I saw a dev in discord say that was the plan... that's just not a good idea or concept. But it makes me think they are getting orders from above to try and slow down progression on content.. their first attempt with planar defense didn't slow things down enough. We don't need artificial stone skins every 30 secs on mobs.. for one thing you are really going to punish the more casual player.
I think the 'renewing stoneskin' was a 'teasing joke', but who knows. "casuals" (my definition, maybe not yours) aren't doing any of that content. Thus what they are seeing is 'the people that attempt it, blow through it' (because they are way over geared) and they need to slow that down.
this is a bad idea , a decent grp can burn down a mob within 30 secs so this will only afffect grps with less dps.
And the problem with players blowing through a zone is? Is there a huge contingent of the player base begging to stand there whittling down increments?
The slower the player base chews up the content, the less content needs to be made or the later stuff can be finished (hopefully in time) before the players reach that. *flashes back to SoE days...*
If this is actually intended it makes the gap between the well geared and the barely geared groups even WORSE. The reasoning to make the players stand around and be totally ineffective that long for that often is totally beyond my comprehension. NOBODY can think that is ANYBODY'S idea of fun...