Suggestions about Stone Armour.

I've been thinking about my characters. Well, I do that normally. More particularly, I've been thinking about their sets, and what suggestions and changes I'd love to see made to them. The one that bugbears me the most, is my level 50 tanker, Rushmore. So this is a topic about Stone Armour, because I have no issues and much love for Stone Melee.

Some suggestions may fall afoul of the Cottage Rule, but in that case, there is usually an Either/Or option.

Stone Armour:

Rock Armour: Currently gives 16% Defence to Smashing/Lethal, and Defence Debuff Resistance.

My suggestion: Add some Smashing/Lethal Resistance to it as well, even if it was made unenhancable. There is a precident for this in Shield Defense's Deflection, which gives +Melee Defence (Base 15%) and 15% Smashing/Lethal Res. Frozen Armour gies 17% S/L Defence, with 12.5% Fire and 30% Cold Resistance for the same cost. Rock Armour only gives 16% Defence to Smashing and Lethal, and with the new low level area of Praetoria, with enemies doing mixed Melee damage, Rock is at a disadvantage.

Stone Skin: Currently gives 10% Resistance to Smashing/Lethal.

My Suggestion: Either - A: Change it into something like True Grit/High Pain Tolerance, giving resistance to a range of attacks (HPT does 7.5% Res to All and gives +187 HP at 50, TG 15% Res to Fire/Cold/Toxic/Energy/Negative and gives +187 HP at level 50.)

Or - B: A sort of Tough Skin (5% Defence all but Psi, Defense Debuff Res) with the +HP component of True Grit/High Pain Tolerance.

The first would stack with the Resistance added with the suggested Rock Armour (and other powers), while the latter would add with the basic defence abilities of the set (Perhaps changing it to give 5% Defence to Smashing/Lethal/Energy/Negative/Psi to match the main defence points of Stone Armour).
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Earth's Embrace: No change, it's in line with the other powers of it's type (Dull Pain, Hoarfrost.)

Mud Pots: PBAoE DoT Aura, also does -Spd and Immobilize, plus Taunt.

My Suggestion: Remove the Immobilize Component, drop the endurance cost from .78 a second to .52 a second, in line with the other offensive auras that tank sets have (Death Shroud, Lightning Field, Blazing Aura, Icicles.)

Rooted: Currently gives 100% Regen, KB/Repel/Knock Up/Held/Immob/Stun/Sleep Protection. Also gives End Resistance, but debuffs run speed, flight, jump speed and jump height.

My Suggestion: Remove the Run Speed/Jump Debuffs. Regen and Immobilization/Knockback Protection only happen when the character is on the ground. There is a precident for this with Grounded from Electric Armour. This would remove the issues of having to detoggle your status protection buff to deal with a small ledge, which in some maps can be overpresent and difficult to deal with. I cannot think of another power set (Aside from the dire old Unyielding Stance from Invun, which meant you couldn't move) that punishes your character for having the audacity to try and position themselves without getting mezzed.

Brimstone Armour: Currently gives 25% Resistance to Fire and Cold.

My Suggestions: This power -needs- to be changed. Desperately. It's endurance cost is .26 a second for two Resistance values at 25%. Let's see what other sets get access to.

Dark Armour: Murky Cloud - 30% Fire/Cold, 20% Energy/Negative Resistance, and End Drain Resistance. 0.208 Endurance a second.
Electric Armour: Conductive Shield: 35% Energy/Fire/Cold, 20% Negative Resistance, 0.26 a second Endurance cost.
Fire Armour: Plasma Shield: 30% Fire/Cold/Negative Resistance, Hold/Sleep Defence. 0.26 a second endurance cost.

For lesser, or exact endurance costs, other sets get more for their buck. I'd either add in some other resistances (S/L/E/N at lesser levels to go with Stone Skin Version A), or give it defence to Fire/Cold with an amount of Fire/Cold Resistance (that would match with Stone Skin A or B.)

Crystal Armour: Currently gives 16% Energy/Negative Defence, and Defence Debuff Resistance.

My Suggestion: I would say to add a small amount of Res to the above types of damage, similar to Rock Armour's suggestion, and/or To Hit Debuff Resistance.

Minerals: Currently gives 25% Psi Defence, Confuse Resistance and +Percetion.

My Suggestion: Pretty good as is. Maybe taking the To Hit Debuff Res that was proposed for Crystal Armour and putting it here, to pair up with the +Percetion.

And thus we come to it. My bane, my scourge, the anathema to changes to Stone Tankers.

Granite Armour: 20% Typed Defence to all but Psionic, 50% Resistance to all but Psionic, Mez Protection against Stun, Sleep, Hold, Immobilze, Knockback, Knock up and repel, debuffs to recharge, damage, run speed and jump speed/height.

My Suggestion: This is a difficult one. Some people love granite. Some people hate it. Some have geared their tanks towards being perma granite, taking teleport to position themselves in combat.

At it's current level, turning it into a click power straight up would not work. Being unable to jump would present difficulties in maps for those without teleport, with no easy way to quickly retoggle to move better. It would also disrupt those who've gone for perma Granite.

You could leave it how it is, and tag Stone Skin not to work with it in it's new form, perhaps. The buffs to other powers would not carry over, so it would be an option for those who want to be perma granite, or those that just want an emergency button they can control.

Another possibility is a lessening. Cut the Defence and Resistance bonuses, drop the mag protection, or work some into Rooted for while on the ground again, and have it stack with current armours. This would be quite some work, and some would still complain about it.

The truth is, Granite is an old design issue. One I am not apt enough to tackle with any confidence. My problem with Stone though, is that it is too back-loaded onto Granite. It's a little like Super Strength's Rage/KO Blow/Foot Stomp. All potent abilities, gotten mostly late, and the rest of the set suffers for it.

To try and round up some possibilities though:

A: Left as is, with new Stone Skin A or B either working with it, or not.

B: Lessening the defence and resistance given, dropping and moving the status protection (IE: Into Rooted while on the ground), and having it stack with the existing armours. There is likely to be issues with this, not least relating to costumes as before. Perhaps Minerals would not work with it, to still give it that flaw. Maybe the debuffs to movement could remain, and some of the debuffs to damage be split instead.

As I said, Granite is a problem. And I just don't have the answers. It'd be interesting to see if you do.

So that's my thoughts on Stone Armour. Thank you for your time,
Zortel - Playing Rushmore., out of Granite Form and battling with Rooted wherever possible.

Whatever else happens, Rooted has to change. The simple godawfulness of it puts me off Stone completely. It is the one and only set that I will not touch with a galactic barge pole. I know I'm not the only one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Rooted makes me wish that Rushmore was Invun/Stone Melee sometimes.

Not just for the fact I could have had red, white and blue auras instead of chunks of varying rock obscuring his costume.

Stone armor suffers from the fact that until you get granite, if you want mez prot, you're hugely slow and this is combined with protection that is sub par compared to most of the other sets. This is particularly noticeable on a brute where you have to wait till 38 for granite, and you have nothing meaningful v psi/energy/neg till very late on.

I do actually like the set once it's complete, but levelling it to 32/38 is a pretty painful experience unless you have a SG full of buffers.

im very happy with my stone guy right now, hes perma granite and only uses rooted when he has to

the build i made for him basically revolves around the use of granite and his entire build is that to counteract most of the negative aspects of granite (in granite he has slightly higher than base run speed, 91.25% rech with hasten, and only -17% dmg inside granite)

as Zortel mentioned, since my build is basically perma granite, i did take tp for travel around in granite (note i ONLY perma granite in combat situations or in mishs), if i am outside traveling to a mish i have ninja run for alternate and quick travel

while i wouldnt mind turning rooted into a power like grounded where the effects are only active on the ground if the run speed debuff is taken out, i would be kinda irritated if granites effectiveness was reduced to force me to have to completely change my build to get the other armors

out of the changes proposed i wouldnt mind seeing stone skin slightly changed or the proposed changes to rooted, the changes to the other armors are ok, but they wouldnt affect me

I mean, heck, if Castle himself said that (paraphrase) "Stone armour is 31 levels of underpowered and 18 levels of overpowered," then surely it screams out for a looking at?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I hate to admit it, but this thread makes me sad. I've played my Stone/SS to 50 with no issues and had fun all the way. The odd percentage of defence hasn't bothered me one bit. Out of Granite for most of my tanking and into it for the heavier stuff.

Yes, having to take TP to get over tiny obstacles is annoying so having a minimal jump height would be nice but otherwise I've found it a very solid set. Sorry.

I'll /sign this.
Oh, also, another thing: get rid of a +jump speed on Rooted, which is supposed to let you fall faster.
This not only does nothing for it, it also violates laws of physics established back in the Renaissance.
A heavier object that is no more aerodynamic than a lighter object WILL NOT FALL ANY FASTER.

Edit: Okay, so that normally applies to 'in-vacuum' scenarios, but I think by the point you get to the mass involved in stone armor, an object of same size but lighter weight would fall just as fast.

P.S. sorry about bringing a physics rant into a video game... It's just bugged me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Only thing I think it needs is to FIX ROOTED ITS HELL!!!!!!!
Let me repeat that,
ITS HELL!!!!!!

Here we go, PM'd Castle.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Fair enough.

Thanks.

I have toons I've chosen stone for *precisely* because of Rooted. I don't always like the graphics of the rest of the set, but rooted fits them so well I deal with the rest as a result.
To me, Stone has always been a set of "I am the stone, you will not move me." Rooted fits with that. The issue for me is the whole Granite/non-granite disconnect. It is 32 levels of pain with 18 of ease. I'd like it if the powers were brought more in-line with Invul or wp, with Granite being a "ZOMG" emergency power like MoG.

Rooted really turns me away from this set.

The speed penalty on Granite is good game design: "You can suffer movement penalties in exchange for being incredibly tough" Very cool, and lends itself to strategic decision making during combat.

The (harsher) speed paenalites and -Jump on Rooted are appalling game design: "You can suffer a movement penalty or be mezzed and thus unable to move at all, well, maybe stagger around drunk". This is no choice at all really. If you're tanking and holding aggro, you're going to have some mezzes sitting on you most of the time.

Fortunately, there's always Invulnerability and stone skin costume pieces as an alternative for any would-be rock men or women.