how about 'the set for doms that like soloing bosses'?
Don't get me wrong, I'd love for energy to have better aoe capacity, but for single-target it's actually above average. people joke about power boost, but outside of domination it's still the best, fastest way to lock down multiple bosses.
I think that the perma-dom crowd has forgotten in many cases how hard things can be for a 'have not'.
(Honestly, I did not understand the value until I accidentally dropped my nrg/nrg blaster into a boss farm... and a blaster, locking down two bosses while killing a third, was absolutely outrageous)
Suppose you are a level 23 dominator. You just got your SO's and are flush with power, and as domnation wears off you rush around a corner and find not one, but TWO bosses standing in front of you.... say, kadabra kill and some lost boss. (and yes, these stupid 2 bosses appear together on HEROIC difficulty as bosses, and eb's at higher difficulties). How would you handle it?
Most dominators would rush in and probably die. Multiple times. an energy dominator would click power boost, hold one boss, stun or sleep the second, and then probably dump all of their damage on the mezzed foes trying to kill one before they wake up. Lo and behold, even with energy's cruddy damage, it is STILL enough to kill a boss before the one they are beating on wakes up.... and then, instyead of two bosses, they only have to face one... easily dealt with with stacking holds.
That one particular situation has killed virtually every squishy character I have brought into it... except for my silly little grav/nrg I was playing just to see if it performs as badly as people claim it does. (It doesn't, by the way) Like I said, don't get me wrong, I still think energy blast could use some improvement, but it's not nearly as gimpy as the 'as the forum turns' crowd likes to make out.
Honestly, I'm not sure why the idea of soft/auxiliary control as a secondary effect is considered so useless. I mean, granted that in its current incarnation /energy doesn't really grant a *useful* enough amount of said control, but the idea itself isn't *bad*.
At the early levels, doms are notoriously control-light. You usually don't have anything really effective beyond your ST hold for a good while, and even when you do get them the staple AoE controls are usually pretty bad before you can really slot them out. And while the single target hold does have an accuracy bonus to alleviate *that* particular low level problem, it's duration and recharge are both pretty bad at low levels. Having some semi-reliable knocks and stuns in your attacks would practically double the number of mobs you could keep out of the fight at low levels, if you could rely on the mob you're beating on to be on his rear and/or stunned most of the time.
And even at higher levels, soft control could still be useful. I soloed my ice/ice through most of the 40s, and one thing I noted over and over is that there's an annoying dynamic that comes into play just going spawn-to-spawn solo - a standard solo spawn is hard to justify using an AoE control on, and if you do, it's not going to be up for the next spawn. However, even at high levels, my hold still has almost a 7 second cycle (BoI and its 2 second activation time.... grr), so it'll take about 15 seconds to lock down the spawn with that. I usually would hold one, bounce a second with air sup, hit him some, hold the third, and finish off the second, relying on AA and air sup to keep the two I hadn't held from hitting me too much. In other words, I used soft controls to mitigate damage until I could get everything under harder control.
If /energy didn't have such an anemic combination of soft control and damage, I could see doing the same thing with that set. Hold the first, bounce the second with power push, beat on the third a couple times and inconvenience him a bit with a knock or stun, hold the second, and kill the third, hopefully keeping him out of the fight the whole time. As it stands, though, lol power push in terms of being an attack, and the soft control/damage on the other attacks isn't much to write home about either.
The thing about folding controls into the attacks is it fits into the whole 'overloaded attack chains' problem doms have. If the enemy we'd be hitting anyway is effectively taken out of the fight by soft controls built into the attacks, that's one less enemy we need to worry about taking the time to apply an actual control to. On a team, for example, there's often a priority boss/etc to toss the first few holds on, but the dom themselves won't necessarily be engaging the same target. If we can knock out of the fight a minion or lieut that the area controls missed without using the single target hold on them, so much the better.
I do agree that in its current incarnation, /energy kinda sucks. The soft controls it has aren't reliable enough, and it has damage problems. But I don't think that increasing the soft control will make it "the set for people who suck at playing doms". I honestly think it'd add an interesting dimension by making it the dom set that allows you to take stuff out of the fight by simply attacking it, as long as the damage wasn't so anemic.
What I'd do is swap power blast and bonesmasher for the higher damage/recharge blaster versions, give power push the damage of a 6s recharge blast, and improve the knock/stun soft control to the point where, if you're continually beating on one target, it'll stay out of the fight. At that point, I think the set would actually be pretty decent. You could do some DPA tweaking on power burst, too, if you like.
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
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But I don't think that increasing the soft control will make it "the set for people who suck at playing doms". I honestly think it'd add an interesting dimension by making it the dom set that allows you to take stuff out of the fight by simply attacking it, as long as the damage wasn't so anemic.
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But the thing is that it's sacrificing damage. Its AoE damage will always be bad, and having only two melee attacks and Power Boost instead of Build Up means it will never match Electricity Assault.
By choosing Energy Assault you are sacrificing damage for extra control, which only makes sense if your primary is not enough to assure your survival. But for a good Dominator player it is, so Energy becomes the set for the bad Dominator player.
Perhaps having such a set is appropriate and I just have to learn to live with the fact that it's not for me.
I've been working on an /EM pvp build. The added control is what I am looking for. I am hoping that I can Power Thrust, then PB TF the opponent. Hopefully, there is enough stun in there for two chains of attacks. If in dom, that's a lot of damage.
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But the thing is that it's sacrificing damage. Its AoE damage will always be bad, and having only two melee attacks and Power Boost instead of Build Up means it will never match Electricity Assault.
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Well, I *was* suggesting boosting the damage as well. I would hope to leave it in the state that you're sacrificing *AoE* damage, but not ST damage. And honestly, comparing it to /elec isn't really fair - elec is such a massive outlier that it can't really be matched. In comparison to the rest, I'm not sure that it'd come off *that* bad in ST damage. Moving bonesmasher and power blast to the blaster versions would be required, of course.
And remember, how much DPS do you lose by spamming your single target hold? I think the effect of being able to control a target without interrupting your attacks, while hard to quantify, would be at least noticeable.
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By choosing Energy Assault you are sacrificing damage for extra control, which only makes sense if your primary is not enough to assure your survival. But for a good Dominator player it is, so Energy becomes the set for the bad Dominator player.
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As to this, I would say: "Yes, but..." The primary is usually enough, it is true, and if you can't keep yourself alive using it, you probably *aren't* that good at playing a dom. But if you don't have to lean on the primary so much, if you can let the secondary take a bit of the work of keeping you alive, you can go faster, because you don't have to take as much time out of attacking, or spend as much extra endurance, in order to stay alive. It would, at least in my vision, be sort of the mirror counterpart of /elec - superior single target damage, not solely through powerful attacks (though powerful enough) but through letting you attack more. It wouldn't match /elec, of course, but it'd be a lot better than it is currently.
I guess what I'm saying is that "letting the secondary do some of the work for the primary" does *not* necessarily mean that you *need* the secondary to do the work of the primary - but you're letting it help, in order to do that work more easily.
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Perhaps having such a set is appropriate and I just have to learn to live with the fact that it's not for me.
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I do think it is appropriate, actually. At the moment, I just think that /energy sacrifices *too* much damage for too *little* control. Up the damage, up the control, and I think it'd be good.
As for the exact changes I'd do.... Bonesmasher and power blast to the blaster versions. Give power push scale 1.32 damage. Cut power burst's animation time some. Give Bonesmasher and Total Focus a chance for knockdown. Add a guaranteed mag 1 stun to power push for stacking. Tweak some of the percentages for the chances to KB/stun on the other powers, maybe.
That'd help a lot, I think. Basically, relieve somewhat most of the worst DPA problems, make power push a combo attack/mitigation power (again the theme of not sacrificing attack time for mitigation), and up the soft control so that you'd be able to keep 1 target continuously out of the fight.
@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.
This is what it means to be a tank!
I disagree with most of this entire thread. I have a grav/energy & love him. The KB in the set doesn't cause me any issues at all. you just gotta think when you use it. Slam them into corners and keep hammerig away or use your KB and jump on them, nail them with melee, then KB again. Wash rinse repeat! It work wonders. I barely use my mezzes as the Singularity does that for me. I've found that with correct application Energy assualt is very effective. It does need a little more damage, this is true, & Whirling hands could be much better. But all in all I love the set! Power Boost, Power Burst, Power Push, and Total Focus are very good powers IMO. Burst for the gr8 Dmg. Push is an amazing KB power that with good slotting knock most anyone off thier feet. Focus for the fact that it builds Domination, & has a lot of dmg. & Power Boost b/c well it's Power Boost. I will agree that the ranged attacks can get bothersome if not applied well but on a lot of higher lvl foes the KB is Knockdown anyways. Wich is good! Anyways just my thoughts. We all are entitled to our own opinions.
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So we're all stupid?
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You said it, not me 
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I disagree with most of this entire thread. I have a grav/energy & love him.
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I used to love Jack Daniels, then I tried Cognac.
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I disagree with most of this entire thread. I have a grav/energy & love him.
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It's not that the set is unplayable; it's that every other set outperforms it and significantly enough such that Energy Assault stands out as a low performer in comparison.
I don't know, I have had much crappier results with icy assault, as it is VERY lowbie-unfriendly, and it is the only other set that shares the powerboost trick.
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What I'd do is swap power blast and bonesmasher for the higher damage/recharge blaster versions, give power push the damage of a 6s recharge blast, and improve the knock/stun soft control to the point where, if you're continually beating on one target, it'll stay out of the fight. At that point, I think the set would actually be pretty decent. You could do some DPA tweaking on power burst, too, if you like.
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I think these are some good changes. Would they be enough to get me to roll an /EA Dom? Probably not, but maybe. The pathetic AOE is a real sticking point for me personally. There's not much that can be done about it aside from improving Whirling Hands unless we ignore the cottage rule. I think the idea someone put forth of increasing the radius on WH by adding a sort of shockwave effect was a good one. Combine that with some of the changes listed above and I think it'd be a playable set. It still wouldn't be one of the top sets, but at least it wouldn't be the set only for masochists and newbs.
A lot of people seem to think of Power Boost as almost worthless on their Doms, but I like the power. It would be nice if the choice of secondary wasn't so clear cut for someone wanting PB.
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I don't know, I have had much crappier results with icy assault, as it is VERY lowbie-unfriendly, and it is the only other set that shares the powerboost trick.
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You must be talking about endurance usage. Yes Icy can be hard on your endurance, you have to be economical with your attacks, and especially careful with Ice Sword Circle, don't activate it for less than three enemies.
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I don't know, I have had much crappier results with icy assault, as it is VERY lowbie-unfriendly, and it is the only other set that shares the powerboost trick.
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You must be talking about endurance usage. Yes Icy can be hard on your endurance, you have to be economical with your attacks, and especially careful with Ice Sword Circle, don't activate it for less than three enemies.
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Yes, I think that I would agree that having to pop a blue at level 18 simply to eliminate '3' minions qualifies as hard on your endurance.
Would it be too much to say that maybe the fix is to simply lower the animation times to all the energy attacks for dominators to compensate for the weaker damage? ald slightly lower the recharge on attacks basically faster animation = more DPS?
Also converting Power Boost to Power Build Up would be a way to also helping. But something tells me if the devs do this they would grant it to /Ice too which would make /ice over powered.
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Would it be too much to say that maybe the fix is to simply lower the animation times to all the energy attacks for dominators to compensate for the weaker damage? ald slightly lower the recharge on attacks basically faster animation = more DPS?
Also converting Power Boost to Power Build Up would be a way to also helping.
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That approach is kind of a problem. I believe that BaBs and Castle both think that the fast blasts (Blaze and BiB) are out of line and are not interested in emulating that for other sets. Energy Blast users in particular would be upset to not get similar animation improvements.
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honestly, comparing it to /elec isn't really fair - elec is such a massive outlier that it can't really be matched.
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But they need to be comparable. If that means reining in Electricity Assault, so be it.
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In comparison to the rest, I'm not sure that it'd come off *that* bad in ST damage. Moving bonesmasher and power blast to the blaster versions would be required, of course.
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It should be no contest. Energy sacrifices AoE and it needs to be good at ST in return.
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And remember, how much DPS do you lose by spamming your single target hold?
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Whenever I've looked at this the answer is actually "not much".
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The primary is usually enough, it is true, and if you can't keep yourself alive using it, you probably *aren't* that good at playing a dom.
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My wording until now has been harsh because I don't like the tradeoff. To put a positive spin on it I would say:
Energy Assault is the safe assault set, and can protect you in cases where your primary fails.
It's not just energy assault that needs fixing. All energy sets that have melee attacks in them fail in the ST department due to the long activation times. A universal activation reduction in the two big ST attacks is needed in that set to even be comparable to the other sets at all.
For melee classes they can get higher DPA by taking Dark Melee and only even taking 3 of the 4 attacks or by taking fire or super strength. All of these give higher ST than THE ST set.
Every Assault set but thorns and ice grants higher DPA than Energy now. Both thorns and ice make up for this by having useful debuffs or lots of aoe spam. The only reason to take Energy is for disorient stacking or to slot those +recharge procs for cheap inconsistent permadoms.
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So we're all stupid?
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I said nothing about anyone being stupid or even suggested that in any way. If you feel stupid that is your own thought. This is just my opinion on the set.
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But I don't think that increasing the soft control will make it "the set for people who suck at playing doms". I honestly think it'd add an interesting dimension by making it the dom set that allows you to take stuff out of the fight by simply attacking it, as long as the damage wasn't so anemic.
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But the thing is that it's sacrificing damage. Its AoE damage will always be bad, and having only two melee attacks and Power Boost instead of Build Up means it will never match Electricity Assault.
By choosing Energy Assault you are sacrificing damage for extra control, which only makes sense if your primary is not enough to assure your survival. But for a good Dominator player it is, so Energy becomes the set for the bad Dominator player.
Perhaps having such a set is appropriate and I just have to learn to live with the fact that it's not for me.
[/ QUOTE ]Correct me if I'm wrong, but Bone Smasher and Total Focus do mostly energy damage, but Havoc Punch and Thunderstrike do mostly smashing damage according to the real numbers.
Is that even right? I mean, Elec's two melee heavy hitters doing almost purely smashing damage doesn't seem like a bright idea.
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50s: Zul Vakirol Thugs/Poison; Virtue. Kiyujin Katana/SR
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So we're all stupid?
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I said nothing about anyone being stupid or even suggested that in any way. If you feel stupid that is your own thought. This is just my opinion on the set.
[/ QUOTE ]The argument runs:
A: Here is proof that Energy Assault is not as good as the other assault sets
B: You just don't know how to use it
A: ... Uh, okay?
If you need your assault set to provide you mitigation, you're not paying attention to your primary.
That's one of the reasons that energy assault is often paired with gravity.
Until wormhole, gravity often does NOT provide enough mitigation from it's primary. Energy assault helps this. energy does not provide enough damage, gravity, on the other hand does.
Admittedly, the total is slower than molasses, but it's also very, very safe. It's a case of the whole being greater than the sum of it's parts.
Yes, grav/energy is a slow combo, but it's tough... It's not an ar/dev situation, where you have two interesting fringe sets combining to make a weak total... It's more like old dark melee/regen, where combined you have an extremely tough plinker.
The problem with energy assault has never been in it's survivability, it's been in it's damage... and I am fairly certain that this is by design. Not that I wouldn't mind the damage being buffed, but I do understand why it hasn't.
Here's an idea I had for Energy Assault's KB powers. The Idea is to allow them to fully mesh with ones Holds.
"When you blast your target, you keep them off balance and lower their resistance to mezzing effects."
This is a fairly small amount for power bolt (say -8.33% resistance to Hold/Disorient/Sleep/Immobilize/Fear/Confuse), and a more significant amount for Power Burst and Power Push (say, 25% each).
Not only will this help with your hold durations, it would also benefit the disorients in Bone Smasher, Whirling Hands, and Total Focus.
Just something that came to me a couple days ago. I'm not positive it's what's needed, but I hadn't noticed it suggested before.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.
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"When you blast your target, you keep them off balance and lower their resistance to mezzing effects."
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Yes, that's an interesting suggestion. It would be most useful in the lower levels, and make it easier to hold through the PToD. It would be unique and interesting but I don't think it would address the core issues of Energy Assault.
As the Dom buffs get closer I lament that our best package for Energy Assault is "the set for people who suck at playing doms".
Please someone have a good idea! I want to save this set.