I dunno, I hear it's pretty fun to play when you're stoned.
Joking aside, I believe there is a right way and a wrong way to play a stone tank. I'm not sure what the right way is, but the wrong way is begging for SB and relying on grantie as your only means of survival.
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Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
Stone Armor can be fun, and now especially with IO's its possible to fill most of the wholes that Stone Armor has like run speed with rooted/Granite, and Recharge speed of granite armor.
Right now I have a Stone/SS tank which I solo alot, he is fun to play, tried to take down an Ice EB and it didnt end well, I didnt die, but I couldnt kill her, so had to tone down the missions.
I had a Fire/Stone Armor Brute that was pretty fun to play, lots of AoE's there.
Could also try Stone/Electric, not to many of those around (Currently playing my Ice/Electric who I love)
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In my opinion you should build for self-sufficiency; you won't always have a kin on the team and half the time you do they'll be one of the ones that won't use SB. Therefore I plan on handling everything out of my own resources.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
I dunno, I hear it's pretty fun to play when you're stoned.
Joking aside, I believe there is a right way and a wrong way to play a stone tank. I'm not sure what the right way is, but the wrong way is begging for SB and relying on grantie as your only means of survival. |
TP is a near-must for a stone tanker for tactical mobility... it takes some getting used to but it works well once you get the hang of it. Granite is very useful of course, but many teams won't require that level of protection... I probably spend maybe 50% of my time outside of granite unless I'm on a big team and/or doing difficult content. Rooted however is inescapable outside of Granite and it slows your movement even more than Granite does.
Typically I'll start combat by TP'ing into a group and popping off an AOE to get their attention. I keep an eye on the rest of the team and if there's loose aggro I toss Taunt or a ranged attack out on the stragglers. Once the group we're working on is down or nearly so I TP into the next group and repeat the process.
I've a friend who's always way too aggressive so I've learned that I really have to move fast to stay ahead of him... those habits also do wonders for keeping any problem children in your team under control, keep the team moving fast and they don't get bored and go looking for trouble.
In short, you want to push the pace anytime you're tanking... I don't care what tank you're playing. With a stone tanker TP is your best method for pushing that pace since you're very limited in mobility without dropping your mez shield; generally a no-no in combat. Now of course I'll never say no to SB on ANY character... it's an awesome buff for anyone, you can never have too much recharge. I just always plan my characters around their own capacities... buffs are a bonus, not a requirement outside of specialized static superteams.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
Every type of tank has its pluses and minuses. It's best to overcome the minuses asap and be pretty much capable of anything with any team make up. Some people cant tank the entire game with anything other than a stone with a pocket kin and there are some people who will take a Scrapper to anything let alone a Tanker.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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On my stone/stone/pyre. I took granite and gutted the primary, thinking I would be a granite runner. You know what, granite is over rated! Vastly over rated. If you have a strong secondary power like "fault" and "siesmic smash", you can tank almost everything out of granite. Least normal game stuff. I used granite as a "oh sh*t" power.|
Originally Posted by Purus
We have all seen stoners lumbering around maps begging for SB.....but if you choose Teleport as a travel power and pack as much recharge into powers as possible are they enjoyable to play.
I have a EN/WP tank which i made pre-i13 who was great but i cannot stand the cast time on all the powers and not enough aoes involved so im looking for a change but I dont want to be stuck with something thats going to annoy me as much. |
I had one person ***** and moan about me being slow (while in a cave). I am like, okay, sorry I have sight issues when I am taller than the cave ceiling.
So what did I do next map that wasn't a cave? I was ahead of the team every steop of the way, I said "what cha bitchen bout now?"
The slow speed of stone can be a hurdle, but any hurdle can be jumped if you take the time to learn your weaknesses, and make them work for you.
protector-knight: lvl 50 invun/axe tank
Lillian Brick: lvl 50 stone/stone/pyre tank
Hybrid-knight: lvl 50 db/regen scrap
Vengful-Nature: lvl 50 spines/sr/bod scrap
Element-Wizard: lvl 50 fire/storm/stone troll
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Except when using rooted or granite.
| The slow speed of stone can be a hurdle, but any hurdle can be jumped |
I spent 200mil and was working on more sets and I just couldn't take it anymore and rolled a /shield.
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I guess the other extreme is I spent 200mil on my Dark Armor tank and then made a video.
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Originally Posted by _Klaw_
I spent 200mil and was working on more sets and I just couldn't take it anymore and rolled a /shield.
|
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
Quote:
then you were working on the wrong sets.|
Originally Posted by _Klaw_
I spent 200mil and was working on more sets and I just couldn't take it anymore and rolled a /shield.
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+run speed is very cheap to fill. +recharge is a bit more expensive. I used merits to buy the 4 +recharge LotG and less than 200mil to get the rest of the build. (I did get lucky on a few drops and have other stuff in storage.)
On my second account, I have a second stone tank IO'd out still for the +run speed... I only use the respec to get the +rech IO's. Really, it is not that expensive to do.
YMMV---IMO
Ice Ember
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agreed.
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Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
In my opinion you should build for self-sufficiency; you won't always have a kin on the team and half the time you do they'll be one of the ones that won't use SB. Therefore I plan on handling everything out of my own resources.
In short, you want to push the pace anytime you're tanking... I don't care what tank you're playing. With a stone tanker TP is your best method for pushing that pace since you're very limited in mobility without dropping your mez shield; generally a no-no in combat. Now of course I'll never say no to SB on ANY character... it's an awesome buff for anyone, you can never have too much recharge. I just always plan my characters around their own capacities... buffs are a bonus, not a requirement outside of specialized static superteams. |
YMMV---IMOIce Ember
My stone/mace is a blast to play. The only IO sets he has are for +runspeed, and I spread those all over. He moves very quickly. I find the only time I ever really use Granite is when tanking for a large team, or facing off with something big and ugly. Other than that, I pretty much just run him with Stone Skin, Rock Armor, and Rooted. Never really had much trouble tanking anything in the game with him.
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I have a level 50 stone/axe tanker I'd never delete, but don't really enjoy the powerset much and don't play her often. Then again, I have to have concept before I can really enjoy a character, and stone is very limiting there.
If you think you won't enjoy playing a stone tanker because of the speed or aesthetic issues, you probably won't. My suggestion would be to roll Invulnerability instead. It can approach Stone in performance without any of the aesthetic or playstyle disadvantages.
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Originally Posted by Heraclea
I have a level 50 stone/axe tanker I'd never delete, but don't really enjoy the powerset much and don't play her often. Then again, I have to have concept before I can really enjoy a character, and stone is very limiting there.
If you think you won't enjoy playing a stone tanker because of the speed or aesthetic issues, you probably won't. My suggestion would be to roll Invulnerability instead. It can approach Stone in performance without any of the aesthetic or playstyle disadvantages. |
Invuln is good now with a good build.
Willpower is good now if you use taunt a lot and shore up the weak aggro aura.
Ice is very good now if you aren't afraid to hibernate. The key is to slot taunt duration so the baddies stick to you through the reset.
Shield tanks are so good I feel they're broken, but what do I know.
Dark tanks can be good, even though I personally can't get the hang of them.
There are a LOT of tanks out there that do very, very well.
I see no reason whatsoever to cripple my mobility AND hide my costume. Ice and Dark used to have that issue as well, but are better now.Heh, who remembers when Granite made you look like a poo monster, rather than the basalt look now?
(shudder) Stone armor, no thanks.
I inability to jump over a cardbord box or the kerb at the side of the road made me eventually delete my stone tank - he was lvl 44.
I made a shield/mace tank and he shot straight to 50 in a couple of weeks, took me 4 years to get the stoner to 44.
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I hear that, brother.|
Originally Posted by Star_Seer
I inability to jump over a cardbord box or the kerb at the side of the road made me eventually delete my stone tank - he was lvl 44.
I made a shield/mace tank and he shot straight to 50 in a couple of weeks, took me 4 years to get the stoner to 44. |
My SD/wm is....ridiculous.
Fun, fast, does great damage for a tanker, tough as nails, and holds aggro like a freakin' gravitational anomaly. I built mine on an 'all knockdown' build and it works like a machine.After the Dev's do....whatever they're gonna do to try and balance SD, I might even put some IO's on him.
We have all seen stoners lumbering around maps begging for SB.....but if you choose Teleport as a travel power and pack as much recharge into powers as possible are they enjoyable to play.
I have a EN/WP tank which i made pre-i13 who was great but i cannot stand the cast time on all the powers and not enough aoes involved so im looking for a change but I dont want to be stuck with something thats going to annoy me as much.