Failure of the Developers to Implement Changes.

ENERGY MELEE

While I think the OP's method of attempting to present the issue is fairly horrible I do agree with their sentiment.

There have been several threads (All of them similar in tone ugh) about the set over the past few weeks. The main complaints have been the lack of AoE and its perceived inability to live up to the mantle of highest single target DPS.

It sparks an interesting debate because people are divided on which way to go when discussing how to improve the set. One camp wants more damage in Whirling Hands while the other wants to see something done about Energy Transfer's long animation. I lean more toward the latter. The set is still a heavy hitter in terms of ST damage which justifies reduced AoE ability. Problem is it lacks fluidity. Adjustments are sorely needed in certain places. As far as I can see they are as follows:

BARRAGE
This attack has a very poor reputation with EM players. Its very unusual for a tier 1 attack. It does better damage (58.7 DPA all told). In exchange it has a much slower recharge (6s as opposed to 2 or 3s for other tier 1s). Now, I don't wanna advocate for cutting the damage and the long recharge does balance it out but its placement in the progression is awkward and can prove frustrating for the inexperienced. I'd like to see it switch places with Energy Punch.

ENERGY TRANSFER
Very contentious power here. Energy Transfer is plainly a beast. It hits like a mack truck with a jet engine. Problem is it takes forever to do it. The animation time on this power is 3s. That's as long as it takes Khelds to shapeshift from one form to another. Solo, animation time is largely a non-factor. But on teams this is a power you're forced to save for rather hard targets because, if you don't, you'll probably end up dropping the hammer on a corpse. Now, across the board EM trades quickness for high damage which is a viable balance mechanism. But ET has another mechanic that can be used to balance it instead of or in addition to animation time. Because it also damages the user it has another element of risk. I'd be behind increasing the amount of self damage it does in exchange for a 1.5-2s animation time.

STUN STACKING
Stacking stuns are EM's only means of mitigation. In theory that's awesome. But it's not quite as good in practice because all the powers only carry a chance to stun. Only Taser is guaranteed to put a Mag 3 Stun on a target. This issue's a rather simple fix from my perspective. Give either Energy Transfer or Total Focus (Better Total Focus if Energy Transfer gets the desired changes) a 100% chance to stun, similar to the change that was made to Eagle's Claw from Martial Arts. Might have to tone down the magnitude but that'd be acceptable in exchange for a reliable Stun combo against bosses.

Also, not at all necessary but I'd love to see EM get some of the alternate animations that were given to Super Strength and Martial Arts. They're much more realistic than many of the current animations and would help with some of the goofier looking powers (Mostly Taser )

The OP does have a point.
The way they're goin about it gives cause for concern but whatever.

The issue is bigger than the four examples they gave however.

Two examples off the top of my head.

1. Anyone have extensive experience with gravity control compared to other control sets?
2. Does dark armor really need to be as endurance intensive as it is?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf My favorite combo is Faceplant/DebtCap with the TeamWipe Ancillary

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari Yeah, I like Blasters too.

ITT: People sounding concerned.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

If your intent was to attract the attention of a Dev to these issues, IMO your attempts are likely to backfire.

Some of these things are issues, sure, but keep mind at least two of them (problems related to Fire Aura and Energy Melee) stem from previous Developers making drastic changes on the fly. Also, Fire Aura's current backseat to Shield Defense is related to another change that resulted in a regretable damage miscalculation that has given us an armor powerset that outnukes... well, everybody.

I think that if you are trying to categorize this game's developers as unresponsive that you are simply mistaken. I have never seen or played an MMO with a development staff as responsive as this one. They may not always do what I want, but they've always been good at understanding it. I appreciate your frustration, but I simply think some of it is misdirected.

I also have to say that if the problems you've highlighted are the worst in the game, that this is one of the best balanced games I've ever played. IMO there are some powersets that are better than others, but few of them outperform to egregious levels. The exception set is Shield Defense, which is simply hanging out in the gallows until it meets its nerf (and lets hope the nerf is more reasonable than what Fire Armor or Energy Melee got that landed them in the "buff me" pile in the first place).

Since we're talking about broken mechanics though--and this is not likely to make me a more popular person--I might as well throw out there some of my broken issues. Namely, the madness of having a power that maxes out +Damage on a base 60 second Recharge (Fulcrum Shift) or deciding to give the supposedly lowest-damage AT more AoE damage than sets that actually have the word "Blast" or "Melee" as their purpose. Yes, I'm talking about Controllers. My favorite AT, but how long before someone does a damage multiplier analysis on Containment and/or Fulcrum Shift that netted us the scheduled downtweak to Shield Charge?

Does Energy Melee need tweaking? IMO...YES! I truely think it'll be checked out again when it gets ported over to scrappers.

Do I want to see it become more AOE centric. Personally? NO! I think sets like Energy Melee and Martial Arts should be the top single target DPS machines out there. Why? Because they're that much focused on Single Target! Dark Melee at least has it's utility.


Energy Aura. I agree! Still needs some tweaks. However, I don't think it's nearly as bad as you make it out to be. It's a set that's not that hard to soft cap with a little power investment/IO investment.

What would I do? I'd turn Conserve Power be turned into a END RED/+RES (All But Psi) power style power. I still think this is the best suggestion so far.

Give Kinetic/Power/Entropy Shield each 20% Unenhancable Energy Resist (it just bothers me that much that Energy Shield doesn't laugh off Energy attacks even more).

Power Drain. Personally. I don't see the problem. Super Reflexes doesn't have a heal at all when up against a single target. EA at least gets a small heal with a +END power that drains the enemy.

Do what Shielders do...9 enemies + AV = 50%ish (no damage to fuel) heal...since they're likely to be drained of energy, they're (the 9 extra minions) not hitting much, combined with your soft capped defenses.

I imagine this set will get more attention when ported around as well.


Okay first off, Dominators kick butt! It's just how it is. I don't even feel the need to IO for defenses on my DOM! That's how much Doms kick butt! Do I still think I need that Mez Protection? Yup! That's why I'm going for Perma Dom! More Mag on the Mez to keep enemies locked down and +END more often.

You seriously need to go back and play one before you make any comments. I felt this way pretty quick on my new doms since the change.

As for tankers, I'm going to tell you a secret. Scrapper may beable to get up to tanker level of defenses, but they only get up close, they don't get all the way up there. Tankers are still more survivable than Scrappers. And a scrapper will never hold aggro as well as a Tanker (holding it on single target doesn't count btw as there's more to holding aggro than just AVs).

What to do for a Tanker? Hmmm...really...in my experience with Tankers, I'd just be happy with a slight shift in the damage mod. Up to .85 might make a noticeable difference. *shrug* Survivability was never the issue, it was damage. :/ But they give up damage for the survivability.

A thought for Inherent however is this. Seeing as Brutes have a version of Gauntlet, how about give Tankers a version of Fury. Cap it for less +DMG, and only make it for enemies that the Tanker attacks (ie...no fury for being attacked, only for attacking). Treat it like Superman vs Apokalipse. He can take off the kids gloves.

On a team, they don't have to worry about damage as much. Solo, they'd have to keep going and going or lose the +DMG, because they stopped attacking, plus they'd be limited by their END as well. Just an idea.

I also like Billz suggestion of putting Brutes (thusly lower) and Scrappers (thusly raising) resistance caps at 80% (MAYBE Stalkers too...I don't know...they're melee...but they're squishy melee). Let Tankers being the Resistance Kings/Queens at 90%.


As Billz said, Castle said he is looking at it. So another wait and see.


And no. The reason you don't play this game, is because you see problems that really aren't all that!

You don't like your, what I can only guess, is your MAIN TOON, feeling so weak. Roll another. IO them out.

It's already been proven, you can make any melee set AWESOM with IOs. So you IOing out a Fire Armor, isn't going to be building on a crumbling foundation. You IOing out a Fire Armor, is you building on a foundation that everyone knows will somehow get even better.

When? That's the question. EA and FA where you're two concerns, and I can't help but think everyone knows they're going to see some loving. It's just a matter of when.

And Fire Armor isn't at the top of the OMG BEST list? If that's the problem. Remember one thing. One of the sets is going to come in at the top and one is going to come in at the bottom the goal is to not have the bottom set that FAR at the bottom.

If you only play the things you mentioned. Then maybe, this game isn't for you? I'm not saying don't try to get things buffed/nerfed that you think need it. But with the way you wrote your post, I get the feeling you wont be happy untill SO AND SO powerset is NUMBER ONE because that's the one you play and that's why you don't play often and every other set should be inferior, so your favorite set is better than the rest.

In the past I'd suggested that when calculating defense and resistance against an attack, Tankers be treated as if they are one level higher than their actual level. That may be too extreme; a tradeoff would be that they are considered 1/2 level higher than their current level (i.e. basically get 50% of the difference between the current level's defense/resists and the next level's). This would include the base values but also the caps.

Another way to do it is for each Tanker on the team to increase the effective defense of the entire team as if they are 1/8th of a level higher than their actual level, with the above results. This would partially help solve the problem that more than 1 or 2 Tankers are generally undesireable.

If there is anything I really do not want to see it's another damage buff as the solution. IMO the buff Defenders got to damage basically just made the Defenders who were already soloing easily even better and left the rest of them barely better off than before, especially the ones that team who still got the same tired, broken endurance discount. The buff I wanted for Defenders was a reduction in base recharge times and/or bigger AoE buff/debuff sizes and ranges to make Defenders competitive with Controllers as team mitigators, but that's something I've already repeated endlessly.

You can't give tankers any kind of bonus to resistance/defense without making them unkillable. As it is, a tanker player right is already almost nigh unkillable. Any bonus to their inherent would have to be to improve soloing damage and the AT would play just fine.

You are frankly just wrong about Dominators. Now you may not like Dominators, that is a valid opinion. But that doesn't mean they are a weak AT under any circumstances. I don't like playing Controllers, but I admit they are a vey good AT. Remember, just because you don't like something, doesn't mean that something is bad.

I still think Fire Aura is a good set, when you take Shield Defense out of the picture and even then the two almost stack up, atleast on paper. Against All Odds gives a comparable +dam bonus to Fiery Embrace (One is always on, costs end to maintain and isn't as good against fewer enemies, while the other has a short recharge time, lasts 30 seconds and gives the same bonus in all situations). Burn is both decent damage AND damage mitigation. Y'know those guys running from the burn patch, they ain't attacking you or your teammates at this time. And keep in mind Shield Charge has a miscalculated damage modifier. It'll get it's nerf soon enough. (Their performance on IO's is a completely different matter, though I stand by my awesome Fire/Fire brute)

Can't comment on Energy Melee or Energy Aura. Never played either. But honestly, the "Waah do this immediately or I'll quit" attitude doesn't help. Or the "I don't play because of these issues" attitude...hey if you don't play anymore why do you care?

With IO'd out scrappers and brutes there's not reason to play a tank for me. I think the real problem is the way defense works and the ease with which a multiple Scrapper/Brute secondary's can reach it's cap in one way or another. As much as I disliked the zephyr nerf it was a step in the right direction. It might even be necessary to lower the defense cap for scrappers and brutes to 40 so that there's a bit more fear when facing enemies. I would hate this as well, since the majority of my characters are defense based, but at least other, non defense sets would shine a bit more. I don't think there is anything wrong with the majority of them in their current form, they're just substandard when compared with IO'd out defense builds.

Not sure what inherent you could give to tanks to make them shine against other AT's that do the job just as well. You can talk about major hitpoints and resistance, but with defense, it's really just not necessary.

For Fiery Aura you could honestly just change a couple powers and make the set shine against it's peers. Change consume to be Auto Hit with a small Defense buff/debuff or resis debuff built in and reduce the timer. Reduce the timer on Fiery Embrace and fix burn to make it useful again.

Completely agree with Energy melee. Set is the laughing stock it was nerfed for nowadays.

Never played energy aura so I couldn't tell you.

I doubt any of this will happen until after GR goes live. I imagine that's why the devs have been quiet for a while. Looking forward to some new content and know that they have their priorities.