Stone Armor Combos

[StriderIV]

11 hours ago, FUBARczar said:

For me I find Stone to be a strong set.  It's like a much better Ice Armor that is better than EA.  Very satisfying.

 

I made two Stone Scrappers

* Psi/Stone

*TW/Stone

 

I play the Psi/Stone as one of my top two Scrappers. The other one is TW/Bio.  

 

Other Scrappers that have taken a back seat, DM/SD, WM/SD, TW/SR, Claws/Bio, EM/Bio, Psi/Ninja, KM/Rad, 

What do you like so much about the Psi/Stone?

[FUBARczar]

I like Psi melee because I think it performs well, it's also a good DMG type to mix on a team for things like brickernauts, cyclops, hero one, etc.

 

Stone is solid, HP cap, high defense including psi, a smidge of bonus  dmg , +rech, etc. 

[Without_Pause]

Counterpoint, Psionic will perform well once Insight is reworked because it is frustrating to deal with in current form.

[lightpunch]

Has anyone tried a staff/stone scrapper? I'm wondering if the AOE/KD of staff compliments stone well, and if the damage-boosting powers of Stone help give staff an extra lift.

[Obsinious]

6 hours ago, lightpunch said:

Has anyone tried a staff/stone scrapper? I'm wondering if the AOE/KD of staff compliments stone well, and if the damage-boosting powers of Stone help give staff an extra lift.

 

I haven't tried it, but my suspicion is that Stone is sturdy enough to not need the extra mitigation from the KD and  adding a proc to a set with awful damage will still result in awful damage.

[hejtmane]

On 12/9/2021 at 4:35 PM, Sovera said:

I keep looking at Stone Armor for Scrappers but unless I'm blind (possible) it has no agro aura and that turns me off something fierce. If I am to play a Stalker then I'll play a Stalker.

Haha I am the same and I don't like playing brutes tried heck I finally got a tank to 50 last month first time ever never got one on live

[StriderIV]

On 12/10/2021 at 7:59 AM, BrandX said:

People can always take the Melee Hybrid to give themselves a Taunt Aura 🙂

How strong is that taunt aura? In line with the others? I could see Melee Hybrid not being that bad either. This is a good option.

[twozerofoxtrot]

24 minutes ago, StriderIV said:

How strong is that taunt aura? In line with the others? I could see Melee Hybrid not being that bad either. This is a good option.

 

 

Good question, and a little hard to answer (for me) cause they're written differently on CoD.

 

Here is Hybrid Melee Radial T4:

 

and here is Invinciblity from Invul:

 

If "13.6 points" means a Mag 13.6 taunt then it's bonkers stronger, but with a lot less time on target. I've always thought (somewhat axiomatically) that taunt duration was what really affected NPC attention,  hence why Taunt enhancements have shown in the UI they are extending the time of the taunt.

 

But I'm unsure here. It's not obvious to me from CoD what is going on.

 

Edit: unless my understanding is correct and "points" equates to seconds, and they're effectively the same thing.

 

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by twozerofoxtrot
Moment of minor epiphany.

[StriderIV]

24 minutes ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

 

Good question, and a little hard to answer (for me) cause they're written differently on CoD.

 

Here is Hybrid Melee Radial T4:

 

and here is Invinciblity from Invul:

 

If "13.6 points" means a Mag 13.6 taunt then it's bonkers stronger, but with a lot less time on target. I've always thought (somewhat axiomatically) that taunt duration was what really affected NPC attention,  hence why Taunt enhancements have shown in the UI they are extending the time of the taunt.

 

But I'm unsure here. It's not obvious to me from CoD what is going on.

 

Edit: unless my understanding is correct and "points" equates to seconds, and they're effectively the same thing.

 

 

Thanks! Yeah, still pretty confusing 😂 I’ll just have to try it and test haha. Just thinking of this as an option if I ever want to solo 

Edited February 1, 2023 by StriderIV

[aethereal]

@twozerofoxtrot are you looking at this?  https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=incarnate.hybrid.melee_genome_7

 

I see it as 10.2 "points" of taunt, not 13.6, with scrapper modifiers.

 

I strongly think that "points" of taunt means mag of the taunt -- it already has a duration listed.  It kinda seems like this is an error, since that high-mag taunt is unprecedented in usual taunt powers.

 

Here's how I assume that taunt works, though I am liberally guessing here and not doing anything based on real data.

 

I assume that taunt is a status effect (hence being listed in mag with duration).  I assume that there is a fork in the target selection code that basically says, "If the taunt condition is currently active, then choose the taunter to attack (unless the taunter is at aggro cap), else use threat."

 

I also assume -- with even less evidence -- that if there are multiple taunt conditions applied to a single target, it marks target priority based on which is the higher mag.

 

All of this could be wrong!  I'm basically just guessing.

 

Taunt duration enhancement doesn't make a ton of sense for auras (where the taunt is universally re-applied long before its natural duration), but makes good clean sense for the actual taunt powers or other attacks with a taunt component -- it lets you not need to re-apply the taunt for longer, allowing you to do other things (including potentially taunt other targets) before needing to re-apply.

 

In general, there's lots of stuff that the game could do with mag protection or resistance from taunt, that would potentially make tanking much challenging, but which it seems to eschew, I think largely for legibility reasons -- that is, I think the devs think it would be very confusing to try to apply a largely invisible status condition to enemies if the enemies had highly diverse reactions to the application of taunt.

[twozerofoxtrot]

20 minutes ago, aethereal said:

@twozerofoxtrot are you looking at this?  https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=incarnate.hybrid.melee_genome_7

 

I see it as 10.2 "points" of taunt, not 13.6, with scrapper modifiers.

 

No, the T4 as I stated, which provides more values across the board than the T3 version you linked. That's why.

 

20 minutes ago, aethereal said:

All of this could be wrong!  I'm basically just guessing.

 

It's a good guess and makes sense to me. The only caveat here is thar all Taunt Auras across ATs seem to be Mag 3, and all Targetable Taunt Clicks seem to be Mag 4, and they all overwrite rather than stack on themselves. So how the game determines who has a higher Mag for priority is still lost on me.

 

20 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Taunt duration enhancement doesn't make a ton of sense for auras (where the taunt is universally re-applied long before its natural duration), but makes good clean sense for the actual taunt powers

 

Agreed but as per above I'm still not sure what's bringing one character's taunt to the top of the list versus others unless it's taunt duration. I've no way to prove this but loads of anecdotal evidence to confirm this guess, IE: how responsive the same NPC is to slotted Taunt vs. Unslotted Taunt in a threat-competitive environment. 

 

20 minutes ago, aethereal said:

I think the devs think

 

Would love to see what the Devs actually think about it and how this is supposed to work.

 

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by twozerofoxtrot
Autocorrect never actually works in my favor.

[BrandX]

11 hours ago, StriderIV said:

How strong is that taunt aura? In line with the others? I could see Melee Hybrid not being that bad either. This is a good option.

 

I've only taken it on a character with Taunt.  However, only the Defense option gives the taunt aura, so I was trying to decide if it'd be better to use it on a Resist based set or a defense based set.  I was thinking SR wouldn't need it, seeing as it has good DDR.

[InvaderStych]

1 hour ago, BrandX said:

I've only taken it on a character with Taunt.  However, only the Defense option gives the taunt aura, so I was trying to decide if it'd be better to use it on a Resist based set or a defense based set.  I was thinking SR wouldn't need it, seeing as it has good DDR.

 

This is supposed to be true, but I there is something wrong with the Resist side as it breaks Hidden on a Stalker (notifies enemies) and cancels Hidden when triggered by their ATO.

 

It is correctly written without Taunt, but it still notifies enemies for some reason.

 

Edit: If you really want to see critters scatter and take time measured in minutes to return to their spawn point, pair Stone armor with Fire melee.  Ask my stalker about it. 😆

Edited February 1, 2023 by InvaderStych

[aethereal]

I played an Ice/Bio stalker to 50 and T4 incarnates, mostly solo, mostly without 2x XP, mostly at high difficulty modifiers where there were large groups, and I gotta say that all this angst about taunt auras strikes me as extremely overblown.  I've been playing a Brute recently and there are still runners with the taunt aura/punchvoke, and usually it doesn't matter.

[BrandX]

35 minutes ago, InvaderStych said:

 

This is supposed to be true, but I there is something wrong with the Resist side as it breaks Hidden on a Stalker (notifies enemies) and cancels Hidden when triggered by their ATO.

 

It is correctly written without Taunt, but it still notifies enemies for some reason.

 

Edit: If you really want to see critters scatter and take time measured in minutes to return to their spawn point, pair Stone armor with Fire melee.  Ask my stalker about it. 😆

 

I would guess it's due to buffing you based on the enemies, so it triggers them.

[InvaderStych]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

I played an Ice/Bio stalker to 50 and T4 incarnates, mostly solo, mostly without 2x XP, mostly at high difficulty modifiers where there were large groups, and I gotta say that all this angst about taunt auras strikes me as extremely overblown.  I've been playing a Brute recently and there are still runners with the taunt aura/punchvoke, and usually it doesn't matter.

 

Yup. I can get with this. Between CT and an epic blast (or two sometimes) it's not the lack casual taunt that really matters. Critter runs out to a couple dozen yards to turn and fire? Great. Love it. All about it.

 

Those Resistance Jammers and IDF Bots that stay at range and never close to melee? Totally here for it. Bamf Melee eats these chumps.

 

Incarnate Surgeons rocking Combat Teleport? Bring 'em on. Love fighting these guys. So satisfying.

 

It's when I watch a target run off to gawd knows where for 20-40 seconds - or more - (I've semi-timed this on larger mission maps and in zones) just sort of aimlessly skittering about for no purpose in a seeming panic that is the irritant. Fortunately none of them get more than the range of regular Teleport, so a targeted macro can solve them if I get impatient - but if the map isn't clear that can be ... interesting. 😆

 

Reasonably sure that taunt doesn't fix those cases anyway.

 

For the record, I like the option of building either with or without a passive taunt. 🍻

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by InvaderStych
another example, more accuracy

[bustacap]

On 12/9/2021 at 4:35 PM, Sovera said:

I keep looking at Stone Armor for Scrappers but unless I'm blind (possible) it has no agro aura and that turns me off something fierce. If I am to play a Stalker then I'll play a Stalker.

Ice/stone stalker is pretty sweet

[Greldek]

I have a fire/stone i've been leveling up here and there, and so far it's pretty fun. haven't messed with mids to make a build and just slotting w/e random stuff is in my guild bank. but it sure feels like its a good combo.