Move Status Protection off of one of Stone Armor's Movement-Penalized Powers

[Bopper]

Personally, I like Stone Armor as a set, penalties and all. Sacrifices for Survivability, I accept that and I enjoy that it offers a very unique approach to builds.

 

However, there is one limitation that I can't stand, which is to only offer status protection in Rooted and Granite Armor, both powers result in crippling movement penalties.

 

To allow for folks who want to build a Stone Armor character with the option of not being penalized by movement restrictions, I would propose removing the status protection from one of either Rooted or Granite Armor, and move it to Earth's Embrace, which would provide the same status protection values but for only 120 seconds.

 

This would allow a character to use the other armors in the set for protection while also provide status protection without being weighed down (literally) by either Rooted or Granite Armor. It would also greatly expand the build options for Stone Armor, which I think is a good thing.

 

So above, I provide 2 poll questions on this topic, but also feel free to provide feedback.

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by Bopper

[Obus Form]

I think there's 2 schools of thought for status protection: either put into earth embrace or make it passive.

 

In line with other self heals, I believe earth embrace should be used as a heal only rather than a status protection because it changes from being an auto cast required power to being an actual on-demand heal.  Having tons of run iTrials + badges, I feel an on-demand heal is necessary for any brute/tanker holding aggro for emergencies.

 

Edit:

As the devs evolved their armor set creation skills, we saw the standardization of defense + resist + heals across newer power sets such as Energy Aura and Shield Defense.  

 

However to keep things flavorful instead of streamline boring, I think Stone Armor could remain powerful by having bonus health regen/defense/res when standing still "draw from the earth" passive that grants increasing stacks of some/all those 3 such that when you are standing still tanking AV, this makes you neigh invincible.  This gives the "immovable stone" feeling and reward you for not moving without actual forcing movement/jumping debuffs.  This could even be the T9 power instead of Granite's forced slow/-recharge

 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by Obus Form
Uniqueness

[SeraphimKensai]

Well why not just remove the movement speed debuff, and leave it where it is, and then address some of the negatives of granite but that's besides the point. I would love for a jumping/flying chunk of rock.

[Bopper]

4 minutes ago, Obus Form said:

I think there's 2 schools of thought for status protection: either put into earth embrace or make it passive.

 

In line with other self heals, I believe earth embrace should be used as a heal only rather than a status protection because it changes from being an auto cast required power to being an actual on-demand heal.  Having tons of run iTrials + badges, I feel an on-demand heal is necessary for any brute/tanker holding aggro for emergencies.

 

 

I wrestled with the same thought. On one hand, when I am in the heat of battle and want to preserve my heal on demand, I have the option of the other status protection power (whether it be rooted or granite). In the end, I felt the option to move freely with a clickable buff would provide a better experience than to be stuck on the ground. Plus, you could run without clicking it and the first moment of mezz, fire it as a break free.

[Bopper]

8 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Well why not just remove the movement speed debuff, and leave it where it is, and then address some of the negatives of granite but that's besides the point. I would love for a jumping/flying chunk of rock.

Personally, I'd like to see Earths Embrace and Rooted provide the Status Protection, and give Granite Armor a less severe movement penalty. Something like, you still can't use travel powers nor fly, but you can run and jump as normal (combat jumping and sprint allowed, ninja run and super speed no). Just a thought, but that's a topic for a different suggestions thread.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Bopper

[Obus Form]

6 minutes ago, Bopper said:

I wrestled with the same thought. On one hand, when I am in the heat of battle and want to preserve my heal on demand, I have the option of the other status protection power (whether it be rooted or granite). In the end, I felt the option to move freely with a clickable buff would provide a better experience than to be stuck on the ground. Plus, you could run without clicking it and the first moment of mezz, fire it as a break free.

If it's a reactionary one like break free, it's nice...but seems to defeat the purpose of enemy stun/held mez powers to mean that your character can't activate powers.

 

Could flavour it to say that earth's embrace was the FIRST anti mez power and thus, blessed by Gaia, is able to be used while mezzed.  Nevertheless, id rather still keep it as a on-demand heal than on-demand mez protection.

[Bopper]

7 minutes ago, Obus Form said:

If it's a reactionary one like break free, it's nice...but seems to defeat the purpose of enemy stun/held mez powers to mean that your character can't activate powers.

 

Could flavour it to say that earth's embrace was the FIRST anti mez power and thus, blessed by Gaia, is able to be used while mezzed.  Nevertheless, id rather still keep it as a on-demand heal than on-demand mez protection.

It's funny, although we're landing on separate sides of the fence, we are thinking very similarly. I wouldn't have put it so eloquently as "blessed by Gaia", but I had very similar sentiments of Embracing the Earth for protection, plus it seemed like a neat variant of Rune of Protection, which acts as a break free and lasts 90s with extra resistances as well.

[Bopper]

Another reason why I recommend Earth's Embrace is because it is one of the few powers available for use in both Granite and non-granite. That probably incentivizes EE, Stone Skin, and Mud Pots as usable options.

[Sarrate]

Alternate suggestions:

 

1) Give the various armors a smaller amount of status protection that stack with each other (but suppress fully / partially with Rooted). That would:

* give players a path to have full or partial status protection on the move

* not force players to get all armors for status protection (Rooted still exists)

* not delay status protection for low levels

* not mix a heal, max hp boost and status protection (and those powers take some recharge to make fully perma, unless you're talking about making status protection longer than the typical 2 minutes on click status protection)

 

2) Make Rooted's status protection linger for, say, 30 seconds after detoggling. This would allow Stone to turn it off, reposition, then re-Root and be fine. Potential problems being they forget to re-Root or they're under the effects of -recharge that prevents them from being able to re-Root before the 30 second grace period is up.

 

 

<-- hasn't played ever Stone Armor to a high level

[MunkiLord]

2 hours ago, Bopper said:

To allow for folks who want to build a Stone Armor character with the option of not being penalized by movement restrictions, I would propose removing the status protection from one of either Rooted or Granite Armor, and move it to Earth's Embrace, which would provide the same status protection values but for only 120 seconds.

 

I'm not against this idea, but I think you'll find a lot of pushback changing mez protection from a toggle to a click power, some people really hate it. I don't hate it, but I do know that's been a "fun" discussion when people propose going the other way with sets like SD and SR.

 

Having not played Stone Armor, ever, I'm not sure if this next point is actually a concern for this specific powerset, but would moving such an essential function to Earth's Embrace require a lot of Stone Armor players to respec to still be effective? While this is similar to the concerns I shared in the PPM thread, I actually think it's more important here since mez protection is considered an actual need for melee characters.

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, MunkiLord said:

I'm not against this idea, but I think you'll find a lot of pushback changing mez protection from a toggle to a click power, some people really hate it. I don't hate it, but I do know that's been a "fun" discussion when people propose going the other way with sets like SD and SR.

 

Having not played Stone Armor, ever, I'm not sure if this next point is actually a concern for this specific powerset, but would moving such an essential function to Earth's Embrace require a lot of Stone Armor players to respec to still be effective? While this is similar to the concerns I shared in the PPM thread, I actually think it's more important here since mez protection is considered an actual need for melee characters.

Stone Armor is unique that it has two powers that provide full mez protection in Rooted and Granite Armor (most have one, or require a few powers to reach full mez, iirc), so I think moving one of them to a clickable power with a long duration, which can be made permanent would not cause too much of an uproar (although simply stating that will surely start it's own flame war). 

 

As for requiring a respec, I dont think it would. Earths Embrace is a large heal that provides Toxic Resistance and raises your max HP (enough to achieve capped HP) for 120s. So I think most builds already slotted it for health and enough recharge to achieve perma, so those builds would not require a respec.

Edited March 17, 2020 by Bopper

[Sarrate]

8 minutes ago, Bopper said:

As for requiring a respec, I dont think it would. Earths Embrace is a large heal that provides Toxic Resistance and raises your max HP (enough to achieve capped HP) for 120s. So I think most builds already slotted it for health and enough recharge to achieve perma, so those builds would not require a respec.

It wouldn't be close to perma without IOs. No other set armor set requires IO use to maintain status protection. Also, keep in mind that Granite has -recharge. Even if it you did have enough recharge to make it perma outside Granite, toggling up Granite could break that.

 

If you told me you were going to tie status protection to any Dull Pain equivalent power, I'd say hard pass.

[Bopper]

30 minutes ago, Sarrate said:

It wouldn't be close to perma without IOs. No other set armor set requires IO use to maintain status protection. Also, keep in mind that Granite has -recharge. Even if it you did have enough recharge to make it perma outside Granite, toggling up Granite could break that.

 

If you told me you were going to tie status protection to any Dull Pain equivalent power, I'd say hard pass.

Interesting, I should have considered the -recharge in granite in relation to making Earth's Embrace perma. That does make me lean more towards having EE and Granite have the status protections, instead of having Rooted maintain it. Probably for the best, as Rooted is available early on, when EE will not be close to perma.

Edited March 17, 2020 by Bopper

[ABlueThingy]

It might be interesting to give some status protect to the passive.  Even if just low level.  Would be a neat, fairly unique, trick

[Bopper]

5 minutes ago, ABlueThingy said:

It might be interesting to give some status protect to the passive.  Even if just low level.  Would be a neat, fairly unique, trick

I'm actually wondering if splitting up the mez effects in multiple powers could be a viable option. Perhaps give all mez protections (hold, disorient, sleep, confuse, terrorize) to Minerals (status protections of the psyche), while giving the physical status protections (immobilize, knockback, repel) to a sturdy set like Brimstone or Rock Armor. 

 

Granite would keep its status protections (since it can't have other armors active), while Rooted will give up the status protections, but keep the resistance to end drain, DDR, and regeneration buff.

[Captain Powerhouse]

Why? Wouldn’t it be better just to remove that unnecessary movement penalty from Rooted? Only power that should have penalties is Granite.

[Bopper]

Just now, Captain Powerhouse said:

Why? Wouldn’t it be better just to remove that unnecessary movement penalty from Rooted? Only power that should have penalties is Granite.

If you are hinting at that as a solution, I'm all for it. Thematically I assumed being rooted to the ground makes sense. But like I said earlier, even if the movement penalty was simply "no travel powers nor fly", I'd be quite happy.

[Pzn]

I think the movement penalties in stone armor should be completely removed.  The recharge and damage penalties alone are enough of a tradeoff for granite.

 

[Call Me Awesome]

7 minutes ago, josh1622 said:

I think the movement penalties in stone armor should be completely removed.  The recharge and damage penalties alone are enough of a tradeoff for granite.

 

More than enough of a tradeoff actually.  Yes, it's the most durable set in the game, once it gets it's tier 9.  Before that the set is one of the weakest and that's what should be addressed.  From level 32 on your Stone Armor tanker uses Stone Skin, Mud Pots, Rooted (as needed), Earth's Embrace and Granite Armor.  The other 4 powers are completely unused 98% of the time.

 

If it were me I'd consider allowing the armors to stack and lowering Granite's defense to compensate for the other armors.  Have Granite be the capstone power, not a complete replacement.  Additionally allow a "no FX" option for ALL armors, not everyone want's to look like a DE monster or run around with a loaded diaper stuck to them.  Ideally running all your armors including Granite will end up with the same or nearly the same values you have currently with just Granite alone.  While you're at it get rid of the movement penalties entirely or at a minimum greatly reduce them and maybe just keep a small recharge penalty.  You're a hunk of rock, you shouldn't LOOSE damage in that form.

[Bopper]

30 minutes ago, Call Me Awesome said:

Additionally allow a "no FX" option for ALL armors,

That might be the biggest buff Stone Armor could receive, actually. Lol

[Razor Cure]

The whole set needs a look. Just changing the status wont suddenly make it less crippled by the drawbacks.

In regard to the -speed...HOW do teh DE Granites managed to run at full (full for baddies) pace, since they are literally in granite all the time.

[Slithershot]

As someone who actually suffered through leveling to 50 as a rockhead on live... I personally wouldn't mind an overhaul of the set in general. It might actually convince me to make one again. 

 

It seems pointless to me that all the other armors have no purpose once you get granite armor. 

 

I'd like to see granite armor get a nerf stat-wise, and then allow the other armors to be active at the same time. That way it would function like almost every other defensive set in the game. 

 

Now, as far as the root... I've always thought it was kinda silly. I'd rather see rooted just turned into a different power entirely. I don't particularly like the concept of the power itself. There's few other "required" powers in the game that so horribly cripple someone for their most basic functions. Okay, fine, it's a thematic thing, but that doesn't change that nobody wants to play it because of the drawbacks. In a time of IOs where almost any other set can reach survivability with a cheap build that can almost be compared to a stone/granite tank, it's lost its place as a gimmick. 

 

 

 

Idea 2: 

Keep everything the way it is.... but make granite big. Really big. POWERFUL BIG. You're a friggin golem of rock... when you hit something it should HURT. Give granite damage. Lots of damage. Fine, make it a slow lumbering ogre, but make it hit like one too. If it's going to be a gimmick set that barely anyone plays because of silly thematic drawbacks, fine, but make it a fun gimmick. 

Edited March 17, 2020 by Pizzamurai

[ABlueThingy]

I dunno man... It really feels like stone needs a big rework to get it out of the binary boring state it is in now.  Both thematic and mechanical.

 

It may not be popular but I liked the old days of the armors being unusable with one another.  I'd like to see that brought back-- HOLD ON DONT KILL ME --while also patching holes in the set.

 

Give some decent def/res to all the armors with a large boost to their specialty.  Change rooted/mud/ee/ss/ to have thematic buffs.  So while brimstone armor is on mud pots does a fire for on people and EE gives a small buildup, things like that.

 

Make all of them stack with granite armor and lower granite's value (rock + granite = present day values) and give us the option to shut off rockmanmode graphically so we can just have one simple state

 

Hm... Ideally you could make it so turning an armor on and then granite gives you boosted values but turning granite on first doesn't give you and def/res but it unlocks armor stacking for the people that want to mix types and min max it, the penalty just  being the end cost.  And some people like looking like a random pile of stuff.

 

 It that's my pie in the sky stone

[Obus Form]

58 minutes ago, Pizzamurai said:

As someone who actually suffered through leveling to 50 as a rockhead on live... I personally wouldn't mind an overhaul of the set in general. It might actually convince me to make one again. 

 

It seems pointless to me that all the other armors have no purpose once you get granite armor. 

 

I'd like to see granite armor get a nerf stat-wise, and then allow the other armors to be active at the same time. That way it would function like almost every other defensive set in the game. 

 

Now, as far as the root... I've always thought it was kinda silly. I'd rather see rooted just turned into a different power entirely. I don't particularly like the concept of the power itself. There's few other "required" powers in the game that so horribly cripple someone for their most basic functions. Okay, fine, it's a thematic thing, but that doesn't change that nobody wants to play it because of the drawbacks. In a time of IOs where almost any other set can reach survivability with a cheap build that can almost be compared to a stone/granite tank, it's lost its place as a gimmick. 

 

 

 

Idea 2: 

Keep everything the way it is.... but make granite big. Really big. POWERFUL BIG. You're a friggin golem of rock... when you hit something it should HURT. Give granite damage. Lots of damage. Fine, make it a slow lumbering ogre, but make it hit like one too. If it's going to be a gimmick set that barely anyone plays because of silly thematic drawbacks, fine, but make it a fun gimmick. 

Earlier powers lack def/resist (e.g. fire/cold)

I echo your experience playing a /Stone Armour brute on live, specifically that the powers before T9 miss certain defenses/resists (fire/cold) thus decreasing performance compared to newer armor sets (Energy Aura, Shield Defense) that naturally build up resist/defenses without such obvious holes as you level.   I understand thematically that rock is weak to fire/cold (lava melts, ice cracks) but having no resist or defense to something for a tank/brute designed to hold aggro gives the tank/brute little reaction time when taking such damage.  Outside of the obvious weaknesses of /Fire Armor and /Ice Armor lacking Cold/Fire resist, I am of the thought Fire/Cold damage should be regularly resisted, unlike rare damage Toxic and Psychic.

 

No issue with T9 obsoleting other powers.

I have no issue with the unique design of T9 Granite obsoleting previous Tier Defense/Resist powers AND giving -recharge and -damage.  It's power is commensurate to not needing other armor toggles/doing less damage, and this T9 is very unique to /Stone Armor. 

 

Make T9 allow some movement

However, I think the unique flavour of T9 Granite should remove -speed/jump.  For QoL and specifically iTrial tanking requiring movement to avoid damage/death (especially for some Keyes iTrial badges) or aggro new mobs, Granite should naturally allow jumping and movement up to Combat Jumping/Hover, but not Super Speed/Super Jump/Fly.  Fights often require movement of the maintank/offtank/such a movement penalty forces your personal speedboost Defender/Corrupter into the danger zone.  I think the opportunity cost of T9 Granite should only affect yourself via -damage/-recharge without having bring risk to the other raid members via personalized Defender/Corrupter speedboosting you.

 

Back to mez protection

So give T9 Granite all the mez protection it needs without needing Rooted to increase mez protection and increase the player's regen.  With such -damage/-recharge, the design philosophy clearly defined the role "Tank Damage" anyways.  When exemplaring below T9 Granite, we'll deal with toggling all the other /Stone Armor powers.

 

Separately, as @Captain Powerhouse mentioned, I prefer the direct removal of Rooted requiring you to be rooted.    

[Replacement]

I truly believe Stone Armor is the one time where the best course of action is to give the Cottage Rule a swift kick in the ass and go for full reboot.

 

BUT... until that's an option, I'd change Rooted to have the following effects:

• Detoggles travel powers
• Only gives the regeneration while on the ground (mez protection at all times)

Do I think these penalties are necessary? No. You could remove all Rooted penalties and the set would still be a museum specimen of game design. But a lot of folks think some level of drawbacks and general sense of lumbering adds to the set's charm.

 

I am definitely not a fan of adding the mez protection to a critical heal power instead.