Someone explain Fault (stone melee to me)

[DougGraves]

Fault says: A powerful stomp can cause a seismic disturbance. This will crack the Earth itself and send a Fault towards a targeted foe, throwing him and nearby enemies into the air and possibly Disorienting them. Fault deals no damage on its own (except Scrappers). Fault has a chance of dealing damage to foes in between you and your target (Scrappers/Stalkers only).

 

Fault in game lists knock and disorient and damage and additionally a chance for knock and disorient and stun.

 

Using it, I see damage applied to multiple enemies and some are knocked down.

 

It has a range of 20 feet.

 

So does this always disorient the target but not damage them?  And it is a Mag 2 disorient - does it have a chance of a Mag 3?  Or should I be targeting lieutenants with it instead of bosses?

 

And does it only affect other enemies between me and my target, so I need to line the shot up?  How wide is the area the it affects, is it a strict line like dual pistols piercing round or is a fairly wide area?

 

The only comment I can find on it by google is someone saying to maybe skip it.

[biostem]

So I'm just looking at the Brute version, but it appears to always apply a mag2 disorient, with a 50% chance to apply aa further mag 1.

 

Source: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=redirects.stone_melee.fault_brute&at=brute

[DougGraves]

And that says to all targets in a 15 foot aoe.  So does it do that to all enemies within 15 feet of your target?   Not just the ones between you  and the target?

 

The description in game doesn't seem to match to the numbers.

[DougGraves]

I am trying it in game and it seems to be an aoe around the target, not just a line between you and the target.

 

Very little damage.  Doesn't seem to reliably disorient or knockdown.

[Parabola]

Fault is two powers activated with a single click. One is the old radial aoe control power that does stun, taunt (on tanks and maybe brutes?) and knockdown but no damage. The other power is a cone aoe damage power. Both powers roll to hit independently and the radial control power has an accuracy penalty. On tanks the cone damage power is affected by the arc bonus and if you take a step or two back from the pack seems to hit most of the area covered by the radial control. On other archetypes it will be a good bit narrower though.

[Lazarillo]

5 hours ago, Parabola said:

Fault is two powers activated with a single click. One is the old radial aoe control power that does stun, taunt (on tanks and maybe brutes?) and knockdown but no damage. The other power is a cone aoe damage power. Both powers roll to hit independently and the radial control power has an accuracy penalty. On tanks the cone damage power is affected by the arc bonus and if you take a step or two back from the pack seems to hit most of the area covered by the radial control. On other archetypes it will be a good bit narrower though.

Just to add to this, because both effects hit separately, and because the accuracy on the control effect is so low, you will often see "MISS" pop up over enemies even if you hit them with the damage effect.  Furthermore, in my experience, because of how the game seems to limit the amount of pop-text that can appear in such situations, sometimes the visual "MISS" will appear when the numbers don't, and from that aspect, it'll look like your attack had no effect.  However, the damage will still be dealt.

[Parabola]

The way IO's interact with this power is also worth bearing in mind. The radial control power accepts stun, knockback and taunt sets (on archetypes that do taunt), and the cone damage power accepts ranged aoe sets. Any basic enhancement like accuracy applies to both powers regardless of the source, however damage enhancement of course only affects the damage cone.

 

Procs are only triggered by the power that accepts that type of enhancement, nothing double dips. I have fault on both tanks and a brute and slot it with acc/dam, acc/dam/end winter pieces, and then 3 damage procs and a ff+rech. I build heavily for accuracy and feel that even on tanks the radial control is a bigger area than the damage cone (also somewhat easier to aim), so I like putting in the taunt and kb damage procs alongside a single ranged aoe proc. If you have less accuracy you might get more mileage out of three ranged aoe procs.

 

I think fault is a superb power. The accuracy of the control power has to be worked with but if you do it is very reliable mitigation. The recharge is quite slow at first but when your global recharge ramps up that becomes a strength as it's a good vehicle for procs. And it's enormous fun. Big, loud, stampy fun.

[DougGraves]

7 hours ago, Parabola said:

The accuracy of the control power has to be worked with but if you do it is very reliable mitigation. 

 

So the control always works if it hits?  The description of "having a chance" just means if you hit?

[Yomo Kimyata]

Huh!  I never looked it up in City of Data (all hail Uberguy) before.  I love it on scrappers and that's the only place I've used it to date.

 

Looks like the damage power is a 55 degree cone with 20 foot range (max 5 targets).  This is the power that accepts scrapper ATOs and ranged AoE, so this is where Critical Strikes proc and Annihilation -res procs activate.  Generally, I see Cric Strikes proc almost all the time.

 

The control power has a 20% accuracy penalty, and is a targeted AoE with 20 foot range and 15 foot radius.  That's a lot more square footage than the damage power, and it affects up to ten targets.  +0.67 knockback to everyone, and a mag 2 stun with a 50% chance for mag 3 stun.  This is the power that accepts knockback and stun IOs, so this is where FF +recharge and Amazeballs chance for -to hit procs activate.  Generally, I see FF proc almost all the time.

 

It may not be helping my dps, but on scrappers I'm mostly concerned with survival first, and this power is stellar for all kinds of mitigation.  If you can layer on another source of stun (I've never made a Stone/Dark Armor scrapper, yet...) you're golden.

 

EDIT:  just made Absolutely Stunning on Excelsior, a beauty queen contestant who would do anything to win.  

 

Edited March 9 by Yomo Kimyata
I felt like it.

[Lazarillo]

4 hours ago, DougGraves said:

So the control always works if it hits?  The description of "having a chance" just means if you hit?

Yes, mostly.  Fault has a 100% chance to knock down and a 50% chance to stun, but only a 60% to actually hit an even-leveled target (which why you get so much "miss" spam, as noted in my previous post).  So at least with regards to the Knockdown:

[Saiyajinzoningen]

just posted a thread about this exact thing

cause fault acts super wonky

then I found this thread

which was/is super helpful

thanks everyone

[Major_Decoy]

On 3/9/2024 at 8:23 AM, Yomo Kimyata said:

EDIT:  just made Absolutely Stunning on Excelsior, a beauty queen contestant who would do anything to win.  

 

Wouldn't she need to be Faultless?