Stone is very single-target heavy, which is not necessarily the ideal option for farming. So between stone and electric, I would go elec/shield. You'll find the combination of lightning rod+shield charge incredibly enjoyable.
However, with that said, elec/sd comes in second to Super Strength/Shield, providing you have around 600 million inf (or more) to round out the character and begin addressing the endurance issues.
Farming is not about survivability. If it were, stone armor would be the top choice for farming. It isn't. It's about kill speed. Therefore, as long as you can avoid death, whichever set can kill the fastest is considered the best farmer. Hence SS/SD. You get rage, against all odds, and fury all working in concert for some incredible +damage. You also get the reliable mitigation of footstomp, which also puts out more AoE damage than Lightning Rod over time.
It was difficult to read your post because of your stream-of-consciousness approach. Paragraphs and whatnot would help me and others read and understand what you want quicker. I'd definitely appreciate it!
Thanks for the advice. Sorry about how I write it's just... how I write lol. It's how I talk, dots for pauses. No I've never been a fan of SS for some reason, maybe it has something to do with my hate of crashes or my not being able to afford 600 million dollar builds. Again, thanks for the advice though
i have both an elec/SD , and SS/Sd brute for farming...both are great....i have played the elec/SD brute a bit more due to the massive damage difference on your initial attack....if u line both attacks up with BU you should wipe most of minions and leuts .... thunderstrike has a nice wide cone to help you mop up as well as chain induction
PS it would be totally worth investing 600 mill into a good farming toon....you can cut down the cost if you use your reward rolls wisely though
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I too have both an Elec/SD and an SS/SD. I stripped the Elec of IOs to equip the SS. SS does more AoE damage over time and has stronger single target attacks. No cones to line up, either, which is nice.|
Originally Posted by Dark_0mega
i have both an elec/SD , and SS/Sd brute for farming...both are great....i have played the elec/SD brute a bit more
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Another popular choice for farmers is SS/Fire, although I don't have any experience with that combo. It'd be a better choice if you plan on farming Nemesis because the massive to-hit buffs the Nem LTs dole out are bad news for defense based characters like Shields, but don't matter to Fire.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
Thoughts, ideas, and random peanut gallery comments...
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No, I really don't know what you mean. Electric Melee doesn't have any good single target attacks. If you mean Thunder Strike, and you're going to use it frequently, then just go with Stone Melee and use Tremor a lot - because Seismic Smash makes for a much better single target attack than Havoc Punch.|
Originally Posted by __Lep__
I'm thinking.... electric has lightning rod and chain induction and that one good single target.... forget the name but you know what I mean.
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Originally Posted by Tonality
You also get the reliable mitigation of footstomp, which also puts out more AoE damage than Lightning Rod over time.
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Originally Posted by Dark_0mega
thunderstrike has a nice wide cone to help you mop up as well as chain induction
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The answer for which is best is dependant on how you plan on farming. Damage type is negligible in most cases for farming since you can pick and choose which mobs you want to farm (and you'd be really silly to pick one that's highly resistant to your chosen damage type). If you're going to have bosses, I'd recommend Stone Melee over Electric Melee, though.
My reasons:
- You have Shield Charge for a high burst AoE;
- Your patron pool will have at least 2 more attacks with faster animations and better AoE size/coverage;
- Tremor vs Thunder Strike:
- Tremor uses the same animation as Thunder Strike to do slightly more (1.0 scale vs 0.96 scale) AoE damage, but to a much larger radius (15' vs 7');
- Both have a very long animation and eat up a lot of time in your attack chain for "meh" damage. At least with Tremor you don't have to herd to get the most from it;
- Seismic Smash and Heavy Mallet tear through bosses faster than anything Electric Melee has, and can be thrown in the attack chains between AoEs;
...of course, with Lightning Rod, since the devs never got around to changing the radius that it does full damage to (unlike Shield Charge which was changed while in beta to do full damage across the entire AoE - logic? consistency? what's that?), you'll have to herd things into tight groups to get the most use of it. That takes up a bit of time while the mobs are moving so isn't as fast as it could be (with, for instance, Foot Stomp).
Also, if you don't plan on using a lot of Patron AoEs, War Mace may give you what you're looking for. You have the "one-handed mallet" look from the mace, with better AoE and still good single target damage from the primary. The drawback is that you have weapon redraw, which the two sets you brought up initially don't have to worry about. That can - and often does - add enough to your attack chain that other sets start looking better in AoE damage.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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I'm glad you brought those issues up. It's easy to look at only things like damage and recharge and overlook radius of AoEs.
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Originally Posted by Siolfir
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Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
If you are caught between Stone melee and Electric, I believe Elec would be the superior farmer.
Words to the wise aren't necessary- it's the stupid ones that need them.
"You're right...I forgot...being constantly at or the near the damage cap is a big turn off. Definitely not worth it."
- Vitality
id say elec, but thats just out of those 2.
personally id rather use fire.
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Well, you don't have to kick electric melee in face while it's on the ground crying. | Footstomp puts out more AoE damage than all of Electric Melee over time, not just Lightning Rod. |
I think the pseudopet of Lightning Rod and its interaction with fury is a big reason why electric armor cannot output similar damage to superstrength. If you take the same combination of elec/sd blueside on a scrapper, suddenly it kills significantly faster, all because of that stupid pseudopet damage cap getting in your way.
Although I do not have a SS/SD brute, my elec/sd/blaze scrapper kills about 30% faster than my SS/elec/mu brute, and the brute is purpled. The big difference is not having fury get in the way of my damage buffs. Lightning Rod works much more effectively blueside (excluding LR in hide on stalkers for giggles), and it is one case where one can truly say 'DEVs hate villains'.
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| The answer for which is best is dependant on how you plan on farming. Damage type is negligible in most cases for farming since you can pick and choose which mobs you want to farm (and you'd be really silly to pick one that's highly resistant to your chosen damage type). If you're going to have bosses, I'd recommend Stone Melee over Electric Melee, though. |
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| Also, if you don't plan on using a lot of Patron AoEs, War Mace may give you what you're looking for. You have the "one-handed mallet" look from the mace, with better AoE and still good single target damage from the primary. The drawback is that you have weapon redraw, which the two sets you brought up initially don't have to worry about. That can - and often does - add enough to your attack chain that other sets start looking better in AoE damage. |
Back to the foul depths that spawned you Lep! lol....
Dude you already have a Elec stalker and Elec is in my opinion better for a stalker or scrapper due to how the damage bonus mechanics of this game work.
If you want a really high damage farming brute you are going to need to take SS or Fire or settle for a medium damage farming brute but with also very high damage single target attacks and some cool animations 
(This is all assuming shields as secondary)
As others have said Patron Pool AoE's can help a lot with this.
See you online man
Peace
Grey Ghost Music
So me and some friends have filled up on one server and have hopped over to another about a week ago and the thing I started pondering was..... I'm gonna need a new farmer. My old one is a robot/dark MM and this time around I wanted a brute. Not just any bute though, I want a wreking ball of a brute, one that just runs on in there and sends bodies flying. I'm pretty cemented on shield defense so.... to go with it my real debate is would it be better for farming if I go electric or stone? I'm thinking.... electric has lightning rod and chain induction and that one good single target.... forget the name but you know what I mean. I just picture lightning rod the shield charge and bodies flying everywhere. Stone mellee, first off, love the one handed mallet with shields... also, a stronger single target attack, seems like more things to knock em off their feet and stuff. Looks like the single target damage is better but the aoe damage is lacking. So... for farming which would be better? The aoe and energy/smash mix damage of electric or the single target damage and various knockdown for staying alive powers of stone? any and all help appreciated