Just to give you an idea of what you will have defense wise without Rooted or Granite
Defense
S/L - 25%
F/C - 5.9%
E/N - 25%
Psi - 35.7%
Melee/Ranged/AoE - 5.9%
Resistance
S/L/F/C - 29.7%
E/N/T/Psi - 0%
With those low numbers you will get hit by mezzes a lot even with the minor protection provided by Acrobatics and CJ.
If you were willing to do IO sets you may be able to make this work by soft capping defense and picking up some mezz protection there.
Ok..I will say..i get your point about the slowed down play. I salute your choice to do something different.
I will only speak to what I know. I think that if you run this toon, you will have some fun and different tools on a stoner. You will have two ranged attacks, and a semi-decent PbAoe. All the things out of the claws set I would love to have on a stoner.
I somehow got to make a claws/stone brute on test during a different beta and got the level bump to 50..you know I will never delete that one.
When I make a stoner, I typically go the route of hasten and super speed as my travel power. I take rooted, but do not try to use it at all times. I try to build myself tough enough to not need it, epecially when in granite.
Without IO sets, you may find yourself asking from help from a neighboorly buffer, but you should be fine. Taking all the Stone Armor powers, would be like having a fully stocked tool box. Are there different tools in other sets? Sure. But you have found one that works for you.
Granite is good as a nice, panic button, if you don't wanna use it all the time, locked in its stoic form. Play it as situational. Give yourself your own 3 minute timer like all the other teir 9s, and know you have no worries of a crash at the end!? But, I know from testing it, that the hand waving of KM is epic with the rock hands of Tai Chi Granite Master!!
Rooted helps you in any number of ways and saves you some trouble in the survivablity side of things. Paired with an active Earth's Embrace and you are groovy in many situations. But, again, try not to look at it as "MUST USE ALL THE TIME". The worst you will have happen is you hit Super Speed to zip along after one mob, and you have a few seconds to wait for it to be back up. Heck, you 5 slot it, 1 end redux, 3 heals and a recharge, and you should be doing ok. Would only blow if you got hit with a big slow, like the IR from Posi in the LRSF, and you were waiting for Rooted to recycle. But then, if you are on a LRSF, you shouldn't be moving far!
In all, you have a great idea, and I would run with it. Maybe, take the safe route, and make your 2nd build along the lines of old school stoners, but use your first build as a what if, and see how it goes.
Either way, the worst thing you will find, is you end up doing a respec tf, and switch things up. And as someone that made a Stone Tank before they got popular, it took a lot of tweaks to make it feel right.
Talk about funny, try having whirlwind, jump kick, and any of the kinetic melee powers on a Granite with Rooted on...let me tell you...its at least good for a few WTF's!
210 50s and still counting!
Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to read through all this and to offer your suggestions and feedback. I don't like the idea of ignoring very important (some even say "defining") powers within a set and I *do* want to have the bonuses from Rooted and Granite... I just really don't want to have yet another Stone Armor toon that I ditch soon cuz I can't stand the slowness. I really am taking it all into consideration (cuz really, no one wants an unfun toon) and here's where I stand right now:
•On one build I'll go without Rooted, but I'll take Acrobatics (at lvl 22). I'll make sure I take out mezzers first (which is what I do anyhow, especially when I'm on a team, but when I play a melee toon and jump into a fight, my focus is usually to hit whatever is closest to me first and let the rest come to me).
•On my second build, I *will* take Rooted (at lvl 22) and I'll use a macro/bind to switch between Ninja Run (or Combat Jumping) and Rooted. Hopefully I won't get hit very often between activations of Rooted. It just feels odd for me to run into a group, get aggro, THEN turn on a toggle. Just seems really bass-ackwards to me. What I'm *really* not looking forward to are those instances where an enemy runs just barely out of your melee range... so you have to take 2 steps before you can attack them. But in that situation, having Rooted on makes those 2 steps feel like 20.
Both builds will eventually get Granite, I think, mostly as a "panic button" as Charnage mentioned (and for those times when Rooted isn't recharged when I need it).
Currently, the toon is lvl 17 (sporting newly slotted lvl 20 IOs) and workin' his way through Praetoria (as a Resistance Crusader). Eventually he'll exit to Paragon City and then become a Vigilante.
I've had a number of moments already where I'm surprised at being knocked back (something I'm not used to experiencing on a melee toon) or had forgotten to toggle Mud Pots back on after getting stunned and thought "Man, I wish I had Unyielding!" :-p I've played Invulnerability (twice), Shield Defense, Dark Armor (paired with Spines for ultimate togglemania!), Willpower, and Energy Aura all to 50 and I'd really like to find a way that works well enough for me to be able to add Stone Armor to that list.
Thanks again for all of your thoughts and ideas on this, guys. Very much appreciated.
MC
Over 8 years of playing with more than 130 characters across 14 servers. Nineteen 50s with plenty more working their way up!
Find me in-game as @Super MC
If you take Granite then going without Rooted is less of an issue, but Granite also has the same movement penalties to a lesser extent. If you don't like Rotted then you probably won't like Granite either since you run slow and can not jump in addition to the damage and recharge penalties.
I still think it is a bad idea to skip Rooted especially since you don't want to use IO's. You will be constantly mezzed and spend a lot of time running back from the hospital. Also, you probably won't get invited to many teams because you get mezzed all the time. I would go so far to say that some would probably kick you.
I have played Stone Armor, it was my very first Brute and first 50. They do play different than any other and can be annoying. It is definitely a trade off for having the best protection out there though. If you aren't willing to take the set defining powers you probably won't enjoy playing the set.