i24 and Energy Melee


Blue_Centurion

 

Posted

This is not an announcement, it is a question and fishing expedition. Since they are fixing EVERYTHING in i24 is there any chance they will do something (dear gawd anything!) for Energy Melee? It was mentioned somewhere around i22 that the Devs were "looking at" EM, but that was evidently all they did was look. Any word/hint/innuendo/blatant misinformation on what is up with EM now?


 

Posted

Specifically asked, and no. Not at this time.


@bpphantom
The Defenders of Paragon
KGB Special Section 8

 

Posted

fix a powerset that has a chance to mezz minions and lt's with practically every attack?

are you asking them to nerf it?


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth View Post
fix a powerset that has a chance to mezz minions and lt's with practically every attack?

are you asking them to nerf it?
Not sure if serious.. It's a horrible set which is just about passable on Stalkers if only because of their new inherant overpoweredness. Needs buffs, more so than the Medicine and Fighting pools which're getting some questionable (albeit nice) buffs.


I am the Blaster, I have filled the role of Tank, Controller and Defender
Sometimes all at once.
Union EU player! Pip pip, tally ho, top hats and tea etc etc

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth View Post
fix a powerset that has a chance to mezz minions and lt's with practically every attack?

are you asking them to nerf it?
I'm sorry, I do not make characters that are ever worried about minions and Lts. Good luck to you in your travels though the cities in a desperate attempt to avoid minion combats.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion View Post
I'm sorry, I do not make characters that are ever worried about minions and Lts. Good luck to you in your travels though the cities in a desperate attempt to avoid minion combats.
I'm sorry, I don't have to rely upon rhetoric and exaggeration to try and ignore points that I cannot reasonably argue against. Good luck with your hysterics and crying.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth View Post
fix a powerset that has a chance to mezz minions and lt's with practically every attack?

are you asking them to nerf it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth View Post
I'm sorry, I don't have to rely upon rhetoric and exaggeration to try and ignore points that I cannot reasonably argue against. Good luck with your hysterics and crying.
Are you seriously claiming that a chance to stun one minion at a time is overpowered? It's not even noteworthy. Stone Melee can stun all the minions and half the lieutenants in a spawn in less time than it takes Energy Melee to stun one target, can Hold a boss guaranteed with a single power, has knocks, and does better DPS without even damaging itself.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hopeling View Post
Are you seriously claiming that a chance to stun one minion at a time is overpowered? It's not even noteworthy. Stone Melee can stun all the minions and half the lieutenants in a spawn in less time than it takes Energy Melee to stun one target, can Hold a boss guaranteed with a single power, has knocks, and does better DPS without even damaging itself.
Ah, i see you haven't met dug yet. Hopeling, dug. dug, Hopeling.


Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...

 

Posted

Quote:
I'm sorry, I do not make characters that are ever worried about minions and Lts. Good luck to you in your travels though the cities in a desperate attempt to avoid minion combats.
Great post. I mean it.

-

12 feet radius on Whirling Hands
Power Thrust animation back on ET
There. All fixed.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Schismatrix View Post
Ah, i see you haven't met dug yet. Hopeling, dug. dug, Hopeling.
^This

You need to read more of dug's posts. They are fascinating.

Too bad about them not looking at EM


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion View Post
I'm sorry, I do not make characters that are ever worried about minions and Lts.
This kind of line of thinking bothers me, since it suggests a level of character power I frankly don't see in anything short of a Mastermind on a good day. Most of what I fight is minions and lieutenants and plenty of my characters have trouble with those. What kind of power level are we shooting for here, exactly?


Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

Posted

I've been playing an Energy Melee tanker from the start. The only thing "wrong" with it is, like most of the older melee sets, is it's a bit dull. The stuns are good for survivability at low levels (since they stack, stunning bosses is a regular occurrence), and ET is good for single target damage later on (it was absolutely devastating with the original short animation, but it's still good).

On a stalker, I suggest paring it with Energy Aura, then you can stun everything.


I really should do something about this signature.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by dugfromthearth View Post
fix a powerset that has a chance to mezz minions and lt's with practically every attack?

are you asking them to nerf it?
Great points dug..seen how many people are playing em lately?


 

Posted

I play one. Just got her to 50 the other day. And she can stun a lot more than Minions and Lts (since, as said, the stuns stack, so two attacks are usually enough to stun Bosses, and three or four will even stun Elite Bosses, particularly since I slotted some of the weaker attacks with Stun sets rather than Melee sets). She can also take down hard targets much faster than my Electric Melee brute (who does, admittedly, have an easier time with groups, but different powersets specialize in different things, and ElM has some very slow attacks in it as well)

It may be the "worst" melee set, but objectively, it's not a bad set, and doesn't need a major overhaul. Just shorten the cast time of TF and ET, increase the radius (and possibly stun chance) of WH, and there you go.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
This kind of line of thinking bothers me, since it suggests a level of character power I frankly don't see in anything short of a Mastermind on a good day. Most of what I fight is minions and lieutenants and plenty of my characters have trouble with those. What kind of power level are we shooting for here, exactly?
Hmmm. I mostly play Brutes. I play a few Scrappers, and when i want a challenge I try to build a blaster and whine for weeks. I build using I/O sets. If I am not experimenting then I have a build in mind (usually already in MiDs w/ levelling plan), and the enhancers on hand to make the run.

My Brutes have always run straight into the largest groups I can find. I ran the game for a year just using SOs, usually on Invul Brutes. An Invulnerability Brute SO'd out correctly fears no minion or LT. Okay, sappers are freaking annoying, but we all got an achilles heal. My I/O'd out Brutes fear no Boss, or minion, or LT, and usually give a frogs fart about sappers as well. I play them to take the alpha, group the mobs, soak up the agro, and use that to pund the boss in the center. I have a build plan in hand to take my 1st level all the way into the Incarnate Trials with my Incarnate Powers already picked. Sometimes they do not perform as well as had hoped, and i implode/strip them. Sometimes the whole run was a thought experiment, and after they are fully incarnated I strip/delete. But my characters never, ever worry about minions and LTs.

I tend to not like AE farms. I tend to build with sets that are more ST devoted so that i can really help a team with AVs, EBs, and Monsters. (that's why I am asking about Energy Melee after all) However, even though I do not AE farm (or do so rarely) I fully expect my characters to be able to stand in the middle of the biggest spawns in the farms (oh, the old ambushes were so funny) and not drop. So, thats the power level I play at, and what i find to be fun in the game. It is true these might be considered "edge cases" but I find that at the heart of a few trials, task forces etc. there is one or two "edge case friendly" fights, and my teams are always grateful fore a Brute that can do it's job no matter how crazy the stuff gets.


 

Posted

So your argument is that Energy Melee clearly needs a buff because it under-performs in a couple of fringe cases?


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Posted

After reading this thread, I *still* don't know what's wrong with Energy Melee. Energi Zed, my WP/EM tank, has no problems with it. He even enjoys it. Just recently he achieved tier 2 alpha (Spiritual Core Boost), adding 33% disorient to almost every damage attack, as well as Stun. EM was good before, now it's awesome.


-- Rich
* Thresholds CoH: What to do When
* My Comics Collection

 

Posted

Fix Ice Melee first please lol.



 

Posted

Increase Whirling Hand's damage and radius
Increase Stun's damage
Reduce Energy Transfer's damage, remove the self damage, give the old animation back
Give Total Focus its Mag 4 stun back...


This seems reasonable to me.

Also, what Tater said.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. DJ View Post
Reduce Energy Transfer's damage, remove the self damage, give the old animation back
Hell no. ET's the only power of its kind and I love it for what it is. I'd still like to see it sped up a bit, maybe not to what it was before (say, trade in Stun's current animation, and give Stun ET's old animation), and increase the self-damage to compensate it for the increased DPA.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nihilii View Post
Great post. I mean it.

-

12 feet radius on Whirling Hands
Power Thrust animation back on ET
There. All fixed.
Power Thrust animation on ET would require it nerfed into the ground. At least it would on a development team worth anything, which these guys aren't.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lazarillo View Post
Hell no. ET's the only power of its kind and I love it for what it is. I'd still like to see it sped up a bit, maybe not to what it was before (say, trade in Stun's current animation, and give Stun ET's old animation), and increase the self-damage to compensate it for the increased DPA.
Agreed. The self-damage isn't noticeable, and I'd rather not have a boost in end cost and cut in damage just to have a pittance of self-damage removed.


They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!

@Starflier

 

Posted

I want my EM'ers to be controllers...so take a coin from Stone Melee and make Stun a targeted AoE (maybe with just a mag 2 AoE stun and an additional mag 1 stun on the target).

Oh, and give me glowing kick alternate animations...maybe just 1 or two if it's too much trouble


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion View Post
I ran the game for a year just using SOs, usually on Invul Brutes. An Invulnerability Brute SO'd out correctly fears no minion or LT.
I agree, no minion or lieutenant - singular - is usually a problem. One on one, even bosses aren't that bad. The trouble is those almost never come alone. A +0x2 spawn, which is what I play, tends to spawn one or two lieutenants with between two and five minions. For some factions this isn't a problem, but for a lot of the newer ones - DUST, IDF, etc. - this can be quite deadly. And if it were just that, I wouldn't have a problem, but recent game design likes to toss multiple spawns on me at the same time. Stacking ambushes, "large" spawns (that end up x+2 to what I'm set to), multiple boss fights...

I once whined about Dark Astoria being too hard because it throws huge spawns at me, things that feel like +0x4 when I'm set to +0x2. I excused them because... Well, it's end game and it's supposed to be harder. Heavens knows why, but let's roll with the premise that it should be harder. Except I replayed First Ward recently and I started running into the exact same +0x4 spawns at +0x2, consisting of Apparitions, Awakened and Dust. I honestly lost count of the number of times I got jumped by a tentacle head Seer with two lieutenants and four minions, the EXACT spawn size that Mot throws at me seven times when I get pulled into the guts from the bank. And just earlier today I was escorting Leon out when no less than three spawns of ambushes showed up ON TOP OF ME as soon as the previous one was defeated, and because Leon won't disengage from a fight in progress, I had to fight 'em all.

What I'm saying is that when the game plays like it should and gives me spawns that correspond to my difficulty, one spawn at a time, then no - lieutenants and minions aren't that much of a threat. As it should be. I should be able to trounce a mastermind's minions until I make my way to him, whereupon the real fight should start. Trouble is, the game does this less and less often as new content is developed. Pretty much the only place you'll see regular fights is in pre-I8 content.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. DJ View Post
Reduce Energy Transfer's damage, remove the self damage, give the old animation back
Give Total Focus its Mag 4 stun back...

This seems reasonable to me.
It isn't, on either count. Giving a Brute access to a hold stronger than that of a Controller should never have happened in the first place. Additionally, old Energy Transfer was badly overpowered even with its self-damage component. Asking that it become better than it used to be won't happen.

Besides, I like its current animation considerably more than its original. Ye gads that looked weak, the shoulder tap of doom. I get that the new one may not be "good DPS," but it certainly looks powerful. Whatever happens to the power, I want to keep this animation.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
It isn't, on either count. Giving a Brute access to a hold stronger than that of a Controller should never have happened in the first place. Additionally, old Energy Transfer was badly overpowered even with its self-damage component. Asking that it become better than it used to be won't happen
Seismic Smash is a little more than twice as fast and still retains it's Mag 4 Hold. Total Focus is still a 3.3 second animation that barely seemed worthwhile because of the guaranteed boss stun with the exception of certain ones...mainly Forts and Webmasters...meanwhile Controllers have Containment and can easily stack their holds compared to a Brute/Tank.

Reducing ET's damage and removing the self damage as a trade off to get the old animation back isn't really making it better.

But alas...EM will suffer as long as TF and ET are what they are...the biggest hitters in the set, but slow as hell....

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lazarillo View Post
Hell no. ET's the only power of its kind and I love it for what it is.
Well, only melee power of its kind Oppressive Gloom does self inflicting damage as well.