I have a lvl 42 Dark Melee-Energy Aura brute myself. He's a different style of brute play, but still a brute. Taunt works wonders to help keep aggro, since the set comes with a stealth power. Like any brute that is defense based, it won't blossum till after lvl 22 and Single Origin Enhancements.
I guess it just really depends on what primary set you choose to mesh with it. I biggest think I've noticed with Energy Aura is that the power "Energy Drain" is most useful with large groups, since it has a healing portion to it. With large amount of mobs around you it's a nice size heal, but nothing to use solo. Depending on your primary to heal with heals or get Aid Self to help compensate for a lack of heal in the powerset.
First off, A. Positional Defense = Winner
B. Typed Defense = Pile!
When you look at it at first glance. Positional is easy to soft cap, while Type defense, not so much. Takes much more work(Unless a Stalker). This combined with low resists of the passives, makes the brute squishy, very squishy.
Sure you think your rocking out with your..ahem..out, but bam you face plant, all thats around you is 1 lt. & a minion. Why? Cuz typed defense seems to crap out more then the positional, when you get hit, your getting hard & fast & it sucks.
Super Reflex has Positional & has a special resistance bonus when your HP lowers, While E.A. doesnt have this, it does get a a auto-hit Self heal in its endo drain(before it didnt) & has one of the best status toggles in the game.
Fair trade off? -shrugs-
Takes twice as much effort & cash to pimp your ride on a Energy Armor brute, where a Super Reflex Brute(Stalker or Ninjitsu Stalker) can do so at a much better ease.
JJ
I delete more 50s, then you'll ever have.
http://www.pandora.com/people/jjdemon
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First off, A. Positional Defense = Winner
B. Typed Defense = Pile!
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Yup. Even worse about EA, no Psi Defense short of the smidgen from Energy Cloak. Toxic? There is no such thing as Toxic Defense!
The Damage Resistance is only from the auto powers and thus, very little.
The 'heal' was tacked onto Energy Drain, and is pitifully small.
The plastic tips at the end of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister.
--The Question, JLU
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Or does it suck at all? Is it playable at all?
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I don't think it sucks. The characteristic features of energy aura are endurance management and stealth. If a player doesn't find these 2 tricks useful, then the power set will be a bit underwhelming.
Below is my opinion about the set.
Pros:
1. good endurance management
2. stamina-less build is possible
3. stealth fits the concept for certain people, and it does have some use. Stealth and its defense are not suppressed during combat, so it helps to limit the incoming damage.
4. resistance to repel and teleport
5. have some, but small, resistance (including toxic) and heals on top of defense
Cons:
1. defense slightly harder to soft cap
With recent improvements to IO, typed defense is not really harder to soft cap compared to positional defense. Here, I refer to the fact that power sets with typed defense usually have a theme that suggests certain weakness. For energy aura, negative energy defense is relatively low and thus harder to be capped.
2. psionic defense hole (probably a themed weakness by design)
3. relatively low defense debuff resistance
4. conserve power may be redundant
5. stealthy brutes do not look like a brute for some people
6. no taunt aura
7. can't see your costumes
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First off, A. Positional Defense = Winner
B. Typed Defense = Pile!
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Yup. Even worse about EA, no Psi Defense short of the smidgen from Energy Cloak. Toxic? There is no such thing as Toxic Defense!
The Damage Resistance is only from the auto powers and thus, very little.
The 'heal' was tacked onto Energy Drain, and is pitifully small.
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This.
"While E.A. doesnt have this, it does get a a auto-hit Self heal in its endo drain(before it didnt)"
Didnt know this, explain how it works please. I have an em/ea at 50 and been wantin to dust him off.
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"While E.A. doesnt have this, it does get a a auto-hit Self heal in its endo drain(before it didnt)"
Didnt know this, explain how it works please. I have an em/ea at 50 and been wantin to dust him off.
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You get a health boost akin to the recovery boost through energy drain. It works off the amount of opponents you have in range, like energy drain.
It is a pathetic tack on that does jack [censored] for Energy Aura. Ignore it.
"I'm not scared of anyone or anything Angie. Isn't that the way life should be?"
Jack Hawksmoor, The Authority.
EA doesn't suck. You just don't build EA toons like other toons.
When starting out, just think of yourself as pure scrapper. No tanker. Only take the aggro you need for fury building. Think about tanking once you are at higher level.
It's the best stealth toon in the game. Great for solo missions right out of the box.
It has the most flexible build in the game. You can skip stamina and the fitness pool if you want. You can skip conserve power and the passives if you want. This lets you get more out of pool powers that any other set. You can get 40% defense without IOs with an EA brute.
All this only gets better once you get IOs and set bonuses. I have over 500 stealth and am capped against S/L and NRG and have high enough defenses to pretty much everything except psi (and I have 20% ranged defense)
Builds tend to be built around the fighting pool or the medicine pool.
People tihnk it sucks because there's a set, standard way people build toons and play toons, and most players suck, so they build and play their EAs like their invulns and are disaappointed. Not EA's fault.
With SOs dont expect much
Pile on heavy pool powers and you can get decent defense
Drop loads of inf into your build and its awesome.
I have a capped out SS/EA Brute with about 50% global recharge and capped defense to all but Psi. I did not get weave or tough but did pick the smash/lthl passive to drop the +def IO. I have on several ocassions pulled lead for ITF runs and can solo the first mission and the Crystal mish with ease.
The bad thing is unless you invest infamy to IO it out, pool powers alone dont cut it. Paired with Dark Melee and pool powers it can do pretty well thanks to the heal, Stone Melee adds plenty of control to slow incomming damage as well
We've been over this before and without going into all that, to the OP:
There is a vast thread of discussion on how EA does and or does not suck. Suffice it to say, the answer to that question is obviously not simple. Much of that thread is anachronistic, and while valuable, it's a huge chore to sort through.
EA is squishier than anything else save perhaps ele early, and it takes time to become better. You have poor mitigation out of the box, and before stealth, while other sets are running fairly strong, you lack a tool to avoid what you cannot survive. You can play with more caution (and less speed) than almost every other set, or you can rely on primary mitigation if you have it, or take Aid Self at 14 and respec out later if you want.
In the mid game, you'll solo well enough against most opponents, though of course, so will everything else. If there were a real need for a stealthy brute in team situations, you're it. Unfortunately such a need very seldom exists, or if it does, it benefits the team less than other potential roles. Other tools are generally more efficient. Your potential options for roles on a team are further hampered by your somewhat limited capacity to maintain aggro. Stealth doesn't help this, and your drain isn't the best. A team can benefit a lot from a persistent damage sink. You're less well suited than other brutes to be a persistent damage sink. I've done it, but I've had an easier time doing it on other brutes.
End game? If you're willing to shell out for IOs EA is among the ranks of sets that can sofcap. It can do so with plenty of build room for solid regeneration and with nearly unlimited endurance. That in and of itsself means that as an endgame set, EA has a solid place. As solid as you'd ever likely need.
Is it strongest? hell No. In a world where /SR can softcap for a song, or where /SD can softcap with more HP and resistances and maxed defence resistance, or where /WP can softcap all but psi with more HP, resists and mad regen, there are going to be tougher builds out there... but it should be plenty good enough... and if you feel like chaining cones from the Mako PPP, you'll have an easier time managing that blue bar with this than with those other, tougher options.
With regard to build flexibility: The big benefit of going without fitness is saving 3 power slots. You CAN do this, but I don't suggest doing it early, for a number of reasons.
1. Speed. The big one. Before IO bonuses or end management tools to use sprint, you'll probably want swift and/or hurdle. Brutes without some form of extra speed are sluggish. Sluggish brutes are not especially entertaining.
2. Health regen. Before drain, you have exceptionally limited health recovery, and a very low immortalaity line. This is going to slow you down a lot. Health is worth a lot to an EA, even post drain. Pre drain it's really really valuable
3. If you've got health AND swift already, isn't stamina still one of the better powers you could take? Flexibility in when you use drain lets you heal, or grab aggro when you want to, not when your blue bar demands it.
Even later in the build, I still feel the fitness pool is a very good Idea for EA, for just these reasons. All three reasons become weaker with each passing level, but taken together I still find them overwhelming for my own builds, even at level 50... Still, there's no denying that the option's there.
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
QR
What Spiritchaser said.
My DM/EA is a beast. Yes, I've sunk about 200M into the build, but she's quite fun to play and feels much more solid than my EM/FA Brute.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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What Spiritchaser said.
My DM/EA is a beast. Yes, I've sunk about 200M into the build, but she's quite fun to play and feels much more solid than my EM/FA Brute.
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Ditto here, though I dumped a LOT more than 200M. More like 700M, and I'm still not done with the build.
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
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Originally Posted by Shubbie
Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.
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Stealth not useful for a brute? LOL.
Try MoLRSF. I get the passkey in a matter of minutes every time without dying. I stealth/SS to it, pop overload, aggro the room and lead them away, SS to the passkey, click it, and SS back to my compadres with unsupressed stealth. A stalker cannot control the aggro and has to resort to some risky scheme to have his buddy TP him away before he dies.
In general, an EA brute is the ultimate stealth/TP toon on a SF, where he has all the advantages of a stalker, even more so with unsupressable stealth, yet puts a stalker to shame in damage output when it comes to fighting the AVs at the end. Did Lady Grey in 25 mins last night.
This kind of thinking, that there is absolutely no use for a stealthy brute in this game, just goes to show you how many forum experts haven't explored all the possibilities.
Also, I get mayhems in minutes by clicking on glowie click and defeat boss paper missions until the mayhem is available. Yeah, a stalker can do that too, but EA is a superior, if not the superior stealth brute. It's the best solo brute. Not to mention that an EA brute is superior to a stalker in that he can speed up and control fights better by using taunt when he wants more opponents and unsupressed stealth to fight fewer opponents while neighboring mobs stand there unaware, for cases where he wants fewer opponents. An EA brute has the best aggro control in the game in terms of precision aggro control. It's hard to make a tank out of them, but that's blunt aggro control. But for surgical aggro control you cannot beat an EA brute in their ability to attract and rid themselves of aggro.
And now that I have my defenses up, I can and often do tank on teams without other brutes or where other brutes are played by incompetent players. So I am a tank, a stalker, and a scrapper all in one. Not many sets can pull that off.
Is it the toughest? No. But being the toughest is not what it's all about. EA is the most flexible secondary a brute can get, and can be built mighty tough and has other unique advantages.
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"While E.A. doesnt have this, it does get a a auto-hit Self heal in its endo drain(before it didnt)"
Didnt know this, explain how it works please. I have an em/ea at 50 and been wantin to dust him off.
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You get a health boost akin to the recovery boost through energy drain. It works off the amount of opponents you have in range, like energy drain.
It is a pathetic tack on that does jack [censored] for Energy Aura. Ignore it.
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You should bug report the broken energy drain.
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Try MoLRSF. I get the passkey in a matter of minutes every time without dying. I stealth/SS to it, pop overload, aggro the room and lead them away, SS to the passkey, click it, and SS back to my compadres with unsupressed stealth. A stalker cannot control the aggro and has to resort to some risky scheme to have his buddy TP him away before he dies.
In general, an EA brute is the ultimate stealth/TP toon on a SF, where he has all the advantages of a stalker, even more so with unsupressable stealth, yet puts a stalker to shame in damage output when it comes to fighting the AVs at the end. Did Lady Grey in 25 mins last night.
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I'm not saying that EC is useless, just that it's far less usefull than many capacities. [edit: and those calling it useless would probably, if pressed, admit something of the same. it's probably excusable hyperbole] It certainly doesn't deserve any place in a holy shrine. This is especially true when I think you'll find SS plus a stealth IO can accomplish 90%+ of the solo or team oriented functions that EC can, and you hardly need to sacrifice anything to do that.
Most any brute, hell, most of my corruptors and doms can use SS+ the Io to pull the mission blitzing trick, and Ive done it just fine with SS and a jetpack in a warehouse mission.
The ONLY advantage EC and CoD in DA give you is unsuppressed stealth. That allows you to minimize your footprint IN combat. That can be useful solo. It's certainly entertaining there, but it's not necessary for the wild majority of other brutes, in the wild majority of cases and the wild majority of builds.
In a VERY few MA missions I've played, it's potentially a strong asset solo, since the mobs in question were tightly packed, plus could almost perfectly penetrate defence, and hit like trucks. Any multi-spawn aggro was death, even to a softcapped EA (DA had a much better time with it's more varied tools)
Yes EC's combat stealth can be useful on a team, but odds are that the brute that has a monsterous footprint, and the wherewithall to survive that aggro will be proportionately MORE usefull to a team.
With regards to EA as a tank in the end game: I'll grant that you certainly can IO your way to being tough enough, and if you spend the extra attack time on taunt, you can manage aggro well enough, particularly if your squishies have a little durability to handle a few sneaks... but I don't think most people are calling EA out on it's end game performance.
If and when combat stealth becomes more necessary and useful, then I'd give it better marks. I've tried writing a few MA arcs for this purpose, but if they're even remotely fair, there's almost always a better tool to use than combat stealth, either solo or on a team. If EA sacrifices additional capacity for it's stealth, then combat stealth needs to be come a more commonly helpful tool than it is now.
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
Sorry, but an EA brute with EC and stealth IO has over 500 stealth (=stalker level) unsupressed. SS and a stealth IO will not give stalker level, and not unsupressed.
And your point was that a stealthy brute has nothing significant to add. My answer was that there are things that only a stealthy brute can get you. No corruptor with SS and stealth IO can get you that passkey. A stalker can do it with great difficulty. But a stealth brute, who can manage aggro, can do it easily. That's a use. And my general point is that while any toon can be built to stealth, a stealth brute gives you a stealthy toon with a 750 damage cap and one with it in the set can give you stealth not lsoing anything. You have to waste slots to make a stealth corruptor, for example. If you want stealth on a toon that can give you stealth without sacrificing anything else, then you need a stalker or a toon with stealth in the set. EA is one of the few toons that can give you that. And it's valuable.
It's a great solo toon.
It offers superior utility and flexibility.
And its weaknesses can be built around with pool powers and IOs. (easier than with other sets.)
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And your point was that a stealthy brute has nothing significant to add
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No, my point is that unsuppressible stealth has little to add over regular options.
there's nothing stopping a /SR, WP, SD (or whatever) brute with SS and that stealth IO turning off their aggro aura and snagging a passkey. You do not require stealth to be unsuppressed for that, and you don't need EA to get those powers.
Your suggestion of some of the other uses of EC are fine as far as they go, but I've not seen a one yet that is beyond replication with pool powers and that IO. If you want to stand right in front of a ring mistress and look down her dress, then yes, I imagine EC might have the edge, but I'd hardly call that of real benefit.
The only valid benefit of combat stealth is that it allows you to actually fight. You can get in first strike, You can engage tight spawns without drawing unwanted aggro, or engage some mobs within a spawn whilst the aggro from other mobs in the spawn is focused on something better able to handle it. That's about it.
Solo, in the mid levels, when you're squishy, this is a help for EA on maps with tight spawns, or get a mez in on a tough LT. Of course as has been said before, with the wild majority of situations, more durable sets just don't need to care... Short of a very few AE Arcs I've seen, there's not enough benefit.
On teams, it's less so. It would, for example, be possible to construct a team of /EA and /DA brutes fighting on an AE mission consisting of large spawns of selectively highly dangerous powersets. Energy damage vs. EA, and defence penetration for /EA. With combat stealth, you could probably plow through with fewer worries that the wrong mob would aggro on you... Of course with DA you could probably just mez them all and be done with it, so those mobs would also have to have some mez resistance...
High damage output, defence penetration and mez resistance on the same AE mobs is not really good design, since it doesn't allow play options for many other ATs... but anyway, that's another discussion.
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
If it's real life, I think it's extremely powerful to be cloaked while I can still beat on a person. I remember reading a couple news about "mad" scientists trying to making invisible cloak. Light will bend around the cloak instead of being scattered, thus making the wearer invisible.
In this game, the typical playstyle is to aggro/incapacitate the mobs and then kill fast. The stealth does come in handy sometimes, but the need for a stealthy yet durable person is rare. In addition, there are multiple routes to get a job done. While stealthing and finishing the objective is elegant, the brainless rushing in and killing them all can also get an A.
If a person like the straight forward aggro style, it's pretty natural that the stealth is a hindrance, and the power set will probably be not as tough as the person wants it to be. I think energy aura is a pretty good example of a power set that is ok if you play according to its designed theme, but players don't appreciate the design and the power set becomes awful.
The friggin' cloak could at least give some +perception since you're "bending light" and all.
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If a person like the straight forward aggro style, it's pretty natural that the stealth is a hindrance, and the power set will probably be not as tough as the person wants it to be. I think energy aura is a pretty good example of a power set that is ok if you play according to its designed theme, but players don't appreciate the design and the power set becomes awful.
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I guess I just don't think there's enough benefit to playing that way.
If the argument is made that EA gets less survival, but that it needs less survival because it's stealthy, then the argument is unfinished. The math doesn't balance out. There needs to be an additional benefit for the lost aggro soaking capacity, and the lost high speed barge in option, in favour of a necessarily smaller footprint. There seldom is. Add to this that a stealthy brute will necessarily have a few ticks less fury from aggro. Sure in an endgame build, that might be 2-4% less damage at most, but it's still a loss that should be further compensated for.
Now, if playing a stealthy brute properly actually increased your power, your earning rate or your all up survival, as compared to a higher raw numbers survival brute, then there'd be more of an argument for it's value.
We could look to the AE for inspiration here... it might be interesting to put out a call for mid-level AE content designed to favor combat stealth (EA and DA) then see if, in non IO'd builds, those brutes really did the best. I'm guessing such content is possible. Throw in the requirement that it should also be viable and balanced for all ATs and I'm not so sure.
And again I don't think anyone should be questioning the survival capacity of IO'd EA in the end game. I don't think that needs any yelling about, as far as I'm concerned it's plenty survivable enough. That's not what this is about.
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
My LRSF build is hardly IO'd at all. It is an aid self build, but that does play into EA's strengths (skippable powers and no stamina allows for more pool powers to plus it up). But my point here is that you think an EA brute needs to be IO'd out to be tough. I'll take you for a spin on my minimally IO'd LRSF teleporter build and show you a thing or two.
I don't think it sucks at all, I even think it can be made pretty good.
- You get easily to the soft cap in S/L/F/E/N with minimal IO slotting (much less than what /Shield requires for example).
- With a few IO sets (zephyrs... etc) you can also raise pretty easily your range defense so that it should be soft capped with just one small purple : you're then totally protected to most Psi attacks.
- You have passive resists, even if they're not high, stacked with Tough they're not insignificant at all.
- You have infinite endurance, and for some primaries like SS or SM it's not nothing.
- The heal in Energy Drain is small, but once slotted it can be handy : /SR, /Shield dont have a heal at all.
- You have an AWESOME tier 9 : if you slot it for healing, that you should, it puts you easily to the cap (3.2k hps !) and therefore boosts your regen and your ED heal alot too ! The crash is not as annoying as many tiers 9 as it doesnt eat all your life. One small blue, one Energy Drain, and you're still fighting.
I still think they could have made the heal in ED a bit higher, like 10% base instead of 3%, the set would be much more popular then.
Another point is the redundancy between Energy Drain and Conserve Power, you definitely dont need both and the first one is much better. CP could be removed in favor of a Dull Pain for example, or something else that is useful.
Just one more comment here:
A lot of recent posts claim that in the late game, with IOs, EA can be plenty strong. That's almost an obvious conclusion.
It is, however, of limited value when performing set balance comparisons. For that, the current datamining principle for set balance will focus generally on actual builds throughout the levels. This will almost necessarily favor builds with limited or no IO enhancement, at least through the lion's share of the game. This is not where EA shines.
In fact, one of the biggest concerns I'd have with the somewhat pervasive idea of changing out CP for an enhanced power is that it comes late.
The cake is a lie! The cake is a lie!
Okay, I've heard alot of things about EA, and the general consensus is that it has the plague and should be avoided at all costs... or at least that's what I've come to believe, just skimming over some posts. So, why does Energy Aura suck big Pom Poms of doom?
Or does it suck at all?
Just a bit curious.
Is it playable at all? Or is it just one big ball of almighty suckage?
As I was going up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish, he'd stay away.
-- Hughes Mearns (1875-1965) The Psychoed
Saint Fourth the Patron Saint of Dark Poetry