Focused Feedback: Energy Melee Revamp

[Direct Crit]

Just now, Wavicle said:

I am saying the double EF is I think more intended for you to use on two Different consumers instead of two ETs, but even if you had your ET recharge nice and high so you can get two, what’s the problem? Use EP, Barrage, or WH and you won’t lose the stack.

I understand that's the intention, I'm saying the intention doesn't feel good. In an attack chain you're not going to hit TF -> Get EFx2 -> fast-ET -> Energy punch -> Wait -> Energy Punch -> fast-ET because it'd be more damage to use Bone Smasher during that downtime. Realistically the chain is gonna look something like TF -> ET -> BS -> EP -> TF, repeat, maybe with EP weaved to fill a gap if that doesn't line up with TF's recharge. You could possibly get another fast ET in there, but BS spends the extra EF on a pointless extra effect. There's not even a decision there, it's just a mild bonus that you get for critting which feels.. weaker than just getting extra crit damage and one stack of EF.

[Troo]

I've never really opened with Total Focus, it was always something else. Bone Smasher was often applied very liberally, like, every time it was up.

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Troo

[Safehouse]

Let's Talk Levels 10-20 of Energy Melee

 

Continuing from the post I made yesterday, I wanted to share my experience today of leveling 10-20 on EM. Still a great experience, although not perfect. Primarily just noting some observations that I have. I've always kinda struggled with the 10-30 range on characters, so I anticipate similarly having some "blah" moments in the 20-30 window.

 

What I Did

To start I want to emphasize that managing 20 levels in 2 days is something I've never done before, but here we are. Here's what I did during that window:

• Ran to the Hollows and did David Wincott->Flux->Julius->Talshak, while also doing Shining Stars arc two. Somehow this made me outlevel Talshak and I couldn't do the Karsis stuff (yet)
• Shining Stars arc three
• Midnighter storyline
• Ran back to Kings Row and finished off Shauna Stockwell->Eagle Eye
• New powers I obtained between 10-20 included: Dull Pain (12); Fly (14); Unyielding (16); Whirling Hands (18); Resist Elements (20)
• Continued to use/upgrade SOs.
• Also grabbed exploration badges to test out the new long range teleport accolade.

How Did Things Go With the Next Round?

Again, still very early in the game, so I think there's a lot of room for opinion changing. A few not-as-awesome items of note did reveal themselves. Admittedly, some of the things I experienced could have to do with user error. Lesson learned: I should have used Energy Aura and not Invulnerability - I am intimately familiar with the ins and outs of EnA, whereas invulnerability is a set I've never gotten far with, either Live or Homecoming. So I'm working on a bit of a learning curve with Invuln.

• Struggled a bit with squishiness, to my surprise, given I'm 'invulnerable.' Always had a hard time with Frostfire for whatever reason, but on Safehouse I got pretty frustrated (the lack of unyielding pre-level 16 hurt me). Also got wrecked by... Mandible and Maxilla. Part of that was my wife distracting me during the ambush so I got dogpiled by Skulls. Anyway, this isn't an invuln focused feedback, sorry...
• Bone Smasher wrecks face. Especially crit Bone Smasher. Love it.
• I'm having some End issues. By level 20 I only have 2 toggles to keep up - temp invuln and unyielding - but managing those AND hitting things with my attacks drains my end bar quickly if I'm not careful. Either I have to work on my end management (totally possible), or skills are sapping my energy a lot faster than expected (and possibly faster than intended?). I don't remember the last time I got "too tired" before today.
• Having also playtested the level 50 EM/Inv scrapper for funsies, and having familiarized myself with things, I catch myself wishing the energy focus mechanic came sooner. Since total focus is not available until late-set, I will be well into my 20s before I can start to play with it. I really would love to be able to have some sort of slight energy focus at lower levels. Again, until I actually reach the point of the mechanic coming into play I won't know how different it "feels" to me from the earlier levels until I get there.
• Didn't get as many new toys to play with in EM this set of levels. Somewhat by necessity to counter squishiness, Just whirling hands, which is a nice AoE. I like it. I'm not writing it love letters, but it's not bad at all. I'll pick up power crash later - I wanted something a little harder hitting.

 

The Bottom Line

The short version: Still like it. Suffers a bit from the "low-mid level blahs," and I struggle with end. Still on board overall!

 

I remain happy with it. Perhaps less enamored than I was originally, but that's probably because the "oo shiny" effect is wearing off and I'm actually starting to dig into the meat and potatoes of the gaming experience with it. It feels end starved a little bit, but I'm glad I can slot SOs to help combat that. Still, I remember thinking kinetic melee drained end fast, and this powerset goes farther than that. I'm still in the camp of "this will be my new main powerset if it goes live like this." I may end up using EnA on live instead, unless I can start to feel good with invulnerability, but EnA is a late bloomer with lots of end hungry toggles so for all I know end issues could be worse there. We shall see.

 

The Next Steps

I'd love to see a bit more excitement and flair out of the skills that I pick up over the next ten levels. 22 should bring me power crash. 26 should bring me total focus. So we'll be starting to see the effects of energy focus start to come into play. Plus shiny new AoE to play with! Gameplay-wise, I'm looking forward to the 20s a fair lot: playtesting the new story arc. I also anticipate doing the Faultline story arc, Graham Easton, Laura Lockhart, and probably Striga Isle, maybe some Croatoa too.

 

I'd be surprised if level 20-30 takes just a day. The experience curve is steep and my baby is coming any time now. I'll try to keep the feedback coming 🙂

  

On 10/25/2020 at 1:55 PM, Safehouse said:

Feedback On the First Ten Levels of Energy Melee

 

As I said I would, I rolled out a new character, a scrapper, this time starting from lvl 1, and beginning through the 'early game' experience instead of jumping straight to the endgame. Really want to get a feel for how the "new energy melee" feels.

 

The Starting Steps

I took a couple of steps that somebody rolling out a new character on live would likely not be able to take. This test is not completely devoid of freebies because I wanted to try out the SOs change and the priority is checking out how EM feels overall.

• Rolled out "Safehouse," made a costume with shoulder kitty.
• Freebied lots of inf.
• Ran to P2W and bought out pretty much everything.
• Playing +0/x1 to start but anticipate fussing with this setting to test the feel as we go forward. Set to have solo bosses.
• Ran the "Save Atlas Park" story (Habashy->Sondra->Aaron)
• Ran the first "Shining Stars" arc
• Started the Kings Row Skulls storyline
• By level 10 I had: energy punch (1); resist physical damage (1); barrage (2); temp invuln (4); bone smasher (6); build up (8); resist elements (10)

So How'd It Go?

Since it's only the first ten levels and we're just "getting stahted" here, there isn't a whole lot to note, but I have a few high-level thoughts.

• At the beginning, energy punch feels a little slow with its slower recharge time. This is personal preference, but I like my T1 skills to be overall faster hitting, and I would swear that on live right now energy punch is a noticeably faster recharge time than barrage. For the first few levels, it caused a bit of a slow down in combat. This is quickly remedied, and probably isn't even anything worth noting as the first few levels end up in the rearview so fast.
• Then level 6 came around, and I got bone smasher, and hoo boy things got spicy. The new animation time for BS is great. I love it. EP->barrage->BS (and vice versa, opening with BS) felt nice.
• The new upgrade capability, and SOs being available right out the gate, are game changers for early leveling, and its noticeable with Energy Melee. Being able to kit out SOs right away made my quibble about the EP recharge time a non-issue. Enhancement management was made so much easier with this change, and it was a fix I didn't even know I wanted. It's not cheap, though (at level 10 I spent almost 300K inf just to get my slotted SOs upgraded). Folks without a lot of spare inf to go around are going to end up poor very quickly. It is not the kind of thing players will be able to afford doing every level (if they're like me; I'm very bad at accumulating inf). This is not the thread for that discussion so I'm going to leave it at that.
• On scrapper, Energy Melee feels amazing. It hits hard, but currently does not feel overtuned (SO FAR) compared to other sets I have played on scrapper. The crits are beautiful. The powerset just feels "right" and fits my scrapper concept like a glove.
• Took on bosses without issue.

The Bottom Line

In short: It feels good, man.

 

That's probably all you need but I love to hear myself talk (erm... type?)  so...

 

In the first ten levels, I'm still sold on new EM. It feels smooth. I couldn't believe how fast I got through these first ten levels. I got a bit of tunnel vision because of how much fun I was having that I almost got myself killed. Overall, not a whole lot of the changes have come into play yet (eg energy focus mechanics) so I don't yet know how things will change when that time comes. However, the early level changes such as new bone smasher feel great. Wouldn't call it a verdict yet, but so far I haven't wanted to touch my live characters because I've been so engrossed on the beta EM.

 

Next Steps

I'll shift gears to the Hollows and do the "Frostfire" storyline. I may also even try to run caverns of transcendence solo. I'll also finish off the kings row storyline and start running around in Steel Canyon. There's a midnighter storyline to level through.

 

Hope this wasn't too rambly and actually provided some feedback of worth!

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Safehouse
Cleaning up words

[Super Atom]

Working off of Bone smasher might undo the point of EF, at least in a 100% capacity. If you could get EF every other attack then you might as well actually just bake it in without the mechanic, which again isn't really an option due to over performance concerns. Extensive play on a scrapper so far it seems fine as is, but if they traded double EF for crit damage, I personally wouldn't mind. I think a compromise would be to move the BS effect to EP or barrage to free up bone smasher since it's been a mainstay in rotation. This is of course assuming this wasn't done intentionally to mini-control EF for balance reasons.

 

I too thought It'd be closer to Energy Assault with a 100% and then smaller percents on other abilities, but if i'm understanding it right, this might have been too strong for EM.

 

I don't wanna @ captain or anything cause he's probably real busy but if you DO happen to read this maybe you could touch on it?

Edited October 27, 2020 by Super Atom

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Tactical said:

I don't understand what you're saying here. When I say single target situation I'm specifically talking about fighting an AV. Most things in the game won't survive a TF -> ET for the most part. This is just in the scope of an attack chain against something that is more than a small meatbag that grants XP.

For AVs and hard targets yes only TF FET

 

But All I was stating was in a saturated mission environment mixing FET and FPC yields really good results because its immediately repeatable.

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

I've never really opened with Total Focus, it was always something else. Bone Smasher was often applied very liberally, like, every time it was up.

 

Yeah that was adjustment, but new TF isn't bad.

[Menelruin]

I realize this may be a bit too "gimmicky" for some folks, but what if Energy Melee had a "charge" meter building up to Focus, that each distinct attack added a different value to?  But then Total Focus would completely fill in a single shot?  That way you get the ability to build it up with other powers, but you remove the randomness that some folks dislike from Energy Assault.

[Troo]

1 hour ago, Safehouse said:

Let's Talk Levels 10-20 of Energy Melee

Excellent work @Safehouse

Can you do my homework too?

[drbuzzard]

Tried this on a stalker (EM/EA). As long as you always remember to do the TF-ET as a combo, it has a lot of the classic feel of EM or perhaps even better since TF isn't so slow anymore. Power crash is nice, but I almost get the feeling it crits more than expected even out of hide. This has not been quantitatively measured, but I almost always seemed to be a critting at least some of the targets in hide or not. 

 

Test was running an ITF solo. Made it to the last rommy, but bailed after one of the add spawns piled on and killed me. I had rommy down half before that. The new EM is likely to be single target king the way I was able to beat down AVs well past their regeneration. 

[Troo]

7 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

beat down AVs well past their regeneration

Were you using the -special and -regen at all?

[Tsuko]

9 minutes ago, Troo said:

Were you using the -special and -regen at all?

only in case of "crit" on TF, i think. Beta EM on stalker has more st dps than TW scrapper 🙂

Edited October 27, 2020 by Tsuko

[Troo]

Here's a new spot to get the rankings that were referred. Thanks @Galaxy Brain.

 

Check GB's post linked above for more details. The spoiler below just grabs highlights of the performance testing.

 

Combined Results: (Energy Melee 15 out of 20)

 

Spoiler

Results on SO's only: (Energy Melee 18 out of 20)

 

Results on a "Mid Level" IO Build: (Energy Melee 12 out of 20)

 

Combined Results: (Energy Melee 15 out of 20)

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Troo

[Troo]

11 minutes ago, Tsuko said:

only in case of "crit" on TF, i think. Beta EM on stalker has more st dps than TW scrapper 🙂

Okay cool. I'm working up to something and if the -regen is really needed, that may have an impact.

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Troo

[Tsuko]

1 hour ago, Super Atom said:

Working off of Bone smasher might undo the point of EF, at least in a 100% capacity. If you could get EF every other attack then you might as well actually just bake it in without the mechanic, which again isn't really an option due to over performance concerns. Extensive play on a scrapper so far it seems fine as is, but if they traded double EF for crit damage, I personally wouldn't mind. I think a compromise would be to move the BS effect to EP or barrage to free up bone smasher since it's been a mainstay in rotation. This is of course assuming this wasn't done intentionally to mini-control EF for balance reasons.

 

I too thought It'd be closer to Energy Assault with a 100% and then smaller percents on other abilities, but if i'm understanding it right, this might have been too strong for EM.

 

I don't wanna @ captain or anything cause he's probably real busy but if you DO happen to read this maybe you could touch on it?

100% agree, maybe giving an utility to the T1 and T2 would be better.

 

I tested Beta EM on my fiery / EM tanker and it's fine : the "cost" of ET is a huge + on heavy end consum builds and/or armor with no or poor endurance management.

 

But i feeled that Tankers and Brute could enjoy something too : Crit At can use both - regen - special AND fast ET.

 

Tankers and Brutes could enjoy a boost to soft CC like having a chance to KD on Total Focus, Whirling hands and Pwer Crash + a 100% chance of stun with Energy focus.

8 minutes ago, Troo said:

Okay cool. I'm working up to something if the -regen is really needed, that make have had an impact.

My EM/rad scrapper just solo the ghost of scrap with no temporary powers at all, stacking -250% regen on a scrapper is something to consider.

Edited October 27, 2020 by Tsuko

[Super Atom]

On second thought;

 

Moving the BS effects would have to go to either the T2 or the T1, not both. My immediate pick is obviously the T2, but that kinda leaves tankers out in the cold in the choice department. So realistically, to minimize the forcing of powers, It'd have to go to the T1.

[Infinitum]

3 minutes ago, Super Atom said:

On second thought;

 

Moving the BS effects would have to go to either the T2 or the T1, not both. My immediate pick is obviously the T2, but that kinda leaves tankers out in the cold in the choice department. So realistically, to minimize the forcing of powers, It'd have to go to the T1.

yeah if focus leveragers were added i would want to restrict it to tanker or brute only, because honestly scrapper and stalker are finely tuned IMO,  if it were added to tanker and brute it would make most sense to put it on the T1 since tankers have to take the T1.

 

But the argument could also be made - they are tankers and brutes they dont need the extra focus anyway cause they are more meatshieldy.

 

Im on the fence on it honestly.

 

But Scrapper and Stalker i think need to be left alone because they are a work of art at the moment.

[Super Atom]

5 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

yeah if focus leveragers were added i would want to restrict it to tanker or brute only, because honestly scrapper and stalker are finely tuned IMO,  if it were added to tanker and brute it would make most sense to put it on the T1 since tankers have to take the T1.

 

But the argument could also be made - they are tankers and brutes they dont need the extra focus anyway cause they are more meatshieldy.

 

Im on the fence on it honestly.

 

But Scrapper and Stalker i think need to be left alone because they are a work of art at the moment.

I personally think It's fine as is and misusing bone smasher is more of a players adjusting than an actual issue with the mechanic itself.

 

However it never hurts to explore while theres time, my preference is also no touching of the scrapper or stalker 😛 I'm in love with my EM/Ninja scrapper. Live is 100% dead to me for now.

Edited October 27, 2020 by Super Atom

[Kanil]

well, just spent the better part of the night pyloning with em/bio/fire scrapper, best time was 1m20s, worst time was 1m50s~ on the best string i've got so far. average around 1m40s (both mode and mean)

probably killed about i dunno, 100 or so pylons? maybe more? it was a fucking lot, haha. i cleared out most of the map at least 5 times, i think?

 

anyways, used the general lineup for incarnate stuff, t4 muscle core, t4 ageless core, t4 assault core (turned off), t4 degen core. the build itself is extremely proc heavy, but doesn't quite feel 'optimal' just yet.

my string was: melt armor starter-> (( TF-> ET->BC->EP->PC))x n - you save build up for TF start string, don't use it immediately when it's up. melt armor as soon as it goes up again, which should be about 10-30s before you kill the plyon.

 

overall the set feels pretty similar to fire melee in terms of output on a ST level over a sustained period of time, which is... weird, i guess? it definitely hits harder when things get lucky (and esp. in short bursts, incinerate DOT be damned), but overall the average time is pretty similar to my fire melee/bio tests, just with a faster best time (1m20s flat vs 1m27s).

it's like.. there generally is no major damage spike that occurs based off crits, it's just a slow burn string that you do until they die, with luck factoring into the crits on the lesser powers.

 

there's a really bizarre aspect to building/strings that is really hard to ignore after awhile, that i think is probably the source of some folk's anguish? i haven't really read the EM thread so i've got no idea how much this has been addressed but i'm guessing probably quite a bit given how you can feel it when trying to optimize strings.

 

specifically, it's that to optimize the string, you actively want to avoid setting up crit strikes to follow into two strongest powers in the set. since TF and ET don't really do anything for your damage (in the same vein as a crit) when they crit, it's actually a massive (20-40s minimum just slotting crit strikes differently) damage/time loss for sustained DPS when you do that.

it feels like, backwards against how you optimize strings in other sets where you generally want to have crit strikes fire off before you use your two biggest hitting attacks (unless the anim time is obscene, like eagle's claw). the hyperbole to it is like, "boy, these crits feel worthless" but it's not like i've really gone and done any fighting against live enemy sets yet, so i've no idea if that feeling transfers over to something out of just nonstop sustained ST (which would theoretically be EM's forte, i guess)

 

i'm not sure how i feel about the ST performance just yet since the string i'm running just feels super unoptimal but i'd have to really fiddle with the slotting on powers to mess with that. something just feels 'wrong' about it.

 

i have a good feeling about the AOE though, because power crush kept swatting enemies way off to my side during testing when they'd run up - if it's possible to do something like crit strikes-> fireball->whirling hands-> power crush as a consistent string, there's probably a lot of juice AOE-wise. i'll do some trapdoor testing another day, but figured i'd report my testing and see if anyone else was getting that vibe.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Kanil

[aethereal]

4 hours ago, Safehouse said:

Let's Talk Levels 10-20 of Energy Melee

 

Continuing from the post I made yesterday, I wanted to share my experience today of leveling 10-20 on EM. Still a great experience, although not perfect. Primarily just noting some observations that I have. I've always kinda struggled with the 10-30 range on characters, so I anticipate similarly having some "blah" moments in the 20-30 window.

 

What I Did

To start I want to emphasize that managing 20 levels in 2 days is something I've never done before, but here we are. Here's what I did during that window:

• Ran to the Hollows and did David Wincott->Flux->Julius->Talshak, while also doing Shining Stars arc two. Somehow this made me outlevel Talshak and I couldn't do the Karsis stuff (yet)
• Shining Stars arc three
• Midnighter storyline
• Ran back to Kings Row and finished off Shauna Stockwell->Eagle Eye
• New powers I obtained between 10-20 included: Dull Pain (12); Fly (14); Unyielding (16); Whirling Hands (18); Resist Elements (20)
• Continued to use/upgrade SOs.
• Also grabbed exploration badges to test out the new long range teleport accolade.

How Did Things Go With the Next Round?

Again, still very early in the game, so I think there's a lot of room for opinion changing. A few not-as-awesome items of note did reveal themselves. Admittedly, some of the things I experienced could have to do with user error. Lesson learned: I should have used Energy Aura and not Invulnerability - I am intimately familiar with the ins and outs of EnA, whereas invulnerability is a set I've never gotten far with, either Live or Homecoming. So I'm working on a bit of a learning curve with Invuln.

• Struggled a bit with squishiness, to my surprise, given I'm 'invulnerable.' Always had a hard time with Frostfire for whatever reason, but on Safehouse I got pretty frustrated (the lack of unyielding pre-level 16 hurt me). Also got wrecked by... Mandible and Maxilla. Part of that was my wife distracting me during the ambush so I got dogpiled by Skulls. Anyway, this isn't an invuln focused feedback, sorry...
• Bone Smasher wrecks face. Especially crit Bone Smasher. Love it.
• I'm having some End issues. By level 20 I only have 2 toggles to keep up - temp invuln and unyielding - but managing those AND hitting things with my attacks drains my end bar quickly if I'm not careful. Either I have to work on my end management (totally possible), or skills are sapping my energy a lot faster than expected (and possibly faster than intended?). I don't remember the last time I got "too tired" before today.
• Having also playtested the level 50 EM/Inv scrapper for funsies, and having familiarized myself with things, I catch myself wishing the energy focus mechanic came sooner. Since total focus is not available until late-set, I will be well into my 20s before I can start to play with it. I really would love to be able to have some sort of slight energy focus at lower levels. Again, until I actually reach the point of the mechanic coming into play I won't know how different it "feels" to me from the earlier levels until I get there.

I'm a bit behind Safehouse in my lowbie explorations, but am also playing an EM/Invul scrapper and I second most of his observations.

 

I found myself starting to gasp for endurance at level 10, running only one toggle (temp invul).  It's not unusual for melees to have endurance problems at low levels, but I'm having particularly large ones.  I noticed this also on an EM/WP Brute I had HC live.  I cheated myself the ATOs at level 10 and slotted most of each set in Bone Smasher and PC, and kind of expected that to make it go away, but while it helped, I still often have to rest for endurance after every second or third spawn.  This feels like a temporary problem that will go away as I level and invest in sets, but it's pretty noticeable at this level.  Maybe reduce the end cost of either EP or Barrage a smidge to help lowbies out?  Shouldn't affect high-end performance much.

 

I've done okay against the Skull bosses (Mandible, Maxilla, Chernobog, and Morana so far), but they do hit you hard, and I've had to eat some insps to survive them.

 

I've really been digging PC as a levelling tool.  Yes, it's not an amazing AoE, but it's fairly easy to use (easier to hit a couple or three mobs than with a cone), and it's up a lot, so it's forgiving.

 

While this part of the game goes fast, it is a little brutal to have the signature mechanic of the set be completely locked out until your T8 power pick.

[Tsuko]

1 hour ago, Kanil said:

well, just spent the better part of the night pyloning with em/bio/fire scrapper, best time was 1m20s, worst time was 1m50s~ on the best string i've got so far. average around 1m40s (both mode and mean)

probably killed about i dunno, 100 or so pylons? maybe more? it was a fucking lot, haha. i cleared out most of the map at least 5 times, i think?

 

anyways, used the general lineup for incarnate stuff, t4 muscle core, t4 ageless core, t4 assault core (turned off), t4 degen core. the build itself is extremely proc heavy, but doesn't quite feel 'optimal' just yet.

my string was: melt armor starter-> (( TF-> ET->BC->EP->PC))x n - you save build up for TF start string, don't use it immediately when it's up. melt armor as soon as it goes up again, which should be about 10-30s before you kill the plyon.

 

overall the set feels pretty similar to fire melee in terms of output on a ST level over a sustained period of time, which is... weird, i guess? it definitely hits harder when things get lucky (and esp. in short bursts, incinerate DOT be damned), but overall the average time is pretty similar to my fire melee/bio tests, just with a faster best time (1m20s flat vs 1m27s).

it's like.. there generally is no major damage spike that occurs based off crits, it's just a slow burn string that you do until they die, with luck factoring into the crits on the lesser powers.

 

there's a really bizarre aspect to building/strings that is really hard to ignore after awhile, that i think is probably the source of some folk's anguish? i haven't really read the EM thread so i've got no idea how much this has been addressed but i'm guessing probably quite a bit given how you can feel it when trying to optimize strings.

 

specifically, it's that to optimize the string, you actively want to avoid setting up crit strikes to follow into two strongest powers in the set. since TF and ET don't really do anything for your damage (in the same vein as a crit) when they crit, it's actually a massive (20-40s minimum just slotting crit strikes differently) damage/time loss for sustained DPS when you do that.

it feels like, backwards against how you optimize strings in other sets where you generally want to have crit strikes fire off before you use your two biggest hitting attacks (unless the anim time is obscene, like eagle's claw). the hyperbole to it is like, "boy, these crits feel worthless" but it's not like i've really gone and done any fighting against live enemy sets yet, so i've no idea if that feeling transfers over to something out of just nonstop sustained ST (which would theoretically be EM's forte, i guess)

 

i'm not sure how i feel about the ST performance just yet since the string i'm running just feels super unoptimal but i'd have to really fiddle with the slotting on powers to mess with that. something just feels 'wrong' about it.

 

i have a good feeling about the AOE though, because power crush kept swatting enemies way off to my side during testing when they'd run up - if it's possible to do something like crit strikes-> fireball->whirling hands-> power crush as a consistent string, there's probably a lot of juice AOE-wise. i'll do some trapdoor testing another day, but figured i'd report my testing and see if anyone else was getting that vibe.

My EM / Rad scrapper has "only" rad therapy and Fireball as aoe avoiding the poor EM aoe. She's between 1h30 to 2m in st pylon, but she can kill the pylon with agro of rikti 54 or bieng hit by the Dropship.

 

She also solo the ghost of scrapyard without temporary powers.

[Troo]

2.5-ish days and 24 25 pages in..

<{[ ALERT Wall of Words ALERT ]}>

Flashback time

 

Suggestions in May (above 300+ replies and other places) I guess weren't early enough in the process to provide any valuable input or feedback.

Same for comments in that Weekly Discussion 68: Energy Melee (9/13/20-9/19/20) where many folks had similar suggestions.

 

Because, look what's is on Beta..

• Gotta have more AoE. New power with targets galore.
• A set defining combo mechanic involving both heavy hitters.
• Is it re-envisioned? Absolutely.

 

The bar was set pretty low so let's be realistic, any reasonable improvement was going to seem pretty good. (There are good things in the Beta)

 

--- -- ---

Did you know that pre-nerf (July 9, 2008):

• Energy Punch was a .57 or .83 second activation time, a 4 second recharge, and a 5.2 end cost.
• Energy Transfer was a 1 second activation time, a 20 second recharge, and a 10.2 cost.
• These were fantastic powers.
• In less than 2 seconds Pop-Boom! It was stunning. <<
• On a high recharge build, EP recharged in about 1.5 seconds and ET was in the 7.5 seconds.

 

Current Beta:

So why the combo mechanic now? Why such a drastic change? (It may not be drastic for all, but it is for others. Just accept that. Even if it seems ridiculous to you)

• Surely just reverting the nerf, adding quicker Total Focus, a higher damage Whirling Hands and some other goodies sprinkled on top would perform well. Maybe too well.

 

The combo mechanic prevents a number of things from happen. That's what it does. It's a guard rail. That allows adding another AoE (middling as it may be).

 

--- -- ---

Right now a highly tuned build could be getting exaggerated performance while a middle of the road build is good but not great. Below that, the performance continues to drop.

Not a big deal for those focused on level 50 incarnates.

--- -- ---

 

My opinion:

I don't think it is right to force the combo mechanic on an existing power set. I find it sub-optimal in practice, even if some scream "it's so easy".

I don't like the combo mechanic.

Having one choice be big stun +debuff OR that fast Energy Transfer folks are drooling over.. seriously?

 

I promised to give it a fair shot (which I am still doing).

I really like my EM/Regen who has been screwed over too many times to count. I apologize for not settling for something I don't think is good enough.

 

Is beta awful? Heck no.

Could it be better? F--- Ya!  <-- We want 'F--- Ya', don't we?

 

Based comments bouncing around many threads the ol' noggin started to point to a potential option that is not "revert the nerf" & keeps much of the beta version..

 

Below is a link to what would get me to shut up and choke down the combo mechanic.

 

Edited October 28, 2020 by Troo

[Safehouse]

7 hours ago, Troo said:

Excellent work @Safehouse

Can you do my homework too?

Thanks! I could do it, but if I did you might not like the grade you get. I was never good at doing homework before home room the day it was due...

[Safehouse]

4 hours ago, aethereal said:

I'm a bit behind Safehouse in my lowbie explorations, but am also playing an EM/Invul scrapper and I second most of his observations.

 

I found myself starting to gasp for endurance at level 10, running only one toggle (temp invul).  It's not unusual for melees to have endurance problems at low levels, but I'm having particularly large ones.  I noticed this also on an EM/WP Brute I had HC live.  I cheated myself the ATOs at level 10 and slotted most of each set in Bone Smasher and PC, and kind of expected that to make it go away, but while it helped, I still often have to rest for endurance after every second or third spawn.  This feels like a temporary problem that will go away as I level and invest in sets, but it's pretty noticeable at this level.  Maybe reduce the end cost of either EP or Barrage a smidge to help lowbies out?  Shouldn't affect high-end performance much.

 

I've done okay against the Skull bosses (Mandible, Maxilla, Chernobog, and Morana so far), but they do hit you hard, and I've had to eat some insps to survive them.

 

I've really been digging PC as a levelling tool.  Yes, it's not an amazing AoE, but it's fairly easy to use (easier to hit a couple or three mobs than with a cone), and it's up a lot, so it's forgiving.

 

While this part of the game goes fast, it is a little brutal to have the signature mechanic of the set be completely locked out until your T8 power pick.

Glad I’m not the only one experiencing the end issues. I’ve pretty consistently caught myself chugging blue insps to get by.

 

My Mandible and Maxilla mishap was, I believe, an anomaly brought on by some poorly timed wife aggro, so I was sitting in the mish while the ambush piled on to me on top of attacking the bosses. Chernobog, Morana, and Veles all went down with relative ease. I almost felt bad for Cherno with how fast I wiped the floor with him.

 

I agree that, if EF is truly to be the new signature mechanic of the set, I’d really like to see it come into play sooner. 

[TotalThunder]

On 10/25/2020 at 11:46 PM, Captain Powerhouse said:

 

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.

This is something I've actually been confused about for a while, regarding Energy Transfer. (And Concentrated Strike, I guess.)

 

Radiation Melee. On a Stalker, Devastating Blow from Rad Melee not only has the same (long) animation as ET, and does only slightly less damage - it can crit for double damage, doesn't do self-damage, and has a slightly shorter recharge, *edit*and it AoEs if the enemy is Contaminated.* (I guess this is sort of justified now because you can fast ET, and DB is just always slow. But I'm referring specifically to before the change.)

 

Psionic Melee. Greater Psi Blade (which does more damage than Concentrated Strike) does only slightly less damage than ET, but has a shorter recharge, can crit for double, and has a slightly shorter animation.

 

Total Focus is also a strange subject for not being able to crit for double. Thunder Strike uses the same (current slow, not test) animation, and does slightly more than half the damage. But it can crit, resulting in a hit to your target that does more damage than TF, as well as damaging everything around it. Atom Smasher is another example of this, along with (although having a different animation and being a pbaoe) Mass Levitate from Psi Melee.

 

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like Energy Melee and Kinetic Melee's heavy hitters got this weird crit nerf while other very similar powers are allowed to function as normal.

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by TotalThunder

[Croax]

I have tested a EM/EA Stalker and want to share my thoughts here. All of this is from a Stalker Point of View.

 

When i look at a Attack set i ask myself: What Power will i be using after Assassin Strike? Normaly that is the hardest hitting ability of the Set like Greater Psi Blade or Crushing Uppercut. For EM i was looking at:

• Totall Focus: A crit does very little extra Damage and gives another Stack of Energy Focus. The extra Damage is not worth it, maybe the extra Stack is good.
• Energy Transfer: Instead of dealing extra Damage i get healed and do not get damaged myself. Not getting extra Damage is bad. And in a world of Panacea, Power Transfer, Numina and various other ways to passively heal up for every Stalker, i do not need the extra healing.
• Power Crash: It is a Cone and has a reduced chance to crit from Hide. 
• Bone Smasher: No real Downside but this Power is by far not the Hardest hitting ability. 

Now i would have to choose which one should follow up after Assassin Strike. ET and PC are ruled out because of reduced crit or no crit. TF also is not dealing enough Damage but there is a second stack of EF. So i went out and tried different attack chains with TF and BS after AS. My problem was that BS would consume EF stacks and just be a gimmick which i could ignore. In fact i came to a situation where i would random crit TF, use one stack on ET and now i was avoiding BS because i hoped to get another fast ET instead of a stupid BS that consumed the stack. It felt punishing to crit with TF. That was really weird and it was much more stupid when i used TF after AS. I had 3 Powers on my bar with a white circle knowing that i only want to use either fast TF or better PC. Hitting BS with a white circle felt so wrong. Especially if you are hitting enemys that will not life long enough to make a stun usefull. Should i jump into the next group to get more out of my PC in such a case? Or use a snipe? (I had none in my build). It was the most uncomfortable thing i stumbled upon.

Now if i look at the 4 Powers that i considered, i came to the conclusion that i do not want any of them after Assassin Strike. A Snipe will not grant Assassin Focus Stacks and is available very late in terms of levels. Since TF is a big commitment because of the long cooldown, long casttime, i still started to hope that it does not crit for the sake of the feeling to waste EF stacks on bad powers. For a crit based AT that is very paradox.

 

 

If the EF stacks would 'flow' better i would not hesitate to waste/use it on BS. Or if EF stacks would increase the Damage of BS. I would like to use it on it and would start to hope for crits. One way could be to give Build Up the opportunity to grant EF stacks. I am sure it would spice up the rotation, more for Stalkers than it would for other AT. In most modern mmorpg proc based powers that break up 'rotation' into priority based attack chains tend to be more fun. A builder/spender combo gimmick system will somehow be brought down to the best possible attack chain. But this was the first time in playing COH that you guys made me think of modern rpgs and how Energy Melee could be the greatest Attack Set. It is not yet there but it has potential.

 

If you would release it to life in the state the set is right now, it will be OK. EM was bad and is now mediocre. It is in line with Psi, Ice, Fire and Kinetic. It is outperformed by Savage, Street Justice and Electric Melee. It is better than Broadsword, Claws, Martial Arts, Dark and maybe Dual Blades.

 

I hope that EM will see some more adjustments before it hits life.