Edana

My first introduction to Freedom Corps was seeing Longbow charging in assault rifles blazing to prevent a Hellion from loitering against a wall. The only other organisation I had the option of 'Heroing' for was Hero Corp and that's no better than being a highly powered mercenary.

So I'm a villain. I live in the Rogue Isles, kill corrupt cops, kill arachnos minions, fight the same gangs and Mafiosi that a hero spends their time 'arresting' into little pieces, but I also get to spend time fighting against the organisations that have the unmitigated gall to name themselves after 'freedom' and 'liberty' while shooting people for standing in a public park wearing the wrong t-shirt.

True, it wouldn't be the first time; but removing a capability from a power is supposed to be the last resort. That the set is retaining a healing power shows that having it it not considered a critical balance problem, and the power gaining the scaling defence buff in return would indicate that the power is not considered overpowered. That the changes come at the same time as the powers team is busy and are effectively replacing a unique power and a useless one with two powers already available to be copied from other sets suggests a level of expediency is involved rather than a lack of alternatives.

Not 'The' but certainly 'A' key mechanic, before the heal was added there was little reason for an Energy Aura character to surround themselves with more than 3 foes at a time as the set lacked any scaling defences (like RttC, Invincibility, Energy Absorption, Dark Regen, etc.) The ability to dive into a full spawn on less than half health and low endurance and (if you survive the animation) being ready to continue fighting is the epitome of Brutish Fury. It turned the set from the very antithesis of brute sets into one that could viably be played both in the original fashion, stealthily and picking targets like a steroidal stalker, and like an aggro seeking maniac.

I was including the regen in Energize's 37.5%, 25% heal, 12.5% from regen over 30s. Though thinking about it as a resist set Electric Armour has a good chance of the heal portion restoring enough health to keep you alive long enough to benefit from the regen portion. Energy Aura, being a defence set, is much more reliant on healing the damage from one spike before the next hits so the regen-healing will not be so reliable.

I am aware that the heal was only added to Energy Drain 3 years before they want to remove it. I am also aware of how easy it is to fit 10 foes inside its radius, especially in the incarnate trials. The point still stands that the power is currently a heal and in some cases this scaling heal was the primary reason for rolling a character with this set.

It is unlikely in the extreme that the passive resistances are going to be buffed to the point that you will be taking a third less damage than before, and there is no resistance to psi damage, which to this point is mitigated almost purely through the available healing. Energize provides lower burst healing ability and less healing over any longer period of time in the situations a brute is designed to be in. I am not 'screaming' anything yet, I am however calling a nerf a nerf.

I have no doubt that this is not intended as a nerf, but it is first violating the core of the "cottage rule" in completely removing a core ability from a power and then only returning a fraction of that ability in another power that is not available until 7 levels later and that currently there is no reason to take at all. By all means turn conserve power into something worth taking; but to do so by removing a key mechanic from the set is neither following the guidelines that have been emphasised as the reasoning many more borderline powers cannot be redeveloped, nor an improvement to the set as a whole.

Adding a taunt aura to the mez protection toggle is counter productive to how an EA brute works; the scaling +recharge is a nice idea but this isn't the right power for it.

At the moment Energy Drain used optimally is a 30% heal every 60s, this functionality is being removed completely. Energize gives a 25% heal and 100% regen for 30s (equating to another 12.5% HP) on a recharge of 120s. We are being forced to take a second power to regain a fraction of the capability of a single one.

Why was it decided that EA needed a nerf?

And the cossie colours revised to include more shades of brown, the only bit we can do right now is the red bow tie.

(Which is cool.)

Wormhole the mob away from the container and tag them with dimension shift?

Alternative fix.

I got my Stone/EA up to having Ageless Radial Epiphany last week, spending half the time at the DDR cap and the other half around 75% has made quite a difference.

I think that's probably the reasoning, when stacking the radial side very quickly caps out at which point taking the core side is more beneficial.

An unresistable healing resistance debuff as a buff? It's a nice idea for certain but I'd hate to have to explain that one to a new guy.

This is a piece of software; if you don't give any predicted delivery dates or announcements about content until the product is perfect and out of testing then you aren't going to say anything ever.

Ageless is at worst an AoE speed boost and at best the ability to largely ignore debuffs and endurance crashes. That it is considered the weaker of the Destiny trees shows just how game changing Destiny is proving to be.

If smoke grenade did that much damage we'd be back to City of /Devices Blasters.