Bruting the Earthen Devil Way - Dark Melee/Stone Armor, Version 0.9
About Earthen Devil
Earthen Devil is a character I conceptualized towards the end of beta, if my memory isn't mistaken. I found the idea of two very cool powersets I had never played previously mashed together appealing. Especially since I saw some decent synergy between them.
The fact that he'd be an evil earth-warrior/Satan incarnate of sorts, playing opposite to Captain Planet and the like, was just icing on the cake.
Dark Melee
Dark Melee is a unique powerset, to be sure. It's a powerhouse, but at the same time offers a nice smattering of control, not to mention its handy accuracy debuff. It's rather quick to mature, but this can also be a downside if you like having a wide variety of attacks at your disposal. Its other main downside is lack of AoE ability. Also, depending on circumstances, its dual damage types can be a blessing or a curse.
Shadow Punch
You wrap your fists with Negative Energy channeled from the Netherworlds, then perform a quick punch that deals minor damage. Shadow Punches cloud the target's vision, lowering his Accuracy for a short time. Damage: Minor, Recharge: Fast
Use it or Lose it?: Use it!
Opinion: The big thing about this power is that it's quick and dirty. It has both a fast animation time and a relatively fast recharge, perfect for building Fury. The accuracy debuff is a nice bonus.
Smite
You wrap your fists with Negative Energy channeled from the Netherworlds, then perform a Smite that deals more damage than Shadow Punch, but has a longer recharge time. Smite clouds the target's vision, lowering his Accuracy for a short time. Damage: Moderate, Recharge: Moderate
Use it or Lose it?: Use it!
Opinion: Smite is your big smasher, which is a boon considering you can get it at level 1. With high Fury, you can reach very impressive damage levels. As it says right there, it's slower than Shadow Punch, but not prohibitively so. Once again you get a nice accuracy debuff.
Shadow Maul
You wrap your entire arms with Negative Energy channeled from the Netherworlds, then perform a series of blows that deal a lot of damage over a short period of time to multiple targets in front of you. These blows cloud your target's vision, lowering his Accuracy for a short time. Damage: High(DoT), Recharge: Moderate
Use it or Lose it?: Use it!
Opinion: While some feel that Shadow Maul isn't particularly good for a Brute, I like it. It works as a nice attack to put inbetween Shadow Punches and Smites. Not to mention its usage as a tenderizer - once you slot it out, and at average Fury, one Shadow Maul and one Smite will slay Minions and Lieutenants nicely. And, since it's DoT, I like its ability to kill off running mobs without me having to chase them. Yes, the animation is a bit long and roots you, but the potential to hit more than one enemy at a time is nice, not just for the damage, but also for the ever present accuracy debuff.
Touch of Fear
The Netherworld is one scary place, and with but a touch, you can give your enemy a glimpse into this dark world. This will cause them to helplessly tremble in Fear. Foes in this state of panic have reduced Accuracy. Recharge: Moderate
Use it or Lose it?: Probably Use it!
Opinion: Touch of Fear is a little...meh. If there's one thing I'd say, it's to not take it particularly early unless you feel you really need the damage mitigation, as the endurance cost is a bit high. However, I like it as a demi-mez, that's for sure. The ability to temporarily lock down and debuff accuracy on things like PPD Ghosts is very good to have. I personally wouldn't slot for Fear Duration, it lasts pretty long already. The recharge is also pretty good too, in my opinion. My slotting as of now is 1 Accuracy, 1 End Reduction, and 1 Accuracy Debuff. Not only do I use to lock down troublesome mobs, but I also like to spam it on Bosses, Elite Bosses, and Heroes/AVs, along with those ever troublesome escaping mobs.
Siphon Life
You tap the power of the Netherworld and create a life transferring conduit between a foe and yourself. This will transfer Hit Points from your enemy to yourself. Foes Siphoned in this manner have their Accuracy reduced. Damage: Moderate, Recharge: Slow
Use it or Lose it?: Use it!
Opinion: This is probably the most versatile skill in the whole powerset. With high Fury, the damage might very well be worth slotting for, and you can instead consider the healing effect a bonus, just like the accuracy debuff. I myself have it slotted for all heals. I'm not sure how a partial damage/healing set-up might work but I'd recommend an Endurance Reduction regardless.
Taunt
Taunt foes to attack you. Useful to pull enemies off allies and keep them attacking you to raise your Fury. An Accuracy check required to Taunt enemy players, but is not needed against critter targets. Recharge: Fast
Use it or Lose it?: I'd Lose it!
Opinion: While you do have very good defense from Stone Armor, you are definitely not a Tanker. At least probably not until you get Granite Armor. If you plan to team a lot, especially with squishier ATs, I would recommend this as a simple aggro management tool, but in small groups and especially solo, you don't really need it.
Dark Consumption
The dark power of the Netherworld allows you to tap the essence of your foe's soul and transfer it to yourself. This will drain the Hit Points of your enemy and add to your Endurance. Damage: Moderate, Recharge: Very Long
Use it or Lose it?: Your choice.
Opinion: When it comes to Dark Consumption, it's entirely up to you whether or not to take it. It wholly depends on whether you get Stamina, slot Stamina, and/or slot for Endurance Reduction. For me, I didn't plan on slotting my armors for Endurance, and while I did get Stamina, I only used its base slot. I would definitely slot for Recharge and at least one Accuracy if you do plan to use it a lot. But I wouldn't waste any slots on Endurance Modification. Two enemies hit will bring you up most of the way, and three will just about do it. However, I've rarely used this power when I'm near empty on End, I'll always use it a little earlier than that so a few foes will still get me filled up to full. If you're really aching for Endruance though, put in some blues.
Soul Drain
Using this power, you can drain the essence of all nearby foes' souls, thus increasing your own strength. Each affected foe will lose some Hit Points and add to your Damage and Accuracy. Damage: Moderate, Recharge: Very Long
Use it or Lose it?: Your choice.
Opinion: Personally, I like this power, but it's definitely not essential. The main aspect that it brings to the table for me is a solid alpha strike on a larger mob, which will give me both immediate aggro and a quick jolt of accuracy and damage before Fury builds all the way up. However, I do find it rather pointless unless you have three or more targets, the bonus you get from just two enemies isn't enough to justify the animation time and endurance cost. If you really want some AoE damage, you could attempt to slot this for it and get decent results.
Midnight Grasp
Mastery over the forces of the Netherworld allows you to create dark tentacles that can Immobilize a foe and continuously drain his life force. Damage: Superior(DoT), Recharge: Slow
Use it or Lose it?: I'd Use it.
Opinion: Midnight Grasp is a very interesting power for a Brute to have. For one, it's a control. Very helpful when it comes to running mobs, obviously, along with setting up Shadow Mauls, Dark Consumptions, and Soul Drains if need be. However, I have a little more interest in the DoT aspect of it. Unlike Shadow Maul, the DoT here is applied slowly and after an initial burst and you can change targets after the intial cast. This means you can play around with the dynamics of being in two places at once. You can keep one foe alive, but debuffed, immobilized, and slowly dying, while beating the tar out of another. If you time it right, you can kill two mobs at the exact same time. This can theoretically net you slightly more Fury without costing you any extra time. And of course, the DoT aspect is also handy for interrupting attacks that can be. The only problem I have is that the animation seems to have a bit of a tail on it, in that you stay in the animation slightly longer than it takes for the attack to affect the foe. This leads to it mucking up my attack chain timing slightly.
Stone Armor
Stone Armor remains one of the best defensive sets in the game. You have protection to pretty much everything. It also arguably has one of the best, if not coolest looking final tier power.
Rock Armor
Your skin becomes stone while this power is active. Stone Armor protects you from Smashing and Lethal attacks. They are less likely to land and affect you. Stone Armor also grants you resistance to Defense DeBuffs. Cannot be active at the same time as Granite Armor. Recharge: Fast
Use it or Lose it?: You have to Use it!
Opinion: This is your bread and butter. You'll pretty much never want to stop wearing this armor. The endurance cost is very managable and the defense is pretty significant. This is the only damage type armor you'll have for a while, and it's great at what it does.
Stone Skin
Your tough skin is naturally resistant to Smashing and Lethal damage. This power is always on and costs no Endurance.
Use it or Lose it?: Your choice.
Opinion: The numbers on it are decent enough, and if you can fit it into your build, I would take it. However with my personal streamlined build, I don't have a purpose for it.
Earth's Embrace
You are so connected to the Earth, you can draw upon its power to add to your own health. Activating this power increases your maximum Hit Points, and grants you resistance to Toxic Damage. Recharge: Very Long
Use it or Lose it?: Use it!
Opinion: There's never been a +Total HP power I didn't like, and this is no exception. When you can afford the slots, I'd definitely recommend 3 Recharge and 3 Heal. The only downside is that it seems like the animation time is a bit slower than equivalent powers, which can lead to you splatting before it goes off if you're using it as a panic heal.
Mud Pots
While this power is active, you draw upon the geothermal power of the Earth to create a bubbling pool of hot mud around yourself. All foes in melee range will become snared and entrapped in the mud, Immobilizing some and slowing others. The boiling heat from Mud Pots may also deal some damage over time to the snared foes. Damage: Minor(DoT), Recharge: Fast
Use it or Lose it?: Your choice.
Opinion: On one hand, this could possibly fill Dark Melee's AoE gap if you slot it. On the other hand, it has a high endurance cost, a negligble mez component and looks and sounds ugly. It's really up to you and whether or not you take it, and if you can support its cost. It really didn't fit my playstyle, so I skipped it.
Rooted
While this power is active, you merge with the Earth and draw forth its power to become resistant to Knockback, Sleep, Hold, Disorient and Endurance Drain effects, and increase your Hit Point Regeneration rate. You must remain in close contact with the Earth, so you will move extremely slow and you cannot active Fly powers, Sprint, Super Speed, or Jump powers while this power is active. Rooted also grants you resistance to Defense DeBuffs. Recharge: Fast
Use it or Lose it?: Use it!
Opinion: Stone Armor's blessing and curse. While the need for it to have such an annoying -Speed component is dubious (when compared to similar powers, IMO), it's also very easy to get around using pool powers. The actual regeneration component seems a bit slow to me, but that could just be preception. My big complaint is that if you're using it on and off like I do most of the time, the status protection doesn't kick in until after the animation has totally completed, leading you to getting mezzed just as it's about to actually turn on. Otherwise, it's a solid power and another cornerstone (hehe) of /Stone.
Brimstone Armor
While this power is active, your skin becomes encrusted in cracked magma. Brimstone Armor makes you highly resistant to Fire and Cold damage. Cannot be active at the same time as Granite Armor. Recharge: Fast
Use it or Lose it?: I'd Use it.
Opinion: It's a topical armor and resistance at that. However, with fire-wielding Circle appearing around the time you get it and Longbow Flamerthrowers just about everywhere, it can be quite useful. Plus, it looks pretty cool (heh, no pun intended, please don't hurt me). I personally only have used its base slot, however.
Crystal Armor
While this power is active, your skin becomes encrusted in various quartz crystals. Crystal Armor makes Energy and Negative Energy attacks less likely to hit. This power also grants you resistance to Defense DeBuffs. Cannot be active at the same time as Granite Armor. Recharge: Fast
Use it or Lose it?: I'd Use it.
Opinion: Slightly more reliable than Brimstone Armor since it's defense, however Energy and Negative Energy aren't particularly common except with the Circle and the occasional Longbow Warden, plus a few Heroes. Once again, it looks cool and I only used its base slot.
Minerals
Activating this power summons several rare earth rock Minerals to orbit around you. These Minerals can disperse thought patterns and make Psionic attacks less likely to hit. They also bring clarity of the mind and increase your Perception to see hidden foes, and grant resistance to Confusion. Cannot be active at the same time as Granite Armor. Recharge: Fast
Use it or Lose it?: I'd Use it.
Opinion: Just like Crystal Armor, it protects against a relatively uncommon damage type. However, it can be helpful when Psychic damage does pop up (such as the occasional Fortunata or, more importantly, Night Widow). Plus the Perception can be handy against the assorted foes who use it. Unlike the other topical armors, it doesn't look all that cool, and once again I'm currently only using the default slot.
Granite Armor
When you activate this power, you are transformed into a massive bulk of unyielding Granite. Your incredible mass makes you almost completely invulnerable and resistant to most effects. However, you also become quite heavy, cannot fly, your attack and movement speed are Slowed and you do less damage. Granite Armor also grants you high resistance to Defense DeBuffs.Cannot be active at the same time as other Armors in this set, Fly powers, Sprint, Super Speed, or Jump powers. Recharge: Slow
Use it or Lose it?: I'd Use it.
Opinion: I haven't actually taken this yet. However, it'll definitely be helpful when you're in a bind and need to be a Tank for a little while. The big difference is that unlike a Tanker, this doesn't really remove the need for your other armors. A Tanker can still tank with Granite on all the time. However, it specifically strips you of your Bruting ability, while your topical armors do not.
Pool Powers
The power pools available are as follows:
Fighting
Fitness
Flight
Invisibility
Leadership
Leaping
Manipulation
Medicine
Speed
Teleportation
Ten pools. That's too many. Let's knock out the ones you won't ever need.
Fighting
Fitness
Flight
Medicine
Speed
Teleportation
Fighting
If you're building a Tanker build (though I personally wouldn't), you'll probably want this pool for Tough and Weave. They're End heavy, so you'll have to adjust for that.
Fitness
Take it and love it. Swift will help overcome the speed debuff in Rooted and Granite Armor, while Stamina is always nice to have if you plan on running lots of toggles. For me, I only use the default slot on Stamina and Dark Consumption can do the rest. I also don't bother to slot my armors for End Reduction. This means that I can keep going near infinitely, excluding these three factors:
- Lots of damage types. The more armors I have to run, the worse my End will be, obviously.
- End Drain. Duh.
- Fighting a single tough foe. EBs/AVs/Heroes will run me out of endurance if I'm not careful.
Hurdle is less useful since you can't jump with Rooted. I personally chose Health to compliment Rooted and provide some minor Sleep resistance if I happen to be caught not using Rooted.
Flight
Get Air Superiority if you need something to fill out your attack chain. Flight is only really useful if you want to get the drop on mobs. This isn't as efficient since you cannot activate Rooted until you're on the ground.
Medicine
The only reason to get this is Aid Self. That's it. Or if you're working on the healing badges. Personally, I don't really see the need for Aid Self, but if you want the extra security, it's not a terrible power choice.
Speed
The only reason you're going to want to pick this is for Hasten, and just maybe Super Speed. Hasten will help you deal with the lack of attacks as well as Granite's Recharge debuff. Super Speed is a good second choice for a travel power since it generally keeps you on the ground and provides a little stealth, good if you want to zip into the middle of a mob and then turn on Rooted. However, you can't use Super Speed with Rooted or Granite Armor.
Teleportation
The best travel power for Stone Armor users. Totally negates Rooted and Granite's speed debuffs, though it requires an extra slot or two to be friendly. TP Friend is handy, but TP Foe is a good tool for those times where you need to pull a runner back to you (or down, in the case of flying enemies) or thin a mob in the early game.
Basic Attack Chain
My most basic attack chain, and really the only one worth sharing is this:
0. All this assumes medium to full Fury.
1. Teleport (Into the middle of the group, if using Rooted. Otherwise running in is fine.)
2. Soul Drain (If the group is large enough.)
3. Smite + Shadow Maul Target 1
4. Shadow Punch + Midnight Grasp + Siphon Life Target 2
5. Repeat as necessary.
Alternate Builds
One of the best things about Dark/Stone is that it's very versatile. If you want a fuller attack chain, you can get Pool Powers. If you want to focus more on control, you can. If you want your endurance as stable as possible, you can shift slots around as you like. If you really just want to tank, you can do that too. Hey, even if you want to use pool powers I didn't list, you can go that way.
I really don't see me as the god of Dark/Stone builds or playstyles, so I leave all of that up to you.
Credits
Thanks muchly to
NoFuture for the power information, especially the long help texts.
)
Still want me to go for it? Though all you'd have to do is change one of the tops to tights and find an appropriate pattern. 
