How is Energy Blast these days?

I don't see very many characters with Energy Blast, though that may just be my perception. I remember using it a very long time ago and not being very impressed. However, I was very new to the game at that time, so it's entirely possible I just didn't know what I was doing.

So, how does Energy Blast stack up against the other Blast sets?

Obviously, knockback is its specialty. Damage numbers look average. Only one cone and one TAoE (that comes very late in the set), but at least Energy Torrent has a very fast animation.

Is there anything significantly good or bad about it I'm missing? Does it pair well with anything in particular? What about the difference between using it on a Blaster versus a Corr/Def?

In terms of damage output it's completely middle of the pack.

Tier 1, Tier 2, shorter range Tier 3 Blast and two area attacks with damage scalars of around 1. Standard Snipe and Nuke damage.

Animation times are pretty standard, with Energy Torrent the nice and fast outlier for the set.

The good news is that all atacks can do knockback, so you have some very nice built-in damage mitigation for free in terms of animation time and end cost. This can be disruptive on teams if you play badly, but if you know what you're doing it helps the team. If you're lucky, they appreciate it too.

The bad news is that there's no dedicated hard mez, like Tesla Cage, Cosmic Burst or Freeze Ray. You'll really feel this in that you can't fully shut down a Tsoo Sorceror with his hurricane up, for example.

Since IO sets, you get a few options that other blast sets dont. Boost your damage using the Explosive Strike damage procs, or add the Force Feedback recharge proc into your AoEs for a fairly common recharge boost as you fight, thus boosting your damage via more frequent Build Up.

I find it pairs best with sets that don't provide much personal damage mitigation of their own. Energy Blast/Force Field is definitely overkill. Energy Blast/Sonic Resonance was much nicer, since you sometimes need the knockback to protect yourself.
If you lay down patches (eg Sleet, Liquefy) then Energy Blast can be good if you're capable enought ot push enemies on to them, bad if you arent as you'll knock them off the patch.

You might be looking a bit too much into things, there, Kage. PuG teams are fragile to begin with, and it never takes much to break one apart, the biggest reason being people don't want to dedicate hours of playtime to this game.

It just feels like the only people that hate on Energy as severely as they do are the folks that are obsessed with min/maxing everything.

I played a FF/Energy and a Storm/AR in the early game and I find it's more about drama than any given game play mechanic.

It's not that 'oh they were knocked back' that leads to the problem, it's the OTHER GUY who says 'oh well if you wait for immobilzation...' and the argument that follows.

It's not 'oh they don't attack when they're flying around!' it's the OTHER GUY who says 'but I have -rech on them anyway, they still fire off attacks when they land...' and the argument that follows.

I still love storm, and I will gladly flip the bird at anyone who doesn't like my builds or characters, but I don't play storm because my middle finger gets so tired. :/

I've played an Energy/Energy Blaster since I first started back in May of '04, and I've never heard a single complaint about KB from teammates. It's the AoE radial KB that gets the hate, so I recommend skipping Explosive Blast.

I was recently pointed to the Wiki and shown that Explosive Blast is knockDOWN...

I'm not completely sure that's accurate, but it may be worth a second look.

Be Well!
Fireheart

I never complain about Energy Blasters but I do often leave teams that recruit too many of them. Knocking back individual enemies isn't a big deal to me. AoE knockback is 90% harmful though. I don't really say anything about it to other players because I don't feel like dealing with the fight, I just leave, usually with a neutral statement like "Thanks for the team, I need to head out."

In my experience, it's the safest Blaster primary. The one time I had someone gripe about my Blaster's KB in game it wasn't my Blaster that was causing the offending KB but rather a Kheldian.

The only time Energy Blasters annoy me with KB is when I'm playing a melee character and they continually switch targets and KB everything away from me. Then we end up with a bunch of enemies with a quarter of their health bar missing running around.

Thus my rule with heavy KB sets: If you KB it, it is YOUR target to kill. You knock it away from me, keep hitting it until it's dead because I'm not playing fetch with you.

Sorry, but I'm not going to run all over the place trying to keep agro off a squishy blaster who wants to knock stuff everywhere instead of killing what he shoots.

If you can't follow that simple rule, or if you complain that you keep getting killed by knocking things outside my agro radius, you're going to be looking for a new team. The only requirement I have of my teammates is that they understand how their powers work, which includes understanding what happens when they use knockback carelessly.

Energy blast is exactly a middle road set on damage but it is one of the best primaries for damage mitigation a blaster can use. My Energy/Energy Blapper is a recharge build and uses KB as mitigation. I only have about 7% defense most of which is accidental and I rarely die.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demobot I've played an Energy/Energy Blaster since I first started back in May of '04, and I've never heard a single complaint about KB from teammates. It's the AoE radial KB that gets the hate, so I recommend skipping Explosive Blast.

KB is NOT radial. KB radiates from the source (ie: the caster) at the time the KB occurs. When explosive blast hits a spawn they ALL travel away from the caster. (This can be especially humorous if the caster moves while casting the power but before the KB is applied.)

You can easily prove this. Target a mob in the back of the spawn. Fire Explosive Blast. If KB were radial all the mobs would be knocked TOWARD you and they aren't, they are knocked away from you.

Repulsion bomb is the same way. If you slot it for KB the mobs travel away from you whether you drop it in the front, middle, or back of the spawn.

The ONLY time KB is Radial is if the source of the KB is PBAoE or simulates PBAoE. Trip Mine, Time Bomb, Bonfire are all "radial KB" because the "caster" is the pseudo pet. Nova is radial because it's PBAoE. Explosive Blast can simulate radial if it is used at melee range.

Here's a fun little experiment to try:

Super Speed (with combat jumping) toward a spawn. Target the front mob and launch Energy Torrent and at the same time jump over the spawn. You will land behind the spawn, the Energy Torrent graphic will PASS you, but the mobs will all spray away in the opposite direction (back the way you came from) because YOU are the source of the KB and the KB direction is determined by the position of the caster at the time the KB is applied.

The only time I've ever heard a complaint about KB was from a Stone tank. He did not like moving and wanted us to allow him do all the fighting. Every time my blaster fired off any of his energy blasts, knocking back the target(s), especially when using energy torrent. This tank complained and complained. Finally, I only used my attacks on those who were no on the tank. Eventually, I stopped supporting the tank because all my attacks for the most part, resulted in KB. Towards the end of our storyline mish, he had the gall to ask, "Why are you firing at the enemies at the fringes surrounding him?" My answer: "Because you complained about Knockback regardless of what it was."

Knockback is part of the game. Complaining about it is like complaining about an AOE plant control attack that locks everyone up. I deal with it every time my best friend and I run together every day. His Robots can blast the bad guys back pretty good. With my EA/Energy Melee tanker, I have my Whirling Hands slotted with Stupefy and the KB proc. I love seeing those flying bodies. Especially when I'm surrounded by a very large mob. It gives me breathing room when things get a bit hairy. Nice thing about knockdown, up, or back, it takes these guys a few seconds to recover and re-engage, longer if I've left them stupefied!

I just got my first blaster to 50 this weekend -- an Energy/Energy. Damage-wise, Energy is never going to be the best, simply because it's not Fire, so it has a secondary effect besides "even more damage." But stuff was dying plenty fast anyway. I was teamed for about half the trip; when I was solo, knockback not only kept me alive, it made the character endlessly fun to play. It's one of those sets that really makes you feel powerful when you play it. On teams, I got not a single complaint about my knockback. Not one.

Why? Because I followed two very simple rules:

1. You break it, you bought it. Basically, what Claws said: if I knock a target back, that enemy is now my responsibility to deal with and nobody else's. When I shoot something, it's no longer the tank's job to keep it focused on him, or the defender's job to debuff it. So I focus on that enemy until it drops, then pick another.
2. Knockback, not scatter. There's a difference, see. Sending a single target flying? Great. Even better if it's into a wall or corner, but it doesn't have to be. What "griefs" the group is sending multiple targets flying in multiple directions.

I skipped the AoE on my Energy/Energy, except for the cone and Nova. For ST damage the set does pretty well. I generally solo'd +2/x2 with bosses, with the only real challenges coming when +2 council shapeshifted into a +3 warwolf boss, and the Honoree (Oh ****, oh ****, oh ****, he can fly!). Hover blasting is definitely a strategy I would suggest, mostly for teaming. Especially since ranged defence is trivially easy to soft-cap (I managed it by 39 or 40). Also, since pc melee range is about a foot further than npc melee range, you can smash heads in from above with little risk of return fire.

If you knock it back, kill it. If you`re going easy on the aoe that shouldn`t be a problem because the st damage will put a hole through a single enemy in a hurry.