REVAMP EM set

My point of view is that the whole EM set is very slow and may be even worse melee set with the two heaviest attacks with the longest animation time moreover loosing hp to deal an attack (energy tranfer) that any AT has already regen in the time of the next attack animation... Also if you need to launch any other power to avoid death you can't do it well just because this set is broke now I deleted my stalker and I play my brute only using any attack that don't takes ages to launch so for an EM it means you can forget about focalisation and energy transfer.

So anyone who believe that DEV should revamp EM please say why and give some idea for it. Personnaly I would see a range power [Energy Burst] instead of energy transfer. A good damage ranged attacck with no hp loss instead of a melee useless long animated attack that noone use any longer almost...

OR give us back the old energy transfer like it was pre-E13 and recognise that this nerf is outdated now with the new content.

I am sure that the EM set users population falled by 90% and plenty toon get deleted since that time.

Sometime some way are not right and it's never late to fix it.

THX

They should also port it to scrapper, at which point it will get a balance pass.

Edit: I just realised that a workable Energy Melee on scrappers is my new number 1 requested set.

Quote:

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

The Devs (and to some extent, the players) just need to finally figure out what EM is supposed to be good at. Because right now, it isn't particularly good at doing anything. Stacking stuns isn't as useful as I think the Devs think it is. And EM isn't great at either sustained single-target DPS or AoE.

I honestly think that EM needs either more AoE OR better ST DPS, but not both. And depending on which direction people think it should go, changed should be made to the same powers: the long-animating Tier 8 and 9 powers.

If EM is supposed to be a ST DPS set, then the animations for these two powers needs to be cut down, and some of the damage front-loaded.

If EM is going to get more AoE, then one of these two powers should become a melee targeted AoE power, like spinning strike is.

I haven't seen an energy melee character since I started playing a lot again last month. And hadn't seen one before then since....well...Honestly I can't remember the last time I saw an energy melee character that wasn't a stalker.

The powerset is just boring and really doesn't offer much of anything. I mean, I see more ICE MELEE than energy melee, which is a little crazy

I ran the old EM up to 50 on an Energy/Energy brute. That brute didn't play as a tank, but as a "heavy stalker." It was fine then - I actually liked the "Sacrifice HP for a big hit" as opposed to just having it take more time. It set it apart from other sets (and it was sort of a mirror image of Absorb Pain, where you sacrifice some HP and the ability to be healed for a bit for a big guaranteed heal on someone else.)

PVP (pre-I13) worked well, too - it's probably the only character I had that people were warning others about, specifically because of the stuns.

Then I ran a Fire/EM tank up... oy. For tanking, I want AOEs. Keeping and getting as much attention on myself as possible is what I'm looking for there, and /Energy just doesn't do it. That one's pretty much just collecting dust at 50 right now.

What to do? *shrug* I don't know. Keep the HP loss in Energy Transfer, speed it up a bit and turn it into a cone?

See my Guides and Tutorials

Now that's a blast from the past. Is EM really relevant if you're going to spend most of your time superspeeding away?

Regardless! Definitely agreeing with the original suggestion, the "give us old ET back" part at least.

Hm. I never realized that EM was considered so unworkable. I have a lvl 50 Shield/EM tank who's still a joy to play, even in Incarnate content. I do think that Shield Charge helps immensely with her damage output, that much is clearly notable, but she does just fine in terms of damage. In fact, she feels to me like she's my best tank in terms of damage output.

I also don't have a problem with Energy Transfer's -hp drawback. I take it as more of the risk/reward that's always been with the set. It's bitten me a few times in a fight, but I think it gives EM its own flavor, if you will, forcing you to play it differently than any other powerset.

I love the concept and graphics of Energy Melee, my first character, main and forum namesake is an Energy/Energy blaster. I'd love an Energy Melee Brute or maybe someday an EM Scrapper, but until its fixed I'll definitely never devote another character to it.

Just like PrincessDarkstar said, the numbers aren't off, its the feel of the set. I can deal with the fact EM should be a single target specialist, its the fact that its two big ST attacks are so slow and unruly now. "Disjointed and slow" indeed, that should be on the official description for Energy Melee now!

EM is excellent for Stalker. I love my EM/EA stalker.

As someone who's main is an EM tanker, I have to say PLEASE DON'T RADICALLY CHANGE OR RE-DESIGN THE LOOK OR FEEL OF THE SET, just tweak it so it is either more versatile or has a niche. Little tweaks, like trimming a second off of the activation of ET and TF so it's a fast, big double-hitter, or trimming one and then making the other have some splash so it's not kind of "the same attack twice", or expanding Whirling Hand's radius to 15 feel like Dominators, would be plenty. But it's got great style as a set, it's just been over-corrected and needs a little love. A lot of people suggest just roll back the changes, and that'd work too.

Just make it either the REAL big single-target hit daddy, or address it's weaknesses if it's not going to be. Tweaks can do this easily without a total re-design (which would suck) or over powering the set (which isn't a real danger at this point), and, honestly, at this stage of the game, a rollback wouldn't be over powered either.

I have an EM/SR brute and I do enjoy playing her, but I find her far, far more enjoyable solo or duo, than on a full team. On a team, the corpse blasting gets very old and I find myself more or less just using Barrage and Energy Punch and sometimes Whirling Hands.

Regarding Energy Transfer, I recently respec'd her out of it, and took the lower tier attack I'd skipped (can't remember which one it was). I find it much more beneficial to be spamming attacks; almost never found ET worth the long animation or the self-damage, even against a hard target.

While I wouldn't complain if its overall damage got boosted, these are the changes I'd really like to see:

* Cut the animation times way down, particularly on Total Focus
* Expand the radius of Whirling Hands.
* I'd like to see Energy Transfer become more relevant; it is the T9 after all. Currently the Extreme damage against a single target is not, IMO, sufficient to warrant the self-damage or the long animation. Perhaps, as somebody else in the thread suggested, it should become a cone or AoE, making it more of a "melee nuke." Combined with the changes to Whirling Hands and Total Focus, you'd then have a set with several decent ST attacks and two good AoE attacks.
* Either make Stun AoE or add an additional utility to it such as -DEF (Because it's hard to be dodgy when you're stunned) or life/end suck ala Life Siphon or Dark Consumption ( You drain some of your foe's energy and transfer it to yourself ).

I play /EM tanker.

My main objection is the tier 9 (Total Focus) is basically the same as the tier 8 (Energy Transfer) - only NOT AS GOOD.

Now I have incarnate level recharge I have dropped Total Focus all together. (yes, I know it has more stun, but since I'm unkillable anyway, who cares?)

What I'd like to see:

~Give Energy Punch the "rushing punch" animation that Heavy Blow from Street Justice has. This is a very small nerf, for the sake of buffing elsewhere.
~Give Energy Punch's current animation to Stun, allowing it to come out and control an enemy quickly. Possibly raise the magnitude to 4 to make up for Total Focus losing it many many moons ago, but if so, it'd probably need a slight bump to Endurance cost to go along with it.
~Give Stun's current animation to Energy Transfer. Keep the damage where it is, but raise the self-damage a bit to encourage careful use.
~Give Energy Transfer's current animation to Total Focus. No balancing out, straight-up buff.

and/or:

~Remove the chance to Stun from Whirling Hands. Keep its minimal range, but have it make a similarly small TAoE on every target hit, thus expanding the range if a large number of enemies are bunched around you. There would probably have to be some sort of check to prevent multiple TAoE portions from hitting the same enemies, lest it be a too overpowered, but it'd be a kind of neat effect, I think, and a unique way to improve a power that, in itself, probably shouldn't have a huge range.

UP THREAD : Revamp EM !!! (OMG its sooooooooo damn slow set come on be serious, try it and see how boring it is now and unless a GM or AV it's not efficient : the T9 attack energy transfer is so bad in game practice that I wonder how can it be a T9 ??? !!!)

One thing I will say that is relevant to this thread:

Any power that was changed due to PvP needs to be reversed back to what it was before, since PvP and PvE can work differently now.

The animation and cast time of Energy Transfer was changed, if I recall correctly, because the 1 second hard hitting power was too strong as a follow up to Assassin Strike in PvP, effectively allowing it to circumvent the anti-one-shot code.

It can't take the devs very long to just give ET it's old animation back. Then Energy Melee will actually be good at something again (and not overpowered, like Claws said just alter it in PvP if they have to). And if they're feeling nice just bring Whirling Hands up to par with every other Brute mid-tier AoE.

Another idea to further differentiate Energy Transfer from Total Focus -- maybe be give Energy Transfer an additional secondary effect of transferring some energy to the user -- stealing some endurance while it bashes?

I don't want to see Stun's animation given to anything, especially not ET. I like ET's animation.

I want to see TF's animation given to Stun, and Stun turned into a clone of Thunder Strike (i.e., a small AoE), except with a high chance to Disorient instead of a low chance for KB/Disorient/End drain.

Then TF could be given, say, Cross Punch's animation, and ET could simply get a shortened version of the animation it has now.

Voila. All the set's perceived problems solved - more AoE, shorter animation times on the two biggest single-target attacks.