EM/WP still viable?

Hi Everyone!

I recently reactivated my game subscription after about a year and a half off (I left a bit after the ITF was put in the game)

I've been playing my heroes a whole bunch but so far have neglected my 50 EM/WP Brute, i've been reading a lot of doom and rage about the EM nerfs and I have to ask, is it really that bad?

I ran a quick solo mission and it wasnt HORRIBLE, but the new ET animation is annoying

Thanks!

no: http://zerias.blogspot.com/2010/05/d...elee-tank.html

EM as a set is fine.

Comboed with Willpower... not so much depending on what you want to do.

If you are trying to team tank: Willpower's already light on taunt aura, and you really need a couple of AOE's to make up for the lack of native ability to build aggro and keep fury fueled. Energy Melee is, I think I'm right in saying off the top of my head, the only power set with a single AOE power. You'll need to work the taunt to hold aggro.

If you are trying to solo / off tank / scrap: It's probably a fairly decent combo. Willpower gives you massive surivability, and you can make most Elite Bosses whimper in pain from EM.

Also: don't forget to work your HP cap. It's the same as a tank, and you get massive regen from it.

EM's viable for a lot of things. But it's not a very brutish set. It's a lot more stalkerish.

It doesn't do as good of a job as other sets when it comes to handling aggro. It is lacking in both the multiple target damage and multiple target damage mitigation departments compared to other sets. Consequently, many other brute primaries will allow you to more successfully confront large spawns.
Also, there are other brute primaries that out perform EM when it comes to single target damage.
I suspect that the only place it still really shines is in single target damage mitigation. It can easily stack up a mag 9 stun on a single target.

So if you want to solo small to mid sized spawns, then its a great fit.

That game still exists if you want it to exist. Some people don't like blowing through hordes of blue con minions and prefer tearing apart smaller groups of high diff opponents and bosses. In which case the burst damage of EM still gets the job done.

Meh, if you want control, play a dominator. I don't think the fact that EM has stacking controls are enough to draw attention away from the fact that it has been gutted like a fish and is now at the bottom of the barrel.

My opinion on EM is that it is fine... if you are soloing. As a couple of other people have said, teaming with your EM will lead to you attacking enemies postmortem. Too add salt to that wound, sometimes you will do ET on an enemy that was struck down by a teammate and now you have done damage to yourself. It has a bunch of the slowest animations and they are all, save whirling hands, pretty much ST. Even whirling hands has a notably poor radius.

With your particular brute, there may be some fury gathering issues as well. EM is low on mass punchvoke, and WP has the weakest taunt aura this side of the tauntless wonder of EA. Meaning that it might be a little more challenging to remain the life of the party if you are teamed. With as many elec/shield AoE ***** brutes you see in the Isles these days, fury may not be all it could be if you were solo.

I suspect that EM will be even more overshadowed my KM when it debuts. Much to my own chagrin, the closed beta peeps are remaining rather tight lipped about the details. KM will probably turn long cast times into a cool thing.

So to answer the original question- yes, EM is still viable. If you like soloing on high difficulty low team settings. If you team, you might find EM to be an exercise in frustration.

Yeah, Magikwand summed it up pretty well.

I deleted an EM stalker because of the EM changes, and I shelved my EM/WP tank for them as well.

Whirling hands is a really weak AoE, as far as AoEs go, and the animation on ET is so long you could cook dinner in the amount of time it takes to go off.

Personally, I think some time in the future, EM is going to get a full overhaul, that is just my opinion based on what they have done with other powersets in the past. Til then, I would avoid it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Larcen3 In my opinion....no. Solo: with the new mission setting ability, you want to blow through as many mobs as quickly as you can. For me, that means -1/4-7. ET and TF are simply wasted on targets like that, with the exception of bosses. I find sets with AoE are much more suited: SuperStrength and Claws especially, single target sets simply lag behind. (DM, EM I'm looking at you) Teamed: Generaly speaking, by the time you fire of TF/ET your target is already dead, or so close to dead its over kill. Again, a spread of targets means you'll have less damage overkill. For a non stalker, I feel EM is built for a game that no longer exists (ie taking on a few HARD targets).

SS isn't really an AoE set, it just has one AoE power that is really good because of Rage, a fast recharge and a good radius.

And DM can blow through -1/4-7 with the best of em, especially if you know how to work shadow maul.

-1/4-7 is nothing to write home about. I blow through +2/x8 on my Stone/WP brute quick as hell, and stone is more of a ST set, as it's only AoE is about as useless as whirling hands. If they hadn't killed the animation times on EM along with nerfing the mag on TF, it would be just as nice as SM.

I shelved my EM/WP too. She used to be really fun for soloing, she's not anymore. Not only that soloing is not automatically set for one player now, and thus doesnt reward single target damage as it used to be, but also her two main big attacks take way too long to animate. The set feels too slow for me.

My SS/* and SM/* brutes deal as well with bosses, much better with packs of minions and lieuts, and feel faster and more fun to play with. That's a pity, because even if she wasnt my most powerful character (I've always preferred AoE over single target), she was a concept toon I really enjoyed.

I'm sad to say that for me, the EM/ nerfs pretty much killed the set.