Focused Feedback: Energy Melee Revamp

[ABlueThingy]

18 minutes ago, skoryy said:

I'll have to test tomorrow, but I'm fairly certain that scrapper ET still does crit damage.

I don't know, I don't think it crits for damage.  In my testings it just pops up "Critical transfer" and you get healed

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

Just to double check I also tried with the fast version with the same results:

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by ABlueThingy

[DreadShinobi]

9 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Just remember this for optimal attack rotations.

 

ATO hide in AS

ATO BU in EP

 

AS - TF - FET - EP - AS - EP - FET - EP.  Repeat

Or

AS - TF - PC - EP - AS - EP - PC - EP. Repeat.

 

As long as hasten is up these are devestating.

Does an EM stalker skip bonesmasher?

[Infinitum]

5 minutes ago, DreadShinobi said:

Does an EM stalker skip bonesmasher?

You dont have to, i did because i couldnt fit it in, and i wanted the utility of having PC as an aoe cause stalker EM previously had no aoe.

 

I am a conservative builder - survivability first - so i just couldnt fit BS in the build as i wanted it to be.  Even conservative im hitting pylons at near the minute mark sometimes. averaging in the 1:40s  which all depends on how your hide procs and the BU proc fires.

 

I would imagine if you could fit it in, and adapted BS in the attack chain it would further lower those times.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Infinitum

[DreadShinobi]

22 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

You dont have to, i did because i couldnt fit it in, and i wanted the utility of having PC as an aoe cause stalker EM previously had no aoe.

 

I am a conservative builder - survivability first - so i just couldnt fit BS in the build as i wanted it to be.  Even conservative im hitting pylons at near the minute mark sometimes. averaging in the 1:40s  which all depends on how your hide procs and the BU proc fires.

 

I would imagine if you could fit it in, and adapted BS in the attack chain it would further lower those times.

I was wondering if you skipped BS in order to not trigger the energy release so that it could be saved for ET

[Captain Powerhouse]

1 hour ago, Vanden said:

Energy Transfer doesn't do extra damage on a critical, instead it heals you. But it IS implemented as a critical, the chance is affected by Scrappers' ATOs that boost criticals, and on Stalkers it scales with team size.

 

Energy Transfer, indeed, does not crit extra damage.

 

To clarify: this is an extremely old rule that has been maintained by the live team and I am not ready to dismiss. Basically, powers that are too high damage (usually powers with a recharge of 20+ seconds) are not allowed to crit, as their crits (3.56 x2) results in more damage than Assassination (7.0.) The only exception to the rule is Crushing uppercut, and you need to build 3 stacks, something Stalkers cant actually do before entering combat since they have Build Up instead of Combat Readiness. Even then, a regular crit for Crushing Uppercut, at  25s recharge, is just 3.18x2=6.36)

 

For years before shut down, it was the goal that they would simply give such powers (like Concentrated Strike, or Energy Transfer) special functions instead of a damage crit, reason why you see Auto Recharge on CS for Scrappers, BU recharge on CS crit for Stalkers and Self Damage Avoidance on Energy Transfer.

 

Again, it is a design rule I am not ready to throw out the window at this time.

[Troo]

22 hours ago, Replacement said:

Oh, one final callout: Total Focus to bone smasher for stun.  You're claiming this is an example of not being an improvement, because it means giving up fast ET.  You didn't have fast ET as an option at all.  

  I'm not sure what you meant: "You didn't have fast ET as an option at all." Do you mean on the Live version? That's a little obvious. (Now I'm imagining you stomping your feet while saying it)

 

On Beta:

Total Focus primes the combo mechanic.

Then Bone Smasher is used to Stun a target. "If used with Energy Focus: 100% chance for stun and applies a weakening (-special and -regen) effect to the target"

Therefore the fast Energy Transfer would not be available. (This was an option when Total Focused activated the combo mechanic)

 

If a player uses the dependable stun sometimes, then fast ET might not be available even 50% of the time. This is all I was saying.

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Troo

[BrandX]

17 minutes ago, Troo said:

  I'm not sure what you meant: "You didn't have fast ET as an option at all." Do you mean on the Live version? That's a little obvious. (Now I'm imagining you stomping your feet while saying it)

 

On Beta:

Total Focus primes the combo mechanic.

Then Bone Smasher is used to Stun a target. "If used with Energy Focus: 100% chance for stun and applies a weakening (-special and -regen) effect to the target"

Therefore the fast Energy Transfer would not be available. (This was an option when Total Focused activated the combo mechanic)

 

If a player uses the dependable stun sometimes, then fast ET might not be available even 50% of the time. This is all I was saying.

 

 

True.  So, the question is, do you feel you need the 100% Stun over more damage?  Do you want the 100% Stun with some -Special/-Regen (which I personally don't feel it needs).

[Troo]

My notes have a similar thought @BrandX:

 

The change might boil down to the switching Stun to add AoE created ripples that had to be addressed..

  - If someone wants to AoE they may not be interested in losing the fast single target attack for a round or two round.

  - If someone is looking to Stun they may still be likely to want to use the fast ET.

?? Drop the TF > BS and maybe I'm okay with the combo mechanic being a way to switch between single target focus to AoE focus for a round of attacks.

  - Dang, but Stun was removed. Maybe bump up the BS stun to >60%?

  - Is the (-special and -regen) too good to lose?

 

(above snippet from rough rambling notes)

 

Total Focus has a good stun in it. (that's still there, right)

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Troo

[Vanden]

3 minutes ago, Troo said:

- Dang, but Stun was removed. Maybe bump up the BS stun to 50%?

That'd be a nerf, actually, since it's 60% without focus.

[Troo]

Doh you're totally right @Vanden (fixed. I did say they were rough notes 😃 )

 

 

Anyone know why the stun is listed twice?

 

The beta Bone Smasher info is long

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Troo

[ScarySai]

2 hours ago, skoryy said:

The scrapper / stalker crit's not negated on ET.  You get crit damage and bonus healing.

I didn't notice this at all during my testing. Are you certain?

[summers]

4 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

I didn't notice this at all during my testing. Are you certain?

 

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

Energy Transfer, indeed, does not crit extra damage.

 

[Mystic_Cross]

6 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

I didn't notice this at all during my testing. Are you certain?

They are wrong, or it's a bug if it is happening... 

 

1 hour ago, Captain Powerhouse said:

Energy Transfer, indeed, does not crit extra damage.

 

edit: summers beat me to it, lol

Edited October 26, 2020 by Mystic_Cross

[ScarySai]

I am aware of the intent, I was asking them of their personal results.

 

Sheesh.

Edited October 26, 2020 by ScarySai

[summers]

3 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Sheesh.

Sorry we were just trying to be helpful!

[Myrmidon]

21 minutes ago, Troo said:

Doh you're totally right @Vanden (fixed. I did say they were rough notes 😃 )

 

 

Anyone know why the stun is listed twice?

 

The beta Bone Smasher info is long

  Hide contents

 

 

 

PvE/PvP values.

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, DreadShinobi said:

I was wondering if you skipped BS in order to not trigger the energy release so that it could be saved for ET

No, I just didn't have room in the build and opted for PC instead.

[Troo]

That makes sense.

The Total Focus Info seems to deviate. Likely it's the same 2 sec.

 

[Myrmidon]

Likely. If the PvP aspect is missing from the detailed info, then congratulations on finding something to report.😁

[macskull]

17 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Likely. If the PvP aspect is missing from the detailed info, then congratulations on finding something to report.😁

With the PvP button clicked, the stun duration is showing the correct duration of 2s.

[Saikochoro]

Okay did a little more testing, but with an EM/Bio stalker. This thing is a monster. The epitome of what a stalker should be. EM was my favorite stalker back before the nerfs on live. However, I didn’t play it much afterwards. This is even better. 
 

That said, I am finding that I actually enjoy the scrapper and tanker better for EM. Stalkers have always done single target better than scrappers so it doesn’t feel as special on stalkers as it does on scrappers. It just feels amazing on a scrapper. I’m sure the fact that scrappers couldn’t have it before contributes to that. I know the stalker will do more damage overall, but I still like it better on scrapper. 
 

I love it on tanker because it just feels awesome being invincible and still hitting for 1200-1500 damage! 
 

I am loving the new EM!

Edited October 26, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Troo]

4 minutes ago, macskull said:

With the PvP button clicked, the stun duration is showing the correct duration of 2s.

Nice catch. It is the other powers that are displaying without respecting the pvp toggle.

[Troo]

Did @Galaxy Brain post his test numbers already in the thread?

 

With beta EM coming in I believe third to last (#18 out of 20 sets). How do we reconcile that compared to the anecdotal reports?

( I dislike the word anecdotal, don't anyone take it negatively, I'm not discounting anyone's report )

 

Was that not the current beta version of EM?

Is it just the difference between Live and Beta is so great that we're not looking at performance comparisons to other sets?

 

I was thinking maybe beta EM was a tad over powered.. 3rd to last in overall performance not what I expected though.

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Troo

[Saikochoro]

20 minutes ago, Troo said:

Did @Galaxy Brain post his test numbers already in the thread?

 

With beta EM coming in I believe third to last (#17 out of 20). How do we reconcile that with the new shiny ooo ahh reports?

Not sure, but it is still largely a single target set. Single target focused sets will usually have slower clear times than AoE heavy sets.  Most of the top sets in his list have very good AoE. Although they did give us power crash that doesn’t change that EM is still single target centric, which is how EM should be. Single target though is very much improved.

 

We don’t want it to be amazing in both single target and AoE otherwise it’s just the new titan weapons.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Saikochoro said:

Not sure, but it is still largely a single target set. Single target focused set will usually have slower clear times than AoE heavy sets.  Most of the top sets in his list have very good AoE. Although they did give us power crash that doesn’t change that EM is still single target centric, which is how EM should be. Single target though is very much improved.

I don't disagree. But #18 out of 20 is not what I would expect after such an effort.

Somewhere in the middle of the pack.. maybe

 

If #19 and #20 are likely to be addressed, that could leave EM dead last. That just doesn't match with what folks are saying.

(these results = SO builds, other scores with IO and combined SO IO scores)

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Troo