Tankers in general are endurance hogs. At 24 you should have access to SOs and stamina, so did you slot End Reduction in your attacks and toggles? If not that might explain your endurance problems. Mud Pots is by far the most costly of your toggles, slot 3 End Reductions in it.
Without sets or minimal sets? And you want to do damage? Then roll something else, seriously. Without Granite running your defenses are about the same as an ice tanker, but your aura doesn't have -recharge and -damage on enemies and if you want status protection you'll be unable to move around due to rooted. With Granite running you're the most durable tanker in the game, but without sets it's impossible to compensate for the massive debuffs that you suffer.
Agreed completely about needing sets. A granite tanker without sets is virtually useless. You won't be able to move, attack with any frequency, and when you do actually attack you won't do much damage. You can mitigate that with even cheap IO's, but you do need at least the cheap ones.
As for secondary I'm very partial to /fire. Having multiple aoe's makes it a lot easier to handle not having great rech while you build your sets up. You can teleport in, cast build up, combustion, FSC, and then should have everything on you for at least a little while. It also has a decent single target attack chain. The downside is until you get granite you don't have any extra mitigation in your secondary to help you out. Those 32 levels are a big struggle.
I've tried stone/energy and it was painful, and difficult to deal with the end usage and slow attacks.
Ice seems to be more of the set that deals with mitigation which might be nice pre-32 if you're having trouble, but post-32 it won't be as useful.
SS might work, and having rage would be nice to offset the damage penalty of granite, but you would only have 1 aoe attack.
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So, I've been at this game for a while. I even got a Stone tank up to level 24 before I got tired of not being able to actually hurt anything with out running out of endurance. I think I may be ready to try it again.
I'm looking for a build that uses minimal sets, with none preferred. And that can actually hurt things in a way that's more effective than standing in the same spot while Mudpots eats away at -2 hellions while I read a book.
Two things have changed for me since I last tried this. Dual Builds and 60 month vet badge. I guess I'm looking for two builds. A defensive giant chunk of aggro management and the closes thing to a stone scrapper as I can get.
What are my realistic options?
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My favorite secondary to pair with Stone is /Fire... it's quite effective even with just SO's. Of course it kind of goes without saying that IO sets do make it better; my main focus was on +recharge.
I've found that /Fire is the most end-friendly secondary... at least the most that I've played. Once I'd tossed an endred into the AOE's and heavy hitter attacks my end issues were mostly a thing of the past. Oh, my Stone/Fire was leveled to 50 prior to IO's so they weren't a factor. I have, as you'd expect, incorporated quite a few since then but they were more in the line of fine tuning rather than a radical performance improvement.
Offense wise I've found that Combustion, Fire Sword Circle and Mud Pots will kill a group faster than any of my other tankers; even in Granite that combo will generally drop most minions in one attack chain, maybe requiring a second FSC for +1-2 mobs. The LT's and bosses drop fairly quickly to the single target chain of Fire Sword, Greater Fire Sword and Incinerate with Scorch there as a filler.
Solo and on small teams I usually use Rock Armor/Rooted/Stone Skin; that's plenty for most situations. Granite comes out when I hit something more dangerous or I'm tanking for a larger team. Your damage is going to be quite good in Rock armor and it'll still be ok even in Granite. For sets I'd go for +recharge... the Taunt sets are a really cheap way to get that; and I'd toss Crushing Impact in the single target attacks.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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Agreed completely about needing sets. A granite tanker without sets is virtually useless. You won't be able to move, attack with any frequency, and when you do actually attack you won't do much damage. You can mitigate that with even cheap IO's, but you do need at least the cheap ones.
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I have to completely disagree with this; I leveled my Stone/Fire to 50 in issue 7... long before IO's and he was perfectly viable as an SO build... I tanked several STF's with him once issue 9 hit on that SO build. While IO sets obviously are helpful they aren't at all critical, movement is handled by TP and the attack issue by slotting recharge and taking several attacks. I never had any problems pre-IO's, and I wasn't chained to a Kinetic either.
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As for secondary I'm very partial to /fire. Having multiple aoe's makes it a lot easier to handle not having great rech while you build your sets up. You can teleport in, cast build up, combustion, FSC, and then should have everything on you for at least a little while. It also has a decent single target attack chain. The downside is until you get granite you don't have any extra mitigation in your secondary to help you out. Those 32 levels are a big struggle.
I've tried stone/energy and it was painful, and difficult to deal with the end usage and slow attacks.
Ice seems to be more of the set that deals with mitigation which might be nice pre-32 if you're having trouble, but post-32 it won't be as useful.
SS might work, and having rage would be nice to offset the damage penalty of granite, but you would only have 1 aoe attack.
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I do agree with most of this, I also have a Stone/EM at 50 and it truly was painful to level... even at 50 it's... well, not the most efficient damage/tanking machine I've played. For the most part I didn't have a lot of trouble in the pre-32 levels with either Stone tank; true they were relatively squishy but it was manageable as long as we didn't get in over our heads.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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Agreed completely about needing sets. A granite tanker without sets is virtually useless. You won't be able to move, attack with any frequency, and when you do actually attack you won't do much damage. You can mitigate that with even cheap IO's, but you do need at least the cheap ones.
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I have to completely disagree with this; I leveled my Stone/Fire to 50 in issue 7... long before IO's and he was perfectly viable as an SO build... I tanked several STF's with him once issue 9 hit on that SO build. While IO sets obviously are helpful they aren't at all critical, movement is handled by TP and the attack issue by slotting recharge and taking several attacks. I never had any problems pre-IO's, and I wasn't chained to a Kinetic either.
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I was talking more about what the OP was asking about... which was being able to do dmg. Trying to do damage while in granite isn't going to work. Tanking is easy with a stone armor no matter what you do post-granite. As long as you can hold agro (which is pretty easy) you can tank with stone. Having it do any kind of damage is where you need sets to offset the penalties.
Hmm.. Maybe I wasn't clear on my intent.
I'll have one offense build and one defense build. The defense build won't be hard to plan out at all. It's the offensive one that I'm having trouble with.
My original was a level 24 Stone/Fire. I had Mudpots the first attack (unslotted) and at 24 Combustion. That was the problem. I couldn't do any damage with no attacks, but I didn't know what to leave off as far as defense went.
Is the regen in Rooted enough to offset the damage from fire and energy for 20 levels?
Could I make a make a viable stone scrapper running just Rock Armor and Rooted until Granite? If I found myself on a team, I switch over to the provoke bot mode, I'm just wondering how survivable I could be running minimal armors.
My first short story (detective fiction) came out in Jan-2012. Other stories and books to follow, I hope. Because of "real writing". COH was a big part of that happening.
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Hmm.. Maybe I wasn't clear on my intent.
I'll have one offense build and one defense build. The defense build won't be hard to plan out at all. It's the offensive one that I'm having trouble with.
My original was a level 24 Stone/Fire. I had Mudpots the first attack (unslotted) and at 24 Combustion. That was the problem. I couldn't do any damage with no attacks, but I didn't know what to leave off as far as defense went.
Is the regen in Rooted enough to offset the damage from fire and energy for 20 levels?
Could I make a make a viable stone scrapper running just Rock Armor and Rooted until Granite? If I found myself on a team, I switch over to the provoke bot mode, I'm just wondering how survivable I could be running minimal armors.
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It's been a while since I started my stone/fire, but if I remember correctly I took scorch, fire sword and combustion (I eventually respec'd out of fire sword after getting FSC, and incinerate).
For the primary I think I took rock armor, rooted, earths embrace (earths embrace is key by the way... you WILL take damage prior to granite, and this is one of the most important ways you offset it), mud pots... and that was about it. I never took brimstone, crystal or minerals except on my alt build to try them out. I took stone skin, but I can't really remember where after respec'ing so many times.
I also took tough and weave fairly early on and slotted them up. This probably more than anything is what got me through to 32... S/L is really what you need in those early levels and the other armors while great against their types aren't really helping all that much pre-32.
Once I got granite I kept tough, weave and stone skin for the great spots to mule some IO's, but I took a few slots out of tough, and just ran weave with granite.
I respec'ed quite a few times leveling this char up, it really did seem that I could make a build up, but that it wouldn't permanently be good (moreso than the other chars that I've leveled to 50), but I had the veteran rewards to use up so I just kept tweaking it until I got what worked.
I found that my offense was certainly adequate leveling up on my Stone/Fire, even in Granite. I had little difficulty killing off swarms of minions/LT's with just SO's and my AOE attacks... by focusing my ST attacks on bosses and firing the AOE's as they came up everything was dead before the boss dropped.
Really the main thing that slotting IO sets bought me was recharge to partially offset Granite's penalty; I never worried about going for +dmg bonuses.
For the record, here's the SO build I leveled my Stone/Fire with. I never had any real problems with damage; he would generally drop mobs faster than my Inv/Stone tanker.
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/
[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]
Granite Flame: Level 50 Natural Tanker
Primary Power Set: Stone Armor
Secondary Power Set: Fiery Melee
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Pyre Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Rock Armor -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(3), DefBuff(3), EndRdx(15)
Level 1: Scorch -- Acc(A), Dmg(13), Dmg(13), Dmg(17), RechRdx(17)
Level 2: Earth's Embrace -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(5), RechRdx(5), Heal(15), Heal(50)
Level 4: Combustion -- Acc(A), Dmg(11), Dmg(11), Dmg(37), EndRdx(40), RechRdx(42)
Level 6: Swift -- Run(A), Run(7), Run(7)
Level 8: Rooted -- Heal(A), Heal(9), Heal(9)
Level 10: Taunt -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(42), Taunt(42)
Level 12: Recall Friend -- Range(A)
Level 14: Teleport -- EndRdx(A)
Level 16: Health -- Heal(A)
Level 18: Fire Sword -- Acc(A), Dmg(19), Dmg(19), Dmg(43), RechRdx(43)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(21), EndMod(21)
Level 22: Mud Pots -- Acc(A), Dmg(23), Dmg(23), EndRdx(25), EndRdx(25), Dmg(46)
Level 24: Stone Skin -- ResDam(A)
Level 26: Hasten -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(27), RechRdx(27)
Level 28: Fire Sword Circle -- Acc(A), Dmg(29), Dmg(29), Dmg(31), EndRdx(31), RechRdx(31)
Level 30: Breath of Fire -- Acc(A), Dmg(34), Dmg(43), Range(46)
Level 32: Granite Armor -- ResDam(A), ResDam(33), ResDam(33), DefBuff(33), DefBuff(34), DefBuff(34)
Level 35: Incinerate -- Acc(A), Dmg(36), Dmg(36), Dmg(36), EndRdx(37), RechRdx(37)
Level 38: Greater Fire Sword -- Acc(A), Dmg(39), Dmg(39), Dmg(39), EndRdx(40), RechRdx(40)
Level 41: Char -- Acc(A)
Level 44: Fire Blast -- Acc(A), Dmg(45), Dmg(45), Dmg(45), RechRdx(46)
Level 47: Fire Ball -- Acc(A), Dmg(48), Dmg(48), Dmg(48), EndRdx(50), RechRdx(50)
Level 49: Minerals -- DefBuff(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet
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[u]Set Bonus Totals:[u]
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
Thanks for that build. I'll give it a shot.
My first short story (detective fiction) came out in Jan-2012. Other stories and books to follow, I hope. Because of "real writing". COH was a big part of that happening.
I'd have to diagree with not taking Minerals. It's your staple armor in certain situations (Clockwork King/Abandoned Sewers). Also it's nice slottint it up and having 40% psi defense.
Member of The Stoned Templars
"If you can't eat it or smoke it, I'm not paying $100 for it" - Cherry Cupcakes
erm slotting
Member of The Stoned Templars
"If you can't eat it or smoke it, I'm not paying $100 for it" - Cherry Cupcakes
Minerals is useful in a very few situations in the 40+ game; the Psi Clocks you mentioned, the Mother Mayhem/Malaise missions and really not a lot else.
As I think about it, when I leveled my Stone/Fire I did grab Minerals at 41... I guess the build I posted must have been a post-50 respec. Still, I found only a half dozen times in the 40's that I even used Minerals at all. Is the power worth having for those few missions? I was uncertain myself but I found that my insp tray was perfectly adequate for filling those gaps.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
Agreed on minerals. Through set IO's I think I have somewhere around 20 defense and around 25 dam resist to psi while still keeping a granite build. While this isn't great by any means it is enough for those specific psi missions particularly when usually there are enough various defender/controller's along for the ride to make up the difference.
It certainly is a useful power for strictly psi damage enemies, but those are few and far between and its good enough for me to just have an alt build ready to go for it if I ever did actually need it rather than try to put it in a build where I'm not going to use it 99% of the time.
So, I've been at this game for a while. I even got a Stone tank up to level 24 before I got tired of not being able to actually hurt anything with out running out of endurance. I think I may be ready to try it again.
I'm looking for a build that uses minimal sets, with none preferred. And that can actually hurt things in a way that's more effective than standing in the same spot while Mudpots eats away at -2 hellions while I read a book.
Two things have changed for me since I last tried this. Dual Builds and 60 month vet badge. I guess I'm looking for two builds. A defensive giant chunk of aggro management and the closes thing to a stone scrapper as I can get.
What are my realistic options?
My first short story (detective fiction) came out in Jan-2012. Other stories and books to follow, I hope. Because of "real writing". COH was a big part of that happening.