Tell me why i should play stone/ice melee...

I was going to do a long post about all of my various projects... well, I wasn't actually going to post it because it's boring to anyone but me. But I at least wrote about it during lunch and breaks today. I get obsessive about my projects at times, and I have to write stuff down even if I don't show it to anyone. Did you know I have six different private Super Groups on Virtue, all with fully functioning bases (all teleporters) that I've been slowly fleshing out design-wise? No, because I haven't bothered to bore people talking about it. and I readily admit it's one of my more insane projects... but it's true.

One of my latest projects is playing some of the very few melee sets left that I still haven't hit 50 on. To that end I have a new Mace/Shield scrapper named One Divine Hammer that I'm liking a lot, and I have yet to hit 50 on my Titan Weapons brute Megami Hime. I'm working on two staff fighters... a ninjitsu stalker named Eternal Sweeper and an energy aura brute Princess Ozma (my first energy aura ever).

And last night I made a new brute, dual blades/electric armor. Dual Blades is another set I haven't played to 50 yet. I've always wanted one with the rularuu blades, ever since I saw someone with those a few years ago. I've tried the rularuu broadsword, the katana, the axe, even the claws... and I'll probably try the mace out too eventually. Anyway...

I've played katana, broadsword, martial arts, street justice, dark melee, energy melee, electric melee, fire melee, spines, super strength, and I forget what else to 50 (I've actually played broadsword to 50 twice so far, katana twice, street justice twice, fire melee twice, dark melee twice, and martial arts four times). I've played willpower, dark armor, shield, regen, invulnerability, fire armor, electric armor, and super reflexes all to 50... and I've at least played ice armor and stone armor to 25 and 33 respectively. And.. am I forgetting anything?

But I realized suddenly that I've never played Stone Melee or Ice Melee. I mean never. Not even to level 2.

And... I don't know if I even want to. Stone Melee, at least, is something I see other people play. I assume it's pretty powerful. But I don't think I even see people play ice melee. Like -- ever.

I know some people say they don't like fire melee because of the sword (same for fire and ice blaster secondaries). Those never bothered me. But the whole stone melee thing -- now I have stone on my hands, now I have a big massive stone sledgehammer -- it just never made any sense to me. I didn't like it, so I never played it. I suppose I have similar problems with ice melee, but in that case since it's ONLY available to tankers, who I don't play as much as scrappers/brutes/stalkers, and because it has always seemed pretty weak... I've just never even thought about it.

So tell me why I should play either, and what kind of concept works for these two attack sets.

And while we're at it... is ice melee ever going to be ported to anything else?

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my lil RWZ Challenge vid

Stone/ice would be a great combination if you wanted to do some intense roleplaying. For example, a famous Olympic sprinter who looted a mummy's tomb and was cursed to be the slowest thing in the world yet completely unable to end her own suffering with the sweet release of death. Or maybe a fanatical Bill Murray stalker who fell into a river of mutagenic toxin outside of Mr. Murray's New Jersey condo and ironically gained the ability to repeat the same futile actions over and over, day after day, in defiance of death itself?

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my stone/stone dominator colors the stone blue/yellow and other bright colors and it is coral.

I have seen a stone/ice who was glacial something - the power of a mountain

stone/ice would be just about the toughest tank you could make (stone/dark might be tougher). if you planned on teaming it would be fine

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First: The only reason to play either set (or any set in the game) is because you want to.

Selling points of Stone melee are that it's a hard hitting set, full of SMASH! It also comes with excellent mitigation, which goes a long way to shoring up any Armor deficiencies. That said, it pays for all this by acting like a sponge on your Blue Bar... it just sucks endurance up. I don't think it's as bad as Titan Weapons, but it is still pretty hungry, so be prepared to slot End Reducers.

Ice... I can't sell this one. I've never played it myself. It strikes me as a set that sacrificed too much damage for mitigation.

That said... yes. It will be ported to other ATs. At the very least, it will get put on Stalkers sooner or later. Like many of the remaining sets viable for proliferation, it will probably get an overhaul when they decide to port the thing elsewhere. But until that time, I don't see any changes being made.

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ice/ice is my only high level tank and a 3 shifted incarnate for me, but i really like ice as a general theme for powers.

Ice was pretty bad for damage back in the day when freezing aura was a no damage sleep power. these days its not quite as bad, and for my tanking abilities, i rather like stacking slows like crazy on my enemies, its just another layer of mitigation. That said, i think a lot of elemental melee sets got overlooked because they are visually dull and lack significant customization options, and many still think of ice melee as as bad as it used to be.

as for a concept, how about a character empowered my a comet? theya re defined by rocky/metallic surfaces and ice. that or some sort of nature shaman from a cold region.

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I have a Stone/Ice Melee on infinity, all Alphad and so on.

Let me be completely honest. This is NOT a speed-leveling build. You will finish missions...slowly. You will grind through content...at a snail's pace.

The upside?

ZOMG THE CONTROLS.

You have an ice patch to slow foes.
You have a hold to isolate problematic enemies.
You have a cone slow to lower your opponent's attack rates to a crawl.
You have a sleep at high levels as a panic button.

The game will become a game of "turtle".
Will your turtle win or will your opponent's? How long should a tip mission take? How about that ballgame...a few innings later you move on to the next mission.

On the plus side, your team will LOVE the feeling of near invincibility.

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Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
Infinity Villains
Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes

I once teamed with a Will/Ice tanker that colored her ice powers in purple/white, as a sort of makeshift psychic melee. It was a pretty cool concept.

The same concept would also apply to Will/Stone if you customize it as crystal. Maybe go black/red crystal with this one and make a villain or a Praetorian counterpart to the heroic Ice toon above.

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My Fire/Ice tanker is locked at 33 on Triumph and was the only character in my world tour phase that reached DOs, let alone SOs - Burn + Ice Patch was ungodly powerful way back when. I didn't feel the need to take him to 50 (He could AE farm at 33 for maximum value) and I haven't played him much lately, but Ice Patch can really allow your damage aura/burn to work wonders, while leaving you almost immortal to most mobs in melee range. Frost isn't bad either, but it's a finicky cone that takes forever to tick.

I'm thinking of making a Stone Brute/Tanker that pairs Bio Armor for synergy (Stone is end hungry, Bio has options; Bio relies on Regen to survive, Stone has Fault to shut down minions and interfere with LTs/Bosses). Haven't set it in stone, I might just go Titan Weapons again.

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Deamus the Fallen - 50 DM/EA Brute - Lib
Dragos Bahtiam - 50 Fire/Ice Blaster - Lib
/facepalm - Apply Directly to the Forehead!
Formally Dragos_Bahtiam - Abbreviate to DSL - Warning, may contain sarcasm

I imagine not seeing people play Stone Melee has more to do with the fact that the set is available to all of ONE AT, and it's a somewhat team-reliant one at that. I don't know if the set is good or not since I don't really play Tankers, but it can't be as bad as people make it out to be.

Stone Melee, though, I CAN sell to you. It's an awesome set. It's hard-hitting, if somewhat endurance-intensive, but I rarely pick sets based on performance. I'll let others handle that, and will instead focus on aesthetics and story.

The couple of characters I've used this on have gone quite a ways to explain the hammers and such. Ezikiel, my flagship villain, has pretty much atomic control over mineral and crystalline structures. He's able to transform any kind of rock into any other at a nuclear level, as well as reshape the molecular structure of rocks to change their shapes, and levitate them at will. As the man is conservative with the use of his powers for reasons of dignity, he mostly uses "rock hands" in combat as a less obvious way to fight. For instance, when stopping an energy blast, he's less likely to cover himself in crystal and more so to cover his right hand in crystal and "grab" it.

How I explain the hammers is through the use of "quantum sand," a substance Ezekiel can produce which is rock in a sort of state of flux and doesn't represent any type of real rock that exists. It's the raw material which he can "solidify" into physical objects, and it has the appearance of yellow, weightless sand. Zik can produce this from anywhere on his body, and will often just trace a line through the air with his hand, leave a train of this quantum sand and simply grab it to form the shaft of a stone hammer, with the hammer head forming on its own after the fact.

Of course, mine is Stone/Stone, so I get to play around with the various armour and various attacks, but it's how I explain it.

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I have a Stone/Stone Tank at 50, and had a lot of fun leveling him (and no, don't have teleport, didn't fit concept, but I 3-slotted Swift I'll tell you that!) That's really the only Stone Armor character I have, but I have a couple other Stone Melee I enjoy. One's a Brute with Energy Aura, I designed around concepts from "The Freedom Phalanx" novel.

Everything is tinted that radiation green color (crystal for the stone look). He used Dr. Null's (Positron's Nemesis) experiments/knowledge/etc. to infuse himself with massive ammounts of anti-matter, build a suit to control it, and make himself 'undead' (a-la Revenant) to survive the process. The crystaline shapes are anti-matter constructs that he temporarily builds using the anti-matter he generates, and the debri from them are motes of anti-matter he leaves behind slowly destroying the world behind him. He's low 30's and an endurance hog, but he's a lot of fun when up to speed.

Like many others, I can't say much about Ice. I like Ice Armor, but never could get into Ice Melee, and have only had a few characters that I've tried it on. I won't say it was the Ice Melee that did me in, more than I just couldn't get into the characters, though that may have had something to do with it, if just in the back of my mind. I don't know.

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"I play characters. I have to have a very strong visual appearance, backstory, name, etc. to get involved with a character, otherwise I simply won't play it very long. I'm not an RPer by any stretch of the imagination, but character concept is very important for me."- Back Alley Brawler
I couldn't agree more.

First off, I should point out that I'm really fishing for a concept for each set that works for me, as I'm certain I will try to play both at some point. So the idea of coloring the powers works really well, gives me some ideas to work with. Thanks for the replies. ^_^ Maybe when I get around to making these characters I'll find this thread and post pictures.

Second... I'm beginning to think Ice Melee is quite possibly the least-played set in the entire game. That alone makes me want to try something with it, heh.

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my lil RWZ Challenge vid