Should Energy Melee Get More AOE Damage ?

I'd be happier if they gave ET a better looking animation. Before it was quick and looked good. Now it's slower and looks like an assassin strike with convulsions.

The self damage isnt really a problem unless you play with a certain set. For me on tankers I remember the self damage thing used to work like an aoe because all tanker attacks are aoe by nature they just have different target limits. I remember killing myself so many times because critters used to stack all in one spot. If you missed counted and hit 11 critters instead of 10 you pretty much ate dirt. Now a days this doesnt happen at least I cant get it to happen anymore. As for as the self damage on the other ATs, just dont be retarded and pick something that doesnt have a real self heal and you will be fine with a 3 slotted health.

It is just using their normal damage modifier. For example, Brute ET is set to cause them to take 3.75 self damage. That is 0.75 (their damage mod) * 55.61 (base damage for a dmg mod of 1) * 3.75 (damage scale on ET)= 156.4. City of Data agrees.

Tanker: 0.8 (dmg mod) * 55.61 (base damage) * 3.75 (ET damage scale) = 166.83

Stalker: 1 (dmg mod) * 55.61 (base damage) * 3 (ET damage scale) = 166.83

Or did you mean something different by that?

Scrappers and Stalkers would indeed deal more damage than a Tank. However, they would be taking more damage as well as having less health - a double penalty. Even if they took the same damage as a Tank, their survivability hit would be greater. A Tanker with 1875 hp taking 100 damage is much less significant than a Scrapper with 1338 hp taking 100. Now a consider a Scrapper with 1338 hp taking 140 damage. Double survivability hit.

To compound that, Brutes would take less self damage than the other three, have more health than all but Tankers, and deal equal (with the potential to deal more) damage than the other three. How is that at all fair?

If the self damage is adjusted, it should be normalized (everyone takes the same survivability hit, ie: 5% base hp) or equal intent (damage dealers take more self damage, Brutes included).

Would making the backlash damage take buffs and any damage enhancements in ET solve the problem?

Considering it's a bottom feeder in terms of aoe damage and mitigation, and it's best attack damages the user, it should be heads and shoulders above other sets in terms of single target damage (because that is literally all it's got), not on par with others that have better damage mitigation and aoe abilities.

You compare em to dm, so lets look at them then. Pretty close in terms of single target damage, but after that, em gets wrecked. Again, em's best attack damages the user every time its used, and thanks to it's ridicu-long animation, on teams, you will constantly be et'ing corpses while still damaging yourself -not a lot of fun. DM's best attack (arguably), heals the user, adding a great deal of damage mitigation and survivability.

Neither set is very strong in terms of aoe, but dm certainly has more options, with shadow maul early on, an aoe end drain power that does minor aoe damage, and a build up power that does minor aoe damage (edit:holy crap i just looked up the damage on mids - it does the same damage as whirling hands? LOL... wow.) but also grants a nice to hit buff.

And finally, anyone who has played both sets extensively, and is not suffering from massive drug abuse, will choose dm over em for almost every single situation, because it's simply a much better set than em in almost every situation - and most importantly, it's a lot more fun to play than the sluggish and frustrating em, post nerf.

Again, I'm not claiming the set is completely unplayable, but it needs some buffs to compete with most other powersets. A slight tweak to wh is not going to do it.

Sure it will. Unfortunately the old animation and the days of EM being the undisputed single target king are over. I think it is more probable that that devs will give EM more AOE damage/mitigation than simply restoring ET to its former glory. Even if its single target dominace was restored EM will still suck on teams.

Giving Whirling Hands a larger radius with a high chance to stun would make EM equal to Super Strength. Super Strength really has one AOE but it is a Good AOE. It also has one single extreme damage attack and Rage. If the change to WH occurs, EM will have one good AOE, 2 Extreme Damage Attacks and Build Up. That makes it more ideal to me than SS because of its less resisted damage.

Once again the animation changes are overexaggerated. Hitting something with ET feels no different than hitting something with KO Blow. You think if I could have 2 KO blows in my set I would complain about animation times ? I am grateful EM has 2 extreme target attacks but its AOE sucks and giving it more AOE is more benefical to the game overall rather than just making it a single target king again.

First of all, if they make WH anywhere near as good as footstomp, it would be more than a slight tweak, lol. And, imo, it shouldn't be as good as footstomp, since footstomp is a teir nine power. As I said in an earlier post, increasing the aoe ability of em would be one way to pull it out of the basement, but again, a slight tweak to WH (like a slightly larger radius or slightly improved chance for stun) wouldn't do it, imo.

Secondly, I can think of a pretty significant difference between KO blow and ET, KO blow doesn't damage you every time you use it. As it stands now, with footstomp, SS has far superior aoe ability than EM, and it would take quite a bit of a buff to WH to even that out, and then you'd create a new imbalance in that SS gets FS as it's tier nine while WH comes earlier for EM.

And finally, the animation change is not being 'overexaggerated'. ET was THE power for EM, just as FS is THE power for SS. ET used to make EM THE dominant st set in exchange for it's pitiful aoe. ET used to be a guaranteed quick kill on teams, now it's a corpse masher that only does damage to yourself, even if your target is already dead. That's why so many have complained and that's why so many have shelved their EM toons - because when you cripple a set's defining power, you cripple the whole set. The same thing would happen if they nerfed FS to the same degree for SS.


You may still enjoy EM, and that's fine, but the fact remains, the set is now on par with several others in single target ability, while being a bottom feeder in terms of aoe ability, which definitively puts it near or at the bottom among all competing powersets. And while some may still enjoy and play em, there are many players who despise how the set now plays, because the quick big hitter that defined the set is gone, and what remains is a glacially slow single target set with pitiful aoe damage and mitigation.

Except that ET animates slower (120% of the animation time before accounting for Arcanatime). And does damage to you. And comes around much later in the character's build. I guess that one's a positive, though, since that means you're not hitting yourself for as many levels!

Random thought: how about capping the self-damage to the mob's remaining hit points at the time that the damage is applied? That way if the mob is already dead you only waste the animation time, the same as all of the other attacks in the game.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

KO Blow animation: 2:23s
ET animation: 2:67s

Isnt much different to me.

And I never even notice the damage ET causes me. It was always trivial. Still since ET is slow now, it believe it can be removed or decreased in some way.

People have to realize that changing ET back will solve nothing for EMs weakness on teams. It is therefore more benefical for the game to up its AOE damage/mitigation. Of course I would like both but if it is one or the other, AOE is the priority.

I don't know. Still got that one big shot off in the team with a quick ET again.

But you're right. It's such a single target set, it lacked in teams. Which didn't bother me, when ET was stylish.

Maybe if they gave the attack a nicer looking animation, all would change.

First of all, Castle has stated a number of times that tier has absolutely jack and **** to do with the potency of a power. The only thing tier has anything to do with is the level in which you gain access to a power and, therefore, a loose relationship to its fundamental importance to the set as a whole.

I can think of another couple of significant differences between ET and KO Blow: ET deals 28% more base damage and recharges 20% faster.

That's not a problem. SS is still getting KO Blow (which is actually substantially stronger than most tier 9 ST attacks because of its significantly shorter animation time) at a lower level. The powerset gets ST damage focus early on and gets what AoE focus it gets later on. Besides, it's not as if SS is even a decent precedent to use for a set anyways. The entire set is a representation of why heuristic balancing mechanisms are completely facepalm when you don't holistically analyze a system. The set is only "balanced" because Footstomp, KO Blow, and Rage are overpowered but everything else is horrible underpowered.

The only place ET was the power that EM relied on was PvP. In PvE, thanks to recharge times, you actually got more real use out of Bone Smasher and Energy Punch and still do. Even so, ET is still incredibly powerful, it's just not as borked as it used to be. It's still got a DPA that's through the roof. It still recharges faster and costs substantially less endurance than its damage says it should. It's not a bad power. It's just not as awesome as it used to be (which was absurdly awesome and in need of significant nerfing).

The question as to whether the set should once again be absolute top tier for ST damage is the debatable point. Honestly, I think that EM should get a bit of an AoE boost either through an improvement to WH (by increasing its radius to 10' or its damage scalar to 1.2) or turning ET into a targeted AoE (which I think would be a great idea, though the devs would need to make the -hp a cost per activation rather than a cost per target unless they drastically reduce the -hp). Tweaking TF so that it's not a giant waste of animation time might also be nice since it sucks miserably with the animation time it's current got.

Ha, I actually like the new animation, I just can't stand how the set plays now. Before, with a quick et, you had a fast-hitting heavy hitter that gave you an auto-kill on whatever you targeted, even on large teams. Sure it still sucked being on a large team with em due to it's poor aoe, but at least you had that one glorious attack. Now its worse because your best two powers are virtually useless on large teams. And it's ridiculously frustrating firing off one of your big hitters only to have your target killed by a teamate, and eating et's self damage on top of it is just a slap in the face.

I'd say the value of a power, and where you get it, is a pretty important relationship, lol. If there were two SS sets and one got footstomp at lvl 10 and the other at 32, which set would you play?

Thats why if you are going to balance two sets against eachother (or more), and they're already close to even in single target ability, and you bring one set up to the same level as the other, where that set is getting it's aoe powers is very relevant. That's why I said buffing wh anywhere near fs's power level would imbalance the two sets in the opposite direction.



So it's debatable as to which power is better, considering the fact ko blow activates faster and doesn't do self damage? Even if you want to argue that et is superior to ko blow (I'm not agreeing that it is), would you claim its a wide gap? I would hope not.

Now lets look at aoe ability - would you argue whirling hands is anywhere near as good as footstomp? What set has worse aoe ability than em? And that's the problem.

EM is still a top single target set, there is no dispute there. The problem is, there are several competing sets in the same neighborhood as em in terms of single target ability, but these same sets severely outclass em in aoe ability.



You're making it more complicated than it needs to be, and you'll never get perfect balance between sets if you want the sets to be different and unique at all. And I'm not asking for perfect balance. But when one set is only on par with several other sets in terms of single target ability, while being at the bottom in aoe ability, and playing said set makes me want to poke out my eyes with a rusty nail, then that set needs some help. I simply can't think of a reasonable argument to suggest that a set is balanced vs competing sets when its on par with other sets in terms of st, and a clear bottom feeder in terms of aoe, especially in an mmo game where teaming is a common situation.

You complain about HOW superstrength is balanced. I really don't care HOW they balance the sets, I would just ask that they balance them. And right now, em is not balanced when measured against competing sets.



I strongly disagree. I rarely ever pvp, but I loved et. And when it had a fast activation time, it got me consistent kills even on the largest teams. Now, it's virtually useless on teams, because your target is usually dead before the animation finishes, but as a bonus, you still get to eat the self damage. So while you may not feel that is a 'bad' power, it should be clear by now that many feel quite the opposite, hence all the complaints and shelved em toons.



As I've said, I don't care HOW they balance it, but I think it's clear the set needs help. If they did go with the 'improve aoe' approach, I agree that adding some to et and/or tf would be a good idea. Then the sets' best two powers would have some use on teams.

That depends entirely upon what other powers were reordered to get those powers available at the different levels. If I was playing a Tanker and the powerset was forcing me to wait forever on Taunt in order to get Footstomp asap, I'd probably play the other first because I need to get aggro before I begin bothering with AoE damage.

And would you be willing to have KO Blow be weakened to account for the fact that it is actually available 3 tiers earlier than it should be? EM has to wait until the same level as everyone else in order to have the same ST focus powers available to it. SS gets its best ST damage power significantly earlier than everyone else. By your own logic, KO Blow should actually be weakened because it is available earlier.

You're completely missing the point of what I was saying anyways. I've met people that absolutely love talking about how Footstomp is balanced because it is a tier 9 power, even though it has twice the area of effect that it should with its damage, and end and recharge costs. What tier it is has nothing its capabilities. Those values are governed by a completely different calculation that doesn't give a hairless rat whether it's tier 9 or tier 3 (Spine Burst breaks the rules in the exact same way and is a tier 3). In the design and evaluation of a power, it doesn't matter what tier a power is as long as the powers that are more fundamental to the operation of the powerset are lower in tier.

Dark Melee is definitely worse at AoE damage than EM. Dark Melee has a tiny area of effect, horrible activation time, and half the number of potential targets, not to mention that Soul Drain and Dark Consumption are both on recharge times that are long enough to prohibit real contribution to AoE capability. MA is just as bad at AoE damage as EM (they both have only a single AoE that does nearly the same amount of damage; MA is only slightly better because of the animation time is better on DT) and is actually worse at ST damage.

With this, I'm not saying that EM doesn't need to have its AoE capability improved; I'm just trying to put its AoE woes into perspective.

Actually,





Actually, I'm making it exactly as complicated as it needs to be especially since you insist on using SS as the model of balance (which, on a power-for-power basis, it's the absolute worst set to use for this purpose). Balance is a complex process. The fact that many people are frustrated with EM has nothing to do with the fact that it is presumed to be weak. They're frustrated with it due to the fact that it is weaker than it used to be and now has to be played in a different manner. It's for these same reasons that */Regen no longer sees the number of players that it used to.

The people that have shelves their EM toons because of the change to a single power are doing so because they're not willing to change the times in which they used the power. People still use Greater Fire Sword, Headsplitter, 1k Cuts, and Eagles Claw even though those powers all take a long time to animate and oftentimes result in wasted animation time because their target is already dead. The players that use those powers have learned to minimize target deaths during animation by specifically hitting healthy targets that aren't near death. The fact that people are used to using ET against targets already at half health and taking them out completely are now having to deal with the fact that their targets are dying before they get to finish their animation is due to people having to learn to adjust the use of the power. ET is still a really good power. It's just not one you would want to use immediately against every enemy on the planet.

You're also assuming that "many" people are intelligent and didn't just take EM because it was the flavor of the month. EM was insanely popular because it was doing boatloads more DPS than was capable with other sets (oftentimes allowing a Tanker to deal just as much damage as a Scrapper). Now that ET has been brought down in effectiveness and no one is shouting out its virtues from the rooftops, it has fallen from favor. That doesn't mean the set is broken. It's still a top contender for ST damage and has an excellent secondary effect. Even if the devs did increase its AoE damage, I still doubt it would see a resurgence in play just because it's not as awesome as it used to be. The same would happen if */Shield or */WP were brought down in effectiveness to be more balanced with other sets.

I wouldn't actually recommending giving TF some AoE capability. The problem with TF is that it takes too long to animate. Its DPA is utterly atrocious. Honestly, I think its damage needs to get a free upgrade (i.e. no increase to end or rech time) to account for the fact that it takes more than a second longer to animate than any other melee tier 9 attack power (except for 1k Cuts, which gets a pass because it's a cone and a DoT). Either that or the animation needs to be sped up to give it a better DPA so that there is actually a point to using it in an ST attack string.

AoE damage == taunt && AoE damage > Taunt.

Taunting things doesn't make them stop attacking, it just makes them attack you. A Tanker's AoE makes them attack them, and Footstomp will hit twice as many targets in a larger AoE to make things attack you. On top of that, damage is considered in threat, which means how much damage your teammates have to do to pull them off of you.

Barring highly unlikely scenarios or a complete failure in managing endurance on your build (since Taunt is free), Footstomp will always get you more aggro than Taunt. And it will help kill things on top of that.

Arguably, it is. Check out its recharge time compared to the other similar damage powers which are available later. And before you bother to try to correct me, I understand that the theory is that tier is irrelevant. In a player's eyes, it matters, and in several examples in the game it matters.

Thank you for speaking for me, but you're completely off the mark. I shelved my EM character not because I wasn't willing to change the times that I used the power; I did it because my attack chain suddenly felt extremely clunky. Unless by "change the times I used the power" meaning "was forced to completely skip using the power in order to maintain an attack chain with animations shorter than 2 seconds" - in which case I'd say that you're understating the case severely so as to pretend that anyone not happy is some unadaptable dinosaur instead of actually acknowledging that there was a drastic change in the feel of the set and that maybe, just maybe, there might be some people who didn't like that instead of your pet theory that "people only ever liked EM because it was broken". See my previous post, where I said all of this before, and commented that I went to DM because it offered a faster feel.


And yet, the only people shouting out its virtues before were completely ignoring anything negative about it, just like the people shouting about how much it sucks now ignore anything positive about it. It's never been a good PvE set, it was always for niche play. Even if you're going to call out "soloing AVs", that's a niche style and hardly typical gameplay - and I still say that I went away from EM to solo AVs because of ET's self damage causing me to spend more time healing than the AVs did. SM did as good or better, along with offering much better AoE control (and arguably better AoE damage, although Tremor only has radius going for it).

Now who's ignoring positives? By the way, Total Focus is the second-highest DPA in Energy Melee - higher than Bone Smasher, which just barely edges out Energy Punch once you add in Arcanatime. If its DPA is atrocious, then what does that say about the set as a whole?

Anyway, EM isn't completely horrible. But it definately doesn't feel the same.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

Taunt is ranged, Foot Stomp is where you are. If you're WP or Shield, and it's dangerous to move because you could start losing the attention of baddies due to a weak taunt aura, Taunt allows you to grab the attention of enemies farther away. Taunt lets you get the attention of enemies who are attacking your friends without having to move. You can pull them around corners. Or keep aggro on an AV without entering melee.

Taunt does -range, which allows you to force enemies to come in nearer and be tended to by your taunt auras. Or just call them into Foot Stomp radius.

Taunt has half the recharge of Foot Stomp.

Taunt autohits.

I'd rather use Foot Stomp personally, but there are reasons you'd want to use Taunt over Foot Stomp. You can't just make a broad statement that Foot Stomp is better than Taunt.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Fair enough. And a ranged attack (like, for example, Hurl) can also taunt 5 targets, from a longer range, add on -fly to the one you hit in case they're kiting, and does a good amount of damage as well. The autohit only matters in one of those highly unlikely scenarios I mentioned above, since let's face it - we're talking about a powerset with a persistant +20% tohit, which without any accuracy slotting whatsoever caps your chance to hit. The number of times where something has to be autohit to be reliable are completely negligible.

Taunt has a place the game and is in several of my builds, but saying that if all powers were given the same availability that it's a higher priority than a damaging attack - which all have AoE taunts for Tankers - is asinine. By itself it accomplishes nothing (and my Fire/Fire Blaster can and has pulled aggro off of a Tanker who thought that spamming Taunt was the best way to hold aggro - you have to do damage as well).

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

This. It just doesn't feel the same. Nor as fun as it once did.

That said, I'm going to start a new EM toon (redside, as I don't want the Tanker yucki damage numbers)...and see how it feels (again) going from lvl 1-50.

Shield has a weakl taunt aura? Last I knew it was equal to all the others except for WP.

Taunt is the strongest threat generation tool. Damage is an important part of threat generation, but the other factor is taunt duration. The basic gist (assuming equal debuffs, range, AI Mods, etc) is Damage * RemainingTauntDuration. If you deal double damage, you deal double threat. Likewise, if you have a taunt effect twice as long you will generate twice as much threat.

Gauntlet (both Tanker and the single target Brute version) maxes out at 13.5s at lvl50 while Taunt lasts 41s (some sets have a 30ish sec Taunt). The taunt duration is more than double duration, so it's stronger. It also lingers for a long time, amplifying your threat for extended periods of time. One last thing - it is auto hit against AVs/GMs while Guantlet requires a tohit check.

In a group with just one taunt capable character (Tanker/Brute), Gauntlet should be strong enough by itself. However, when in groups with multiple taunt capable characters, it simply isn't enough I can hold aggro off of them on my WP Tank using Taunt, while I've seen other Tanks with stronger threat generating primaries fail by not using it.

Taunt + Footstomp produces far more threat than either in isolation.

The second highlighted part disagrees with the first - note that damage is also a factor in the consideration, and the power "Taunt" deals none.

Taunt has the longest taunt duration. It is NOT the strongest threat generation tool - without them dealing damage you can pull aggro off of a Tanker who sits there and constantly spams Taunt - even without having Gauntlet yourself (many Blasters and Scrappers can attest to this - heck, I've pulled aggro off of Tankers who felt that Taunt was enough with a Defender just by using Fulcrum Shift). If the same Tanker uses an AoE attack, suddenly they're capable of holding aggro.

And yes, if they Taunt and do damage, they'll be better off than just doing damage.

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.