Let's talk about a Stone Armor Revamp

Yes, this topic again, as I am sure I am not the first to propose such a thing.

First, I want to say that this is NOT a proposal to nerf Stone Armor as the king of defensive sets in the game for pure solid survivability, this is a proposal of balanced changes to a powerset that has some long-standing issues and design flaws.

Second, my thoughts come from the point of view of someone that actually LIKE the set as a concept, but feels the execution is awful.

Now for some raw, unenhanced Tanker numbers from Mids.

Granite Armor gives +20% defense to all types except Psi. No positions.
Granite Armor gives +50% resist to all damage types except Psi. (0%)
Granite Armor gives magnitude 21.63 protection against Holds, Stuns, Sleeps, and Immobilization effects, as well as mag 10 Knockback and Repel protection.
Granite Armor ALSO applies a -30% damage debuff and a -65% recharge debuff as well as slowing walk/run speed. My version of Mids currently shows 1.4 mph runspeed no matter what I do on all AT's with any powerset, so there's a bug somewhere.

As the game is (supposedly) balanced around numbers attainable with SO's, granite can obtain as high as 31.2% defense and 78% resist to the aforementioned types using the standard 3 SO's to yellow ED effect. Changing these to level 50 NON-set IO's, these numbers become 31.7% and 79.2%. This is not a great jump in effectiveness due to ED demolishing the value from the third generic IO of each type.

Rock Armor, unenhanced, gives 16% S/L defense, 25% at ED-yellow with SO's, and 25.4% with level 50 GIO's. Again, minimal gain from changing SO's to GIO's

Brimstone Armor, unenhanced, gives 25% F/C RESIST, 39% with SO's, and 39.6% with GIO's.

Crystal Armor is the same as Rock Armor, except for E/N.

Minerals, the much-overlooked power from this set, gives a respectable 25% Psi DEFENSE with NO enhancements. The enhanced numbers are the same as brimstone. Minerals ALSO provides Magnitude 30 Confuse protection, 86.5% Confuse Resistance for anything that manages to SURPASS said protection, and 60% Perception Debuff protection. Confuse protection is NOT provided anywhere else in Stone Armor, not even in Rooted.

Stone Skin, the passive mostly used as +3% Defense IO mule slots, gives a paltry 15.6% S/L resist at the ED cap with SO's. 10% base. It's a passive, this is forgivable.

Earth's Embrace: It's a Dull Pain clone with +toxic resist. +40% HP, 20% Toxic resist unenhanced. Slotted for health, resist, AND recharge to maximize uptime (No hasten, yet) this becomes: 53.3% +HP and 28% toxic resist with a recharge time of 218 seconds, far shy of permanent.

Rooted, the Mez Protection power, gives Magnitude 12.98 protection against Hold, Sleep, Stun, and Immobilization effects, and mag 10 against Knockback and Repel. It also provides PToD-level Knockback and repel resistance, 10000% and 1000% respectively. In addition to being the Mez Protection power for Stone, this power also provides a base +100% regeneration.

Mud Pots is your standard Taunt Aura. It deals fire damage, has a Mag 4 taunt and slows non-flying critters by 40%...oh, and it has an unenhanceable Mag 2 Immobilize according to Mids that lasts 2.25 seconds.

Now, as everybody knows, Stone Armor is a toggle-heavy set. It's one distinct difference from other defensive sets is that Granite Armor is itself a toggle. It's also the only toggle-heavy set where the tier-9 power renders all but one other armor completely redundant by itself AND precludes access to said armor by forcibly detoggling all other armor powers when turned on. In the base game, without IO's and Sets, this is not a huge issue.

Stone Armor is also a set that hinders MOBILITY in the extreme...to the point of tedium and frustration since teleport is the only viable travel power in Rooted/Granite/Both since both powers severely debuff move speeds, and essentially disable jumping entirely, as well as DETOGGLING if any travel power or defensive power that is part of a travel pool is activated.

As most people reading this are likely well aware, most players that bother playing Stone Armor to level 32/38 end up immediately respeccing and removing every other armor power from their build that they can. This is because granite provides more and better survivability fresh out of the box than all of the other powers in the set combined do, with the one exception being that it provides for a psionic hole that Minerals used to cover, and a Confuse hole that most players don't realize they even have until they get hit with a Psionic-based confuse effect. This combined with the fact that granite cannot currently be used in conjunction with the other toggle armors in the set makes even having the other armors in your build counter-productive.

My proposal for a Stone Armor revamp so that it retains current top-tier functionality in survivability as well as retaining certain thematic weaknesses is this:

Allow granite to stack with the other four armors by making it so that the other armors are NEEDED for Granite to have its current level of effect. I would accomplish this by first turning Brimstone Armor into a +defense power and bringing Rock and Crystal Armors up to par with Brimstone and Minerals in their base +defense. This would turn Granite into a +resist power that serves to BUFF the defense powers by offering extra protection beyond what they do without entirely eclipsing them by itself in the form of resistance as something beyond their raw defense. Granite would retain the lack of anything for Psi, so psi attacks that slip past Minerals would still hit for full damage.

Furthermore, to compensate for the nerf to Granite Armor as a standalone power, allow it and Rooted to function with Super Speed so that there is at least ONE viable alternative to teleportation as a travel power.

Beyond THAT, make Rooted function like Grounded and remove the -jump from it. Keep the -Jump in Granite. Rooted now has a downside, it only functions when you are on the ground, but it allows you to JUMP with some risk attached in that while jumping you have no Mez protection. This allows for a second viable travel power outside of Granite Armor; Super Jump. The only travel power that Stone users would be effectively locked out of is Flight, and that's okay. Being locked out of one without detoggling your protection is better than being locked out of all BUT one.

People who want to take only one main power from a set should be penalized for it, not rewarded. With this restructuring of the abilities in Stone Armor, you would reward the people that do not respec out of everything BUT Granite, without coming down overly hard on the people that do such, since granite would retain the powerful resists and rooted would still have regeneration. Furthermore it would open up more OPTIONS for players that want to try Stone Armor but dislike how the set performs before granite, and dislike the constraints of granite as well.

After all that, let's take a look at the cosmetic side of things, shall we?

FIX GRANITE ARMOR! Make it able to be customized. At the very LEAST allow it to work with PATH auras.

Return it to the ancient Golgothan appearance if you must, as long as we can customize it and make our characters look SOMEWHAT unique. City of Heroes is the game KNOWN for customization. Granite Armor is the ONLY power in the game that imposes a restriction on this freedom to create outside of the Epic/Ancilliary pools and EAT's. It needs to change. It has needed to change since issue 16.

Quite a few interesting ideas.

I agree with the idea..stone is far and away the least used and liked armour..in SPITE, as you say, of being the toughest. I think, if anything, that fact really shows just how much people want fun and interesting and cool looking over the unkillable lump of...rock.

I played a stone brute ages ago, before IOs. And while it was stupidly tough, the drawbacks got to me in the end. Not being able to pick it up and play solo without a kin etc. Yes I know..people can and do play with no kin..I still think they need help. (the people that is)

Really like the idea on Granite being LESS of a 'pop one power and gain more than the rest of the crap set' power. Having it work together with the other toggles seems to fit more with earth to me..growing and helping.

Agree with less of a penalty..no other set gets almost crippled..just for wanting to use your darn mez toggle. Give it -jump if you have to. Or keep the regen as only when touching the ground..like the kb in Elec

Fix that look too. Granite..I can actually stand..but it is a total costume killer. The other toggles though..look mostly awful..and dont seem to go together in any way.

Regarding the -speed, rech, damage etc..I still dont see why any set needs a penalty. If the drawbacks, less good things arent inherent in the powers (aka, fire having no psi res), slapping on a debuff just cause the designers were too lazy to think properly, seems like a cop out.

I do sorta like the idea of Stone being the only set that can run a tier 9 all the time..assuming it HAS to be run with the other toggles, layering benefits..instead of the one awesome power, skip the rest, mishmash we have now.

Thought..THING..he would be stone armour for sure right? Is he really that slow?

But..it isnt that slow and weak with IOs. A brute wont really notice the -dam. A tank gets bruising and should not really be expecting amazing damage anyway. The - rech can be taken care of with hasten, ios, ageless. Speed well..with just granite going, it is just bearable. TPing works. Again, not a playstyle, not bad for everyone, but could stand to be a lot more friendly.

And why would keeping the same level of toughness be that bad? It IS so tough already, better that just about anything else in all situations. Regardless of people play it or not..it still is the toughest. You are saying..that making people want to play it is..bad?

By the same token, you say /Fire is clearly the most popular on Brutes. Oh, its being played a lot! It cant be played a lot AND good, right?

Something is always going to be the best/most played. Is wanting to take a set thats almost extinct, and have people want to play it, such an awful idea?

Also, read what we were saying. Keep teh overall toughness similar (hell, or lower it into 'normal' territory), but make it so the other toggles are worth and needed to be picked. That would serve to make the set LESS flexible than now, by far. Cause now, your just need granite, earth em, and stone skin! Damage aura if you want, mez prot isnt that needed. Meaning more set powers needed, less choice, less slot, less options. Just like a more balanced set.

Lets not mess up this set. Fixing it is as simple as making granite custom and lowering the self debuffs. I would even be willing to let the slow debuffs stay, just lower them significantly. I mean, it does fit with the theme. Your made of stone, your heavy. The recharge and damage debuffs need to be gone or set to -10 or -20% each.

Set fixed. No breaking of the cottage rule.

I think your idea has merit. It won't be on the list of things to fix, because it functions well in the late game despite the absurdity of the interaction here. The equivalent would be modifying Invulnerability to raise general survivability, and then converting Unstoppable into a short-term (think 15s), long cooldown take-zero-damage buff.

The only thing I would really want to change is the speed penalty and -jump from rooted.

Having your mez protection outside of granite having such a big penalty is the biggest drawback to making the set fun.

Make it just like grounded, even if some of the regen has to be changed. Even though in granite rooted is not really needed and with IO's you can get a pretty good run speed, its the playtime that is such a pain outside of granite.

On my stone tank I was able to pretty much softcap defense to all (except fire/cold) outside of granite and was pretty much on par with other tanks and only needed granite as a emergency power. You know what though I still stayed in granite because I was able to move faster then with rooted on, and having no mez protection on a tank well you know that answer.

Personally I would like to see the Granite look be customizable and that female stone tanks get bewbies.

I like a lot of what's in the OP, especially with the stacking armor. I don't think people respec out of the other armors that much anymore because of needing places to put IOs, and I don't run in Granite unless I just have to for the extra challenge, but it would just be a more elegant set if the armors worked in conjunction with each other rather than against.

If the devs feel like Granite still needs the "psi hole", then have Granite still turn off or otherwise neuter Minerals.

Most of all, I'd love for Rooted's -Jump lowered. Nothing says "not super" more than being occassionally defeated by a higher than average curb, or a velvet rope.

I actually find the -rech to be more crippling than the -movement or -jump. I like teleporting around on my Stone Tank. In fact, he's the only character I have in which teleport is tolerable due to the -fly debuff (I can't stand the momentary floating after teleport).

But the -rech is the deal-breaker for me. It almost single-handedly keeps me from establishing any decent attack chain or relying on Earth's Embrace more than once per mission. I don't mind being slow or unable to jump, but when a debuff turns all of my fun powers into "one use per mission" powers, it just sucks the enjoyment out of them.

Protip: You can turn off granite armor and rooted in between combat. Allowing you to zoom to the next fight unhindered.

I've been involved in a few threads discussing this topic. While I would love to see Rooted get the Grounded treatment, I'd leave the rest alone.

I've recently come to this conclusion:I think it would be harder to "fix it", without major changes, then to just start over. Just make a different set from scratch.

I think the basic concept of having granite stack with your other armor so that it isn't a one power set is a good idea.

If I were doing it, I would want the set to get up to about 70% res and 20% def without granite, then 90% s/l res, 80% other res, and 30% def with granite (from the set and enhancements, not including pool powers).

So you could tank fairly well without it, but if you needed the boost you could get it at the cost of -rech, -dmg, etc.

I would be more interested in Stone Armor if it kept the movement penalties but got a Teleport power built in. I'm fine with it needing a unique way to get around, I just feel the set should provide that rather than pushing you into a specific pool. It also gives an opportunity for a unique Teleport animation that mademore sense in the context of the set (probably diving into the ground or tunneling), maybe using that "crack in the earth" animation, and then popping up in a new location.