Looking at Page 7 here is a Stone/Elec Melee with 45% defenses and 90% resistances.

[Sovera]

To be fair the only improvement is Elec Melee having Thunderstrike with better numbers. It now hits harder, recharges a bit slower, and animates faster going from 3.3 to 2.5. Almost worth using for ST, I guess.

 

So I thought hey, lets look at it paired with Stone. Stone Armor has an endurance problem that the extra endurance from Crystal Armor is unable to cope with, but Elec Melee has a secondary effect of sapping mobs and giving the endurance back to us. It also adds a small damage boost that Elec Melee desperately needs.

 

The single target rotation should be something like Thunderstrike, Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Charged Brawl, Chain Induction, Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, repeat.

 

I didn't actually level it, and the ST damage will still be slow since, barring Thunderstrike, the hardest hitting does... *drumroll* 260 damage, lol.

 

Okay, no, it will do a bit of damage extra since Brimstone does a damage proc that Mids currently does not account for.

 

 

To the meat and bones:

- Softcapped defense to all (except Fire, Cold, and Toxic) without Weave. Weave is taken but only as a mule for another LotG since I'm out of slots and out of interesting powers. Toggle it on if you want to reach 50%, trade two slots from Minerals to reach 52%.

- "Okay, but we're fighting Devouring Earth and they destroy my defenses!" That's fine, you ALSO get 90% to all resists with the sole and single exception of Psi with 3 stacks of the ATO and 5% from Barrier. A miserable 86% to S/L and 84(.9) to E/N with Barrier and only two stacks.

- 130 seconds Hasten though the FF proc in Thunderstrike should make it perma or close to.

- Capped HP, so 3.5k with the accompanying 63 HP regen.

- Endurance mightshouldmaybe be okay with 2.06 end use and 4.56 EPS plus 4 endurance procs and come page 7 Focused Accuracy will have its costs halved which will help a bit more.

 

 

FAQ.

 

Why no Lightning Rod?

A: It sucks. Low damage for a long cooldown. Wrong first impressions borne from who knows where. Turns out it does good damage. I don't like it due to the long cooldown (I play ranged characters for that) but Lightning Rod is worth the pick for those who don't mind it,

 

And it just so happens that the build does happen to have a free power slot. The ones who want to use it (and to be honest it is almost the reason to pick Elec Melee) can remove the five slots from Focused Accuracy and slap them on Lightning Rod.

 

Something like this. If not wishing to chase resistances just slot 5 Armaggedon with an Eradication damage proc.

Tanker (Stone Armor - Electrical Melee - LR).mbd

 

Free power?

A: There was nothing else that interested me. Take Taunt, you're a Tanker, right? Or Conserve Power. Or Lightning Clap (accuracy sucks though but a +5 accuracy will put it at 88%).

 

What about Gloom?

A: Too long a recharge to be part of the attack chain so it's only used every two rotations. Page 7 further increases its recharge. Replace something for it if wanting it in though, it's a build, not a bible.

 

Fly is taken so late!
A: Use a 5k jetpack from the P2W to move around until 26. Or replace Hasten with Fly.

 

This is not a leveling build.

A: Well, it kinda is, the powers are taken in order and what is stays, but yeah, some slots will move around at 50. If someone needs a leveling build just beep me and I'll replace the IOs for cheaper stuff.

 

Tanker (Stone Armor - Electrical Melee).mbd

 

Edited February 1 by Sovera

[Sovera]

Took it for a spin and did part of Posi 1 and part of Yin.

 

With amplifiers it was at 38% to S/L and 40% to E/N at level 15 for Posi 1. For Yin it was at 45% at level 25.

 

The AoE is still mediocre since Thunderstrike still isn't a real AoE which made Posi 1 slow, and Chain Induction ALSO isn't a real AoE which made progress through Yin slow. But, not that bad, though I was sapped pretty badly at Yin and had to eat a small purple during Posi 1. For Yin there was no need for small purples, obviously, since being at softcap at such low levels is playing with godmode on.

 

ST felt a lot snappier than I remember Elec Melee being to be honest. I'm not invested enough to try hitting a pylon and see but I was going through things at a good clip and Thunderstrike was chunking enemies and that's without damage procs which it takes well to (48% chance for a regular one). By level 25 I was close enough to do the Thunderstrike, Charged Brawl, Chain Induction (as it was the build's AoE I wanted it in the Gaussian window), Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Charged Brawl rotation. Not quite, and it had to have Hasten up, but it's normal and expected when still barely slotted and with only one LotG still.

 

 

While it's not quite my cup of tea since I'm damage oriented I think it's good as is.  It sparked my interest in dusting the old Fire Armor/Elec Melee since Thunderstrike at such a low level doing Force Feedback shenanigans sounds *very* enticing, and Burn will make up for Elec's mediocre AoE while being boosted by Thunderstrike.

 

 

I'll leave the 'leveling' build I used by level 22.

 

 

Tanker (Stone Armor - Electrical Melee - Leveling).mbd

[ZemX]

18 hours ago, Sovera said:

but Elec Melee has a secondary effect of sapping mobs and giving the endurance back to us.

 

Well, not the "giving back" part but I assume you are doing this with Perf Shifter procs?  Can't view the build right now.

[Sovera]

44 minutes ago, ZemX said:

Well, not the "giving back" part but I assume you are doing this with Perf Shifter procs?  Can't view the build right now.

 

It's only a 10% in the ST attacks, AKA Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch:

 

[ZemX]

2 minutes ago, Sovera said:

It's only a 10% in the ST attacks, AKA Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch:

 

Wierd.  I swear I just looked at that in CoD, but I guess I must have only clicked on the AoEs.

[Sovera]

3 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

Wierd.  I swear I just looked at that in CoD, but I guess I must have only clicked on the AoEs.

 

Tbh I thought all powers did it and only when looking it over to answer you did I see it was only for the ST attacks... so all of two 😄

 

It does do a little something with endurance problems but is not enough to magically solve it. Someone better at mathmagics could probably calculate the EPS.

[ZemX]

3 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Someone better at mathmagics could probably calculate the EPS.

 

I'm no mathmagician but Charged Brawl's 2end x 10% chance is 0.2 end per activation cycle.  Unenhanced that's once per four seconds max.  So 0.05 eps.  And odds are good you won't be using it even that often in a completed attack chain even with high global recharge.  Havoc Punch is similar or even a little worse numbers.  So the two of them together are maybe 0.1 eps if we're being generous.  If you were to enhance those two powers for end modification, which you might do in a sapper build, it would affect this as well but it's so small to begin with you'd still be under one EPS.   It looks like it will be in the noise unless I am missing something.  

 

If they did a pass at the whole set it might be interesting if they expanded this effect to all the powers somehow.  Certainly other melee sets already offer much better endurance reduction or recovery bonuses than this, so it'd hardly be overpowered.

[Sovera]

11 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

I'm no mathmagician but Charged Brawl's 2end x 10% chance is 0.2 end per activation cycle.  Unenhanced that's once per four seconds max.  So 0.05 eps.  And odds are good you won't be using it even that often in a completed attack chain even with high global recharge.  Havoc Punch is similar or even a little worse numbers.  So the two of them together are maybe 0.1 eps if we're being generous.  If you were to enhance those two powers for end modification, which you might do in a sapper build, it would affect this as well but it's so small to begin with you'd still be under one EPS.   It looks like it will be in the noise unless I am missing something.  

 

If they did a pass at the whole set it might be interesting if they expanded this effect to all the powers somehow.  Certainly other melee sets already offer much better endurance reduction or recovery bonuses than this, so it'd hardly be overpowered.

 

I find I actually need to spam Charged Brawl in order to have an attack chain going, but it does not change the returns are not great as you've pointed. Me feeling that the endurance woes were alleviated when using Elec (because I run Fire Armor with so many pairings and do/did so many tests I have a good feel when I run out of endurance and when I need to use Consume but it's not up yet) might well have been just a placebo effect.

 

 

[Infinitum]

On 1/28/2024 at 4:36 PM, Sovera said:

Why no Lightning Rod?

A: It sucks. Low damage for a long cooldown.

If you play the lightning rod card right during a buildup you are pretty much melting anything other than bosses across a large area then you enter your st rotation.  It functions like a blasters nuke. 

 

Not to mention it's an awesome situational power - I love to camp out a level below a huge spawn and then LR to the second floor and fry them all.   Slot avalanche in it if you want the knockdown proc for additional crowd control.  I usually slot Armageddon.

 

It's so much fun it's hard to pass up for me despite the long recharge.   The damage isn't what I would call low either - especially treated like a blasters nuke.

[Sovera]

5 hours ago, Infinitum said:

If you play the lightning rod card right during a buildup you are pretty much melting anything other than bosses across a large area then you enter your st rotation.  It functions like a blasters nuke. 

 

Not to mention it's an awesome situational power - I love to camp out a level below a huge spawn and then LR to the second floor and fry them all.   Slot avalanche in it if you want the knockdown proc for additional crowd control.  I usually slot Armageddon.

 

It's so much fun it's hard to pass up for me despite the long recharge.   The damage isn't what I would call low either - especially treated like a blasters nuke.

 

I did all of that. Procs, maxed damage, Build up + Gaussian, and it didn't kill +1 minions when using Lightning Rod. And it already does KD so Avalanche will make it KB.

 

I agree with everything though, opener, rule of cool, etc. But to me it does not cut it.

[Infinitum]

9 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

I did all of that. Procs, maxed damage, Build up + Gaussian, and it didn't kill +1 minions when using Lightning Rod. And it already does KD so Avalanche will make it KB.

 

I agree with everything though, opener, rule of cool, etc. But to me it does not cut it.

 

That's weird. Mine usually splashes the minions and lieutenants sometimes even.   Mine is on Shield D wonder if AAO makes the difference? 

[Sovera]

2 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

That's weird. Mine usually splashes the minions and lieutenants sometimes even.   Mine is on Shield D wonder if AAO makes the difference? 

 

It's been so long that you might be the one who is right and I've just continued with my bad impression. Or perhaps I used it at a low level, AKA 25-30.


I went to the test server to take a gander and you were right after all. Build-up + Gaussian + five Scirroco + a second damage proc and all the minions I hit in the Yin (character's only level 30) were instantly wiped. Thanks for calling me out on my BS, I'll edit the first post.

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

 

It's been so long that you might be the one who is right and I've just continued with my bad impression. Or perhaps I used it at a low level, AKA 25-30.


I went to the test server to take a gander and you were right after all. Build-up + Gaussian + five Scirroco + a second damage proc and all the minions I hit in the Yin (character's only level 30) were instantly wiped. Thanks for calling me out on my BS, I'll edit the first post.

 

Anytime.   I saw you skip LR and debated for 3 days whether or not to say anything, but it's just one of the most fun melee powers in the game. I had to.  I am glad I did now especially if it helped. 

[Sovera]

1 minute ago, Infinitum said:

 

Anytime.   I saw you skip LR and debated for 3 days whether or not to say anything, but it's just one of the most fun melee powers in the game. I had to.  I am glad I did now especially if it helped. 

 

When you mentioned Shield I suddenly thought 'Hold on... Was it LR or was it Shield Charge that I had been totally unimpressed with...'

 

Despite not liking the extra long recharge I can't help but appreciate how even the +1 lieutenants were reduced to 20% HP. Combined with Thunderstrike reliably popping the FF procsI'll have to reconsider for my next Fire/Elec. Especially for a Fire Armor who is all about burst and kill-first-before-being-killed. I do dislike the loop of egging the recharge to hurry up and be ready for the next spawn. That's a ranged character annoyance and my meleers just truck along with their short CDs.

 

I've been trying to save my CoH batteries and not level in Brainstorm to instead wait for the page 7 release but it's been hard to contain myself 😄

 

Seriously though, thanks.

 

[Infinitum]

What is really cool is have 2 meleers with LR and watch the enemy melt. And the. 2 with LR+SC there's usually not much of anything left spawn to spawn.   Like you said get the recharge down a bit and it's very serviceable.