Energy Melee

I was trying out Energy Melee on a Tanker lately, and I had a couple of thoughts I'd like to float out there.

What if there was a Knockback component added to some of the attacks? Energy Transfer, in particular, seems to just cry out for it. You charge up impressively and thrust your fists outward; it would be nice if the target went flying.

The other thing was the attack rate of Barrage. Is it me, or is it incredibly slow, for a tier 1 power?

A final thought, how about a ranged attack? Could we replace something with an Energy Blast (Super Strength has Hurl, so there's precedent)? What would we replace?

Energy Melee needs two things:

1. A buff to Whirling Hands
2. A buff to Energy Transfer (and no, adding knockback is not a buff in any way, shape, or form).

So here's what you do:

1. Increase the radius of Whirling Hands from 8 feet to 10 feet, increase the damage slightly
2. Give ET the Stun animation, and give Stun the old ET animation.

Problem solved!

Im with macskull on his suggestions.

If the dev's are set on the animation for ET, they need to completely remove the -health component because as it stands in teams my attack chain is ET+TF+WH, rinse and repeat. I toss the occational BS or gloom in there when theres a gap, but that is my attack chain. So that means I damage myself every third attack...

I actually didn't think the health component was all that severe, but I haven't used it long.

The set COULD use a little more AOE. What if, instead of the Energy Blast I suggested, they included an Explosive Blast?

Anyhow, just thinking out loud.

Barrage is still Tier 1, but it recharges rather slowly. All the attacks do, it seems. There were many times I found myself standing around with no attacks because they were all recharging. Not unusual on Mace, I suppose. I was just suprised EM was doing it too.

In terms of power placement, Barrage is still tier 1, but it's actually a better power than Energy Punch now. The problem with EM is that it takes a while to mature, and once you get up in levels most of your damage is locked into long-activating powers. It used to be a top-tier single-target set, but had very poor AoE, which was an acceptable tradeoff to most players. After the ET nerf, the set is now... a mediocre single-target set with very poor AoE.

(Also, there's no "standard" when it comes to how fast powers from a given tier recharge. Most Blaster tier 1/2 attacks are at 4/8 seconds, for example, but there are several sets with follow different times (Arch 2/6, Pistols 4/6, Fire 2.18/4, Sonic 3/6). You can't say "this power has this recharge time, so it should be in this tier.")

I've found it to be decent, so far. The character is L41, though, so I have all the powers.

They NERFED Energy Transfer? The thing oneshots minions!

I think the set could use another AOE and/or a ranged attack. My thinking is that you could combine both if you used Explosive Blast.

I'm a bit of a fan of Knockback, it's just so comic-booky. One thing I've suggested before was that they revamp knockback/knockdown this way:

Turn all knockback into knockdown. Use of Knockback Enhancements would change Knockdown to Knockback. Add a small damage component to Knockback, more Knockback means more damage.

The idea here is to allow those who hate Knockback to have Knockdown instead, and to allow those who like Knockback to have it if they choose. However, since they would have to use slots up to get it, they should get the benefit of some damage in compensation.


After that, you could add it to powers that could benefit from it thematically without breaking the way they work normally.

When you get to level 27 you can put the Stupefy "Chance for KB" proc into just about any Energy Melee attack. 20% chance to send the target flying. It works rather nicely in Energy Transfer for pure visual flair.

The Kinetic Combat "Chance for KD", in contrast, will just knock them over.

Yeah, the animation is still too long, but that's a power that plagues just about every power in the set except Bone Smasher and Energy Punch.

Re: power replacements... Gravity Control had Fold Space replaced by Singularity very soon after launch, and Telekinesis was changed to its current toggle hold/repel shortly thereafter. Until the Energize change there weren't really any power "replacements" of that sort, though I suppose one could argue that changing IH into a click from a toggle, or changing Black Dwarf Mire from a long-recharge long-duration click into a Follow Up-like click are also power replacements.

The Energize change wasn't a replacement, it was an add-to. They made Conserve Power from Elec Armor infinitely more useful, by lowering the recharge and adding +heal and +regen to it. It still reduces the end usage of powers, just not by as much or for as long. But really, who took CP beforehand, when you could just wait it out 7 more level for Power Sink. This change made a junk power into something useful, and turned a pretty much useless set into a real contender.

As for swapping Barrage and Energy Punch around, there is precedent for that kind of change. Years and years ago Tanks used to have Taunt as a Tier 3 power, available at level 4, as opposed to Tier 4, where it is now, only available at 10+. For whatever reason, they wanted to switch the powers around, probably to help Tankers damage output through the lower level grind, so they did it. It's not unfeasible that they could do it again. So long as folks don't do a respec, Barrage would remain a T1 for them, thus not invalidating their build. Friend of mine has a tank with T1-T4 secondary powers all chosen before level 10, because he had Taunt when it was T3, and took the now T3 (formerly T4) attack before level 10. Build is still playable, not invalidated or broken or anything.

Picking nits here. The name changed, what the power does changed (never had +regen before or a heal) the end cost, recharge, duration and just about everything else changed. The only thing that stayed the same is the cast time. In addition the Conserve Power power itself remained unchanged and can still be taken on scrappers or tanks with the body mastery pool.

Yes they indeed did replace a power.