Revisit the Energy Melee nerfs

[Galaxy Brain]

38 minutes ago, Rejolt said:

Thunderstrike like, low damage aoe kd around the target? 

Something like that, even if it's just damage. Targeted enemy takes 100% of the ET damage and then up to X targets in an ~8ft radius take even like 10% of that

[Solarverse]

6 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Something like that, even if it's just damage. Targeted enemy takes 100% of the ET damage and then up to X targets in an ~8ft radius take even like 10% of that

Look, I just want the old animation back...what they do with the damage of that power I honestly don't care. Just please, for the love of peace on Earth, let me have back the old animation. I'm even going to say pretty please.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Solarverse

[Infinitum]

9 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Look, I just want the old animation back...what they do with the damage of that power I honestly don't care. Just please, for the love of peace on Earth, let me have back the old animation. I'm even going to say pretty please.

Yeah it was more the new animation that broke the feel of the set than what it actually did in terms of damage and activation.

[Infinitum]

10 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Look, I just want the old animation back...what they do with the damage of that power I honestly don't care. Just please, for the love of peace on Earth, let me have back the old animation. I'm even going to say pretty please.

For that matter they could do something along the lines of crushing uppercut on combo 3 in terms of damage and have the old animation or something like sweeping cross.

 

Granted the old ET was probably too OP in several ways, but changing it broke the set from a feel perspective.

 

what we have now isn't very punchy feeling whereas before it was.

 

I like street justice a lot, basically because it brings back the feel of the old EM, and it's not as strong as EM was even by a long shot.

Edited November 15, 2019 by Infinitum

[Saiyajinzoningen]

Help us GM-wan you're our only hope!

[Troo]

If I didn't post to this thread already. *holdtorch*

 

Currently the Tier 8 & Tier 9 are throwaways for anything but when solo. In a team setting, they simply waste endurance as the targets are almost always defeated by the time these hit.

 

As I have said, maybe at one point Energy Transfer was overpowered on some archetypes. I'm not sure it was overpowered on tanks.

 

Maybe give the old ET just to tanks. No brutes, no stalkers. I would take it and say thank you.

-Troo

[KelvinKole]

I like to keep things simple. I've never really played this set extensively, but I did have an em/Ea Brute long before the nerf, and remember being terrorized by stalkers in PvP before the nerf. Both seized to exist after the nerf, so that feels like overkill. 

 

My suggestion would be very simple: revert ET back to the old animation, but give it a much longer cool down, something like a Blaster's nuke. It would have very high DPA, but a minimal contribution to DPS. Usable roughly once per mob to completely overpower a single target. That seems fair for a set that has poor AoE, without giving Energy Melee a huge advantage in sustained damage. 

[Troo]

But if the set doesn't do well at AoE it should at least be the same or slightly better at single target.. shouldn't it?

[Galaxy Brain]

Tbh, the way the game is set up I don't understand the idea for having an ST specialist...?

 

Most attack sets when used by dps ATs have great ST rotations as is. There are of course specialists like Stalkers (across the board) and sets elsewhere with heavy ST hitters in the mix that dont heavily lose out on AoE in return. Of course the opposite is true with sets that have more AoE than ST (spines) but even they arent shabby at ST.

 

When it comes to ST damage in a meta sense, it is great for the huge targets in the game like AVs and such... but then that's a niche part of the game as is and they get wrecked by debuffs more than dps.

 

This is all my personal opinion but I feel that a set with by design poor AoE and nothing to make up for it (like Dark Melees amazing secondary effects and drains) is destined to be kinda meh 😞

 

 

[KelvinKole]

There are things outside of just Aoe and single target damage though. People may not assign as much value to it as they do the orange numbers, but energy Melee can also stack stuns better than any (probably) other set. That, combined with superior burst damage, would be reason for it to start making an appearance again...i think. 

 

Although yes, the game is very much AoE focused. Something I'd like to see reduced across the board, honestly. 

Edited December 6, 2019 by KelvinKole

[Galaxy Brain]

As long as you fight more than one target at a time, it will always have an AoE lean.

 

If AoE across the board is nerfed, or you can rotate through ST attacks fast and efficiently enough to match an AoE power then they would be on more equal footing.

 

If there were cases of say, you have to take out individual targets first (classic example being one enemy being invincible while another is actively buffing them) then ST would matter a lot more as well. Unfortunately,  the game as is throws tons of targets at a time at you which leans to AoE value. 

[Saiyajinzoningen]

personally if they just switch Stuns animation and cast time with Energy transfer i think id be happy a small change for a huge improvement.

[Troo]

On 12/6/2019 at 6:20 AM, Galaxy Brain said:

Tbh, the way the game is set up I don't understand the idea for having an ST specialist...?

Apologies I didn't respond sooner.

 

A single target specialist can be effective verse multiple targets. While engaging large groups stun, placate and fear (or similar) can temporarily remove 3, 4, 5 targets and their incoming attacks pretty quickly while disposing of the rest of the group. Basically divide and conquer.

 

I find this more 'fun' than spamming AoEs on say my ss/fire brute.

 

Typically boss first then the rest.

 

[Leogunner]

9 hours ago, Troo said:

Apologies I didn't respond sooner.

 

A single target specialist can be effective verse multiple targets. While engaging large groups stun, placate and fear (or similar) can temporarily remove 3, 4, 5 targets and their incoming attacks pretty quickly while disposing of the rest of the group. Basically divide and conquer.

 

I find this more 'fun' than spamming AoEs on say my ss/fire brute.

 

Agreed. But I bet someone would respond with "if you kill them all faster... " or "with soft caps def, the need for this..." 

 

But there's one reason I just love Stalker beyond them being a former underdog and it is the gameplay of designating targeting priorities. Having to think and plan out which to dispose of first, what to placate /mez next, how your powers could affect this order (don't use AoE powers after placate if you want to keep the target off you, but do use them if you want the AoE crit) etc etc. 

[Saiyajinzoningen]

Im glad this thread is resurrected. I hope a Dev or GM makes a comment like they did with super strengths rage mechanic

[Menelruin]

Yeah, given that they've done their tanker, brute, and MM fixes, I'd love if this were next on the to-do list.

[Solarverse]

Riiiiise from the grave!


 

[ABlueThingy]

So EM is to be fast, effective, and powerful.  The ST, focus down, boss killer king.  And right now it's... not.  

 

I'd argue to go ahead and give ET back it's original animation. That would push it up to at least having SOME kind of viability.  I'm still pretty sure that it wouldn't be stand-out though.  Not compared to the monsters we have right now*COUGH*Titanweapon*COUGH*

 

Now to push it further into it's niche of ST king, you could just... pile on more damage.  Just flatly boost the damage. You'd have to add a frankly absurd amount of damage to whirling hands to make it beat out any other good AoE set.  I don't see it stepping on toes there.  And ST damage is only gonna be so useful, considering how large groups end up being.  ...But that's... I dunno... boring?  I'd rather boost it's damage in a way that helps boost the meta-narritive of the set.  The flavor.

 

In comics and movies and anime and what not "Energy Melee" is pretty common. One of the more common traits is being able to convert your health into fuel for the attack.  That's what ET is all about.  So, I'd lean into it a bit more.

 

I'd argue that the BU power is the bit that needs to be changed.  Switch it to work like the "Burst of Speed" power from Blasters secondary.  You hit it once and it will pop back up several times before going on a longer cool down.  Every time you do it bites out a chunk of health and slaps a proc on all your EM powers to deal an additional hit of energy damage.  Mash it several times and it gives you a large boost but eats a lot of health.  Maybe it does -maxHP or -regen too.

 

But then all your attacks are super charged for the duration.  Doesn't give you much more AoE damage, it's still whirling hands.  And because it's not a flat +dmg it bypasses the damage cap limits.  If this new EM were to be at the cap from... whatever, a Kin/ lets say.  Normally that is it.  But an EM could burn their health and push over the top.  I'd make the recharge longer then BU but also have it last longer on account of how risky it is to use in combat.

 

Helps mechanically and thematically, I think.  Expands upon it's existing roles and unique traits and has enough numbers that I've left undefined that you could tweak it until it was in a nice little sweet spot.

[Solarverse]

13 hours ago, ABlueThingy said:

  I'm still pretty sure that it wouldn't be stand-out though.  Not compared to the monsters we have right now*COUGH*Titanweapon*COUGH*

Or Psi Weaponry.

13 hours ago, ABlueThingy said:

Now to push it further into it's niche of ST king, you could just... pile on more damage.  Just flatly boost the damage.

IMO the set does not need more damage. God knows the last thing this game needs is more damage.  😄

13 hours ago, ABlueThingy said:

You'd have to add a frankly absurd amount of damage to whirling hands to make it beat out any other good AoE set.  I don't see it stepping on toes there.  And ST damage is only gonna be so useful, considering how large groups end up being. 

I agree. Sacrificing AoE damage for good ST damage has always made the set worth it. What killed the set for me was the new animation that took from the set's loss of AoE DPS output trade-in for ST DPS with ET. IMO the change to ET destroyed the point of the set. Not to mention, that animation is hideous. ET used to have an awesome in your face animation that chained well with Total Focus. Now...not so much.

 

[siolfir]

Since it's already necro'd, here's something that is somewhat relevant:

22 hours ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Titan Weapons will see significant adjustments in Page 6. It was going to happen on Page 5 but we want those changes to come at the same time as the update for Energy Melee and another round of Dark Melee buffs.

 

Source:

 

So there's a schedule for the update, which will happen at the same time as a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[Solarverse]

23 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Since it's already necro'd, here's something that is somewhat relevant:

 

Source:

Awwww, damn! How in the hell did I miss that! You rock, my man! Thank you!

23 minutes ago, siolfir said:

So there's a schedule for the update, which will happen at the same time as a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Yup yup, thank you very much.  🙂

[Vanden]

4 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Not to mention, that animation is hideous. ET used to have an awesome in your face animation that chained well with Total Focus. Now...not so much.

I like the current animation. It's visually consistent with the amount of damage it does. It never made sense to me that the strongest melee attack in the game had the exact same animation, FX and all, as one of the weakest (Power Thrust).

[Solarverse]

14 minutes ago, Vanden said:

I like the current animation. It's visually consistent with the amount of damage it does. It never made sense to me that the strongest melee attack in the game had the exact same animation, FX and all, as one of the weakest (Power Thrust).

You just don't like me anymore!  😠

[Vanden]

2 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

You just don't like me anymore!  😠

😨

[Lazarillo]

3 hours ago, siolfir said:

So there's a schedule for the update, which will happen at the same time as a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Just remember, planning to test a buff doesn't mean they'll actually do a buff.  Consider Rage.  They buffed it, but it wasn't OP enough for people, so it got pulled.  Expect similar to happen to EM when the "buffs" don't involve using the old 1-second ET animation while also doubling the damage on it.

 

16 minutes ago, Vanden said:

I like the current animation. It's visually consistent with the amount of damage it does. It never made sense to me that the strongest melee attack in the game had the exact same animation, FX and all, as one of the weakest (Power Thrust).

Honestly, ET's current animation doesn't look like a "transfer" at all to me, though.  More like a "Total Focus".

The idea of "Energy Transfer" looking deceptively subtle for its extreme power sorta fits, to me.