Stone Armor vs. Willpower

Two notes:

If Ghost Widow lands Soul Storm, any tank will be held, including Granite + Rooted. Her hold is MAG 100. The only way to be hit with it and not get held is to have CM (or equivalent) stacked enough so you have over MAG100 hold protection.

Also, Scrappers have lower status protection MAG than a Tanker.

Not saying the point is invalid, but just a clarification.

That was meant for the section where I cover what I run with granite, not what I run without Granite. When I don't have granite on I run rooted.

As far as what I do with those toggles on, I can run a full attack chain and never run out of end.

As a stone/fire.

My attacks include: Scorch, Combustion, FSC, Incinerate, and Melt Armor and Fireball from the Pyre pool. I use them all.

Equate QR to end drain resist (not protection, btw. There's no such thing)? No. Definitely not. While EDR is more effective against direct end drain encounters, QR does provide some benefit in such encounters (QR+Stam recovering quicker after being hit compared to someone with just Stam) while providing a significant benefit overall (more end).

There are a few ways that end drain is countered in this game:

1) direct end drain resistance

2) higher recovery

3) naturally high defence, generally positional

4) end management powers like AM, Conserve Power, or Power Sink for example

5) immediate mitigation of end draining targets (this applies to everyone, obviously, at various degrees)

That's not equivalence, that's a variety with differing pros and cons.

Just for clarification, is this an IO'd out build or a vanilla build?

IO'd. I thought I had said that earlier, but yes this build has taken me a long time to perfect, and is about as good as I think I can make a stoner.

I thought thats what we were talking about as decided what "End Game" meant.

Yeah, I know it's a mag 100, but it's a lot easier to get to 100pts of protection w/Stone than WP, though both need significant buffing, since you can start at like 34~35 instead of 12~13 (again, SoW gets you to 35, but isn't perma, and a lot of ppl skip it anyway). As for Malta, I haven't actually gotten mezzed playing my WP tank (or any tank), but you're only talking about like 2 points of difference, so really, it's just 1 extra attack that gets stacked on you. I certainly have been mezzed though 12 points of protection on tanks before so the option of going into "full defense" is nice to have. In this regard, I don't think we're disagreeing any.

Alabaster12:

You seem to stress that you're a Stone/Fire that doesn't run out of end. My Stony never does either, but I suspect both our tanks are rather well IOed out. I just wanted to point out that Fire Melee has the highest DPE of all the tanker secondaries. In fact, Fire anything generally has more end efficient attacks, because of the extra damage it does.

I wasn't trying to deny that it was an IO'd out character, I just thought that was what we were talking about. I suspect that an SO'd WP isn't anywhere close to the king of survivability that everyone is talking about here.

If that's not what was being discussed my mistake, just thought that was an assumption everyone here had.

There's a clear demarcation bet (1) (and maybe (3) & (5), but everyone can do (3) & (5) to varying degrees) and the rest. The fact is, no matter how much passive (Stam, QR, RA, Heat Loss, etc) or active (Transference, PS, Consume, etc) recovery you have, if you get drained to zero, you lose your toggles, you can't fire anything off (like PS) w/o swallowing a blue, and your odds of survival rapidly diminish. Now w/enough recovery (passive & active), you likely can deal w/stuff like Carnies and elec wielding mobs (Mu and the like), but against Sappers, you will get drained if you don't take them out first.

Actual end drain resistance is clearly the best solution against any of those enemies (and especially Sappers), and WP lacks it. In fact, since it also lacks PS, Consume or any other real active recovery mechanism, it's actually a bit hard pressed to deal w/even massed Carnies or Arachnos sometimes. Not to say it can't handle it, but it fares worse than Stone here as well.

As for the claims of "equivalence", I didn't mean to put words in anyone's mouth, but the rather cavalier tone that you (or whoever) took to wave away Rooted's end drain resistance advantage over WP gave me that impression. Not only is there no equivalence, it's not even close.

Again, not dissing WP--I love my WP toons, but it's a clear cut advantage for Stone that ppl are glossing over. WP also has its advantages over Stone, and QR is certainly one of them, but not really for the situations described above.

As usual, you have a good point. The endurance differences between the two are significant. Willpower can have bottomless endurance for the sake of expending it normally, but is vulnerable to endurance drains. Stone is comparatively endurance heavy, but has endurance drain resistance and a higher base defense (which will help avoid endurance drains that require a to-hit roll).

Practically speaking, I don't run all of my toggles all of the time when playing Stone. The ones that I do run all of the time are Rock Armor, Mud Pots, Tough and Weave, and most often Rooted. I turn the others on situationally as I face certain damage types (and I don't even have Brimstone Armor). I've found that it's pretty easy to figure out when you need the exotic armors and when you don't.

Scrap

Nah, we're good.

Aside from Sappers, I really don't have any issues fighting Malta on my WP Tank. When I was soloing the last mission of Daedalus's arc, I was herding them after killing the Sappers. I have ~39% def to s/l and 42% to the f/c/e/ne, so most of the stuns miss me anyways. (I should have 42% s/l and 45% f/c/e/ne, but I'm missing the PvP IO. I was working towards it when it was still just "omg expensive" compared to the current "bankrupt your whole account" expensive.)

(Probably something else you know, but SoW can be used to breakfree of Malta stuns so long as a Sapper hasn't drained all your end. Personally, I'd never be without SoW on a Tank. It's too awesome against LR and the Cimerorans to skip.)

You don't have to have mezz protection to deal with GW though. I don't understand the insistence of empaths but each to their own.

Well, I did say:

I wasn't saying that CM was the only way to deal with her by any means, just the only way to not be held when (if) you get hit with it. For the longest time I never had any +status protection when dealing with her, just soft capped defense and killing her fast. I still have no qualms with doing it that way.

With that very same logic Kruunch, I have out performed all WP's I run into. Its all MMV. Sometimes you just run into bad players. And sometimes someone is using IO's and someone is not.I'm sure many people on the boards will chime in with their own "glory stories" of out performing top tier tanks. You have either a Fire saying he out perforemd an Invul, an Invul saying he out performed a Granite and so on. In this day and age of IO's anything is possible, yet some definitives still remain,

On Granite.I still don't understand these people saying "Penalty here, penalty there". I have no problems running my Granite through TF's, AE boss farms, etc. If I can already do this without the help of IO's, then I would imagine IO's would make it "easier". Using the movement penalty as a means to say that Granite is weaker than WP is ignorance.

The res and defense of a lvl 50 WP with all powers, no IO's(with tough and weave) :

S/L res- 72.5%
Psionic res- 44.1%
E/N/T/F/C res- 11.7%


S/L Def -13.4%
Psionic Def- 24%
E/N/F/C res - 29.2%
Melee, Ranged , Aoe - 8.1%


Now the Res and defenses of Granite, all powers no tough or weave;


S/L Res- 90% capped
E/N/T/F/C res - 78%
Melee, Ranged , Aoe- 5%
Psionic- 0

S/L Def -36.2
E/N/T/F/C def- 36.2
Psionic - 5%
--------------------------------------------

Statistcally Granite takes it End game. With IO's Granite wins by a landslide (no pun intended).

The point made here usually is why would you choose to run something that isn't fun to play (subjective to be sure) versus something that is if they both can cruise through the same content?

People are talking about penalties to Stone with regards to how "un-fun" it is to play compared to a Tanker without penalties. Not as a handicap to actually completing content.

If the penalties don't bother you, then obviously we know which one you'd rather place

Oh no Sarrate, I realised what you did and didn't say. I am merely being vocal with a thought. I do that alot. I do not know what is known US side and what is not known. I am datamining in a way.

This, is the final penalty of stone armor. Granite already has quite alot, but outside granite rooted is the only power that grants mez protection. If you choose to go stone, you basicly choose not to jump and be slow, unless you fight non-mez mobs offcourse (steadfast for KB).

I went from pre-ED into IO's, learning that you need end-reductions in your attacks in order to keep everything running and having less isues with endurance. Ok, the recovery stuff i have now along with the veteran and card-power-thingie (if u get lucky on +recovery), without it i still can run out of endurance.

But since he's on defiant, i play more on the US side, he's just collecting dust (get it.. rock, dust.. meh stupid joke) and i only wish i could transfer him.

Recharge affects your damage much more significantly than the damage penalty. Unfortunately, you're right about Kinetics. It's very popular right now. However, reliance on it is a crutch, plain and simple.

Ahah! Gotcha.

I'm not sure how you could so quickly dismiss the penalties associated with stone armor, especially in granite. The movement penalty *does* put Stone behind Willpower in maneuverability. Its as simple as that. For some tanks that maneuverability is key in managing and maintaining aggro as well as setting the pace for a team and maxamizing AoE Damage.

The -dmg and -recharge means that without outside buffing, the stone tank in granite will be pumping out less damage less often.

So can you make it through TF's, Missions, Boss farms? Of course. I haven't met someone who I consider a decent tank who couldn't already do that. Only, they are likely to move a little faster (through mobs and such, not just runspeed)

When I think best end game tank, I think one who is effective in both Solo and Teams in surviving whatever is thrown at the without having to rely heavy on outside support. (For the vast majority of the games content) Who can also deal respectable damage while managing aggro.

Stone manages two out of three. WP can definitely pull three for three once aggro can be maintained. (Really Gauntlet + AoE's + Taunt and you are set)

I'd also say Inv and Shield can regularly cover all three criteria (for me) for a great end game build.

AYE!!! You and _Deth_ have the right of it! It's what the PLAYER makes of it. The PLAYER, not the AT, Not the primary/secondaries... it's what the PLAYER makes of it as a whole. Through picks, slotting, toon understanding and use. Period.

I'm used to using 31.2 as the expected defense for a slotted Granite Tanker (20% from Granite times 1.56 ED-capped defense from slots). Your number is 5% better. You say that comparison doesn't use IOs. What power(s) are you using to get that additional 5%?