As mentioned above, one of the characteristics of EA is endurance management. The era of 6-slotting an attack with damage is long gone. With ED and IO, people can build an endurance-efficient toon, and it actually takes some effort to exploit the full potential of the endurance tools (here, I don't mean deliberately building the toon badly). I think it is slightly harder for a stalker than a brute to make good use of such tools. This is probably just an opinion, as it depends on the specific build and playstyle.
I think it is ok for stalkers to have their own version of energy drain, and maybe a different conserve power as well. I don't visit the stalker's forum much. But in the brute forum, there are suggestions to make the heal from energy drain more front-loaded. This point is already mentioned in some of the posts above. I think that the effect of energy drain can saturate with just a few mobs as stalkers are not supposed to aggro a large number of mobs. I would love to add more flavor to it, for example, -dmg debuff on the drained mobs as their energy is drained (I guess this won't happen, but I mention it anyway).
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On the brute side, people usually talk about changing CP to something like energize, rather than changing energy drain to energize. The reason is that when EA is proliferated, CP will overlap with the one in the ancillary power pool. The change was done to electric armor when it was proliferated, so people expect CP in EA to be changed in the future as well.
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Originally Posted by Novella
In my opinion Energy Drain would be a much better power for the Stalkers if it mimiced Energize or if they just increased the heal portion of it. Energy Aura is light on endurance cost so having ED and CP is a bit overkill in my opinion. |
Has any one thought of instead, or in addition to the meager heal, adding a +Regen effect. Say 30% +Regen per target, for say 15 seconds?
It could be explained by saying with the increased energy attained from draining, your body is able to heal at an increased rate for a short time.
Your character does not have capped defense. Depending on your AT the cap is between 175% - 225%. Your defense is not teal in the combat window, it can go higher. STOP SAYING IT IS CAPPED! The correct term is Soft Cap.
I enjoy playing in Mids. I specialize in Melee Characters, other AT's usually bore me.
Energy Drain isn't the problem in the set.
Conserve power can be overkill with energy drain, but an option for those that skip energy drain. The problem in the set in my very honest opinion is repulse. If that was changed to be something useful for a stalker, the set would be a lot better for it (eg. Hit point bonus for a limited time).
Extra HP on a stalker is really going to help no one. You can hit the HP cap without even trying because it's cap is so low.
Your character does not have capped defense. Depending on your AT the cap is between 175% - 225%. Your defense is not teal in the combat window, it can go higher. STOP SAYING IT IS CAPPED! The correct term is Soft Cap.
I enjoy playing in Mids. I specialize in Melee Characters, other AT's usually bore me.
IMO, if the devs are still deadset on diversity at the cost of efficiency (no energize treatment to conserve power), I'd listen to Novella's suggestions. My En/En goes from mediocre (against anything but psy) to outright awful (against psy), and a fake 2% + 2% heal isn't going to change that.
A little off-topic, but is ANY dev actually working on game balance / QoL improvements? Because ever since Castle and BAB quit awhile back (or got fired, I don't know) I haven't heard any Red Names talking about reviewing the existing sets.
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I've always been of the opinion of taking the Fiery Armor route. As is, Energy Aura is 'good enough'. You can bolster its survival to really high marks and make it decent all-around with certain power picks/IO bonuses.|
Originally Posted by Gemini_2099
Energy Drain isn't the problem in the set.
Conserve power can be overkill with energy drain, but an option for those that skip energy drain. The problem in the set in my very honest opinion is repulse. If that was changed to be something useful for a stalker, the set would be a lot better for it (eg. Hit point bonus for a limited time). |
By itself? It feels no different from SR, IMO. That is to say, if you only have the (8) powers in SR, you're going to get pummeled occasionally same as EA. But while SR can get really great resistance at certain HP + an offensive boost (+rech) and doesn't generally have holes, EA mainly just has the endurance tools and +HP in the tier 9 with holes to psionic and low values to negative energy.
Would it be out of step to alter Conserve Power to a Fiery Embrace type power? That is, a click that has a smaller endurance discount bonus but adds an energy damage component to all attacks for a shorter duration. So you don't have to push the sets survival up from 'good enough' to 'better than the competition', the set gets added utility as a damage set and hey, more offensive armor sets is always nice!
I've never really tried Conserve Energy. I think it is a bit over-kill with energy drain. I find Conserve Energy's base recharge too long.
Yeah, if I want to "improve" anything in Energy Aura, it is Conserve Energy.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Note: my only EA experience is with my DB/EA Brute, so my millage might have varied.
I use Conserve Energy when I solo AV's and so would rather nothing be done to Conserve Energy in its place (the build up idea or some have even suggested making it a caltrops power??? :O)
Your character does not have capped defense. Depending on your AT the cap is between 175% - 225%. Your defense is not teal in the combat window, it can go higher. STOP SAYING IT IS CAPPED! The correct term is Soft Cap.
I enjoy playing in Mids. I specialize in Melee Characters, other AT's usually bore me.
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While I understand your point regarding stalkers, the devs don't balance sets around badges, and IO set bonuses. Furthermore, the gem of EA in my opinion is the tier 9 (Overload) because of the HP increase. This is a big reason why many Brutes, and Stalkers try to bring down the recharge of Overload as much as possible.
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Originally Posted by _Pine_
Extra HP on a stalker is really going to help no one. You can hit the HP cap without even trying because it's cap is so low.
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Did I ever say they did? No, I did not. My comment has complete relevance to what was being said. Try reading for comprehension next time before saying something is irrelevant.
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Originally Posted by Errant
Psst, afore you go mentioning superfluous things and ******** about irrelevance, remember, the devs DO NOT balance around IO's... so your DR firing for 16 End and your KB Protection is irrelevant. ^_^
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"People love to talk, but hate to listen." Alice Duer Miller, American Author (1874-1942)
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To be honest I don't know why they don't just completely get rid of that power outright, it has absolutely no use for the vast majority of people that play Energy Aura other than being a place holder for the Kinetic Crash set if someone were to slot it out.
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Originally Posted by Gemini_2099
Energy Drain isn't the problem in the set.
Conserve power can be overkill with energy drain, but an option for those that skip energy drain. The problem in the set in my very honest opinion is repulse. If that was changed to be something useful for a stalker, the set would be a lot better for it (eg. Hit point bonus for a limited time). |
"People love to talk, but hate to listen." Alice Duer Miller, American Author (1874-1942)
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You say that like its a bad thing. In my opinion, powerset diversity is far, far more important than quibbling about which individual power in which individual powerset is better or worse. As long as the powersets as a whole are sufficiently well balanced against each other in performance given the game requirements, powerset diversity is overridingly more important than homogenized equality.|
Originally Posted by Zemblanity
IMO, if the devs are still deadset on diversity at the cost of efficiency (no energize treatment to conserve power)
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Homogenized equality is, in fact, something to explicitly go far out of your way to avoid. You do it only when you absolutely have to, and you virtually never actually have to.
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I'd listen to Novella's suggestions. My En/En goes from mediocre (against anything but psy) to outright awful (against psy), and a fake 2% + 2% heal isn't going to change that. A little off-topic, but is ANY dev actually working on game balance / QoL improvements? Because ever since Castle and BAB quit awhile back (or got fired, I don't know) I haven't heard any Red Names talking about reviewing the existing sets. |
In fact, the 4.2% number was a nearby number to the calculated value that happened to work out to the fact that if you slot it for heal and hit three targets, which is the size of a standard solo spawn, it will heal for about 25% health.
Also, historical fact: I originally suggested that Energize (or rather the power that would become Energize) get the 4.2% heal per target. Instead, Energize got set to what it was set to and then ED got changed later to approximately what I suggested for Energize. At the time, I thought (and still in retrospect think) that Electric Armor was in greater need of the buff than Energy Aura (although both needed attention at the time).
As to any change that would alter Energy Drain dramatically: any suggestion on changing ED has to factor in the fact that it is autohitting, and thus its strength is moderated because of that. And any suggestion asking to revoke its autohitting status is, in my opinhion, a non-starter. It runs afoul of the cottage rule, which I will remind everyone is not there to protect cottages, but to protect the rest of the playerbase from unnecessary and unjustified meddling. The people who like ED as an autohit power are more important than any and all players that are disappointed with the power unless they can provide compelling evidence that not only is the power unbalancingly weak, but also that there is no way to address that weakness without fundamentally altering the power. That's a very high hurdle to attempt to overcome.
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My guess is that whatever we may think of the power, the devs datamined that lots of players take and use it. And that's why the devs can't cavalierly delete it.
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Originally Posted by Novella
To be honest I don't know why they don't just completely get rid of that power outright, it has absolutely no use for the vast majority of people that play Energy Aura other than being a place holder for the Kinetic Crash set if someone were to slot it out.
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I think when I started to think about tweaking the power my first thought was that the auto-hit would need to be dropped otherwise it would be overpowered. I do realize that the set as a whole is focused on energy maintenance, but in truth even with out IOs or set bonuses, it is very easy to maintain high endurance in this set even without using ED or CP. Hell I would rather them boost the heal per target to the levels you mentioned because that would yield a little more healing than the paltry sum currently being offered.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
As to any change that would alter Energy Drain dramatically: any suggestion on changing ED has to factor in the fact that it is autohitting, and thus its strength is moderated because of that. And any suggestion asking to revoke its autohitting status is, in my opinhion, a non-starter. It runs afoul of the cottage rule, which I will remind everyone is not there to protect cottages, but to protect the rest of the playerbase from unnecessary and unjustified meddling. The people who like ED as an autohit power are more important than any and all players that are disappointed with the power unless they can provide compelling evidence that not only is the power unbalancingly weak, but also that there is no way to address that weakness without fundamentally altering the power. That's a very high hurdle to attempt to overcome.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
My guess is that whatever we may think of the power, the devs datamined that lots of players take and use it. And that's why the devs can't cavalierly delete it.
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"People love to talk, but hate to listen." Alice Duer Miller, American Author (1874-1942)
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I'm a little perplexed at this. From my time playing my Energy Aura brute, my friend playing his Electric Armor brute, and a lot of time spent trying to hammer at mids to sort it out, I keep coming to the conclusion that Energy Aura is notably weaker.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
At the time, I thought (and still in retrospect think) that Electric Armor was in greater need of the buff than Energy Aura (although both needed attention at the time).
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Can you explain your reasoning that Electric Armor was in greater need?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
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Hi Arcanaville. I just want to say that I don't want to argue with you, because I know I'll lose ^_^ I'm still going to try to at least explain my point, no pressure for you to answer or anything, I know you're busy 
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You missunderstood me. I'm all for diversity, yay for different sets and different playstyles. What I don't like is to arbitrarily apply that diversity to sets that recognizably need (needed) help, not unless the solution is both creative and efficient. In this case, I feel that it wasn't.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
You say that like its a bad thing. In my opinion, powerset diversity is far, far more important than quibbling about which individual power in which individual powerset is better or worse. As long as the powersets as a whole are sufficiently well balanced against each other in performance given the game requirements, powerset diversity is overridingly more important than homogenized equality.
Homogenized equality is, in fact, something to explicitly go far out of your way to avoid. You do it only when you absolutely have to, and you virtually never actually have to. |
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
FYI, when Energize and Power Sink were being tweaked, I calculated the best balance point for Energy Drain's heal from a setwide performance perspective to be about 4.2% per target. Slightly higher than Castle's value, but not extravagantly so. I wouldn't argue if it was increased to 4%, but I also wouldn't argue that its worthless or wildly improperly set at 3% either. If you hit four targets with ED, and it autohits, you're already at essentially half the strength of reconstruction in a set that isn't focused on heals.
In fact, the 4.2% number was a nearby number to the calculated value that happened to work out to the fact that if you slot it for heal and hit three targets, which is the size of a standard solo spawn, it will heal for about 25% health. |
The problem is that brutes and stalkers are different creatures, as acknowledged in sets like Willpower, and a solution that works for one might not work for the other. I imagine the 2% (or 4% that you suggested) works well for brutes, since they usually face more than 3 opponents at the time (if only for the fact that they team more), but my stalker often finds himself alone facing a psy boss with only a minion around him. As I said, 2% + 2% doesn't do much for him in that situation. For me, that psy hole is precisely an example of bad diversity, uncreative and unefficient as it makes /Energy armor virtually unplayable against some of the game's official content (and highly prevalent at high levels).
In short, I wanted more for /Energy at that time, and I was disappointed that the fix to /Energy Armor consisted in (IMO) a fake heal at about half the strenght you reccomended and the scaling toxic resist on a passive I didn't pick. Moreso, the weakness-free /Electric (again, IMO) got energize instead (a real heal, and incidently auto-hit).
So I stand by my opinion when I say Novella's suggestions look interesting. You might not agree, but you're an exceptional player and dataminer. I'm just a grunt/cog who feels that his dusty old /energy stalker could use another reason to log in again...
Anyway, thanks for reading, Arcanaville.
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1. My experience suggested to me that unless you coupled Electric Armor with Electric Melee to stack up drain (which El has a little more of than EA), Electric Armor was actually weaker.|
Originally Posted by Void_Huntress
I'm a little perplexed at this. From my time playing my Energy Aura brute, my friend playing his Electric Armor brute, and a lot of time spent trying to hammer at mids to sort it out, I keep coming to the conclusion that Energy Aura is notably weaker.
Can you explain your reasoning that Electric Armor was in greater need? |
2. Calculations suggested Electric Armor was weaker as well.
3. Energy Aura had an easier time improving its situation by stacking power pool defenses than Electric Armor could by stacking resistances.
Brute Electric used to be so bad, it was actually the only Brute powerset to fail my maximum rest test for all damage types except energy. That means if you were to slot rest full of Heal enhancements and put your healing while resting at the regen cap, then you could survive more stuff indefinitely while resting than you could if you slotted all the defenses of Brute Electric with SOs and stood there with all your toggles on (discounting the effects of endurance drain). That's with rest's debuffs which makes you take quadruple damage.
Incidentally, Stalker EA and Stalker Ela were closer than Brute EA and Brute Ela, because while Electric was basically the same for both of them in terms of standard mitigation powers (except for Hide of course, which would not stack highly on Ela), Brute and Stalker EA were different in important ways. First of all, I think someone goofed when they desgned Stalker EA. I think they reduced the defenses in EA for stalkers to compensate for the fact that it would have Hide, but they didn't quite do it right. Net result: stalker EA has more s/l defense, but oddly less fire/cold defense. Conversely, someone seems to have forgotten that stalkers gave up dampening field to get Hide, which means they lost about 12% of slotted resistance to s/l. And I have no idea why stalker Energy Protection is weaker than Brute Energy Protection.
The net result is that stalker EA was a tiny bit weaker than Brute EA, and thus the gap between Brute Ela and EA was higher than the stalker gap between Ela and EA.
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None taken.|
Originally Posted by Zemblanity
I remember. I didn't agree with you then, and I still don't agree now. No offence.
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| The problem is that brutes and stalkers are different creatures, as acknowledged in sets like Willpower, and a solution that works for one might not work for the other. |
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I imagine the 2% (or 4% that you suggested) works well for brutes, since they usually face more than 3 opponents at the time (if only for the fact that they team more), but my stalker often finds himself alone facing a psy boss with only a minion around him. As I said, 2% + 2% doesn't do much for him in that situation. For me, that psy hole is precisely an example of bad diversity, uncreative and unefficient as it makes /Energy armor virtually unplayable against some of the game's official content (and highly prevalent at high levels). In short, I wanted more for /Energy at that time, and I was disappointed that the fix to /Energy Armor consisted in (IMO) a fake heal at about half the strenght you reccomended and the scaling toxic resist on a passive I didn't pick. Moreso, the weakness-free /Electric (again, IMO) got energize instead (a real heal, and incidently auto-hit). |
Assuming you hit just three targets with Energy Drain, slotting both to the ED cap with heal and recharge means ED will be healing for about 18% every 30 seconds, and Energize will be healing about 50% every 60 seconds. The "fake" heal is healing for about 72% of the real one in this circumstance. Hitting four targets would make it essentially a tie. Alternatively, using my 4.2% number would actually make ED heal for slightly *more* than Energize over time hitting just three targets.
I think people see 3% vs 25% and jump to the conclusion that Energize is vastly superior to Energy Drain. They forget Energy Drain recharges twice as fast, effectively doubling the strength of that heal to essentially 6% in an apples to apples comparison, and then it can hit multiple targets, making it actually worth 12%, 18%, or 24% hitting just 2, 3 or 4 targets. All of a sudden, that 3 doesn't look quite so small compared to the 25.
Balancing around SOs and standard content, balancing around three targets is usually the standard number, and I think its reasonable. At three, Stalker ED lags Energize, but not by an extraordinary amount. By about the amount I would want it to be buffed, basically. Leaving SOs and standard difficulty content, Energy Aura has an easier time building for more recharge because it has defensive powers, which means in higher end builds EA will tend to have an easier time getting more out of Drain than Ela will get out of Energize. I really don't think Energy Aura got the short end of the stick there. Stalkers may have a harder time leveraging ED than Brutes, but that's a separate issue. Its easy enough to get a credible level of heal out of ED to make the case that the only thing wrong with it is that its about one percentage point too low.
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I'd rather they just make it a straight cost toggle (not per target) and lower the effect to 'chance of Knockup/knockback' so that you can at least use it in combat. If my thinking is correct, Repulse doesn't actually have a repel effect, just knock.|
Originally Posted by Novella
You're probably right, but it is just a very odd power to have in the set when there are many other power that could be substituted and not break the set or make it overpowered. I won't hold my breath that it will ever be changed, but one can wish.
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Originally Posted by Zemblanity
Hi Arcanaville. I just want to say that I don't want to argue with you, because I know I'll lose ^_^ I'm still going to try to at least explain my point, no pressure for you to answer or anything, I know you're busy
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I suppose my math must simply be wrong here. I'm not as good at the survivability calculations as a lot of the other folks, though, so it's not really that surprising.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
2. Calculations suggested Electric Armor was weaker as well.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
3. Energy Aura had an easier time improving its situation by stacking power pool defenses than Electric Armor could by stacking resistances.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Brute Electric used to be so bad, it was actually the only Brute powerset to fail my maximum rest test for all damage types except energy. That means if you were to slot rest full of Heal enhancements and put your healing while resting at the regen cap, then you could survive more stuff indefinitely while resting than you could if you slotted all the defenses of Brute Electric with SOs and stood there with all your toggles on (discounting the effects of endurance drain). That's with rest's debuffs which makes you take quadruple damage.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
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That's saying nothing more or less than there are more power pool defenses than resistances, and more +DEF than +RES in the invention system.
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Originally Posted by Void_Huntress
Again, at the time I was looking at it, it didn't seem like that was the case, but I may simply have overlooked something in my methodology.
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Not implicitly no... but here:|
Originally Posted by Novella
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| DR costs 16.3 endurance in my build excluding the Cardiac alpha slot (15.25 with it). The endurance cost issue is a thing of the past for Dark Regeneration. |
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DR will heal for 669.04 HP with 2 white Heal SO's, 49.97% of a Scrapper's Base HP (782.81/58.46% with 3 white Heal SO's, or 718.55/53.66% with 3 -2 Heal SO's). So, here, you're probably using IO's, either commons or frankenslotted sets, both of which the Dev's have stated are not used for balancing powersets and powers.
So... um... yeah, you're wrong. *pat pats* It's okay, your comment wasn't an accurate comparison of the powersets/powers. Better luck next time. And remember, facts are your friends!
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That is a fabulous idea.
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Originally Posted by Leo_G
Would it be out of step to alter Conserve Power to a Fiery Embrace type power? That is, a click that has a smaller endurance discount bonus but adds an energy damage component to all attacks for a shorter duration. So you don't have to push the sets survival up from 'good enough' to 'better than the competition', the set gets added utility as a damage set and hey, more offensive armor sets is always nice!
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Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
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Is that a reasonable assumption to make for a stalker? 3 targets seems too high. After all, I believe stalkers are balanced around facing 2 targets, not three, since one of those 3 dies before aggro exists.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Which is why I set the balance point to 3 targets. That's the number you'd face solo most of the time. In any other situation, you'd likely face more on average, even as a stalker. Even if you're only attacking one, there should be two more somewhere nearby within the range of ED much of the time.
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While a stalker could choose to use ED as an opening move (hopefully the spawn is all close enough to get them in the 12 foot radius), it seems unreasonable to balance the power on that premise.
OTOH, they added a taunt component to brute ED (for which I am much obliged). Maybe they could buff the radius of stalker ED to 15 or 20 feet (I thought maybe they could allow it to not notify spawns or break hide, but the end drain component could be exploitable, so I went with the radius increase instead).
Why Blasters? Empathy Sucks.
So, you want to be Mental?
What the hell? Let's buff defenders.
Tactics are for those who do not have a big enough hammer. Wisdom is knowing how big your hammer is.
Because no one has ever used a comparison or an example to try to make a point before
and also when i said "there is no question which tool is better for long term survival" you know I was talking about DR right?
@Rooks
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