Wrajax

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So... to all that have tested it now, How would you rate ELM in Single Target Damage, and AOE damage compared to the other sets.

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Quite simply, ELM is missing a 20 second recharge heavy hitting attack.

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I'm REALLY enjoying the lack of inspirations in RV on test right now. I'd play in there on live often, on both sides, if they flat out banned inspiration use in PvP.

The entire zone feels balanced. Folks that are Eluding are almost impossible to hit. Got your 9th tier dam-res power up, you're NOT taking much damage and it WILL take several enemies to bring you down.

On the flip side, I ran a dom, 2 different builds.. was WAXED 6 times, and got one lucky kill on a hero squishie of some type. Maybe if villain squishies each have their own brute with taunt 6 slotted they'll be ok, but trying to play a squishie solo in PvP is a freaking suicide mission.

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I'm admittedly not a PvPer, but I was duoing with a friend, he was using Build Up, I had Forge on him, and double accuracy in his attacks and he wasn't even able to hit an Elude scrapper AT ALL. Is this right? I'm not understanding how that massive to-hit is cancelled. Can someone show the numbers?

Your analysis is pretty accurate, I'll add a little of what I saw from trying it out:

a) Jacobs Ladder has about the same animation time as Shadow Maul but far less damage,
b) Lightning Rod has a 90 second recharge (it is bugged and only 60 on test) making it not really available as a "finisher",
c) LR's coolness and pseudo-utility factor aside, its recharge means it won't be available every fight - and so Fire catches up in the AOE damage race.

This is all depending on how Chain Induction goes. The fact that we are a week away from projected release (Posi said within May) and this power is still up in the air, kind of cripples any real projection on how ELM will perform. If CI ends up as a 8 BI single target attack, the set is done. If we get a 3.something BI that can do non-Furied damage to 1-2 extra guys, ELM will be good for coolness factor and that's about it.

Yeah, I would probably juggle things around and skip Chain Induction in order to take Charged Brawl in my live build. The real issue though is that there are essentially 2 single target attacks in the set. Thunder Strike and CI both have AOE damage, and (rightfully so) don't have the single target damage necessary to really deliver. Aside from Fury, Electric Melee seems to have about the same single target power as Ice Melee, and even less than War Mace.

I'm not saying they need to add Total Focus and Energy Transfer, but maybe switching Chain Induction, which is being looked at anyways, into a more traditional "smash face" type power. This would put the set more on par with Fire Melee with strong AOE damage and a decent single target attack chain.

Thunder Strike isn't terribly quick either. I was testing out my Elec/Elec in RV and the damage was certainly lower than I expected. I was running my realistic level 40 respecced build, planning mostly on 50 to get things like BU, possibly Conserve power as well - ---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
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Name:
Level: 41
Archetype: Brute
Primary: Electric Melee
Secondary: Electric Armor
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01) --> Havoc Punch==> Empty(1)
01) --> Charged Armor==> Empty(1)
02) --> Jacobs Ladder==> Empty(2)
04) --> Conductive Shield==> Empty(4)
06) --> Hasten==> Empty(6)
08) --> Thunder Strike==> Empty(8)
10) --> Static Shield==> Empty(10)
12) --> Swift==> Empty(12)
14) --> Super Speed==> Empty(14)
16) --> Health==> Empty(16)
18) --> Grounded==> Empty(18)
20) --> Stamina==> Empty(20)
22) --> Lightning Reflexes==> Empty(22)
24) --> Aid Other==> Empty(24)
26) --> Aid Self==> Empty(26)
28) --> Chain Induction==> Empty(28)
30) --> Lighning Clap==> Empty(30)
32) --> Lightning Rod==> Empty(32)
35) --> Power Sink==> Empty(35)
38) --> Power Surge==> Empty(38)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Empty(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Empty(1)
01) --> Fury==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Empty(2)
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I know I'm missing build up, but my problem was really with the attack chain in general - even with overly long animations of Jacob's Ladder and a relatively slow animation on Thunder Strike, I didn't have a really strong attack chain with 1-2 recharges in each power. The End drain on attacks was hovering around negligible, the single target attack chain, even with Charged Brawl, lacks power. Fury felt slow to build even when beating on mobs. Thunder Strike is the only heavy hitter in the set, and it certainly didn't have the punch I was hoping for.

At one point in RV, 3 Elec/Elec were beating on 2 Granites for what seemed like an eternity, and one of them finally had toggles drop (mind you, with 3 of us spamming him), and even once they were down we didn't have enough damage to take him out before he ran away and re-toggled. Lightning Clap was too slow to catch him, my attacks weren't taking chunks out of his life. Had I been Energy Melee, I'm sure I would have utterly destroyed him.

As I said, I was playing pretty much a PvE build, but I really don't see any major changes I could have made that would make the set really shine compared to the anemic performance I I experienced this morning.

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Wet Ice - six slotted with Defense SO's - provides about 3% defense.

Energy Absorption similarly slotted provides 3% per target (so a maximum of 42%).

*caveat - I'm doing this stuff from memory, so I'll doublecheck it and repost later if I'm wrong.*

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Okay, here is my entire problem with the Defense and Resistance changes: When someone initially gets one of the new powers, such as Wet Ice, or maybe a better example is some of the SR stuff like Focused Fighting....the un-SO-enhanced versions are literally worthless. Now, Wet Ice is mostly there for status, of course, and the defense is a bonus. But seriously, is Defense so sacred that anyone, anywhere would spend FIVE additional slots for 2% defense?!?!? The SR versions, the passives especially, will have ZERO effect on combat while unenhanced, or even enhanced with Training or DO's.

These powers need to have higher base values, and set enhance caps for each one. If you don't want Wet Ice to have more than 3% defense (altho I'm still assuming that there is a decimal off somewhere, cos, I mean....3%?), then set it at a decent base and make players spend 1 or 2 slots to cap the power.

These super low base values on defense (and, to an extent, resistance) are going to make the teens and twenties into hell on earth for any tanker or scrapper. Period.

p.s. Also, while you are thinking of Permafrost, don't forget it has a brother in Temperature Protection in the Fire set.

Here is the KEY to the Burn changes: Fire Aura goes from being a set with playable offense and substandard durability, to a set with unplayable offense and excellent durability (since all the other tanks are being brought down to Fire's durability level). If the core vision of the powerset is being changed, then Tankers should be given a full AT respec, so I can take a different Primary or Secondary. Changing Burn like this is akin to taking pets completely away from Illusion controllers. My entire SECONDARY power set was picked strictly for its control options, to make it work with Burn. Now, I have Defense and Control, but no way of getting the offense powers I need.

I totally agree with Frostybot's idea, of having an xp rate cap rather than a leash. The main reason? It doesn't affect HOW I play my character. It would be very easy to set a reasonable cap for this, that would be very difficult to reach, but would hit the PL'er fairly hard.

You could even design a graphical bar that shows how close I am to "xp saturation", so I can see when I am close, when my group should take a break, clear out minions, etc.

That way, we get a new feature in addition to keeping my playstyle functionally identical to how it is now, and even get a new feature on top of it!