Why did Stone Melee fall off the map?

Old school players will remember the big 3:

Stone Melee
Super Strength
Energy Melee (1 Sec ET + Mag 4 TF)

These were considered the "best" powersets way back in the day. Since then, we've seen Energy Melee changed and no changes to SS or SM.

Super Strength is still fairly popular and numerically its still probably one of the top sets. However, what about Stone Melee?

It seems to have fallen off the map. Why is that? No changes were made to it, it still has a Mag 4 1.5 cast time with a Brawl Index of 9.8889 Seismac Smash.

Have people simply forgotten about it due to new players influx? Or has new powerset releases since then bypassed Stone Melee making it weak?

I was never a fan of stone melee, mostly due to the look of the set. But you're right, it does seem to have dived in popularity across the board, and I can't recall seeing any changes. Maybe it's just that several of the new sets are near as effective, with better aesthetics. Or perhaps, it's the changes to fury that no longer mesh as well with SM, more so than changes to the set itself.

Not having played a SM Brute myself, I can't make any better guess than that. But you are right, SM Brutes seem much rarer now that in times past.

Well, it should still be up there due to the fact Seismac Smash is a 1.5 animation time its DPA is insanely high.

Honestly, the only thing I can think of is that its AoE damage isn't the greatest (though tremor isn't really as bad as its reputation would make it - it's at least got a nice big radius), which perhaps damages people's perceptions of the set in today's AoE-happy game. Aside from that it's a flat-out amazing set. Great ST damage, ST DPA that ranges from good to absurd, and great ST and AoE mitigation on top of that.

I must differ with Muon, to me the set's albatross is tremor all the way. The radius is the one bone you get, beyond that the set is actually worse at aoe than energy melee. That's really saying something. To that you can say, "It does have a 15 foot radius and you can't discount that," to which I can say, "It also has one of the longest attack animation times in the game." To put it another way, you could make an effective aoe character with stone melee but it would involve going fire armor and mu mastery and not taking tremor at all.

My own feeling is that the set gives up too much for fault. Why shouldn't it? Fault is a crazy power. To me though it's a lot like stone armor: you get granite but you pay a dear price indeed. There are other issues, like stone mallet's mediocrity forcing you to try to make a chain out of stone fists, heavy mallet and seismic smash, a fool's errand. What's the use in one great single target attack if one is all you get? Overall it seems like it was a set designed for a different game or something. It doesn't have any "flow" to it in any sense of the word. It has undeniably strong powers yet little synergy between them. Bleh.

I think nowadays there are just so many other powersets to choose. When villains launch you were limited to EM, SS, SM, DM and FM.

I think EM is even rarer. Over all I think the Big 3 have taken backseat to the newer sets.

I agree with the comments above, its great for ST damage and mitigation, its weakness is AE damage, it all depends on what you want. Honestly EM is need of more love than Stone Melee does, but then again there are some very good reasons why Kinetic Melee is EM 2.0.

Also like someone else said there are a LOT of choices out there now, and some of the newer sets have been melee sets( Staff Fighting, Street Fighting, and Titan Weapons)

Too Many New Power Sets are coming out and alot of the players are playing these new Sets, while the old Sets get forgotten.

So to further the question, assuming these factors:

Damage Cap, Recharge Cap, etc. What Brute primary does the highest single target damage? I am curious where Stone stands.

Titan Weapons, hands down...and I do mean by a large margin...Super Strength is a quite distant second...after that I would have to think maybe Claws and then MA/StJ/DM/SM/Kat/FM/KM will all be in there somewhere close to each other covering the middle of the pack. ELM/BS/BA/WM/EM/Staff will all be behind the others...

I recently started a stone melee/Inv brute. The biggest issue I have is with
aesthetics - I simply dont like the big stone hammers. If they would provide
alternative graphics, such as big stone fists, I think the set might become a bit more popular.

Same issue I have with stone armor - I dont like having my costume completely obscured by one particular power.

Yet again I forget that gloom is a thing for brutes, with that you can of course make an actual chain out of stone fists, heavy mallet and seismic smash. With those three powers alone though you'd be spending a lot of time glaring menacingly at your incapacitated foes, or throwing in an aoe every five seconds (assuming you have anything less than 200% global recharge).

In general, I like primary sets that are a complete package on their own. That's one of the reasons I instantly loved staff, and certainly why I keep going back to claws. Stone is anything but: it can do very good single target and aoe but only with specific outside tools. Obviously that makes no difference in terms of its final efficacy but in principle it bothers me. Beyond the fact that I want to make the character that I want to make it's also mechanically limiting to be railroaded so.

Going back to fault, I stand by my statement. It's a great power but it's too great in the sense that for most, in my opinion, situations it's overkill. Your enemies are either disabled or they aren't, you don't get style points for extra magnitude unless one of your teammates is keeping that tally for you. On a topical note I think that stone melee in a sense is going to suffer from the new overwhelming force set. Right now fault is one of the only ways to permanently disable a spawn as a melee character. After that proc there will be many ways to do so and by definition all of them will also involve doing damage to it.

Not trying to denigrate your brute or anything, but those are the reasons for my lack of patience for the set.

Another thing Stone suffers from is it's similarity to Super Strength mechanically. It has one massive heavy hitter, and a PBAoE, most of the rest you would want to make up from your secondary and pool powers. However SS does this better due to rage.

I recently did a comparison of SS/Fire vs SM/Fire and single target wise it was very close, but Footstomp just blows Fault out of the water (I know it does the same to other sets, but they have more mechanical differences to make up for it). If fault had half the animation time then I would have gladly picked it up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

here's one vote for stone based almost entirely on it's super fun animations.

I like it fine for damage, and as noted it has some great mitigation, but I really love the attack animations. And the lava skin the hammers and fists got a while back are great!