Stone melee what to do with out

[hakurr]

so i am working on a Stone / Shield Brute and wondering what can i give up on stone melee i have to give up 2 powers in the stone melee power set i know i will not take taunt but what else can i give up?

[Haijinx]

Hurl boulder

[Onlyasandwich]

Not that you need to drop them all, but here are the powers you could consider skipping in my opinion:

 

Hurl Boulder: It's fun theme and a good IO mule. Bad DPA though.

 

Stone Fist: It's not the worst tier 1, but it's not exactly great.

 

Stone Mallet: I'd personally take either this or stone fist, but no need for both. I'd probably keep this of the two though.

 

Fault: I actually really like Fault! It's great mitigation, but may not be needed depending on how squishy you feel. 

 

 

[Arbegla]

I vote Hurl Boulder and/or Fault, as if I remember correctly, Fault doesn't actually deal any damage, it just has Knock(back?down?) and stun.

[hakurr]

thanks for the input i think i will do with out stone fist and keep fault it could help my team mates with the knockdown. that still gives me stone mallet / heavy stone mallet / tremor / seismic smash / hurl bolder / shield charge for damage attacks to choose from. 

[Hjarki]

Stone only has two AE and only one does damage. I think taking both is a wise idea because it's a great place to slot Absolute Amazement + Force Feedback to reduce the cycle time on Tremor.

 

For single target, let's start with Seismic Smash. It's one of the hardest-hitting melee attacks and it can slot the Unbreakable Constraint proc. At perma-Hasten, we'll need to find a way to spend 5.33 sec between Seismic Smash. If we can tip it slightly over this (~4% more recharge), we can do Stone Fist(x2), Gloom, Heavy Mallet, Seismic Smash as a rotation.

 

Build Up is normally useless for a Brute, but Shield has one of the few long cooldown/high damage attacks around. It's not a Blaster's ultimate, but it's not terrible. However, I'd probably skip it.

 

Taunt is your preference. I normally wouldn't take it on a positional defense set (due to the IO sets available to taunts).

 

Then just skip Stone Mallet and Hurl.

[Troo]

I'll echo Stone Fist or Stone Mallet & Hurl Boulder

[DreadShinobi]

Even for a brute where damage buffs aren't as impactful as they are for ATs with higher base damage, I still wouldn't skip Build Up. With gaussians it is a 160% damage buff and with stone melee and the abundance of forcefeedback procs you can get very good uptime in combat with all the +rchg available. You're also otherwise lacking a +tohit tool to keep your dps up when you get tohit debuffed, when nemesis veng stack, or when you need to finish off that paragon protector that got their MoG off.

[DreadShinobi]

Also shield charge typically does not benefit from +dmg buffs. It has a pseudopet damage cap, not your brute damage cap. It caps at +400%, of which 100% is base, about 100% is enhanced value, and about 180-190% from fury. Against all odds and any +dmg set bonuses will cap out your shield charge damage, leaving no room for benefit from build up, team buffs, or red insps. This is why shield defense is a much better set for scrappers and tanks than brutes, along with better scaling from AAO.

[Hjarki]

11 minutes ago, DreadShinobi said:

Also shield charge typically does not benefit from +dmg buffs. It has a pseudopet damage cap, not your brute damage cap.

Is this actually a thing? I know that on my Radiation/Fire farmer, both Irradiated Ground and Burn go all the way up to 700% damage and they're both pseudo-pets. I'm pretty sure my Ice Blaster can Blizzard @ 500%.  I don't know about Shield Charge specifically, but I don't think there's a general psuedopet limit.

[DreadShinobi]

@Bopper good sir can you confirm shield charge damage cap? first person that came to mind for a good fact check :3

[Bopper]

9 minutes ago, DreadShinobi said:

@Bopper good sir can you confirm shield charge damage cap? first person that came to mind for a good fact check :3

I believe the Shield Charge is classified as a Minion Pet, so its damage cap is 400% (+300%).

[DreadShinobi]

1 minute ago, Bopper said:

I believe the Shield Charge is classified as a Minion Pet, so its damage cap is 400% (+300%).

Thanks. I've always accepted that as fine. In reference to @Hjarkipost do you know why it was set to behave differently than other pseudopets?

 

[Bopper]

Just now, DreadShinobi said:

Thanks. I've always accepted that as fine. In reference to @Hjarkipost do you know why it was set to behave differently than other pseudopets?

 

The summoned pets are flagged with CopyBoosts. I don't know enough about what the extent of that copy, but it could be possible all the attributes of the AT (including damage cap) is passed along to the pseudopet. If that is the case, then it should apply the same to Shield Charge.

 

I recommend test it with screenshots of the combat log. Take a bare build and see what the base Shield charge damage is, then eat a full tray of reds and see if the damage is 7x stronger.

[Hjarki]

I rolled up a quick character on the test server.

 

With no slotting/fury/whatever (+0% damage), I got 26.71 and 64.81 with a level 40 character against even con enemies from a standard fire farm.

 

With +580% damage (Build Up + a lot of reds), I got 106.88 and 259.59.

 

That suggests that the ability is damage capped at 4x damage.