What works well with Stone Melee?

Just like it says on the tin... what defense sets work well with Stone Melee?

...keeping in mind that I never have, nor ever will, use /Stone Armor. So that one's right out.

So barring that, what Defense sets work well with Stone Melee?

Willpower comes to mind immediately. SM has some useful mitigation tools that will help out a lot with Rttc. Also, with SM being somewhat of a thirsty set, having the option of taking stamina and QR is very appealing.

Fiery aura will also benefit from SM's mitigation while offering its own Endurance recovery in Consume. I have heard good things about this combo as most people consider /FA to be best when paired with a primary with heavy mitigation.

In my experience, as what was suggested, stone melee can be really endurance hungry. So with that said:

Stone Melee\Willpower - The regen-lite for brutes with some really good built in endurance recovery. It takes the edge off of stone melee's endurance usage, but it's by no means a cure (mine and others often get low on the blue bar still). The thing this offers most is mitigation in the form of fault, which works REALLY well with RttC (your regen based on # of enemies power). Need to regen a bit? Fault and they'll stop hitting you for a bit while they're on their back and disoriented.

Stone Melee\Electic Armor - This works really well like willpower, but it's a pure RES set with the awesome sauce that is power sink. It comes with END drain resistance, a heal\+regen, and power sink. All great things for a stone melee set. I have one and he's A LOT of fun. It cries for some good IO slotting though.

Stone Melee\Energy Armor - Like electric armor, this has a really necessary endurance recovery power. Unlike electic armor, this set can be a little rough around the edges since it's a DEF set (and, for the most part, not considered a strong DEF set). I don't personally have one of these (but I do have a WM\EA brute), but I think with decent IO slotting (like my WM\EA) a SM\EA brute could be made quite decent.

I'd try a few out...but understand that all these sets don't really address stone melee's problem (end usage) until the 20's and 30's. Stone melee is pretty much a single target set with the exception of Tremor when it comes to damage...so if AoE is your thing you might want to give SM\ELA a shot so you can combine Tremor and lightning field to get some decent AoE out of the set.

ELA is probably the best pairing. It has more recovery and endurance efficiency than WP; it has a damage aura that benefits the slightly lackluster AoE capabilities of Stone Melee; it has 20% global recharge in Lightning Reflexes to nullify the long recharges on Stone. Fault also works wonders for ELA's survivability, so it's a two way street.

Seconding ELA, for reasons already highlighted.

Just remember it's a long way to power sink

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nights_Dawn Hazy is right

Thanks, _Krom_. I was hoping that was the answer.

i have a stone/wp, and must say it is quite awesome, even without fault.

now, no one has mentioned it, because until you can get some heavy IO slotting it is incredibly ugly on end, but SM/DA is a monster. Fault+OG equals a lot of mobs doing nothing.

Stone/Elec sure sounds interesting but I'm gonna vote for Stone/SD. On paper it looks extremely fun. Being more of a ST oriented set, Stone Melee benifits well from SC, and the +dmg buff from AAO is pretty awesome as well. Of course it doesn't have any direct endurance management tools like /ELA or /WP but AAO boost your damage and as a rusult - your DPE numbers, which can be considered to be some form of end management as well.

I have taken a SM/WP and SM/Shield brute to 50....both were smashtastically awesome.

Endurance management with shield was not as bad as it sounds.

everyone already listed some awesome combos . I would have some of your dough shipped to this toon so you can IO him early for end reasons...believe me it will make things a WHOLE lot easier. I hate making IO sets but with my stone toons it was greatly needed.

To the OP: Since Fault and a mez shield can do as well as many of the Brute secondaries by themselves, the answer is "everything".

But, if you really want to put out silly damage numbers, you're probably best off going with a set that handles your endurance for you. So, echoing what others have said, Electric Armor, Energy Aura, and Willpower (in that order).

If you're going for survivability and being able to maintain a good chain, SM/WP is nice, but even with Stamina, QR, 60% or more endurance reduction in all of the attacks, a Numina unique, a Miracle unique, and a Performance Shifter +end proc, I still can run my SM/WP (with 210-240% recharge in each attack after slotting is accounted for) out of endurance in a prolonged fight if I don't pace myself (the "max" DPS chain for SM uses over 4 end/sec), and have found myself using Strength of Will just for the +recovery on AVs with high smashing resistance.

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