Turn Stoneskin into a passive armor bonus

[supermini]

Right now, Stoneskin (in dwarven racial tree) is not something you would normally put points in at all - 15% proc to increase armor when you already got hit is never going to be useful.

I'd suggest making it passive - 2/4/6/8/10 armor and 2/4/6/8/10% armor hardiness. I could see that being used much more often, and I don't think it's too strong (when compared to another passive bonus like the shaloren crit%).

What do you think?

[HousePet]

It would be better to have the talent not require armour mastery to get a sensible benefit from it.

I approve.

[XLambda]

Finally, Stoneskin would be useful! I approve as well.

[Zonk]

If they got a MUCH lesser version of the Stone Fortress ability(apply % of armor to non-physical damage) it would be interesting.

However I realize that's not going to happen as it would make the ability less special(relatively), and I suspect the mechanic is meant to be fairly unique(it's from a donator class so that MIGHT be a factor).

Oh and btw, whatever the change is, it SHOULD change with talent mastery, in case people want to spend a category point on the tree.

Random idea, what if it was a 100% chance of STACKING +armor buff when hit?
The increase scales with both talent level and damage suffered(non linearly), the maximum with talent level.
Basically the dwarf's skin grows harder and harder as they are attacked, up to a point.

[supermini]

The problem with effects that apply after you get hit is that, well, you already got hit.

If you can stay in melee range long enough for an effect like that to matter, then whatever you are fighting is not that dangerous in the first place.

[SageAcrin]

+armor/hardiness passive is a good idea.

The reactive version is basically a loss-there's no real middle ground for it. Either it's useless(because it doesn't provide enough reduction to justify getting hit, especially with the random proc) or it's too good(because it becomes ridiculously good crowd protection-see the old Defense buffing Spin Fate for how that can get out of control situationally).

Would rather see it be +3/+3 per level, though. That's actually worth bothering to level on mages(Tanks don't care enough).

[Sirrocco]

I dunno. I could think of a fair number of tanks that might be willing to spend 5 to crank armor hardiness by 15% and armor by 15 - particularly if they're stacking a decent level of antimagic to deal with all of the stuff that armor doesn't deal with - or, rather, 4 for 12/12, since you know you're going to get that first one.

[HousePet]

Currently, its only tanks that get any use out of it.