REVAMP EM set

I have played EM on a tank since before PvP was even in the game.

ET was stupidly overpowered. Changing it had nothing to do with PvP.

ET is still overpowered now, with DPA and DPE far better than anything else. Just not as much as it was before. EM has the highest ST DPS of any tanker set, only getting more and more ahead as you add recharge, and drop any attacks that's aren't ET from your attack chain.

(The -health is a trivial penalty given the overkill survivability possessed by most tankers).

Thus, any changes to to EM are likely to involve further nerfs to ET, whatever happens to the rest of the set.

The only way I can see to avoid that is to do nothing which could add to ST DPS, and AoE must be left close to the bottom of the pile.

You could add utility to Stun by turning it into a 70' ranged attack, and adding a -Fly component. You could add splash 8' radius splash damage to Total Focus, as long as the ST damage remained unchanged.

While I don't disagree that EM needs help, and hopefully will get looked at soon™...

I'm surprised no one mentioned A: the Necropost by Titan_Destroyer, and B: that he also bumped his own thread to bring it back to the top of the page. Both forum no-no's.

We're just all necro'd out.

I've seen plenty of Energy Melee Toons.

I used it myself once. I thought it was pretty unique and felt like it had good, solid hits on my enemies.

Energy Melee needs to stay bad, in fact could use a nerf or two. That way when they release Dual Pistols Melee and Whip Melee, they can make them crappy, but point to EM and say "At least its not as bad as EM".

: Tongue in Cheek:

EM could use some help for sure! I don't know if it really needs the help people are clamoring for though.

It's always been more of a ST focused set, and saddly, they turned it into a (for most, not all) boring ST focused set.

WH could likely use a bit of OOooomph added to it. But, I know, when I chose EM, it was never because I thought "YEAH! Going to clear rooms with all this AOE!"

EM used to be an okay fun set. Barrage loved it's animation, even if it's a bit long for most people. Total Focus, it was a long animation, but it was only ONE long animation in the set.

ET made it two, and that just made it become boring. :/

My suggestions to improve EM...

Step 1) Improve Barrage's Damage. Give it a little more power in that 1 - 2 punch.

Step 2) Trim ET's animation time down to 1.67 seconds from 2.67.

Step 3) Make Stun a serious attack (ala Cobra Strike) or while possibly still skipped by many, a serious Mez. Mag 4 Stun, that can lock down a boss.

Step 3) Alternate Animations!

Barrage would need another 1 -2 combo style punch, as any other melee equivalent in terms of animation length is a kick (or knee), and while I would love to see the energy melee pom poms on the feet if the animation used a kick animation instead, I just don't see that happening. :/

Energy Punch can get Initial Strike animations, either by cutting .03 seconds off EP's animation or adding .03 seconds to IS's animation on the port (no, don't mess with StJ's animations itself )

Bone Smasher could use Super Strength's alternate animation for Haymaker.

ET with a new animation time of 1.67 seconds could have Cobra Strike's alternate animations, CAK's alternate animation, and if you wanted, Jacob's Ladder could be turned into an Energy Damage type of attack animation.

I just wish the T2 or T3 was a small cone attack so that Whirling Hands wasn't the only AoE in the set =(

I haven't used Arcanatime in my calculations, only canonical activation times. I also haven't looked at Stone Melee, which obviously looses out by having horrible DPE.

And I have no interest whatsoever in any version of EM other than the tanker version, for this simple reason: That's what I've got. As far as I'm concerned, there is no reason for anyone who hasn't already got an EM character to make one, it has been replaced by Kinetic Melee, which is conceptually identical. It only still exists in the game because it's not possible to grant people powerset respecs.

Thus, there really isn't much point in the devs spending much time on EM. All they have to do is make sure its not to bad for people who are currently playing it.

With Kinetic Melee, Electic Melee, and Radiation Melee in the pipline, there are more than enough energy based melee sets.