Revisit the Energy Melee nerfs

[Rylas]

Thats why in part I suggested Stalker with Radiation - single target boss killer.  You can combine with something like Invuln for a suprisingly 'tanky' stalker. 

 

Stalkers just don't appeal to my play style. But good to know EM is treated as the red-headed step child over there, too. :(

[SwitchFade]

Just to liven things up...

 

NERF REGEN!

 

Also, ene is sad. Sad, sad panda. But there are good ideas here. We'll wait and see what the devs think.

[GritIron]

Ah, the memories when EM was good and ET was the power to get. 

 

I had to reroll Grit from Energy to Kinetic to make him feel better but just doesnt feel right.

[Kimuji]

So, after a look at Angelhood's Brute's DPA comparison I made a few calculations to what it would be like to undo some of EM's nerfs.

 

If you look at the damage column everything looks pretty normal. But once we factor in the animation times EM falls appart. The DPA (damage per activation time) is pretty grim.

 

I'd like to keep EM's original animations but to do so Total Focus requires a buff in order to remain a relevant power. So let's bump it to Energy Transfer level.

 

Current Total Focus: 148.5 / 3.432 = 43.269 DPA

Tweaked Total Focus: 190.2 / 3.432 = 55.361 DPA

 

That's a bit better, we're just slightly below Knockout Blow (without rage) now.

 

 

Now let's have a look at Energy Transfer.

 

Current Energy Transfer: 190.2 / 2.904 = 65.496 DPA

Yeah same DPA as Knockout Blow without Rage but we're paying with our own HPs to acheive that. This is not how it should work.

 

Let's give ET its pre-nerf animation back.

 

190.2 / 1.188 = 160.101 DPA

 

Yeah Energy Transfer used sting quite a bit. And when you compare with its current DPA you can see that the nerf went completely over the top.

 

With these two tweaks EM would be back among the best single target attack sets.

 

Some may think that 160 DPA is just too much. But it's what it used to be pre-nerfs and when there weren't many other very strong sets around (yes Titan Weapons I'm looking at you). The game has changed since then. Energy Transfer drains your own HPs, around 156 at lvl 50. And Energy Melee's AoE capabilities are among the worst. So honestly it doesn't bother me, and that's kind of the point EM's signature is meh/bad AoE and kickass single target.

 

 

Now if even by CoX's new standards the majority thinks that the old Energy Transfer is still too strong I have a middle road suggestion. Casts times are tied to animations so we have to find something that is not too quick, not too slow and that doesn't look bad. And to me Street Justice's Sweeping Cross looks like the best candidate. Here's what it looks like when we look at the DPA:

 

190.2 / 1.848‬ = 102.922 DPA

 

That's decent. However it's still miles away from the old Energy Transfer, so I don't really see why we should still pay with our own HPs to get these numbers.

 

 

So that's it, here are my suggestions:

- Total Focus keeps its animation and gets its damage bumped to Energy Transfer level.

- Energy Transfer gets its old animation back /or/ Energy Transfer gets Street Justice's Sweeping Cross animation and the self damage is removed (why would it still be called energy transfer though...).

 

But I'd say that regarding Energy Transfer, I like option 1 better than option 2 (and it's easier to implement).

[Rylas]

So that's it, here are my suggestions:

- Total Focus keeps its animation and gets its damage bumped to Energy Transfer level.

- Energy Transfer gets its old animation back /or/ Energy Transfer gets Street Justice's Sweeping Cross animation and the self damage is removed (why would it still be called energy transfer though...).

 

But I'd say that regarding Energy Transfer, I like option 1 better than option 2 (and it's easier to implement).

 

Wow! That's some great maths there. I would also prefer option 1. I'd even be ok if the damage bump for TF wasn't as much, but only if that was the only way to have ET improved. Thanks for taking the time to look into that.

[Vanden]

I'd rather find a solution to buff ET while keeping it's current animation. I like it.

[Kimuji]

Wow! That's some great maths there. I would also prefer option 1. I'd even be ok if the damage bump for TF wasn't as much, but only if that was the only way to have ET improved. Thanks for taking the time to look into that.

I felt comfortable bumping TF's damage because with such a long animation the DPA will never be really impressive. Even with ET's base damage it's still below an "equivalent" power like Super Strength's Knockout Blow.

I'd rather find a solution to buff ET while keeping it's current animation. I like it.

The problem with Energy Tranfer's current animation is its length. That's why ET isn't that great despite its very good base damage, it is held back by an almost 3 seconds  cast time. Unfortunately we can't keep the animation and make it go faster. If we keep ET's current animation and want to make its DPA decent we'll have to increase its base damage even higher in order to compensate, which would be a bit ridiculous given how good it is to begin with.

[William Valence]

The sad part is they were looking at EM before the shutdown. There was a really cool version that they had tossed around that I think got cannibalized for savage melee if I'm remembering the timeframe right. It would have been terrible for EM though because it went from huge hits to death by a thousand cuts and a ridiculous AoE increase.

 

I'm sad I never got to see Synapse's final version. I should see if I've got the version I sent him saved somewhere.

[marcussmythe]

3 hours ago, William Valence said:

The sad part is they were looking at EM before the shutdown. There was a really cool version that they had tossed around that I think got cannibalized for savage melee if I'm remembering the timeframe right. It would have been terrible for EM though because it went from huge hits to death by a thousand cuts and a ridiculous AoE increase.

 

I'm sad I never got to see Synapse's final version. I should see if I've got the version I sent him saved somewhere.

That seems to be a recurring theme.  "Hey, weve come up with a great idea to save/fix this old powerset/AT!"

 

"Thanks!  Lets make a new powerset/AT using that tool.  Youll be fine..."

 

"But.. but...  ~cries~"

 

I am given to understand the Brute Fury Mechanic began design life as a tanker tool...

[Primantis]

2 hours ago, marcussmythe said:

That seems to be a recurring theme.  "Hey, weve come up with a great idea to save/fix this old powerset/AT!"

 

"Thanks!  Lets make a new powerset/AT using that tool.  Youll be fine..."

 

"But.. but...  ~cries~"

 

I am given to understand the Brute Fury Mechanic began design life as a tanker tool...

 

Well, doing so is not only better for prestige ('Hey we've come up with an entirely new powerset! Awesome!'). It also doesn't run the risk of wrecking people's builds and forcing respecs etc.

 

While I appreciate their stance of minimal changes to how sets functions. I do feel they kind of worked themselves into a corner with that mindset as well.

[marcussmythe]

4 hours ago, Primantis said:

 

Well, doing so is not only better for prestige ('Hey we've come up with an entirely new powerset! Awesome!'). It also doesn't run the risk of wrecking people's builds and forcing respecs etc.

 

While I appreciate their stance of minimal changes to how sets functions. I do feel they kind of worked themselves into a corner with that mindset as well.

 

Well, if it were consistenly applied, maybe?  But Regen would like to have a talk with Statesman about ‘minimal changes’.

[William Valence]

7 hours ago, marcussmythe said:

That seems to be a recurring theme.  "Hey, weve come up with a great idea to save/fix this old powerset/AT!"

 

"Thanks!  Lets make a new powerset/AT using that tool.  Youll be fine..."

 

"But.. but...  ~cries~"

 

I am given to understand the Brute Fury Mechanic began design life as a tanker tool...

Well I definitely wasn't crying. It was a great idea, but had no place as an EM mechanic. It would have turned every EM user into Ip Man

 

I'm sad I didn't get to see a version that maintained the  ST heavy hitting feeling, because I think synapse had really cool ideas.

 

But I did realize how silly I was when everything closed down, because I didn't save any of my PMs.

[marcussmythe]

1 hour ago, William Valence said:

Well I definitely wasn't crying. It was a great idea, but had no place as an EM mechanic. It would have turned every EM user into Ip Man

 

I'm sad I didn't get to see a version that maintained the  ST heavy hitting feeling, because I think synapse had really cool ideas.

 

But I did realize how silly I was when everything closed down, because I didn't save any of my PMs.

I agree that ‘hits one target really hard, no harder than that, actually harder than any other set’ is the EM ‘hat’.

 

I think an implementation that matches TW on single target, but trades TW AOE for less END and Execution micromanagement, would be about right.  It doesnt necessarily have to get there with raw damage - likely a form of intelligently applied buffs and debuffs that focus on that single target role would be ideal.  (A stacking damage buff or resistance debuff, maybe fairly small but where, say, you can refresh and add stacks, would get us there for dealing with AVs and GMs, without blowing up PvP or other applications)

Edited July 27, 2019 by marcussmythe

[ZeeHero]

My proposal would be shorten the animations on EM powers to be at most 1.5 seconds long, adjusting damage per hit if neccesary, and buffing the radius of whirling hands to the same aoe size as the dom version. THERE SHOULD NOT BE ANY POWERS, NONE AT ALL which have an animation longer than 2 seconds. its sluggish and un fun.

Edited August 14, 2019 by ZeeHero

[Murcielago]

The biggest issue with energy melee is that scrappers don't have it. 

[ZeeHero]

1 hour ago, Murcielago said:

The biggest issue with energy melee is that scrappers don't have it. 

If scrappers had it in its current state people wouldn't use it.

[Murcielago]

2 hours ago, ZeeHero said:

If scrappers had it in its current state people wouldn't use it.

That's not true, sometimes people just play characters for fun. If we all played for damage we'd be using Ill/Cold trollers and TW/Scab Armor Scrappers

[ZeeHero]

40 minutes ago, Murcielago said:

That's not true, sometimes people just play characters for fun. If we all played for damage we'd be using Ill/Cold trollers and TW/Scab Armor Scrappers

The game needs to be balanced around performance as well as fun. if a set is bad, it needs to be fixed and whether people still find it fun is irrelevant.

[Megajoule]

Fix it and proliferate it to scrappers, then.

[macskull]

So, just putting this out there - though you could make the argument that the ET nerf was because of PvP, you'd be incorrect. In the entire history of this game only one power or mechanic ever got a PvE nerf solely for PvP reasons, and that'd be Hurricane. ET got nerfed because of its insane DPA relative to every other melee attack power and because even though it had the tradeoff of doing damage to the caster, the developers at the time felt that wasn't enough for what it did. I also saw a post on the first or second page of this thread regarding changing PvE vs PvP animation times - only some power attributes can be changed with a PvE or PvP flag and animation time isn't one of them.

 

It should be noted that I'm not supporting the ET nerf - quite the opposite. I don't like it either. The nerf took a set that was really good at only one thing and turned it into a set that's really good at zero things. The general complaints re: old-style ET animation in PvP stem from people who'd get two-shotted instantly by a Stalker using AS into ET when in reality all people really had to do to avoid that happening was simply move around in three dimensions because most people who played Stalkers in PvP couldn't reliably get an AS off on a moving target, and even if they could you'd be way out of range of ET if you'd been moving the entire time.

Edited August 16, 2019 by macskull

[rebel_1812]

I think it should be revered back to the old animation and ported to scrappers.

 

If people think it will be too strong with the old animations then increase the recharge rates as a nerf.  This will be the same idea of the animation change in that it will lower the DPS by making the attacks less frequent.  However, increasing the recharge rate instead of the animation allows for a heavy recharge reduction build to unlock the DPS potential of the set.  It just so happens that Energy Aura has recharge reduction which would be a good synergy between the two. 

[William Valence]

Alright I've been driving myself nuts trying to remember the structure for the EM idea I had back before the shutdown, but I can only remember the overview. So, I decided to essentially rebuild it. This idea will not completely revert certain nerfs, because there was some need for those changes in specific situations. However it will compensate through other means. The targeted balance levers will be secondary effects and ST damage improvements.

 

The main mechanic of the change will be "POWER UP!" which is initiated by a Build up replacement that goes by the name "Power Up!". Power up would have a recharge time of 120s, and while active will provide the "POWER UP!" buff for 40s. With the buff, EM powers would grant a stack of "Power!" that refreshes the duration of other stacks of "Power!" when gained. When activated Power up consumes all generated "Power!" and grants dam/tohit for each stack of "Power!" consumed. This makes the general combat loop: Activate Power Up -> Attack and build "Power!" -> Activate Power Up once it recharges to consume "Power!" and gain buff -> Repeat.

 

The Buff wouldn't stack so part of the play would be working around the duration of the buff to maximize "Power!" stacking before activating the buff with the least overlap possible.

 

TF would get Energy transfer's animation to bring it more in line for ST DPA. Thunderstrike has an AoE aspect that TF doesn't so it's more reasonable for TS to have the 3.4s animation. ET would use Seismic Smash's animation with EM FX upping it's DPA to a more reasonable 2.66 scale.

 

Stun could gain a -regen effect saying the energy disrupting the target's motor functions is also affecting their ability to heal. Which would serve to provide an increase in ST DPS without increasing the actual damage of the power, or creating degenerative situations with weaker mobs or PvP one-shot nonsense.

 

Barrage and TF would build 4 stacks per use, Bone smasher and ET would grant 3 per use, Energy Punch and Whirling hands would grant 1 per target hit. Stun could be made more useful, increasing effective DPS by reducing the regen rate of hard targets like AVs/GMs without upping the raw damage of other attacks. ET would have the highest DPA of an immediately usable attack, to my recollection, but not be so high that it would be be unreasonable to port to scrappers for instance.

 

For Stalkers, just make the animation changes and modification to stun, as they are fairly dependent on Build up's front loaded nature.

 

The addition of an alternate Build Up mechanic is a callback to the stated goal of Synapse to Modernize EM. This is -not- the iteration I saw prior to the shutdown, rather an attempt to hit that goal while retaining the big hitting feel of the set. Additionally it would keep the ET animation in the set, and remove the TF animation which from my recollection was complained about constantly.

 

Anyway, that's my idea for changing EM.

[Kimuji]

7 hours ago, William Valence said:

The main mechanic of the change will be "POWER UP!" which is initiated by a Build up replacement that goes by the name "Power Up!". Power up would have a recharge time of 120s, and while active will provide the "POWER UP!" buff for 40s. With the buff, EM powers would grant a stack of "Power!" that refreshes the duration of other stacks of "Power!" when gained. When activated Power up consumes all generated "Power!" and grants dam/tohit for each stack of "Power!" consumed. This makes the general combat loop: Activate Power Up -> Attack and build "Power!" -> Activate Power Up once it recharges to consume "Power!" and gain buff -> Repeat.

 

The Buff wouldn't stack so part of the play would be working around the duration of the buff to maximize "Power!" stacking before activating the buff with the least overlap possible.

Build Up is 90s, having Power up at 120s hardly seems balanced but there's worse: that new mechanic means that EM will be very slow at building damage. While all other sets can buff their damage instantly EM will have to activate Power Up then wait for it to recharge before getting any. With normal IOs it means that you're not getting any bonuses before 1minute after your activated Power Up the first time.

It will also make optimizing your damage burst a nightmare, because not only you have to deal with the delay, the recharge and the stacking but mobs don't come in a constant stream, then don't come to you when you want them to. There are movement phases between groups that will completely mess up your timing because of that delay between power up's activation and the moment you actually get the damage buff. It will be completely desynchronized with the action while Build Up or equivalent powers allow you to get that boost when you need it.

And you can forget PVP with this, if you can't control your burst you're useless. That's one reason why Brutes aren't popular at all for PVP, they don't have the opportunity to build their Fury so their damage is low most of the time. If you replace Build Up with Power Up you're just doubling the issue.

So I'm not sold at all here. Why fixing what isn't broken? Let's keep it simple when it works.
 

Quote

 

TF would get Energy transfer's animation to bring it more in line for ST DPA. Thunderstrike has an AoE aspect that TF doesn't so it's more reasonable for TS to have the 3.4s animation. ET would use Seismic Smash's animation with EM FX upping it's DPA to a more reasonable 2.66 scale.

 

Which would serve to provide an increase in ST DPS without increasing the actual damage of the power, or creating degenerative situations with weaker mobs or PvP one-shot nonsense.

ET would have the highest DPA of an immediately usable attack, to my recollection, but not be so high that it would be be unreasonable to port to scrappers for instance.

 

Why not for Total Focus. They recently made it faster for Dominators on the beta server while keeping the original animation though (which I like). Why not simply use that faster animation for other ATs? I don't really understand why it's limited to Dominators. It's not like a faster TF would be OP on the other ATs... EM is horribly slow and underperforming on all ATs.

Seismic Smash is not a good choice for Energy Transfer, it's the same animation as Bone Smasher. We don't really want two powers from a same set sharing the same animation.

Quote

Stun could gain a -regen effect saying the energy disrupting the target's motor functions is also affecting their ability to heal.

Why not.
 

Quote

ET would have the highest DPA of an immediately usable attack, to my recollection, but not be so high that it would be be unreasonable to port to scrappers for instance.

8 hours ago, rebel_1812 said:

I think it should be revered back to the old animation and ported to scrappers.

 

If people think it will be too strong with the old animations then increase the recharge rates as a nerf.  This will be the same idea of the animation change in that it will lower the DPS by making the attacks less frequent.  However, increasing the recharge rate instead of the animation allows for a heavy recharge reduction build to unlock the DPS potential of the set.  It just so happens that Energy Aura has recharge reduction which would be a good synergy between the two. 

It is probably an unpopular opinion but I'm against any new proliferation of power sets. Mistakes have been made by passing sets from ATs to another. Sets were locked to specific ATs for 2 reasons: balance and theme. And I'm even more against it if we have to limit a set's potential just because it would be OP on Scrappers. That's a bad reason with a simple solution: don't give it to Scrappers. Keep it exclusive to Stalkers, Brutes and Tankers. We're killing all sense of flavor between ATs by making all sets available to everyone.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Kimuji

[William Valence]

20 minutes ago, Kimuji said:

Build Up is 90s, having Power up at 120s hardly seems balanced but there's worse: that new mechanic means that EM will be very slow at building damage. While all other sets can buff their damage instantly EM will have to activate Power Up then wait for it to recharge before getting any. With normal IOs it means that you're not getting any bonuses before 1minute after your activated Power Up the first time.

It will also make optimizing your damage burst almost a nightmare, because not only you have to deal with the delay, the recharge and the stacking but mobs don't come in a contant stream, then don't come to you when you ask them to. There are movement phases between groups that will completely mess up your timing because of that delay between power up's activation and the moment you actually get the damage buff. It will be completely desychronized with the action while Build Up or equivalent powers allow you to get that boost when you need it.

This seems like a more PvP centric opinion, not that that's invalid, but in PvE at least uptime would be better. That makes it a trade-off. You can't start with it, but it has a 65% uptime potential with basic slotting, and can be perma'd domination style with high recharge. Compared to 33% uptime with basic slotting and 62.5% uptime with permahasten recharge for build up. As for PvP, not everything has to be best at PvP, and it would be a straight buff to Stalkers in PvP as they would still be able to frontload.

 

36 minutes ago, Kimuji said:

So I'm not sold at all here. Why fixing what isn't broken? Let's keep it simple when it works.

Literally the only reason I recommend doing something like adding a gameplay hook is because the dev that was looking at the set when the game was still going was planning to modernize the set with one. He gave me a lot of his time that he didn't have to, something I very much appreciated, and while it may seem stupid that's why I added the idea. A sort of homage to their intention. Whether or not it takes a form in the way I described, or a different one, I think it would be cool.

 

24 minutes ago, Kimuji said:

Why not for Total Focus, they recently made it faster for Dominators on the beta server though why not simply pass it to other ATs?
Seismic Smash is not a good choice for Energy Transfert, it's the same animation as Bone Smasher. We don't really want two power of a same set sharing the same animation.

Haven't paid any attention to beta, cool that they're doing stuff with it, but to answer your question the animation for Energy Transfer has always been popular from what I've seen, just frustrating at the mechanical impact of it's implementation. Porting it to TF lets you keep the animation, while both improving TF's DPA and ET's DPA if you give it a better animation.

 

Regarding ET's animation, that's my bad, I thought Seismic Smash had a mild uppercut animation with the same duration, but you're right it's the overhand air superiority animation that Bone Smasher has. The animation I was thinking of was Psionic Melee's Telekinetic blow animation also at a 1.716s animation. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Kimuji]

A potential damage increase isn't really an improvement if it isn't practical. And that's the current EM in a nutshell, good raw damage but impractical. That Power Up mechanic really feels in the same vein, impractical. Build Up is at the very bottom of the complains list, it shouldn't be at the center of the set's overhaul. And most people here aren't even asking for a full overhaul, just a fix to the massive nerfs EM went through. EM isn't obsolete like some other sets (Ice Armor, Stone Armor...) it doesn't need to be "modernized", it was broken by nerfs and needs to be fixed.

I'm not a huge fan of PvP myself but EM before the nerfs was the iconic melee PvP set and I would find it kind of sad if we'd turn it into the worst possible PvP set for Brutes and Tankers. That's part of the set's identity. If we could avoid breaking that too, it would be nice.

As for ET's animation I made two suggestions on this page: the obvious one, i.e ET's old animation, or Sweeping Cross/Cross Punch's animation if giving ET its old animation back scares everyone (which I wouldn't really understand, there are much worse offenders in the game).

Edited August 18, 2019 by Kimuji