Energy Aura is easily debuffed by enemies and no heal till 35?

[Omega9]

Energy Aura is easily defeated by Radiation and other Defense debuffs. If you have been one-hit by Clamor or almost, you know this is so, this in spite of claiming resistance to defense debuffs. Energy Aura also sucks down endurance which seems counter to the RP concept you get of the set, and in spite of supposed resistances to Endurance Drains, fighting Freakshow or Clockworks has you pumping blue inspirations in a continuous stream. And why does a Brute or Tank need to Cloak? Energize doesn't come till level 35? You better find some heal power before then. Expect XP debt badges.

[Apparition]

You can fix the defense debuff resistance with the Ageless Radial Destiny.  Energy Aura sucks down endurance because it has Energy Drain, which you can use to cap your endurance right back up.  Even then, I don't notice the endurance suckage much after level 30 or so.  That's probably because I have complete builds planned out before I make a character and slot IO sets as I level, though.  As for endurance sappers... sap them right back.  When fighting Freakshow, Carnies, and Malta, I use Energy Drain on them even if my endurance is good just for funsies.  Tankers don't get Energy Aura, so they don't need to cloak. :P  As for Brutes, why not?  It's something different.  Uh... I've leveled up multiple Energy Aura toons, one of which is level 50+3 ATM.  I actually had to intentionally repeatedly die at level 50 just to get the first debt badge, nonetheless three for the High Pain Threshold accolade.

Edited April 19, 2020 by Apparition

[Greycat]

First villainside 50 back in the day was an Energy/Energy Brute.  That cloak made it fun, PVE and PVP (especially PVP, having "that stalker!" cussed out in broadcast. That and people repeatedly trying to TP Foe me... which Energy resisted every time.)

 

Played that character like a heavy Stalker without then (then much heavier - COV release) reliance they had on AS and Placate.

 

The OP mentions Clamor, so I'm wondering how high the Brute is - have you not gotten to take Energy Drain yet (28?) Or was it skipped? Because yes, as mentioned, it's really rather designed with taking it in mind.

[Razor Cure]

8 hours ago, Omega9 said:

easily defeated by Radiation and other Defense debuffs

EA has some decent def debuffing resists. Which is way way better than none at all.

[SwitchFade]

Multiple EA toons here.

 

The set is very powerful, especially on stalkers. I hit def soft cap by lvl 30.

 

To the OP, I'm sorry but it's not the set, EA is amazing. It has end end recovery built in.

 

EA is easily one of the strongest sets.

[Myrmidon]

48 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

Multiple EA toons here.

 

The set is very powerful, especially on stalkers. I hit def soft cap by lvl 30.

 

To the OP, I'm sorry but it's not the set, EA is amazing. It has end end recovery built in.

 

EA is easily one of the strongest sets.

Indeed. I would love to try it on a Tanker, however, @Captain Powerhouse has made it known that the set needs a rework for Tankers to keep it from becoming completely rediculous.

 

I can wait.😉

[Myrmidon]

11 hours ago, Omega9 said:

If you have been one-hit by Clamor or almost, you know this is so, this in spite of claiming resistance to defense debuffs.

My Rad/EA Brute laughed at Clamor and all of her friends, however, I don’t play a character until they possess their entire build compliment of IOs (my characters tend to feel head and shoulders above those at comparable levels), so your mileage may vary.

[Carnifax]

Personally EA didn't click for me til 35/36. That's when you get your Heal / PowersDontCostEndAnyMore power and have the slots to fit in enough IO bonuses to be hitting "good" defenses.

 

After that it's like "Hey, I'm still alive in the middle of all of this". 

 

I do think Energize should be swapped with one of the Resist passives to come a bit earlier but Def sets tend to take mid-30s to come online anyway in my (limited) experience with NRG and Shield. 

[Silverado]

10 hours ago, SwitchFade said:

EA is easily one of the strongest sets.

Strong and pretty.

[Coyote]

31 minutes ago, Silverado said:

Strong and pretty.

 

Is that true even if you're not War Mace/EA?

[ShardWarrior]

18 hours ago, Apparition said:

You can fix the defense debuff resistance with the Ageless Radial Destiny.

What do you do pre-50 without it?

[Silverado]

1 minute ago, ShardWarrior said:

What do you do pre-50 without it?

Pop a purple or two

[ShardWarrior]

56 minutes ago, Silverado said:

Pop a purple or two

Yes I know that.  Just seems to me that most people seem to forget there are 50 levels to go through before Incarnates.

[Silverado]

18 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Yes I know that.  Just seems to me that most people seem to forget there are 50 levels to go through before Incarnates.

That's because there aren't for a lot of people nowadays. Many of them have a farmer on a second account and just PL themselves to 50 in a few hours.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Silverado

[Psyonico]

1 hour ago, Silverado said:

Strong and pretty.

 

except for Energy Cloak IMO, I like to see my character TYVM

[siolfir]

11 hours ago, Myrmidon said:

Indeed. I would love to try it on a Tanker, however, @Captain Powerhouse has made it known that the set needs a rework for Tankers to keep it from becoming completely rediculous.

 

I can wait.😉

Oh, come on, if you're going to start with re- you need to go all the way with re-donk-ulous.

 

19 hours ago, Greycat said:

Played that character like a heavy Stalker without then (then much heavier - COV release) reliance they had on AS and Placate.

This was especially funny since Stalker EA has Hide instead of Energy Cloak. Hide suppresses its stealth when attacking and Energy Cloak doesn't, so Stalkers are less stealthy while fighting than Energy Aura (or Dark Armor) Brutes. Stalkers are much better equipped to deal with taking the aggro now than they used to be, and the Brute taunt auras will draw in mobs - now that Energy Aura has one - but for a while nobody wanted an EA Brute around because they couldn't hold aggro without Taunt or a full AoE attack chain.

 

As for the OP... I guess if you compare every defense set to SR it'll look like it has poor defense debuff resistance, but it's actually on the high end of normal. As for endurance, it has an extra toggle to run but you get a refill (that boosts defense!) on a short timer and an endurance discount power (that also heals!) that can be made perma, so I'm thinking that the problem is likely your slotting.

[Apparition]

1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:

Yes I know that.  Just seems to me that most people seem to forget there are 50 levels to go through before Incarnates.

 

Considering that it takes me three weeks to solo a toon from level one to 50, and you can get a toon to level 50 within a week just by running Task/Strike Forces, the pre-50 game window is much smaller now than it was prior to sunset. 

[Uun]

Excluding Overload, Energy Aura has 51.9% defense debuff resistance from its 3 main toggles. 

 

Clamor's big defense debuff is Radiation Infection, which is a toggle. You can shut it off by moving out of range. The others (Irradiate, Electron Haze, Neutron Bomb) all have a tohit check.

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, Apparition said:

 

Considering that it takes me three weeks to solo a toon from level one to 50, and you can get a toon to level 50 within a week just by running Task/Strike Forces, the pre-50 game window is much smaller now than it was prior to sunset. 

No doubt  - if you play at the pace you do.  I do the same.  Not everyone does though. 😉

[Bill Z Bubba]

48 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

No doubt  - if you play at the pace you do.  I do the same.  Not everyone does though. 😉

 

Truth. If I really want to, I can go 1 to 50 in two hours. But right now? I am soloing my new earth/earth dom in radio missions at lvl 26 and loving her.

 

As for EA, it sucked REALLY bad when it was created. Then it got fixed. It's pretty damn sweet now and I would also love to see it on tanks.

[Uun]

7 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

As for EA, it sucked REALLY bad when it was created. Then it got fixed. It's pretty damn sweet now and I would also love to see it on tanks.

Yup. I had a DM/EA brute with the Mk I version of EA. No Energize, no defense buff or heal from Energy Drain, no taunt aura (and until I9, no IOs).

[Myrmidon]

13 hours ago, siolfir said:

Oh, come on, if you're going to start with re- you need to go all the way with re-donk-ulous.

I will never use that word.😂

[Omega9]

So I fixed Energy Aura with the Medicine Pool, "Aid Self", and Energy Drain at level 28. Now it works very well, but before Energy Drain you do rely on blue inspirations to make it work in long battles whereas the other "armor" powersets just chug along from low levels to higher levels. Anyway, with the missing early healing resolved and "Energy Drain" powering the toggles, Energy Aura is a very good set. Very tanky.  I was just giving my feedback of how Energy Aura levels up through the early going. That is not hugely important anymore I know, most good sets have some deficiencies, that just makes it more fun.  Now that City of Heroes doesn't take 2 to 6 months to get a character to level 40 (original level cap) like it did in 2004 there is really no problem with slow to develop powersets.

 

So my only gripes now are SS's 'Jab' still being totally skip-able, and why does everyone do Task Forces at level 0 or -1? Task Forces are increasingly fun as you ramp up the challenge. At +4, the oldschool standard, you actually have to have a balanced team that works together. People even waste the weekly SF's double XP and do them at level 0 mostly. Maybe ramp up Merit Rewards a little for each level of difficulty? That seems to be what players are after nowadays.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Omega9
typo

[siolfir]

6 hours ago, Omega9 said:

, and why does everyone do Task Forces at level 0 or -1? Task Forces are increasingly fun as you ramp up the challenge. At +4, the oldschool standard, you actually have to have a balanced team that works together.

+4 can't be the oldschool standard, because oldschool didn't allow +4 - the old max difficulty setting is the equivalent to +2/x1/Bosses/AVs.

 

But to answer the question, a lot of it is just rushing through for either the badge or merits. Also, people that are leveling up rather than exemplaring down may not have enough slots to go higher than +2, especially on the lower-level TFs, and on top of that everyone doesn't run at 0 or -1; I was on three TFs yesterday (Manticore, ITF, Tin Mage) and the lowest difficulty was +1, which we shifted to +2 after the first mission. Ask about raising the difficulty if you're not happy with where it's at.

[Apparition]

Yeah.  I typically run TFs/SFs below level 30 at +1, and TFs/SFs below level 50 at +2.  At level 50, it depends.  If we're carrying a bunch of lowbies on an ITF or LGTF, or doing a speed run, set it at +2.  Otherwise, +3.