Thunder Clap and Overwhelming Force KB to KD

Edit: Lightning Clap - you can see how much I've used the power - though Thunder would sure make more sense IMO. All of this would also apply to 'Hand Clap' in the super strength brute/tank power, which is effectively the same power - if not exactly.

I've pretty much never seen an electric melee character take lightning clap - I took it, once, mostly for entertainment purposes - but while knockback is (rarely) a useful panic button, it's a very poor option for the aoe monster that is electric melee, or most any melee character.

Since these claps do no damage at all, I'm to understand they can't accept the overwhelming force kb to kd proc, which would be about the only way I could realistically see these powers being useful to me (and other scrappers/brutes/tanks). Are there other ways to cause kb to become kd? AFAIK immobilize prevent kb and kd, as do 'web' grenade type powers.

Attractive options would be to either remove the requirement that a power does damage from the overwhelming force proc (which might cause balance issues for things like hurricane), or change the claps to do a *tiny* amount of damage, or - I suppose - just mark them that they can accept universal damage IOs.

One remaining option, of course, is to do nothing and leave it where it is, always an option. I wonder, though - if lightning/hand clap has remained how it is not because people take it, but because they mule IOs in it, which wouldn't show up in the data collection that CoH does to look at powers (plus, many powersets have lackluster powers and get ignored for years, so it's no surprise that 2 well performering sets would get theirs overlooked).

Anyway - anyone have thoughts or suggestions on such a change, or have insights into how they've seen these powers taken and used?

I'm hoping that the current proc is just the first of its kind. A simple -KB IO is all that's really needed and I hope they'll introduce it sooner rather than later. But I can see where they want to get a handle on outliers (like Bonfire) that become significantly better without the KB.

I'd vote for just going ahead and giving it a little damage. Arch-Villains get hand claps that do damage (gobs of it), I don't see why ours don't*.

*Aside from the argument that they don't want to give us more AoE potential. Which isn't a logical excuse, but a meta one. Just like how arrows with grenades on them do less damage than a plain arrow. One day someone will explain that to me in a way that makes sense.

Agree with Stone Daemon on giving the attack minor damage. Look at the Sonic Attack set, Sirens Song, fairy low damage and it is an AoE. I know it has no knockback, just that it is an AoE with little damage. They could easily give it less.

Back before the days of costume change emotes, I took Lightning Clap on a blaster to use when changing costumes. Neat effect for that. I don't recall ever using it effectively in combat though, anytime I felt threatened I flew away a bit instead.

Knockback on a melee character is very stupid anyway. On Energy Melee, it some-what makes sense.... no, nevermind it doesn't.

I think they know. I think the devs are only too aware of the potential pitfalls there. Now, we'll see what they do for i24; if they do something silly, it means that they've decided that redesigning that aspect of the power, even if it means turning the KD factor down, isn't worth the effort.

At that point we'll have to work to convince them otherwise. A visit to their workcenter is not out of the question... I find face-to-face communication to be the ideal fix where weight of effort is concerned.

In the meantime, it's probably best to not get too worried about it.