Any chance to revamp Energy Melee for stalkers?

Made a EM/DA yesterday and it took me 20 levels until I realized there's no Whirling Hands x.x
I facepalmed hard! lol
Anyway, before I reroll into another AT just wanted to ask if there's any plans to give WH to stalkers at some point.
Don't know if this is realistic but I feel between the 3 early levels ST attacks, Placate and Stun, 1 of them could be replaced with WH. Without breaking the set.
Well Stun or one of the first 3 ST attacks really, since Placate is sort of a *signature power*, even though not many people who use it after the changes to AS, AFAIK.
Might need to shuffle the power available levels though.
The lack of Death Shroud on the DA side, I can live with, but there's no AoE on the EM side either...
Maybe EM/DA just a bad pairing for stalkers?
Really would want this on a stalker, but don't mind rolling a brute if it's not going to be changed anytime in the future.
Thanks for reading

I'd say you're looking to reroll then. Or pick up AOE in the form of an Epic Pool power and/or Spring Attack.

Hmm okay
PBAoE from pool powers seem to be sort of limited for stalkers?
Would like to have another AoE stun + damage really, and tintable if possible.
Toon was supposed to be a spectral pirate clown (everything glowing green).
The pompoms of EM/ were looking just right to me (and boxing gloves)

Going with ElM/ then .. Thunderstrike will have to get the job done for stacking Disorient, after OppGloom.
Really need a way to deal with groups of bosses since there's almost no def and res is only so-so.
Never played a stalker before btw

Thanks for the input Brand

If you're only level 20, reroll to Kinetic Melee. It's basically Energy Melee done right. It even visually matches Energy Aura better.

Energy Melee doesn't really need a 'revamp' anyway. Just some basic number tweaking. It's not even a BAD set. Rather far from it. It's just Average ST with Bad ST.

... Okay so maybe it's kind of bad. But it's just a numbers issue, not a design flaw. It just needs some numbers tweaked upwards.

EM's issue is more than not having Whirling Hand. Its ST dps isn't even the top and it gets worse when you factor in team critical %. The top two attacks either don't critical or only critical some portion of it.

It does have good burst damage and that's about it. Stun effect is good but only one target at a time. My MA and Kin can stun too.

The problem with stun effects is that it's hard to stun and switch target when TF and ET take so long to activate. It makes the strategy "hold one, attack another" (like Dominator) less effective. So in the end, you are more likely to focus on the same target and a simple mag 3 can hold most Lts and mag 4 on most bosses. The stacking nature of it seems redundant.

I found my real problems began when ET had it's animation changed. The powerset became incredibly slow and it was difficult to even keep up with the teams. All the other ATs seemed to be flying through while I was still running one of 4 ST attacks that took longer than 2 seconds to animate: Stun, ET, TF & formerly AS.

I know it's supposed to be a slow and powerful set but there's a certain point when it becomes too slow.

And since there hasn't been anything specifically addressing the question asked (although lots of hints were dropped), there have been no announced plans to add Whirling Hands to Stalkers and it's extremely unlikely that this will happen.

There have been posts indicating that EM may end up getting some dev attention to revisit some of the issues that cropped up when the set was nerfed for all ATs, though I wouldn't get my hopes up.

And like EvilGeko said, you can try KM as a primary; Burst doesn't have a chance to stun but has a much better chance to knockdown (50%) than WH's chance to stun (30%); Body Blow (20%), Smashing Blow (33%), and Concentrated Strike (60%) each have a chance for a mag 3 stun - which compares favorably to EM considering the chances for Energy Punch (20% mag 2), Bone Smasher (30% mag 3), and Energy Transfer (50% mag 3) are all reduced for Stalkers; plus you can stack -damage to go with the stuns and KD in your primary and resistance and heal in your secondary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

This used to be a fast beautiful set [PVE & PVP]. Some folks made the argument it was too good [PVP].

Without any AOE attacks a skillful EM/ stalker could take on 4-5 even 6 targets and barely get scratched [PVE].

An EM/ stalker was an AOE, a 5-6 second AOE that could finish all but the boss.

Pow Pow Nuance Pow Pow Pow Pow Pow Pow rest.


Now it's slow.

These days, it's okay to stand in one spot and spam attacks (mostly AOE) like crazy with little targeting, target prioritizing or thought, piling up kills. Where is the skill for melee sets (outside of acquiring expensive IOs and combining them efficiently)?

Yes, this set may have been unfair in PVP for a brief moment. FOTM x6 maybe. It was really fun in PVE. The set was put down like a rabid dog.

It never needed an AOE and is not likely to get fixed.


What a dream these could be:
Brute - Energy Melee / Radiation Armor
Tank - Radiation Armor / Energy Melee

I agree, and a good EM Stalker still can. I used to take on 5-7 targets but what used to happen was that 3 of them were dead in the first few seconds of combat. AS, ET, TF, shower, rinse, repeat if necessary.

I'm not entirely sure what to do. what I would like is for the set to again feel like what it once was: A powerful Melee set that could keep up with any other.

What I would like to see is perhaps swapping Energy Punch or Barrage with a similar scale cone attack or speeding up the Energy Transfer animation again.

Considering that we paid for the speed and power of ET with self damage before and now we pay for it by watching other people defeat the target we attacked 3.5 seconds ago because we haven't finished our confused glowie pom-pom animation.

Those are my thoughts and and as you can see most of my gripes with the set now are regarding speed. The lack of AOE isn't a lack at all if we could just keep up.

A slight help - at least for the Stalker version - would be to leave the damage/end/recharge on Barrage alone and make it a 30-degree cone. There are precedents for "freebie" cones, it would at least give the set a single AoE, and it'd be going in the worst DPA attack, providing a reason for taking it.

Then the next change would be giving Stun the Cobra Strike treatment, because it really needs something that gets more of a benefit from a critical than Bone Smasher, and a scale 1.96 attack would be a slight improvement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

I would gladly give 800 points for just the old Energy Transfer back!

The slow animations.. oh my it's just terrible to activate and watch a target get defeated before... over and over and over. On a big team em/ characters really don't get to participate.

And this goes for lots of long activation single target attacks. They really are just wasted a lot of the time. Data mine that!