Bopper

Energy Focus is not intended to be a combo mechanic that defines the set. Otherwise you'd have a combo builder available earlier on in the set. The Energy Focus mechanic should be treated as a graduation or maturation of your power. As you get stronger (gain in level) you can unlock additional capability in some of your powers. As we know, you could remove the EF entirely and the set will play well for what it's intended to do (ST damage, not so much AoE). Adding EF is icing that makes your powers hit even higher levels of performance when you reach ...well, higher levels. So think of it more as an unlocking feature instead of a combo mechanic. What you do with that unlocked potential is up to the user, but all the choices are just icing, not set defining.

It shouldn't. You would need to land a hit to land a crit. You would get 1 EF from the automatic grant by TF, but the automatic crit from hide is wasted if you miss.

I feel like I looked it up a day or two ago,, which means I probably forgot it all now.. However, if my short term memory is correct, the 30s duration is how the power works on Live. However the pseudopet that is currently on Beta is a 1.25s duration (same 1s tick interval on the pet). So you no longer have to worry about the silly 30s duration after being in the patch for only 1s situation any longer.

For what its worth, I agree with your stance. Ill live with the choice either way (Barrage or Bone Smasher), but I preferred it in BS because I was already going to take BS, why wouldn't I? I was already going to use BS, why wouldn't I? So I loved having the option to buff up a power when the time came for it. Sure, I will use EF on a fast ET 95% of the time. But there absolutely would be times where I would consider sprinkling in BS+EF for that guaranteed stun and/or regeneration debuff. And I get it...BS as a spender interrupts the optimal attack chain for those that get a 2nd EF from a crit. But I think that should be the price to pay if you're looking to maximize the 2nd EF for a power you already spent EF on. Honestly, it's not that much of downgrade for someone to use TF(crit) > ET > EP > Zapp > ET, as opposed to TF(crit) > ET > EP > BS > ET. It is much more of a downgrade in having to take a power I dont want (Barrage), having to slot up a power that is weak (Barrage), and to use a power that is weak (Barrage) just to cover the 5% moments when I would want to use its EF spender effect. Honestly, I think Build 1 was a preferred version. Moving the Spender to Barrage feels like everything I used to hate about the old Tanker inherent, where you feel compelled to invest in and use a power that you don't want to. The debuff is too good to say no, but it comes at the cost of your build. Anyways, that's my opinion. Oh, but I do like the Power Crash change for Stalkers in Build 2. The 18s version was too overpowered for an AT and powerset that are both meant to be weak in AoE. That baby was possibly the 3rd strongest AoE power in the game for Stalkers.

It does hold a LT for the first Scale 6 duration as the 2 effects stack, making it a Mag 3. The final Scale 4 duration will only be Mag 2. The non-stacking is from same power and same caster. Others using the same power can stack with yours.

Test out Energy Melee on Brainstorm (Beta). You'll weep tears of joy at the orange numbers.

We tested it. No self damage. I think that got changed around the time Performance Shifter stopped giving your enemies endurance. For what its worth, we also couldn't get the stun proc to stun us either.

The patch notes seemed to have been worded ambiguously. However, it sounds like Glue Arrow might be turned into a Location AoE afterall. So we'll see what happens.

Your thoughts were my initial fears. But testing showed everything worked as intended.

The reason for the proc change was due to mechanics with auto-hit powers and procs. This mechanic is why Taunt auras were not allowed to slot Taunt enhancement sets, as enemies who could otherwise have 9999% defense would still be hit reliably by a proc. The reason why it was updated actually had to do with changes made originally in this issue. Total Focus and Titan Weapons now grant their special mechanics (Energy Focus and Momentum) automatically. In early versions of those powers, it was meched by having the powers be auto-hit to grant the special mechanic, then have the power redirected to the actual attack so a hit-check can be done. This functionality revealed a major bug as you could miss with the attack, yet still hit the target with your procs. That was bad. So the auto-hit made it necessary for procs to carry their own hit rolls as a workaround for the auto-hit mechanics. I tested this, however I am blanking on the exact results of the test, but long story short it did what is was supposed to do, which made average proc performance in auto-hit powers have the same statistical performance as powers without auto-hit. I can tell you that your regular powers will see ZERO change to their proc performance as I tested it to exhaustion. This change only impacted the new Total Focus and Titan Weapons, and again, I tested that to exhaustion too and the average performance matched what was expected. Now, here is a big (BIG!) however. The auto-hit mechanic for those powers is no longer used as nee capabilities were developed that did not require redirects to non-auto-hit powers (Activation Effect Groups). With this new capability, some big questions need to be asked: 1) Do we still need the hit-check functionality in procs? That depends on what we want to do with Taunt Auras. It's possible we could remove Taunt enhancements sets from Taunt auras and go back to how we are playing now. The devs would have to chime in to tell us what they think, because I dont really know. 2) Does the same auto-hit mechanic problem still exist with the incorporation of the new Activation Effect Group (the new capability added to allow auto-hit effects in powers that otherwise use hit-checks). This hasn't been tested...at least not much. So it has yet to be seen if old procs would only trigger from the hit-roll effects and bypass the Activation Effect Group's auto-hit nature. Anyways, I need coffee, I hope that helps...if not, blame the lack of coffee.

That's exactly right. All guaranteed AoE stuns have a 90s recharge for Blasters.

I haven't looked at all the changes, but I know Stalker Hemo got fixed and it works the same way as Scrapper Hemo. They both crit with 2.6 scale up front damage (no more crit DoTs) Also, Scrapper Shred now does Crits. So that bug got fixed too.

It can be a melee controller, but I believe everyone should design and play their way. The suggestion wasn't to remove Barrage doing -regen, -special, +stun either. You can always take the power at level 2. Granted, you will be waiting for its special effects until Total Focus is unlocked

You might be right on that.

EP is currently on par with BS in terms of damage (BS slightly stronger in DPA, but the difference isn't so much that if you were forced to take EP and not take BS, you wouldn't feel like you're hindered. Whereas if you are forced to take Barrage and you have no intentions to use it as a spender, you will feel hindered. It's not a demand by any means. If I made a tank and am forced to take Barrage, so be it. I'll pick one of the strong DPA attacks and live without the other. But having a choice in pursuing one route over the other would be nice. But my opinion is just my own. If tank players prefer having Barrage as their T1 and have no interest in Energy Punch, then I definitely don't want to take that away from them

1 is not a bug, it has always been a Target AoE. That is the designation that is given when a pseudopet is summoned at the location of a target. Glue arrow does have a bug though, it is still doing the TAoE effect along with the patch effect, causing an unintended double-stack of debuffs.

One thing I've brought up in the past for other reasons, but I'd like to offer up again now that Barrage is an EF spender. Can Energy Punch be moved to the T1 for Tankers? This will allow players to not be forced into taking an EF Release power if they so choose. Most builds will struggle to be able to fit all three of Energy Punch, Barrage, and Bonesmasher. Allowing EP to be the T1, players who are stuck choosing 2 of the 3 can choose between a DPS route (BS) or a control/debuff route (Barrage). The current set up takes that decision away, as they are only left with the choice of taking two similar DPA attacks. EP might be chosen for easier filler, but BS might be chosen for some extra control and crunchy hits, but no matter the choice the result will be similar damage performance. Aside from that, I have one more request. Can Power Crash get a slight buff for non-stalker ATs? Currently it is set to a 9s recharge, I would like that increased to 10s with the damage and endurance adjusting accordingly. This PC request is not a hill I would die on, as I love the set for where it currently is, but I wanted to put my thoughts on record for consideration.

I see what you're saying, but I think it would be a hard sell to be exactly what Stun used to be as Barrage and BS do not have the 20s recharge Stun used to have (though I can see the argument of TF being tied to the effect with its own 20s recharge), nor its 10.2 endurance cost nor its 1.8s cast time. I think we have to accept the compromise of Scale 8 being a fair value even as an EF spender. You did get the magnitude increased to 3 for Barrage which was good and appreciated, but stretching the scale out to 10 feels like a lot for an effect that was not originally in the design plans (only the Regen debuff and -Special was included).

You're right, it must have been a change that wasn't on the previous set of power info I had. Before, they used a Global Chance Mod to boost the chance for a buff (they still use it actually, but it's not doing anything now). Looking at it now, it is a 10% chance for a Mag 2 Scale 6 stun when there is no Energy Focus. It becomes a Mag 3 Scale 8 stun when there is Energy Focus (which is the same as it was on Bone Smasher)

Scale 6, the same scale Barrage normally has. The only difference is instead of a 10% chance to stun, releasing energy will now grant you 100% chance to stun, but it's still the same stun Barrage currently performs. Also, Bone Smasher was the same way, it executed the same stun it always had, not the old Stun. In Bone Smasher, I believe it was Scale 8

"So it does not hurt you, and ALSO should heal you according to the text". Correct, that is what it does when you get a successful critical hit. It's also what I said in my previous post. If it helps, perhaps you should look up the details for all of Energy Transfer's effects (or other powers that you might have questions on). Go to https://coh.tips/powers/beta/, or go directly to the part that talks about Energy Transfer at https://coh.tips/powers/beta/redirects/energy-melee/,

-Heal (technically self damage) has ALWAYS been a part of ET. If anything, it actually got buffed in Issue 27 because before it used Melee Damage modifier tables for self damage, now it uses Melee Heal Self modifier tables. That might hurt Brutes more, actually, but this is a buff to the other ATs. Since this is proliferated to Scrappers we don't have anything to compare it to, so let me explain how it works currently for Stalkers (which is how it would have worked for Scrappers if we proliferated without changes). The self damage would have been ~50% stronger, and there would be no crit heal. Currently, the crit only stops the damage from happening, not heal you back the life you would have lost. So in this case...instead of taking damage in the form of ~15% of your base health 90% of the time, you are taking damage in the form of 10% of your base health 90% of the time and healing 10% of your base health 10% of the time (assuming you have no buffs to your chance to crit, which...you will). So whatever feelings you are at odds with, trust me...it would be much worse if we go back to the way things work currently on Live. It is 100% regeneration debuff, and that will not go to Energy Transfer. Fast Energy Transfer is all the Energy Focus buff it will get, and honestly, it's more than enough.

Try TF > BS > EP > ET > BS > EP > Repeat BS will require +256% recharge Your chain with EP at 4s would need +237% recharge That's not much of a difference, and you wouldn't neuter your damage. And if you can't reach that level of recharge, leave the 0.13s gap and enjoy the extra damage.

I would MUCH prefer Energy Punch remain at 5s recharge. If EM is going to be a top ST melee damage set, it will need the top damage attacks. Making EP average again will not help in that. The only time EP is difficult to use as a filler attack is when it is being used to fill every other attack in a chain, which isn't needed in this set givin that you have Bone Smasher and Energy Transfer each with high uptimes, and you have AoEs that are slow enough where EP will recharge well enough in time.

It's a good thing to ask about. I don't know if that qualifies as a suggestion or a bug report. I suppose you can write it up as a bug report and if it's ignored because it's working as intended, you'll atleast have an answer.