How Have I Never Stone Melee'd Before?

[Erratic1]

Going to guess I never made much use of Stone Melee before because of the aesthetics of the powerset. Not a big fan of the stone look of the attacks and a crystal mallet was not a big improvement. But I was looking for something different to make and justified crystal fists to myself in order to create my latest Scrapper.

 

The set is like the offspring of Super Strength and Radiation Melee (which I know came after it). Very satisfying, big damage and OMG, Seismic Smash...you shall be my new cheat mode. It is somewhat of a shame I am on a break from Ninjitsu as the on-crit effect of double stun begs to be abused. But I am also looking at secondary sets I do not use often, and I have only done Super Reflexes twice before. Still, if I can get her recharge time down.... Wondering if I can abuse Force Feedback towards that end, but not sure what her end build is going to look like yet.

 

But having a lot of fun with Stone Melee.

[Sovera]

And then you take the Stone Mallet(s) option to be Big Rock Boxing Glove instead and all your attacks including Tremor are Big Rock Boxing Glove to the face! Glorious!

[Erratic1]

14 minutes ago, Sovera said:

And then you take the Stone Mallet(s) option to be Big Rock Boxing Glove instead and all your attacks including Tremor are Big Rock Boxing Glove to the face! Glorious!

 

Yeah, I did go with the non-weapon animations. Not sure how I am summoning up sapphire boxing gloves, but I am just going with it. 😁

[Sovera]

I think we all do since the boxing gloves fit with Seismic Smash and Tremor.

 

I've been toying with the idea of one but the lack of early AoE (26) is holding me back since I mostly solo and hitting things one by one is drab. And the last time I leveled one it was a Brute and it couldn't get past the big tanker AV at the end of Manticore. Huge S/L resistances, ugh, one of the few times I had to go pick daggers. I suppose a Scrapper would have a better time with the crits.

[Erratic1]

7 minutes ago, Sovera said:

I've been toying with the idea of one but the lack of early AoE (26) is holding me back since I mostly solo and hitting things one by one is drab.

 

There is Fault at level 8 but it has lower chances to hit than normal. Guess you could load up Accuracy early on then swap to something else once you have better ways to up your likelihood of hitting.

 

As for getting past Hodgkins, solo...well, that is going to be a challenge no matter what isn't it? His regen is far from minimal.

[Uun]

16 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

There is Fault at level 8 but it has lower chances to hit than normal. Guess you could load up Accuracy early on then swap to something else once you have better ways to up your likelihood of hitting.

The reduced accuracy is only on the stun/knockdown AoE. The damage cone has normal accuracy.

[Octogoat]

Just tried stone melee this morning and it may become my main. It's so fun and smashy!

[Uun]

In addition to the typical melee sets (scrapper, brute, tank and stalker), you can also get most of the Stone Melee powers in dominator Earth Assault (Stone Spears replaces Stone Fist, Fissure replaces Fault and Mud Pots replaces Taunt/Confront/Placate).

[Sancerre]

i have avoided stone melee because the aoe capabilities looked god awful but maybe i am missing something?  Tremor has a massive radius (especially for scrapper) but does peanuts damage.  the set is great otherwise and you can supplement aoe with ball lightning but seems kind of awful having -only- ball lightning as actual aoe damage (and i guess judgement).  incidentally, i always felt like hurl boulder should have a (small) radius explosion around the impact site.... it is a really cool skill with absolute dumpster DPA values in a powerset that already excels in single target damage (and yes i know it is ranged).

[Sovera]

No, you're right, it's peanut damage and comes late to boot. I kept pushing mine but it just wasn't fun and parked it at level 30.

[Xandyr]

Doesn't several of the attacks do Knockback? That's one reason why I've never played Stone Melee...KB is good mitigation, but annoying.

[Erratic1]

19 minutes ago, Xandyr said:

Doesn't several of the attacks do Knockback? That's one reason why I've never played Stone Melee...KB is good mitigation, but annoying.

 

Hurl Boulder is the only knockback power with magnitude high enough to actually knock something back. The rest knock foes down.

[bAss_ackwards]

I've been playing a Stone/Stone Scrapper with an Obsidian Mage theme and it has been a ton of fun. Would recommend to my fellow Scrappers 🪨👍

[bAss_ackwards]

On 11/26/2024 at 3:49 PM, Sancerre said:

i have avoided stone melee because the aoe capabilities looked god awful but maybe i am missing something?  Tremor has a massive radius (especially for scrapper) but does peanuts damage.  the set is great otherwise and you can supplement aoe with ball lightning but seems kind of awful having -only- ball lightning as actual aoe damage (and i guess judgement).  incidentally, i always felt like hurl boulder should have a (small) radius explosion around the impact site.... it is a really cool skill with absolute dumpster DPA values in a powerset that already excels in single target damage (and yes i know it is ranged).

 

Tremor can be set to be a proc bomb if your build can fit it and the slots.

 

As far as Hurl Boulder, for me that power gets regulated to set mule, if I even decide to take it. I do agree that it could use some extra oomph, and the mini impact explosion is a fun idea.

[SomeGuy]

I paired SM with /Rad and don't have AOE issues. I proc bombed Radiation Therapy, which is a good AOE early on if you don't need the OH SHI heal . Combined with Tremor and Ground Zero I don't notice an issue. Food for thought.

 

Rad Therapy:

[DarknessEternal]

I run Fault/Tremor as my only enhance-able AoE powers at +4x8.  I've never had any issues with groups.

[Story Archer]

On 11/24/2024 at 12:31 PM, Erratic1 said:

Going to guess I never made much use of Stone Melee before because of the aesthetics of the powerset. Not a big fan of the stone look of the attacks and a crystal mallet was not a big improvement. But I was looking for something different to make and justified crystal fists to myself in order to create my latest Scrapper.

 

The set is like the offspring of Super Strength and Radiation Melee (which I know came after it). Very satisfying, big damage and OMG, Seismic Smash...you shall be my new cheat mode. It is somewhat of a shame I am on a break from Ninjitsu as the on-crit effect of double stun begs to be abused. But I am also looking at secondary sets I do not use often, and I have only done Super Reflexes twice before. Still, if I can get her recharge time down.... Wondering if I can abuse Force Feedback towards that end, but not sure what her end build is going to look like yet.

 

But having a lot of fun with Stone Melee.

 

Never tried it on a Scrapper, but for my money, it's the most tankiest-feeling melee set I've played and I absolutely love it on my Rad/Stone tanker. And FF procs are a must with Stone Melee. Just wish Tremor's animation wasn't so dorky.

[venetiasilver]

On 11/24/2024 at 1:31 PM, Erratic1 said:

Going to guess I never made much use of Stone Melee before because of the aesthetics of the powerset. Not a big fan of the stone look of the attacks and a crystal mallet was not a big improvement. But I was looking for something different to make and justified crystal fists to myself in order to create my latest Scrapper.

 

The set is like the offspring of Super Strength and Radiation Melee (which I know came after it). Very satisfying, big damage and OMG, Seismic Smash...you shall be my new cheat mode. It is somewhat of a shame I am on a break from Ninjitsu as the on-crit effect of double stun begs to be abused. But I am also looking at secondary sets I do not use often, and I have only done Super Reflexes twice before. Still, if I can get her recharge time down.... Wondering if I can abuse Force Feedback towards that end, but not sure what her end build is going to look like yet.

 

But having a lot of fun with Stone Melee.

Any final decisions on it?

[Erratic1]

5 hours ago, venetiasilver said:

Any final decisions on it?

 

I have a tentative "final" framework, with some wiggle room (about six slots and an open power slot) for her. She is currently holding somewhere just short of 40th level.

 

The real problem has been frustration with my playing situation. I play her on Indom with a friend who refuses to consider other servers to play on (he has reasons for this). In particular, my frustration is with the low population of the server and the culture which has developed--they gather nightly for Adamastor, GM kills both blue and redside, and mothership raids happen frequently. But it is a challenge getting a single instance of a weekly TF done, let alone across multiple characters. Faced with such, I have been playing other games much more than CoH of late.

 

Planned build has her positional defenses all floating at 53% or so, with the option for perma-Hasten (though I have been blah on using Hasten for some number of years short of it transforming some other ability from a semi-periodic boost to something permanent, say like Energize in the Energy Aura set or shooting for double-stacked Rage or Folow Up). 

 

Hopefully I will get out of the funk I am in and get back to playing her (and others) more.

[venetiasilver]

4 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

I have a tentative "final" framework, with some wiggle room (about six slots and an open power slot) for her. She is currently holding somewhere just short of 40th level.

 

The real problem has been frustration with my playing situation. I play her on Indom with a friend who refuses to consider other servers to play on (he has reasons for this). In particular, my frustration is with the low population of the server and the culture which has developed--they gather nightly for Adamastor, GM kills both blue and redside, and mothership raids happen frequently. But it is a challenge getting a single instance of a weekly TF done, let alone across multiple characters. Faced with such, I have been playing other games much more than CoH of late.

 

Planned build has her positional defenses all floating at 53% or so, with the option for perma-Hasten (though I have been blah on using Hasten for some number of years short of it transforming some other ability from a semi-periodic boost to something permanent, say like Energize in the Energy Aura set or shooting for double-stacked Rage or Folow Up). 

 

Hopefully I will get out of the funk I am in and get back to playing her (and others) more.

To get out of your funk, Small Challenge.
Scrapper
Primary: Broad Sword
Secondary: Regeneration

No Temps, clear the Dr. Vahzilok AV in the Vazhilok Plague Story Arc. 
Only one Green Allowed. 

[Story Archer]

On 11/24/2024 at 12:31 PM, Erratic1 said:

Going to guess I never made much use of Stone Melee before because of the aesthetics of the powerset. Not a big fan of the stone look of the attacks and a crystal mallet was not a big improvement. But I was looking for something different to make and justified crystal fists to myself in order to create my latest Scrapper.

 

The set is like the offspring of Super Strength and Radiation Melee (which I know came after it). Very satisfying, big damage and OMG, Seismic Smash...you shall be my new cheat mode. It is somewhat of a shame I am on a break from Ninjitsu as the on-crit effect of double stun begs to be abused. But I am also looking at secondary sets I do not use often, and I have only done Super Reflexes twice before. Still, if I can get her recharge time down.... Wondering if I can abuse Force Feedback towards that end, but not sure what her end build is going to look like yet.

 

But having a lot of fun with Stone Melee.

 

Abusing FF procs in Stone Melee is a long and cherished tradition... but you should consider using it in everything EXCEPT Seismic Smash. For that, go 5x Hecatomb + the damage proc from Unbreakable Constraint. 

 

FWIW, my favorite pairing with Stone Melee + FF procs is Radiation Armor. Maybe throw in a little Psionic Mastery Epic to stack holds with Dominate, grab Harmonic Mind and get your ranged mini-nuke in Psionic Tornado (also slot-able for the FF proc). EDIT - sorry, thought I was in the Tanker forum for a sec with this last comment...

 

Edited Monday at 04:33 PM by Story Archer