Energy Melee

Ok, I did a couple of searches and didn't find a reason not to post this thread on this particular forum. If this is misplaced or a duplicate, I apologize.

I think there have been some good suggestions that have been made on the Tanker, Brute, or Stalker forums that are not too "out there" and that are perfectly doable that I would like to support.

Any or all of these would help heal the EM set without going overboard:

1) Just shave off one of the three seconds on the ET and/or TF animation. PLEASE don't change the look of either, they are cool as heck.

2) Add a minor damage "splash" effect to either ET or TF. Preferably ET, in my opinion. This would help with the dismal AOE of the set.

3) Expand the range and/or target number in Whirling Hands.

I personally think if they implemented just some of these, it'd make EM competitive rather than bottom of the pack in everything except for burst damage.

Thanks!

EM's total DPA is dead average. It's AoE is just 'bottom of the pack'. So, you're wrong on at least half of your argument. Keep that in mind, but otherwise go nuts. MANY sets could use buffs.

You're right. I'm not the most technical player--and two out of three of the suggestions I supported WERE AOE :P. But, all things considered, it underperformes from what I've read and from my personal experience. Funny thing is, I love the set. The feel and look of it is awesome! If it just felt and performed solidly average rather than lackluster, it'd be perfect.

These tweaks, which have been suggested alot, are not big changes or huge buffs. Just tweaks that could be used to adjust the set properly.

Anyway, any and all opinions welcome !

Look around in game. I'll wait...



How many EM players do you see? My personal experience is not many. Hardly any in fact. There is most likely a reason for that. My guess: lack of fun playing the set. It doesn't matter if the DPS, AoE or single target is bottom of the barrel. The set just isn't fun to play for me on tanks or brutes due to the horrendously long animation times on 2 of the sets big hitters. Its just plain boring.

Cut the animation times down and lower the damage for ET and TF and I'd take my main inv/em tank and em/dark brute off the shelf today. When it boils down to it, its all about fun and how the set plays. The energy transfer "fix" took all of the fun out of energy melee IMO. It turned from a fun single target pom pom powerhouse to a double tapper (long animations cause you to attack targets already defeated by teammates...).

With that being said I think the stalker version of energy melee is fine as is. I have a level 50 EM/WP stalker and they still perform well with the set, especially with the new stalker changes. The new AS is almost like having the old ET back. But the brute and tank version need some love in one form or another. Make the set fun again.

Multimedia Genius Submission

EM is a victim of being effective on stalkers back when anyone cared about pvp and mistakenly tried to balance it (e.g., Castle).

Just move on, I think. All of the old players probably have at least one EM toon that they don't play any more or have deleted. It sucks, but there you go...

What Energy Melee actually IMO shows is that DPA and DPS aren't as objective as people tend to make them out to be. Just having low animation times is an advantage in itself. The longer an animation gets, the more its damage and other effects would need to increase above standard DPA to justify it, because once the animation starts you're locked into that action longer--no using inspirations, no moving, no activating a heal or emergency power. Once you cross about a 3 second threshold a power needs to hit REALLY hard or else have other major advantages.

Half the cast on ET (And lower the recharge, damage, endurance etc to compensate), turn TF into Thunderstrike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aggelakis PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"

Knight: I love Energy Melee too, and I'd hate to see them fundamentally change the set, but there is a reason that there have been enough complaints about the set that the devs are supposedly seriously looking into it and plan changes.

It needed a slight nerf back in the heyday, but a lot of people feel it was over-nerfed. It just needs a little re-balancing--and there are some potentially really fun ways to do that!

Quote:

Originally Posted by PrincessDarkstar Half the cast on ET (And lower the recharge, damage, endurance etc to compensate), turn TF into Thunderstrike.

I LOVE this fix. It keeps the basic look of the set, keeps the "big hits" feel, addresses AOE and helps tanks with aggro, ads variety so that it isn't just kind of the same attack twice, isn't a big buff, just a tweak, and it would be FUN!!!

(telepathically implanting this into the minds of the devs a la Inception...)

I expect the Devs to give Energy Melee another overhaul when they get around to proliferating it to Scrappers. (It would be the most logical time to do so, after all.) I have no clue as to what they would do with it then... but I generally agree that there's still something broken with the set. They balanced it out of it's Single Target Burst Damage niche, and left it with nothing truly remarkable about itself except having two very powerful attacks, with two of the longest cast-times for single target attacks. (That, and being one the two remaining melee sets to have a melee-range control with little-to-no damage associated with it.)

I like my EM/WP/MU Brute. I hated him until I had all 3 Mu AoEs tho (Whirling hands makes 4 AoEs). Now he is fun, now that I can unleash 4 AoEs abd then pick off the stragglers with EM attacks.

But the EM itself? Hate it.

Lewis

One players experience doesn't really matter, but it can paint a picture. For instance, I play on Virtue, Freedom, and Infinity. I played before the EM nerfs and the set was up there with Super Strength, you'd run into a lot of characters playing and enjoying it.

Outside of on a stalker, I can't remember the last time (as in 1 month + of playing) that I've teamed with or even run into an EM Brute/Tank. That is a lot of Itrials with upwards of 24 players at a time across 3 different servers, and I can't recall seeing one.

However, I can gaurentee you when I log in today, I'll see plenty of SS, Kinetic Melee, Dark Melee, Elec Melee, STJ and TW toons. Probably a few Mace/Fire Melee and maybe 1 here and there of MA/Dual Blades/Axe.

I *generally* like EM. Depending on the character I'm playing.

My Energy/Energy brute (first vill @50?) Loved it a bit more before when PVP was a bit more active, pre-I13 changes, just for hearing things like "You *&#^%# Stalker!" and "Watch for that one, that brute's stuns are lethal." I *do* want the old ET back - paying health far a fast, hard attack was just fine to me. I dont' mind more of a single-target focus on that one - I play it like a "Heavy Stalker."

My Energy/Fire tank (one of my forum-namesakes?) Wants more AOE. Desperately. I didn't particularly enjoy the combo - didn't hate it, but there were times it bugged me... specifically because of the lack of AOEs (Whirling Hands itself just doesnt' cut it from the primary when I've got a horde of things trying to kill me.) That pretty well shelved EM tanks for me.

Stalkers... I've only got one Energy melee stalker, and it's not very high - but not due to anything with the set. Just from having a bunch of alts.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Funny 3 years ago, I saw plenty of EM Brutes but now I can barely see one.


It's a set that is too ST-oriented with quite a few skippable powers. Duplicated purposes (Stun for example). And Stalker version doesn't even have one aoe.


The weird thing is EM was seen as "overpowered" before they introduced more game settings, but even if it got its old ET back, would it still be seen as overpowered considering people love to brag about doing +4x8. I doubt EM with the old ET is a great farming set.

My memory may be faulty on this and this may be only my perception of EM's past and present (there, that should insulate me from some accusations), but you know how people go to the stalker forums and make posts like "What pairs best with primary power X?" and the response usually comes back "Nin, it's the best secondary all round"?

EM used to be the standard response for "What's the best primary attack set?" stalker threads. People loved the stun, they love the fact energy isn't resisted as often as the usual S/L and they liked the speed of the original ET. I don't recall coming across much complaint about its lack of AoE, probably because back then we had fewer choices that had AoEs (also back then, the players hadn't decided that anything without AoEs was trash).

Nowadays, I too don't see many EM's around either (sorry, no poll taken). I saw a low level tank or brute on a DfB the other day, and I think one on a PUG before that last week, but that's all I can recall in the past however longs I can try and measure.

Underperforming single target archetype (Subjective?) gets buffed, every other melee archetype enthusiast is personally offended.

Underperforming single target melee set (Objective?) gets buffed, every other melee set enthusiast is personally offended?

Energy Melee is meant to be primarily a single target damage dealer, diluting it with MOAR AoEs just turns it into every other set. Speeding up TF and ET's animations to two seconds each would probably help quite a bit (I don't have numbers because I'm too lazy to math...) and reduce the amount of corpse blasting, which seems to be the set's current forte. Heck, someone said to halve their activation times, which would be amazing, but might be a bit of an overbuff (Over-un-nerf?)

Keep the damage, keep the recharge, keep the end costs...change those animation times to 1.67 seconds!

Okay, actually I had no problem with TF being slow untill they made ET slow as well. I miss playing my EM. The set lost exactly what was said...it's FUN!

What? The AOE sucks? *shrug* Didn't care. What? Not the best DPS? *shrug* Didn't care*

Though with the Assassin Strike change, I don't think ET will ever go back to what it was, more so than I did before.

And really, all it was, was a change due to PvP. Really old ET wasn't ALL THAT when it came to PvE.