siolfir

But that was my point, you have to throw in filler because it's not sustainable, any more than constantly having Momentum is sustainable for Titan Weapons. That filler time is where Fire Blast loses ground in overall single-target chains, even though you gain ground every time you use Blaze. As for the AoE burst to clear things, every Blaster primary can do the same; Ice takes longer than most because of Blizzard and Ice Storm taking so long to deal their damage, but the patch powers at least can violate the target cap and Ice can keep up with Fire in single target while doing it more safely (since its best single target chain includes -to-hit and a hold).

I also have a fire blaster (fire/fire) but don't have her kitted out. I'm aware that it doesn't hurt for dealing damage, but every Blaster can clear spawns with BU+Aim+T9; again that's not unique to Fire Blast as a set, and the comparison should be Ranged set to Ranged set and Melee set to Melee set, not Ranged set to Melee set. Inferno also doesn't recharge for every mob: even at the recharge cap you have a 29 second recharge, so you can use it at best every 32 seconds with the animation time included. Heck, if we're talking about clearing a spawn in 30 seconds I should compare to my Fortunata since she can take out nearly all of a non-resistant +3 spawn with damage-capped Psychic Wail (which has a lower target cap for Widows than a typical Blast set), heavily-procced Dominate, and the Blood Widow Claw attacks to finish off the bosses, but I have to wait for Psychic Wail (which has the same 145 second recharge) to recharge before the next spawn since she's not at the recharge cap, so I end up using Ionic Judgement - which anyone can get - instead.

Unless they've already added EF in a closed beta, there have been no announcements of what the changes are or will be, so we don't know what they're going to do with it. But let's say they do add it, just like it is for Dominators. Here are the patch notes from that change (highlights added to the relevant portions): So it's a 20% per attack chance to boost one power that is actually in Energy Melee, which on Dominators is already a 15' radius instead of 8' so is much easier to use. I'd rather have a boost all the time, though, even if it's smaller. Assuming they add bonus damage with Energy Transfer and don't adjust the animation time, you'll still do the same amount of damage because you'll just hit the already-dead corpse that much harder. If they change it so that you don't take self-damage then it's a small net positive because when you hit the corpse you don't lose health yourself, but otherwise seems meaningless and it would be completely useless for Stalkers who can already avoid the self damage. Sure, it's not something you track - it's about as passive as Insight - but it's also not helping much without other, more drastic changes.

It isn't the chain, or it is? If it's not (as you stated, I believe incorrectly) then it's not doing more. Also, I'd also like to see a build that can run a sustained damage chain that only consists of Blaze, Blazing Bolt, and Fire Ball. In either case, it's apples-to-oranges since Titan Weapons comes on a melee set and needs to be compared to other melee sets while Blasters are supposed to do more damage. If they're doing more than Titan Weapons, bully for them. Fire Blast is also less of an outlier from the second place blast set than Titan Weapons is to the second place melee set, and as mentioned, the numbers for TW don't include -resistance which would actually raise them further.

It will compete, it just might not beat an optimized TW Scrapper. By virtue of not requiring a weapon and not having crashes that's enough to compete for me; not fiddling with Momentum will likely bring around some others. I've brought it up before, but basically "old ET, albeit one that needs a gimmick to get it to happen" is what they did for every Stalker primary to make them competitive. Now, would I be happy with additional changes, which are not "add a tracking stat to it like every other new set, so it behaves differently on a conditional basis?" Sure - but as I said before an animation/hit time reduction on at least Energy Transfer is the starting point for me to even consider the changes as a good faith attempt to fix the set instead of just providing lip service to it while instead just creating a new set that they want to call Energy Melee.

DPA (scale per second of Arcanatime animation) using Bopper's spreadsheet so I don't have to actually do the math myself except for Rain of Fire: Fire Blast Blaze: 2.294 Inferno: 2.073 Blazing Bolt (fast, 2.81 scale, 1.67 sec): 1.521 Blazing Bolt (slow, 5.03 scale, 3.67 sec): 1.314 Fire Ball: 1.004 Rain of Fire: 1.003* (NOTE: If all 75 ticks hit, which is highly unlikely both to the extended DoT duration and each tick having separate hit checks) Flares: 0.850 (NOTE: Blaster standardized T1 in other sets, scale 1 w/4 second recharge, is 0.842) Fire Blast: 0.733 (NOTE: Blaster standardized T2 in other sets, scale 1.64 w/8 second recharge, is 0.888) Fire Breath: 0.604 Titan Weapons (with Momentum) Rend Armor: 2.212 Follow Through: 2.043 Arc of Destruction: 1.513 Rend Armor: 1.281 Crushing Blow: 1.242 Titan Sweep: 1.203 Whirling Smash: 1.152 Arc of Destruction: 0.894 Crushing Blow: 0.804 Defensive Sweep: 0.614 Titan Sweep: 0.541 Defensive Sweep: 0.307 So if you're comparing to Titan Weapons using Momentum, you're losing ground on every attack that isn't Blaze, Blazing Bolt, or Inferno; note that the numbers for Titan Weapons do not include the -resistance that its best attack also provides, which would act as a multiplier to that scale. Heck, the DPA numbers for Titan Weapons outside of Momentum are still comparable with other melee sets: Radiation Melee Devastating Blow: 1.061 Radioactive Smash: 0.863 Radiation Siphon: 0.825 Contaminated Strike: 0.796 Proton Sweep: 0.774 Atom Smasher: 0.489 Street Justice Crushing Uppercut: 1.338 (at combo level 1) Shin Breaker: 1.034 Heavy Blow: 0.878 Rib Cracker: 0.833 Sweeping Cross: 0.812 Initial Strike: 0.796 Spinning Strike: 0.778 Basically, the numbers for Fire Blast are carried by Blaze and Fire Ball... as mentioned earlier in the thread, Ice Blast has Freeze Ray (1.852) and Bitter Ice Blast (1.727) to compete in single-target damage, both of which are better than either version of Blazing Bolt.

The obsolescence part is opinion. That it hasn't existed for over a decade is why rumors of its obsolescence is pure conjecture - the set as it stands currently is obsolete, though.

I've already said in several threads that Whirling Hands is an underperformer and doesn't even follow their own design formulas. It could be a misquote from context, but you have so many posts earlier in the thread talking about how "reverting ET won't fix anything" that when I was catching up (while distracted by Fall Guys on the other monitor) that I assumed you were talking about the underperformance of the set as a whole: if it was specifically referring only to Whirling Hands, then I agree. But to me Whirling Hands is a "nice to" fix, while Energy Transfer is a "this must change" fix, starting with the animation and hit times.

Why, when there's nothing wrong with the thinking. Old EM was nerfed because, per Castle, one power was sufficient to carry the set to a single-target damage crown far above everything except double-stacked Rage, which could be better or worse based on the timing of your Rage crashes. Reverting that power doesn't lead to "underperformance" unless you're stating that the buffs to every other melee set (except Stone Melee, which was nerfed later) mean that the nerf was a huge mistake and overreaction in the first place. In which case, there is no reason NOT to revert it before any other changes are discussed, to get it back to baseline feel and performance that people loved about the set. Rad Melee is Energy Melee - complete with long animations, although mostly on shorter recharges (thus less damage and lower DPA) - with more AoEs and splash AoE added to single target attacks in certain situations. Which is part of why I don't see why there's so much focus on "add AoE" and "add a mechanic" - THAT SET EXISTS ALREADY. I don't want another of that set. It's not unique.

Well then I guess it's a good thing that debuffs have larger values than buffs and use a different enhancement schedule to be boosted even more. It's almost like those things were already thought about and compensated for. Jack, is that you? Heck, an animation change on one power killed an entire melee powerset, taking it from a high performance single target monster to an ignored also-ran that gets middling performance on its former specialty and drags terribly in all other metrics. Animations are important.

If enterbasefrompasscode is disabled but sgpasscode isn't, then people have to go to a base portal (or base teleporter) to use a base and it can still be set quickly and easily with a slash command. Since the issue described was sharing base access, people wouldn't have to change what they are already doing to share them, but entering the base would be limited. Which I thought was the intended goal. If you want to disable both commands, then hide sgpasscode behind an interface labeled "Set base passcode..." just like "Enter passcode..." already is.

Psi Assault Doms became popular due to farming with Psychic Shockwave, which was nerfed severely while Mental Manipulation was being created. I forget the old numbers, but I think it both recharged faster than it does currently as well as hitting harder. Drain Psyche - the sustain - was the icing, not the cake. He specifically mentioned the Stalker AT, which doesn't get endurance management or recharge - or run speed, or knockback protection... it's the absolute worst version of the set because they never revisited it when they ported it to other ATs to plug the same holes. As for the AoE Placate, you can get that in a pool power or as a temp and it's a mostly useless power in any case. You mean like Stun still does? All of the weapon sets were revisited to speed up attacks and/or remove redraw, along with several of the attacks in Martial Arts being sped up. War Mace got a huge boost because a garbage power became a heavy hitter; Martial Arts had already had Crane Kick with the same damage and recharge. You already have the "Enter passcode..." option at base portals to allow others to share base access. They just have to actually go to a base portal to use it.

Actually it changes its relative performance by quite a bit, but somehow that's being ignored to push something different, that as myself and others have stated (albeit not recently in my case), could just as easily go into a different melee powerset while still leaving the "build up {insert totally-unique-really-I-mean-it-nothing-else-does-this-gimmick "mechanic" tracking stat name here} and discharge it through {insert power name or names here}" out of a set that has never had it for the people that don't want them. Also, I didn't add Kinetic Melee to my list of "gimmick" sets that I've played, but since it was brought up as one then I've played it to 50 on a Brute and Stalker pre-shutdown. I don't consider it a gimmick set any more than Claws, Dark Melee, or Super Strength just for having an alternate to Build Up.

This. The ability to force the spawn was added because the accolade was changed from "stay in Siren's Call for five hours" to "defeat Ghost of Scrapyard" but people were having trouble getting it because he wasn't spawning often and had a tendency to wander into drones and black market kill zones when left unattended or allowed to flee.

Okay, I see what you were going for there. It would probably be adjusted, though: Fault (from Stone Melee) also requires a target, has a 10' radius AoE stun and the same recharge, and deals no damage. It has a mag 2 stun (minon-level) with a 50% chance per target of an additional mag 1 stun (to total mag 3), but also includes knockdown (mag 0.67 KB). I bring up the cottage rule because someone may have taken it and loaded it with all of the melee damage procs to get some pathetic level of performance from it due to the high recharge, and removing the damage or changing it to an AoE would change the IO sets that it can slot. In addition to the faster animation (as you say, 0.14 seconds difference) it has a much faster hit time - the damage hits in 1.77 seconds instead of Energy Transfer's 2.2 seconds or the existing animation's 2.3 seconds. That's still slower than most of the other powers out there (I made a list earlier), but when the damage hits is important for the discussion of corpse-blasting as much - or more - than how long the animation takes, and it would reduce that time by 0.53 seconds. I'm not arguing against that, but mostly the auto-skips were Barrage (for non-Tankers), Stun, and possibly Taunt. Even with the old Energy Transfer and slow Total Focus, the guaranteed at-the-time mag 4 stun was still useful for ensuring that some bosses weren't able to act (looking at you, MoG Paragon Protectors), and then you just ignored it afterwards when running your attack chain unless you were on an AV. You didn't worry about it for smaller mobs because Energy Transfer would kill minions in less time than Energy Punch can hit them, and if a lieutenant survived it had a 60% chance to stun them. As for the old Energy Transfer animation, it looks like Power Thrust from Energy Manipulation, only instead of the target going flying they just usually fell over dead.

If you're trying to keep Energy Melee at the performance level that it is currently, you would have to take away something. If you were intending to buff it to at or near the top for single target damage, while leaving the AoE damage anemic, ignoring Stun like all the players do, and calling that balanced, then you would also buff ET and TF. Since the discussion is split into a couple of threads, I put the DPA numbers in the other thread, but even using Smashing Blow's animation (Kinetic Melee's t3, at 1.2 seconds with a 1.23 second hit time) would boost ET from scale 1.57 damage/sec to 3.14 (the old version was 3.84), and it's the only power that would even be in the top 5 for DPA: Freezing Touch is 2.45, Rend Armor with momentum is 2.21, Seismic Smash is 2.07, Follow Through is 2.04, and Clobber is 2.01. Total Focus would be 1.28 even with the Dominator (2.53 sec, 1.77 hit time) animation - it's 1.04 with no change - and using the 4/8/10 recharge numbers would have Energy Punch unchanged at 0.95 with Barrage at 1.04 and Bone Smasher at 1.14 - which is around where around Shin Breaker and Focus are.

I was considering "gimmick" and "mechanic" as essentially the same in terminology, since even ones you have little to no control over (such as applying Contamination in Rad Melee) cause variable performance based on the mechanics of the set, and the optimal performance would have you changing targets to a contaminated target to get the extra damage. I feel Insight is actually less obtrusive to my gameplay, with the main difference being when I try to fire GPB off so that its forced lockout corresponds with the normal timeout. I also am aware I was pushing things on the fast snipe, but it is one of those "animation change" issues, and I referred to the inherents just to bring up the point that even a straightforward, no-frills set can still have mechanics (thus, "gimmicks" since I was using them interchangeably) you need to worry about rather than the "push button wee" play that you brought up earlier in the thread, which mostly applies only to Tankers. It wouldn't fix the set for you. It would for others. The existence of this thread should indicate that to you, meaning you're trying to state your opinion as fact.

Oh, you could do it - I edited in my response about increasing the damage earlier that Battle Axe has 4, 8, and 10 second recharges on its first three powers so there's already precedent. But Battle Axe has the 4 second recharge as the tier 1, so I think if it's done it would necessitate swapping Energy Punch and Barrage.

The problem with increasing the damage is you increase the recharge, and that means low levels have long pauses in their attack chains. It's already 6 seconds vs 4, and Barrage used to have a 2 second recharge before the damage was increased once, causing complaining about the delayed attack chain from Tankers when it happened. Of course, that only matters for Tankers, since Brutes, Stalkers, and theoretically Scrappers could take either power. Honestly, Barrage would be a great power at an 8 second recharge, but if you're limited on picks for some reason you're going to be looking for filler.

How many of them played the old Energy Melee? How many of them know nothing other than the current version and want anything else?

No, I think that a great deal of the performance of the AT as a whole is reliant on one power in their primary, though. Where were they at for damage before the Assassin's Focus changes? For what it's worth, I responded in the EM weekly discussion thread to a proposal that would boost the damage on Barrage and Bone Smasher, effectively making Energy Punch the lowest DPA power in the set (edit: barring Stun, which nobody in their right mind takes as a damage power). Some of the ideas I liked, but I would want a different, preferably faster, animation for ET than they proposed (1.8 seconds matches Stun, and I just don't like that animation for a melee attack - it's a throw, it looks like a throw, why try to force it in as a punch). Hell, use Smashing Blow's animation (1.2 seconds, 1.23 second hit time) with a different sound effect if 1 second is just too fast, it has a short gathering and double-handed torso strike that would work well - it would give a DPA of 3.14/sec, and the other changes would give Barrage 1.035/sec, Bone Smasher 1.142/sec, and Total Focus 1.284/sec. For comparison, that's the same for Barrage and Bone Smasher as Chop and Gash in Battle Axe, only it would have Energy Punch instead of Beheader and wouldn't use a weapon. Energy Transfer is currently at 1.5702/sec, so it would double using that animation: this puts it ahead of Titan Weapons' Rend Armor (2.2121/sec with Momentum), which is ahead of Seismic Smash (2.0746/sec), Follow Through (2.0428/sec, requires Momentum), and Clobber (2.011/sec). The old one second version was scale 3.838/sec. Part of that proposal used a gimmick/mechanic for AoE splash on hitting a corpse, which I disagree with because a) with the other changes I feel as though the single target performance boost would be enough that it's not needed, and b) corpse blasting is currently bad for EM because of the long animations, but part of the proposal was reducing both of the long animations, and if that happens it's no worse than other sets, because its animations wouldn't be significantly longer than the others: at that point Kinetic Melee would need it on CS more than EM.

You mean like the entire Stalker AT?

Just as a note, there's been some more discussion in the "Energy Melee does not need" thread I linked to above for anyone who as only looking at this thread for feedback. Mostly it's been back and forth over people wanting a new mechanic added to the set (I'm against that personally) but if you want to see the full discussion you can check it out there also. Now, I'll address the post I wanted to reply to: Since you're talking about the long animations, I assume you made the character after the nerf: prior to that, Energy Transfer's animation was very quick (faster than your proposed time, even). Going through power by power on your suggestions: Barrage: the power has a 6 second recharge (scale 1.33); a 20% increase in damage would put you at just under scale 1.6 damage (1.596), and if you were following the damage formulas put the recharge at 7.725 seconds. At that point just make it 8 seconds (scale 1.64), which means it's the same as what Bone Smasher currently is, just with a faster animation time (1.33 vs 1.5). Since you also wanted to boost Bone Smasher, this wouldn't create duplicates, but an 8 second recharge tier 1 wouldn't be all that great for Tankers, who have to take it. If this happened, I'd swap the tiers with Energy Punch. At this point it's the same damage and animation time as Chop from Battle Axe, but tier 1 instead of tier 2. Bone Smasher: going from scale 1.64 (current value) to 1.968 would give you a recharge of 10.05 seconds; call it 1.96 and 10 to make the numbers easier. Having that scale damage at that tier is not unheard of, either; Martial Arts does this with Cobra Strike. At this point it's the same damage and animation time as Gash from Battle Axe. Whirling Hands: currently the power is too small of an area for the damage it does; it should be nearly 11' for a scale 1 attack or should be scale 1.1818 at an 8' radius, so the power could be considered bugged since it should have 18% more damage already. I'd just fix it at that point. Stun: A 100% damage increase would still leave this power as garbage for damage; it currently does scale 0.25 damage. For comparison, Brawl does scale 0.36, animates faster, recharges in 10% of the time, and doesn't have an endurance cost. Cottage rule aside rather than have it still a bad power, I'd rather copy Fault if we're making it an AoE, leave the damage alone or get rid of it entirely, and make it an AoE control with the center around the target. I also disagree with swapping the position with Whirling Hands, because I'd rather have the AoE damage power with chance of stun earlier than the AoE stun with almost no damage. Build Up: Why Power Boost? Why not Power Build Up, which doesn't lose the other aspects of the power? Within the set, it would apply to the stun duration so I can see the utility either way, but PBU works better by not removing things that the power already does. Energy Transfer: Which specific 1.8 second animation are you wanting to use? That's the animation time for Stun, but as I said before I dislike that as a punch because it doesn't look like one. It looks like a throw. I'd rather go with any of a number of other animations, not the least of which is the original, 1 second animation. One of the issues with animation changes is that unless something has changed that I'm unaware of, they can reuse existing animations but not make new ones. The self-damage component shouldn't apply when hitting a corpse IMO but the bonus damage is already there because of it: the power does scale 4.56 damage and should, at its recharge, do scale 3.56 and cost more endurance. I do like the idea of AoE splash damage from hitting a corpse, but with the other changes don't agree that it's really needed. Total Focus: The Dominator animation is 2.53 seconds compared to the normal 3.3 second one for everyone else. Using that animation has been suggested a couple of times. See earlier comments about corpse-blasting AoE damage.

The answer is still "it depends;" you haven't explained what the mechanic is, and any mechanic is development time taken away from other features and/or bug fixes. Relative performance between sets is not the end-all-be-all of what I'm looking for. Is the longest animation in my attack chain going to be 1.5 seconds or less, while still watching significant chunks of my opponents hit points disappear and not suffering penalties for needing to switch targets when one dies? Then probably. Will the mechanic force me to build up to dealing that much damage and so only apply to AV class enemies and above? Then no, don't want it, carry on. I hope my previous posts are clear that I'm not anti-gimmick as "no gimmicks ever" as much as anti-gimmick here in terms of "why add extra complexity when a non-gimmick solution will meet my expectations much easier without additional complications or tricks," and that I'd like consistent performance out of the set which some unexplained mythical mechanic purports to but hasn't demonstrated or explained.

Haymaker is standard and unremarkable beyond having an 8 second recharge where many of the newer sets used 3/5/7 instead of 4/8/20; Knockout Blow has a recharge 5 seconds too long for the power it is. I'll grant you that Footstomp is good, mostly for the radius because otherwise Frozen Aura is better, but it wouldn't be nearly as good without the consistent damage boost from Rage. If you're playing SS it's for theme or for Rage. If you were playing Energy Melee it used to be for theme or for Energy Transfer. Now it's just theme. As for stating that the mechanic would make EM the ST king "by a country mile," I feel it's an overpromise, underdeliver sort of statement. I also feel that it's overcomplicating things, and that what I want is a fast, punch-based set with smash/energy types, which uses the harder-hitting base recharges (4/8/(12) vs 3/5/7), and that doesn't sound like a car door slamming (I did play KM to 50 on Infinity but just couldn't do it again here). Reverting the ET changes by itself would boost EM's standing in single target rankings; correcting Whirling Hands to either a larger AoE (a 14 second recharge, scale 1 PBAoE should have a 10.6667' radius) or more damage (at 8' it should do scale 1.1818 damage) would help with the AoE and force the power to follow the design formulas; if you wanted to be nice, updating Total Focus to use the Dominator animation would be another boost to the single target damage, and none of those require code changes for a new mechanic while still providing a boost in performance. Replacing Stun with something not godawful is fine, too, but I'd still probably skip whatever it got replaced with; at least as it is it's an obvious "you don't need this" power.