Fire/Stone Build Looking for Feedback

[Groovy_Ghoul]

I've never played a Fiery Armor Tanker. Seems like fun. I really like Stone Melee, due to KD mitigation and FF procs, so it seemed like a great combo.

 

Looking for suggestions/advice/feedback on this build.

 

Aiming for high resists, slow resistant, recharge.

 

Thanks!

Tanker (Fiery Aura - Stone Melee).mbd

[Sovera]

Fire Armor you say? You are a ghoul of culture. 👍

 

 

So, a few things:

 

Fault sucks. Don't take my word for it because you might try it and like it even if I don't. But don't be surprised at feeling the urge to basketball throw it into the trash bin.

 

With some fancy slotting you don't need to have Tough toggled on as long as you intend to take Barrier in the end game.

 

Your single target will have gaps without Stone Fist. You will want something like Seismic Smash, Stone Fist, Heavy Mallet, Stone Fist, Stone Mallet, Stone Fist, repeat. This is because all the FF procs only have a chance of going off and baseline Seismic Smash recharges in 7 seconds in your current built. So following the rotation above it's 1 + 1.9 + 1 + 1.9 + 1= 6.8 seconds and just in time for Seismic Smash to be back up. If one of the FF procs goes off you can shave a Stone Fist off the rotation.

 

The ATO in Stone Mallet gives 6.7% to all resistances and it stacks up to three times. Mids only accounts for one. Two stacks is easy to achieve and three a bit harder since the first stack will sometimes run off before the third is applied. So as a rule of thumb aim for two, ergo whatever Mids is showing + 6.7%. Knowing this, and if you don't intend to take Barrier, you can break the Celerity bonus since even without it you end at 84%. With the second Might of the Tanker ATO stack you're at 90%.

 

With those now free two slots you can place them in Build-up, scrounge a slot from somewhere, and have three Adjusted Targetting to have another 3% to E/N which you're a bit behind on. Again, if you're not intending to take Barrier.

 

If you ARE intending to take Barrier (which IMO you should since it's a good panic button plus the permanent 5% to defenses and resistances allows to play with slotting) all you need is to have both at 77%ish fot + 6.7% + 5% reach 90%. Content lower that level 45 is not hard enough to demand permanent 90% anyway since it's usually ran on +1 difficulty.

 

By aiming for 77% you free a lot of slots that can be moved around to boost things like Build-up, add damage procs to attacks, five slot purples in Burn and Seismic Smash, aim for 40% defenses to smash and lethal, having Tough only as a mule and not toggled on, etc. But that's a choice.

 

 

 

[Groovy_Ghoul]

@Sovera Thanks for the feedback from the Master of Fiery Aura! I am definitely taking Barrier, which seems to me, the most logical choice.

 

You hate Fault. Understood. I play SM on my Stalkers, and it works well. What is the difference?

 

So my Mids is displaying 85.96% E/N for one stack of ATO proc. 2 would put me at cap for everything except C/T/P. Not sure the disparity between our numbers.

 

Do I need more KB protection?

 

Appreciate the time you took to write me back.

[Sovera]

6 hours ago, Groovy_Ghoul said:

@Sovera Thanks for the feedback from the Master of Fiery Aura! I am definitely taking Barrier, which seems to me, the most logical choice.

 

You hate Fault. Understood. I play SM on my Stalkers, and it works well. What is the difference?

 

So my Mids is displaying 85.96% E/N for one stack of ATO proc. 2 would put me at cap for everything except C/T/P. Not sure the disparity between our numbers.

 

Do I need more KB protection?

 

Appreciate the time you took to write me back.

 

I only play with one -4 KB, but, I do play with Evasive Manuvers as well. But as long as I have my S/L up I find I rarely get KBed even doing Striga content.

 

You're right on E/N being at 85% since I had not noticed the Might of the Tanker was not toggled on. You do have E/N at 85 and a second ATO proc will put you at 90% without the need for Barrier. In the same vein you're already at 93% for S/L with a single ATO proc so you can ditch one slot from the Might of the Hunter (the damage/recharge one) and then breaking the two Celerity (I'd put those two slots as two +5 recharge in Build-up to shave 10 seconds off). That neatly puts your S/L at 85%. If you don't want to rely on a second proc or Barrier this is the perfect spot as either one puts you at 90%. But if both activate it will go to waste. Which is not terribly important in the grand scheme of things, it just lets you faff around with the slotting a bit more and try for things I mentioned like having enough S/L resistances that Tough is only a mule.

 

As for Fault it does no (real) damage, takes too long to recharge, and has abysmal accuracy. Even at your level, with Focused Accuracy toggled on, and slotted, it's still at 89%. If its not toggled on its at 72%. I just find it has a lot of downsides to a set that already has a great CC tool in Tremor (btw, Eradication energy proc is better than Taunt's psi damage proc).

[Parabola]

A (not so) quick word in defence of fault. I find it an effective aoe and would never dream of not taking it. The control it offers is worth the pick alone and the damage they have added is gravy.

 

One thing that isn't obvious is that it is now effectively two powers fired with a single click. The first power is the classic radial aoe stun and knockdown the power has always had. The second power is a cone aoe damage power that on tanks has a decent arc.

 

This creates a couple of important nuances. Firstly the powers roll to hit independently and the damage cone actually has the standard accuracy modifier. The radial control has an accuracy penalty and it is this accuracy value that is showing in mids. Both powers aim at the target you highlight but as they are different shapes it is possible for other mobs to be in the area of one and not the other. With the tanker arc bonus taking a step or two back from the pack and targeting something in the middle will hit most things with both powers.

 

The other thing to be aware of is which of the powers fire which procs. Knockback, stun and taunt procs all fire from the radial control power. Ranged aoe procs fire from the damage cone. I slot it with two winter pieces (acc/dam, acc/dam/end), three damage procs (I go the taunt and kb procs with one taoe proc but I tend to pack a lot of global acc/to hit and so am happy with accuracy of the radial control power) and a ff+rech. If you have decent global recharge and you hit enough mobs the ff proc will cycle this power very effectively.

 

The stun is mag 2 with a chance for mag 3 (I forget the percentages). So it will stun any minions and some lieutenants which thins out the incoming damage considerably. Even if damage itself isn't an issue it's always useful to stop some annoying debuffs. Watching sappers stagger around drooling never gets old!

 

And last but certainly not least fault is just so satisfying to use. It's loud, visceral and exactly the kind of thing I'm playing the set for in the first place!

[Groovy_Ghoul]

Since I’m not building for defense, I’m thinking about dropping the Celerity 2-Piece IO in Infiltration and add 8 more points of KB protection which would bring me up to 13 points. My reasoning is that I’ll be taking more hits and 5 points might not be enough. Thoughts?

[Sovera]

I only have 4, but I also play with a lot of S/L defense AND I use Hover so even when I'm KBed I just do a lil twirl in the air. Nowadays Evasive Maneuvers adds a lot of KB resistance too.

 

But try it if you find you are being KBed a lot more than you are comfortable with.

[Groovy_Ghoul]

Reading through @Spaghetti Betty Fire/SS build, which looks awesome, I got inspired to re-work my build for my upcoming Fire/Stone. I decided to remove the most of the defense and try to build for more resistance and add procs. Also 95% resistant to recharge and slows. Resist proc is toggled off (Stone Mallet) but 2x stack would cap out S/L/E/N. Fault and Tremor are also toggled off due to FF procs in the attacks. 13 points of KB protection might be overkill but removes 99% of that possibility.

 

Any feedback from the king of Fire Armor @Sovera would also be appreciated. (I know you hate Fault but your opinion is always appreciated).

 

Thank you!

 

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Tanker (Fiery Aura - Stone Melee).mbd

[Sovera]

Lets see...

 

First you need to turn off BU and then you will see only one attack has capped out accuracy to hit +3 even with the Kismet.

 

Then you will find yourself with gaps in the attack chain though this might be something you don't mind. Stone Mallet recharges in 2.5 but Heavy Stone Mallet animates in 1.8. Seismic smash recharges in 7.2 seconds but Stone Mallet, Heavy Mallet, Stone Mallet is only 5.7 seconds. You might be able to work something out with Burn (leaving it at 7.9) but you will have that gap with the Mallet, worse when Hasten is off, or leveling, or exemplaring. My own solution was using Stone Fist since it is relatively easy on the recharge demands to make Stone Mallet, Stone Fist, Heavy Mallet, Stone Fist. Repeat and swap a Stone Fist for a Seismic Smash when it is up.

 

Harmonic Mind is not bad but you are not slotting Dominate so you might as well go for Energy Mastery and take Physical Perfection which is kinda the same, and then Focused Accuracy that will help fix your accuracy problems though it won't do miracles just by itself.

[Groovy_Ghoul]

Update #2. Dropped Harmonize and Dominate. Added FA and PP. How much accuracy do I need?

 

Thanks for your advice.

 

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Tanker (Fiery Aura - Stone Melee) (Update).mbd

[Sovera]

38 minutes ago, Groovy_Ghoul said:

Update #2. Dropped Harmonize and Dominate. Added FA and PP. How much accuracy do I need?

 

Thanks for your advice.

 

 

Change this to +3:

 

 

 

Then check your accuracy over:

 

 

 

Looking at the build now you have too much accuracy 😄 The Kismet can be safely removed and the slot placed where you'd like. Or keep the Kismet and turn off Focused Accuracy (it can be saved for mobs that debuff accuracy or mobs with extra defense) which allows you to recoup all the slots you've placed there.

 

 

 

With some small changes you can even toggle off Tough and still have capped S/L. At 82.9% a second stack of the ATO (6.7%) would leave you at 89.6%. That means no point in taking Tough, or Punch, and you could tweak it further and do something like taking Fold Space or whatever you'd like with those extra powers.

 

Tanker (Fiery Aura - Stone Melee) (Update).mbd