Wow, I can't believe I never tried this before...Shield Defense/Stone Melee

[SeraphimKensai]

A few days ago I had an idea for a toon that popped into my head as I was looking at making a new toon with a power set that I hadn't played. Well I've played quite a bit of shield defense as has just about everyone as we all know it's great with positional defense, extra hp, more damage, decent ddr.

 

Now the kicker, having played since Beta back in 2004, I had never tried Stone Melee. Maybe at the time it was unappealing or I was told it was super endurance heavy or put off by more smashing damage, I'm not sure. So since I had never tried it I decided to give it a whirl.

 

My god the synergy between Shield and Stone is amazing. We're talking mobs flopping on the ground nonstop for even more incoming damage mitigation. Fault with a FF+Recharge proc tends to fire off decently as well. Tremor is recharging in around 4.5 seconds, so between Shield Charge, Tremor and Fault things are constantly knocked on their ass and given Tremor's recharge with a 30 second recharge on Shield Charge after IO's I'm doing quite a bit of AoE damage. Single target wise between Seismic Smash, Heavy Mallet, Stone Mallet, and even Stone Fists it gets the job done.

 

For an ancillary/patron on tanks I usually go Mu, but went Earth Mastery just to get Stalagmites and Quick Sand as it fit the theme better. I naturally threw in a Call of Sandman Proc to have a reasonably reliable heal, and Quick Sand further adds to my and my team's mitigation. 

 

Don't sleep on Shields and Stone Melee, they work great together.

 

 

P.S. I read through 37 pages of Tanker Forums and there's never been a thread dedicated to the power set. In one thread someone said they had a SD/SM but people kept thinking the person was talking about a different secondary as and derailed the person's point as we know Shield is good with any set that can be used with it.

 

Keep Tanking.

 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2021 by SeraphimKensai

[ninja surprise]

It's fun!

My boy Ground Combat brings the smash and does great against most of the troublesome enemies, including the bird-women in Dark Astoria, Malta, Carnies, etc. Seismic Smash even holds the Master Illusionists if I do it right. 

I don't even have resistances as high as possible, just defense capped and whatever resist I got on accident. 

[Lancek]

Topic inspired me to make one, pretty fun so far. How did you slot fault?

[KauaiJim]

I don't think you can go wrong with shield on a tanker (or a brute or a scrapper).  Crazy good set IMO.  I haven't paired it with stone yet but I have pairings with battle axe, elec melee, en melee, sav, ss and war mace (and StJ and BS on non tankers).  

[ninja surprise]

On 4/10/2021 at 8:30 PM, Lancek said:

Topic inspired me to make one, pretty fun so far. How did you slot fault?

 

I 5-slot the purple stun set and top it off with the +Rech proc. I love that by default it doesn't do knockback.

 

[Troo]

shhh we don't want.. you know.. n e r f s / r e e n v i s i o n i n g 😉

 

Stone Melee is under appreciated out of the box and on complete builds. Simple & hard hitting with a skosh of utility.

[SeraphimKensai]

On 4/10/2021 at 10:30 PM, Lancek said:

Topic inspired me to make one, pretty fun so far. How did you slot fault?

Honestly I just used a force feedback recharge proc in it. That was enough to turn the 20 second recharge into a 5.2 second recharge, so it works great for team damage mitigation and a pretty reliable proc for FF:recharge.

[JasperStone]

On 3/16/2021 at 8:21 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

A few days ago I had an idea for a toon that popped into my head as I was looking at making a new toon with a power set that I hadn't played. Well I've played quite a bit of shield defense as has just about everyone as we all know it's great with positional defense, extra hp, more damage, decent ddr.

 

Now the kicker, having played since Beta back in 2004, I had never tried Stone Melee. Maybe at the time it was unappealing or I was told it was super endurance heavy or put off by more smashing damage, I'm not sure. So since I had never tried it I decided to give it a whirl.

 

My god the synergy between Shield and Stone is amazing. We're talking mobs flopping on the ground nonstop for even more incoming damage mitigation. Fault with a FF+Recharge proc tends to fire off decently as well. Tremor is recharging in around 4.5 seconds, so between Shield Charge, Tremor and Fault things are constantly knocked on their ass and given Tremor's recharge with a 30 second recharge on Shield Charge after IO's I'm doing quite a bit of AoE damage. Single target wise between Seismic Smash, Heavy Mallet, Stone Mallet, and even Stone Fists it gets the job done.

 

For an ancillary/patron on tanks I usually go Mu, but went Earth Mastery just to get Stalagmites and Quick Sand as it fit the theme better. I naturally threw in a Call of Sandman Proc to have a reasonably reliable heal, and Quick Sand further adds to my and my team's mitigation. 

 

Don't sleep on Shields and Stone Melee, they work great together.

 

 

P.S. I read through 37 pages of Tanker Forums and there's never been a thread dedicated to the power set. In one thread someone said they had a SD/SM but people kept thinking the person was talking about a different secondary as and derailed the person's point as we know Shield is good with any set that can be used with it.

 

Keep Tanking.

 

 

 

I was looking at this paired with Combat tp ....hmmmm  sounds even more delicious now