Revisit the Energy Melee nerfs

[Solarverse]

18 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 though, if they swapped the animation with Stun, I could absolutely be okay with that. My main gripe is the animation itself, not how long the power takes to animate. So with that said, if they gave Stun ET's current animation and gave ET Stun's current animation, I would absolutely be happy with that.

[Solarverse]

1 minute ago, Lazarillo said:

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.

 

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.

See my comment on the above, how would you feel about that? Just curious.

[Lazarillo]

5 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

See my comment on the above, how would you feel about that? Just curious.

It's pretty close to what I'd want, actually.  I honestly think buffing Stun should be in the cards, though; IMO, it's too easy of a skip.  My ideal wold be to give Stun the old ET animation (and maybe bump the mag to 4), ET the current Stun animation, and Total Focus the current ET animation.

 

It speeds the set up a little, and also adds a nearly-isntant "take that one guy out of combat for a few seconds" button.

[Solarverse]

Just now, Lazarillo said:

It's pretty close to what I'd want, actually.  I honestly think buffing Stun should be in the cards, though; IMO, it's too easy of a skip.  My ideal wold be to give Stun the old ET animation (and maybe bump the mag to 4), ET the current Stun animation, and Total Focus the current ET animation.

 

It speeds the set up a little, and also adds a nearly-isntant "take that one guy out of combat for a few seconds" button.

I'm not going to knock your opinion, I agree with it for the most part. I just absolutely hate the animation of ET's current design. That animation just looks....constipated to me, I can't get passed it, lol.

[Lazarillo]

Just now, Solarverse said:

I'm not going to knock your opinion, I agree with it for the most part. I just absolutely hate the animation of ET's current design. That animation just looks....constipated to me, I can't get passed it, lol.

I put a fair amount of time leveling an Energy/Dark Brute through story arcs not too long ago, and it's honestly grown on me over time.  Heck, even the Total Focus animation, which I used to hate, doesn't seem too bad.  But yeah, I will say that if you wanna move the ET animation to Stun just so you can skip the power with that animation...we're gonna disagree pretty hard on what constitutes good game balance.

[Solarverse]

2 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

I put a fair amount of time leveling an Energy/Dark Brute through story arcs not too long ago, and it's honestly grown on me over time.  Heck, even the Total Focus animation, which I used to hate, doesn't seem too bad.  But yeah, I will say that if you wanna move the ET animation to Stun just so you can skip the power with that animation...we're gonna disagree pretty hard on what constitutes good game balance.

It's not the balance really, it's just *that* animation. They can nerf the damage, they cane make the power take longer to animate, that is of little concern to me, it's the animation and the way it looks that just kills it for me. I wouldn't really argue with balance, I leave that to the Devs...I just really hate that particular animation, heh.

[Infinitum]

11 hours ago, Solarverse said:

It's not the balance really, it's just *that* animation. They can nerf the damage, they cane make the power take longer to animate, that is of little concern to me, it's the animation and the way it looks that just kills it for me. I wouldn't really argue with balance, I leave that to the Devs...I just really hate that particular animation, heh.

Yeah, it's because you were used to how it was previous, I'm the same way.

 

On radiation that animation works for it and you don't think about it.

[siolfir]

8 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Yeah, it's because you were used to how it was previous, I'm the same way.

 

On radiation that animation works for it and you don't think about it.

I don't like that animation on radiation either. It works better with powers like Bitter Freeze Ray because you see the ice crystals forming and Devastating Blow because you can see the "radiation" particle effects intensify, but it's still too slow for me. I took it because I wanted to try Rad Melee, and since I have a glass at my desk when I'm playing I usually take a drink while it animates.

[Infinitum]

13 minutes ago, siolfir said:

I don't like that animation on radiation either. It works better with powers like Bitter Freeze Ray because you see the ice crystals forming and Devastating Blow because you can see the "radiation" particle effects intensify, but it's still too slow for me. I took it because I wanted to try Rad Melee, and since I have a glass at my desk when I'm playing I usually take a drink while it animates.

Yeah it's slow, radiation at least has background effects and good ape to go with it.

[Solarverse]

10 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Yeah, it's because you were used to how it was previous, I'm the same way.

 

On radiation that animation works for it and you don't think about it.

Exactly.

[Shred Monkey]

I love everything about energy melee except the performance.   

[MIG]

I just wish some sets had a purer purpose.  For EM, it was once viewed as a great ST-damage set, but due to the prior nerfs it is presently too slow (there are better sets that also offer more AOE and/or better secondary benefits).  

 

If you want to make EM like all other sets (mix of AOE and ST damage), I suggest this change:

Stun = PB AOE Stun with med damage / longer cooldown

ET = Cone with very high damage / longer cooldown

 

If you want to rebuild EM as ST specialist:

Stun = Stun + -Res / longer cooldown (make it useful)

TF = speed current animation by 1 sec

ET = speed current animation by 1.5 secs

(For TF and ET changes above, I was hoping speeding up the existing animation would be easier than reworking the entire animation, or the letdown of borrowing from other sets.  Lastly, the time reductions are ballparks, I'm sure the devs will have a more precise figure, but the point is to make the attacks feel more fluid and useful)

[siolfir]

Well, the good news is that we should see Soon™ what they have in mind.

[Menelruin]

This may sound weird, but I like the idea of Energy Transfer actually having the animation for some of the one-handed BLAST powers.  Like, you're not actually punching, more you're just laying your hand on them and then channeling a ton of destructive energy INTO them that way.

[0th Power]

39 minutes ago, Menelruin said:

This may sound weird, but I like the idea of Energy Transfer actually having the animation for some of the one-handed BLAST powers.  Like, you're not actually punching, more you're just laying your hand on them and then channeling a ton of destructive energy INTO them that way.

it use to be the power thrust animation and it was glorious

[Menelruin]

18 minutes ago, 0th Power said:

it use to be the power thrust animation and it was glorious

I get that, but what I mean is that now it goes long windup, then hit and damage.  I'm imagining no windup, not even a FIST, just hand reaches out, glow builds up, THEN burst of damage.  Like if Gambit decided to blow up a robot in melee.

[ZeeHero]

How to fix energy melee... 

 

Step 1. Reduce whirling hands base cooldown to 8 seconds, increase radius to at least 10 feet, preferably 12-15 like the assault one.

Step 2. Cut the total focus animation length (energy MELEE) in half without changing the damage significantly, do the same for energy transfer.

Possible Step 3: slight buff to a couple lower tier attacks if needed.

[KelvinKole]

I'm sure it's been suggested all over this thread, but as an extremely easy first step couldn't we just give the version of TF that doms received to the rest of energy Melee? Doesn't demand a lot of resources and moves things in the right direction. 

 

Later on, tweak energy transfer. Personally I'd like to see the original animation restored with perhaps a more severe consequence, like flatlining your recovery or reducing you max hit points. I want this set to be the champion of burst damage that it once was, but with a cost.

[ZeeHero]

2 hours ago, KelvinKole said:

I'm sure it's been suggested all over this thread, but as an extremely easy first step couldn't we just give the version of TF that doms received to the rest of energy Melee? Doesn't demand a lot of resources and moves things in the right direction. 

 

Later on, tweak energy transfer. Personally I'd like to see the original animation restored with perhaps a more severe consequence, like flatlining your recovery or reducing you max hit points. I want this set to be the champion of burst damage that it once was, but with a cost.

Just no to anything which reduces your survivability significantly. People want to tank with this set on Tanker/Brute. don't make it an anti tank set.

[Troo]

Almost one year later..

 

[TraumaTrain]

I'd like to see Energy Melee ported to scrappers.

[Noyjitat]

19 minutes ago, TraumaTrain said:

I'd like to see Energy Melee ported to scrappers.

Also the only thing I feel is wrong with energy melee is the cast speed. Like many powers in this game it doesn't make sense to me for any power that takes longer than 2 seconds to actually cause damage that it has roughly the same amount of damage as a quick firing 1 - 2 power or just barely more. That to me seems backwards and with the last two powers taking 3 to nearly 4 seconds to cause damage they really should hit harder and not miss as much as they seem to. But slow activation powers not doing enough damage is many sets on all ats. The easiest change would be to take what dominators have for energy assault and apply that to energy melee. You get stored power and then abilities like total focus activate much quicker.

[Camel]

Wanted to throw in some thoughts since I’ve recently adopted a Fiery Aura/Energy Melee Tank as my main. The goal was to revisit my nostalgia for this specific pairing. I don’t remember when it started, but the beginning years of this game were magical. Everything was new and I was finding my place in the game. What I liked, didn’t like, etc. Powers like Energy Transfer, Total Focus and even Knockout Blow were the epitome of attacks for me and seeing them in PvP and PvE YouTube videos hyped me up (since I didn’t have a character over level 30 at the time, and gaining inf/xp was tedious for my lack of experience). Specifically, there was a video of a Fire/Energy Tank doing PvP in Recluses Victory to the song ‘Dancing for Rain’ by Rise Against. He was PWNING people. It was so satisfying to watch a low damage, high survivability archetype dish out incredible damage. Aside from that, I just loved the set. The sounds of Energy Melee, the crunch. I just loved it. Also a shout out to Hyper AI and his Fire/SS Tank whose videos I loved and spent countless hours PvPing with or against in various zones across the Freedom server.
 

Flash forward to Homecoming, I’m more experienced than ever, we all are. Many changes in the QoL department, recent buffs to Tankers, etc. I can say right now, in its current form, I love my Fire/Energy Tank, with minimal to no support he can Tank the majority of the game and deal some pretty good damage even at +4. I accredit my positive experience with Energy Melee almost entirely to Fiery Aura and also believe Bio Armor and Shield would give me this same result. This is because all 3 of these sets either supply a +dmg buff or add proc damage calculated from the base damage of your attacks. Bio doing both iirc. This is the best synergy outside of stacking stuns that Energy Melee can achieve since Energy Transfer and Total Focus both have a large base damage.

 

That being said, I would love for Energy Melee to be given a look at and have several suggestions, all varying in the amount of effort and time they would take. So let’s start with the easiest of my three and go from there.

 

1. Change the animation of Energy Transfer back to the original with no other balancing of the set. That’s it.

 

2. Change the animation of Energy Transfer to the original AND also keep the current animation. Balance both of these powers to be unique and let the player decide which version of Energy Transfer they want. An example would be making the quick animating Energy Transfer keep the current damage scaling in place, but make the slower animating Energy Transfer hit slightly harder at a reduced HP cost. This is a basic example.

 

3. Take a look at Energy Melee as a whole and change the set in a way that keeps to its core but also defines the set and gives it new life. This has sort of already happened with Dominators and the changes to Energy Assault and would be a good starting point. Someone mentioned increasing the radius and target cap for Whirling Hands, Tankers got this naturally for almost all of their AoE and it really helped changed the feel of Energy Melee and was also a start in the right direction. 
 

In summary, I’ll always find some time to play Energy Melee. It’s like my in game childhood and I can’t entirely abandon it. So I’m happy either way and so grateful for the teams efforts. But the numbers don’t lie, the community is in agreement and maybe it’s time to give a little homage to Energy Melee and the humble beginnings of this game. 

 

 

Edited May 13, 2020 by Camel

[Deathvirus]

Just remove the -self damage from ET already and go from there.  Don't reduce the damage. There are sets that already outpace it. 

 

OR

 

keep the self damage aspect but revert the animation to its original form

 

 

Edited May 17, 2020 by Deathvirus

[ZeeHero]

On 5/14/2020 at 7:40 PM, Deathvirus said:

Just remove the -self damage from ET already and go from there.  Don't reduce the damage. There are sets that already outpace it. 

you mean every other melee set? yep.