Actually, in my request to Ex to make this thread sticky, I said that EA threads come up frequently and similar suggestions are made over and over again. A sticky will probably make the forum cleaner. The request was granted from a forum management perspective. So, don't have high hope that EA is now a priority project for the dev. But of coz, the thread is sticky now, it can potentially have more influence than the original intention. 
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I also want to add. I do NOT Agree with some of the points the OP posted. KEEP Conserve Power and KEEP ENERGY CLOAK
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Note that I only try to summarize the suggestions for EA. I'm still taking notes for new suggestions. I try my best not to put a lot of my personal preference on what to be included in the summary.
A lot of the suggestions want to merge the two passives into one. There are some who suggested to throw away conserve power or energy cloak, which is in fact quite controversial. I finally decided to include it into the summary because it is a summary afterall.
Edit: I'll like to add that the summary in the first post is just a collection of most of the suggestions in Big Soto's thread. The summary is still lacking in the sense that it doesn't present any statistics. For example, some suggestions are mentioned many times, while some are only mentioned once or twice. Also, most of the posts present suggestions as a whole package. For example, one popular EA fix is to add a heal, add psionic defense to entropy and add toxic resistance to overload. These three suggestions are highly correlated, but the summary does't provide a hint of it.
The popular suggestions for improving EA is to add some sort of heal/regen and to patch the defense holes in EA.
We all know that EA's defense has a weakness in psionic, toxic and negative energy. Here, I'll present some information about which power/powerset gets psionic and toxic res/def. Hopefully, this will make us have a better idea on how to add psionic defense and toxic resistance into EA.
Below are the powers that grant toxic resistance(tier 9 powers not included):
I. High-tolerance powers
invulnerability: resist element
willpower: high pain tolerance
regeneration: resilience
II. Healing/HP powers
fiery aura: healing flame
stone armor: earth's embrace
regeneration: reconstruction
ice armor: hoarfrost
ninjitsu: kuji-in sha
cold domination: frostwork
III. Poison-related
poison: alkaloid, antidote, elixir of life
IV. Bubble-buff powers
force field: deflection shield
sonic resonance: sonic barrier, sonic dispersion
V. dark armor: dark embrace
(I don't know how to understand this one, because my knowledge of black magic is limited to Harry Potter)
From this summary, it is quite obvious what kind of theme will have toxic resistance. For brute secondary sets, we probably need some kind of type I and II powers, which EA lacks actually. To add toxic resistance to the existing EA powers, one way is to add it to the tier 9 power overload as in electric armor.
For powers that grant psionic res/def, we have(tier 9 powers not included):
I. Dark powers
dark armor: obsidian shield
dark miasma: shadow fall
II. Mind-related
willpower: mind over body
willpower: indomitable will
ninjitsu: kuji-in rin
III. "Specialty" powers
electric armor: static shield
stone armor: minerals
force field: dispersion bubble
If a power is dark-themed or mind-related, then it is entitled to some kind of psionic protection. EA doesn't have powers of these two types. However, one can add psionic defense to overload, and can fight for having a "specialty" power. For example, many suggestions want to add psionic defense to entropy shield.
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We all know that EA's defense has a weakness in psionic, toxic and negative energy.
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Just quoting for emphasis. /EA in fact has NO defense to toxic. None at all. Just wanted to emphasize that.
I think Energy should be treated like Force Field, as far as defense. Give us Psionic defense equivalent to our other damage types, and give us some Toxic resists. So even if we don't get a self-heal, we get significant mitigation, otherwise.
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We all know that EA's defense has a weakness in psionic, toxic and negative energy.
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Just quoting for emphasis. /EA in fact has NO defense to toxic. None at all. Just wanted to emphasize that.
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Well... Against toxic attacks that have no other type that's mostly true... however:
1. Most toxic attacks have more than just a toxic component. They're toxic-lethal, or whatever. Your defences work just fine against them (well... they work as well as they do against anything else. With no regen, +HP or a heal to shore things up, this is arguably still grim, but that's not my point)
2. Other pure toxic attacks are still going to be posistional. (EDIT: or rather, I am unaware of any non-positional toxic typed attacks) Given that you have the steadfast protection IO, and you really really should, you'll have about 8.8% defence against such attacks. That's still pretty pathetic, but it's not "none"
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
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2. Other pure toxic attacks are still going to be posistional. (EDIT: or rather, I am unaware of any non-positional toxic typed attacks) Given that you have the steadfast protection IO, and you really really should, you'll have about 8.8% defence against such attacks. That's still pretty pathetic, but it's not "none"
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That would still qualify as a no defense for /ea. Pulling from outside the set doesn't count as it's protection. You might as well say all EA's have fully slotted out IO's designed to just to fill the toxic hole. Which goes against how the devs balance the game, which is to use regular enhancements.
Dirges
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That would still qualify as a no defense for /ea.
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No.
Remember that your cloak still gives you that positional defence to stack with that steadfast IO.
Sound like meaningless semantics? 3.75% unslotted sound worthless? well for many builds, sure. It will be.
It does however have a pretty big contribution to other types of builds, and should not be totally discounted. To put it into context it's still possible for EA to solo the elder snake AV, and cloak is a meaningfull part of why.
EDIT: to clarify, the eldersnake AV is one of the few high level sources of pure toxic damage that actually IS out there.
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
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That would still qualify as a no defense for /ea.
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No.
Remember that your cloak still gives you that positional defence to stack with that steadfast IO.
Sound like meaningless semantics? 3.75% unslotted sound worthless? well for many builds, sure. It will be.
It does however have a pretty big contribution to other types of builds, and should not be totally discounted. To put it into context it's still possible for EA to solo the elder snake AV, and cloak is a meaningfull part of why.
EDIT: to clarify, the eldersnake AV is one of the few high level sources of pure toxic damage that actually IS out there.
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Don't forget Acid Arrow from Manticore. Which he fires at every opportunity.
SPEDIT: And Captain Mako's Bile Spray.
Deamus the Fallen - 50 DM/EA Brute - Lib
Dragos Bahtiam - 50 Fire/Ice Blaster - Lib
/facepalm - Apply Directly to the Forehead!
Formally Dragos_Bahtiam - Abbreviate to DSL - Warning, may contain sarcasm
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.
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I categorically oppose making it positional Defense. We already have SR, EA needs to be its own set, and thematically Force Fields in this game (which is what EA is) use typed not positional Defense (positional means you're agile and dodge incoming attacks, typed means things hit you but just get deflected harmlessly).
Energy Defense should be 45%, I completely agree. Energy Resist of 25% (or more) on top of that should also go into the set, I also agree. This is a thematic necessity.
Defense debuff resistance in the set needs to be brought to SR levels (Defense based sets just fail to do their jobs without it given all the -Def in this game on top of the streak breaker artificially limiting the effectiveness of Defense compared to Resist).
We should probably keep in mind powers being removed from or added to the set is highly unlikely to happen. This set is a live set not a beta set, and live sets simply do not have powers removed, added or rearranged. Keep suggestions and expectations in line with this reality.
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I agree about the switching it to positional that would be kind of silly when put into context.
A major part of the problem though is IO's. Positional defense is much more readily available and is only 3 categories.
Typed defense IO's need to be more prevalent and perhaps typed defenses should almost always be paired on sets so that you don't need 7 different sets.
In the end this is a more prevalent problem than just EA. Trying to increase the defense of Willpower is also very tricky since its typed. Fortunately its not a linchpin for WP.
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A major part of the problem though is IO's. Positional defense is much more readily available and is only 3 categories.
Typed defense IO's need to be more prevalent and perhaps typed defenses should almost always be paired on sets so that you don't need 7 different sets.
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I think you've touched on one of the two big problems with this, though not the one I'd consider the most critical.
First off, with sufficient attention to IOs and pools, EA is fine, even more than fine. It's EA's base performance that is so deplorable. Yes some attention should be paid to what a set can do with no holds barred, but it's far more important to consider the set alone, or even the set with pools than it is to consider the monsters.
EA needs a base survival buff that does not depend upon IOs becuase the premise of game balance has always been that IOs are optional for balance.
The second point about WP is another complication. WP is already very strong. If we add somewhat more typed defence availabliliy, then WP tanks will easily be able to softcap defences. That's a very dangerous thing.
If we add significantly more typed defence then even WP brutes will softcap, and that's just broken.
It might be possible to allow maybe another 3-5% across the board and still stay on the rails, but much more than that and you'd start seeing a rather degenerate selection and build process. Everyone except hard-core concept builds would be max-def /WP.
As a final note: with the new prevalence of SoAs, and the fact that EVERYONE AND THEIR PETS are now softcapped half the time, getting some +HP, some +REGEN or some other mechanism into /EA might be rather nice.
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
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getting some +HP, some +REGEN or some other mechanism into /EA might be rather nice.
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He speaks the truth. I was just in an arena match and the whole time I'm thinking to myself, I need a self heal 
isnt there a power that when toggled on, has damage defended unde rthe "absorbed" message?
keeping to that theme, why not have one of the powers have this:
"Any incomning damage has the chnace to be absorbed by your energy sheild, and converted into your own energy"
in short, it would have a good chance of urning portions of incoming dmage into HP
how:
perhaps here could be a way to make 50% of incoming damage "illusionary" while the toggle is on, and after a .5 sec delay, turned into hp?
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isnt there a power that when toggled on, has damage defended unde rthe "absorbed" message?
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Uh...not really. I have never once had any damage absorbed from dampening field. The only time I've seen "absorbed" is when I use Demonic Aura.
Instead of converting all damage, I would not mind just absorbing just portions of energy, negative, and the elementals.
so basically a resistance shield combined with a damage aura but the aura only pulses when you're actually attacked?
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
▲Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition▲
I had a quick thought of a power that would heal a % of the damage you would have taken if the attack had hit
so, npc does an attack that does 100 dmg after the tohit check it misses misses so instead you are healed for 10.
but I don't think the mechanics of the game could support a power like that
V-Tronix - Angry Angels
V-Tron Elec/EM - V-Tron X EM/EA
To Build a Better Hero #53098 [Newly edited and looking for Feedback] - Renegade Robots: V-Tron's Task Force # - A Summer Song and A Winters Tail #104106
The absorb damage into HP sounds cool but a self heal is just so much easier to use imo. Sounds like a bigger gamble to hope that some of the damage would get converted into HP instead of just having a click heal.
Keep in mind that a click heal is going to have a couple of things against it:
1. It's going to make /EA rather similar to /nin in terms of it's survival mechanics
2. It's going to require a fundimental rework of at least one of the existing powers (+hp or +regen, debuffs or other mechanics could more easily be piggybacked on to the foundation that currently exists) Not that it couldn't be done, but it isn't something that's been remotely common.
3. It doesn't give /EA brutes the capacity to avoid being crushed by single big hits, something that damage debuffs, resistances or +HP potentially could do (though which +regen clearly would not)
4. It would be a new conceptual addition to what energy "is", and a playstyle change to what /EA has been. There are currently no energy or similarly themed powers that have heals, although other potentially useful energy themed effects do exist. Sets can, and should be able to function well without heals. Some heal-less sets are excellent. /EA has always been a heal-less set, but it is not amongst the happy few such sets that work well.
I really don't see it happening, but if it does come to pass, I personally hope for more of a dull-pain style power than a clicky heal power... but that's me.
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
Note that click heal can be implemented through suggestion B3(energy drain) in the first post, then your concern #1, 2 and maybe even 4 are resolved.
I'd certainly prefer a + heal, +regen or +HP/Regen addition to energy drain than I would a straight up click heal.
The heal would potentially be quite challenging to scale... Good enough on an AV, but not too good in a crowd... Consider what dark regen would be like if it also restored endurance...
I'd say having +HP per target with some minor +regen would be much easier to scale. The HP hardcap is quite accessable as a self limiter to how this power could work. You could easily boost HP very significantly from a single target without breaking things at the top end. Any + regen would have to be more carefully controlled, or limited in other ways.
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
what if it was Dull Pain with a per target effect? Just the DP effect though, scaled like RttC.
10.4 endurance
200 second recharge
120 second duration
5 target limit
20% HP boost per target
effect does not stack from same caster
5% HP boost per target
unenhanceable
slotted that's
1 - 45
2 - 50
3 - 55
4 - 60
5 - 65
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
▲Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition▲
I know we've talked about +hp on drain before... I think you were a part of the discussion??? (It would have been 4 or 5 "fix ea" threads ago... and my memory has faded somewhat) and such a buff would be scalapble, it'd be self limiting, it'd be brutish, and would genuinely help I'd say that this with +psi def on entropy shield and more energy def... well anywhere really... would be a great change.
Sure it'd be soft against AVs, but that's not the most important point.
I might quibble with the exact numbers, but that's hardly important.
Personally I'd still prefer EG's static values, but I'd be thrilled with this too.
We'll probably have to wait for EA to be ported before it gets looked at though...
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
I kind of thought that it would be good to change conserve power to a +max endurance, +max hp, +hp power, temporarily increasing recovery and regeneration by a small amount. It always bothered me that /elec and /ea share 2 powers.
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I know we've talked about +hp on drain before... I think you were a part of the discussion??? (It would have been 4 or 5 "fix ea" threads ago... and my memory has faded somewhat) and such a buff would be scalapble, it'd be self limiting, it'd be brutish, and would genuinely help I'd say that this with +psi def on entropy shield and more energy def... well anywhere really... would be a great change.
Sure it'd be soft against AVs, but that's not the most important point.
I might quibble with the exact numbers, but that's hardly important.
Personally I'd still prefer EG's static values, but I'd be thrilled with this too.
We'll probably have to wait for EA to be ported before it gets looked at though...
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yeah, my original idea was actually for a new power that would give +regen per foe. i still maintain tha castle stole it and made RttC.
Level 50 is a journey, not a destination.
▲Scrapper Issues List - Going Rogue Edition▲
7 Toggles! hot damn! I only have 5...but I can see where your coming from with that Rage crash.
V-Tronix - Angry Angels
V-Tron Elec/EM - V-Tron X EM/EA
To Build a Better Hero #53098 [Newly edited and looking for Feedback] - Renegade Robots: V-Tron's Task Force # - A Summer Song and A Winters Tail #104106