Energy Melee?

Ive been thinking of doing a energy melee tank is it worh it anymore since the nerf or what?

My first level 50 Tanker was Dark/Energy Melee after the nerf to Energy Transfer and Total Focus.

I'd picked Energy Melee for stacking stuns and for the visuals (along with a sparkly aura I had a very space-y look.) and wasn't really disappointed with either. The damage wasn't great, particularly the area damage, but I was survivable, could keep two or three bosses stuns at times, and generally got the job done, either solo or on teams.

If I'd played Energy Melee with a 1 second Energy Transfer and Mag 4 Total Focus I'd probably have felt that all the time, but never having experienced them I didn't miss them too badly.

Stone Melee is probably much more effective, and if I'd played that I might have felt sub-par.

If I didn't have a damage aura I might have got frustrated at my poor area damage even more.

So I guess it can be worth it, depending on your expectations. It certainly allows you to tank and to dish out damage at an acceptable pace for a low damage archetype.

I like Energy Melee on my Nrg/Nrg brute. On the Inv/Nrg tanker I had to reroll to make that brute, not so much. The power order kills /Nrg for levelling on a tanker for me, with your two big hitters both coming late, tier 8/9, while for a brute they're at tier 7/9. With all the other changes Energy Melee needs to be better, they should move Energy Transfer to tier 7 and dump the worthless low damage stun in tier 8.

Personally I loathe energy melee since it's almost exclusively single target and it's only two decent attacks have such massive animation time. I've a Stone/EM tanker at 50 that I rolled up in issue 7 and took to 50 pre-IO. In that era before the nerf it was, IMO, barely adequate since ET was so fast. Post nerf I tried the character several times and found that on a team I was virtually guaranteed of corpse blasting with both ET & TF every single time I used either attack.

YMMV but for me the set went from marginal to bad with the ET nerf. Twice over the years since the nerf I've pulled that tanker from mothballs and run a few TF's with her, each time I've come to the conclusion that I hate the set. I keep hoping that sometime the set will change and become fun again; that and the fact that I can't bring myself to delete a 50 are all that keeps that tanker around. I did move her last year when we had free transfers to a server I don't play on very often.

I agree with CMA. My experience with EM is on a Stalker and I loved her - but I really started loving her because Stalkers get ET at 26, before that it was kinda boring - ok I never had whirling hands, but you'll certainly feel on a Tanker you'll have kinda 'meh' attacks until 35 (that's when Tankers get TF right?), and you'll feel powerful only at 39-40 with both TF and ET properly slotted.

My Stalker, even before the i12 buff to the AT, went from 'okay' to 'awesome' (for me, I like Stalkers) when I got ET and later TF.

Stunning bosses with TF was great, fast ET was awesome. After the changes... slow ET made me corpse blast, TF made me sad since I couldn't stun bosses anymore. I shelved my most beloved Stalker. People talk a lot about the ET nerf, but I also really miss the mag 4 stun from TF, my 'lolStalker' was very functional on a team stunning hard bosses with one TF. I liked EM so much I wrote a Stalker guide for it (and one issue later they changed the two powers which were the reason people loved EM on all ATs, go me).

I know I'm comparing different ATs, but my Stone/Elec Brute feels so much more powerful now - Stone Melee has a mag 4 hold which does great damage on a 1.5 (or around that) sec cast time, and even Tremor being kinda sucky, it beats Whirling hands both for mitigation and radius. And unlike my EM toon, the brute can still mez a boss with Seismic Smash, a power that is slightly slower to cast than old ET.

On an AT that has both Stone Melee and Energy Melee like Tankers I see no reason to go EM, since they are kinda alike - the difference is the greatness of Seismic Smash and that the mallets are good enough that you won't feel you have only low damaging attacks until you get your big hitter. Plus Fault will give you great mitigation early on - that's what allowed by frail Stone/Elec Brute (before Energize was brought to elec armor) to tank on her 20s.

Not that I'm trying to sell you on Stone Melee, but I find that it's the closest set to EM in numbers and it surpasses Energy on every scenario except that it's very end heavy - when I had to tank on my broot before power sink and spammed Fault (which I only did on some SFs, but Tankers will probably make use of it more often), I managed to run out of end with her with speed boost - and that with my attacks slotted for acc and endred only, relying on Fury for damage (this at SO level). But frankenslotting can help you a lot, so much that after I did that in my 40s (could have done it sooner) 70% of the time I used Power Sink I did it for draining because I wasn't in dire need of endurance. Of course being /elec I kinda skimped on recovery after PS, but I managed to do good even when I had only 1 rech IO slotted in it because of the frankenslotting (cheap sets, focusing on acc, damage, endred, some rech). So I'm sure Stone Melee can be done well on other armor sets without severe end issues (maybe not Dark Armor ).

tl;dr - like CMA, I find EM is very lackluster, and this coming from someone who loved his EM Stalker even when the AT had the crappy damage mod before i12. I'd never roll an EM Brute or Tanker with how EM is now, especially Tankers since you only get the so-called 'awesome' powers at 35 and 38 and they're far from awesome nowadays.

I am leveling a DA/EM stun master now. By that I mean that his focus is on having as many drunk baddies as possible wobbling around him. Efficient or not, it IS hilarious and fun.

I find EM to be a weak version of MA. Even if what you want is to stack stuns, it is not efficient in that, despite the fact that it has a stun effect in every power. The reason: low % to proc combined with short durations. Hitting 1-2-3 tier attacks of EM (fast, good animation, me like) give only a 10% higher chance to stun (combined) than the single T3 attack of MA. Not only that, the MA stun has a much longer duration. The only benefit is that you have a low probability to stack the mag to >3 and stun a boss for a VERY short duration.

Whirling hands I love even though it is a meh AoE. Damage is low (I dont care, it still generates enough aggro), but what is agqain crappy is the low % to stun: 30% and the short duration: 6 sec. Compare this with MA Dragon tail that has 75% to knock down. The good new is that the recharge of WH is relatively fast, which makes it more effective than most people give credit for. I also like the animation.

The Stun attack is the most disappointing power I took so far. It is 11.9 sec, mag 3 stun and negligible damage for a 1.8s animation. Whoopee. MA's T3 combra strike will give you the same stun at 75% for 1s animation plus some serious damage. It is nice to have and I use it only because it is the only stun in EM that give a decent duration to the stun. It is really weak for a T6 power.

I will post some review when I finish leveling him up, but one of the suggestions for improving the set that I see forming is that Stun is replaced/combined with a nother secondary effect. A cool one that comes to mind is a weak version of a power from the Blasters Energy Manipulation: Power Boost. With lower % effect and a short duration this is an "energy fitting" siphon effect. MA T2 power for example gives a significant defense boost. Other sets give siphon effects for health and endurance. EM has nothing, BUT a power boost will improve the stun durations and the defense toggles. It is just that the typical 100% effect is way too much.

Energy transfer is effective and the animation duration is not that bad. It is not an anti minion power, unless you want to crush them like bugs for the risk of crushing an already dead minion. For the damage it does it is well worth the 2.5s animation.

T9 I did not get yet. It used to be the crown jewel of the set, but with 3.3s animation I can see the lack of appeal. The secondary effect is nice, but plenty other sets will give you a better one and even higher mag one.

Over all I love my DA/EM tanker. It is my favorite, but definitely not for min/max players. DA/MA would have been better in every way including in stunning single targets, not including the other great secondary effects it adds (+def, KD, KB). It is just that EM feels more super heroic to me and I like the dark/light in my powers combination.