It looks pretty good, I'd value Grant Cover a little higher though. It's a significant part of your defense resistance, it adds recharge resistance and on teams it gives both of those to your nearby teammates as well as a significant defense buff. I'd never skip it, but I team most of the time. For a purely solo I'd say Take it if there's room.
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This is how I'm seeing it:
Take It
Take It if there's room
Skip It
1 Stone Fist
1 Stone Mallet
4 Heavy Mallet
6 Build Up
8 Fault
12 Taunt
18 Seismic Smash
26 Hurl Boulder
32 Tremor
1 Deflection
2 Battle Agility
4 True Grit
10 Active Defense
16 Against All Odds
20 Phalanx Fighting
28 Grant Cover
35 Shield Charge
38 One With the Shield
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Made a small change for you. Fault is just to good to skip! The mitigation from it will make the early level much better.
edit: Also, stone fist can be skipped if you plan to take the fighting pool.
I didn't realize Fault was so good. The no damage part scared me off. Thanks for that input.
And I thought Grant Cover provided 0 benefit to the caster and only helped teammates? It's not that I don't want to be a team player, but I team up so rarely that I was putting myself first -- especially for leveling.
The defense part only goes to your teammates. The defense and recharge resistance is given both to you and your teammates. It can make the difference between taking 10% of the debuff or taking 32% of the debuff.
Fault is awesome mitigation and if he had a regeneration based secondary I'd never skip it. I don't consider it a key power since you give up offense for it.
Grant cover protects you against def debuffs
if you mainly solo, probably ok without it
but when you team and have many more mobs, the def debuff resistance may help a lot against certain enemies
So it sounds like you're recommending that all powers in the Shield set are worth taking?
Are there are any that are just outright skippable (like Taunt or Hurl Boulder in the primary)?
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I didn't realize Fault was so good. The no damage part scared me off. Thanks for that input.
And I thought Grant Cover provided 0 benefit to the caster and only helped teammates? It's not that I don't want to be a team player, but I team up so rarely that I was putting myself first -- especially for leveling.
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If you mainly solo, what is your preferred playstyle, run group to group, or gather two or three groups and kill them all ?
Fault is useful solo if you herd/farm or run on the supersize mobs difficulties, and useful on teams, but tbh if you run solo group to group it's just about skippable, as in fact is tremor in that circumstance (long animation, low damage AoE which is great on large groups, but not essential solo).
I'd take stone fist, and slot it with the kinetic combat chance of KD. SM's strength is in its single target attacks which hit hard and fast but recharge slowly, and AoE mitigation. Stone fist, stone mallet, brawl and boxing gives you enough attacks to build fury fast at low level.
GC is helpful solo purely for the defence debuff resist it provides, and in MA mishs with all the combat hostages.
I suspect you don't see much on SM/shield because the end use is going to hurt. Be prepared to spend cash, tickets and merits to mitigate this, and I suspect you'll be putting up some silly orange numbers later on.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
I generally don't take on more than 2 groups at a time. I'm rarely in a hurry to level.
It sounds like both Fault and Tremor should be put on the backburner at any rate given my playstyle.
Pardon my nubishness, but silly orange numbers?
I hadn't considered the Endurance problems I might have. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there. My other Brute is WP and it seems that she has a neverending supply of Endurance. That'll probably take some getting used to.
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I generally don't take on more than 2 groups at a time. I'm rarely in a hurry to level.
It sounds like both Fault and Tremor should be put on the backburner at any rate given my playstyle.
Pardon my nubishness, but silly orange numbers?
I hadn't considered the Endurance problems I might have. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there. My other Brute is WP and it seems that she has a neverending supply of Endurance. That'll probably take some getting used to.
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Silly orange numbers, that appear above the heads of people you hit, ie damage you've done. Seismic smash is one of the hardest hitting attacks in the game, and with the damage boost in shield, would expect you to be generating some seriously large numbers with build up (which I would probably take if you solo a lot, depends how many picks you have spare).
Stone melee responds very well to IOing for global recharge bonuses, but I'd be interested to see what balance of recharge, positional defence and recovery can be obtained, as you'll need all 3 to be truly uber.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
I think I have room for Build Up if I put it off til 24 or so. It also depends on how early I want to get down the Fighting Pool (assuming I do so at all).
Currently I'm looking at this as the powers I'll pick while leveling:
1 Stone Fist
1 Deflection
2 Stone Mallet
4 True Grit
6 Swift
8 Heavy Mallet
10 Combat Jumping
12 Battle Agility
14 Health
16 Against All Odds
18 Seismic Smash
20 Stamina
22 Active Defense
24 Build Up
26 Phalanx Fighting
28
30
32
35 Shield Charge
That would obviously be in a different order if I were respeccing, but I find that having all the defensive toggles early is no help because I can't afford to run them anyway.
If I'm going to have end problems, though, I worry that tough and weave will be just too much to bear.
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I didn't realize Fault was so good. The no damage part scared me off. Thanks for that input.
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when I made my SM i thought the same but fault is just hardcore super awesome, its what allows you to run through missions on invincible with all your secondaries turned off (which i sometimes do due to my stealth IO in travel)
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I didn't realize Fault was so good. The no damage part scared me off. Thanks for that input.
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If it not doing damage bothers you then slot it with a couple procs.
- Stupefy acc/recharge
- Stupefy acc/end
- Razzle Dazzle acc/recharge
- Razzle Dazzle acc/stun/recharge
- Perfect Zinger chance for psi damage
- Explosive Strike chance for smashing damage
this slotting also give +recovery bonuses you will need.
So I've been looking around for any sort of talk on a Stone Melee/Shield Defense combo. I have a concept of a construction worker-based villain that I think the two sets will fit nicely with.
No one seems to be talking about this combo, and a search yielded nothing.
Is there anything I should look out for? I've been inactive in the game for over a year now, and I certainly am not up to par.
This is how I'm seeing it:
Take It
Take It if there's room
Skip It
1 Stone Fist
1 Stone Mallet
4 Heavy Mallet
6 Build Up
8 Fault
12 Taunt
18 Seismic Smash
26 Hurl Boulder
32 Tremor
1 Deflection
2 Battle Agility
4 True Grit
10 Active Defense
16 Against All Odds
20 Phalanx Fighting
28 Grant Cover
35 Shield Charge
38 One With the Shield
Is that about right for the powers that are useful in this set?
My playstyle is mostly going to be solo with random pugs here and there. I've never gotten a toon to 50 so I'm not planning at this point to do a lot of raids or anything.
Also, are there secondaries that are particularly important or potent with this combo? I'm planning Combat Jumping/Super Jump and Swift/Health/Stamina. Is there another set that is a must?
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!