Thoughts on Energy Armor changes

Synapse's post on the new wave of Power Proliferation was pretty awesome. I'm really looking forward to dark/dark blasting. My 40ish vampiric Fire/Psi blaster may well get rerolled, especially if Drain Life is still in the mix.

That said, I find myself being ambivalent about the changes Synapse is talking about for Energy Armor:

I don't see anything wrong with it, honestly.

You have to look at the list of changes since the intro of Energy Aura for those last 2 changes to make sense and be seen as the awesome that they are:

Energy Aura introduced with no heal and Energy Drain and Conserve Energy
Elec Armor introduced with no heal and Conserve power
Fix #1- Energy Drain given it's per target heal (and the final version judged inadequate as in most cases it only gives a green insp worth of heal)
Fix #2- Elec Armor's Conserve Power is changed to the heal+end discount, and generally judged to be a better solution.
Fix #3- The changes announced today. EA gets the better self heal, and it gets an added survivability tool to make up for both the fact that it is harder to cap Typed defense, and that with an aggro aura there will be more incoming damage for Energy Brutes.

While I will kind of miss my sneaky Scrute that plays differently than other Brutes, I am glad to get 3 tools for added survivability.

I'm incredibly pumped by these changes and can't decide how best to use them. I may revamp my EM/EA Brute made the first night of CoV, or I may make Hyper Lemur on the VIP server as a KM/EA scrapper.

PS- don't let the similarity in names fool you. The Stalker (and Kinetic) power are Knockbacks, not a true Repel effect (like Force Bubble and Telekinesis)

I think it's asking why it costs more to repel foes at melee range on a toon that fights in melee that it does to repel foes at range on a range fighting toon.

I find Repulsion Field and its repulsing clones to be the worst, most hideous powers in the entire game, born from the *** backwards ideas of balance the game entertained back in 2004 (like "only affecting self" Elude and immobilizing Unyielding Stance). I could not be happier to see that garbage gone from the set. Maybe now I will actually be able to make an Energy/Energy Stalker and not feel so foolish. Time to reroll Morten, I guess.

The rest of the changes to Energy Aura I'm not dissatisfied with. I'm not sure what difference they'll make, but I haven't played my Energy Aura Brute in probably four years, so the set will be brand new to me when I touch it again anyway.

So, when can we get a "No Pulse or Fade" option for Energy Cloak?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I can't speak to how it will play as compared to Electric Armor, but I think I'll like the changes on my KM/EA Brute.

* Endurance drain protection and slow resistance - always good to have.

* Entropy Shield is now Entropic Aura for Scrappers and Brutes. This power is a taunt aura that grants the user a scaling recharge buff based on the number of foes surrounding the user -- I don't mind having more foes attack me, and as a brute, faster is better.

* Energy Drain no longer has a healing component, instead it offers a small defense boost per target hit. - fine by me, as I didn't feel the healing aspect of the power was anything that could really be relied upon. More useful to replenish end, though I really don't have issues with that. Extra defense is nice -- I believe I am capped S/L, nearly capped for Fire/Cold/Energy, and could use the boost for Neg/Psi.

* Conserve Energy was replaced by Energize, a self Heal that offers a moderate regeneration and endurance cost reduction boost for a short while. - Honestly, with Stamina and having taken Superior Conditioning (slotted with the +End proc) and Physical Perfection, endurance wasn't an issue. And if it was, I have Energy Drain. So Conserve Power was little used. I will certainly use it for regen/heal though.

I would personally like to see Overload (tier 9) changed while they're at it.

Wow. These are some great changes, but until I see the numbers it sure seems like the set tramples all over ELA now.

• Scaling +recharge possibly superior to Lightning Reflexes with endurance and slow protection in passives.
  
• Energize across the board.
  
• Scaling defense accessible through Energy Drain.

Hopefully they'll fix the memory-hogging graphics along with the overhaul.

Never understood why a repel power was in there for a melee defensive set. It's hard to hit things when they're flying across the room away from you.

Basically, ANY improvement to this set will help pull it up from the bottom of the barrel. Will the improvements be enough? We'll have to wait and see. Looking forward to respecing my Stalker (if I ever find time to play again).

Nitpick all you like, that's still not the point I was making, and not what I said.

If you're gonna argue specifics, I'll simply say that before the halo-effect change to defense bonuses, and the addition of PvP IOs, it wasn't easy at all to cap, and I find it more than a little silly that you consider a PvP rare that generally sells for over the INF cap to be a viable part of the solution for most players.

Love the changes.
Use my EA Brute to farm and it's oh so annoying that the Shadow Cloak lowers my aggro and there was no taunt aura.

The loss of a heal will hurt somewhat, but with the +Defense bonus that should be alleviated in no time. Likely won't be taking the new conserve power/energize variant as my Brute is sturdy enough as is; only the worst burst damage waylays her.

You really consider 5 tips a day every day for 60 days, plus or minus the amount of Reward Merits you convert, to be easy?

Or playing the 2-3 hours a day needed to run all 3 trials every day for almost a month?

Man, people occasionally try to tell me I'm out of touch with average players. Nice to know I'm not.