Best Secondary for Mob Killing?

Trying to find out what most people thinks is the best secondary for a tank when it comes to thinning out a big mob. Take everything in consideration such as the dmg. a power does, the recharge on the power set anything that can determine the speed and capability of defeating big mobs. Also to keep in mind Lt's and Bosses being mixed in the group, so not only do you need/want attacks to defeat alot of minions quickly you need to have some heavy hitting ST attacks for the few left standing. Looking for what you actually think will do the quickest and the best job, even if it isn't your favorite secondary to play. I know sometimes people like to pick their favorite simply because it's well it's their favorite. I know some secondaries goes better with certain primaries, so for this argument sakes let's just go with Stone Armor as primary mainly because of it's overall toughness and the slow recharges that comes along with it. The next follow up question will be what epic set would you think fits the best? Here are my thoughts, which I may be way off so that's another reason I turned to here to get others thoughts. Hopefully my answer won't persuade what your answer will be but wanted to put mine out there aswell.

Stone/Fire/Earth
Stone/Fire/Fire

Those are my two thoughts, the epic is a close call but I think Earth just inched by Fire because of the debuffs, slows, and slight damage you'll still get. Now please don't just comment on my two thoughts saying which you think is the better of the two, that is unless you agree with one of those builds. Remember I'm looking for what you really think is the best overall secondary and epic set not particulary your favorite. Also keep in mind for the point of this debate we'll be using Stone as the primary. Thanks to everyone who comments/replies to this opinion debate.

IMO the best would be /Fire, followed by /SS and /Elec.

Fire gets two large radius high damage AoE's which recharge relatively quickly.

Super Strength gets Rage and Foot Stomp, and Rage gives your Epic Pool AoE's more oomph.

Elec gets Lightning Rod which is guaranteed to give you high levels of satisfaction when executed. You also get some lesser AoE's in Chain Induction and Thunder Strike(Jacob's Ladder is also an AoE but it usually doesn't hit more than 1-3. I view it as more of an ST attack).

In part the best secondary for a given character does depend on the primary. With that said /Fire offers the most AOE damage and highly effective ST damage as well. I've played /Fire to 50 twice, once as Stone/Fire and once as Shield/Fire and it's a beast. Obviously the Shield/Fire does considerably more damage than the Stone/Fire but the Stone is the more durable.

For epic there's little question that Pyre is the choice for damage; Earth offers some nice control but little damage. If I don't have some pressing reason to take Energy (Conserve Power) then my default epic choice is Pyre for Fire Blast & Fire Ball.

I like Fire as a secondary, but Elec and SS are both going to come out pretty well. Fire has Incinerate and GFS for ST and Combustion/FSC for AoE, SS has Rage, Foot Stomp and KO Blow, and Elec has amazing AoE, but is a touch lacking against one target.

As far as epics go, Fireball is nice because it animates so quickly, and Fire Blast can outclass low-grade melee attacks, which both SS (designed to have Rage up) and Elec (the AoE set) can find themselves using. Earth has some nice debuffs, but it's really a step down for damage to lose Fireball.

My latest of many alts is a Stone/Elec/(planning Pyre) tanker. While she hasn't gotten to the mob-melting yet, I'm sure she will in time.

I'm curious as to why you'd pick Granite (which is what I assume you're getting at when you say stone "and the slow recharges that comes along with it" as the priamry for this thought experiment, as it it hands-down the worst primary for mob-killing.

Although I agree that one will see people on the forums plugging their pet favorites, I think it's fairly objectively clear that /Fire is intended to be the most damaging secondary because damage is its "secondary effect." I feel it lives up to that (as far as Tanker mods go, anyway), so I'll say Fire, followed by Super Strength and then perhaps Mace and Axe for AoE. I guess I should put Elec in there somewhere, but I do agree it lacks a little something in the boss-killing, single-target aspect (and rightly so; otherwise it would be Too Much Awesome).

Fire > SS > Ice > Mace was the AoE order tested by Starsman a long while ago. I don't think he ever restested w/ELM, but I'm thinking Fire > SS > ELM > Ice > Mace would be the new order. Of course there's a difference too bet. fighting 5 mobs at a time and 15, but for the most part, that order should stand.

ST damage wise, it'd still be Fire > SS, but then sets like Stone & EM (but they suck at AoE damage) would fall in, cuz Ice & Elec are abysmal (esp Ice) at ST damage. Overall, Fire & SS are by far the best offensive secondaries, though Fire offers no mitigation (Stone & Ice Melees are the best for that).

Re Stone primary, you don't have to be in Granite and suffer the penalties to be effective, and really damn near unkillable in Stone. My Stone is softcapped to S/L/E/N/Psi out of Granite and only hits Granite for LR & like Tin Mage and stuff (did Reich + the 4 AVs last night w/o Granite). The problem is Rooted--you need it for mez protection and it slows you down. So even if it doesn't ding your damage or recharge, your kill speed is going to go down.

If you want pure offense, a combination of Fire & SD primary w/Fire & SS secondary is going to be your best best at "mob killing". Pyre w/Fireball is also your best offensive APP, though I can't spead for PPPs since I have no experience with them.

Totally agree with dave_p on the picks. As for elec, its best if used with either fire/ or elec/ on a tank. Its a beast on my elec/elec brute but thats taking fury into account.

Is /DM really that bad on tanks? I find it still fun and entertainingly easy on my invul brute against +0/x8 mobs. And my build isn't expensive, consisting of no purples or expensive sets.

Well seems everyone is agreeing that /Fire/Fire is the best for mob killing. I've got a Ston/Em and a Fire/FIre and I like them both, so I've been debating on making a Stone/Fire for a while now.

Sailboat posted that he's curious to why I would choose granite, well here's why

I'm wanting a tank that can run +4x8 on just about any type of farm or mission there is, thinking that most people builds a toon one certain way and stick with running the same farm over and over just because that's what they can handle. So I've been wondering with a stone tank if I'll be able to do just about any farm or mission out there (I know that there are still going to be certain groups that I can't handle espically alot of psi groups). I've got 2 different builds that I've been working on latly, here's an idea of what they will achieve

BUILD 1
a bit over soft capped defense
90% resis to S/L/F/C/Toxic
81% resis to Energy
84.2% resis to negative
Hasten likes 15.82 secs. to be perma

BUILD 2
again a bit over soft capped defense
90%resis to S/L
84.8% resis to Fire
89.8% resis to Cold
70.6% resis to E/N/Toxic (toxic will be capped with earth's embrace)
PERMA HASTEN

so I'm just curious with having hasten perma or close to with the soft cap defense and high resistance Stone tank how it will turn out running farms and maxxed out missions

Any suggestions or thoughts on this? Is it something worth trying or just a waste of time and money when there are other AT's that could do just as good or even better for less? Thanks for the comments!

Nobody farms at +4. +4 is for power-leveling, or just for fun, but not for "farming."

I agree that +4 is something to do for fun. It's kinda more thrill for the kill so to say I guess. But if your doing the same mission over and over at +4 isn't that still farming? Sure I've got toons that would be much quicker when I go +2x8 or +3x6 but I usually get bored really quick doing that. Maybe it's a stupid idea about the stone/fire trying to run +4 farms, but what about the good ole way of earning stuff by doing missions? Think it's a waste of the influ and such to build a stoner the way I'm thinking and the reason behind it? The thought of it alone sounds good to me, although I've had other thoughts about builds that sounded cool and ended up well just sitting there at a certain level or ended up just using regular IO's cause I lost interest in building it the way I had planned. So if not a stone tank, then what build offers the best survivability for running regular missions at +4 and the dmg output to kill easily and the quickest? Here's the tanks that I have at lvl 50 would one of these work better or roll a new tank?

Fire/Fire
Invul/Em
Invul/SS
WP/SS
ICE/DM
Elec/WM
SD/SS

Most of I have multiples of and seems like I may be forgetting 1.
Thought of using my SD/Elec scrapper but would it survive with the right build for what I'm wanting to do? Would it be possible to with the scrapper to kill before getting killed with? I enjoy being able to stay standing on +4 missions so what would be a good build combo for any AT that could pull that off without having to rely on team for buffs? Thanks again for any help. (Sorry if this doesn't make alot of sense, but it is late here and I've been working all day, can't focus to good atm)

Eh, this is a pet peeve of mine, didn't mean to disrupt your thread. I'd use the term "running" to say "I'm running +4 x8," or, if I wanted to emphasize the repetition, "grinding." "Farming" typically means minimizing your risk and maximizing your reward per unit of time, and +4 is not usually the best for either the risk or reward part of that formula.

Certainly there's nothing wrong with wanting to be able to muck about at +4 difficulty, as a design goal. Stone might well be the strongest defensively for that, although it will never be the optimal damage dealer. You could try a strongly-built Shield Tanker for that, maybe?

I do have a SD/SS that i've built up and I've ran some +4 missions with him and it was touch and go at times on surviving. So would a SD/Fire be that much better then the /SS? Would the quicker killing make him seem tougher to the point that it might not be touch and go as much? More then anything with the Stone/Fire I was just liking the outcome of the builds with getting hasten perma while in granite form. I probably enjoy running +4 missions with a full team over any other thing right now. With my stone tank I use atm he's never came close to getting killed (probably just because I haven't went against the right NPC's that is capable of doing so). Even when the team gets careless or makes a mistake and I'm the only one left standing it's kinda an adrenline rush for me. (I know for a stone tank that isn't hard to do but anyways it's fun to me). What about an Elec/Fire, my build with me elec tank is soft cap def. and seems to be more well rounded on his resistance then my other's.

OK, so next step in the question, if I went with other then granite what primary would go best with fire and maybe be able to handle running +4 missions? Thanks again!

A stone armored tank will pretty much withstand what you want, I'd suggest going with fire as your damage dealer since combustion and FSC will chew through the mobs. I'd build your stoner around using granite for the +4/x8. If you slot a bunch of IO's with rechrg plus hasten the slow recharge won't be as bad.