Bopper

That means it now takes PBAoE sets (like Obliteration) instead of Target AoE sets (like Ragnorak)

That label is pulled from a category. Changing the name of the category changes it for all powers within the category.

It's not. The Temporary Powers that you reference is equivalent to a Powerset Name. For example, you might look up the power Rend Armor, and it will show you the text Titan Weapons because that is the name of the powerset the power belongs in. In this case, the power belongs to the "powerset" called Temporary Powers. You can't change that text because it is shared by every other power that also belongs to the "powerset" called Temporary Powers. If you changed the text of Titan Weapons for Rend Armor, it would also change the text for Crushing Blow as they share the same powerset.

Talking with @Troo, he gave me a good challenge for comparing the performance of Original E.M. (pre-i12) and New E.M. (i27). We wanted to see how much damage could be done within a Build Up window with an SO only build using Hasten. This is intended to address how well the new EM plays for casual low level builds in an effort to see how it compares to the once great burst of original EM. This analysis will assume the slotted recharge is 66.6% (2 SOs) and will assume Hasten will be active. I will also ignore crits and proc slotting. I do this because procs of yester-year are nothing like how they're used now and also, Stalkers were the only AT that could crit with old EM but fast Assassin's Strike render a comparison between the two irrelevant... i12 can't compete with that. So for argument's sake, we'll assume this is a Brute, but I'm going to use scaled damage for the analysis. Original E.M. chain: Build Up > ET > BS > TF > BS > EP > ET This chain actually needs +152.53% recharge slotted into Energy Transfer to make this gapless. However, with a recharge of 136.6%, the gap created between EP > ET is 0.533s. That is ok, as it will still fit the 2nd ET within the 10s window. For academic purposes, I will show the average DPA of the chain in the bottom row to highlight the burst over time but to also allow for a comparison to what the DPA would be without the gap. In total, the chain (w/ gap) takes 10.83s to complete and does 16.96 scaled damage, which averages 1.5662 scaled DPA. If there was no gap, the chain would complete in 10.296s and average 1.6472 scaled DPA. For the New E.M., I looked at a few chains. I'll share each of them and discuss them individually. New E.M. chain #1: ET(slow) > TF > EP > BS > ET (fast) This chain actually finishes before the 10s window is finished, so you can actually fit one more attack in with your choosing (my next 2 chains will show this). The scaled DPA of the chain is 1.6517 which is better than the Original E.M. chain, even if it was gapless. I highlight that mostly for the sake of showing some of the burst capability. However, notice the DPA over time, this chain is far more steady than Original E.M.'s. The Original E.M. is incredibly front loaded with its burst damage while the new E.M. starts good, then finishes strong with its fast ET finisher. One nice thing, this chain only requires 89.4% recharge in Energy Transfer to make this gapless. You can do that with just slotting (3 SOs) and not take Hasten. New E.M. chain #2: ET(slow) > TF > EP > BS > ET (fast) > EP This is just a continuation of the previous chain, where I throw in Energy Punch at the tail end of the Build Up window. I wanted to show this simply to compare the 1.596 scaled DPA is slightly better than the Original E.M. chain (w/ gap), however it does less total damage (16.64 vs. 16.96) and does less DPA if the Original E.M. did not have a gap. New E.M. chain #3: ET(slow) > BS > TF > EP > BS > ET (fast) If this chain looks familiar, it's because it's basically the same chain as the Original E.M. You fit 2 ETs, 2 BS, 1 EP and 1 TF into a single Build Up window. The positives of this chain: it does more damage than the Original E.M. chain (17.12 versus 16.96, thanks to the EP damage buff). It has a higher DPA than the original E.M. when the gap exists and it only requires +108.99% recharge slotted into Bone Smasher to achieve a gapless chain. Conclusion: The New Energy Melee is capable of doing the same Build Up window performance as Original Energy Melee for casual low-end builds. Although new EM will use a slow Energy Transfer in its chain, the cast time shavings of Total Focus and Bone Smasher as well as the damage buff to Energy Punch helps close the gap of the slower cast time. Original Energy Melee still benefits from the fact it can always open with a fast E.T., but aside from one-shotting, stringing multiple attacks together will eventually even out the performance between the two generations of Energy Melee. Quoting previous work so it's easier to find later.

I'll PM you to work out the details

I'm assuming you're replying to me given the recharges you quoted. Did you want me to analyze the DPA of attack chains for slotting only 33.3% recharge? I can do that and compare it to old EM, but can you provide me an old EM chain using only 33.3% recharge? Honestly, pick any recharge limitation you want and I'll use it. I just need a chain, if you have one. Or I'll make one up using the limits you set.

I'm available to work on this. Do you have an old EM rotation you would like me to analyze for non-uber builds?

Beta Bug Report. Then the devs can determine whether or not it is a bug and go from there. It sounds like it's not a bug and won't change, but for stuff like that, Bug Report wouldve been fine to report it in.

You sort of can. You could grab a mission where you know the Contact is in the zone you want to go. Then teleport to contact and drop the mission. Hack? Yes. But hacking can be fun

Thanks, I won't be home in awhile anyways. Give me specific details and I'll plug in your numbers into your old EM chain and I'll do your same numbers in a new EM chain.

Give me any parameters you want and I'll analyze it. Would you like me to analyze builds assuming 3 SOs (100% base + 95% enhanced recharge) and no global recharge? Give me a chain from old EM and I'll provide a comparison with what can be done using new EM using low end builds.

I was working out some numbers showing the improvement in ST DPS of new EM compared with old EM (pre-I12, not the current EM). These are simple chains, no critical hits, no procs, just raw damage. I looked at 3 chains for old EM: TF/BS/ET/EP/BS, TF/EP/ET/BS/EP, and TF/BS/ET/gap/BS (assumed 500% recharge to minimize the gap). I chose these chains as they were the ones folks seemed to have mentioned either in this thread or via PMs. If anyone has an old EM chain that they used that can outperform these, let me know and I'll analyze it. For the new EM, I picked a fairly basic chain. It's high-end as you need a lot of recharge (but so did the old EM chains I analyzed) but it's not complicated. ET(slow)/TF/ET(fast)/EP/BS. I assume no crits, so for argument's sake, I will never get a 2nd fast ET. But if I did gain the 2nd fast ET the DPA of the chain can only get better. In my analysis I highlight the power that requires the most recharge for making the chain gapless (or minimal gap). At the bottom I compare New EM to each of the Old EM Chains. The damage is shown in scaled form, and the DPA is calculated as the total damage of the chain divided by the total arcanatime of the chain. The top performing rotation of old EM was Chain 2, which requires ~399% recharge in Total Focus. It had a scaled DPA of 1.39, wheras the new EM requires the same ~399% recharge in Energy Transfer and achieved a scaled DPA of 1.65, which is a +18.65% improvement over Chain 2. This analysis is done to show the impact (benefits) of having your best power (Energy Transfer) using only a 10s recharge. This benefit combined with having a fast version half the time, cast time shavings of Total Focus and Bone Smasher, as well as a damage buff to Energy Punch has created a superior version to whatever old EM used to produce. Again, I will caveat that last statement with any other old EM rotations that folks might remember that they think is better. Perhaps a rotation that involved no Total Focus, or something with Buildup. Throw it at me, and I'll compare it to what new EM can do.

It depends, actually. Now that we have the Activation Effect Group, you don't need to include yourself as a target. That is why Dynamo is set to 10, it used AEG. I dont know if Cauterize uses AEG.

I dont want it. The set is near perfect. I'm ready to play it on live as is.

I was referring only to the critical hit effects. The power can do more damage via Contamination but the critical hit won't do more damage. Much like Crushing Uppercut can do more damage with combos, but the critical hit won't do more damage. Here is a breakdown of each of these crits. Devastating Blow Critical Effects (things that have a chance roll when landing a hit) 3.08 scale Energy Damage Whereas Total Focus now gets these Critical Effects 1.00 scale Energy Damage 1 Energy Focus Token And Energy Transfer gets: 1.2768 scale Energy Damage does not take 10% base HP amount of Special Damage Heals 10% base HP So you're right, TF and ET won't get more damage added unless you remove the additional critical effect benefits.

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Patch_Notes https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Patch_Notes/2004-05-11

In that post I did say to take the equal weighting with a grain of salt. I also mentioned my personal preference of Dark because it emphasizes debuffs I prioritize more (damage, resistance, to-hit). If you removed the defense debuff analysis, it still ranks 2nd (behind dark which does no defense debuffing). Also, Storm and Cold take a huge hit, but I dont think anyone thinks of those are poor debuff sets. Again, you can skip the power. Thats fine. Its not for everybody and its already a bloated set of good powers, so having something to skip might be a good thing for you.

In that example, I don't believe Devastating Blow does anything other than damage. Total Focus does an extra Energy Focus grant and Energy Transfer does a heal.

If I recall correctly, I think Power Boost and the various dominator Power Ups were the ones that don't currently (on HC live) have their flag set to IgnoreStrength, but now should for Issue 27.

I would need to look into it, but I think that is phrased wrong. Clarion didn't get changed, it was powers like Power Boost that didn't have their flags set to ignore Strength that caused powers like Clarion (or other +Special powers) can't buff Power Boost. Quick example of what I mean. Defender Power Boost does a 98.34% strength buff. Clarion does an 80% strength buff. When combined, you should get a total strength buff of 98.34+80= +178.34%. However, because Power Boost didn't have the ignore strength flag set, if you cast Clarion then Power Boost you wound up with a strength buff of: 80% + 98.34% + 80%*98.34% = +257.012% So that should have been the fix. I think the patch notes probably should get updated to reflect that before this is released on live. @Jimmy and @Captain Powerhouse, can you guys check to see if this is correct and if so can we get the notes updated?

Can you provide your evidence? Also what AT are you looking at? Do you have combat logs that show the damage is less? Thanks, I'll have someone test it out.

@Jimmy @Captain Powerhouse I am not familiar with the animation side of things, but I took the clues provided in this thread and I think I might have tracked down the issue. I noticed that Scrappers were given the same animation fx as Brutes "BRUTEMELEE_ENERGYMELEE_TOTALFOCUS.PFX" I compared the file with the Tanker and Stalker version and I noticed a discrepancy. Tanker (Stalker is the same): Brute/Scrapper You'll notice the pch_hit_fx is missing on the Brute/Scrapper, which should probably be "POWERS/POWERPUNCH/POWERPUNCHHIT.FX", and instead that .FX shows up in the pch_death_fx field (which is empty on the tanker/stalker version). Anyways, I hope that helps.

Why are you continually calling them rentals? They are one time purchases.

I always wondered that. I assumed the snipe range buff, but not really sure.

It already is being done on live. Stalker Hemorrhage does multiple critical hit dots from Hide (it's bugged, and Issue 27 is turning these crit dots into upfront damage, sadly, but it currently is in the game)