Thunder Knight

That's not what happened. Scroll up to EepEep's post. (He's Ghost Falcon) He explains why it didn't work, and it had nothing to do with people complaining.

You'd also be limited offensively, since all electric form does is buff Electric, Sonic, and Particle-type attacks, while punches and kicks are all Crushing damage.

So, basically, it'd just be a pretty visual with no actual effect.

Then someone's been giving you bum information.

I've been looking through the Champions Wiki. There are no powers that add electric damage (or any energy or elemental damage) to melee attacks.

Here is the full Electric powerset in CO.

Out of fourteen powers, four of them are single-target blasts, four of them are multi-target blasts, one is a PBAoE, one is a hold (with an interruptible casting time), one is a passive buff to what CO calls "energy" damage and electric resist, one is a click buff to all damage, one is a passive that restores energy if certain actions are performed, and one replaces your Block with an electric block that reduces damage by less but damages nearby foes while its active.

That's it. There's no powers in there that adds electric damage to melee attacks, let alone any actual electric melee attacks. There's no electric-elemental immobilizes, stuns, or pets. There's no drains or heals (self or otherwise).

And I'm just using electricity as an example, mind you. Fire and Ice do have pets and Ice has a lot more self-buffs, but other than that they just have the same types of attacks.

You can't picture someone punching while their fist glows? Even though that's what your character already does in CoH? And, again, CoH didn't invent it. Zangief's Banishing Fiat in Super Street Fighter II, or Ryoko's Bosatsusho in World Heroes 2 are both examples of that type of attack, and both long predate CoH.

Ah, I see. You're saying that, since CO has a tiny limited selection of elemental powers, that means I should rethink my Elec/Invuln/Energy Brute as a Tempest, and rethink my Grav/Elec/Mu Dominator as a Tempest (with exactly the same powers as the former Brute), and my Dual Blade/Electric Scrapper as a Tempest (with exactly the same powers as the ex-Brute and ex-Dominator), any other concepts I've ever had for electricity-using characters as a Tempest, and then all my problems will go away?

That's like saying "You want to play Superman? Well, you can play Superman! You just have to change your concept of Superman from Heroic Flying Brick to Evil Orc Who Summons Demons, and... there you go! Problem solved!"

No. The problem is not solved.

Except, since they dismantled Paragon Studios, even if a NCSoft-published CoH2 were in the works (which it isn't), it would be in the works under another developer entirely, most likely as another Korean grindfest. It'd be CoH in name only.

And that would be just another log on the fire.

Well, I meant the ability inherent to the AT ("class") itself, not abilities inherent to all characters.

By which I mean, for example, if you make a Warrior in WoW, you get all the same attacks that every other WoW Warrior gets. It's determined the second you select "Warrior" as your class.

But if you make, say, a Corruptor in CoH, the only thing you're guaranteed to get (that's unique to Corruptors) is the ability to Scourge, and it's the actual powersets you select after that that determine how this particular character plays.

Congratulations, you saw one half of one tree and missed the forest.

My point was not whether Electric Blast was better or worse than the entire CO Electric Powerset.

My point was that blasting is your only option for a CO Electric character, with no equivalent of Electric Melee, Electric Armor, Electric Control, or even Electricity Manipulation.

And that point was itself secondary to noting that all elemental and energy-based powersets are like this in CO.

If you want to play an elemental character in CoH, you can play a Scrapper, a Tanker, a Controller, a Defender, a Blaster, a Corruptor, a Brute, a Stalker, or a Dominator, or a Mastermind - i.e., any AT.

If you want to play an elemental character in CO, you can be a blaster, period, the end, no other options.

THAT is my point, not a random unrelated discussion whether endurance drain mechanics are good or not.

And those "classes" only shared one inherent ability by default. Even the same class could feel entirely different depending on powersets. Not only doesn't a Brute play like a Defender, but a Storm/Fire Defender doesn't play like an Empathy/Ice Defender.

The post was long, so I didn't want to quote it in full, but I wanted to leave the link to it. Because I agree with it entirely.

Someone earlier in this thread said that CO's Earth set beat CoH's Earth "set"... which is something I don't see at all, particularly in that CO has one Earth set (which, like most of CO's elemental and energy sets, is a mix of ranged attacks and PBAoEs, with exactly one single-target melee attack), while CoH has six of them, covering a wide variety of concepts (Melee, Armor, Assault, Control, and two Epic power sets, one for Brutes/Tanks, one for Controllers). Concepts were further helped by being able to make the attacks look like regular stone, lava, or crystal. My next dominator was probably going to be Earth Control/Earth Assault, which is impossible to create in CO. (The Earth Assault part, maybe, but not the Earth Control)

Same for fire, ice, electricity, energy, etc. If you want to use those elements in CO, then you can shoot blasts of that element, and that's the only option. Their entire Electricity powerset, for example, is pretty much CoH's Electric Blast, but without any of the powers that make Electric Blast unique or interesting (no Aim, no Short Circuit, no Voltaic Sentinel) and a lot of redundancy (with several single-target blasts, several AoE blasts, one short-duration hold, and one PBAoE). There's certainly nothing remotely like Electric Melee, Electric Armor, Electrical Manipulation, or Electric Control. The same goes for fire, ice, darkness, psychic powers, and plain old generic "energy". You can only blast.

That's why its elemental system limits concepts despite the freeform power selection.

As for CoH "training" people to expect elemental punches....

City of Heroes was released in 2004. The first Pokemon game (which contains skills explicitly called Fire Punch, Ice Punch, and Thunder Punch) was released in Japan in 1996 and the US in 1998. M. Bison (the dictator) had psycho-powered flaming fists and Chun Li an ki-powered energy punch in Street Fighter II in 1991, and Ken got into the act with his flame Shoryuken in Champion Edition a year later. Back in 1988, the way you proved you were a Bad Dude (bad enough to rescue President Ronnie) involved charging your punches with fire. Thunder Punch He-Man, a toy released in 1985, has his arm wreathed in (plastic) lightning. And so on and so forth, further and further back.

City of Heroes didn't invent elemental or energy punches, not by a long shot. It's just the only superhero MMO that lets you actually make characters with them.

The idea that they fired 80 people and left tens of thousands of angry players "homeless" on a whim, with no real plan in place for what happens after that, does not make me more sympathetic to NC Soft.