Starsman
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Quote:The reason I say it is irrelevant is because I already have my sysem setup to dip into power pools for extra attacks, and even with their use the set still is not going anywhere into the OP realm for tankers.Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards
It doesn't seem that irrelevant to me when you can use it to consistently boost Fire Blast and Fire Ball.
Rage'd Fire Blast can be very helpful with single target DPS.
One thing I never added, though, was Gloom. THAT may be a problem. -
Quote:When the devs say "we balance with SOs in mind" they do not mean they dont ever look at IOs or Pool powers, instead what they mean is the set should perform acceptably without requiring IOs or pools.Originally Posted by KingSnake
I'm not a numbers cruncher. I'm also not a hardcore power gamer.
So, for the number crunchers out there, how would regular old, SO slotted, SuperStrength stack up against other scrapper primaries if it were ported as is? Cause, it's that how the dev's balance their game? Why are people screaming it'd be overpowered if it was tricked to the gills with uber recharge and double stacked Rage when the dev's don't (or at least say they don't) use that critira when balancing a powerset?
In the hands of an AVG player using basic SO's or Bluelight special IO's (that's me) would it really be the epic end all scrapper primary? (I honestly don't know, that's why i'm asking?)
The devs, in fact, actually try to answer questions like "as far as we can tell, would IOs make this set overpowered?" They dont go too far, though, for the most part they do things like "OK, with 300% recharge on top of regular slotting, would it be too strong?"
So yes, the devs do not balance the game to require IOs, but they do their best to make sure IOs dont go way to out of control. They dont always succeed, nor do they aim at "do all sets perform similarly once IOd".
This means they do try to avoid some level of performance when they can foresee it, but that does not mean they make sure that all sets can reach that level of performance. -
A few notes: I still have to see an algoritmical study that properly accounts for recharge buffs/debuffs and misses. I guess that also turns every single one of them irrelevant.
That aside, SS's ability to get punch or kick is irrelevant. The only p ower in that set that entirely sucks is Punch, and taking the best ST pool power in the game does not make the sustained ST capabilities of SS that high.
There is another issue, though, and that is AoE damage. At that point, Rage actually becomes an issue as it's boosting all AoEs you may get from the armor set or the epic pools. That skews things significantly and is one of the reasons why SS is so favored by farmers.
Another issue that comes with Rage is it's burst damage, at least when it comes to bringing the set to scrappers. You may notice that no scrapper has been allowed to have a 20s recharge ST attack with 3.56 DS of damage. I doubt thats a coincidence. The most drastic damage scrappers have received up to this day is in Broad Sword and later a bit higher with Fiery Melee.
When the game launched worries were about one-shooting certain foes. That may still be part of it but these days it also may be invasion of Stalker territory. That AT is heavily crippled in AoE so it can do huge bursts of ST damage and giving scrapers attacks that may surpass that, (and on top of that crit randomly) may be considered unbalanced.
The way I see things, if SS and EM become scrapper sets they will indeed be tweaked. I can see KoB and Total Focus being lowered in recharge to not exceed Headsplitter's damage. This would mess up with both set's DPS though, so i can see the same port taking a bit of time to rebalance both set's Tier 1 attacks to be, at the very least, better than Air Superiority with a decent rotation.
I guess also part of the issue lies with Proliferation process as it stands, so far it seems that most sets are just being ported with few AT modifications. Sets that are in the way of intended AT design just get pushed back and back. Would love to see a revised policy on making more modifications to a powerset's port. -
Quote:From what I understand, you dont loose aggro unless some one surpasses twice as much threat as you hold.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I think this is a subtle contradiction of the conceptual intent of Granite. I don't think Granite is intended to be a way for Tankers to escape damage (I know its also a Brute set, but its conceptual foundation is as a Tanker set), but to sustain damage. And that implies that Granite will not explicitly make it difficult for the Tanker to draw damage.
That's specifically to contrast against Hibernation, which *is* a power explicitly designed to allow a Tanker to temporarily escape damage.
Mechanically, its difficult to critique an aggro idea without very explicit specifics. For example, the mechanics of taunt and hate may not allow the gentle expiration of aggro you're specifying.
A huge debuff in the form of a global taunt enhancement and a threat base decrease from 4 to 2, could result in many fights where you are right, the tanker would not loose aggro once in granite. But there may be situations where the tanker may loose aggro.
My biggest issue with Granite, as I mentioned before during the thread, is how it trivializes many encounters that are designed to be extremely tough. I think I even recall Castle (not sure) making a quick observation at how Granite can trivialize Master of Lord Recluse and Statesman task force badges, for instance.
This is why I think, for balance purposes, Granite aggro management needs to be the priority nerf point. Heck, I may even leave damage untouched if such a change happened, as the granite tanker already can lower damage by (based on a quick test i posted earlier on this tread) nearly 20%, thats like having debt 40% of the time, therefore almost dying without dying.
It is these special encounters that make me worried about Granite's existance. -
Quote:The point is not to make granite break aggro. The point is that if you spend too long in granite you may loose aggro as you litterally stop generating any (it still would take for others to double the aggro you had at that point for you to loose aggro.)Originally Posted by Kitsune9tails
I disagree about aggro, if the Granite power is otherwise balanced.
If as I beleive, Granite can be set up to act as a 'Godmode Panic Button' when activated, then have its' effect reduce itself to 'merely the strongest armor in the game, with drawbacks' similar to other Tier 9s, then it can retain its aggro abilities.
I think it would draw unnecessary aggro from Granite players if Granite was changed from a tanking tool so a 'solo survivability' tool. I can forsee people dreading Stone Tankers going into Granite mode. This would be hilarious, but not productive.
Damage I agree about, since Granite is effectively a defensive stance, trading offense (and movement) for defense.
It also would mean that a granite tanker could jump in first, be the only one aggroed and therefore absorb safely an alpha, but as soon as anyone else jumped in he would loose aggro unless he switched out of granite.
So Granite would:
Slowly can loose existing aggro (not suddenly.)
Can take an alpha but not build up aggro.
Barely do damage.
Uses?
You still can turn it on if you have all aggro on you and you are being overwhelmed by the incoming damage. At this point it saves your life and you may have enough aggro to keep going the rest of the fight in granite mode.
It would have obvious solo uses too. You would not fear that your team-mate turns on Granite, unless the guy just does not know how to play and expected to build aggro inside of granite. -
Quote:I think RevokePower existed at release, if I'm not wrong it's the way the Vahzilok Disease would be removed from launch. However, anyone that was around may know that it either was buggy or the devs didnt understand it well, as there were plenty of bugs with that debuff not removing properly.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The Curse Breaker uses the RevokePower effect. It allows you to remove a power that was granted with the GrantPower effect. GrantPower has been around since the beginning of time, but I'm not sure about RevokePower: it could have been added post-launch. But that effect can remove a temporary power you were previously granted (I'm not sure what happens if you target a power that *wasn't* granted with GrantPower: that would be an interesting experiment).
I theorize that all powers can be revoked. -
I'm not 100% sure of this but from what I understand, Granite was designed to work similar to other Tier 9s, as a click. Thing is, unlike Unstoppable and piers, the power was intended to have it's penalty during the effect, not upon it's crash. I am sure the designer thought, that since you were enduring a self-imposed debuff, there had to be a way to allow the user to opt out instead of having to wait for it to wear out and therefore made it a toggle.
At the time the idea of time-limited toggles was not known or didn't exist so they just made it a simple toggle thinking people would not want to live in the thing and thinking the damage and recharge penalties were harsh enough.
Whatever the intent on that then does not matter, as the power is live now the way it is and the cottage rule applies.
I just think two things need to be addressed: Damage and Aggro management capabilities inside of Granite should be severely crippled. Aggro so that the Granite tank cant be a reliable 100% uptime tank in special encounters and damage for obvious reasons. -
Quote:It is only a theory, but i suspect the game to allow the modification of cast time just as it can modify interupt. The animation may still be the same, but a cast time debuff could force a wait time between power activations. Would require way less work and the only practical diference is that the granite tank would be able to walk wile he waits for the "recast penalty".Originally Posted by Arcanaville
[QR]
I wonder if it would be palatable if toggling Granite armor made all of your attacks animate 25% slower.
BaB would have a fit, but I don't think that is intrinsicly impossible to pull off.
(Basically, have Granite set a mode bit which passed to the sequencers, then mass copy *every* possible attack animation sequencer and adjust the timing in each plus add the required bit. I could probably write a script to do that in theory, but it would add several hundred animation sequence files to the animation system which the animators would then have to maintain, rather like the Flying versions of attacks. Not pretty.)
A side subject, there may not be hooks for it in the spreadsheets or whatever but the game engine surely supports dynamic animation slowdown/speedups. We can see this in action all the time with running animations while in super speeding or speed debuffed. Would be cool if somehow castle was able to force animation speedup/down via hasten like buffs or special enhancements.
For the time being thoug, i bet increasing cast time power attribute must be viable. -
Quote:Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
I have two answers to this one; take your pick.
First, if I were going to defend conceptual -teleport, I'd say that it's too much stuff to take with you through a hole in time and space. Then again, anything can be explained with sufficient handwaving. The mechanical issue is more serious, but it's not like every other contender mentioned so far doesn't also break the rules as laid out.
Second, at this point I'm working toward an existential proof rather than a constructive proof. I'm not trying to lay out a specific set of bonuses and penalties that I want as a change to Granite; I'm trying to prove by example that there exist a set of bonuses and penalties that make a toggle tier 9 useful, situational, and balanced. Once I've established that the set of such powers exists - by proving the existence of one element within it - then it's all down to horse-trading about which specific tradeoffs provide the most suitable element within that set.
And of course there's always the bottom line in any such discussion: it's not like I get to make the decision anyway.
It is not about coming up with new conceptual reasons of why it makes sense, its about re-conceptualizing. As far as the devs care, the cottage rule seems to apply to re-conceptualizing too. -
Quote:Go take a Stone tanker to lvl 20 and come back and say its just "slightly slower than normal" or that Rooted is any superior to anything other sets already have without penalties.Originally Posted by MondoCool
Oh no. You have to move slightly slower than normal in order to use your defensive abilities that are arguably much superior to every other defensive ability in the game?! How terrible!
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Quote:All numbers I have listed so far are raw defensive sets with SOs. I have made mention on frankenslotting only as a note of a further issue.Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Stars: did you throw IOs at the WP survivability numbers, or does that not have as much of an effect? I know that attacks get more of a benefit from frankenslotting with four aspects to enhance, as opposed to most defensive toggles' two (and Granite's 3).
Frankenslotting as far as toggles go can in theory result on powers with 4 slots that have 95% end discount and 56 def/res enhancement, but I meant mainly to frankenslot the attacks, not the defensive set itself.
Go back to the cottage rule Arcanaville outlined. Granite can teleport because it makes sense conceptually. Granite can move slowly because it makes sense conceptually, its not even considered a balance penalty, at least not in the original design. The designer that came up with the power just figured something so big and heavy would not be able to jump or fly and be very slow moving, but teleportation would not be hindered.Quote:Also, I'm still not seeing how a massive uncircumventable movement penalty won't prevent people from living in Granite.
Preventing teleport would infringe on how the set plays already (use of two powers together as noted in Arcanaville's outline) and a disruption in the conceptual reasoning for it to teleport. -
I just ran a quick numeric expeirment that ran through my mind. Taking into account that the devs naively expected everyone to slot all attacks with 3 damage, 1 acc, 1 rch and 1 end redux, and if we assume the devs knew what they were doing, how big was the intended penalty?
Well, rechage wise, all attacks under granite would had ended at 68% recharge and 168% damage, while the regular non-granite attack would had 195% damage and 133% recharge.
With a simplistic analysis that omits many points the devs didnt think off back in the day, this means that the granite build was expected to have twice the recharge (195%, meaning about 49% less damage) as the non-granite build and 15% less damage for a theoretical total of 49%+15% = 64% less damage than the regular build, or just 36% the damage of a non-granite.
Keep in mind the numbers I posted earlier, there, Willpower permanently surrounded by 5 foes only can take 21% the DPS a granite tanker can take before it starts dying. Keep in mind WP is a beast and it came in way later under higher survivability standards.
May sound OK, until we change that build just a tad. A single extra recharge SO in every power instead of the end redux would turn change everything drastically. The Granite tanker suddenly can do 45% the damage of a SOd tanker of any other type. I guess that's not too bad, though.
At this point we can certainly say the set can trivially become 33% more offensive than the devs intended. Keep in mind, if rooted was turned on the granite tanker was expected to not be able to move at all, rooted was a self immob back then.
Now we jump into the world of IOs, without doing any recharge intensive builds and just basic frankenslotting, we get the granite to be 51% of what the non-granite with identical slotting would be. Not that overpowered at first.
But this all falls apart the minute the granite build picks more powers. You see, the standard build may just use 3-4 attacks consistently, the recharge penalties for offense only apply as long as there are no more powers available. Add more powers and things change and now are only constrained by the DPAS of all powers combined in an optimal attack chain, cant just do simple calculation here, I'd have to jump into my attack chain calculations to see what happens and every melee set would behave differently but in any case the penalty would be way less than I hinted above.
Since right now i'm a bit idle, I'll go ahead and input those numbers through my calculator!!!
For this test I'll look at Battle Axe, just because!
My calc says that with a 66.6% recharge, battle Axe has a ST 1.6 score. That accounts for buildup spamming.
Lets add Granite's Debuff and the score goes down to 1.3.
The use of more attacks took it up to 81% of an equivalent offensive tanker but having about five times the sustained immortality of a willpower tank with 5 foes around.
With SOs and just by using more attacks than the WP would have. Lets not even get how much stronger than the other tanker sets this is.
Edit: Forgot to put the damage debuff in my calculator. Changed. -
Quote:I'm 100% sure any buff can go into negatives. The only question would be what the min cap for end mods is, if it is zero it can trivially be set for less.Originally Posted by Steampunkette
I'm not certain that's possible. I think the recovery minimum is 0.00% and the "Endurance Modification" minimum is also 0.00%. It -could- theoretically be modified, but wouldn't it be simpler to implement a Max Attribute penalty, which we know Endurance is capable of? I'll, again, suggest the Maximum End Penalty be -35 Maximum end. Able to be offset by slotting and accolades, but not easily.
-Rachel- -
Quote:Simple frankenslotting is HORRIBLY cheap. It's when you want to actually build for set bonuses and recharge that you start spending money.Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
If you want to start talking IO sets, then this is over. Basically any talk about optional sets is going to introduce the "you weren't originally intended to do that". Yeah, you weren't originally intended to defense cap so many different types of toons either.
As for the "ease". Do a cost analysis for both inf on the market and merits as to how much it takes to fully frankenslot out a stoner this way. -
Quote:In that you do are right, only effect lines are affected meaning base power attributes like endurance cost are not. I am certain it can be used for any attribute in the effect though, not just chance. Keep in mind, thats not something they designed for Dual Pistols, is something they discovered the game was able to do all along while lookings for way to implement the design they had in mind for dual pistols (shows how far they will go to implement what they want.)Originally Posted by Umbral
Eh, I would be reluctant to say that the Dual Pistols changes (which I was under the impression only allow them to modify chances for certain effects to occur rather than outright attribute changes) would be certainly able to change such base attributes as endurance cost, recharge time, and root time. I'm not entirely sure that those values are part of the same entries and there might not be the same permissions and accessibility with that additional functionality.
It might be possible, but I would be reluctant to say that it is likely without a redname weighing in on the matter.
I am lost on what you want though, you can make granite have an end cost increase debuff (negative conserve energy) if you wanted that forces all powers to cost double endurance. Also fail to see why such debuff, if desired, should be limited to certain powers and not just applied to any power the granite tanker uses. -
Quote:That is no longer true. Not since Dual Pistols came out. Change Ammo does exactly that, it targets only the powers in the set, and not just does it target the powers in the set, it actually target specific attributes within that power.Originally Posted by Umbral
It can't be. If you're intending to make it apply in a manner proportionate to the current endurance cost of the power rather than the base endurance cost pre-modification, it's not possible. The devs have told us before that it's impossible for a power to apply an attribute modification to a specific power exclusively. It's possible to add or subtract base values, but, if that occurred, the difference between having no end redux, standard end redux, and heavy end redux would generate highly different end values (because it would need to be linear and end redux operates in a proportionate manner).
So far they only been doing changes to chance percentages with it, but I'm sure the system would allow them to change about any attribute in the list. -
Quote:The penalties may still be there, but the point of a penalty is that you should suffer it, not that you could ignore it with certain power selections. A teletank does not care about the movement penalties.Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
That doesn't mean they're not still penalties. And the slots required to work around them aren't required by any other set out there.
There is nothing tight about a granite build.Quote:Again, simply because you see them as "trivial" doesn't mean they are. especially in a tight build.
Thats not a penalty for activating the power though, and that would be the point, find a penalty that is more suitable to make sure the set pays for it's survivability.Quote:And with a stacking armor schema like the one I proposed, it would get tighter still.
15% after enhancements are accounted for. Thats nothing in this game.Quote:One problem. You're also forgetting the 30% damage debuff that Granite imposes.
Good thing it only needs to run one toggle that wont drain much endurance!!!Quote:You're also forgetting that a non-stone player who devotes NO slots to recharge has room for End Redux.
In the IO world the granite can easily frankenslot 95% recharge and Damage without sacrificing acc or end slotting, to boot. -
Quote:The movement penalties have been worked around through teleport for ages now. That fall in the SO realm. The recharge was also drastically trivialized by recharge enhancements. A 2rch/1acc/3dmg SO build was able to negate the recharge debuff, and although same build would be much more faster in a non-granite build, the relative difference between the base and the enhanced versions are huge.Originally Posted by BrandX
I'd say -SPD, -JUMP, -RCH, -DMG are huge penalties...just because they can be IOed around doesn't make them small penalties, when this gameis balanced around SOs.
And I wouldn't say teamed around, since any team can cover the rest of the teams weaknesses.
Not saying I wouldn't like to see a change to granite so the rest of the set doesn't blow. Just saying I don't see them as small penalities.
Example:
10 s recharge attack.
W granite that turns into 28.57 seconds recharge.
Add 2 recharge SOs and turns into 9.83s.
Result is that the boost from 28.57 to 9.83 is 290% the damage as base.
A regular player that puts on those 2 SOs would jump from 10s to 6s, 160% the damage of the base build.
Just in case anyone wants to go to the "non-granite gets the same benefit" arguments.
That is all in an SO balance world. -
Quote:I didn't forget it. That is why i stated that Shadow Maul still would activate at 7ft but it may hit nothing due to it's radius going down to 3.5.Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Stars, there's something I think you may be forgetting. Radius is indeed a buffable attribute, and range enhancements do buff cone radius. However, melee cones and PBAoEs are specifically set to ignore range buffs and debuffs.
The only Damage/Range enhancements you can add into melee attacks are HOs and HO enhancements that boost range happen to not boost radius.
Actually, after checking I find no radius modification in range enhancements... I guess I'll have to sit down to run tests with cones to see if they are actually working as intended when it comes to cones.
There used to be special range enhancements for cones back in the day, they were removed supposedly due to merger with ranged enhancements. Now I ponder if they got just removed due to balance issues, it's not like back in the day the devs were not a bit more secretive about this stuff... -
Quote:First, Psi hole is one of the penalties granite suffers. Allowing all powers to stack changes nothing and just patches the Psi hole.Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Honestly, I don't know that it'd be all that intrusive. The sets would actually be better integrated and defense (other than psi) would be identical. You'd STILL be dealing with all the speed/recharge/damage output penalties intrinsic to granite. And if you want to make the Stoner "pay" for the psi buff, simply reduce the end discount on the modified Granite.
Yes, this could be offset by IOs, but how is that different from how it is now?
The issue with granite is not that it gives that much power in it's own, it's the fact that it allows that level of survivability to be reached without many penalties. Requiring stacking to do so changes little in that respect.
This is precisely the sort of idea some one would propose in an attempt to convince the devs to buff Granite without the devs realizing (and it would not work.)
Radius is proven to be buffable and if it's buffable it's debuffable. +Range enhancements also enhance Radius precisely so they keep cones enhancing properly. This alone proves the power's attribute's mechanic to be buffed and debuffed exists.Quote:I don't know that -radius or -range is going to work well, as a lot of that is baked into the AOE powers themselves. And most tank/brute AOE are point blank outside of epics. As such, -range is inapplicable, and radius is a function of the power with no means of buffing/debuffing.
Also, PBAoE and Cone radius are both the exact same attribute. -
Quote:The only way to accept this, and I apologize if you stated it here and I missed it (have a headache right now) is by lowering granite values so that once stacked on top of everything else it ends up being the same it is now. This would just force granite to be harder to build but most IO min-maxers may already take everything they can to slot special set bonuses they want.Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Okay the current problem with Stone is that most of the armors are mutually exclusive to the Tier 9. That and the End cost to run it all, compared to the Tier 9 which pretty much is equal or better on almost every level.
Now, not taking into account status effects (still fiddling with ideas on that, this is what I'd propose).
Link To Google Spreadsheet
Essentially we stop having Granite be a stand-alone power and have if functionally be additive. Additionally, it would garner a 50% (non-augmentable) endurance discount.
This would bring it in-line with current End cost for Granite + Mudpots + Rooted.
However, you're retaining the benefits of Crystal Armor (which you currently lose in Granite), as well as the defense debuff resistance.
As I said above, fiddling with ideas for the various status protections. Not 100% on how the magnitude system works. So I'm not sure if it should be an additive effect or a value replacement.
Now, this would constitute a fairly MAJOR buff to an ALREADY powerful (some would say overpowered) set. How would we offset it? Maybe play with the amount of End Discount? Lowering of defense values? I'm open to suggestions for balance's sake.
Now something like this probably has been suggested in the past (I'd be stunned if it hadn't). Anyone want to summarize on why this kind of change would be a Bad Thing™?
Seriously, tear it a new one.
I think it would be too intrusive to the way players build and play the set and in the end just results in a buff to Granite thanks to it now getting psi defense.
Adding subtle but harsh penalties, like the -radius and -range i mentioned, may be a better way to go as it does not intrude with the gameplay but does lower potential aoe damage. -
Quote:The range and radius debuffs would make a huge difference.Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Furthermore, this does little to address the problem of Brutes, for whom controlling aggro really isn't that big a deal. They CAN tank, but they aren't meant to. This does little to stop them, as Brutes have an even easier time ignoring Granite Armour penalties, and are only left with the sheer annoyance of the power, which, to be honest, further penalties will not solve.
Foot stomp would jump from being a 15ft radius power to a 7.5ft radius. 8ft Whirling attacks would end being 4ft radius. Cone attacks also would be crippled. Powers like Shadow Maul may prove problematic as they would still have a 7ft range but their radius would go down to 3.5, unless the foe is just in the user's Toes the power just would not hit anything.
I'm sure brutes would feel that debuff. -
Here is a thought I had earlier that may be perfect without actually change the way Granite "feels":
Add a huge -taunt global enhancement, take it to the negative cap.
Add a -radius and -range debuff that will half radius and range of all powers (this may affect Teleport for long travel)
The results of this are to make it very hard to reliably tank in Granite form. A granite tanker may require to build up hate in regular mode before he switches on Granite.
He would also be limited in it's AoE damage capabilities as all it's AoEs will have a drastic area coverage debuff, even if damage buffs can circumvent the damage debuff, this cant be easily circumvented. -
Quote:Curious, what builds that are not def based on their root can soft cap every defense type? Last time I checked even the most drastic IO defense builds end up with huge holes somewhere.Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Elude is problematic here: apparently over-softcap defense is considered to require a penalty, except that it is now possible to achieve this indefinitely, without any penalty, in powersets that aren't even based on defense to start with, so, hm. But that's a side issue.
As for rouge estimates, I did some stuff a while back, little has changed since then so lets see, without any pool powers applied this is how my calculations displayed tanker primaries:
For the purpose of this test, those numbers don't include pool powers and assume that all damage types in the game are equally prominent. Things change drastically when you do a proper weighting of damage types but I always get questioned on the validity of my weighting.Code:Alpha Dash Set 62% 784% Invulnerability 53% 944% Stone Armor 45% 1108% Electric Armor 70% 1425% Shield Defense 77% 1529% Ice 42% 1691% Fire Aura 61% 1847% Willpower 61% 2189% Dark Armor 86% 8454% Stone Granite
Anyways for simplicity I named the two scores Dash and Alpha. Alpha means how much damage you actually reduce without resorting to healing and denotes how good are you at taking an alpha strike. The higher the better.
Dash is more meaningful for most as it means how much you can regenarate and heal coupled with how much you mitigate to give a better idea of how much steady DPS you can sustain and how little downtime you will endure. This later number actually is more significant when it comes to measuring leveling speed and reward earning.
I sorted the lists by the Dash but you can see Granite wins in both, by a huge margin.
This accounts for 5 foes in melee range for those set that care. -
Quote:Phantom Army surely is another headache but has just one "saving grace", it's not controllable. Unless you dealing with just one target, it's not reliable at keeping aggro.Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
I agree with everything Starsman just said, with one caveat. If Granite Armor gives encounter designers conniptions, then Phantom Army must drive them completely around the bend. Admittedly, that does take at least two characters working together, or else a whole lot of build investment, to function indefinitely. I will say nothing of Repeat Offenders, since we're talking about how the presence of a single character can make or break an encounter, whereas RO just demonstrates what happens when you create an entire team specifically designed for team encounters.
Also it's easier to create encounters that defeat Phantom Army, all they have to do is create special encounters that can go through Phase Shift and defeat the ghosts easily. Given how they are meant to be illusions, its even very conceptually realistic for extremely strong enemies to not be fooled by their existence and be able to dismiss them all together.