siolfir

Late to the response here (I got off the forums soon after I made my post). I was trying to point out to others in the thread, who were attempting to silence others from expressing disagreements within the past few pages, that just because they might think that any dissenting opinions are, and I quote "outdated." I was trying to recognize that including the "imo" was a good thing. Sorry if it came across (apparently to several people) as a criticism; while it was a quote, it wasn't a direct reply to what was quoted.

That highlighted part? It's really important. Others can, and have, disagreed. That doesn't make their feedback less important than yours.

But the premise of the request was that you are on an AT that does not have that hole unless you specifically select one of those powersets, which do not offer sufficient advantages relative to the other available sets to warrant having the hole in the first place. It was also an aside - I don't consider it an emergency, but something that diminishes those sets.

I'm am shocked and disappointed that not a single reply thus far in the thread has answered: Soon™

This one makes sense as lethal though because it's not the cold of an icicle that hurts you, it's the sharp point at the end. I could see a split of the damage type similar to Ice Blast, but then you're just spamming more numbers above the mobs' heads for the same result.

Melee sets: Kinetic Melee Ranged sets: Assault Rifle Support sets: Force Field Armor sets: Stone Armor While I'm talking about armor sets remove the KB hole from FA, DA, and Stalker Nin so "armored" ATs don't have to pay the KB IO slot tax for picking those sets. It was deemed a big enough hole in Ninjitsu to plug when porting it to non-Stalkers, and isn't there for any new sets regardless of whether or not the protection is thematic, so why does it still exist for any set?

Same. Especially annoying when the one who didn't get it was the Blaster trying to punch the Kronos Titan to death in a MLRSF; I don't know if they had a base macro or not, but they certainly didn't hit it in the 2 seconds it took the AoE damage to kill them.

To be fair Stalkers could almost guarantee it, but you'd have to not get hit during Placate's animation and you'd lose damage for it if you were already fighting. Not that many Stalkers take Placate anymore.

What I find ironic is that it's possible that you really mean this unironically. "How dare they nerf a top tier set and buff a bottom tier one!" That whooshing sound you hear is the point of the changes flying over your head. Check mission clear times after the buff: even with being pushed into top-tier single target damage it's still middle of the road for most content, and unlike other "low mitigation" sets (Fire, Savage) it actively hurts you to have that level of performance (a complaint that was brought about in the feedback thread by someone who wanted the self-damage removed from ET when focused). Will EM end up being a FoTM for a while? Yes, just like most new sets or those that receive a lot of changes: people will want to try out the new shiny since they've already played the others. Is it undeniably the best melee set in the game? No. But it's in the discussion for single target damage, again.

I had a longer reply written out that ended up erased to summarize. Stating that "Assassin's Strike makes the set too good for Stalkers to receive any other buffs" is ignoring the whole point that Assassin's Strike is supposed to make the set good for single target damage to account for other tradeoffs in the AT - notably, power choices in both primary and secondary sets, fewer hit points, and - compared to Scrappers - lower base damage and lower self-buff modifiers. They surpass Scrapper single target damage because of Assassin's Strike, so using that to exclude them is... well, favoritism is the wrong term because it's not just one "favorite" AT but certainly discriminatory against them. So yes, I think someone should take a breath and think about what they're saying. I just don't think it's me.

If you think Stalkers have it so much better that they shouldn't receive any changes, then only play the set on Stalkers and then you won't need any buffs, right? After all, "some sets just perform better on some ATs than others." So yeah, hit all the ATs or none of them, and enough of the favoritism BS.

I'm aware that the level would reset, but you could still build combo level 3 using nothing but finishers, which would currently leave you at combo level 0 forever. I also don't think that it actually addresses the complaints you mention in your OP - "weak single target attacks, small AoEs which are clunky to use, the combo levels from Combat Readiness being used immediately, and Crushing Uppercut being loaded with penalties." The small, annoying to use AoEs I agree with, but Spinning Strike is the real culprit there since combo level 0 Sweeping Cross is the same area and damage as Jacob's Ladder; the single target attacks are a common recharge pattern and although having an extra single targer attack instead of a mez/utility/3rd AoE power seems to hurt the set's potential it also offers additional ways to build combo levels; and the only penalty on Crushing Uppercut is the recharge - it costs less endurance than it should for it's combo level 0 damage (3.18), costing 14.35 when it should cost 16.54 for the damage (14.35 is what a 15-second recharge, scale 2.76 damage attack should cost). Even when reducing the recharge to 20 seconds it should still do more damage (3.56), but it should also cost more endurance (18.512). At 17 seconds recharge it would be Devastating Blow with a faster animation: scale 3.08, 16.02 endurance. All of the other powers follow the standard damage formula at combo level 0, so any additional damage from carrying a combo level is a bonus, which is why it costs you something (in this case, your combo points). As you can likely guess, I disagree that having finishers build combo levels while still receiving higher performance (at the same recharge and endurance cost) is necessary or balanced (thus my assumption earlier about only having combo level 3), but the double combo gains under Combat Readiness is something I support, I agree that there shouldn't be two single target attacks in the set with the same recharge/damage (Martial Arts has this problem also), and the recharge on Crushing Uppercut should be brought down to 20 seconds - although any other buffs to the power should result in bringing the endurance cost in line, because the discount is what I'm using to justify the higher-than-it-should-be recharge. Edit to add: supporting the recharge reduction on Crushing Uppercut, at combo level 3, it does scale 3.975 damage. That would put it at a recharge of 22.59375 and endurance cost of 20.67 if it used the standard damage formula. The recharge for it is too high even if it's always used at level 3 (although it costs far less endurance than it should at that damage). Combo level 2 is a touch over the theoretical scale 3.56 "standard 20 second recharge attack" with 18.512 end cost that many other sets have.

Hey, I called out one issue before I logged on to test! My experience prior was making an EM/Elec Brute (named, appropriately enough, Saveur du Mois) pre-nerf to go AV hunting, who became my main and badge-hunter, then shelving the character post-nerf to only bring her out two or three times (once for a respec where I realized I didn't enjoy her anymore afterwards, again after the shutdown notice as a "last hurrah" run, and maybe another?) until she was lost in the shutdown. I went and got the badges on my Ice/Rad Corruptor instead. But I also tested afterwards, confirmed that I didn't like some things I thought I wouldn't like, complained about a subset of those, and those complaints were accounted for and things were adjusted for. So again as part of the PSA: provide specific complaints. Indicate why you think that they are a problem, with examples if possible. Some things are pretty much set in stone already (like the existence of a focus system for EM), but within those constraints meaningful feedback can still push things into a desired direction. Even if it isn't the one you thought about (ex: adding critical damage on ET vs increasing the critical damage on TF).

Oh. So you want the buff from the current combo level and to have it build combo level, too? How about just not consuming until combo level 3 but not building it instead? Or is the goal to just be able to ignore that the combo system exists and still get the max combo level performance by chaining nothing but finishers? Because in that case it looks like you want a new set with the same animations.

I would rather see the power changes proliferated across all ATs that have access to the power. This means that Stalkers, who do not get Rib Cracker or Combat Readiness, would automatically be excluded, but would be able to receive the increased damage (and recharge/endurance) from Shin Breaker, and everyone gets the 20 second recharge - which is still too high for its base damage - on Crushing Uppercut. The double gains on combo levels during Combat Readiness would make up for Assassin's Strike's providing two combo levels. I'm not sure how I feel about eliminating everything except combo level 3 on finishers; it doesn't seem to be hurting Water Blast having Tidal Power from 0 to 3. I understand the desire to not have to constantly watch what you're using - you can just check my recent post history for that - but that same variable combo level performance seems to be the foundation of the set. I could see freebie radius increases for Spinning Strike at higher combo levels (base of 7' + 1' per combo level) to help with AoE instead: this is already done with Savage Melee and would give a 15' radius for Tankers due to their inherent.

Crushing Uppercut also has the endurance cost of a 15 second recharge power and damage of a 17.625 sec power, so it just ignores the standard damage formula in every way possible. While you're going on about CU, it copied Knockout Blow's recharge (that was the "comparable power" pointed to). Knockout Blow has the endurance cost and damage of a 20 second recharge power; 25 seconds would be scale 4.36 damage and 22.672 endurance.

Technically it doesn't drop to 90%: it instead drops to 94.5% (the -5% is resisted by 90% to become -0.5%) which remains capped at 90%. Functionally the same, but the important part is to remember that the debuff is resisted. Grr...sniped by @nihilii while typing.

Both of them have ~3 sec to ~1 sec conditional animations, so both animate faster on occasion. Lots of parallels, with the exception of a scale 7 slow ET critical.

A recurring theme from many who dislike the Energy Focus mechanic. I'm not happy about being forced into using Total Focus, but found it a tolerable change - mostly because the animation was sped up. It's not my first choice, though. But to address the rest of the post: Stalker PC is just as good to go from hide as Whirling Hands would be IMO, and doesn't really need any more setup time for positioning. You might hit fewer targets (without EF) but the ones you hit are hurt more.

It's off-topic for this thread, but was brought up here, so I'm responding here: the changes to Eagle Claw were rolled back in the last patch.

So, damage past the enemy's remaining hit points is converted to unresisted knockback on a 1:1 basis? It would at least make the slow version more amusing, since all the damage would be converted on a corpse blast. It is not critting as often as the last patch - the tradeoff for critical damage in ET was a reduced critical chance in Total Focus (20% to 10% in the patch notes). I'm surprised you didn't get any in five minutes of playing, but you were probably having the same RNG issues that Troo was having with BU+AS (which anecdotally I also feel misses far more often than it should, but that's because you remember the misses).

Beta ET has half the recharge of TF. So yes, I am assuming it's going to recharge before the next TF if I use it right afterwards.

The shorter stun effect is likely unnoticeable unless you're sitting there with a stopwatch - I'm also curious if the -special affects stun resistance (if so, then no, they didn't lose duration). As for already having Barrage slotted for damage... they can substitute in the single target attack that they didn't have slotted before for damage since Barrage unslotted for damage will still do more than Stun and you can get the same set bonuses elsewhere without taking and fully slotting every single target power in the set.

You realize that this is similar to stating that you could also avoid the slow ET animation currently by never using it? Technically true, but incredibly obvious and missing the whole point?

And never, ever miss with ET. Ever.