Official Thread for Brutes: Electric Melee
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 11:58 in Developers' Corner
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I lost ALL interest in this set by level 2. It uses the superstrength animations for your first two attacks.
Words cannot capture how much I loath those animations. I was expecting something fast, like on that Korean release video. It's bad enough the set not a mixture of kicks and punches, but body blows and overhand clubs make it just laughable visually.
If power customization ends up meaning we can choose different animations, I'll try it then.
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Some dev slacker(s) didnt want to make a new animation. I'm not crazy about the animations either. Even in the SS pool, really. And the RED color? What's with that? Can we have "realistic" lightning colors please? I don't want to have to design costumes around black and red *again*.
Total Focus is a hold, right?
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I've noticed that the power tray icon recycles before the power is actually ready.
I am only up to lvl 5 but so far, I really like the set. I am wondering, as others, if the end transference will be slottable enough for me to skip Stamina...
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Nope, I even put recharges in the attacks hoping to get more end drain attempts. No avoiding Stamina here (but elec shields have 2 end reducing/recovering powers).
Total Focus is a hold, right?
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Really, really need some variety on the sound effect for Charged Brawl! Hearing that CHIRPY-chirp sound over and over is very unpleasant.
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Definitely need to add some SMASH! sounds in there somewhere. I like the thunder rumbling/strike idea.
Total Focus is a hold, right?
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I don't really expect too much out of the endurance transfer, but I can't even tell how much it does at all. If it weren't for the little healing-channel messages telling me so, I wouldn't even know I was getting anything at all. I've never actually noticed my stamina bar going up after a hit. So I'm guessing that the inrcease really is as low as two points, as the Negitive damage message would seem to indicate.
According to the battle logs, I get a successful drain about 1-4 times in a decent battle. At this rate, it wouldn't seem unreasonable to get back fiveish points per success. About as much as a tick, I think, and just enough to be noticeable. Or, maybe, let endmod enhancements beef up this part of the power a bit (at the cost of slots, of course).
Though I'd rather keep it as is than reduce damage or whatever to balance it out, though. I just get this feeling of "It dosn't *DO* anything at all" from it. 
About Jacobs Ladder: I haven't ever seen it print the "has drained the foo-enemy's endurance" damage message, or visibly drain the target's blue bar; both of which the basic attacks do reliably. The endurance-related aspects of the power seem completly broken.
Also, I use the Ninja Blade and Scrapper Broadsword cone slice-type attacks all the time, and I find it WAY easier to hit at least two if not three enemies with those than with Jacob's. With average human enemies like hellions, they seem to have to be standing shoulder to shoulder with Jacob's, but I can get away with a third to maybe a half of their width between them with the sword attacks.
Last thing I'm wondering about the set so far, is, does thunder strike ever disorient the secondary targets? It dosn't do smashing damage to them, which is what got me wondering, but I haven't had enough time to see if it does yet.
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If the end drain from attacks isn't going to be significant or noticeable then why the hell did it get put in?
/puzzled
Total Focus is a hold, right?
They drain endurance from the enemy. The fact that you get a little back is a minor bonus which cuts the cost of the single attack as opposed to the general use of endurance. If your opponent has no endurance...that is a good thing.
Suggestion: Change the animations for charged brawl and havoc punch!
CB: Give it the brawl animation, like the blaster version. Not fond of the jab animation
HP: either give it the current CB animation (jab), or an uppercut. Of the two, this could remain the same and I'd be happy. Overhead smash is nice, but it could be faster.
I'm not sure what the point of the sleep effect is for melee attacks. YOu gotta be kidding. First of all, if I'm building fury, I'm going to unsleep the guy next hit. Also, the mob isn't trying to hit me, so not building Fury that way either. Didn't the Ice Brutes go away due to this consideration?
Some of the zero sleep effects I've run into in CoH have been nasty interrupts/toggle-droppers. It seem like this was put in for PvP only. Which is totally WRONG since PvE is the game's bread and butter and PvP just some "other thing to try out". I'm not sure what I'm getting out of this in PvE. It looks like nada since we cannot drop toggles of mobs (e.g. Longbow Warden Spines guys). And then, of course, we are paying end for the useless status effect and, as always when an attack has a status component, the attack does less damage due to the perceived benefit of the effect.
BOO on the sleep!
Total Focus is a hold, right?
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I'm not sure what the point of the sleep effect is for melee attacks. YOu gotta be kidding. First of all, if I'm building fury, I'm going to unsleep the guy next hit. Also, the mob isn't trying to hit me, so not building Fury that way either. Didn't the Ice Brutes go away due to this consideration?
Some of the zero sleep effects I've run into in CoH have been nasty interrupts/toggle-droppers. It seem like this was put in for PvP only. Which is totally WRONG since PvE is the game's bread and butter and PvP just some "other thing to try out". I'm not sure what I'm getting out of this in PvE. It looks like nada since we cannot drop toggles of mobs (e.g. Longbow Warden Spines guys). And then, of course, we are paying end for the useless status effect and, as always when an attack has a status component, the attack does less damage due to the perceived benefit of the effect.
BOO on the sleep!
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Do you have proof that attacks with status effects do less dmg or cost more end? My experience so far has been quite the opposite, the dmg and end costs are very reasonable with ELM. EM and it's dissorients don't seem to suffer from your perceived reduction in dmg and increase in end cost either.
Kinetic Fusion - lvl 50 EM/EA Brute
Galvanized - lvl 50 Bots/Dark Mastermind
Umetrus - lvl 50 Fire/Kin Corruptor
Psychotropic Pstud - lvl 50 Mind/Psi Dom
Unsure if this was mentioned, but Havoc Punch seems to have a long delay before power actually activates.
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If the end drain from attacks isn't going to be significant or noticeable then why the hell did it get put in?
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The end DRAIN is fairly significant and noticeable - what isn't so spiffy is the endurance RETURNED to you. This isn't anything particularly new, it's true for Electric powers for Blaster and Defender as well. I still don't know why a good number of people seem to have got the notion that the endo drain was going to be something you can rely on.
I am interested to see how Power Sink works versus bosses and lieutenants under I7, along with the extra endo drain from the melee attacks. Endo drain powers are supposed to drain a percentage now instead of a fixed number of points, making it more worthwhile to try to drain bosses/lieuts.
edit: busted bracket (stupid quoting)
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I'm not sure what the point of the sleep effect is for melee attacks. YOu gotta be kidding. First of all, if I'm building fury, I'm going to unsleep the guy next hit. Also, the mob isn't trying to hit me, so not building Fury that way either. Didn't the Ice Brutes go away due to this consideration?
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When your sleep effect hits and turns off that Tsoo sorceror's Hurricane, or the Circle of Thorns' -acc aura, you might not think it sucks so badly. You can certainly drop mob toggles, I do it all the time - it isn't true for every effect mobs can run, but it is for a whole lot of them e.g. the two examples I just cited. If the sleep really bugs you with respect to building fury, what do you do when you play Stone Melee or Superstrength and the enemy is held/stunned/knocked down? Rendering your target unable to hit you for any length of time is useful and valuable whether in PVP or PVM.
The endo cost for the electric melees is notably lower than EM and Stone for certain (as it should be, lower damage) and I think it is likely they're on the cheap side compared to all the sets except maybe Fire, I don't think you have a lot of room to complain about endo costs with this set.
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Unsure if this was mentioned, but Havoc Punch seems to have a long delay before power actually activates.
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I have not seen this to be the case outside of maybe lag in crowded zones. In missions it is a peppy 1.5 seconds, I don't see anything to complain about with that.
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If the end drain from attacks isn't going to be significant or noticeable then why the hell did it get put in?
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The end DRAIN is fairly significant and noticeable - what isn't so spiffy is the endurance RETURNED to you. This isn't anything particularly new, it's true for Electric powers for Blaster and Defender as well. I still don't know why a good number of people seem to have got the notion that the endo drain was going to be something you can rely on.
I am interested to see how Power Sink works versus bosses and lieutenants under I7, along with the extra endo drain from the melee attacks. Endo drain powers are supposed to drain a percentage now instead of a fixed number of points, making it more worthwhile to try to drain bosses/lieuts.
edit: busted bracket (stupid quoting)
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Hmm i allways found my end recovery on my el def's to work rather well. Few mods and u could see it jump when it return. On this u see nothing. Just go wack a cit with it in a may mish cause it allways lands on them and u will see it do nothing. Well maybe it gains 1 pts of end but come on... If its not usefull why be there.. There just trying to make the set look usefull when its really not. ITs nice to have new sets and all just dont dress it up with bells and whistles to make it look better then it actualy is. Gaining 5pc end 10pc of the time would be at least simi usefull..
It may be more noticeable for Defender attacks because their activation cost is likely higher; since the amount returned for Defender and Blaster attacks has been stated to be 50% of activation cost by Geko when it happens, it is reasonable to assume the same is true for Brute attacks - but I'm observing that the Brute melees have a very low cost, and it is likely that the amount returned is in fact in the 2-3 point range, which would be rather tough to see on your blue bar.
I can tell you that in the Blaster world, endo return was never something I particularly noticed on the blue bar ever, and those attacks DO have high cost, but then I never slotted endmod.
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There just trying to make the set look usefull when its really not. ITs nice to have new sets and all just dont dress it up with bells and whistles to make it look better then it actualy is.
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Yup, it's all an evil plan from the developers to make us play a set which is much worse than all the others 
Two things:
*** If they are gonna throw in End Drain and End Recovery into the attacks it would be nice to add a little more to the end recovery - or add it to more attacks. Elec Melee is nice overall, but if they add a bit more End Recovery it will help more of the Secondaries you put it with. It does not need to be a huge amount, but anything that will make the climb up to Stamina less painful would be very welcome at this point.
*** This is a question for any who have managed to get high enough to test it out.... Is Lightning Clap knockdown or knockback on even level and higher mobs??? I dont mind the knockback on lower levels, but it would be way cool to have a knockdown to add to what the set already has (kind of like fault in Stone as opposed to Hand Clap from super strength).
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Some dev slacker(s) didnt want to make a new animation. I'm not crazy about the animations either.
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They were too busy making pumpkin and chicken dance emotes.
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Some dev slacker(s) didnt want to make a new animation. I'm not crazy about the animations either.
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They were too busy making pumpkin and chicken dance emotes.
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Don't knock the pumpkin emote. I love that one. I could have done without the chicken dance though. And personally I like the animations that I've seen so far. Mind you, I've only seen Charged Brawl and Havoc Punch in action since I haven't had time to look at the set more than a few minutes. I've seen still screens of Jacob's Ladder and it looks good from the screens but I'd have to see video of it to really decide. Haven't seen anything on any others though. Hint hint to anyone who's gotten to the later levels of the set.
My 0.02 inf...
I played ELM/ELA for a couple of hours last night. Objectively, my performance was typically Brutish. I cruised through missions. I ate up even level opponents like candy. I survived fights that would have been death for any other AT. SMASH! and all that.
I just didn't feel very brutish 
I believe the reason is the zappy sound effects of the attacks. With all the other Brute primaries, your attacks sound like you're dealing out the punishment. Which is fitting since its a melee AT. Stalker attacks have the same sound quality. Ninja Blade sounds like you just sliced a chunk out of something.
At the end of a big fight with me and the other ELM I was teamed with, there were 15 bodies laying around on the ground. Clearly we had performed our work with Brutish effeciency. But I just wasn't left with the feeling of "Boy, we whacked the crap out of those mobs!"
I agree that the choice of the SS animations wasn't the best. If I am going to do a 2 handed overhead smash on someone's skull, it should sound better than "bzzzzip". Even the powerpool Air Supperiority attack (same animation) has a respectable twack sound. If they are going to keep the same tepid sounds, the Fire/Scorch animation would be a better choice. Its more of a "reach out and touch" attack than a smashing move.
Comon devs! We're going to be hearing these same attack sound effects for 50 levels. Make them impressive! Or at least respectable...
Havoc Punch (Blaster verison) has always had that animation. It's nothing new. The Charged brawl animation is a different story though.
I agree, someone needs to buy a 10 pound ham and go hit it with a baseball bat and record that sound. Maybe get some steak bones and bust them with a hammer.
I do agree that the sound effects could use some work (ok, possibly a fair amount of work), but it's entirely possible that that is merely a bug since there seem to be other sound bugs that they're fixing. Sure that link is related to Fulcrum Shift, but it's talking about FS not sounding as powerful as it did, so theoretically there could be some sort of semi-general sound balance or whatever bug going on.
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I dont mind the knockback on lower levels, but it would be way cool to have a knockdown to add to what the set already has...
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Actually, Thunder Strike appears to do knockdown on white+ cons, judging by the Big Pile o'Snakes I made several times in a row. And its knockback distance doesn't appear to be very far even when it does this.
I'll pay more attention to this next time I load up the Brute to see if it's consistent.
One drawback of the internet is how it has trained so many people to think that one day is a long time.
I had no expectation that Jacob's Ladder would return any endurance - but what is that very infrequent "2 points of negative damage" message then? It comes in on the same channel that endurance returns do.