Stone Armor: What I'd Do

For a while, I've felt that Stone Armor has a few problems. The biggest is that the set is weaker than it should be outside of Granite Armor and stronger than it should be while in Granite Armor. It creates a binary set composition wherein the difference between pre-32 and post-32 are enormous. The other major issues of the set are that the entire set costs way too much endurance and that the set pays for what capability it gets while in Granite Armor with an inordinate amount of secondary functionality costs (mainly reduction in mobility) in all states.

The basis of my survivability argument, operating outside of Granite Armor, is based primarily upon Arcanaville's spreadsheet and secondarily upon experience in game. In Arcanaville's spreadsheet (link here), assuming more than a single target in melee range (I would generally assume an average of 5 or 7 targets as "average"), Stone Armor is weaker than Invuln I13 (the version we currently have) in all but the infinitely sustainable category (which inordinately favors any kind of damage recovery mechanism and isn't particularly useful as a comparative balance tool outside a very small number of situations). Similarly, in most players' experience, non-Granite Stone Armor characters are viewed to be weaker than other armor set options. I doubt you could find many people that would disagree with this general sentiment, though I'm reasonably sure some will crop up.

The issue with Granite Armor should be obvious to anyone that looks at the set: without it the set is too weak so, in order to be effective, you're forced to use the permanent tier 9 at all times and forced to work around the mechanisms that are there to discourage the use of it as such. Rather than being discouragement, the negative effects of Granite Armor are seen as being part-and-parcel with the set as a whole: like toggle IH of old, the high "costs" are simply built around rather than being used in the actual intended manner (turn it on only when you really have to).

The basis of the endurance cost argument is rather simple: compare the unenhanced endurance costs of the various armor sets. Excluding damage toggles, Dark Armor costs 1.48 end/sec (removing Cloak of Fear reduces that to .96), Electric Armor costs .73 end/sec, Energy Aura costs 1.04 end/sec, Fiery Aura costs .52 end/sec, Frozen Armor costs 1.04 end/sec, Invuln costs .73 end/sec, Shield costs .78 end/sec, Super Reflexes costs .78 end/sec, and Willpower costs .83 end/sec. Stone Armor costs 1.25 end/sec. Discounting Dark Armor (which ignores standard design for armor sets pretty obviously), Stone Armor is more expensive than any other set, made even worse by the fact that, unlike Energy Armor and Energy Aura, Stone Armor doesn't have any native endurance recovery mechanism.

For damage auras, Stone Armor is similarly expensive. The standard cost for every other damage aura in the game is .52 end/sec. Blazing Aura, Death Shroud, Icicles, and Lightning Field all cost the standard amount, even ignoring secondary effects. Mud Pots costs .78 end/sec. Nominally, the reason is supposed to be because Mud Pots has the benefit of applying both a slow and an immob (though too low mag to affect anything other than a minion) even though it deals less damage (10% less) than the standard damage for damage auras. Within context, it's paying a lot for what amounts to barely any benefit.

The final consideration, mobility restrictions, can pretty easily be summed up by looking at Rooted: it prevents you from jumping or flying and applies a 90% reduction in movement speed. Thematically, it's appropriate, but, balance wise, it's a lot of work for what amounts to no more than what any other mez protection toggle provides (Integration provides 50% more +regen, not enhanceable, than Rooted while only costing a pittance more in endurance). There are better mechanisms to use to apply the thematic "penalty" without functionally requiring the mez toggle be turned off in order to be reasonably mobile.

My suggestions are essentially four tiered: the improvements to survivability, the improvements to endurance cost, the improvements to mobility, and the tweaks to Granite Armor to remove the overt reliance on the set's tier 9 power while allowing it to maintain an acceptable degree of usefulness (numbers are assumed to be Tanker values, rather than Brute).

The improvements to survivability are pretty simple, and I chose them specifically to avoid incurring the wrath of the Cottage Rule.

The first half is to modify Stone Skin so that it grants 11.25% +res(all) rather than 10% +res(s/l). There's already precedent for a low tier baseline functionality passive power to be this powerful. Consider High Pain Tolerance and True Grit: HPT provides 20% +hp (30% enhanced) and 7.5% +res(all), which amounts to ~25% reduction in incoming damage while TG provides 10% +hp and 15% +res(f/c/e/n/t), which amounts to roughly ~15% reduction in incoming damage.

The second half is to modify Rock Armor and Crystal Armor (the defense toggles) to provide an additional 2% +def(all), essentially 18% +def(s/l)/(e/n) and 2% +def(f/c/e/n)/(s/l/f/c). The precedent for this is remarkably simple: the SR toggles. Focused Fighting, Focused Senses, and Evasion all provide 18.5% +def to their respective type, adjusted for Tanker numbers. Conversely, if the increase to all defense types were viewed to be too complicated or far reaching, an increase to 18.5% to the respective defense types of the power (along with Stone Skin being upped a bit to providing 12.5% +res(all)) would achieve the same level of resistance that I achieved with my numbers.

The endurance cost improvements are a bit more far reaching. Because the set is so dependent on toggles compared to every other defense set in the game, in order to prevent the set from being too expensive, the toggles would need to be cheaper than "standard". I would reduce the endurance cost of Rooted to .21 end/sec, Mud Pots to the "standard" .52 end/sec, and Rock Armor, Brimstone Armor, Crystal Armor, and Minerals to .16 end/sec. Since there isn't a hard and fast formula for the endurance costs of toggles, the only real precedent possible is to compare total endurance costs. The total unenhanced endurance cost excluding the damage aura would be .85 end/sec, slightly more than "standard", but substantially lower than the currently exorbitant price.

For the mobility issue, the fix is rather simple: give Rooted the partial Grounded treatment. Specifically, I would suggest allowing the mez protection and resistance portions of the power to be active at all times while the +regen portion is only active while you are in contact with the ground (or in close proximity to the ground). Doing so would allow the power to be used effectively at all times while maintaining the thematic "penalty" of the power. The applicable precedent is pretty obvious: Unyielding. In its original incarnation, it forced you to stand still while providing no additional benefits beyond mez prot. Its current incarnation has no movement penalty and provides the additional 5% +res(all) that we currently enjoy. This change isn't even as extreme as that.

The changes that I suggest that will likely draw the greatest ire from the populous are the changes to Granite Armor. Some like how the single power renders half of the set completely irrelevant. I consider that to be simply bad design and designed these fixes to address that. On the same note, I think tier 9 powers should be powers that highly augment your survivability for a short period of time. These changes address that point too.

The changes are pretty overarching. In order to address Granite Armor rendering the rest of the set obsolete, I would reduce the +res component to 17.5% +res(all but psi), the +def component to 6.25% +def(all but psi), and remove the mutual exclusivity (so that it can be used on top of the rest of the set and turned off and on without requiring you to take time to turn everything else back on). These changes would allow Granite Armor to maintain roughly the same level of survivability it now enjoys (on par with Invuln + Unstoppable) while preventing it from completely rendering the rest of the set null. On top of that, I would have the power automatically turn off after a set period of time (120 seconds) in the same manner as Phase Shift, while increasing the recharge to 180 seconds with the recharge unaffected by recharge enhancements (like OwtS and SoW). To make up for what most people would probably view as substantive nerfs to the power (even though the survivability remains roughly the same and the only real change is forcing the power to be used with a known downtime), I would remove the -dam and -rech penalties while adding 35% +recov (to grant .5 more end/sec than the cost of the toggle). There would similarly be no crash, though the mobility penalty would still apply (cuz you're still a giant rock). The power would just turn off when you chose to turn it off or when it had been on for 120 seconds, whichever came first.

Overall, the change would do nothing to your survivability while Granite Armor is up, allow you to deal full damage and generate threat while it is up, and force players to not spend their entire lives post-32 with it on (such as was fixed with other perma-tier 9s way back when).

Wow, I like!

Of course, I'm a sucker for anything that makes Rooted not, well, suck.

Indeed, I'm finding my Stone/Stone tanker to be a bit of a hassle at the moment. Crippling endurance issues mean going without stamina isn't much of an option, unless I decided to get a second account and a friendly kinetic. Rooted means I pretty much have to take Swift or be reduced to a crawl, and I hate using Granite Armour.

These ideas are certainly interesting, and I do hope the dev's take notice and give Stone some love.

Set needs a big overhaul. I would rather the end costs stay the same, with a boost to survivability to match, rather than a reduction in end costs.

Rock armor should be the toughest, regardless of level.

I almost never use Granite, and I've slotted enough +movement speed sets that Rooted isn't all THAT slow. My main Tanker survives almost anything with Rooted and/or whatever armor is appropriate to the powers of the foe at hand. If speed becomes an issued while in Rooted, I port.

But then, PSLAnimal is a "mature" build that is pretty well IO'd out, true.

Interesting idea. I feel the same way about the pre and post granite. It would be interesting to see if Castle ever wants to look at a stone revamp.

We know BABs is looking at changing the look of Granite Armor.

This sort of idea has been discussed before. Including the thread "How would you change the Stone Armor set?" that I'd started a while back. I, like PSLAnimal try not to stay in Granite full time. I have always thought it was incongruous that unlike other sets, using your Tier 9 make ~45% of the rest of power set unavailable and or useless to you while you're in your Tier 9 power.

I believe Starsman had some good ideas concerning possible changes to the set. As always there were plenty of people who like the set as it is and would consider any change to be a "nerf".

I though I'd read a post somewhere from Castle saying that he thought Stone out of Granite underperformed and while in Granite it over performed, but I couldn't find the quote when I was looking for it the other day. I might just be remembering things incorrectly. I'll look again and see if I can find it.

Okay, this has been driving me nuts since I see it used everywhere: What exactly is this "cottage rule?" Why is it called that?

Okay, got it. Thanks!

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, everything you said about Stone Armor's strengths and drawbacks is true. On the other hand, I like that Stone Armor offers the unlimited opportunity to sacrifice a great deal of offense and maneuverability and gain a great deal of survivability. This doesn't appeal to everyone, but I don't think that it should be a design principle that all sets must appeal to everyone. What you're proposing seems to turn Stone into a WPesque mix of defense, resistance, and regeneration, which certainly performs well enough but is not what I bargained for when I chose the set. I picked Stone for its edge in extreme situations, not because I wanted a general high performer.

Incidentally, reducing the resistance buff in Granite from 50% to 17.5%, even if stackable with the other armors and even including the change to Stone Skin, would not be letting Granite retain "roughly the same level of survivability". That's a rather significant cut, and it's particularly significant in the situations where Granite shines now: when you're taking a lot of damage that cannot be mitigated through defense.

Of course in the end the developers will decide what the acceptable range of performance is for Tankers, and if Stone falls outside that range then it's going to be changed to fit within it. But I wanted to put out my voice here as someone who likes the set as it is, including the benefits and the drawbacks.

also voicing the opinion that the set is "fine" as is.

Sure, if you want to solo and use SO's, Stone isn't really a good choice.

Then again, CoH is a team-based game. It's a... get this. Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game! Some sets are deliberatly weak in some areas and they do need a team-mate to balance those weaknesses out. That's... get this... Inherent Imbalance!

Okay, in all fairness, Castle has stated in the past that no, outside of granite, Stone armor isn't all that great. It's stackable toggles use up more endurnace than the stackable toggles from the Ice Set... and where as Ice armor can recover endurance and Soft-Cap defense to smash / lethal on SO's... stone can't.

However, Stone also gets granite, and even when on SO's, when coupled with Tough and Weave, you'll be hitting the hard-cap for smashing lethal resistance, have a decent amount of defense to everything but Psi, and high resistances to everything else.

Because of Granite's overwhelming advantage, Castle is on record as saying that Stone isn't really up for a revamp or a rebalance... at least not anytime soon.

***

I also take issue with this statement:

There are really two issues with Stone Armor, and I'd like to separate them and deal with each one separate from the other.

1. Stone Armor is heavily backloaded, with most of its survivability tools concentrated in its tier 9 power.
I agree with this. Moving some of the survivability out of Granite Armor and into the other powers would be fantastic, and making Granite not mutually exclusive with the other powers would be fantastic.

2. Stone Armor trades in too many penalties and receives too many benefits in return.
I do not agree with this. I am attracted to Stone Armor specifically because I want to have the ability to exchange offense and mobility for very high levels of mitigation, at any time, indefinitely.

Now I would never go so far as to call a change that reduces Stone's peak mitigation and increases its mobility and offensive output while at peak mitigation a "nerf". For 95% of the game, that's going to be a net improvement. But, frankly, I didn't roll a Stone Armor tank to be good at the 95% of the game that the other sets are better at. I rolled it for the 5% of the game where mitigation at any cost is king. If that's not an exchange the devs want me to be able to make, then so be it, but I'd miss that option if it were taken away.

I like it. Would probably try this since i think SA in its current form is too gimmicky.

Awesome! This would make me enjoy my currently leveling Stoner A LOT more!

I don't want to get into the numbers and specific as this time because that's too much work to do just on a whim, so I'll just agree with most proposed numbers fixes in good faith. More specifically:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Umbral The endurance cost improvements are a bit more far reaching. Because the set is so dependent on toggles compared to every other defense set in the game, in order to prevent the set from being too expensive, the toggles would need to be cheaper than "standard". I would reduce the endurance cost of Rooted to .21 end/sec, Mud Pots to the "standard" .52 end/sec, and Rock Armor, Brimstone Armor, Crystal Armor, and Minerals to .16 end/sec. Since there isn't a hard and fast formula for the endurance costs of toggles, the only real precedent possible is to compare total endurance costs. The total unenhanced endurance cost excluding the damage aura would be .85 end/sec, slightly more than "standard", but substantially lower than the currently exorbitant price.

This I agree with. Stone Armour has about as many toggles as Dark Armour, and about as ludicrous and endurance cost if all things are running. This stems from the armour's original design which had the different shields be mutually exclusive, a practice which left you without physical protection if you wanted to have practically ANYTHING ELSE. This meant each individual toggle could be expensive, as you COULDN'T run them al at the same time. This was change, because it was the logical thing to do, but it created another problem - absurd endurance cost.

Now, the classic response is "Just don't run all armours, idiot!" Good advise... If only it were actually applicable in actual practice. EVERY enemy you fight will have physical damage, so you can't afford to turn off Rock Armour. Practically every enemy in the higher levels will have status effects, so you need Rooted, too. Almost every enemy will have at least fir or energy, often both, meaning those two toggles are very often needed together. Furthermore, many enemies in the higher levels employ psi power, requiring Minerals, too. And your Mud Pots need to be on all the time to be useful.

Still sounds rare? Consider the following:

*Malta: Smashing from guns, Lethal from explosions, Fire from Gunslinger Fire rounds and Titan rockets, Energy from Titans, status effects from everybody. That's Rock Armour, Brimstone Armour, Crystal Armour, Rooted and Mud Pots.

*Soldiers of Rularuu: Smashing damage from Brutes and I believe Natterlings, Lethal from Watchers, Energy from Watchers and Natterings and Brutes, Psi from Wisps, status effects from Wisps and Watchers. That's Rock Armour, Crystal Armour, Minerals, Rooted and Mud Pots.

Let's go one up!

*Arachnos: Lethal from practically everybody, Energy from Arachnobots and Mu Mystics, Fire from Fire Tarantula, Psi from Fortunatas and Widows, status effects from just about everybody, but Tarantula Queens and Fortunatas mostly. That's... Everything. Rock Armour, Brimstone Armour, Crystal Armour, Minerals, Rooted, Mud Pots.

Still more?

Carnival of Shadows: Lethal damage from Attendants and Harlequins, Smashing damage from Strong Men, Fire damage from Seneschal, Energy damage from Attendant swords and Seneschal chakrim, as well as Illusionist decoys, Dark damage from Illusionist decoys and some strong men and Dark Ring Mistresses, psi damage from Ring Mistresses and Dark Ring Mistresses, status effects from Illusionists and Master Illusionists. Once again, that's everything. Rock Armour, Brimstone Armour, Crystal Armour, Minerals, Rooted, Mud Pots.

As the set is right now, it just costs too much unless you skip most of your powers and go just Granite Armour. It NEEDS a cost reduction big-time.

Quote:

For the mobility issue, the fix is rather simple: give Rooted the partial Grounded treatment. Specifically, I would suggest allowing the mez protection and resistance portions of the power to be active at all times while the +regen portion is only active while you are in contact with the ground (or in close proximity to the ground). Doing so would allow the power to be used effectively at all times while maintaining the thematic "penalty" of the power. The applicable precedent is pretty obvious: Unyielding. In its original incarnation, it forced you to stand still while providing no additional benefits beyond mez prot. Its current incarnation has no movement penalty and provides the additional 5% +res(all) that we currently enjoy. This change isn't even as extreme as that.

A but more history on Rooted. What you skipped (intentionally or otherwise) was that, once upon a time, Rooted was exactly what it said on the tin. It was, in fact, identical to casting Stone Cages on yourself, and it even had the same graphics, just like Unyielding Stance. When the changes to both powers came through, Unyielding Stance became Unyielding, gained resistance, but took a defence bebuff of 5%. This was then lowered to 3.75% for Scrappers and Brutes, the same as Tough Hide for them, before being eventually discarded completely. Rooted kept its name, but didn't improve much. It allowed you to move... Just barely. Instead of immobilization, it put you as the speed floor, kept you from jumping and prevented you from using travel powers. It's been how many years now? And it's still as bad as that.

I don't actually specifically need to see the restrictions lifted COMPLETELY. I'm happy enough for the power to bar me from using travel powers as its sole restriction. So I could run, jump and move about, I just couldn't fly with Rooted on and I couldn't Super-Jump. To be honest, I'd like to not be able to teleport with Rooted and Granite, either. Let people who insist they want to trade offence for defence regardless of penalties put their money where their mouth is. More on that in a bit.

Basically, when it comes to Rooted, I'd look to Jim Temblor in his Granite Armour. He runs pretty fast, he can jump about regular height and he doesn't seem to be slowed down too much, which is what I'd like to see with Rooted. Sure, don't let me super-speed or fly around while being supposedly Rooted, but don't take it literally and rooting me to the ground all but completely. Honestly, just kill the use of Jumping, Flight, Speed and Teleportation powers with Rooted and/or Granite on and just dump the speed debuffs. Add in -fly if you have to, to prevent Group Fly from uprooting you. And while we're at it, can we please be allowed to activate Rooted in the air? Have it drop us out of the sky, I don't care. Be a good way to ground myself in order for my other ground-only powers to work, which I can't do if I've already been floated by Group Fly.

Quote:

The changes are pretty overarching. In order to address Granite Armor rendering the rest of the set obsolete, I would reduce the +res component to 17.5% +res(all but psi), the +def component to 6.25% +def(all but psi), and remove the mutual exclusivity (so that it can be used on top of the rest of the set and turned off and on without requiring you to take time to turn everything else back on). These changes would allow Granite Armor to maintain roughly the same level of survivability it now enjoys (on par with Invuln + Unstoppable) while preventing it from completely rendering the rest of the set null. On top of that, I would have the power automatically turn off after a set period of time (120 seconds) in the same manner as Phase Shift, while increasing the recharge to 300 seconds with the recharge unaffected by recharge enhancements (like OwtS and SoW). To make up for what most people would probably view as substantive nerfs to the power (even though the survivability remains roughly the same and the only real change is forcing the power to be used with a known downtime), I would remove the -dam and -rech penalties while adding 35% +recov (to grant .5 more end/sec than the cost of the toggle). There would similarly be no crash, though the mobility penalty would still apply (cuz you're still a giant rock). The power would just turn off when you chose to turn it off or when it had been on for 120 seconds, whichever came first.

I like those changes. As a Brute player, and a solo player, to boot, Granite Armour is a giant turn-off. I mean, I use it when I'm just about to die because the REST of my set can't seem to keep me alive, but at the damage and recharge penalties it brings, it's basically shooting myself in the foot. Yeah, I can kind of defeat its recharge penalty with Hasten, which I have, but that only last, what? A minute? Two minutes? I'd have to check. Once that goes down, I'm useless, so I might as well drop Granite Armour and take my chances otherwise, in essence forcing me to use it like a normal T9. Yeah, from time to time teams will force me to use it all the time, promising to handle doing the damage (both missing the point of why I chose to make a Brute AND failing to deliver most of the time), but I find the very concept of turning your character into an impotent taunt bot to be bad game design at its height.

I've had a lot to say about why "aggro" mechanics in MMOs are a terrible, unintuitive idea, and Granite Armour is the epitome of this. Why would I, as an enemy, ever want to fight a large, slow-moving slab of granite? What danger does it pose to me? If my enemy flexed his muscles and turned himself to stone, I'd laugh softly, walk round him and slaughter his friends while he's still trying to turn around. There's no reason for thinking creatures to aggro on things that are not a threat to them. Otherwise, "tanking" would be as simple as trucking a large boulder with a "Yo momma!" written on it, dropping it in the middle of the field and then just going about your business, safe from attack. That's what Granite Armour does. It destroys any means you have to be a threat to your enemies, so the only means of tanking left are basically meta-game. Now, if a DEFENDER could turtle up like this and lose his offence, that would make sense. But for a fighter, that's just silly.

As such, I will support any drive to make Granite Armour usable in combat, even if that means putting it on a timer, forcing it to auto-****-down or even making it just another shield you can run full-time for less benefit. I got one Stone Armour Brute to 50, which is more than enough for me to know that the set is rotten and that I'm not touching it again until something happens to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.