Vicar

I am not a die hard pvper and I certainly am not a member of the elite pvp but I know a bit about it.

My advice for right now is to play what you got and hold off on investing anything in a pvp build. PvP seems to be in a state of massive flux and odds are if you build and io the current FoTM you ll be cursing the next issue.

Thats just my two cents on the subject.

However from what I have seen and heard elec therm corrupters seem to be on top at the moment. Just a matter of how long that moment will last.

SS and DM seem to be doing well as well.

Slightly off topic I believe the endurance issues you mention are not a problem of the invuln set. They exist for pretty much all tankers with the exception of will power.

That problem however does not stem from the primary armors drawing endurance. What the real problem is the massive end costs of the attacks when coupled with their relatively low damage.

A test I did recently with a low level map filled with minions. I ran a few different tanks through it up to level 6. Even heavily slotting the attacks and running no armors I was sucking end in the first or second mob. I couldnt even bear to finish the map.

I tried a Fire Devices blaster at it. No end issues and destroyed stuff in relatively short order. Finished the map in no time. Yes I did also have to slot the attacks with end reduction to do so but even doing so on the tank it still accomplished nothing.

I also did the same thing with a scrapper, and a defender. Again minimal end issues. I did not mess around with a controler, I belive the end costs to their powers is also too high.

Not entirely sure why I did this. I was in the mood to create some characters today and felt like messing around with tanks. These issues are not really anything new to me. Simply was bored and messing around to see which one was more low level friendly. Endurance was pretty much terrible on all of them. Oh well back to brutes.

Im actually happy with how invuln performs at low levels.

It's not a flashy set like some of the others but it gets the job done and the recent buffs that were done to it fixed just about every issue with the set that I had.

The only one I have left is the health crash on Unstoppable. Completely over the top and ridiculous. However once you spend a few hundred million the power becomes pretty much redundant.

In short, I think the low levels are fine and I have given up on the devs ever seeing the light and fixing the crash on unstoppable so I chose to invest in Io's and ignore the power.

The reason I , and I would imagine others, do not quote numbers when we make suggestions is it usually just fans the flames. Not to mention that when it comes down to it any numbers I suggest wouldnt be used anyway. If we can convince the devs that something needs to be done then great. They won't use our numbers anyway so I won't waste my breath.

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I think that the main reason I don't try Stone Armour is knowing that Granite is unrelated to the character I put in it. That's my reason for not giving the set more of a spin myself.

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Whoa, check me if I am wrong but did you not make a snarky comment about my providing feeback on a set that I pld. (you missed the part when I had said I had also tried in the past to play one up but gave up in the late 20's)

Before I go on I would also like to add that I played as normal from 38 to 50 on the stone armor brute, and I have two level 50 tanks and 3 other level 50 brute's as well. I think I have a fairly good working knowlege of the armor sets. *edit* also adding that the stone brute and my second kinetic are the ONLY toons I have ever pld. Ive done the content numerous times, it is not like I am an AE baby with no vet rewards and several 50's. I pld that brute because I wanted a stoner but didnt want to have to have a pocket kin to play through the low levels. The second kin character got pld because I was bored and made it to help another 50 some month friend level up.

Now you come out and say that you have not really given the set a try. You definately have me confused now.

If you were suggesting a change that might make the set more appealing to you I would understand your presence in this thread. However you seem to be very much against any changes to the set, a set that by your own admission you do not play.

So why are you even posting on the subject? If you do not play stone armor, and you do not want any changes, why are you here?

Your posting in this thread has contributed nothing to the discusion. It has only served to derail the thread and now you admit to this.

I think you have be back at confused, so never mind go about your mad post count bumping.

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The pedantry works out well, yes. The sky also tinges green when it's pregnant with hail. Not entirely sure why, but I've seen it twice in my lifetime. On the other hand, this demonstrates that when I use very simple analogy to explain something to people on this board, that speaking as if I'm speaking to children isn't quite simple enough.

I am pointing out the flaw in the argument that Lots of people have complained about Stone Armour on its most basic level. If ten people complained and had ten different complaints, their number offers no weight to their argument. If those ten people are bickering about issues of personal preference, then it's meaningless. If those people are trying to use the set to do things it's bad at then claim it underpowered, same thing.

Very simply, volume is no means to judge an argument. I will be repeating this post with hand puppets for those people who need it.

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The problem is many of those people simply do not have the patience to try and speak over you. Make no mistake your the one spouting white noise.

Make your point or suggestion. At that point, unless you have something different to say you do not need to say anything more. Any other posts saying the same thing are simply bumping your post count.

As I have said numerous times there needs to be an actual in game survey put out to each account holder (yes I know some have multiple accounts oh well). That is the only way that you will know if the masses really are complaining about it.

In my experiance in the game (you know when you actually log in Talen) I have met many that have had issues with the set. I have also met many people over the years that had great ideas but did not want to bother with the frustration of the forums. For myself that is why it took me so long to bother regestering and why in all this time I have a paltry 600+ posts.

Simply put, other games are making use of in game survey's. There is a reason for that. Just about everyone who plays an mmo is willing to click 5 check marks about some in game issue. Or even everytime they finish a mission that has been newly added to the game they click a few to give the devs an impression of how that new content is being percieved.

Now I am not suggesting that for everything in the game in perpetuity. However I do believe that when new content is put in the game that feature should be active for the first month or so. To get some feedback.

I also think it would be a great tool. For this issue the devs could put out a survey asking a few questions. Do you think stone armor needs an overhaul? If it did recieve one would you prefer it was in gameplay or cosmetics. So on and so forth.

Then once the first one is in they can decide if enough people want it to make putting work into it worth the time. If the majority of people say its fine its not needed then they post the results and a good chunk of people will stop bringing it up.

However if it is wanted by the majority of people they can send out further survey's with suggestions for the changes they might make and see what people think of those BEFORE they go to all the work of changing powers, animations or cosmetics. They save time and effort and have more people happy with the changes.

Obviously you cannot use this when something is out of balance (ie double stacked domination). Too many of the players will vote that it is fine out of self interest. However if done correctly this would be a far better way to find out what the players want than listening to the boards.

Listening to the boards only gets them input from their chosen few.

Thats not to say that the forums are a write off. Some good ideas do come from the boards, but I think more of them get buried in the flames than actually read by anyone that might have the influence to implement them.

Oh and Talen I would like to add that the sky can and does turn green.

Maybe you should google "Northren Lights".

Post deleted by Moderator 08

Back on topic now.

I think the only way to please those not liking the looks of certain armors would be an option to suppress the effects.

However if changing the color of a power is difficult I do not imagine that changing it so that a particular armor does not show at all would be just as difficult.

If that was possible great. If not I would say that overhauling granite's looks would be unfair to those who like the current apperance. Yes they are out there. From those I have met there are about as many who like it as who hate it.

As for the other armors, I think they should be left alone for the same reason. Besides they show enough of your costume off that if you are creative you can work with them and come out with something unique.

So all in all I think cosmetic changes should take a back burner to the way the lower levels play. That is the primary concern in my opinion. Actually I think it is something they should look at more closely for all archtypes. You would always have people who power level but if there was more fun and interesting things to do at the low levels they would be less likely to pl through them.

Just look at the Posi TF for example. If it wasnt part of accolade I do not think many would bother. It is probally in need of an overhaul more than any other single aspect in this game because it is the first TF that lowbies (blue side) do. There is nothing that makes you go OOooo that was cool. Its just hour after hour of tedious missions just like the ones you were doing before you started the TF.

I have met so many new players to the game that when they hear TF they think of their first Posi and they instantly say no thinking that the others will be more of the same. Stone Armor is no different except Rooted is usually why they delete the characters. Not the looks, not that the lower levels might be a tad more squishy than other tanks. The slow is game breaking for most people. Especially new players who know nothing about the glory of speed boost.

For me, there is no way in hell that I will ever level a stone armor character in the conventional sense. Ive tried it, and I hated it. The character I pld though is a blast. Even exemped down to those painful levels he is fun but those instances are usually on SF's where we have a kin. Taking away the pain of rooted.

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So much for a polite discourse on the stone armor set and the possible merits, or lacking thereof, to possible changes to it. I find it disappointing that you've chosen to basically call everyone who thinks changes to the set might be a good thing "idiots", especially considering this comment you made over in the Dom forums:

[/ QUOTE ]Not at all. I am saying that the repetition of something does not change its validity. If a thousand idiots said that the sky is green over and over, the sky would not change colour to accommodate them, no matter how loudly they said it.

If you see a lot of complaints about Stone Armour, it might just be that a significant portion of the people making the complaints are clueless.

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I'm betting those that were in power back when there was slavery, or no women's rights probally said the same thing.

Boy I'm glad they lost.

As far as the scaling to character size for granite, well to me it would simply make sense.

However I am relatively indifferent too that as a change *shrug*.

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Something else I have always felt would have been a nice touch would be to have attackers take some damage when they attack you if your running brimstone armor.

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Not possible in the current game but if it was, this would be a toy reserved for fiery armor not for stone.

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Lol please quote the next paragraph where I say that I recall them saying it was not possible. I really do not need any more help to sound like an idiot, I have that covered on my own.

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Vicar, Granite would remain the king with my last sugestion.

Slotted, Granite yields 79.2% resistance to all (but psi) and 32% defense to all (but psi)

With rooted this nets a 3875% effective regeneration. It blows away the recomendation I posted above by a lot, and thats without using Earth Embrace. Click that and you get an effective 6161% regeneration.

Compared to granite, what I recommend is miles behind.

So whatever you experience now in granite, stone with my suggestions would still be about 1/3rd of that if not less.

As for trusting numbers or spreadsheets, the game is one giant spreadsheet, castle does his balancing on a spreadsheet and everything is based off how much damage can be taken. Off course pure regeneration will be much more susceptible to alpha, I noted that in my post. I am going simplistic here as I'm not going to set up a full website graphically displaying where each type fall.

However, there comes a point where the mitigation is high enough for you to take the alpha and keep going. Most WP i have seen die in such situations are just poorly build to be pure regenerative and ignore defense and resistance slotting. A decently built WP needs insane challenges to be killed.

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Very good points.

However I believe the changes you suggest would close the gap between the other armors and granite so much that very few people would bother with granite.

Old school granite types would have people saying stuff to them like " Why are you running granite its completely unessesary and you would do way more damage without it".

As to Castle using spreadsheets to balance this game. . . . . . . . take a look at pvp. No offense intended to Castle but that is exactly what causes game inbalances. Lots of things that look great on paper are absolutely terrible in "real life" or in this case in the game.

For this type of application spreadsheets are a good place to start but you can not finish with them.

Text book smarts can only take you so far before common sense must kick in.

Common sense can only take you so far before text book smarts are needed.

Elusivity for example. Looked great on paper but once in the game it was grossly overpowered, so they nerfed it. IMO they over nerfed it but that is my opinion.

IMO the devs have not given broadsword to tankers because they are trying to figure out what to do with parry that will not offend scrappers.

*edit* Heh I should have read the thread, seems this point has allready been made, several times lol.

Something else I have always felt would have been a nice touch would be to have attackers take some damage when they attack you if your running brimstone armor.

However from the shield set topics awhile back I seem to remember that they could not do reflected damage for some reason.

Darn so many good ideas that can not be done just because they wont work.

Some interesting ideas Starsman but I think the numbers are too strong and would radically change play style for the traditional granite player. Tone the numbers down a bit and it might work.

Granite needs to be king in the set imo. The more I have thought about my suggestion of moving the slow from rooted to granite the more I realize how many people that would make unhappy. So I would like to see the - speed of rooted gone, however for theamatic reasons I believe that you should still not be able to jump, you wouldnt be rooted if you were not touching the ground.

Also (and sorry if this comes off rude I dont mean it to be) I put very little stock in spreadsheets and charts. To me the real experiance means more to me. You can tell me that willpower is the greatest till your blue in the face with spreadsheet numbers and I will never agree. I will concede that against a steady flow of damage they are great. Burst damage not so much. I have seen many a willpower character get smashed flat with an alpha strike. Regen only helps if you can stay alive long enough to use it.

So thats why I would disagree with your suggestions to beef up the low level armors to those levels. The current levels are fine. Stoners may not be the most durable characters in those early levels but I do not think they should be. Leave something for the other sets.

I can see your point with it being ugly and as I have said it was more of a comprimise suggestion to get it removed from rooted. I feel the early penality to rooted is the primary reason many people are not fond of the set. The penalties to granite are quite easy to overlook because your nearly unkillable.

As to your suggestions that my need to run both granite and rooted stem from my being a brute I disagree. I only need granite in extreme situations, like the freedom phalanx for example. The majority of other missions I run the other toggles with rooted. Typically I only have to run two or at most 3 because you rarely have to deal with all the damage types.

Another suggestion would be to make the combined endurance costs of the other shields less than granite. I have hesitated to make that suggestion because there are those that would argue that granites end cost should be increased. Something I would not support.

Also in the past I have heard someone ( I forget the name ) suggest shifting some/all of the mez protection from rooted to minerals and then reordering the set so that could be taken earlier. Simply switching the order of brimstone armor and minerals would mean tanks would get it at 12 and Brutes at 18. That would be early enough to not be too painful and you would not have to sacrafice your movment for the majority of your mez protecton. Knockback would still remain in rooted though.

The only problem I see with that is many people (especially tanks) might begin to see rooted as a skippable power since you could easily build knockback resistance into your build.

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Granite should be comparable to a power like Unstoppable. Since Granite is a toggle that gives you the same survivability as an Inv tank, without the a 3 minute duration click power, having no 16 minutes cooldown and doesn't almost kill you when it runs out, there should be other penalties. I honestly think the current penalties are fine on Granite Armor.

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You have a point about Unstoppable. Although Granite Armor doesn't make you quite as durable as Unstoppable in some ways, the differences are fairly minor at that point.

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I go the other direction here ... I think T9 powers should be the defining characteristic of the set, not a skippable "oh crap!" power. Unstoppable is probably the most ridiculous of the T9 powers in that it makes you a god for a few mins and then kills you if you're still fighting.

I'd much rather see Unstoppable changed to be more like Strength of Will from the WP line where it layers over your current toggles and has a very managable crash.

But I also enjoy using a hammer to drive in nails rather than hiring a mafia backed construction crew I owe money to, to do it for me.

I'm funny that way.

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Ive given up on that particular battle. The Unstoppable crash is something else that is completely over the top. However the recent Invuln buffs have done enough to placate me. The rest of the set is fine now and I rarely have to pop unstoppable. When I do it's usually more for the recovery buff than the durability.

I made the suggestion knowing there is no way they will completely remove it from the set. We might be able to convince them to move it but they will never remove it.

Its like the ridiculous -5% def Unyielding had. If they belived that was significant enough that they could not possibly get rid of it there is no way in hell we could convince them to completely abolish the slow in rooted. The best we could hope for would be for it to be moved.

Idealy I would like to see it removed from rooted entirely. My suggestion was a comprimise.

Also I respect that those of you who leveled the toons will know more about them than I do. I leveled a Stone tank to 26 or so a few years ago. I DESPISED having a mez protection that completely comprimised my movement. It was the ONLY reason I deleted the character. I didnt have any insurmountable surviveability issues. I just hated having to kill my movement or use break frees. With the ability to convert inspirations it might not be so bad now.

Now having said that I respect that you people leveled your stoners up I would like to add that I am not a complete novice to the lower level armors. I do run SF's and exemp down and I have played a low level tank in the past. So far in my experiance if I need granite I need rooted as well. I have run alot without granite though.

After all since I am playing a brute who does not get that till 38 that means almost every SF in the game I have to run without granite. I can still manage those so I do not think the lower armors need a buff however I also do not think that the speed penaltie is justified. Many of you say that you can overcome that with set bonuses. How many people under 20 do think are going to be able to afford those set bonuses just to make their character fun to play.

I cannot tell you how many people I have known who have played a stoner up, tank or brute, got rooted, played for about 2 more levels and then said "screw this".

The simple fact is there is only one problem with the set. That is the run speed debuff in rooted. It is completely over the top and is the "game breaker" for most people. The rest of the set is fine and in balance with others. Even the uber Granite is balanced. You take some very severe penalites for it and many times when I do not have a kin I would not run it. . . . except I have to run rooted anyway so I might as well have it on too.

I could spend a ton on run speed set bonuses to be marginally manuverable, or I could spend them where I have and have soft capped defenses. Might be able to do both if I was a tank but Im not so I had to choose. I can live with teleporting around, my favorite travel power anyway, but I certainly wouldnt say no to losing the speed in rooted. Granite would become the emergency armor that I think it was intended to be at that point.

Also as I pointed out I think a stoner might be viable in pvp if they got rid of the - speed of rooted and allowed super speed with it. Still disallowing it for granite. You would need to take, or have someone else with -fly powers but it would be feasible. As is now if I see a stoner in pvp I laugh and move on. You used to be able to use tp foe with a stoner but thats borked now.

I see alot of people wanting the ability to jump. Allthough it would be nice I kind of like the fact that you are truly grounded. It gives the set a unique feel. I would rather they changed nothing at all then make it so you can jump. I would much prefer my above suggestion though.

To the people in this thread who have suggested dumbing down the buffs of granite and making it stack with the rest of the armors I say no thank you. I think the change I suggested would make people weigh the benefiets of running all the other armors against granite while still allowing those who like it as is to run it. Also the endurance cost would have to be massively overhauled if that was done. As is running all the other armors is rather taxing. Putting granite on top of it would be unplayable without Io's or buffs.

While I would support rock armor getting a slight buff I wouldnt to stone skin, since it stacks with granite. Minerals should not stack with granite. Granite needs some weakness or it would replace every other armor set out there.

Move the slow from rooted to (and on top of) Granite. While it might be considered a slight nerf to granite it would be a huge bonus to lower levels. It wouldnt overpower it and would make it viable at all levels.

Leveling up a toon should never be "a right of passage". A toon should be fun from 1 to 50.

The only change (and one I have suggested but it was ignored) would be to take the slow effect out of rooted and tack it on to granite. Also allow super speed to be run while you have rooted on but not when you have granite on.

This would allow you to keep respectable movement (allbeit no vertical) running the other armors and still have your mez protection with rooted. Also pvp might be more of an option.

Then granite could be toggled on and you would become slower than it is now, on par with running granite combined with rooted. It isnt really much of a nerf to granite since typically if you need to run granite you will be running rooted as well. It would however be a huge quality of life change for leveling the set at low levels and at higher levels it would give you a reason to not always run granite.

Thats my two cents anyway. The only Stone Armor character I have is a brute. I will be honest with everyone in saying that I Pl'd the hell out of that toon because the constant looking for a kin or teleporting everytime i wanted to move more than 2 feet would have drove me nuts to level it and I wanted one for the RSF. (actually got my masters on him today)

If the change I suggest was made I would roll another stone armor in a heart beat and this time level it up as normal.

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I recently did a fantastic MA arc on my tank that I would challenge a brute to handle without extreme buffs to the entire team in the game. The last mission had 7 of the nastiest AV's I've seen all in the same room. Since your arbitrary mark for dismissing MM's as tanks is the ITF, once a brute can hold on to and tank all these guys all at the same time without losing a party member, then I'll concede they are tanks.

40% of the agro goes to the team huh? I would love to see you keep that stat on this mission... and these things are becoming increasingly common now with MA.

Also I can't help but laugh when people still compare Scrappers and Tanks. I couldn't tell you how many scrappers have gotten killed in like 2-3 hits from splash damage in the MA let alone actually taking a legitimate hit from the mob. The game has gotten harder, and this is a very good thing for tanks. That is exactly why the min/maxers are all but begging for stone tanks, and all of a sudden it has started to become the FoTM.

About the only thing I would say is needed for tanks, is some kind of mechanic that would make it acceptable (or not) to stack them. Right now a team needs one tank, and that is realistically about it. Anymore adds both confusion on who is trying to hold agro and is pretty useless. A mechanic that would allow the tanks to split damage taken, or some other mechanic that keeps with the damage absorption nature of tanks would be very nice.

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I never used the itf as an arbitrary point negating the tanking abilites of an MM. I said Most AV's/Hero's one shot an MM's pets with an aoe.

Also, are you forgeting recluses strike force. Brutes do "tank" that. So I dont care what you say you did in the MA that a brute couldnt.

Also the only way a tank could do something a brute couldnt is if you had a team that was doing nothing but watching. Of course i your taking AV's all your going to be able to do is stand their and soak damage so you are not really "doing" anything.

Tanks and Brutes have the same caps. So since this is a team based game you ARE going to have buffs on the team. Ignoring that fact is not going to make it go away. With the buffs a brute is just as survieable as a tank and as many have said. Dead enemies hurt no one.

However If those of you who play tankers are content to remain niche meat shields that have no other purpose. Are not always wanted on a team, even when on a team you only want one. Well thats fine by me. Ill be playing and tanking on a brute on many many teams.

If my brutes can tank the LGTF, ITF, and the RSF on relentless I am not concerned that someone will choose a tank over me to tank any of the new content that comes out. Yes their are lots of players that couldnt hold agro on a wet paper bag as a brute. Thats because they are not playing a "tanker role" they are playing the "scrapper role".

Ive seen scrappers tank the STF therefore they can tank any hero side tf in the game. Ive tanked a few of the lower ones myself on a fire fire scrapper with no Io's.

Ive tanked many task forces hero and co op with my D3 defender. I will admit I have to carry break frees or have someone keeping mez protection on me.

I have tanked several SF's with my MM. I can do it I just dont like it. Constantly respawning pets irratates me. I much prefer to be actively using my poison powers at all times. When a Brute is tanking my pets pick up the 40% of the agro he isnt managing and I can easily keep them alive as well as debuff multiple targets.

I have done many TF's/SF's on both sides with all defender, all controler, and all corruptor teams.

So yes, I believe that as is tanks are completely unnesesary. Which is why I want something done about them.

Then again something is being done, brutes are coming to blue side. Though I would not be surpised if there was some kind of level limit to it.

Also for those who were wondering about the patron pools. IMO they should still have access to them providing you have completed that arc. Villains are notorious for getting what they want from a partner and then double crossing them.

Learning from one of them and then jumping ship fits in well with the concept IMO.

Neither Rangle's idea or how I interpreted it would be game breaking. It would simply allow you to do more damage to one specific target.

Also I am fairly sure neither of us was suggesting something that would allow a tank to do as much damage to that one target as a scrapper.

As for the fire rad team. It hasnt been nerfed and is still stupidly over powered.

CoX boils down to one thing. Debuffs are king. If you have them you win. If you dont you lose.

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Unless something is done to tankers to make them unique and give more to a team and to solo play Going Rogue will be the death of tankers imo.

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No it won't. When GR comes out and even though I rarely invite players, I would still invite a Tank over a Brute because Tanks are good at not dying. Something I can't say about Brutes.

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I keep hearing this same arguement. However other than pug groups where the brute is a speed runner and trys to go ahead of the team and solo everything I just dont see it.

Come to think of it Ive seen alot of tanks play the same way as those brutes. They tend to die just as often as the brutes do.

A bad tank is a bad tank. A bad brute is a bad brute plain and simple.

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Your Tank is allready near the caps so not much room for improvement.

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And I find this the most amusing out of this entire post. My Tank has no room for improvement? Where did you pull this information from? Tanks can easily improve themselves with IOs to the point they don't even need buffs, backup from other players, or inspirations. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't even need their tier 9, which I couldn't say for Brutes.

But, instead of using Granite, let's use a different powerset. Let's say WP because my only Invul is at 28. Without SOs, a Brute would eat dirt pretty fast while the Tank would still stand. Now once we get into IOs, said Tank can pretty much never be killed again.

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*sigh* Look what I said. I said not much room not no room. Also was talking about YOUR tank the stone armor. Was not talking about others in that instance. You are correct that the other sets the tanks outstrips the brutes surviability by what 20% or so. Meanwhile the brute does how much more damage.

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Since I've done it with my Stone Brute before, I'm pretty damn sure I could do it with my Tank quite easily since I'm more survivable.

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Your telling me that your stone brute stood up on the platform with the entire freedom phalanax with no buffs and coulld not be killed. I call BS on that. There is nothing you could ever do to make me believe you could stay up there indefinately. The psi damage would shred you if you were in granite and everything else would shred you if you were not. If you pop inspirations and go in with debuffs blazing then of course you can. With that many buffs and debuffs you do not need the added surviveabity a tank would give. You do need the added damage a brute would give.