City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Energy Melee - will I regret it?

Achilles6

By Achilles6,
Posted on: 2010-01-25 10:42 in Tankers

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by SoilentGreen View Post
Hmmm..sounds like I may not enjoy it so much. I didn't mention that Shield is my primary, and I do plan a soft cap and high recharge build, so having a big AoE to use once or twice in each encounter will come with that (Shield Charge). Will the presence of that (plus the +damage of AAO) soften the blow?
I would say from experience this combo is only worth it if you want to get to 50 with this toon. Back when I was on the EU servers I had a Shield/EM Tank and it's lots of fun in later levels. Just be prepaired for boredom city for the first half.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr_ManPurse View Post
I would say from experience this combo is only worth it if you want to get to 50 with this toon. Back when I was on the EU servers I had a Shield/EM Tank and it's lots of fun in later levels. Just be prepaired for boredom city for the first half.
I think that the same can be said with Superstrength, you get your first Dam AoE at 38. That's a lot of damage to live without for a long time.

He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.

 

Posted

My Tankers story sounds similar to Hera's. First toon rolled, first and only Hero 50. I've tried IO'ing him and all, so it's a matter of not having the heart or wish to see that much time go down the drain when it comes to deleting/re-rolling him.

Invul/EM should be a pretty solid build, but it just feels like a slow down-spiral of phail. I had a string of appalling respecs where I tried to fit all sorts of junk in. Now, I seem to have straightened out the build, but he still suffers badly. He seems to be out of endurance nearly every fight, and given I skipped Total Focus (It has more end cost than Thunder Strike for same animation, same-ish damage and no AoE) Energy Transfer is my 'Alpha' move, and it ends up killing me more than the mobs themselves do.

I'm currently wrestling with Mids to try and get either an Invul/Elec build or an Elec/Elec build that I like, or maybe even a Scrapper build, given I know some Scrappers who are capable of taking as much hurt as a tank...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon View Post
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

 

Posted

tl;dr answer, EM sucks. It's prolly my least favorite Tanker secondary. And yeah, it was also my 1st to 50 (Fire/EM). And yeah, I play them all, so in that spirit, you should at least try it out.

I haven't updated my dps tables in a couple of months, but these should still be the most recent stats for EM, SS & Stone. I include Stone as a showcase of what a strong ST/weak AoE powerset *should* look like.

Code: 
Energy Melee	Dam	Act	Rech	End	DPE	DPA
Barrage	58.72	1.33	6	6.864	8.55 	37.07
Energy Punch	44.49	0.83	4	5.2	8.56 	42.13
Bone Smasher	72.96	1.5	8	8.528	8.56 	42.52
Whirling Hands	44.49	2.5	14	13	3.42 	16.85
Stun	11.12	1.8	20	10.192	1.09 	5.62
Energy Transfer	202.87	2.67	20	10.192	19.90 	69.86
Total Focus	158.38	3.3	20	18.512	8.56 	46.15
Code:
Stone Melee	Dam	Act	Rech	End	DPE	DPA
Stone Fist	44.49	0.83	4	5.2	8.56 	42.13
Stone Mallet	72.96	1.61	8	8.528	8.56 	39.48
Heavy Mallet	101.43	1.63	12	11.856	8.56 	54.89
Hurl Boulder	72.96	2.5	8	9.36	7.79 	27.64
Tremor	44.49	3.3	14	13.52	3.29 	12.96
Seismic Smash	158.38	1.5	20	18.512	8.56 	92.30
Code:
Super Strength	Dam	Act	Rech	End	DPE	DPA
Jab	30.25	1.07	2	3.536	8.55 	22.92
Punch	44.49	1.2	4	5.2	8.56 	30.64
Haymaker	72.96	1.5	8	8.528	8.56 	42.52
KO Blow	158.38	2.23	25	18.512	8.56 	66.66
Hurl	72.96	2.5	8	9.36	7.79 	27.64
Foot Stomp	63.17	2.1	20	18.512	3.41 	28.15
DPA calc uses arcanatime. I don't wanna spend too much time fixing the formatting, but you should get the idea. ET's DPA is a respectable 70, nerfed to hell & back from its glorious near 200 DPA back in the day. Everything else sucks.

Also note, Stone Fist (T1, required) is mediocre, but better than Barrage (T1, required). Still, it's Heavy Mallet & Seismic Smash that makes SM's ST tasty. If you wanted EM competitive, you'd have to really bring up ET, EP & BS as often as possible and just ignore Barrage altogether. SS's ST #s are pretty lame, but then you have to add in Rage, which brings them up from the bottom.

AoE for both SM & EM are jokes. Absolutely pales compared to Elec, Fire, Ice or SS, and even Axe, DB & Mace get some nice Cones. DM is in about the same boat. As a tank, I'm usually hitting lots of little things, so I greatly value AoE. If I wanna solo a pylon, I get a scrapper (actually, one of my controllers, but that's a different story).

On the plus side, you have some mitigation through stuns & energy damage. But the stuns aren't always auto, and SM has far better mitigation anyway. The partial energy damage is a straight plus.

All in all, EM's at best a mediocre set, and really one of the bottom sets as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, I used to and can still farm a bit w/my Fire/EM, but 1) he's Fire/*, 2) he uses Fireball a lot, and 3) he's IO'ed to the gills.

An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by New Dawn View Post
I think that the same can be said with Superstrength, you get your first Dam AoE at 38. That's a lot of damage to live without for a long time.
Not to mention that Rage doesn't come until 28.

I think the problem with most old-school EM players is that they look at what they COULD do, and the new EM is nothing like that. Compared to what Tankers can do with other sets like Fire Melee and Mace, it certainly is not dramatically underperforming.

It's just not up there with SS and Stone Melee any more.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by New Dawn View Post
EM was overpowered in the upfront ST burst department, especially noticeably so in PvP. Castle then balanced it more inline with the other sets. Now people compare it to how it was and think it is overly gimped. Overall I basically don't find my EM any worse off to my SS etc. There are many different attributes and across the different powersets, cost per attributes vary, so you will/can be well/better off in some area, at times. People tend to only notice ST damage output over a small amount of time rather than other attributes.

I am not saying there couldn't be tweaks, I thought with the last changes perhaps Whirling Hands could recharge sooner to balance out the whole of the set with other sets better but apparently that is fine.
Agree on this issue.

If anything, EM does just fine for the jobs it can handle.As I made mention earlier in this post, you can go for Recharge on Whirling Hands, and take Hasten.

By the math, your going to end up doing some decent Damage if you treat WH like you would Spin from the Claws set that Scrappers and Brutes use.

As for slow animations?Hmmm, lets think on this one.I can point out 1-2 slow animation powers in just about every Tanker Melee set.

Now reguarding peoples gripe about how EM got nerfed hardcore, I never played with it before it was nerfed in the first place, the thought of Pink Pom Poms made me stay away from it!

From what iv been experiancing, and what iv seen, there aint a single thing wrong with the set, and cant give any opinion on how tweaking it would be anything useful.

 

Posted

I don't know about the numbers but I know I really like my SD/EM Tank. Here's the final level 50 build out:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.601
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

NRG Hammer: Level 50 Science Tanker
Primary Power Set: Shield Defense
Secondary Power Set: Energy Melee
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Ancillary Pool: Pyre Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Deflection -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(3), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(3), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(15), ResDam-I(15), ResDam-I(27)
Level 1: Barrage -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(7), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(7), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(9), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(9), T'Death-Dam%(39)
Level 2: Battle Agility -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(5), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(5), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(42)
Level 4: Bone Smasher -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(11), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(11), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Mako-Dam%(40)
Level 6: Active Defense -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 8: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(50)
Level 10: Against All Odds -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 12: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Jump-I(A)
Level 16: Health -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-EndRdx/Rchg(17), Numna-Heal/Rchg(17), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(19), Numna-Heal(19), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(36)
Level 18: True Grit -- RgnTis-Regen+(A), RgnTis-Heal/EndRdx(43), RgnTis-Heal/Rchg(45), ResDam-I(45), ResDam-I(45), ResDam-I(46)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(21), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(21), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(34), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(34), P'Shift-End%(36)
Level 22: Whirling Hands -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(23), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(23), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(25), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25), Oblit-%Dam(42)
Level 24: Phalanx Fighting -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 26: Shield Charge -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(27), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(33), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(33), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(33), FrcFbk-Rechg%(34)
Level 28: Build Up -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(29), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(29), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(31), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(31), GSFC-Build%(31)
Level 30: Taunt -- Zinger-Dam%(A)
Level 32: Grant Cover -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 35: Energy Transfer -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(36), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(37), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37)
Level 38: Total Focus -- C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg(A), C'ngImp-Dmg/EndRdx(39), C'ngImp-Dmg/Rchg(39), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), C'ngImp-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(40)
Level 41: Char -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(42), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(43), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(43)
Level 44: Fire Blast -- Dev'n-Acc/Dmg(A), Dev'n-Dmg/EndRdx(46), Dev'n-Dmg/Rchg(46), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(50)
Level 47: Fire Ball -- Det'tn-Acc/Dmg(A), Det'tn-Dmg/EndRdx(48), Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg(48), Det'tn-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(48), Det'tn-Dmg/Rng(50)
Level 49: One with the Shield -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Acc-I(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet