My Energy Melee thoughts.

What about reducing the animation time somewhat and keeping the damage, but increasing the recoil damage?

Marry me. Man love is beautiful love!

Hey I could live with em being the single target king instead of buffing it's aoe. The problem is, there are several sets that are on par with em in terms of single target that absolutely obliterate it in terms of aoe. So imo, it needs a buff either way. I'd prefer an aoe buff, since that benefits more of the gameplay, but I'd be fine with a single target buff too.

No argument from me. EM isn't the best at anything and while being average is fine it should come with being average at most things then.

The way I see it, the st damage either needs to go back up, or the aoe needs to be boosted. I'd prefer a st increase to restore its niche as I'm very fond of specialties. Leaving it alone is just disappointing.

*I especially like carving out niches for melee sets as they are otherwise so similar in terms of DS and recycled animations. It is far less of an issue for the buff/debuff sets as they were built from the ground up with focus specialization.

Exactly. And you're winning me over on the single target argument. Sure it was overall subpar because single target isn't that big in pve, but at least it was the unquestioned king of something, and being king is nice, lol. And it had that one, wonderful power, that made all the other kids green with envy and call for unnecessary nerfs (being that the set was underpowered overall to begin with, especially in the more valuable aoe department) - now what power do you drool over in this set? Barrage? Booooring and slow, not the best descriptors for a powerset.

I find this funny.

Now I do have experience with Energy Melee as well. 50 levels of WP/EM, plus some now deleted never made it to 50 Energy Melee users.

And it's true. Energy Melee was far from the PvE king. On teams, yeah, they might Ooooh and Aaaah when they saw you take a huge chunk out of one enemies life, lets even say ONE SHOTTING, but during that time they were 2-3 shotting the spawn anyways with massive AOE.

Now I love Energy Melee for it's looks. I love the look of the Pom Poms. I love the idea of Energy Melee, and I don't even mind it being a Single Target focused set.

On my WP/EM I had respeced out of WH as it was. I found it's AOE not all that great, and while I LOVED the animation, I found I wanted other powers more for survival reasons.

So, I was more than willing to accept a slower kill speed (well I'd grab a blaster or scrapper along usually instead of soloing) being Single Target focused.

But now...*sigh*

*Total Focus animates* annnnnd *enemy killed by other player before damage applied*

*Energy Transfere animates* annnnnd *enemy killed by other player before damage applied*

Now...I'm sure this happened with TF before the ET nerf, but I didn't notice it, because I could always deliver one quick powerful big hitter with ET.

And I don't even mind the long animations of EM's other attacks...

Barrage...LOVE THE ANIMATION! LOVE IT!

Bone Smasher...the only problem I have with this animation, is that I think it would be better off if Air Superiority was given a different animation, so I could of had both on 1 toon, without repeating an attack animation. Other than that...LOVE IT.

Whirling Hands...I've always loved the jump up and whirl animation. I loved it on my Claws/ Scrapper too!

Total Focus, I LOVE this animation too! It was LONG but I didnt care...

...that was untill a second LONG animation was added.

Energy Melee's ET wasn't changed because the set was OverPowered in PvE, it was changed because it was considered the best PvP power set, and even then that was USUALLY in ONE ON ONE PVP matches.

I PvPed with my WP/EM, and I'll tell you now, I could easily be taken out of the equation...and was!

Nothing like being constantly taunted. Yeah, it kept the other teams tank busy, but it took me out of the fight, as his tank could take EM's damage.

Or that 3 on 3, where the /ELA Brute kept my tank taunted, and the other brute pounded on me.

The change was a PvE nerf due to a PvP whinefest about EM. :/ I was more than willing to take a PvP hit to the set. I was willing to take a damage hit in PvE.

Add to that, I still think the new animation to ET is UGLY, only makes it all worse. I loved the quick punch it was before.

And now, with all that...seeing they could just have easily left EM alone in PvE and reduced it's damage in PvP...I really want to know why we haven't seen it reverted back.

They could change it back and just go "kept it low damage in PvP".

And I'm still trying to figure out what this magical DPS chain is for EM in PvE. What attack chain are people using to get high DPS?

The above is incorrect. It wasn't just because of PvP, or even primarily because of PvP, but rather because the set itself was lopsided due to a terribly balanced ET. Another example of this would be Psychic Shockwave.

See Above.

Almost as if the game is not, in fact, all about speed and efficiency.

A lot of people are making statements that make assumptions about the game, and drawing from those assumptions, indicate that leaving Energy as it has been left for a year, and indeed, the change in the first place, is the result of feverish imagination, and to change it back or buff it otherwise would be a simple and obvious conclusion. I wish to suggest to all of you that perhaps the developers don't agree with your assumptions.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

Okay. Let's go with that. Tell me how this set was lopsided in PvE?

Having played the set myself, in the PvE game, I never once saw Energy Melee be the OMG that other sets where. It wasn't the farm set, that's for sure.

And with the Psychic Shockwave change they up the rest of the set.

With the Energy Transfer change, they left everything as is.

The only time I had heard a complaint about EM, was when everyone thought EM on tankers was producing scrapper level DPS. Which, if memory serves, it didn't.

When this change came about to EM, the only complaint anyone was saying was "OMG PvP".

No one was saying "OMG this is the best PvE set ever!" they weren't even saying "OMG this set is one of the best in PvE" because it wasn't.

ET having a 1 sec animation was beyond broken for PvE play. It allowed some ridiculous ST DPS chains for my EM/ELA Brute before IOs were even in the game. EM was THE AV soloing Primary for brutes.

Total Focus could stun a boss with one application. That was pretty awesome since some bosses can be extremely deadly. To be honest, I wish TF still have a mag 4 stun for blasters.

Now I know you're not going to agree with me cloudy, and these are just my opinions, but I have to respond to this, lol...

ET's one second application of single target damage is/was severely overshadowed by a vast array of aoe attacks and abilities in this game. I think the problem lies in the fact it's harder to balance this game with an 'equation' in terms of single target ability vs. aoe ability. But in pve, I think most rational players would agree that em was not one of the top sets for the vast majority of the game, even with the one second et power in play, precisely because of the fact the set is feeble in terms of dealing with more than one enemy at a time.

In regard to TF and it's ability to stun a boss, I think it was justifiable again due to the fact the set was/is feeble in terms of aoe, including secondary effects, so to balance that weakness, it should be heads and shoulders above other sets in terms of single target secondary effects, like having the ability to one shot stun a boss.

In fairness to what Mac said EM does appear to be an aberration when compared to other sets (and I don't just mean melee).

If they hadn't gone through and recently reworked weapons to have faster and smoother executions I'd be more inclined to agree with your position.

Is there a set that is better at corpse blasting (or punching) and feels more like swimming in molasses? Well I suppose some set has to take the crown.

*actually to answer my own question, dual pistols may give it a run for its money in corpse blasting, but at lest it is offset by "feeling" quick due to fluid animations.

I was in that argument when the devs were posting about the nerf, and I can state without question that one of the devs defended the change by saying that they kept seeing all the posters laugh at people for not taking em in the forums. Now say what you will, but that laughing was clearly in regard to em's value in pvp, where it was really the only viable set for mellee in the old pvp format - hence people getting laughed at for taking something else. Certainly nobody would laugh at someone for taking a set other than em for pve play. So without question, em's dominance in pvp skewed the devs opinion on the set, either accidentally or not.

Actually, dp is a decent comparison - I wonder how much play that set will get when the new shiny wears off. Also, didn't I see something in the new issue forums about the set getting a buff already...

In theory, and using today's game as a yard stick...you are right. However, I was in the Brute forum for quite some time and I remember all the EM Brute thread (mostly EM/ELA) and they weren't all PvP related either.

EM/ELA was FotM for quite sometime before IOS hit the scene because /ELA offered Lightning Reflexes which gave the user +20% recharge. That was the ONLY way to obtain more recharge other than Hasten and Buffs before IOs. Having a 1 sec ET animation that recharged so quickly was extremely potent. No one really cared as much about AoE back then in my experience. This whole AoE is king thing started around the time IOs were introduced.

I agree for blasters, but brutes and scrappers shouldn't have a insta-boss-mezz power in their primary when they have an entire secondary devoted to mitigation.

If it wasn't in regards to pvp, then it was probably about av soloing, since those are really the only two instances where it would have been overwhelmingly useful. And nobody is claiming ET wasn't loved, it was, and it made EM a set people wanted to play. That's the point though, now that ET is neutered, the set is not very popular.

But the vast majority of posts laughing at people for not taking em was because em was the only melee set that was effective in the old pvp system.

I'd agree that aoe has gotten more popular lately, but it was big back then too. I remember when every other toon I'd see was a fire/kin looking to fill out a team.



If the set only gets single target mitigation, I think it's ok for it to be much better than competing sets, especially on a tier nine power that takes 3.3 seconds to animate. On most teams your target will be dead before you can land the stun anyway, lol. Having said that, this nerf didn't bother me nearly as much as gutting the set's only outstanding power.

Much like how Dark Melee can get an even more awesome single target DPS?

As for Total Focus, the change from mag 4 stun to mag 3 stun didn't bother me.

The only change that bothered me in regards to ET was not only that the animation was ugly (this is a personal opinion, i admit), but it took SO MUCH long to activate. We had Total Focus for that.

But maybe that's the change that needs to be made. Lower TF's animation down to match ETs. Shave .7 seconds off it's animation time. Maybe the set will start to feel a bit faster again.

Well if it was about AV solo'ing then they just randomly picked something that maybe ranked in the top 50 of AV solo'ers at the time. Seems unlikely.

Much more likely is because ET was really really really outside of their balancing metrics.

I agree for the most part, but putting it in a single power is a bad idea*. I agree with the mag reduction on TF, but would have upped the stun percentages a bit on other powers.

Given that they deemed a reduction to ET as necessary I would have preferred a reduction to every aspect of it except a reduction in ability to chain the set.
I would have:
reduced damage 40%
reduced recharge 30%
reduced -hp 20%
kept endurance cost
kept animation

However, I strongly disagree with the devs that the set required an overall reduction to its st output. I would have given a mild dominator treatment to the other attacks (excluding TF) and increased their DS/rech/end by about 15%. I also would have seen stun become a useful power by making it at least as damaging as bonesmasher.

*yes I'm aware that seismic smash made old TF look bad, let alone the new version.

That said, I really do miss old EM and using it in old pvp. Not so much my em/regen stalker as that was a braindead easy toon to play, but my em/fire brute. So many regen scrapper kills that I fawned weakness by letting them think I couldn't really hurt them and they were overwhelming my heal. Act scared, duck behind obstacle, hit bu+fe and come back out and 3 shot them. Good times.

My favorite kill was a nin/ta MM in warburg that was laughing at me while his pets slowly ground me down. Sitting in about 4 caltrops patches and glue arrow I wasn't going anywhere. He must of underestimated my spamming of low damage attacks as me not having much damage cause he wandered near me. I hit bu+fe+burn and all his pets jumped off the building and I poked him with ET and he fell over dead. Not technically a one shot cause of him taking a tick or two from burn. But I laughed hard at him.

Well, aside from ET being terribly overpowered from a DPA standpoint, you also had Barrage being overall less effective than Brawl and Total Focus having a VERY effective stun mag. Both of those were adjusted as well as ET being rebalanced.

You're also making the mistake of assuming the devs change powers based on popular demand, when they've quite clearly shown that isn't the case.

You aren't right about this, and it would be nice if you would stop insisting you are. You are sounding like a troll or nerfherder to me. The performance of super-strength and stone armor are neither "ridiculous" nor "obscene".

Once again, they are not "a helluva lot" stronger than their counterparts in "virtually all areas". Perhaps you don't play invulnerability and stone tanks, but I do. I have, all at 50, three invulnerability tanks, one stone tank, one stone brute, and one willpower tank. I've been tanking in this game for six years and have had plenty of time to compare these powersets.

They all have their strengths and weaknesses, and they are well known. Look them up. I can survive much better now with my IO-ed out main invuln tank in virtually all situations than my granite tank can, which is still all too vulnerable to psionics while in granite form, and the penalties of granite form drag it down even more in performance, even with all of the compensating IOs/pool powers I've added.

Okay, it's plain you really don't play these powersets. Knock it off. Rage is not permanent build up, it makes super-strength comparable to, not better than, the other secondaries, and we have to wait a while to get it. My warmace tank does more damage and has more mitigation than super-strength provides, and does it with cones/AoE and doesn't even need to use build up to clear groups faster than super-strength can. Gonna start nerfherding on warmace now?

My willpower tank is fully as survivable as granite as long as I keep an eye out for potential damage spikes. That's the only weakness and there are no built-in penalties. So I suppose willpower is godmode too?

Go away.

The new ET animation is ugly, you aren't imagining it. Also, ET was nerfed because they gave it to high damage characters like stalkers who were practically insta-gibbing people with it in PvP zones.

But I don't care much about the longer animation, dps is a secondary concern for me. To fix EM so that I would play it again -- and I have it on two lvl 50 tanks -- just beef up Whirling Hands a decent amount and give me the option of choosing the Knockout Blow animation instead of the current ugly doublefisted strike. That's not much to ask.

I agree with the above, remove the stacking and get rid of the 10 second downtime. Without the overlapping potential, however, the power would really boil down to a to-hit bonus, so I would hope the to-hit would stay as it is.

It was nerfed because it was broken in PvE.

If anything, the animation change to ET only HELPED it in the new PvP. If it still had a 1 sec animation the power would provide laughable burst damage.