Why do people hate Energy Blast ?

Fixed for you.

There are plenty of characters and concepts out there that random KB actively ruins. Just because you LIKE knockback doesn't mean you should force everyone into playing your way, so *you* can feel super. What about everyone else who wants to feel super? Your playstyle is actively griefing their playstyle.

Everyone in this game thinks that their way is the only way to play. KB lovers are as guilty of this as everyone else, only the difference is that they ruin more of the other players' games than any other powerset in the game.

So now KB is considered griefing?

Did you even read the rest of my post? I take great care in positioning of my AoEs since it affects my team by using Hover to my advantage. So, I'm actually taking into account the other 7 players on my team and not being selffish unlike the players I outlined before. I cannot help that the secondary effect on my powers is your dreaded KB.

Really, it all circles back to terrible players not knowing how to correctly utilize the secondary effect. It's just that KB is much more noticeable to the other players than other secondary effects (slows, -def, etc).

I actually have seen it used as a way to 'get back' at teams. And I've also seen some really selfish energy blasters, defenders and corrs quite literally kill entire teams because they wanted to nova (usually herding teams, and the brute/tank/scrapper/controller/defender/dom needs the enemies close for whatever power they're using). Yes, it's just a game, so it doesn't bother me too much, but it can be frustrating, especially when the rest of the team is working together to everyone's benefit (especially for AoE heavy teams).

That being said, I've also seen kb used well. Hell, I have over 200 levels on stormies, and I never get complaints about my kb powers (mostly cause I do things like use hurricane to group baddies nicely around whoever volunteered to tank). It really just depends on the players. Unfortunately, bad kb players are MUCH more noticeable than, say, bad rad blast players. So, thanks to a couple (or a lot) of bad experiences, it gets embedded in people's minds that kb=bad, and it's hard to prove that wrong once the idea is implanted.

When you KB mobs away from a tank's taunt toggles, you're griefing his ability to keep aggro. When you KB mobs away from the Shield user, you're griefing their ability to self buff damage. When you KB mobs out of a Rad user's RI and EF, you're griefing their debuffing game. When you KB mobs away from an Ice or Earth troller's juggle patches, you're griefing their ability to control. When you KB mobs out of a clumped herd, you're griefing everyone's ability to AoE them. The list goes on and on.

This isn't about why Clouded is a bad player, in fact Clouded may be a great player. But the idea that it's somehow other people's fault for Energy Blast being so bad is a fallacy. The OP's post is asking why people dislike Energy Blast. I've given the reasons why. It's the only set that actively ruins other people's games while attempting to do what it was designed to do. Damage. It requires a lot of skill and attention to be paid in order to prevent it from becoming a hassle to your teammates and does not give you any added benefit for the trade off. No extra damage, no exotic damage type, no consistent control, it's average all the way around for damage and performance before you add in the negative factor that random KB adds in. KB as a form of control is *very* effective when you can count on it. Too bad that Energy Blast has a completely random factor of it.

It's fine if people like the set. Opinions vary greatly on what feels fun to different people. But it's impossible to defend the set as a good set, because it's simply not. It's also not the fault of the other people who play the game, that your set is disruptive to teaming. They should not have to make up for the deficit that Energy Blast brings to the game. It's the responsibility of users of Energy Blast to play it in a non-disruptive way, much like how it's up to me to not spam Black Hole every spawn in a team.

"It makes me feel super!" "But the team is safer this way!" "It's a valid control method!" are not valid excuses to make a spawn intangible simply because I want to. The same goes for every other set, you have to play *with* people. They're not there to applaud you for being such a special snowflake.

This, basically, sums up the 'why KB needs to be a responsibly played set' argument. I always cringe inside when I see a KB blast set character go in team chat "Watch this!". Yes, nova is fun. ...not having to rez you, and not having to chase the mob you just blasted into other grouped foes is also fun.

Also, I was on a team (herding, ish) recently. Two tanks and a scrapper. Ice tank, Inv tank, and DA scrapper. One energy blaster who would stand next to the tanks and go boom. And then cone kb everything away from them repeatedly. None of the melee characters were particularly happy with him, since the blaster's defense of his actions were "I have a warning in my bio I have lots of kb". So I got to spend the whole mission I stayed with the team using hurricane to play "no u" with the mobs the blaster was knocking away--I got to be the "wall" that would push the mobs back onto the melee characters, so they had things to heal off of, get +res off of (isn't that how Inv powers work?), slow, terrorize, stun, and get +end...not to mention into my rain patch and whatever AoE debuff the controller was using.

Kept me awake? Yes. Most effective use of anyone's time? No. The blaster went afk for a couple mobs, and we ran through mobs faster without his help than we did with. Annnnnd, no, I was not team lead, and yes, we asked him to stop nova'ing and cone'ing and all that jazz. Evidently team lead didn't want to kick him. *shrug*

tl;dr: Suichiro sums it up well for the most part. I disagree on one opinion--energy blast in itself isn't bad--just the majority of people have no clue how to play it, and its secondary effect makes people want to tear their hair out.