Focused Feedback: Stone Armor - Revamp and Proliferation

[Booper]

This is a Focused Feedback Thread

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• The most up-to-date version of the changes will be listed in the first post.
• The changes in each build will be posted as replies.
  • Changes from the previous beta build are listed in green.
    • Green text will become white text in the next set of patch notes.
  • Any changes or fixes that are only relevant to the beta builds are listed in blue.
    • Blue text will be deleted in the next set of patch notes as it is only relevant to highlight changes between beta builds, not a changes from live.
  • Known issues are listed in purple.

 

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Stone Armor

 

Revamp

• Power Customization
  • Stone Armor powers now have a set of Minimal themes. These themes still display geometry on the character while the powers are running, but are significantly less obtrusive.
• Stone Skin
  • The following stats were moved to Stone Skin from Granite:
  • Added Resistance against Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative and Toxic damage. +10%/7.5% for Tankers and Brutes respectively.
  • Added Defense to all but toxic. +5%/3.75% for Tankers and Brutes respectively.
  • This power should now accept Defense enhancements and sets.
• Rock Armor
  • Endurance cost has been reduced from 0.26 end per second to 0.208 end per second
• Brimstone Armor
  • This power now grants the caster a fire damage proc
  • This proc is based on attacks cast time, instead of their recharge
  • This proc scales with Brute Fury
  • Increased Fire/Cold resistance from scale 2.5 to scale 3.0
  • Added scale 2.0 Toxic resistance
  • Endurance cost has been reduced from 0.26 end per second to 0.208 end per second
• Crystal Armor
  • This power now grants a 20% recovery buff while its active
  • Cast time reduced from 2.01s to 1.0s
  • Endurance cost has been reduced from 0.26 end per second to 0.208 end per second
• Minerals
  • This power now grants a 15% recharge buff while its active
  • Power can now be enhanced for end modification sets and enhancements
  • Endurance cost has been reduced from 0.26 end per second to 0.208 end per second
• Mud Pots
  • Endurance cost for this power has been reduced from 0.78 end per second to 0.52 end per second
• Earth's Embrace
  • Recharge lowered from 360 seconds to 120 seconds
  • Cast time reduced from 2.1 seconds to 1.0 seconds
  • Duration reduced from 120 seconds to 60 seconds
  • The Max HP buff can no longer be stacked with itself
  • Heal scale reduced from scale 4 to scale 1.35
• Granite
  • Players should now be able to do small 1.5ft high jumps while in granite form. This is high enough to jump some small bench-sized ledges, but not enough to jump over enemies or fences.
  • The following stats were moved to Stone Skin from Granite:
    • Resistance against Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative and Toxic damage reduced by 10%/7.5% for Tankers and Brutes respectively.
    • Defense lowered by 5%/3.75 for Tankers and Brutes respectively.

 

Proliferation (Scrappers)

This powerset has been proliferated for Scrappers. This version of the set does not get access to Granite. Instead, it has a new power called Geode. Geode is similar to Hibernate, creating a protective structure where you can regenerate and recover endurance. The power has some big differences from Hibernate: While Geode is active, you accumulate Geothermal Power stacks that increase the damage inflicted by Brimstone's fire proc. Geode does not trigger NoPhase locks, nor is it blocked by them. Enemies can target and attempt to destroy the Geode structure, once destroyed, the toggle will drop. Any buff aura the player has will remain active and will continue to buff allies.

 

You can transform your skin into various forms of rock and stone. Stone Armor is one of the few Scrapper Defensive Power Sets that offers defense to Psionics. 

•   Rock Armor  Toggle: Self +DEF(Lethal, Smashing), Res(DeBuff DEF)

  • Your skin becomes stone while this power is active. Stone Armor protects you from Smashing and Lethal attacks. They are less likely to land and affect you. Stone Armor also grants you resistance to Defense DeBuffs.

•   Stone Skin  Auto: Self +Res(All but Psionics), +DEF(All but Psionics)
  • Your tough skin is naturally resistant to most types of damage. This power is always on and costs no Endurance.
•   Earth's Embrace  Self +HP, Res(Toxic)
  • You are so connected to the Earth, you can draw upon its power to add to your health. Activating this power increases your maximum Hit Points, and grants you resistance to Toxic Damage.
•   Mud Pots  Toggle: PBAoE, Minor DoT(Fire), Foe Immobilize, -SPD

  • While this power is active, you draw upon the geothermal power of the Earth to create a bubbling pool of hot mud around you. All foes in melee range will become snared and entrapped in the mud, Immobilizing some and slowing others. The boiling heat from Mud Pots may also deal some damage over time to the snared foes.

•   Rooted  Toggle: Self +Res(Knockback, Sleep, Disorient, Hold, End Drain, DeBuff DEF), +Regeneration

  • While this power is active, you merge with the Earth and draw forth its power to become resistant to Knockback, Sleep, Hold, Disorient and Endurance Drain effects, and increase your Hit Point Regeneration rate. Rooted also grants you resistance to Defense DeBuffs.

•   Crystal Armor  Toggle: Self +Recovery, +DEF(Energy, Negative), Res(DeBuff DEF)

  • While this power is active, your skin becomes encrusted in various quartz crystals. Crystal Armor makes Energy and Negative Energy attacks less likely to hit. This power also grants you an Endurance recovery buff and resistance to Defense DeBuffs.

  • Crystal Armor also adds an Elusivity defense bonus to Energy and Negative Energy Attacks in PVP zones.

•   Minerals  Toggle: Self +Recharge, +DEF(Psionic), Res(Confuse), +Perception
  • Activating this power summons several rare earth rock Minerals to orbit around you. These Minerals can disperse thought patterns and make Psionic attacks less likely to hit. They also bring clarity of the mind increasing the recharge time of your powers, your Perception to see hidden foes, and making you resistant to Confusion. 
•   Brimstone Armor  Toggle: Self +Res(Fire, Cold, Toxic), +Special
  • While this power is active, your skin becomes encrusted in cracked magma. Brimstone Armor makes you highly resistant to Fire, Cold and Toxic damage, and helps your attacks set enemies on fire, delivering damage over time.
  • Notes on the damage over time from Brimstone Proc:
    • The DoT damage uses AT modifiers: Ranged_Damage for attacks with base ranges > 20 ft and Melee_Damage otherwise.
    • The DoT damage is scaled based on the attack's cast time (scales between 0 and 3 seconds). This mostly ensures a constant DPS increase despite the speed of one's attacks.
    • The DoT effect has a chance to critical hit for Scrappers.
•   Geode  Toggle: Self +Regeneration, +Recovery, Invulnerable; Self Hold

  • When you activate this power, you encase yourself in various protective mineral layers that can absorb incoming damage while you heal and recover endurance at an incredible rate. You can emerge at will by deactivating the power, but you cannot stay in this Geode for more than 30 seconds. If enemies inflict enough damage, they might break you out of this effect.

  • If Brimstone Armor is owned, this power will also grant Geothermal Power every 2 seconds, increasing the damage inflicted by Brimstone's Fire by 8% per stack. 

  • Note: The Geothermal Powers should last for 60s and can stack up to 15 times. This gives the Brimstone Proc damage a 2.2x boost at max strength.

[Vanden]

On 11/2/2021 at 3:15 PM, Booper said:

Earth's Embrace

• Recharge lowered from 360 seconds to 120 seconds
• Cast time reduced from 2.1 seconds to 1.0 seconds
• Duration reduced from 120 seconds to 60 seconds
• The Max HP buff can no longer be stacked with itself
• Heal scale reduced from scale 4 to scale 1.35

 

Just so everyone's aware, these changes make the amount of healing the power gives you over time roughly the same as it was prior to the change, while the +HP amount is the same and more easily permeable. It's basically a power you want to use as soon as it's up, since the heal is too weak now save you from major trouble.

 

Personally I wasn't a fan of this change in testing. It's now got the same cooldown as Energize in Electric Armor, but with a much weaker heal and no +Regen attached to it. I'm not entirely convinced that the +HP strong enough to make up for that. That said, I'm not a Stone Armor player in general, so I can't get too up in arms about it.

 

Now, the APP versions of Earth's Embrace are unchanged, so I think a name change is in order for either the APP or Stone Armor version. Just changing one or the other to something like Embrace of the Earth should be enough to communicate to players that the powers have different uses and feels to them.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Vanden

[Wavicle]

23 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Earth's Embrace

• Recharge lowered from 360 seconds to 120 seconds
• Cast time reduced from 2.1 seconds to 1.0 seconds
• Duration reduced from 120 seconds to 60 seconds
• The Max HP buff can no longer be stacked with itself
• Heal scale reduced from scale 4 to scale 1.35

 

I'm unclear on the reasoning behind this change.

[Arcadio]

I like the earth's embrace change. All of the dull pain powers add a large survivability boost, but require 100% global recharge to keep perma'd which I don't like. Especially on a granite character that can be an annoying challenge.

[JayboH]

Carrying over notes I had:

 

Geode's buffs get removed per attack, so if you use an AOE, in my case Tremor (why not test both via scrapper) wipes all stacks.  I don't know if this is intentional, if it is per enemy hit or if a stack is removed via interface hitting, as I only tested it on a 50 fully buffed out. 

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

This is more of a text bug, but the Scrapper Minerals power notes say "They also bring clarity of the mind increasing the recharge time of your powers" which would usually mean that running Minerals makes your powers take longer to recharge.

[Captain Powerhouse]

3 hours ago, Wavicle said:

I'm unclear on the reasoning behind this change.

 

Powers like Earth Embrace are very often used primarily for their MaxHP components, and activated as often as possible. Although some hold it back to use it as an emergency heal, that actually lowers survivability making it even more likely that the heal is necessary.

 

An extreme recharge also encourages a user with low recharge build to hold the power beyond when it would had been ideal to use it "because what if I **really** need it later?"

 

If using the power for its MaxHP uptime, more often than not, the the heal magnitude is almost always lost to over-heal.

 

By making the power usable more regularly, for a smaller amount of healing, it is less likely that the user will hold it back in counter-productive ways, and if used regularly, there is more chances of the heal to be beneficial and not just wasted in over-healing.

 

2 hours ago, JayboH said:

Geode's buffs get removed per attack, so if you use an AOE, in my case Tremor (why not test both via scrapper) wipes all stacks.  I don't know if this is intentional, if it is per enemy hit or if a stack is removed via interface hitting, as I only tested it on a 50 fully buffed out. 

 

Did you test this today in Brainstorm?

[Glacier Peak]

Anecdotal testing thus far on Stone Armor changes; results amazing. 

[Wavicle]

Any plans to bring this one to Stalkers eventually?

[hieronymusboss]

Regarding the new power Geode and its color customization:

Currently on Beta you can pick two colors, and they both apply to the rock object and the crystal objects. So picking red and blue will make them both red and blue, etc

 

Shouldn't it work that each color applies to a different object? Because Geodes are often very striking visually for this reason i.e. Brown Rock and Purple Crystal.

In fact, the default power customization shows this, with an orange crystal and brown rock.

TL;DR I think the colors should map to either the Crystal or Rock to preserve the "Geode" theme, not to both items in the animation.

[JayboH]

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Did you test this today in Brainstorm?

Last time I tested it was on Nov 1 on Cryptic.

[Menelruin]

1 hour ago, Wavicle said:

Any plans to bring this one to Stalkers eventually?

Or eventually porting to Sentinels?

[Captain Powerhouse]

2 minutes ago, JayboH said:

Last time I tested it was on Nov 1 on Cryptic.

 

The Brainstorm build has some bug fixes that were not there. This should had been fixed as part of that.

[JayboH]

Just now, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

The Brainstorm build has some bug fixes that were not there. This should had been fixed as part of that.

Nice, thanks

[GetRidOfWires]

Is there a reason the Scrapper version of Stone Armor isn’t also proliferated to Sentinels with appropriate adjustments?

[JayboH]

Just now, GetRidOfWires said:

Is there a reason the Scrapper version of Stone Armor isn’t also proliferated to Sentinels with appropriate adjustments?

Time probably.

[Razor Cure]

Do all the powers look..well..less crappy? Stone armour as it is now (on Live)..taking Granite makes you a big rock and you lose a costume but it still looks better than the shields and poo-shoes.

[JayboH]

14 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

Do all the powers look..well..less crappy? Stone armour as it is now (on Live)..taking Granite makes you a big rock and you lose a costume but it still looks better than the shields and poo-shoes.

Granite did not get new graphics, which Scrappers do not get.

 

Geode looks great, which is only on Scrappers.

[Vanden]

It feels like this is the time to do some power reordering in this set. Brimstone is all the way at tier 8, and 26/35 is a long time to make a character wait for their primary protection from fire attacks, given how common they are. Minerals, on the other hand, is a tier lower than that, even though psychic damage is very rare below the 30s outside of Praetoria.

[JayboH]

Yeah I could see that being switched, but what about swapping Brimstone's placement with Mud Pots instead?

[Vanden]

17 minutes ago, JayboH said:

Yeah I could see that being switched, but what about swapping Brimstone's placement with Mud Pots instead?

 Definitely maybe for Scrappers, but Brutes and Tankers are probably gonna want their taunt aura early.

[JayboH]

4 minutes ago, Vanden said:

 Definitely maybe for Scrappers, but Brutes and Tankers are probably gonna want their taunt aura early.

True

[Errants]

4 hours ago, Vanden said:

It feels like this is the time to do some power reordering in this set. Brimstone is all the way at tier 8, and 26/35 is a long time to make a character wait for their primary protection from fire attacks, given how common they are. Minerals, on the other hand, is a tier lower than that, even though psychic damage is very rare below the 30s outside of Praetoria.

 

3 hours ago, JayboH said:

Yeah I could see that being switched, but what about swapping Brimstone's placement with Mud Pots instead?

 

How about swapping Stone Skin and Brimstone? Fire Pro low, auto power at level 35.

[JayboH]

Ehhh personally for me I would want the smashing/lethal resist early, at least before elemental

[General Idiot]

Perhaps worth noting in that discussion that Stone Skin is now giving some resistance and defense to all but psi, not just smashing/lethal. So you're not completely defenseless vs fire/cold until 26 or 35 now.