Energy Aura?
By
Bill Z Bubba,
Posted on: 2010-05-28 11:35 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
Positional is superior to Typed for one other reason: there is no such thing as Toxic Defense.
You need position defense to defend vs Toxic.
The plastic tips at the end of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister.
--The Question, JLU
Are there any Toxic attacks in the game that aren't also lethat? Poison arrows and darts, spines I can't think of any toxic damage that wouldn't get stopped (potentially) by lethal defense.
Do the Vahz vomit toxic damage on you, are any of the spits the Snakes or Coralox use toxic?
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I believe so. I know Arachnoids do.
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Originally Posted by warden_de_dios
Are there any Toxic attacks in the game that aren't also lethat? Poison arrows and darts, spines I can't think of any toxic damage that wouldn't get stopped (potentially) by lethal defense.
Do the Vahz vomit toxic damage on you, are any of the spits the Snakes or Coralox use toxic? |
The plastic tips at the end of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister.
--The Question, JLU
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The Cottage Rule only applies to changing powers after they have hit live. It has nothing to do with changing a power before, which is where the difference between Dampening Field and Repulse occurred.
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Originally Posted by Spectreblade
Though I often wondered, isn't having Repulse on one and Dampening Field on the other a violation of the Cottage Rule?
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Energy Aura is not a joke set at all. It can actually be quite powerful if built right. However, it's one of the weaker defensive sets for several reasons.
As mentioned before, positional defense is superior.
I don't think Repel is useless to Stalkers. It's a very good power if you're in a sticky situation (just toggle and de-toggle it really quick and watch enemies fly away while you recover or run away; I learned this from Swan! Don't always keep it on like a toggle!).
The stealth for Brutes is a little counter-intuitive, but it helps players who wanna make more of a Stalkerute!
Meanwhile, Energy Drain is a really powerful endurance recovery tool. The heal component of it is just laughable.
The only complaint I have about the set is Conserve Power. A set that has such a good endurance recovery mechanism like Energy Drain doesn't need Conserve Power! Energy Drain makes it obsolete! It's just a useless power sitting there, eating up the set's power slots.
In my opinion, Energy Drain needs to get an Energize treatment. I think Conserve Power needs to be replaced with a "Defense Buildup" (like the one in Soul Mastery for Stalkers) or something cooler (Reflective Shield, anyone? redirects a percentage of attacks to enemies who cast them? Come on, it's fit the concept and be cool!).
Other than that, it's not THAT BAD of a set, really.
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Originally Posted by Bright Shadow
Energy Aura is not a joke set at all. It can actually be quite powerful if built right.
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Whether it can be "powerful" when build "right" isn't really a question of whether it's an effective set. If it can be roughly as effective as other sets under the exact same conditions as other sets, then it's effective. The problem is that Energy Aura simply doesn't fulfill that condition. With the same expenditure of resources, any other set would either deal more damage with the same survivability or simply be outright more survivable.
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| As mentioned before, positional defense is superior. |
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| In my opinion, Energy Drain needs to get an Energize treatment. I think Conserve Power needs to be replaced with a "Defense Buildup" (like the one in Soul Mastery for Stalkers) or something cooler (Reflective Shield, anyone? redirects a percentage of attacks to enemies who cast them? Come on, it's fit the concept and be cool!). |
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| Other than that, it's not THAT BAD of a set, really. |
Like I said before, not matter how many times you say it, it's still a bad set. Even with the I13 changes that gave Energy Drain a heal (which, btw, the heal numbers were chosen to make it equivalent to Reconstruction with 4 targets in range while factoring in native mitigation), the set is still significantly sub par compared to similar sets with similar capabilities.
Just because someone can make a set work doesn't mean that a set is balanced. The fact that it takes more to make it work than is required for other sets just to get to the same level of performance is pretty much an indication of such.
As an addendum to my previous suggestion, Overload for Stalkers probably needs to be tweaked as well. The +hp is overkill which makes even less sense when you consider that the base value that is already larger than is necessary can, as an option, be enhanced. I would probably reduce the +hp for the Stalker variant of the power from 40% +hp to 20% +hp and give the power 15% +res(all) to make up for the lower hp increase (+hp and +res operate in virtually the same manner).
Ranking the performance of sets along a specific set of criteria is something that can be done, and done in an objective manner by using numbers. Holistic judgments about what "par" is, which have to precede calling something "subpar", are something entirely different, and those kinds of judgments venture into preferences. Whether to rely more on relative or absolute measures of performance is one preference, for example, but there are also other choices that will reflect individual values (and biases), rather than objective criteria.
A key difficulty in balancing EA has to do with its core strength, which is endless endurance. Endless endurance is particularly likely to appeal to somebody who dislikes futzing around with IOs because you don't need to do anything special to get it. You simply select EA as your secondary, do a semi-decent job of slotting energy drain, and endurance ceases to be a concern for the rest of that character's career. Some may not value that, which is fine. But, I value that, even if others don't.
On that note, if EA had the same native defensive capabilities as other brute secondaries, it would be overpowered because of endless endurance (something SR doesn't have, incidentally, unless you build for it).
The stealth is another nifty attribute of EA likely to disappoint somebody who wants all brute secondaries to fit a specifically tailored set of criteria, but it is likely to appeal to those who love variety.
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Don't forget the psionic attacks that bypass typed defense. There are also attacks (particularly debuffs) that carry no type of attack, but they still have a position.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
The fact that people continually bandy this about really bothers me. There is no way you could find any evidence to support typed defense being worse somehow than positional defense without delving into the balance black hole that is IOs.
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IOs or not, m/r/a defense will always perform better than s/l/e/n/f/c. Most things have a type, but everything (short of a very few psionic control powers) has a position.
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The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
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don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
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If this is being directed at me, I can assure you I've done the numbers. It's a hallmark of how I approach sets.|
Originally Posted by ShoeTattoo
Ranking the performance of sets along a specific set of criteria is something that can be done, and done in an objective manner by using numbers.
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A key difficulty in balancing EA has to do with its core strength, which is endless endurance. Endless endurance is particularly likely to appeal to somebody who dislikes futzing around with IOs because you don't need to do anything special to get it. You simply select EA as your secondary, do a semi-decent job of slotting energy drain, and endurance ceases to be a concern for the rest of that character's career. Some may not value that, which is fine. But, I value that, even if others don't. On that note, if EA had the same native defensive capabilities as other brute secondaries, it would be overpowered because of endless endurance (something SR doesn't have, incidentally, unless you build for it). |
Energy Aura is not unique in its ability to have plenty of endurance. It is unique in that it pays for the redundant endurance tools it has with lower survivability, enough that it's actually noticeable that it is less survivable than similar sets even with the buffs it has received over time.
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| The stealth is another nifty attribute of EA likely to disappoint somebody who wants all brute secondaries to fit a specifically tailored set of criteria, but it is likely to appeal to those who love variety. |
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Actually, what you're thinking of are the psionic attacks that bypass position. The attacks you're thinking of have the psionic type by no position, hence the moniker of "non-positional psi attacks".|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Don't forget the psionic attacks that bypass typed defense. There are also attacks (particularly debuffs) that carry no type of attack, but they still have a position.
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| IOs or not, m/r/a defense will always perform better than s/l/e/n/f/c. Most things have a type, but everything (short of a very few psionic control powers) has a position. |
The only case in which I have ever seen positional viewed as better than typed defense is in the case of IOing out a character and, even then, it's only when you're attempting to softcap all types rather than simply a single category. In general, softcapping a single category of typed defense (s/l) is equivalent to softcapping a single category of positional defense (melee or ranged) to such an extent that it's largely a question of which IOs are easier to slot rather than a question of effectiveness.
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Um, psionic attacks don't bypass typed defense...because it's flagged as a psionic attack...thus is blocked by the psi defense type. Even the psionic control attacks that have no position type is still flagged as psionic...unless you're claiming these attacks have *no* position *or* type and thus cannot be defended against?|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Don't forget the psionic attacks that bypass typed defense. There are also attacks (particularly debuffs) that carry no type of attack, but they still have a position.
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Where you're mistaken is that while EA uses typed defense, it just lacks psionic defense. Willpower also uses typed defense which includeds psionic defense.
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What are the numbers on those sets endurance management? Because I wouldn't put Quick Recovery (from WP no less) on the same level as Energy Drain...and definitely not Consume from Fire Armor. I believe Elec Armor and Fire Armor pay for their utility (damage and endurance) with decreased survivability.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
The problem with the assumption that infinite endurance (i.e. endurance tools) is the counterbalance for lower survivability is that Energy Aura isn't the only set in the game with substantial endurance tools that allow for endless endurance. Regeneration, Willpower, Ice Armor, Fire Armor, and Electric Armor all have mechanisms that allow them to either equal or surpass the endurance capabilities of Energy Aura, and those sets don't have to pay with lower survivability.
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In that respect, I never found EA particularly squishy in normal play. It's just people will look and say "Energy Aura or SR?...I want the besterest armor!!1" EA is just outdone for what it does by other sets.
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Quick Recovery provides 30% +recov. With enhancements, that translates into roughly 1.0 end/sec. It's not as extreme as the roughly 3 end/sec (100 end every ~33 secs) that can be gained via Power Sink, Energy Drain, and Energy Absorption, but, honestly, that much end drain is largely redundant anyway (and it assumes that you've got between 4 and 7 targets around you at all times). There's also the advantage that Quick Recovery is passive and the others are active (thusly making it more popular for a vast majority of players because you're not having to devote 7.5% of your animation time to your endurance sustainability).|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
What are the numbers on those sets endurance management? Because I wouldn't put Quick Recovery (from WP no less) on the same level as Energy Drain...and definitely not Consume from Fire Armor.
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| I believe Elec Armor and Fire Armor pay for their utility (damage and endurance) with decreased survivability. |
Where end consumption is concerned, you only really need 3.0 end/sec passive recovery to run a character, and there really isn't much you can do with redundant endurance (you can't force yourself to spend more endurance to get more out of it). Once you become infinitely sustainable (or even sustainable over a long period of time), there's really no purpose to getting more (which is what Energy Aura does).
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| In that respect, I never found EA particularly squishy in normal play. It's just people will look and say "Energy Aura or SR?...I want the besterest armor!!1" EA is just outdone for what it does by other sets. |
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I would try but the numbers have been crunched. All I have to do is find the posts so it's rather redundant for me to go calculating them. But there are things that the numbers can't gauge and that's where anecdotes come in. While I acknowledge the numbers are there and weigh them over anecdotes, I'd end up seeing the big picture in how the set plays out and on teams.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
Try actually calculating the survivability of the set and comparing it to the other sets (as I and many others have). Many players that argue that EA isn't all that weak are either operating under the assumption of IOs (which is a heavily flawed point to be making a balance argument from) or are using anecdotal evidence rather than attempting to gauge capability empirically.
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But if you want to say looking at the set from the point of view of my lvl 34 Claws/EA brute (got a 41 EM/EA stalker too but has IOs) that just runs on common lvl 30 IOs and tough/weave is flawed then fine. But AFAIK, he isn't weak. Hell, the heal in Energy Drain isn't that weak either (it's not strong either but it helps considering it *will* top off your Endurance too). The stealth isn't counter-intuitive as it helps get him into position to spin or start shredding down a tough target to get fury going before everyone starts shooting. The psi hole is managable, just pick off those targets first...toxic can be a problem but just pick off those targets too.
That said, yeah there are harsh downfalls to the set that the player must be aware of to survive. Empirically, the set is weaker than others. If you're actually playing the game and not looking at the numbers, you can play all points of the game and still have fun.
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I'm sorry, I wasn't aware of the psionic defense found in the Energy Aura set.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
Actually, what you're thinking of are the psionic attacks that bypass position. The attacks you're thinking of have the psionic type by no position, hence the moniker of "non-positional psi attacks".
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Originally Posted by Umbral
What are you basing this on? Can you honestly bring up any specific attacks that completely lack a type and, even then, bring up any kind of evidence to demonstrate that there are more exceptions to typed defense than positional defense?
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don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
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It's not hard (assuming plenty of inf) to softcap Ranged, AoE, and Melee on Shield or SR or Ninjutsu. Softcapping all types with EA is considerably harder if it's even possible at all.|
Originally Posted by _T_K_
For what reason though? That is to say, I can see why it would be easier to stack positional but just set to set comparison don't they come out fairly equal with all the toggles/passives factored in?
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Since softcapped defense is way better than 35-40% defense that's the biggest factor in a defense set's power level. That doesn't make Energy Aura bad, it's just not as good as other defense sets once you IO them out.
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I wasn't aware that Energy Aura was the whole of typed defense. Whether Energy Aura has pisionic defense or not has no bearing on whether typed defense is better or worse than positional defense.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
I'm sorry, I wasn't aware of the psionic defense found in the Energy Aura set.
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| There's not much in the normal PvE content that has them, true enough, but kinetics attacks lack a type. Basically any debuff that doesn't do damage. Any of the poison debuffs lack a type of defense. Benumb from cold domination may be tagged cold, but I know it has ranged. |
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I swear this is like, opposite. It is relatively easy to softcap s/l/en/ne on an EA toon. Ide say its probly cheaper than softcapping all three pos. on a shield. EA is good once you add in IO's, but without them its just missing the utilities to be as hardy as other sets.
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Originally Posted by StrykerX
It's not hard (assuming plenty of inf) to softcap Ranged, AoE, and Melee on Shield or SR or Ninjutsu. Softcapping all types with EA is considerably harder if it's even possible at all.
Since softcapped defense is way better than 35-40% defense that's the biggest factor in a defense set's power level. That doesn't make Energy Aura bad, it's just not as good as other defense sets once you IO them out. |
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Out of Energy Aura, Ice Armor, Invulnerability, Stone Armor, and Willpower (the only typed defensive sets I can think of at the moment), only Stone Armor and Willpower have any psionic defense. Willpower doesn't have enough to matter, and most stone players (admittedly not the good ones) rarely come out of granite.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
I wasn't aware that Energy Aura was the whole of typed defense. Whether Energy Aura has pisionic defense or not has no bearing on whether typed defense is better or worse than positional defense.
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Typed defense sets have a hole to psionic attacks. Position based defense sets have no such hole.
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Originally Posted by Umbral
And the only time you're really going to be facing those is when you're facing custom mobs in AE or other players in PvP.
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Originally Posted by Umbral
The number of attacks in PvE that you'll encounter with only positional tags are pretty much equivalent to the number of attacks you'll find with only typed tags.
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Originally Posted by Umbral
Any argument attempting to determine whether typed or positional defense is "better" needs to remember that both sets have their weakness and, honestly, both of the exceptions are relatively rare.
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I do agree that the exceptions are relatively rare, but there are still more exceptions to bypass typed sets.
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The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
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Which isn't the fault of "typed defense" but rather "typed defense sets". Psionic was designed to be a largely "screw you" damage type (the devs have outright stated that was the original intent and the reason why the was and is so little defense or resistance to psi until recently).|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Typed defense sets have a hole to psionic attacks. Position based defense sets have no such hole.
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| I didn't realize we were restricting this conversation to only non-AE PvE play. |
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| Please give me an example of a position lacking attack in PvE that does not also bypass Energy Aura's, Ice Armor's, Invulnerability's, or Granite's defenses. |
Typed defense and positional defense are perfectly equivalent in their functionality. The effects that bypass typed defense and positional defense are functionally equivalent. The question of whether the sets in question are better or worse thanks to design decisions by the developers (which are universally offset by gaining additional capabilities in other survivability areas such as resistance, +hp, +regen, and/or healing) doesn't have bearing upon the question of whether typed defense is better than positional defense and a specific attribute.
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The only problem is that we cannot compare typed defense to positional defense without taking into account where you acquire that defense from. Academic discussion of the effectiveness of typed defense versus positional defense does nothing for us. There is no practical application of such discussion within the realm of the game.|
Originally Posted by Umbral
As I have stated, we're not discussing the relative effectiveness of positional defense sets versus typed defense sets. The argument was that typed defense is worse than positional defense.
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Characters with typed defense sets (the only place you can reliably gain typed defense) will always have holes. Characters with positional defense sets will have far fewer holes, and the holes they have are shared by typed defense sets.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
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Except that those same sets that have typed base defenses have other mechanisms besides defense to count on. Shield, and SR rely on defense almost exclusively for their survivability (yes, they have what amounts to token amounts of resistance, but a vast preponderance of their survivability is derived from positional defense). Energy Aura, Invuln, Ice Armor, Stone Armor and all of the typed defense sets have other substantial mechanisms that provide survivability beyond their typed defense. The only positional defense set that doesn't follow the "almost entirely defense" model is Ninjitsu, and, for it, the defense only provides a baseline of performance that all of the other tricks it has builds off of.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Characters with typed defense sets (the only place you can reliably gain typed defense) will always have holes. Characters with positional defense sets will have far fewer holes, and the holes they have are shared by typed defense sets.
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You can't simply state that a set is typed defense and then proceed to ignore everything else that the set has going for it. Positional defense sets focus almost entirely on defense. Typed defense sets use defense only as a portion of their survivability. I dare you to find a hole that healing or +hp don't cover. All of the set that are "typed defense" based that you are using as your basis of "typed defense is inferior" have those mechanism in substantial amounts. Neither SR nor Shield have substantial amounts of either of those.
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But that's not what you initially said...you're changing your argument in the middle of the debate and pretending that's what you said the entire time.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
Characters with typed defense sets (the only place you can reliably gain typed defense) will always have holes. Characters with positional defense sets will have far fewer holes, and the holes they have are shared by typed defense sets.
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"Don't forget the psionic attacks that bypass typed defense. There are also attacks (particularly debuffs) that carry no type of attack, but they still have a position.
IOs or not, m/r/a defense will always perform better than s/l/e/n/f/c. Most things have a type, but everything (short of a very few psionic control powers) has a position."
You even state the defenses. You say melee/range/aoe defense performs better than smashing/lethal/energy/neg/fire/cold.
Who's fault is it that you left off the psionic defense tag? What if I said smashing/lethal/energy/neg/fire/cold/psi was superior to melee/range? How much sense does that even make?
IOs or not, m/r/a defense will always perform better than s/l/e/n/f/c. Most things have a type, but everything (short of a very few psionic control powers) has a position."
You even state the defenses. You say melee/range/aoe defense performs better than smashing/lethal/energy/neg/fire/cold.
Who's fault is it that you left off the psionic defense tag? What if I said smashing/lethal/energy/neg/fire/cold/psi was superior to melee/range? How much sense does that even make?
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That was exactly my point. You can't get s/l/e/n/f/c AND /psi, therefor it doesn't add into the discussion.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
You even state the defenses. You say melee/range/aoe defense performs better than smashing/lethal/energy/neg/fire/cold.
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Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
Some posts are saying EA's lack of a taunt aura is a liability. What about if you don't want to taunt stuff constantly? It's kinda not an option for sets like Inv, WP and SR where their taunt aura is linked to their mitigation. At least for sets like Elec Armor, if you don't want to taunt, you just lose the damage aura.
That said, in a team environment, I like to taunt things on my Elec brute...he can sap things faster that way but he'll be the 1st melee to fall when things go south. The guys that aren't aggroing extra stuff like the DA scrapper, the Stalkers and my EA brute will still be fighting on.