Okay let me talk about the problem with these counters:
1. Doublicious: It is not guaranteed so it might not proc as you wish. Also, she is natural silver which means her stats are low which makes her less optional to deal with tanks in general.
2. Purrfect dark: Probably the best counter but taking good 10 second for a character can be annoying.
3. Rusty, Headstrong: First, they are natural bronze so they generally have lower stats which makes them more difficult to deal with tanks. I'll talk more about bleed stuff later.
4. BMF: Its natural silver and because of it even if it applies armor break, it is just not enough to deal with tanks in general.
5. BoF and Battle Butt: Sure that one hit won't be reduced unless its untouchable. But the issue comes after you do that ability. You will most likely let them have 2 or more stack and deal absolutely no damage and force to just use grab until your battle butt is ready or armor expires.
6. Primed with canopy bounce and silent scope: Same issue with Bof and battle butt. Few blockbusters that hits less are not enough.
7. Low combo fighter in general: Looks good on paper. But that is just not true at all. Even if you use beowulf or cerebella, you will most likely end of with enemy with 2 to 3 stacks which means they don't receive any damage unless you use armor break which can be easily negated by consistent gain of armor.
8. Silent Kill: The only downside is that proc is not always consistent. That is pretty much it.
9. Eliza: like I said above, few skills that hits less or remove buff is not enough.
10. Bio exorcist: Its strong on paper, but overrated. drain is not really fast enough to kill enemies quickly. The only thing actually deals damage is drag n drag and even that can proc armor which can be troublesome if fighting against RE
11. Bleed characters: They are generally weak against high bleed resist and well developed nodes can have defenders with high bleed resist.
12. Buer Thresher: Same issue with others above.
If we actually consider all the problems above, the only reliable counters are purrfect dark, silent kill, and sketchy and even these aren't all that perfect. Also even if we agree that these above except the low combo fighters are counters, it is still problematic that makes most of the characters unusable in rift because armor is just too common. By at least buffing armor break, this allows nearly all characters a chance to deal with armor filled nodes.
I get the feeling you haven't tried all of these options. Doublicious, for example, won't transfer buffs on every hit. She will, however, transfer them in a simple combo. Chaos also helps because she has a chance to unflict armor break, curse, or bleed to directly counter armor. Again, there is no 100% chance on this, but in my experience with a diamond Doublicious, she usually will land these and has no trouble with eating enemy's buffs.
As far as silvers and bronzes, I've seen no issue with them keeping up against others. My diamond Sheltered still nukes enemies with ease and is ultimately more cost effective than my Primed. Both have worked great for me. If the concern is chip damage, which again, I haven't had issues with, then bring along team support.
PD's near permanent curse doesn't seem worth complaining about simply because it takes 10 seconds. Even if your opponent tags out, a simple juggle combo covers most of those 10 seconds. I'm still in the process of building her, so maybe the enemy tags out a lot against her, but I haven't had that issue in Prize Fights. Also, you say the other silver and bronze options are bad because of their tier but say PD and Sketchy are some of the best options. Alrighty then.
For characters with just a few debuff moves/buff removal, a Harlequinn using Battle Butt into DaF has been a staple for me on the Armor node, along with Poltergust running Drag N Drop. My Primed probably does better with this only because of her Diamond status, but I imagine that any character like this built well can keep up against armor.
Low combo fighters aren't the most ideal, but again, Cerebella and Parasoul come to mind and they both are equipped to deal with armor.
Your issue with bleed confuses me because armor break resist is a thing too. You also seem to agree that beyond that, bleed is a good option, but then say that Bio is too slow despite her being the equivalent of a near-permanent bleed. I'm a bit confused if I'm being honest. I've used a 9k Bio against 30k opponents and she's come out on top in a reasonable amount of time. Solid fighter.
I think the issue with Armor is less about it's counterability and more about the perception of how fights go. Yes, there are ways to counter armor, though among the ones you listed, not all of them are consistently viable and not all are easily obtainable. But even with the counters to armor being available, Armor/damage reduction itself is just a very boring and cheap-feeling way of making defense teams (especially when multiple nodes put a focus on Armor). It's not exciting to have to tackle so many fights in similar ways, or to sit back and wait for armor buffs to expire, or to watch your damage values suddenly turn into zero mid-combo. Stalling tactics, while effective, are boring. I would very much like it if alternative tactics and synergies were made just as effective and attractive as armor-based/damage reduction tactics.
Not to mention, Catalysts were originally touted as providing a lateral difficulty shift to rifts, allowing for unique defense maps, yet the meta seems to be focusing on Armor-based modifiers, and modifiers like Armor Rating instantly make any node as tough as or tougher than the Reactive Armor/Hail Mary node below the boss node. Both of those things seem to detract from the original intent of Catalysts.
Personally, I've always found armor to be an odd buff, because each stack grants 25% damage reduction, it stacks up to 5. There's no reason anyone should ever need 125% damage reduction; that value makes no sense. So I've always been a proponent of first lowering each armor stack to 20% damage reduction. But beyond that, with most players shooting for that 50% Defense stat cap, it becomes too easy to achieve a 100% damage reduction value in many scenarios, especially with Armor Rating and similar catalysts. I personally feel that 100% damage reduction should be more difficult to achieve, given how brokenly useful it is.
I agree, the idea of armor becoming the back bone of mose bases sounds boring. That's why I thought it would be best to limit the number of certain catalysts in one base, or maybe just get rid of some of these catalysts so not so many of them are armor centered. I don't think getting rid of any is the best option, but if players who have them got reimbursed then no harm, no foul.
For the longest time, I actually thought armor reduced damage by 20% because it made the most sense. I could understand the desire to lower it to 20%. In the case of 2 armor stacks with 50% natural defense, maybe natural defense could cap lower because you make a good point. 30% or something where you'd need more than 2 stacks to become invincible to everything but bleed.
