I have a 50 stone/stone tank, and this is what I tell anyone that asks me for advice on Stone Armor:
Mud Pots: Slot it with taunt and endu, not damage or anything like that. Seen people do this, but honestly Mud Pots is your taunt aura, so it doesn't NEED to do damage
Rooted: Slot this baby up with healing and love it! I used to forget to toggle it when I first started playing, and now that I am more used to my Stone Tank, I wish I had used Rooted more, even if it DOES slow you down.
This advice is basic/obvious, but its what I got.
Also.....in my opinion.......in Granite Armor....with dual blades.........*wow*.....that just looks wrong, as in....yea...I don't know. :P if it works, it works, I just know that it would look WEIRD AS HELL to me.
Good Luck Mate!
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Also.....in my opinion.......in Granite Armor....with dual blades.........*wow*.....that just looks wrong, as in....yea...I don't know. :P if it works, it works, I just know that it would look WEIRD AS HELL to me.
Good Luck Mate!
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I don't know if you get the option for Dual Blades, but if you do I would choose the rusty blades. They would make your Granite form look like something out of a Harryhausen film!
"I am a Tank. I am your first choice, I am your last hope." -- Rune Bull
"Durability is the quintessential super-power. " -- Sailboat
Am I the only one who thinks Dual Blades should never have been a Tanker secondary?
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Am I the only one who thinks Dual Blades should never have been a Tanker secondary?
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I've always thought it fit well as a Scrapper set but it doesn't strike me as a tanker set, particularly with the focus on combos it imposes.
Oh, and I have to disagree with Outback about Mud Pots, your slotting priority for it should be endurance, accuracy and damage. Taunt duration is very low priority.
Here's why I say this: Mud Pots is a damage aura, and if you run Herostats you'll find that over the course of a playsession your number one damage dealer will be... Mud Pots. This holds true even on my Stone/Fire tanker... although Fire Sword Circle will be close. Because Mud Pots is such a significant damage source, albeit as a DOT, you'll want to enhance that attribute... those tics of damage don't look like much but they add up. My personal slotting is a mix of Scirocco's Dervish and Multi Strike to get ED capped damage and end reduction with roughly 60% accuracy.
Now there's nothing inherently wrong about tossing a taunt IO into Mud Pots, but it's already a strong aura and does it's job without any taunt slotting. That being the case you'll be better served by enhancing the other aspects of the power first; you probably won't have room for taunt duration.
Speaking on the Stone Armor side and based on taking two Stone tankers to 50 the hard way here are the powers you will want, in roughly this order:
<ul type="square">[*]Rock Armor at level 1[*]Earth's Embrace[*]Rooted[*]Mud Pots[*]Stone Skin[*]Granite Armor[/list]The rest of the set is optional, and in my opinion Brimstone and Crystal should be skipped altogether.
I recommend taking the following pool powers as well:
<ul type="square">[*]Swift, Health, Stamina[*]Recall Friend, Teleport[*]Hasten[/list]That foundation will build a tough tanker for you. I don't feel qualified to give any advise on the dual blades portion; as I said earlier I'm unsure that it's a really viable tanker set since it forces you to concentrate on executing combos instead of on managing aggro; and if you weren't building an aggro controlling tanker then Stone Armor isn't a good choice for you. If you want a (relatively) high damage tanker then Fire armor or Shield are much better primary choices. Stone Armor is probably the worst choice if your intent is to deal a lot of damage.
In my opinion for an aggro controlling and mob-killing stone tanker it's hard to beat the Stone/Fire pairing, it gives you the supreme survivability of Stone with the AOE damage of /Fire. I'd certainly not recommend the Stone/EM pairing though, and I have one of each at 50, both leveled the hard way long before AE.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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Mud Pots: Slot it with taunt and endu, not damage or anything like that. Seen people do this, but honestly Mud Pots is your taunt aura, so it doesn't NEED to do damage
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I disagree. Mud pots does a large portion of your damage. With only 4 slots you can almost maximize damage and endurance (2 dam/end and 2 acc/dam/end), leaving room for 2 slots if you want to use taunt enhancers in that (a waste imo since the base taunt duration is just fine).
I apologize. My personnal style for Stone Tanks is unique(ish) and I should have said so.
My Stone Tank, Guardstone, is a Tauntmonster.
I REALLY like taunt. I have three sets of Perfect Zinger, two sets of Mocking Beratment (spelling?), and I am working on my third MB.
Way too much tuant? Yes. Stupid? Possibly. Its just how I do things.
HOWEVER, I still think what I said about Rooted is true. Slot it with health, and don't be worrying about it slowing you down becuase:
1. It will save your skin more times then not
2. You're a stone tank.....YOU ARE GONNA BE SLOW! So get used to it :P
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I apologize. My personnal style for Stone Tanks is unique(ish) and I should have said so.
My Stone Tank, Guardstone, is a Tauntmonster.
I REALLY like taunt. I have three sets of Perfect Zinger, two sets of Mocking Beratment (spelling?), and I am working on my third MB.
Way too much tuant? Yes. Stupid? Possibly. Its just how I do things.
HOWEVER, I still think what I said about Rooted is true. Slot it with health, and don't be worrying about it slowing you down becuase:
1. It will save your skin more times then not
2. You're a stone tank.....YOU ARE GONNA BE SLOW! So get used to it :P
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You're absolutely correct about Rooted, base slotting for it is 3 heal, although it's primary purpose pre-granite is simply that it's your mez protection... without that you simply can't tank. It's very rare you'll need it while in Granite though, I only use Granite + Rooted for really tough challenges or when I need the end drain resistance. Rooted has quite a lot of that as well.
You know that your attacks draw aggro based partially on how much damage they do? In other words, say, Heavy Mallet slotted to ED cap damage has a higher aggro factor than one slotted only for taunt. In my opinion, slotting attacks for taunt is mostly pointless and if it comes at the expense of damage and accuracy it's actually counterproductive.
All the taunt slotting is doing is extending the duration; and the duration of the taunt effect in your attacks is already over 13 seconds, just the same as Mud Pots. I'd highly recommend rethinking your build and slotting for accuracy, 95% damage and endred/recharge. Trust me, you won't see any reduction in your aggro abilities... to the contrary you'll actually improve them AND you'll contribute more damage to the team. The Zinger or MB set is great in Taunt, and the Zinger proc along with 5 Stupefy works nicely in Fault but that's the extent of the taunt slotting you should have.
You'll have a considerably more effective tanker if you slot your attacks more conventionally. I haven't ever run across anything in the PvE game that I can't absolutely hold aggro of with my slotting.
For your stone tanker I'd suggest the Crushing Impact set in your single target attacks; it'll take care of your acc/dam/end/rech needs while giving you, among other things, a 5% recharge set bonus.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
How hard would it be to perform combos on a Stone tank (Granite) given the -recharge? Is it workeable?
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How hard would it be to perform combos on a Stone tank (Granite) given the -recharge? Is it workable?
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Never having played a DB character I can't say, but I will say that the emphasis of combos seems counterproductive from a tanking standpoint. It's more of a scrapper, or at least (shudder) scranker set and Stone is probably the worst possible pairing for it.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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Am I the only one who thinks Dual Blades should never have been a Tanker secondary?
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Not only do I think it shouldn't have been a Tanker secondary, I think it's a terrible one for tankers all on it's own.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
The title says it all!
I just made a Stone/DB tank, and so far, I'm in love with it, and not really doing all that badly. But I'm sure you guys here have some good advice. Or maybe even a build I could use?
Anyway, thanks in advance!