Secondary for Stone Melee?

[Marshal_General]

I am looking to make a brute tank using stone melee for the kd and lulz.

 

Why a brute tank instead of a tanker tank? DPS. I figure it is much easier to make a brute into a tank than it is to make a tanker into a dps machine.

 

My two questions are:

Which secondary fits best for my goal?

Are there any skipable powers from stone or your suggested secondary?

 

Thanks.

[Without_Pause]

Likely any powerset with +recharge will be ones to look at. I have thought about rolling one with either /rad or /elec.

[Hopeling]

Stone offers strong ST with fast animations, mediocre AoE, and lots of hard and soft control for mitigation. This means it pairs well with a secondary that provides endurance and some extra AoE, and can get away with being a little squishy. That's an exact description of /Fire.

 

That's certainly not the ONLY set it could pair well with, and if your primary goal is tanking, /Fire may not be the greatest choice.

[Rylas]

All the previously mentioned desirables in a secondary are also in /Energy Aura. 

[Marshal_General]

When I was thinking about making a tank, i made up an ice build that seemed pretty good, but I hear ice is bad for brutes as it slows down fury gain. Another build I made on Justin as a tanker was shield. You actually swing the hammers with one hand.

[Gregg247]

I just recreated my old Stone/Stone Tanker from 2004 as a brand-new Stone/Radiation Brute.  He's great so far (level 24)!  Radiation has some good Resistances and some nice boosts to healing and endmod.  I re-colored the radiation auras to a brownish/red shade to it looks like he's dusty all the time. LOL  And when he hits an enemy with those Stone attacks.....Wow!

[siolfir]

Electric Armor, but be prepared to hate the grind to Power Sink when it comes to endurance management. You'll add some AoE damage with Lightning Field, and can pick up more AoEs from the Patron Pools; Mu Mastery works great for this since it also fits thematically. A side benefit of Mu Mastery, besides the extra AoE damage, is that you become a sapper - the -end and -recovery, combined with Power Sink for a quick drain and Lightning Field to tick the end that does recover away keeps the mobs close to you from doing a whole lot.

 

A friend of mine loves the pairing, and put together a build with a touch under 2100 hp, capped S/L/E/F/C resistances, 71% Psi resistance, and I think 55% Negative... and yeah. Toxic hole. But that's what Seismic Smash is for, right?

[Nightmarer]

Stone/Fire is awesome, especially if you softcap it to S/L. WP, Inv and Rad should also be fun.

[Justisaur]

I used to have ST/WP as my main on live.  It was good. ST has some serious end issues which WP is good (best?) at helping with, and WP is a little squishy when you're down to single targets which the mitigation from Stone helps with.

 

I'd definately consider /elec or /rad with it though as both have some decent +end and probably better resists and other tricks.  

 

I'd never considered /fire before, that sounds interesting.  

[Rylas]

On 8/27/2019 at 1:56 PM, Marshal_General said:

When I was thinking about making a tank, i made up an ice build that seemed pretty good, but I hear ice is bad for brutes as it slows down fury gain. Another build I made on Justin as a tanker was shield. You actually swing the hammers with one hand.

I wouldn't write off /Ice. From what I've heard on the forums, it has no issues building Fury. It also has one of the strongest aggro auras, so even though it slows them, you'll have plenty of people trying to attack you. 

[Keilis]

I combined Stone Melee and Radiation armor as a Tanker, and I'm deeply in love with it.  There were two points of frustration, and they were mostly just issues at early levels.  One was that, even with aggressive slotting for damage, enemies were usually left up with a sliver of health, but simply being a Brute well help, and being a Brute also means you don't have to consider Bruising, so you're less likely to feel like you should wait for Stone Fist to recharge before attacking an enemy.  The other was the lack of AoE, with not having my taunt aura until 12 and no AoE attacks before 20.  Those numbers will be flipped for a Brute, but still, aggro was a slippery thing at low levels even with Gauntlet.  In any case, once I got to 20, between Fault and slotting my ATOs, I felt like I could handle anything.

 

There'll be a conspicuous lack of AoE, but I think a Rad/Stone Brute can be an extremely satisfying character.

[Croax]

Here is something i created for Stalkers. I think you can get a good idea for brutes too if you don't look close to the numbers.