At one time there was:
brute elec melee - light st damage, good aoe, killer unique attack. Overall quick cycles
Stalker elec melee - moderate st damage (AS), best aoe, killer unique attack. Overall quick cycles
Corr/Def/Blaster elec blast - generally crappy st damage, ok aoe, massive utility, wicked unique attack in thunderous blast.
Blaster elec Manipulation - massive st damage (highest of all blaster secondaries), huge utility (powersink, hold, aoe stun), one of the best damage auras in the game (huge range on it), but generally crappy aoe.
Dominator elec Assault - massive st damage (highest of all dom secondaries), funky utility power with VS, but generally crappy aoe.
The elec melee sets were one form of elec. The elec blast sets were another form of elec. And the elec manipulation/assault was another form of elec. I can not agree at all that across the game elec was generally represented in any singular pattern, but rather:
one form for blasting
one form for melee
one for assaulting/manipulating
Other than it generally having a unique/funky tier 9 for everyone that gets it and the powers having the end drain/return function.
Some forms of elec were fast, aoe centric, others are utility centric, and others still are (or were) st focused.
Up until the revamp NO elec was fast and st oriented, so new elec assault is like no other form of elec present in the game. Maybe that is a good thing. I'd be on board with that if it was presented in that way originally, but it wasn't.
If people like new elec good for them, I'm happy for them. It's done and even though I care enough to not leave it alone I probably should as it accomplishes nothing.
New Nrg is great, it follows much of the design of Old Elec, so what's not to like? I just don't see how new elec AND new nrg can both be good, but when their roles were reversed under old doms both were bad and required changing. Seems peculiar.
I agree that fire should have probably been left alone for the most part. It definitely strays from the expected format that fire has followed in every iteration presented be in melee, ranged, or somewhere in between. I feel like fire was largely changed for the sake of change and wonder why Icy, which people cited as "lacking" received nothing, but Fire, which was generally accepted as the best assault set across an entire career of leveling needed some very major rebalancing. And worse yet icy was critisized for requiring massive recharge and lvl 38 before it felt decent, and yet Fire was changed to be even more recharge intensive...
I just hope that come i16 purple sets tank in price, and it starts raining lotg's because almost every dom I've looked at making post changes requires MORE recharge than before to get to a point that I'd be satisfied with the play experience. If earth turns out to be a high performing set then I'll drop major inf for one more dom because if it has the numbers consistent with the rest of the game I'm going to want about 100% global rech on top of hasten and heavy slotting.
But for the other sets I'm just not willing to do that, they generally lack the aoe output to be worth the expenditure or have great st damage, but aren't good enough toons to be competent hard target solo'ers so why bother if you feel it is necessary to drop 2 billion into them now, but could get tremendously more toon out of other AT's for that price.
Sorry got rambling at the end, but just wanted to get everything out so I don't need to respond to this thread again.
Take care dom community. I'm bailing on you until earth shows up heh.
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Well, I have the same confusion. I can't see how BOTH increasing the damage and End costs of an Assault Set AND decreasing the damage and End costs of an Assault Set are nerfs. Depending on who you ask, Elec and Energy are either much better, or horribly nerfed. Which makes me question either description. |
Originally Posted by Frosticus
New Nrg is great, it follows much of the design of Old Elec, so what's not to like? I just don't see how new elec AND new nrg can both be good, but when their roles were reversed under old doms both were bad and required changing. Seems peculiar.
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OTOH, as you said, Energy did get a damage boost in Power Burst, which certainly helped it overall. (This damage boost did not cost any extra Endurance, or increase its recharge time) Electric is no slower than Electric Blast for its blast attacks, and is slower than Electric Melee for its melee. The only place it's actually faster is Thunder Strike, which really is still being left as the single target version, even though it's losing damage. I honestly think Thunder Strike should have been adjusted towards more AoE, but AoE was never a strength of Electric Assault before.
I personally wouldn't say Electric Assault has been buffed or nerfed. I don't really dislike the way it behaves now, but I don't think it's a major improvement either. Honestly the buff from Domination level damage has made a much greater difference.
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| I agree that fire should have probably been left alone for the most part. It definitely strays from the expected format that fire has followed in every iteration presented be in melee, ranged, or somewhere in between. I feel like fire was largely changed for the sake of change and wonder why Icy, which people cited as "lacking" received nothing, but Fire, which was generally accepted as the best assault set across an entire career of leveling needed some very major rebalancing. And worse yet icy was critisized for requiring massive recharge and lvl 38 before it felt decent, and yet Fire was changed to be even more recharge intensive... |
I think you're also making a mistake by trying to throw Domination at the problem and expecting it to fix it. You say yourself that Domination improves low recharge sets, like Energy was previously, and supposedly, Electric is now. Yet you're throwing Domination at a high recharge set, hoping it will solve your End problems, when in fact recharge only increases End problems. I think that you and anyone else who thinks that this is a solution are going to be disappointed when you don't get the expected results.
Has it occured to you that perhaps the reason the devs gave Earth such a large amount of control capability is as a reward for the additional effort that will be needed to perma-Dom it? Or that the reason Electric worked so well with high recharge is that it had built-in Endurance management tools, which the devs responded to by reducing the benefit it could get from recharge?
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It's occurred to me, but it is wrong.
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Originally Posted by Jade_Dragon
Has it occured to you that perhaps the reason the devs gave Earth such a large amount of control capability is as a reward for the additional effort that will be needed to perma-Dom it? Or that the reason Electric worked so well with high recharge is that it had built-in Endurance management tools, which the devs responded to by reducing the benefit it could get from recharge?
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Well, you can try Earth Assault now and see. I would not mind hearing your impressions on it.
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Originally Posted by Frosticus
It's occurred to me, but it is wrong.
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And if you look at Energy Assault, the attacks that were chosen are a bit strange as well. Instead of Barrage and Energy Punch, or even just Energy Punch, it got Bonesmasher and Total Focus, attacks that do a lot of damage, but which have long animation times. Total Focus isn't even different for the Blaster version, Bone Smasher does more damage and takes longer to recharge than the Tanker version, as is the standard for Blasters, but Total Focus does not.
Personally, I really feel that only the melee attacks needed to be adjusted. I don't know why Energy or Fire got their ranged attacks increased in damage and recharge, or why the most powerful attacks got that treatment. I can see why it was done for the Sniper blasts, they are considered useless anyway, and at least with more damage scale they will do as much damage as a Blaster's sniper. Energy even somehow wound up with a blast that does less damage than the Blaster version (Ice still has theirs) but I can see why in that particular case the damage needed to be boosted overall. Energy was stuck with very long animations, and thus had very low DPA.
Certainly I don't feel Fire needed to be adjusted, though, save possibly increasing Incinerate's damage and recharge time to fit the pattern, but Flares and Combustion most definately have gotten a rotten deal.
Now, with Earth Assault I kind of hope Fissure ends up with the nice treatment you're suggesting, after all, it will be one of the few ranged attacks, and one of the few AoEs. Assuming it's not overpoweringly damaging, and if it were that it would obviously have a long recharge, I think it should be fine.