Nice. 
I've never considered Stone for a brute. After playing with the stone secondary on a tank, I didn't thing it would be fast enough for fury to build. Would hasten be of any use other that to get Fault and Seismic Smash back faster or just be a wasted power? I kinda like the thought of a SMASH-ing earth dominator.
Hasten is pretty useful, and I have it myself. I did not get it till very late in my build, but I do like it. It is made even more usefull by the fact that I am friends with a huge amount of Kinetic players and usually team with at least 1, making Hasten near Perma. 2 Kinetics and it is Perma. 6 Kinetics and.... Well... It overlaps .
Thank you very much, as an up coming stone primary and secondary brute u made my day. Lol all i need to do now is respec as i didnt choose fault as no dmg. After reading ur comment on fault i have changed my tune and will go for gold. Thanks, Inguman
A great guide, and I'd make a small note for those considering Electric Armor.
This set provides high resistances (including Psi resistance) and Endurance managing tools at the cost of a self heal and zero defense. Combined with Tough and Aid Self (at the cost of two power pools) it can be very survivable, and has a damage/aggro aura. While you may want Stamina early, you may easily find that taking Power Sink (and possibly Conserve Power) removes the need. I recommend it, especially since it has a recharge booster that makes your Mallets come up faster.
Note: I haven't played Stone/ElM to above 15, but it's FUN!
This is a pretty good guide! You left out one small thing, though. Stone Fist has a chance to land a disorient. It's low magnitude and not a high chance, but with the disorients you're stacking from Fault, you'll sometimes see a lieutenant and rarely even a boss staggering around for a few seconds.
Ah, Stone Melee. That smash-tastic set that shakes the screen, makes cool noises and generly looks cooler than all the other sets. Unfortunately it has the reputation of being an endhog and subpar damage to Energy Melee and Superstrength. And this reputation is true. Stone Melee will not outdamage Energy Melee or Superstrength, but what it WILL do is make you the king of protecting yourself and your team using combinations of Knockdown, Holds and Disorients. Using Stone Melee, you can control the battle almost as well as a Dominator, while dealing tremendous amounts of damage.
Lets start off by taking a look at the powers.
Stone Fist This is a power that many people choose to skip, attracted to the more damaging Hammer attacks. However skipping this attack will cripple you unless you happen to have another fast recharging attack. Unlike most 1st tier powers, Stone Fist does moderate damage, inflicting as much as most sets 2nd tier power. Consdering its relitivly fast recharge time, this makes an excellent power to build up and maintain fury, as well as doing sizable amounts of damage. Be sure to take and slot this power well.
Stone Mallet This is your first major heavy hitter, and you have access to it at level 1. Like Stone Fist, this is practically a required power, doing very good damage as well as being the first power to show the real power or Stone Melee....Knockdown. Stone Mallet has a very good chance of knockdown and combined with other powers, can keep a boss flopping around the entire fight.
Heavy Mallet The 2nd part of your Knockdown combo, Heavy Mallet does about 50% more damage as stone mallet, and has an even greater chance of Knockdown. At low levels this attack can also 1-shot most minions on fury alone, although at higher levels you will need to combine it with other attacks to quickly mow through enemys.
Build Up Most people know about Build-Up and its benifits, so im not going to go into to much detail. Simply put, its a good idea and very usefull for taking down things that need to go down FAST.
Fault This, my brutish friends, is the true gem of the Stone Melee set. Now when you first look at this power, most people go "meh, no damage, its pointless...Im grabbing Hurl Boulder." Yes it does no damge. However, this attack is the deciding factor in what allows Stone Melee brutes to take an alpha strike for a team of 8 with +2-+3 mobs AND SURVIVE. This is actually a very short-ranged AoE attack, not a Player Based AoE attack. It causes instant Knockdown to everything(thus giving you some extra breathing room) as well as a 100% Mag 2 disorient. This is massive. This basically allows you to hop in a mob, take the alpha, than put 90% of the mob out of the fight for 10 seconds. On bosses, use this to keep the bosses knocked up while waiting for your Mallets to recharge. Its this power that allows us to become the Controllers for brutes, and makes Stone Melee one of the safest sets to play. The recommended slotting by me would be 2 accuracy and 2 disorients. This gives you enough breathing room to allow the rest of the team time to wail on the mobs and cut them down before they aggro on you again.
Taunt Honestly, the only Brutes that should even consider this power is Energy Armour brutes, due to the lack of an aggro aura. All other sets contain an aggro aura and need no more aggro. Unless you plan on being a cruddy tank, don't get this power.
Seismic Smash Ah Seismic Smash, how I love you. For a upperdamage power, this has a very fast animation and deals excellent damage. And it has a 100% chance for a Mag 4 Hold. Mag 4 holds bosses. Need I say more? With this power you can keep a boss out of the fight even better than with knockdown, as well as dropping its toggles. Fighting against a Spectral Lord with chill of the night up? Seismic Smash it, no more Chill of the Night.
Hurl Boulder One of the "Meh" attacks of the set. This power has an incredibly long activation and is simply not effective in the heat of combat. Its only uses are a pulling tool and to knockout flyers. Thats it. The damage, since it is rarely boosted by Fury, is not that great. I recommend skipping this power unless you really like it for concept.
Tremor Oh yay! Im lvl 32! I can get my big huge massive AoE attack that....sucks.... Yes folks, Tremor is truely lackluster for a lvl 32 power. The damage is very low, around the same as Stone Fist, if not even lower and the animation takes forever. Its one saving grace is that it is a largish AoE and it causes knockdown. If you want it, take it, but don't feel pressured, as it is most deffinitly not a required power.
Now on to tactics...
Knockdown, Knockdown and Knockdown If you haven't figured it out yet, Knockdown rocks. Use this to your advantage and pick on bosses. Typical strategy is to run into a mob, hit Fault, find the boss and start flipflopping him like a ragdoll. Begin with a lighter attack like Air Superiority, than Stone Fist, Stone Mallet, Air Superiority, Stone Fist, Heaby Mallet, than finish it off with a good Seismic Smash. This combo will prevent the boss from doing ANYTHING, as well as doing a sizable amount of damage, or just straight up killing it. This is esspessially usefull against those bosses that will kill you in a heartbeat if they do get an attack off, such as Carnies and Succubus.
Slotting Stone Melee is an endurance hog. Like no other. You NEED to slot at least 1 Endurance reduction in every single attack, including Seismic Smash. I also recommend 2 acc in every single attack, simply because an attack missed is endurance wasted. After that, stock in the damage and you are golden. Recharges are not really that needed, the powers recharge slowly, but still fast enough to keep a good attack chain going.
Lets move on to Secondarys shall we?
Energy Armour Most people tell you that the best secondary for stone is energy armour simply because of the endurance recovery in it. I disagree. Stone Melee truely needs aggro to properly build fury, as it is after all, the most end efficiant way to build your damage. And Energy Melee offers no aggro managment, and in fact decreases aggro with Energy Cloak. From my experiance, it also can't take aggro very well, and is the most 'squishy" of all the brute sets. This will most likely be fixed in Issue 7, but it is still a frailer set.
Fire Armour For Stone Melee, this is an all-around good set. It offers decent protection in the form of 2 shields, aggro managment and AoE damage in Blazing aura, and an endurance recovery power in Consume. Its only major flaw is the lack of Immobilization and Knockback protection, but this can be fixed with a quick trip to the Leaping pool. I recommend this as a good set to go with Stone Melee. *Disclaimer* You MUST take Acrobatics as your Knockback protection. Fault requires you to be on the ground to use it, and Hover obviously will not allow this.
Invurnerability Another good all-around set, Inv offers great Smashing and Lethal protection, and decent, though small resists to everything else, barring Psi. It has access to Dull Pain, and some Defense boosting abilities in Invincibility, as well as an aggro tool and accuracy booster. Another secondary that gets my stamp of approval(not shocking as I am one!)
Stone Armour This set provides a decent mix of Defense and Resistance through most of its career, than gains access to Granite Armour, which effectivly makes you... The deal. However, Granite Armour slows the already slow Stone Melee attacks, and reducers your damage. This can mean pain when you want to be dishing out damage, but all things come at a price. This set gets my stamp of approval, if you can manage flicking in and out of Granite.
Dark Armour This is the secondary for those who hate Circle of Thons and Carnies. The only set to offer Psi damage, it should not be overlooked. It does come at a steep endurance price and the same knockback problem as Fire. If you make sure to slot plenty of endurance reducers in your armours and attacks, and shut off shields you don't need, Dark Armour is not to bad. It gets my stamp of approval, provided you can maintain your endurance.
Well folks thats it, the guide to Stone Melee, so go out there and SMASH .