granite Armor lower cap movement speed, cap damage, cap recharge - I don't care.

Of course, as I've said a number of times already, you don't need to convince me of anything. Stone Armor will be changed, or not changed, regardless of my preferences. You do have developer statements in your favor, and I do agree that Stone Armor is an outlier with a number of unusual properties that ought to be addressed in one way or another. You want it addressed in one particular way - removing hindrances, removing at-will peak survivability. I want the option to pay the price of those hindrances and keep that at-will peak; I consider it an interesting and worthwhile strategic option to have. The chips are going to fall where they fall. I'm just expressing an opinion here.

And I'm not going to ragequit over a change to Stone. I built to function both in and out of Granite, and I'll still be able to function both in and out of Granite under your proposal. I just won't do nearly as well at the tasks that I am pleased to excel at now, and I won't consider being better at the things that other sets are already good at to be an equitable compensation.

What most groups have, if they span more than around 10 or 15 levels, is various enemy types that phase in at one level and out at another. For instance, Circle of Thorns have Earth Thorn, Fire Thorn, and Air Thorn Casters at various level ranges, and that has a pretty dramatic effect on how dangerous they are to various builds. I think that Longbow actually do this as well - a level 30 Longbow Rifleman is a different beast from a level 29 Longbow Rifleman, but it's harder to tell because they have the same name and appearance.