Energy Melee/Shield Defense. Talk me out of it. Or not.

Energy Melee has a lot of good qualities. I don't want this to be a pre/post-nerf thread, so let's just think about what EM is now. The way I see it, Energy Melee is the undisputed king of single target damage. It has two damage types, so it's uncommon for both components to be resisted. Smashing is commonly resisted, but not as common as lethal (I think), and there is the energy to make up for it.

Energy Melee is quite lacking in the AoE department. This is more problematic than it may seem because less AoE means it is harder to obtain and keep aggro. This in turn generates less fury and thus reduced damage. This I cannot allow.

Shield Defense is what I paired with it to fix both problems Energy Melee. Shield Charge adds a great deal of AoE damage. Perhaps more importantly, though, is SD's notoriously strong taunt aura. Against All Odds has the additional perk of making a single target damage king even stronger.

Shield Defense is not without it's problems. It offers less protection than /SR. IOs can fix the problem, but I have to survive until then. Regardless, sometimes not even the softcap is enough. Energy Melee brings a lot of mitigation to the table in the form of stuns with every attack.

So now we've come full circle. Both sets seem to fill in the gaps of the other. I'm looking at this as a very synergistic pairing. Is there anything I'm missing?

What should I be looking forward to with these sets?

I have a lvl 50 IO'd NRG/SD and I enjoy it a lot! As mentioned above, Whirling Hands is good to get. I actually have both Total Focus and Energy Transfer so I can't say if it's good to get just one because I like having both and I have the room for it. I can't really think of any tips because it's really up to you how you want the build focused. Unless you'd like me to say all the powers I picked. >_> I went for the softcap, high recharge and recovery. Of course I also picked up Tough (and Weave) so I have decent S/L res. But other than that, have fun with it.

Sounds like a great combo to me. High end single target damage, with shield ae plus patron power ae. Vicious.

Good luck with it,
Cipher

I've NEVER ever seen an Energy/Shield, so that's probably a good reason to start one
Since I got an Energy/Fire Brute (should be comparable enough, except Fire is Resistance/Heal instead of Def) and he worked quite well with the stun of Whirling hands and the single targets, I don't see a reason not to do it. Probably not gonna be the king of kings, but you don't seem to be looking for that. However. Have fun with your new EM/SD toon

(I would have started one myself, if only for the looks of Whirling Hands with a Shield, but I've seen so many /Shielders around that it's probably gonna take a while before I start another)

It's a good combo-- my SG mate has one and Energy Transfer looks sweet with certain shields.

The +HP available in the set synergizes with regeneration available through IOs and Health, which works well in mitigating the -HP from ET. Having +damage from AAO really makes your heavy hitters put up large numbers.

I have one. He's currently sitting at... um... 3. Been busy with other stuffs, so he's been neglected.

[ ProTip: The banner is a link to art refs!! | The Khellection | The HBAS Repository | Brute Guides (4/16/10) | How To Post An Image - A Quick Guide ]
Biggest Troll on the forums? I'll give you a hint:

If your only goal is rolling a toon that is uncommon, then go ahead and roll the EM/SD. I haven't seen many myself. I think that DM/SD is a much more synergistic pairing than EM/SD, however. DM is still ST focused, and as Tonality mentioned earlier, the -to hit debuffs are great for anyone, and especially a defense based toon. Plus, having the heal there if quite helpful for a tight build like shield if you don't care to take Aid Self.

I personally think EM is just awful. I am not able to speak on EM before the nerf, because I never rolled one at the time. So my opinion is based wholly on its current iteration. It is slow, lacks AoE, and consistent use of Energy Transfer *can* kill you. Especially if you are defense based with no means of healing yourself outside of health and inspirations. (I have a 50 EM/SR that is softcapped, IOd, and currently in storage.)

To add to that, if you plan on teaming with anyone ever, you will probably never be able to finish anything before your teammates do. The animations just take too long for my taste, and prevented me from feeling like I was contributing much use to a fast moving team. If you are solo, it might be fun, but I only felt frustration when teamed.

As far as people saying DM/SD is fotm, who cares? Sometimes, all that tells you is that the combo is just really effective. I would never be held back from making *any* combo just because someone else has it. Bottom line- there is no new combo in this game right now. Every possible pairing has been made by some player on some server at some point, so I can guarantee you that your powersets will never be wholly unique. Just thank goodness for power customization for allowing us to at least appear unique.

Sometimes, when I play my SS/SD, I go days without seeing another one. Other days, it seems like I see about 10 in a 2 hour period. On that note, I feel Elec/SD is much more Fotm than DM/SD ever was.

I won't try to talk you out of it because you should play what you want to play and not what everyone else tells you to, but I did have a couple of things to say about your perception of Energy Melee in case that's why you were wanting to play it...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison Energy Melee has a lot of good qualities. I don't want this to be a pre/post-nerf thread, so let's just think about what EM is now. The way I see it, Energy Melee is the undisputed king of single target damage. It has two damage types, so it's uncommon for both components to be resisted. Smashing is commonly resisted, but not as common as lethal (I think), and there is the energy to make up for it.

Except that it's not the undisputed king of single target damage if you add in pretty much any level of recharge. It's kindof middle of the pack for sustained single target damage, and only near the top in single target burst damage.

Quote:

Energy Melee is quite lacking in the AoE department. This is more problematic than it may seem because less AoE means it is harder to obtain and keep aggro. This in turn generates less fury and thus reduced damage. This I cannot allow.

Insert any set with a taunt aura <here>.

Quote:

Shield Defense is what I paired with it to fix both problems Energy Melee. Shield Charge adds a great deal of AoE damage. Perhaps more importantly, though, is SD's notoriously strong taunt aura. Against All Odds has the additional perk of making a single target damage king even stronger.

Ehhh. It'll make a small difference that'll be barely noticeable with Fury. Brutes get the least benefit out of anything Shields has to offer. What it will do is offer you AoE burst to go with single target burst; and see my first set of comments about "single target damage king".

Quote:

Shield Defense is not without it's problems. It offers less protection than /SR. IOs can fix the problem, but I have to survive until then. Regardless, sometimes not even the softcap is enough. Energy Melee brings a lot of mitigation to the table in the form of stuns with every attack.

Energy Melee? Mitigation? What?! Okay, yes, it has semi-reliable, single-target stuns. And no reliable AoE mitigation at all, plus a power that - as has been mentioned in the thread already - can kill you. Energy Melee is either tied with Fire Melee (which doesn't have any mitigation but at least doesn't actively hurt you) or else behind it in mitigation.

And if you're going to say "well, I'll just not use Energy Transfer", then I'll politely suggest that you need to seriously rethink taking Energy Melee at all, if you're going to say that you'll simply skip the highest DPA attack in the set, and the only reason it's even remotely competitive in single target damage, because of the fact that it hurts you.

I have an Energy Melee(/ElA) Brute at 50. I made another (EM/EA) that I got to 38 and deleted. I can't say that I've ever been happy with the mitigation that EM provides, and for Shields I deleted my SS/SD Brute at 44 because I didn't want to dump as much inf into the IOs as I'd need to just to make it as survivable as my SM/WP (who, admittedly, is as survivable or moreso than the FM/SA I deleted at 50).

I haven't personally tried the pairing - I'm done making new EM Brutes (I did make 2 EM Stalkers since the changes) because the poor AoE in the set doesn't balance out the middling single target and poor mitigation. Shields definately would add in some AoE damage with Shield Charge, and if you want to go with the pairing then it can definately work, but I feel that you were heading into it with some assumptions that simply weren't true.

Quote:

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

Quote:

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

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. I even chuckled at the tags.

I made the character; it's level ten and a barrel of fun. It's not going to be a tank, but what brute should be? From what I gather, this is going to be a "Who needs mitigation if you kill it first?" kind of character, and I'm ok with that.

I don't doubt the viability of a AAO saturated brute doing some hard damage with EM. I just get a bit queasy thinking about how slow it might be. Regardless, it sounds like you have hit the fun button and that is all that matters.

I used to farm with a EM/SD tank. Surprising good actually, but it didn't have either of the top tier attacks.

Whirling hands is so nice with the disorient component.