Instead of a more traditional combo system, what about single target attacks besides energy transfer grant a stacking temporary buff on a target, so when you hit say a freakshow stunner with a quick 1-2, they have a temp buff "Energized", so when you hit them with energy transfer, they explode into a tbaoe doing increased damaged/range per stack of the buff, and after using Energy Transfer, the buff needs to be reset.
That allows energy melee to potentially deal some more AoE. I do think the animation times need some love as well though.
Just a crazy idea.