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I'd say -SPD, -JUMP, -RCH, -DMG are huge penalties...just because they can be IOed around doesn't make them small penalties, when this gameis balanced around SOs.|
Originally Posted by Starsman
First, Psi hole is one of the penalties granite suffers. Allowing all powers to stack changes nothing and just patches the Psi hole.
The issue with granite is not that it gives that much power in it's own, it's the fact that it allows that level of survivability to be reached without many penalties. Requiring stacking to do so changes little in that respect. This is precisely the sort of idea some one would propose in an attempt to convince the devs to buff Granite without the devs realizing (and it would not work.) Radius is proven to be buffable and if it's buffable it's debuffable. +Range enhancements also enhance Radius precisely so they keep cones enhancing properly. This alone proves the power's attribute's mechanic to be buffed and debuffed exists. Also, PBAoE and Cone radius are both the exact same attribute. |
And I wouldn't say teamed around, since any team can cover the rest of the teams weaknesses.
Not saying I wouldn't like to see a change to granite so the rest of the set doesn't blow. Just saying I don't see them as small penalities.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
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I didn't forget it. That is why i stated that Shadow Maul still would activate at 7ft but it may hit nothing due to it's radius going down to 3.5.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
Stars, there's something I think you may be forgetting. Radius is indeed a buffable attribute, and range enhancements do buff cone radius. However, melee cones and PBAoEs are specifically set to ignore range buffs and debuffs.
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The only Damage/Range enhancements you can add into melee attacks are HOs and HO enhancements that boost range happen to not boost radius.
Actually, after checking I find no radius modification in range enhancements... I guess I'll have to sit down to run tests with cones to see if they are actually working as intended when it comes to cones.
There used to be special range enhancements for cones back in the day, they were removed supposedly due to merger with ranged enhancements. Now I ponder if they got just removed due to balance issues, it's not like back in the day the devs were not a bit more secretive about this stuff...
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The movement penalties have been worked around through teleport for ages now. That fall in the SO realm. The recharge was also drastically trivialized by recharge enhancements. A 2rch/1acc/3dmg SO build was able to negate the recharge debuff, and although same build would be much more faster in a non-granite build, the relative difference between the base and the enhanced versions are huge.|
Originally Posted by BrandX
I'd say -SPD, -JUMP, -RCH, -DMG are huge penalties...just because they can be IOed around doesn't make them small penalties, when this gameis balanced around SOs.
And I wouldn't say teamed around, since any team can cover the rest of the teams weaknesses. Not saying I wouldn't like to see a change to granite so the rest of the set doesn't blow. Just saying I don't see them as small penalities. |
Example:
10 s recharge attack.
W granite that turns into 28.57 seconds recharge.
Add 2 recharge SOs and turns into 9.83s.
Result is that the boost from 28.57 to 9.83 is 290% the damage as base.
A regular player that puts on those 2 SOs would jump from 10s to 6s, 160% the damage of the base build.
Just in case anyone wants to go to the "non-granite gets the same benefit" arguments.
That is all in an SO balance world.
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I'd like to know how I was offensive to anyone in my first post. Please, point it out to me. As far as I can tell, the only time I ever reference I ever make to everyone else is simply saying that my proposed changes to Granite would piss off a lot of people (which is pretty obviously true), though I'm not sure how that would be construed as insulting. The first post that I actually make any non-factual reference to an individual or line of thought was where I stated that changing the entire focus of the set from primarily defense to primarily resistance simply because the poster didn't like the fact that the set would be weaker in the three or four situations where defense is useless and native resistances are.|
Originally Posted by Steampunkette
Actually, Umbral, you started out offensive. Against anyone who had a differing opinion of you. Just making that point known.
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There is a difference between a difference of opinion (which I can accept) and making blatantly false or fundamentally flawed judgments and then simply assuming that they're correct without any evidence or consideration beyond what one believes and wants.
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| What I think Stone armor needs is a complete rework. I honestly do. I like the idea of shifting the "Infinite Sustainability" out of Granite armor by simply making granite "Another Toggle" in the set, lowering it's numbers until, slotted with SOs, it only achieves it's current level of mitigation while simultaneously applied with all other armors and toggles in the set. Why would this be such a horrible concept? You're attempting to turn a toggle into an end per second click power (with the forced detoggle). There's another suggestion floating around to force a recovery penalty so that eventually you have to detoggle it or turn it off. Wouldn't having stacking end costs do roughly the same thing, barring tons of +recovery from IO sets and teammates, which no set metrics are supposed to take into account since the metrics are all based on SOs? |
Secondly, one of the big reasons that Arcanaville suggested the progressive -recov penalty was because it would be difficult to work around. Of course, I don't see it as being that difficult to work around when you look at powers that provide massive overkill +recov, such as Adrenaline Boost, Recovery Aura, Heat Exhaustion, but it's substantially harder to work around than outright end cost would be. My personal suggestion to accomplish this (that I actually considered, until I decided that it would simply be better overall design to have an enforced maximum uptime) was having the power apply a slowing increasing reduction to your endurance reduction (i.e. builds up to be reverse Conserve Power)
End cost is simply problematic for the simple reason that, if you load too much endurance cost into a single power (which you're advocating), it's too simple to mitigate that. It's for the same reason that the recharges of OwtS and SoW are unaffected by recharge times: both effects are reduced by enhancement values and outside buffs proportionately. Basic enhancement reduces the value of either by roughly half. Further enhancement and augmentation can reduce the values of these to one-third and one-fourth. Putting so much endurance cost into a single source simply allows you to avoid the endurance costs by slotting that power with more endurance reduction than you would normally allow. You're attempting to apply the same logic that has already failed (Instant Healing).
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| The powerset up to granite basically trains you to toggle specific toggles for specific fights. Fighting a ton of fire-foes? Better have Magma on. No psi in town? Forget Minerals. As it currently stands you get to Granite, turn it on and leave it on, most of the time. Wouldn't it better fit the set's methodology to toggle Granite AND Magma, while fighting fire based enemies? It turns Granite into a "Baseline" power that you toss on with pretty much every other armor you utilize, in keeping with the set's overall design, rather than trumping and bypassing all other toggles. |
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| In the end I'd prefer to see Granite armor remain a toggle, unique and interesting, rather than becoming just another Unstoppable or Elude. And no matter how sound the numbers are on your designs to have it shut off automatically or suck end like a starving vampire in a blood bank if it isn't the toggle that people have come to know and love, you're just going to piss off a big portion of the playerbase. Even if you buff the rest of the set to make up for the downtime of that power, you'll strip away part of what makes the set unique compared to the others: A Tier Nine Toggle. |
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Rock Armor doesn't have an endurance cost of .73 end/sec. You input the activation time rather than the endurance cost. For the endurance reduction, you're calculating the effects of it wrong. Endurance costs are calculated in much the same way that recharge reductions are: you divide the original cost by the total endurance reduction values plus one. 2.5 end/sec with 50% +end redux would reduce the cost to 1.67 end/sec. To achieve the reduction in endurance cost by half, you would need to have 100% end reduction. The other problem with this is that you're similarly applying a reduction in endurance cost to all of your attacks and other powers as well, which makes it even more powerful, especially when you consider that your attacks and click powers use up more endurance than your toggles do by a very large margin.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Seriously, tear it a new one.
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The primary problem with your suggestion is that you're forcing an even more crippling reliance on Granite Armor than there already is. You're also not addressing the problems of the set being too weak outside of Granite Armor, which is a major problem with the set. Rather than making the set less reliant on Granite Armor, you're making it more reliant. It would be much better to simply play with the end costs of the toggles themselves to arrive at a more balanced endurance cost because you're not forcing players to use Granite Armor just to be endurance sustainable along with being survivable. Of course, you're similarly doing nothing to mitigate the level of survivability that Granite Armor allows you to maintain indefinitely or the largely token penalties that are rather simple to work around.
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It would be more apt to say that it is impossible to create a power that can be on at all times that provides the level of survivability that players expect from powers of that kind that does everything that players want. The existing armor toggles are balanced because they're not attempting to be as strong as Granite Armor. There is also the design issues that, unlike a tier 9, normal armor toggles are intended to provide baseline functionality rather than extreme functionality for extreme situations. The powers that Granite Armor is supposed to be the equivalent of are not intended, or even capable, of being on permanently, much less more often than half of the time.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
I mean, if you say that it's not possible to design a power that you can be allowed to keep on all the time, you're saying that all armor toggles are unbalanced. I don't think that's quite what you mean.
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| As for my Calcify power suggestion, I think you're missing the point. Basically, over the course of 15 seconds after activating the power, you harden up to a higher level of survivability (lower than the current level granted by Granite) and a lower level of offensive capability. Once you've reached the peak, you stay there until you turn off the toggle, at which point the buffs and debuffs fade away over the next 15 seconds. |
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| Once again, to beat the drum until my arms give out, I'm not saying that Stone Armor should have a wildly higher level of survivability than any other armor set. I'm asking for a moderately higher level of survivability to be available whenever needed, at the cost of a decrease in offensive capability sufficient to make that higher level of survivability impractical to attain under all circumstances. This is not an idea that is in itself inherently gamebreaking. |
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Originally Posted by Starsman
First, Psi hole is one of the penalties granite suffers. Allowing all powers to stack changes nothing and just patches the Psi hole.
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| The issue with granite is not that it gives that much power in it's own, it's the fact that it allows that level of survivability to be reached without many penalties. Requiring stacking to do so changes little in that respect. |
And yes, requiring stacking would not change the fact that a tank running with everything would still be damn hard to kill. Even on SOs.
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| This is precisely the sort of idea some one would propose in an attempt to convince the devs to buff Granite without the devs realizing (and it would not work.) |
I'm aware that the set would likely need to be reworked in other ways that would nerf it. I can look on that with equanimity. I merely meant this as a jumping off point.
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Radius is proven to be buffable and if it's buffable it's debuffable. +Range enhancements also enhance Radius precisely so they keep cones enhancing properly. This alone proves the power's attribute's mechanic to be buffed and debuffed exists. Also, PBAoE and Cone radius are both the exact same attribute. |
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Coming from you, I'm not entirely sure that what you said really carries much weight. The problem here is that we're not debating, or, at the very least, we're not debating using the same rules.|
Originally Posted by Clouded
Umbral, you're nothing more than an internet tough guy. Learn to debate without being a ***** or stop debating. Your immature attitude destroys any argument you make and flushes your credibility down the toilet.
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Whenever I enter into a balance debate, I operate under the assumption that numbers are the most important thing under consideration and that opinion and theme come second. Whenever others enter into a debate wherein they not only abandon numbers but they outright ignore them in order to provide their opinions and thematic choices with greater weight, I get irked because it's rather obvious that they're not entering into the debate with the same rules that I am. If I've already given numbers have already been given that demonstrate reliably that the thematic choices and opinions of others are fundamentally at odds with balance, then there's not really much that I, or anyone else for that matter, can do to alter that because, at that point, it's no longer a balance discussion and rather a discussion of opinions.
Contrary to what you might believe, I have no problem entering into debate with individuals like Arcanaville without resorting to insults (though I do find snark entertaining enough that I generally add substantial bits of it here and there) because we operate using the same rules of debate concerning balance (i.e. numbers trump all). I do, however, have a problem with entering into debate with people that, almost always due to lack of expertise or intelligence, decide that numbers don't matter when the numbers are supposed to be the attribute of primal import.
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| Why did you even make this thread? Did you want to show everyone your big brain? Unfortunately, your lack of civility trumps any intelligence you might store in that skull of yours. |
Well how about this alternative:
Change Granite Armor so that it applies bonuses only to the types of defenses the lower level toggles grant.
Rock Armor grants Defense to Smashing/Lethal, so have Granite stack with Rock armor and grant Smashing Lethal defense which, when combined with Rock Armor, offers Granite Armor's normal Smashing/Lethal defense levels. But not Resistance to Smashing and Lethal.
Brimstone Armor provides Resistance to Fire/Cold. So have Granite grant Fire and Cold Resistance so that, when toggled on with Brimstone, you get the same mitigation as you would resistance-wise from Granite Armor. But no Fire/Cold defense.
Same Thing for Crystal Armor. Defense to Energy/Negative energy, but no resistance to it.
That would weaken the Tier 9's defensive capabilities a bit, and superficially increase it's endurance cost, since players would need to use multiple toggles to get full mitigation, and if they didn't have a specific toggle, Brimstone for example, they'd have issues with enemies using that damage type, since Granite wouldn't provide that mitigation.
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It's not a matter, for me, of "Unkillable and able to kill" it's a matter of trying to balance the power against the other powers while still keeping it a toggle. Why? Because it's unique, that's why. And after 6 years of it being a toggle you just -can't- make it into a click. The nerdrage would be insane. |
Originally Posted by Umbral
Except that the entire balance problem with the power is that it's a tier nine toggle. If you don't think there is a balance problem with that after all of the discussion point out just how broken that is, nothing is going to diminish that. The discussion will likely always devolve into balance minded folks pointing out Instant Healing (and */Regen's movement from a regeneration based set to being a click/healing based set), and Granite lovers simply pointing out that any change to the power that prevents it from being up at all times would break the set. You're never going to convince use that being able to be both unkillable and able to kill at all times is balanced and we're never going to convince you that the set isn't entirely based around the ability to turn on Granite and laugh away anything the game throws at you.
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Oh. I've got another great alternate idea...
How about buffing ALL of Stone Armor, and Nerfing Granite down a lot? Let's make Granite, still mutually exclusive from the rest of the set, incapable of softcapping defense with IOs by itself, or resistance. Granite stops being the "End All Be All" of the powerset, but it's the "Low End Cost" option. Since, Y'know, running all your toggles is more expensive than running 2-3 (rooted and mudpots with granite) Or adding in Combat jumping and the like.
But yeah Making it -not- a toggle is just not an option.
-Rachel-
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That doesn't mean they're not still penalties. And the slots required to work around them aren't required by any other set out there. And, even slotted, you're still less well-off than an unslotted tank/brute with another defensive powerset.|
Originally Posted by Starsman
The movement penalties have been worked around through teleport for ages now.
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| That fall in the SO realm. |
Right now, players can afford to skip almost all of the non-Granite armors and still carry through into the late game with few problems. Then if they did take them, respec out of them.
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| The recharge was also drastically trivialized by recharge enhancements. |
A 2rch/1acc/3dmg SO build was able to negate the recharge debuff, and although same build would be much more faster in a non-granite build, the relative difference between the base and the enhanced versions are huge.
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Example: 10 s recharge attack. W granite that turns into 28.57 seconds recharge. Add 2 recharge SOs and turns into 9.83s. Result is that the boost from 28.57 to 9.83 is 290% the damage as base. |
You're also forgetting that a non-stone player who devotes NO slots to recharge has room for End Redux. So they run less of a risk of burning their blue bar by spamming attacks as fast as they come up.
Or devote the slots to another attack that might go underslotted, adding to their arsenal and giving, again, more attacks.
A regular player that puts on those 2 SOs would jump from 10s to 6s, 160% the damage of the base build.
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Just in case anyone wants to go to the "non-granite gets the same benefit" arguments. That is all in an SO balance world. |
Even significant frankenslotting only reduces it another second from there.
On a non-Granite, such a 10 second attack is taking just under 5 seconds.
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As I've said before, that was one of the integral changes to Granite Armor that I suggested. The problem I see with allowing the power to have a non-limiting recharge time is that, unless the recharge time is long enough to discourage simply waiting between spawns for Granite to respawn, there isn't really going to be much reason. Without a long recharge timer commensurate with old school IH's (90 secs, iirc), you're going to find players simply forcing small amounts of downtime between each spawn.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Interesting... So, basically kill the offensive penalties, impose harsher movement penalties. Huh... I hadn't thought of that. Not a bad idea, actually, provided we kill the movement speed debuff in Rooted. That should keep Granite Armour giving significant survivability (how significant is a matter of debate), but would force you to detoggle if you want to move between spawns. Not bad. And since it wouldn't have the Achilles' heel problem of dropping the entirety of your status protection the way detoggling Rooted to move does, then I can see this as a form of toggle-juggling. Ostensibly, Granite Armour ought to be a power you use when you've walked in on something over your head, not as something you run around in as a status quo, so that kind of penalty I can actually see.
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One of the reasons that I went with my version being both time limited and a toggle was specifically so that it would provide effectiveness of a crashing tier 9 (Invuln w/ Unstoppable active is substantially more survivable than WP w/ SoW) with the utility of a non-crashing tier 9 (i.e. no crash). Rather than having a crash occur at the end, the crash occurs for the entire duration of the power (rather than crashing your offensive capabilities, it crashes your ability to move) and you have the ability to end the effect prematurely if you need or want to (rather than having to wait for the power to end, like with Unstoppable or old-MoG, if you're out of combat and you want to deal with the crash now rather than in 15 seconds).
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| Why not, though? That's its shtick, isn't it? Stone Armour is the one set that's all about ultimate protection. Back in the day, it was the only set with protection from Psychic attacks. I don't see why Stone Armour can't have the greatest survivability in the most situations, if for no reason other than because that's basically what it was designed to be. I have no problem with sets like Invulnerability and Willpower matching or even exceeding it by a little with saturated toggles, but Stone Armour would still retain its power in fights against single hard targets like AVs. And I'm fine with that. |
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Noted and corrected.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
Rock Armor doesn't have an endurance cost of .73 end/sec.
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| For the endurance reduction, you're calculating the effects of it wrong. |
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| The other problem with this is that you're similarly applying a reduction in endurance cost to all of your attacks and other powers as well, which makes it even more powerful, especially when you consider that your attacks and click powers use up more endurance than your toggles do by a very large margin. |
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| It would be much better to simply play with the end costs of the toggles themselves to arrive at a more balanced endurance cost because you're not forcing players to use Granite Armor just to be endurance sustainable along with being survivable. |
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| Of course, you're similarly doing nothing to mitigate the level of survivability that Granite Armor allows you to maintain indefinitely or the largely token penalties that are rather simple to work around. |
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That's an interesting concept and not that hard to implement either (give each armor toggle a non-exclusive mode that Granite Armor then detects and provides mitigation for based on whether that mode is active). I'd probably change it so that each toggle simply provides both types of mitigation rather than just the mitigation type that the basic power provides (i.e. having Rock Armor on would have Granite provide +res(s/l) and +def(s/l)).|
Originally Posted by Steampunkette
That would weaken the Tier 9's defensive capabilities a bit, and superficially increase it's endurance cost, since players would need to use multiple toggles to get full mitigation, and if they didn't have a specific toggle, Brimstone for example, they'd have issues with enemies using that damage type, since Granite wouldn't provide that mitigation.
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I would still question whether it solves the issue of there not being a reason to turn Granite Armor off for whatever reason. I doubt we wouldn't see an increase in the penalties even with these modifications, and I similarly doubt there wouldn't be some attempt to fix the endurance costs of the rest of the set as well. It's an interesting schtick for a tier 9 (and one that I've thought would be very interesting for a new set), but it's not really something that fixes the major problems with the set overall.
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| It's not a matter, for me, of "Unkillable and able to kill" it's a matter of trying to balance the power against the other powers while still keeping it a toggle. Why? Because it's unique, that's why. And after 6 years of it being a toggle you just -can't- make it into a click. The nerdrage would be insane. |
If it's more applicable to make it a toggle akin to a click power (such as I've suggested), then that's likely to happen regardless of whether people think it should have happened or not. There was massive nerdrage when IH was turned into a click power that wasn't even perma-capable. I remember how massive it was. I was there, and I was one of the people joining in it. Of course, now that I've had a few years to consider it, I can see that it was needed and, although I still bear a bit of animosity towards the Cryptic devs, I can respect them a bit for doing it.
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| How about buffing ALL of Stone Armor, and Nerfing Granite down a lot? Let's make Granite, still mutually exclusive from the rest of the set, incapable of softcapping defense with IOs by itself, or resistance. Granite stops being the "End All Be All" of the powerset, but it's the "Low End Cost" option. Since, Y'know, running all your toggles is more expensive than running 2-3 (rooted and mudpots with granite) Or adding in Combat jumping and the like. |
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| But yeah Making it -not- a toggle is just not an option. |
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It can't be. If you're intending to make it apply in a manner proportionate to the current endurance cost of the power rather than the base endurance cost pre-modification, it's not possible. The devs have told us before that it's impossible for a power to apply an attribute modification to a specific power exclusively. It's possible to add or subtract base values, but, if that occurred, the difference between having no end redux, standard end redux, and heavy end redux would generate highly different end values (because it would need to be linear and end redux operates in a proportionate manner).
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Good point. It was only intended to be an EndRedux for the armors SPECIFICALLY. Not sure if that kind of situational reduction can be achieved.
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That a power is available at all times, and that you must gauge when using it is worthwhile, are not mutually exclusive properties. I'm not sure what makes you think that they are, and I'm pretty sure I can prove that they're not.
There is an inherent power that is not only available at all times, but has zero recharge time and zero activation time - yet people definitely do not consider running it worthwhile at all times. Sprint.
Furthermore, there are two whole archetypes built around two toggle powers that are available at any time, have zero recharge time, and grant only buffs to the character, yet are profoundly situational. Khelds. Dwarf Form, Nova Form.
So, Umbral, you can keep pushing a mechanically forced downtime for Granite Armor, but it's not getting much love from the people who actually play Stone Armor now, and there's no reason to believe that the change would make it attractive to people who don't play Stone Armor now, and it's also not actually necessary in order to balance the power or the set.
It's unpopular, unattractive, and unnecessary. It's a bad idea.
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
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An inherent power that provides no benefit in combat yet still consumes endurance. Your metaphor is flawed.|
Originally Posted by SpittingTrashcan
There is an inherent power that is not only available at all times, but has zero recharge time and zero activation time - yet people definitely do not consider running it worthwhile at all times. Sprint.
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| Furthermore, there are two whole archetypes built around two toggle powers that are available at any time, have zero recharge time, and grant only buffs to the character, yet are profoundly situational. Khelds. Dwarf Form, Nova Form. |
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| So, Umbral, you can keep pushing a mechanically forced downtime for Granite Armor, but it's not getting much love from the people who actually play Stone Armor now, and there's no reason to believe that the change would make it attractive to people who don't play Stone Armor now, and it's also not actually necessary in order to balance the power or the set. |
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| It's unpopular, unattractive, and unnecessary. It's a bad idea. |
First: I'm not making a metaphor. You stated that two properties were completely mutually exclusive. I demonstrated that they are not. Powers can be available at all times, and still not be worth using at all times. That can happen, and it does happen. Sprint is one extreme - a minor benefit and a minor drawback. PFF is the other extreme - a major benefit and a major drawback. There is a continuum between these powers of possible powers that have some benefits and some drawbacks and are therefore not worth using all the time even though you theoretically could. You could make Granite such a power.
Second: At what point did I say that Granite must be as powerful as it is now? I very specifically conceded that it cannot be as powerful as it is now, regardless of the penalty, for the sake of encounter balance. I conceded this point multiple times. Please stop accusing me of holding an opinion I do not hold.
Instead of trying to shout down the very possibility that Granite could be a toggle, why don't you look at the feedback you're getting and reevaluate your suggestions around the idea of recreating Granite as a balanced toggle that has moderate benefits, moderate drawbacks, and situational utility? Because you still haven't actually proved that this is not possible.
@SPTrashcan
Avatar by Toxic_Shia
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Well let's look at the Toggle-Toggle idea, then. With the duplicated resistances/defense numbers.
I think the whole set should be buffed. Bar none. It's got so little defense or resistance to everything (compared to other sets) without any sort of overlap. It's endurance heavy (by virtue of a pile of toggles) and can get incredibly unwieldy to play (Rooted)
Do you think granting partial resistance and defense bonuses to ALL the toggles that currently have one or the other would be out of the question? What about increasing the Smashing/Lethal in Stone Skin? By partial I mean putting in 7.5% Defense into Brimstone and 11.25% Resistance into Rock Armor and Minerals. (Tanker Values, commensurately lower for non-tankers)
To give the armor a penalty we could give it the 90% movement rate cap debuff and un-TPable (which would just cause frustration) Or we could do something a little different.. How about a penalty to Maximum Endurance instead? That would effect recovery rates, maximum endurance expenditure, and make it really tough to use the set long-term without slowing your attacks to a crawl or popping a ton of blues. Even with end-recovery at maximum, 8% of 50 is only 4 end/second, which even the lowest cost attacks in the game eat up instantly.
-Rachel-
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For almost any other poster... I would probably let this slide, but for someone as smug and arrogant as you seem to be, I cannot.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
Holy crap! You might actually be able to learning!
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I believe the phrase you are looking for is: "You might actually be able to learn!"
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I don't think you're understanding how that mechanic with Granite Armor would likely work. The cottage rule is going to prevent removing the +res/+def effects from Granite in its entirety so its substantially more likely that the values would be coming from Granite Armor. Essentially, you'd have a series of different linked effects that would provide the +res/+def contingent on modes that the "base" toggles activate with every tick. If it were to go this path, I'd probably make only the effect linked to the base toggle in question rather than the magnitude of the effect in question.|
Originally Posted by Steampunkette
Do you think granting partial resistance and defense bonuses to ALL the toggles that currently have one or the other would be out of the question? What about increasing the Smashing/Lethal in Stone Skin? By partial I mean putting in 7.5% Defense into Brimstone and 11.25% Resistance into Rock Armor and Minerals. (Tanker Values, commensurately lower for non-tankers)
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| To give the armor a penalty we could give it the 90% movement rate cap debuff and un-TPable (which would just cause frustration) Or we could do something a little different.. How about a penalty to Maximum Endurance instead? That would effect recovery rates, maximum endurance expenditure, and make it really tough to use the set long-term without slowing your attacks to a crawl or popping a ton of blues. Even with end-recovery at maximum, 8% of 50 is only 4 end/second, which even the lowest cost attacks in the game eat up instantly. |
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My bad. Thanks for bringing that typo to my attention, correcting it now.
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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven
For almost any other poster... I would probably let this slide, but for someone as smug and arrogant as you seem to be, I cannot.
I believe the phrase you are looking for is: "You might actually be able to learn!" |
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I don't think that converting it to a click power being the simpler solution is a strong recommendation for that approach. If there is a better solution that requires a bit more work, do the work. You also seem to be sticking to the presumption that any solution that allows Granite to remain toggled on indefinitely would result in everyone doing so. My guess is that there's a solution or three that would not give that result.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
I still don't agree with this. If making it a click power or click power equivalent is the simpler solution to balancing the performance of the set, then that option should still be viable. Just because some people want the power to remain available at all times rather than having to gauge the situation to determine whether you want to use the power in question doesn't mean that it shouldn't be an option. If anything, it should be an option because otherwise there's no playstyle variance in the performance of the set and the effectiveness of it just becomes a question of your build rather than your abilities.
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I really don't know how the devs will view this proposal. I think they give much greater weight than you do to the consideration that many people have built toons centered around a concept that requires them to be in Granite mode pretty much full-time.
Then again, the devs have a really mixed record on the matter. My perception is that they try to do what they practically can in that regard most of the time. The powers team in particular though seems to be willing to take a "damn the torpedoes" approach at times, so it wouldn't completely surprise me to see something like what you propose implemented.
Just a thought here...you can tell me if it seems balanced or not, Umbral.
First Rooted.
Keep it a toggle, get rid of the -SPD, and make it like Grounded. You leave the ground, you lose it's bonuses (Regen and Mez). this was someone elses suggestion, and I personally liked it.
Using Tanker values with 3 lvl 50 SOs:
Stone Armor = 25% S/L Defense
Stone Skin = 15.6% S/L Resist
Brimstone Armor = 39% F/C Resist
Crystal Armor = 25% E/N Defense
Minerals = 39% Psi Defense
Now, we'll take Stone Skin out of the picture, due to it always working while in Granite. We'll also leave Minerals alone, as it's never been useable with Granite.
So we give Stone Armor, Brimstone Armor and Crystal Armor a 25% Increase in effectiveness (now I'm using the slotted values with my math, so maybe it would be more or maybe it would be less but anways) it gets the following numbers...
Stone Armor = 31.25% Defense
Brimstone Armor = 48.75% Resist
Crystal Armor = 31.25 Defense
Now as it currently stands:
Granite Armor = 31.2% S/L/F/C/E/N Defense & 78% Resist All
And we turn it into a toggle that provides the following:
Granite Armor = 15% S/L/E/N Defense, 25% S/L/F/C Resist & 10% E/N Resist - UNSLOTTED
-SPD, -RCH, -JUMP, -FLY Penalties (get rid of the -DMG penalty or if needed keep it for balance, I'm not sure here...I just know I never saw how this one fit themetically myself).
Increase the End cost (this is me throwing out idea, if it sounds like a good idea, I'm sure someone can think of better numbers here) to 1.04/s with a 120 Second Recharge (4x the End Cost and 12x the Recharge Time).
Now the difference here would be Granite can now STACK with all the other Armors.
Now with just non Tier-9 toggles in use, they're not to bad off...and really not that far off from softcapping if they go the IO route. They'd be just over /SR level Defense with S/L/E/N Defense while still having Stone Skin to give a bit of S/L Resist.
They could of course take Tough/Weave, but that would also increase their END usage.
If they watch their end use, people could probably run all their toggles at once, but it would slow down their attacking for sure. Not to mention they're likely to have Mud Pots and Rooted going (maybe even increase it's end cost to .26/s to match the armors).
And if they let Granite drop, they have a pretty decent wait period baring any +RCH slotting. Seeing as how it's a toggle, and they'd likely want to go 3 Defense/3 Resist SOs, it's not likely to see much of that.
So with all toggles going (slotted) that would be...
Over 45% Defense to S/L/E/N, 54.6% S/L Resist, 78% F/C Resist, 15% E/N Resist (roughly after slotting), & 39% Psi Defense.
Grabbing Tough/Weave to stack with all that gives 78% Resist and EVEN MORE DEFENSE if wanted.
Now added in the Regen of Rooted and healing of Earth's Embrace and you still have a quite the sturdy tanker (S/L Resist King would go to INV now)...more end usage, but Granite could be saved for when it's really needed.
And again, not the numbers person, I'm trying to give it a good idea of where to go, adding in Tough/Weave like the other's do...I think the numbers become comparable to the other sets (you'll tell me if I'm totally wrong).
I mean with this, I'd actually play Granite with it's -SPD (this is really it's biggest killer for me...the -SPD)
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To be honest, I kind of pulled the recharge number out of the air (I was thinking) of Full Auto, for some reason. I wouldn't mind a longer recharge. In fact, I wouldn't mind making it 120, 180 or even 360 seconds. You already have plenty else to slot the toggle for, so I'm not worried about recharge. And, yes, the point of giving it a long timer (and even if it got 1000 seconds, I still wouldn't be bummed out) was to force Granite Armour to behave like a contemporary T9, i.e. not be on all the time constantly, yet retain its ability to stay on for as long as a long battle takes. Contemporary crashing T9 powers have one crippling weakness - they have the capacity to end and crash you before you've killed what you're fighting, hence why popping them is a bit of a gamble. You CAN run away before they end, but if you're a Tanking tank, that's a REALLY bad idea.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
As I've said before, that was one of the integral changes to Granite Armor that I suggested. The problem I see with allowing the power to have a non-limiting recharge time is that, unless the recharge time is long enough to discourage simply waiting between spawns for Granite to respawn, there isn't really going to be much reason. Without a long recharge timer commensurate with old school IH's (90 secs, iirc), you're going to find players simply forcing small amounts of downtime between each spawn.
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The point of Granite Armour as I described it last would be to be able to tank ONE FIGHT for as long as it took, but then HAVE to detoggle and fight at least one more fight without Granite Armour on. The entire purpose of this exercise is to force people to fight without Granite Armour on at least some of the time, thereby forcing the rest of the set into having some relevance. Movement penalties that cannot be overcome are a very good way of limiting Stone Armour's use without limiting its ability.
...
In fact, you know what? All I've been describing is ways to let Granite Armour be usable in one fight within one general area, but to be unable to be used outside of that one area. So why don't we stop beating about the bush and design just that. Here's how it'd go:
Instead of running a toggle, "Granite Armour" spawns a Devouring Earth style eminator that gives you a buff equivalent to Granite Armour within a specific area around, not requiring line of sight. I'm not sure what that area should be, but I'd like to see it be BIG. Like 50-100 feet radius. Call it as big as Supremacy. This eminator would be immobilie and immune to teleportation. In this way, you ARE linked to the ground, but not by being forced to not move. Instead, you are linked to an eminator which is itself rooted to the ground. This gives you full, unchallenged mobility, full, unmitigated protection... But only in one specific area. If you want to have that protection in another area, you have to resummon the eminator, which would have a recharge between 600 and 1000 seconds.
The benefits to this are many. For one, you can have unlimited performance in that specific area without having to suffer annoying drawbacks. At the same time, this literally KILLS your efficiency if you try to constantly pull into the effective area of that eminator. You could, but... Would you really want to run a mission like that? Really? On the flip side, you get unlimited perfomance in siege type fights, be it a long brawl with a tough AV or Monster, or in situations where you're defending a choke point like the Stop 30 Fir Bolg mission, or either hero or villain respec. In essence, we've turned Granite Armour into a heavy point defence power that can hold ground, but not take ground, which I kind of think was the original design of the power.
I actually had more to quote, but I think I like this idea the most. It lets people keep their Granite Armour on indefinitely as they requested, it still gives people a reason to turn it off (if they need to move away from the area) and it sounds like it's balanced and playing to Granite Armour's original design. Plus, it introduces a mechanic that should be mechanically possible and is, to the best of my knoweldge, entirely and wholly unique. Best of all, it removes the need for performance-limiting penalties on Stone Armour in general, as its peak performance would be location-locked, and limited by that.
Let me know if you think we can work out some numbers for a setup lik this.
*edit*
Obviously, such a setup can't kill the rest of the set's toggles, so it would require your rebalancing to have Granite Armour stack on top, rather than replace.
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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.
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Stars, there's something I think you may be forgetting. Radius is indeed a buffable attribute, and range enhancements do buff cone radius. However, melee cones and PBAoEs are specifically set to ignore range buffs and debuffs. This is for two reasons: first, without this protection from debuffs, it's possible to Hurricane or Taunt a melee character into being unable to reach an enemy with their PBAoE or cone attacks even in melee range; and second, without this exemption from buffs, it'd be possible to slot Dam/Range enhancements in, say, Foot Stomp, and significantly increase its killing zone.
Now, if you can figure out a way for Granite to debuff radius of melee cones and PBAoEs in a way that doesn't also allow the above scenarios, then it becomes a viable option - albeit one I don't much care for.
@SPTrashcan
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