Need some input on a Rad/Stone build...

[Story Archer]

In my effort to thoroughly explore and enjoy Tankers, my newest project is Rad/Stone. I have to say that nothing in the game has made me feel as 'Super' as Super Strength has, but with two of those already in the fold, my attention turns now to this pairing.

 

I find that I'm struggling a little bit with how to properly slot some of the powers, not knowing exactly how they function in live-action play (as opposed to the theoretical descriptions). Conceptually, I'm basically focusing on a handful of powerful attacks, slotting most of them with FF procs to accelerate everything else. I don't love the longer animation times but I do really love the hammer for some reason.

 

In most of my builds I try to avoid the Winter event sets out of cost practicality, and keep my purples to a minimum in general. I'm not worried about delving into Incarnates yet. I've posted a screen shot of the build below; some of the things I'm questioning is whether I'm missing out by not taking Ground Zero and whether I'm confusing how I should slot Particle Shielding vs. Radiation Therapy.

 

 

Single Target damage should be great with Mallet / Mallet / Gloom / Seismic Smash and my crowd control should be fantastic with Fault and Tremor cycling so quickly. Practically speaking, I should have perma-Hasten, along with perma-almost everything else meaningful except for Meltdown which should be up at least half the time. Healing/Absorb/Regen, Recovery and Resistances should all be fine though I admit I'd like to get Psi Res up and have a little higher defenses if I could, particularly S/L. I figure teammates will usually help with the latter, at least.

 

Are there any obvious errors or improvements I could make, and does anyone see any redundant slotting? Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

 

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Edited January 17 by Story Archer

[Spaghetti Betty]

Apologies in advance for the word soup that follows. I'm horrible at organizing my thoughts!

 

I'm not the biggest fan of Tower builds, so I would be scrutinizing from a very offense-oriented point of view.

 

Stone Melee is fantastical at utilizing FF procs! So much so that I would argue you could forego slotting Purples for recharge and just load up on procs instead! What you really want to be doing with those funds is loading up on Winter sets. I know you stated you avoid using them out of fear of the price, but they pay for themselves! Just slotting a 2-piece of most Winter sets will grant you Slow Resistance, which lets you mitigate -recharge debuffs. Since you're Rad Armor, you'll be taking every debuff to the face, so being immune to the most problematic of them is great value! Just get Lords of Winter Super Packs instead of trying to buy the enhancement directly from the AH. It's more cost effective and you get a lot of bonus goodies!

 

Radiation Therapy is missing 1 critical IO - Theft of Essence: Chance for +Endurance. This extremely balanced IO has a very high chance to sap End from every target hit, guaranteeing a full refill on click. This will handily solve any End problems you might have running Stone Melee!

 

Fault should absolutely be slotted for damage. It's on such a low timer that the KD spam alone will be enough control to keep you very safe! Take advantage of it slotting Ranged AoE sets and drop an Anhilliation: Chance for -Res in there. It has a good proc rate and will soften up targets so that Tremor can actually do something!

 

1 overarching thing that I disagree with in your build strategy is overslotting Maneuvers, Weave, and Tactics to try and build DEF. Rad Armor Tankers absolutely do not need DEF in order to be impervious to 98% of content. Having great RES, a great heal, 3k effective HP (whatever you have now + 800-1k absorb from Particle Shielding), and a secret 4th thing is more than enough to deal with mobs!

 

By the way, the secret 4th thing is Rad Armors ability to inflate your damage through clever use of the IO system! Here, I can post a build to provide an illustration of what I mean. **This is 100% a no expense spared endgame build**

 

Tanker (Radiation Armor - Stone Melee).mbd

 

As you can see, my Tanker here sacrifices a tiny bit of protection for a ridiculous amount of offensive output. You were asking about Ground Zero, so check this out!

This is a nuke. There are no ifs ands or buts about it. You have a nuke in your armor set.

In fact, this is a nuke too! A nuke that heals your HP and End?!

 

On top of your armor set being a Blaster primary, Stone Melee's proc math is excellent and is where the set can really be taken to the next level. I hope some of these ideas help you out!

Edited January 17 by Spaghetti Betty