I've teamed with a Stone/Elec tank on a regular basis, and you're right about Lightning Rod: it's a great way to jump into a group. You're wrong about Chain Induction, though: it's not a pseudo-ranged attack, it's a pseudo-AoE.
As for single-target damage, you've got two single-target attacks, a narrow cone, and a somewhat single-target attack in Thunder Strike. As long as you slot all four for recharge, you should be able to put together a decent single-target attack chain.
I've got a 50 Stone/SS Tanker, a 50 KM/Stone Brute, and I'm leveling up another couple of Stone Tanks with different secondaries just 'cause. I'm not the greatest expert on Stone, but I'll give out what I've found through my experience (mostly as a solo Stone Tank/Brute, though).
The one thing to consider, is that, prior to Granite, you're a Defense Tank and not a Resistance one (apart from Brimstone Armor, and Stone Skin). You've got 3 toggles that provide defense vs. S/L, E/NE, and Psi, and one that provides resistance vs. Fire/Cold.
For a leveling build, to get to Granite, I'd advise taking the S/L and E/NE toggles as soon as you can get them, and couple them with the Fighting Pool to get as much mitigation as possible outside of whatever set bonuses you're planning on putting in there.
Even though it should be pretty self-evident, I'll mention it anyway: you're going to have to take Teleport as a pool. If you don't have the City Traveller vet badge yet (60 Months), you're going to have to fit in either Recall Friend or Teleport Foe first. I'd probably take Recall Friend, it gives you a utility that you won't get otherwise, and if you need to pull from Range, you can take Taunt, which does a better job than Teleport Foe.
As far as Electric Melee's synergy with Stone, I think it will work just fine, Kinetic Combat (way spendy) and Smashing Haymaker (considerably less spendy) are the go-to sets for your single target attacks, and I usually put in a 3 Eradication/3 Cleaving Blow array in my PBAoE attacks.
If you plan on playing mostly solo, you should be just fine, the Rock Armor/Stone Skin/Crystal Armor combo will get you through most content, and for heavy Psi enemies, Minerals provides a fair amount of Psi Defense "out of the box", so to speak. For grouping, my experience has been pretty positive, with the right buffs on you and debuffs on your enemies, you'll be as sturdy as any other Defense based Tanker.
Hope this helps,
TheCynical1
"Prediction is extremely difficult. Especially about the future." - Niels Bohr
I've been pondering a DB/Stone Brute myself, so I'm kind of curious as well. I'd love to have a Granite covered pseudo-tank pulling off the pirouettes of Dual Blades.
I recently leveled my Stone/Dark Tanker. Leveling to 22 was horrible. Once I got into SO's, though, I felt like I could contribute to a group. I still needed outside defense buffs, or inspirations, but it was not so bad.
I strongly reccomend making two builds. One can be for leveling, soloing, doing damage, and exemplaring below 27, and the other for tanking in Granite Armor. Slots are usually the limiting factor in builds, and fully enhancing powers that you won't need to turn on after you get Granite can make it very hard to finish a build.
If you want a high psionic defense Granite tanking build that ensures you never need to leave Granite, search my name in the Tanker forums. I posted the build in several Stone Armor build threads.
Well having 3 stoners, I must say its a battle with what you plan to do with him/her. stone armor is a beast but definitely needs the right IOs to make it grow on you. Of course my experience is with SOs since I spent my time during the pre-IO days of leveling. If you slot IO sets that help with recharge, you won't find an armor set that can compete with granite.
I primarily solo'ed my Stone/DM to 50. Pick a secondary you enjoy (you'll be playing it a long time). Be patient. Cant agree more with Syntax more. Use the dual build function after you get and slot Granite: make one build for teams and the other for solo. Properly built, non-granite stone tanks are good, and are great if you cant find a team, practice your solo skills with it and, again, be patient. Liking alts as you do, that will be your limiting factor. After 50, never used the non-Granite form.
Miss Arc #147491: Rise of Bedlam
AKA Iron Smoke @Champion Server
Hey forums. I'm AnElfCalledMack, and I'm an altoholic. In eight months of this wonderful game, I've managed to get a grand total of three characters above 30, but have made and enjoyed a bevy of characters, probably slightly weighted towards melee. The three characters I've broken 30 with are a Fire/Fire Tanker (50+1), a Katana/SR Scrapper (40, softcapped w/o DA, but having endurance problems), and a Fire/Earth Dominator (30, finally got the hang of Flashfire + Cages + Hot Feet).
Lately, I've been thinking about making a Stone/Elec Tanker, but I have no experience with Stone Armor, and had an abortive attempt at an Elec/SD Scrapper - I couldn't fight small spawns efficiently, and I couldn't survive larger ones.
So, I have a couple of questions. Firstly, just how much will this suck pre-Granite? I'm willing to put up with a few bumps on the way up, but to me 32 is quite an achievement, so I'd like to feel somewhat useful before then.
Secondly, do these two sets work together? It seems to me that LR and CI in particular work nicely with Stone - LR for letting you jump into a spawn and grab aggro at the same time, and CI for being a pseudo-ranged attack. All the same, though, there are only two ST attacks, so with the recharge penalty in Granite, I'm worried I'll be hurting against one target.
Oh, one more thing: Did they fix that bug where slotting procs in CI would affect its chance to jump? If they did, LR + TS + CI with the Kinetic Combat proc would be a lot of area knockdown...