Sovera

Expected. In some narrow cases. Depends of what content you'll do. I got laughed at being on my tanker and joining an Hami and asked to taunt. Other than that one time taunt never came up. Some people will swear by it. I never noticed its lack, or its presence.

Nein. You do need to be on the ground to activate it, but once activated we can Fly and everything and its effects are still on.

There are no movement penalties with Stone Armor. Granite is a thing of the past, almost a filler power. But not liking the aesthetics is understandable, and yes, it's a bit endurance heavy, but it only means starting endurance early like adding two slots to Crystal Armor and Health/Stamina, or relying on Recovery Serums once in a while. It starts by having 40% defence by level 13 and ends with 45% without Weave, 50% with Weave. 55% with Barrier (all of this psi defence too which is rare for armors to have) , and 76% to all resistances with two ATO stacks, 81% with Barrier. Then Crystal Armor does endurance recovery, Mineral Armor gives recharge, and Brimstone gives a damage boost with a fire proc to all attacks. Not trying to change your mind though, just a bit of 'splainin'.

Pity you don't like Stone Armor since Stone/Fire is still what I consider the most balanced in terms of offence and defence. But I am re-leveling a Fire/Fire Tanker and let me tell you few things beat the dopamine of putting the difficulty at 0x8 at level 10 and then go to town on Posi 1 and forward. Most tough? Heck no, died a few times both on Posi 1 and 2 where the Stone Armor would just cruise. But by Synapse I was dumping three PbAoEs and it is glorious to be surrounded by mobs covered in napalm. A perfect palate rinse after my previous Scrapper who neither was damagey nor could increase the difficulty so much so early.

Hello again, Dian. Up to level 25-30 SOs are much better, the lower level the better. By level 7-10, which is when we can start wearing IOs, the numbers are crushingly in favor of SOs. But by level 25-30 they catch up and surpass IOs just on raw stats without even talking about the bonuses. You can respect and save the IOs for your next alt instead of buying them. Or don't and stick with IOs, it'll work out too.

A Fire/Fire Tanker.

That Seismic Smash slotting hurts my soul. It's the strongest attack and can take two purple damage procs, and four slotting the purples in Gloom to squeeze another toxic proc is a bit oof too. Either go full in with the procs or finish slotting a fifth purple for the 10% recharge. Without touching too much on your power picks I would at least aim towards 77% resistances since the ATO in Heavy Mallet will give 6.7% and it stacks reliably two stacks. This could be lowered to 72% if considering Barrier adding another 5%. I removed several of the slotting aiming for defence since it was not nearly close to reach the softcaps anyway. Ground Zero takes a hit in damage but is up every 25 seconds allowing it to be synced with Build-up and trying to be up for every spawn instead of every two spawns, Seismic Smash got a nice bump up, Tremor takes a small hit but will be up faster and better slotted. Everything but cold should be hardcapped when Heavy Mallet has hit twice-ish. Rad Hammer X - Tanker (Rad - Stone).mbd

The early solo was terrible due to no AoE. I took Fault and the START grenades to make up for it but the grenades were downright better than Fault and they themselves were crappy. Then I barely squeaked a win against Vhaz despite having to go and refuel my insps mid-fight, and even so it came down to having no endurance, toggles not up, Vhaz on the red, me on the red, no endurance to attack, but managed to squeak it. Synapse I teamed for and then at Yin the damage just wasn't there. A single AoE with mediocre damage even six slotted was not putting the enemies down. By level 30 the build was solid though. All endurance problems were solved with Energy Drain with a use as the fight started to boost defence and another to recoup endurance around mid way. But that really shows the slowness as EA was recharged in 40 seconds at the time and I had time to use it twice per +1x8 fight. Despite the lack of slotting the build was coming together at 30 with the AoE only having a small gap where I'd go Heavy Mallet (fish for proc), Tremor, Seismic Smash with small gaps. Bit more slotting and it would seamless. ST was still weak since I took slots from Stone Fist and Stone Mallet but was putting slots in there so it was getting close. But the lack of enjoying is always from crits. When they happen it's great, when they don't happen it always feels like I 'missed'. Brutes with their always on damage just feel better and even when the early leveling is past it's just always on. I'm going to make a Fire/Fire Tanker today to rinse my mouth 😄 AoE at 6, 18, and 24 is just what the doctor ordered.

Persevered to level 30 but wasn't enjoying the character so stopped there, but here's the version with the minor edits: Scrapper (Stone Melee - Energy Armor).mbd

No, you're right, it's peanut damage and comes late to boot. I kept pushing mine but it just wasn't fun and parked it at level 30.

Started it today as well, my brethren. Already noticed a mistake in having a 6th LotG slotted in Weave, ugh, also some other minor edits. Will probably dump a leveling build with some insights for those newer to the game.

One thumb down = forum PvP rant. Yeah, not sure who is coming off as a cultist in here.

I think we all do since the boxing gloves fit with Seismic Smash and Tremor. I've been toying with the idea of one but the lack of early AoE (26) is holding me back since I mostly solo and hitting things one by one is drab. And the last time I leveled one it was a Brute and it couldn't get past the big tanker AV at the end of Manticore. Huge S/L resistances, ugh, one of the few times I had to go pick daggers. I suppose a Scrapper would have a better time with the crits.

That's Sovera, not Sovena! But yes. That said while everyone tries to run away from using Granite I can see the appeal of going around as a big bulky golem with a huge ass axe. But, remember that when you toggle Granite on all your other Stone Armor toggles go off so they are just mules. No point in taking them other than for the purpose of muling. Which is a pity when Minerals gives recharge and will cap Psi defence (which Granite does not have), Brimstone gives damage, and Crystal Armor gives endurance recovery. You could tweak a few things to increase your E/N defenses to the softcap, and Granite has a -30% recharge penalty but you skipped Hasten, and Fly without Evasive Maneuvers/Hover is slow so you might as well just super Jump around. Even with Tough toggled off you're still way overcapped so it could be good to find further ways to transform S/L resistances into something more useful. Your attacks are pretty badly slotted but I'm sure you're aware of this. It's a case of thinking if a Brute would not suit this concept better. You don't need to resistances from the Tanker ATO as you're at 90% already anyway, and a Brute's Fury would at least cover the damage aspect. But it's all null and void if you're playing in teams since stuff will be arrested in a seconds anyway. but if solo this will be a slog. I also predict your endurance will greatly suffer as Axe is endurance heavy and the mostly unslotted attacks will do the job of a Sapper by themselves. It's a good proof of concept but you should play it and see how it feels and then try to balance it out a bit more. Or if it's feels fine just ignore us and carry on 😄

And then you take the Stone Mallet(s) option to be Big Rock Boxing Glove instead and all your attacks including Tremor are Big Rock Boxing Glove to the face! Glorious!

Regen does not have native defenses or resistances so there is no particular need to aim for them. You've done well in aiming for healing instead but even so you have several slotting choices such as the Avalanche in Atomic Blast and Overwhelming in Neutron Bomb and even picking Maneuvers and six slotting it that will not make an appreciative difference. It's not to say the build is ruined or it will not work. You can level and play and it will work just fine. But, for example, you can remove Maneuvers and take Hasten to make your Atomic Blast go from 36 seconds to 29 seconds near ensuring it is up at every group. Tactics is of dubious use as well as most builds will achieve 95% against +3 enemies without its aid and Vengeance is pretty niche as people rarely die in teams and it is of no use if solo. You have Stealth and Grant Invisibility as well which don't bring much to the build (they have their place if it's a theme and you want that so you can be stealthy and make others stealthy. I'm just talking numbers wise). Stealth in particular helps in mobs not noticing as you sneak in to use your PbAoE nuke on top of them. While not as good you can consider using a Celerity stealth in Sprint to achieve this partly. Mobs will notice you sooner than with Stealth, but it saves a power since you have Sprint natively. Both T1 and T2 have bad chances to make procs go off and that purple damage proc from Apocalypse would have a better chance to go off in one of your stronger but slower attacks (the longer the recharge the better chance of going off). Six slotting Apocalypse is almost of no use since it grants 5% psi defence which lets you be at.. 8%. Might as well replace the damage IO for a damage proc. Atomic Blast is a power that can have a 30% damage boost from having multiple procs in it. As it is right now it does 419 damage. With some tweaks it can be at 570. No point in slotting accuracy into it since Aim will be used first to boost it which will in turn boost its accuracy. With further tweaks to the build it ends being up every 26 seconds instead of the original 36. Speaking of Aim it should have a Gaussian proc in it to increase that initial burst. It's another 80% on top of the native 50% of Aim itself. In Tactics as it was it would go off at random when ever it pleased it. In Aim it will go off when you use Aim, which is when you're going to open up with your big bottomed nuke. Things that you could consider would be adding the other PbAoE, Irradiate, since you're already going into melee range to land Atomic Blast. While there you can use the other one too. With Hover you can be floating over their heads and out of their melee range while Irradiates still hits them. There was a free slot by the time I was done and nothing that grabbed me. I took Tashibishi as a one slot wonder. It's caltrops and they make the mobs flee in fear when standing on it. But caltrops also slows the enemies. So they flee in slow motion allowing to be a good segue to landing Aim + Atomic Blast + all other AoEs and finish with Tashibishi. Instead of fighting back the survivors are slowly running away while you pick them off. It's a flex power so take what tickles your fancy here. I have never played Regen but here are some changes to give some slotting ideas. If you consider an alt in the future think about Bio Armor that has semi comparable regeneration but also defenses and it even adds more damage which is rare in an armor. I've shuffled the powers to make more sense for exemplaring/leveling but it might not be what you'd like such as TP Target being taken late in favor of having all the accoutrements of Fly as early as possible without pushing damage powers for later, or a couple passive regen powers pushed for the 30s since doing damage early is better (IMO) as we can eat a couple inspirations if in trouble. Gamma Hawk v1 - Sentinel (Radiation Blast - Regeneration).mbd

Decimation (without the proc) is my goto as well. Just like the sheep from the moon said I too tend to keep that set even once at 50 since it is chock-full of good bonuses.

Alright, fixed. This time with Offensive toggled on (good catch). Chromium 3.0 [Brute] (Stone Melee - Bio Armor).mbd

Ugh, you're correct that I forgot about Offensive shaving 7.5% off. BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD!

Hello friendo. The build as is will carry you in the end game so no need to change if you're pleased with it. That said there are some improvements if you care to make them. - F/C defence isn't as important as having E/N up. There is a crapola more E/N out there than F/C. S/L defences are a struggle (but can be done) but not nearly as important as Erratic pointed out. Bio has strong S/L resistances so not having S/L defences is not as important. Now E/N (and F/C) have weak resistances and thus need the defences. - The S/L resistances past 90% is something that can be slightly min maxed as more than 90% is of no use which could allow slots to be placed somewhere else. - So, one thing I've noticed is that you skipped Seismic Smash. It's your biggest, strongest attack of the set AND it will CC a boss in one hit thanks to have a maf 4 Hold AND because it has a hold you can slot the purple damage proc from the Hold set. I don't really want to mess with your power choices since you picked them for a reason, but I would sacrifice Parasitic Aura. Tbh anything Parasitic Aura does can be replaced by an inspiration of two, IMO. Unfortunately you still want Stone Fist and both Mallets to complete your ST rotation so if you want to skip Seismic smash you will STILL have a complete ST rotation, but you'll be skipping on (don't forget to set your Fury to 85 for a better idea of what your damage is). - Tremor is a great place to have a Force Feedback proc and I would advise to go for it. - Maneuvers is way overslotted, and you missed an opportunity to save a slot by placing the unique 5% Shield Wall in one of the places you already had slotted Shield Walls. - You pushed hard on S/L defences but at the same time not hard enough. Reaching 40% at least would have allowed to softcap with the help of 2 minute Barrier. - Build-up could do with a second recharge slot and a Gaussian even if Brutes dilute the use of BU and Gaussian. So with all that in mind this is what I'd pick (replace Seismic back for Parasitic if you feel its lack): Chromium 3.0 [Brute] (Stone Melee - Bio Armor).mbd Stuff is at 40% across the board so that the 5% (at minimum) of Barrier will finish softcapping. S/L is also at 85% expecting Barrier to finish pushing it to 90%. I can't emphasise how little this should be a thing you must do on cooldown. Only content hard enough to warrant the use of Barrier will warrant those last 5%, but if you get there then the panic button that is Barrier extends for the next two minutes. What I would do if it was my build: - Lower S/L defences to 33%. S/L still has value so I'd not completely skip on it but at 33% you can gobble a small purple to be at 45%. This should just be a once in a while thing and not something that needs to be done the second the small purple drops off. You soak a LOT of S/L punishment thanks to the resistances but some E/N attacks will have their S/L component so if taking a beating then eating a small purple will help deflecting those. - No need to faff around with Barrier. S/L res is at 90%, S/L defenses are at 33 and a small purple will softcap if it needs, E/N is softcapped. Barrier is relegated to a pure panic button which will be even less needed since less 5% S/L and E/N damage is slipping through. Chromium 3.0 [Brute] (Stone Melee - Bio Armor).mbd Both are valid so pick what you'd like or if nothing else some ideas on how to slot things.

The ATO2 does not proc for the skill it is in, only on the next attacks. It depends if you meant that to say as wishing to improve your other skills which should work since it's a 3.5 duration proc thus 1.9 for HM + 1 for Stone Fist makes 2.9 so Stone Mallet still fits in the proc. But I seem to think you meant that as giving the 50% chance to Seismic Smash itself (I could be wrong) which would not happen.

Simplest way to check is see how long Hasten still has when its icon disappears. If it disappears, at, say, 15 seconds left on the recharge, then try again but this time non-stop fighting a pylon and see how much is shaved from those 15 seconds by the time it disappears again.

*stares* *has the vapours*

Built this and it looks nice enough to post in case someone might be interested. It's not a max damage build as it goes towards being tanky and lazy. Like me (just the lazy part). ST rotation is Heavy Stone Mallet (fish for the 50% crit proc), Seismic Smash, Stone Fist, Stone Mallet, Stone Fist, repeat. It might make more sense to start with Seismic Smash, then Heavy Mallet as that would feed the crit chance proc to Stone Fistx2 and Stone Mallet as Seismic Smash already hits the hardest and those two skills are the weakest so having an increased crit chance might make them feel more useful to press. I lean towards making the weaker skills more interesting to press but a fat Seismic Smash crit will feel more satisfying. For AoE it will be Heavy Mallet (fish for the 50%), Seismic Smash, Tremor, repeat. Tremor gives Tanker level wide AoE but in return hits like a wet noodle (slightly above Stone Fist). But it does great CC with KD and can take a FF proc which in turn makes it a 3.5 second recharge when the FF proc is up. Without it it'll have a small gap as both combined take 3.6 and the FFless recharge is 4.6. Scrapper (Stone Melee - Energy Armor).mbd Not a leveling build but one can be whipped up if needed.

I think I posted one of these a while back but I've tightened it up a bit. It's not a max damage build as it's built to be gird loins and spank. ST rotation is Cleave, Swoop, Gash and Chop, per usual, but now with both spicy -res procs. Recharge ends neatly at 4.5 which is when Cleave has finished recharging. AoE rotation is just Cleave (fish for the 50% crit proc), Axe Cyclone and Pendulum with a 0.5 gap. Or none if the Force Feedback procs which in AoE situations should be a regular, but who will notice 0.5 gaps either way, eh? The FF procs are more to speed up the build than to fix rotation gaps. Scrapper (Battle Axe - Energy Aura).mbd Obviously not a leveling build but not too hard to swap to a leveling build if someone requires it.