Focused Feedback: Energy Melee Revamp

[Troo]

12 hours ago, Vanden said:

That really seems unlikely to happen, since ET has half the recharge of TF.

There is number of ways it happens. One example could be the double energy focus. TF > ET.. wait > ET

[Gobbledigook]

 HIT Rikti Pylon! Your Total Focus power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 60.41.
You hit Rikti Pylon with your Total Focus for 301.26 points of Smashing damage.
You hit Rikti Pylon with your Total Focus for 771.24 points of Energy damage.
You Stun Rikti Pylon with your Total Focus.
You hit Rikti Pylon with your Total Focus for 301.26 points of Energy damage [CRITICAL].
You hit Rikti Pylon with your Touch of Death: Negative Energy Damage for 73.18 points of Negative Energy damage.
You hit Rikti Pylon with your Hecatomb: Chance for Negative Energy Damage for 109.22 points of Negative Energy damage.
You hit Rikti Pylon with your Offensive Adaptation for 56.78 points of Toxic damage.

 

It does Crit then it seems.

[siolfir]

2 minutes ago, Gobbledegook said:

 HIT Rikti Pylon! Your Total Focus power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 60.41.
You hit Rikti Pylon with your Total Focus for 301.26 points of Smashing damage.
You hit Rikti Pylon with your Total Focus for 771.24 points of Energy damage.
You Stun Rikti Pylon with your Total Focus.
You hit Rikti Pylon with your Total Focus for 301.26 points of Energy damage [CRITICAL].
You hit Rikti Pylon with your Touch of Death: Negative Energy Damage for 73.18 points of Negative Energy damage.
You hit Rikti Pylon with your Hecatomb: Chance for Negative Energy Damage for 109.22 points of Negative Energy damage.
You hit Rikti Pylon with your Offensive Adaptation for 56.78 points of Toxic damage.

 

It does Crit then it seems.

Yes, the scale 1 smashing portion criticals as energy. That's approximately 28%, and brings the total up to a scale 4.56 attack when it criticals.

 

I was never saying it didn't critical at all, just that given how many other powers exceed scale 4.56 on a critical (a list is earlier in the thread) that the percentage of damage that hits for a critical could be adjusted upwards. The current hardest-hitting "producer" is Devastating Blow in Rad Melee, which is scale 6.16 on a critical and has a high chance for adding Contamination (100% for Stalkers, I think?).

[Gobbledigook]

10 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Yes, the scale 1 smashing portion criticals as energy. That's approximately 28%, and brings the total up to a scale 4.56 attack when it criticals.

 

I was never saying it didn't critical at all, just that given how many other powers exceed scale 4.56 on a critical (a list is earlier in the thread) that the percentage of damage that hits for a critical could be adjusted upwards. The current hardest-hitting "producer" is Devastating Blow in Rad Melee, which is scale 6.16 on a critical and has a high chance for adding Contamination (100% for Stalkers, I think?).

I wasn't replying to any post i was just stating what was new to me lol

[aethereal]

Lowbie explorations update (this is with my EM/Invul scrapper):

 

I did the Graham Easton arc, with difficulty increased to +1/x2.  This is with some powers slotted with ATOs and other sets, other powers unslotted or slotted with trash that happened to drop.  This is how I play on HC live, more or less, so I'm aiming for verisimilitude here.  The arc brought me from 18->20.

 

Got a little more experience with having the new, improved Whirling Hands as well as PC.  AoE feels Just Fine on EM to me.  I mean, certainly not top-tier, but I've got solidly hitting AoEs that do respectable damage, check.

 

You will be shocked to hear that +1/x2 is significantly more difficult than +0/x1!  This manifested mainly in terms of my endurance problems resuming with a vengeance, as I had to cycle through more powers for each spawn, and used my end-hungry AoEs more.

 

The final battle of that arc (four one-on-one combats against Lts then one against a Boss) was predictably a breeze with Energy Melee.  I sometimes have problems with that just in terms of attrition, ending up starting the fight with the boss at low enough health and/or endurance that it's a bit of a problem (never really bad, just sometimes I pop more insps than I'd like).  This time, I didn't come within a mile of touching an insp.  The stuns really prevented any of the lts from touching my health, and when the boss came along I popped build-up and killed him in a rotation-and-a-half.

 

I then cheated up to 22 and will be looking to see how much I can push difficulty up through the 20's.

[BrandX]

Just curious, but why not have Power Crash be a single target attack with 100% stun, that when used with Energy Focus, becomes a cone with more damage?

 

Or is the idea to give Bone Smasher the 100% Stun with EF, to make people choose more?

[Wavicle]

21 minutes ago, BrandX said:

Just curious, but why not have Power Crash be a single target attack with 100% stun, that when used with Energy Focus, becomes a cone with more damage?

 

Or is the idea to give Bone Smasher the 100% Stun with EF, to make people choose more?

They want to increase AoE damage regardless of Focus.

[Taboo]

11 hours ago, DreadShinobi said:

Barrage has already been mentioned as a suitable replacement to provide a 100% chance stun and regen debuff. 

That works for Tankers but what about everyone else who SKIPPED Barrage & Stun, now they have to cram two more powers in?

 

It is soo messed up to scrap an existing power set.

 

For those who wanna say it's easy or it's optional that is a pretty f'n shitty way to justify getting what you want.

The whole game is optional, the whole game is relatively easy.

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Taboo said:

That works for Tankers but what about everyone else who SKIPPED Barrage & Stun, now they have to cram two more powers in?

This is not a valid complaint. Good powerset design makes ALL the powers in the set valuable and skipping ANY of them should feel like a difficult choice.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Wavicle

[Saikochoro]

12 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

This is not a valid complaint. Good powerset design makes ALL the powers in the set valuable and skipping ANY of them should feel like a difficult choice.

I can’t agree with this enough. All powers in a set should feel great and rewarding enough to take and use. Throw away powers should really never be part of sets. 

[ABlueThingy]

15 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

"... Good powerset design makes ALL the powers in the set valuable and skipping ANY of them should feel like a difficult choice."

Agreed, powersets shouldn't be designed with skipable "Crap" powers.  Every power in the set should be good and viable for something.

 

 

As an addendum I wanted to add that I am less ok with a set built to REQUIRE you to take all powers to function at maximum.  I'd much rather sets that have alternative and bonus powers that let you fill out the concept if desired but wouldn't be crippled if chunks were swapped out for pool/epic powers.

[Safehouse]

13 hours ago, ScarySai said:

I want whiffing ET to play an animation of my character punching itself in the face.

I’ll take it.

 

 

[Monos King]

Just now, ABlueThingy said:

Agreed, powersets shouldn't be designed with skipable "Crap" powers.  Every power in the set should be good and viable for something.

Well let's not forget there will be different tools for different tasks. Each power should have a general "theme" that composes its specialty, but dependent on your playstyle certain powers will be naturally skippable. For instance, when I am a MM focused on soloing and not support, I don't have much of a reason to get Clear Mind or Clarity. And as a radiation Armor scrap, I don't much need Ground Zero's ally +heal or the extra AoE, despite being a great move. I doubt most skippable powers were made to be bad, but that the meta just out-dated them.

[ABlueThingy]

6 minutes ago, Monos King said:

Well let's not forget there will be different tools for different tasks. Each power should have a general "theme" that composes its specialty, but dependent on your playstyle certain powers will be naturally skippable. For instance, when I am a MM focused on soloing and not support, I don't have much of a reason to get Clear Mind or Clarity. And as a radiation Armor scrap, I don't much need Ground Zero's ally +heal or the extra AoE, despite being a great move. I doubt most skippable powers were made to be bad, but that the meta just out-dated them.

Agreed! That's what the second half of my post was about.  It also segues into my rant about how Pool Powers should be closer in strength to pri/sec powers to make them viable choices should you-- for example want to give your mastermind some melee attacks instead of CM, those should be roughly equal choices I think

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, ABlueThingy said:

Agreed, powersets shouldn't be designed with skipable "Crap" powers.  Every power in the set should be good and viable for something.

Thats not what the argument is here though, the problem arises when you get a double crit on TF and then BS is in the way, its trying to be optimal outside the current balance of the set, thats why you would use EP there in BS place.  Its not that BS is a crap power or that its focus mechanic is crap - its just outweighed by fast ET.

 

But sometimes you cant have your cake and eat it too.

 

If this changed ill roll with it because its so easy to roll EP into an attack chain and it be effective and good.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Infinitum

[Kanil]

so, i was doin' a bit more testing yesterday to check bopper's theoretical string and yeah, pretty much coming to the same conclusions in terms of BS.

adding any non-focus spending attack smooths out the awkwardness of EM's strings in terms of feel - when it's a snipe, it drastically improves the performance as well and gives the set a unique identity in how often you are doing ET and just shredding your HP.

in sequences of good luck, your health just plummets alongside the pylon's, which is pretty hilarious and great feeling.

 

pylon times: 
 

Spoiler

 

em/bio/mu scrapper
TF>ET(fast)>Zapp>EP>ET(fast or slow)>EP(if fast)
1m25s
1m24s
1m25s
1m31s
1m22s
1m34s
1m22s
1m26s
1m31s
1m30s

 

integrating PC with fury of the gladiator -res instead of EP during double ET->TF:
1m24s
1m17s
1m20s
1m16s
1m26s
1m24s
1m36s
1m45s
1m27s

 

overall the ST results are pretty strong- it's still worse than WM but overall in ST damage results on scrappers it's probably in the top 3 overall - the moonbeam string seems to put it about even to TW and WM at the probable loss of having better AOE/general performance. given that TW has two sources of -res in it's string, it's probably arguable that it sits at the top or 2nd place spot (WM is really, really insane, haha) for ST damage. pretty cool, but it kinda sucks that the smooth feeling of that is related to just kinda forcing in an alternate attack to ignore the mechanics of the set, haha.

 

i went ahead and also did some  trapdoor testing  (this is a live play/general AOE test done by clearing a regular mission) with it as well to see if it might be better than fireball since it's so much smoother than EM-only strings and gives you another good high-damage option that doesn't mess with your general strings. general starter is what you'd expect - run up, FT->fast ET->whirling hands->ball lightning->power crush. then clear up the trash left with faster attacks.

EM/bio/mu scrapper
5m42s
5m18s
5m21s
5m18s
5m24s

 

the performance is actually a bit above average, though i'm not quite sure why. power crush isn't really doing much as far as i can tell, so it's entirely on whirling hands + ball lightning and EM's ability to clean up scraps quickly.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Kanil

[Solarverse]

In this thread @Jimmy said...
 

 

I would just like to give my opinion that other than changing the SFX for the Quick Energy Transfer, I do not believe anything needs to change from what is on test. I am in full support to what we have on Beta Testing and feel nothing needs to change from that. I think the Devs did a damn fine job and even though there seems to be a few people who are not a fan, I keep in mind that no matter what you do with the set, you are ALWAYS going to have people who are not happy with it. However, going forward, for balance and bringing something that everyone has a slice of their pie in this, the way this was implemented was perfect. People who wanted to keep the nerfed version of ET still has that option. People who hates the nerfed version of ET can never have to see it again due to the new mechanic. The Devs did what they had to do to try and give everyone what they wanted by implementing something that gave both. They did a fine job at giving players the option of having more AoE, while not making it required to make the new mechanic work for those of us who did not feel the set needed more AoE.

The Devs have clearly thought this through and have clearly taken in to consideration ALL of the discussions that we have had all over the boards since the game has been back. I think at this point we are seeing the biggest issues that people want this set to be the way they want it to be and are unwilling to compromise. What the Des did was compromise and did a little something for EVERYONE. I personally feel the Devs did what needed to be done in a way that attempts to make ALL parties happy. Sorry if it did not go exactly the way you wanted it to...guess what, it did not go exactly the way I wanted it to either...but I for one am happy with the compromise and I believe everyone else should be happy with it too.

You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.

My vote: Leave it just the way it currently is on live and be grateful the Devs went out of their way to try and give the set a little something for all the people....even if it does not match what YOU wanted. Nobody got what they wanted because there were WAY too many voices that all wanted something different. However, we all DID get a voice in it and the Devs implemented as many ideas as they possibly could so that everyone had a piece of the pie.

Thank you Devs for going out of your way to make something possible that would have otherwise not been possible, by granting them a viable way to get what they want through the new mechanics. I cannot say thank you enough and although some do not seem to appreciate the great effort you went through to give everyone what they have been asking for, I for one do appreciate and recognize the effort you made to attempt to make EVERYONE happy.
 

Damn good work.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Solarverse

[Hew]

34 minutes ago, Kanil said:

 

i went ahead and also did some  trapdoor testing  (this is a live play/general AOE test done by clearing a regular mission) with it as well to see if it might be better than fireball since it's so much smoother than EM-only strings and gives you another good high-damage option that doesn't mess with your general strings. general starter is what you'd expect - run up, FT->fast ET->whirling hands->ball lightning->power crush. then clear up the trash left with faster attacks.

EM/bio/mu scrapper
5m42s
5m18s
5m21s
5m18s
5m24s

 

the performance is actually a bit above average, though i'm not quite sure why. power crush isn't really doing much as far as i can tell, so it's entirely on whirling hands + ball lightning and EM's ability to clean up scraps quickly.

General clearing, using aoe for trash and hard hits for lts/bosses will definitely clear a lot faster than just aoe, or just st. The idea here is that it should be usable here in all situations, not just hammering on hard targets.

 

Your findings represent that intent; you can use it on a team, you can use it solo, you can be called in to smash hard targets, you can get general purpose play in.

 

For me, that is a 100% success. I want a set I can just play, and be productive no matter what the content is.

[Vanden]

8 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

I would just like to give my opinion that other than changing the SFX for the Quick Energy Transfer, I do not believe anything needs to change from what is on test.

I'm in full agreement here. Other than the animation/FX issues I outlined on the very first page, I don't think anything needs to change in this set before it goes live.

[aethereal]

Here's a very speculative suggestion:  Increase the percentage chance of stuns for Energy Punch, Barrage, Power Crash, and Whirling Hands, decrease the duration of the stuns.

 

Why:  I'm feeling weirdly squishy as I do my lowbie explorations of this set.  I've been running Roy Cooling, which has as its opponents rogue PPD and Sky Raiders.  These guys are shooting a lot of guns at me, and I'm a EM/Invul scrapper, this feels like it should be a good matchup.  I have 47% S/L resistance and 11% or so S/L defense.  But, at +1/x2, I'm ending a lot of fights at about 10% health.  I recently ran a Kat/Invul scrapper through these same levels, and it felt considerably safer in these kinds of matchups.  So, I asked myself, why am I feeling so squishy?

 

My tentative conclusion is that it's variance in the mitigation of Energy Melee, which of course is mostly in the form of stuns.  All early powers in EM besides Bone Smasher have a fairly low chance to stun.  Here are the numbers from my detailed info screen:

 

Energy Punch: 30% chance, 2 mag, 4.88s duration

Barrage:  10% chance, 2 mag, 5.86s duration

Bone Smasher: 60% chance, 3 mag, 7.81s duration

Power Crash:  20% chance, 3 mag, 4.88s duration

Whirling Hands:  30% chance, 2 mag, 4.88s duration

 

What happens is you get a kind of on-and-off cycle of mitigation.  If you get lucky with your stuns (many members of the spawn stunned by the first 2-3 attacks), then a given spawn is VERY safe, hardly touching your health, as you kill most members of the spawn before their stuns wear off, or they get only one or two attacks.  On the other hand, in the more likely case where your first few attacks stun few or no opponents, you get almost no mitigation.

 

I think it would be better if stuns (besides Bone Smasher) were more reliable but less long-lasting, making it less likely that you'd get very little mitigation and less likely that you'd get a ton of mitigation, more somewhere in the middle.  I'm thinking like take the chances up about 20% for EP, Barrage, PC, and WH, and knock a second or so off the duration.

[Direct Crit]

14 minutes ago, Vanden said:

I'm in full agreement here. Other than the animation/FX issues I outlined on the very first page, I don't think anything needs to change in this set before it goes live.

Same deal. Honestly the current incarnation is strong enough that despite my disagreement with the extra EF I'd be happy to let things go as is so it's on live *now* rather than having to wait, because I like what we're getting and it feels good.

[Troo]

For those who are not fans of the combo mechanic.

I can say that this has been heard. (feel free to keep saying it)

 

Changing an existing power set in this way.. I don't like the idea of drastically impacting existing sets. Just know the folks working on it are trying to accommodate a number of things.

 

I am disappointed this is the direction it went in. Yes, these changes could have been made to the old pre-nerf set without the combo. It would have been vastly better than current live version.

 

The way we can help is to try to be specific with concerns, questions or aspects that are not working. Especially below the max build Incarnate levels.

 

For those who disagree with people who don't like it, please don't argue with them or try and convince them. Just let em state their opinion or experience. By all means help answer questions.

 

It's a combo mechanic, IT"S NOT a combo mechanic.. This just doesn't add much to the task at hand. (I am guilty of this too)

 

This will be in flux for a little bit as things are shaken out. It's been less than a handful of days.

 

Cheers

 

 

I did put out a compromise "Here is what would get me to shut up..":  disclaimer: by saying 'like' to this post you are in no way committed to having said 'like' to the items below!

Spoiler

 

 

I also tried to expand on my thoughts & such, it was accidentally lost to a purge and is back:

Spoiler

 

 

Edited October 28, 2020 by Troo

[Infinitum]

16 minutes ago, Troo said:

For those who are not fans of the combo mechanic.

I can say that this has been heard. (feel free to keep saying it)

 

Changing an existing power set in this way.. I don't like the idea of drastically impacting existing sets. Just know the folks working on it are trying to accommodate a number of things.

 

I am disappointed that this is the direction it went in. Yes, these changes could have been made to the old pre-nerf set without the combo. It would have been vastly better than the current live version.

 

The way we can help is to try to be specific with concerns, questions or aspects that are not working. Especially below the max build Incarnate levels.

 

For those who disagree with people who don't like it, please don't argue with them or try and convince them. Just let em state their opinion or experience. By all means help answer questions.

 

It's a combo mechanic, IT"S NOT a combo mechanic.. This just doesn't add much to the task at hand. (I am guilty of this too)

 

This will be in flux for a little bit as things are shaken out. It's been less than a handful of days.

 

Cheers

Well if you had said this a few days ago, it could have cut out 15 pages here, but I'm glad you saw the light.  That's mighty level of you - balanced like EM if you will. ;-)

[Mystic_Cross]

Wanted to chime back in on Bone Smasher again, but this time relative to sub-level 35 play on a Tanker. 
 

Seeing as TF>BS is the only “combo” available for tanks until level 35 I’ve been using it often at level 30 while running through the new freaklok arc and it’s very handy at that level.
 

I usually get to stun one guy with TF and then switch targets and stun another guy with BS, or they can be stacked together on a boss for a guaranteed stun. It pretty much plays the same as before the changes with stun, except now  we actually have the ability to reliably stun bosses with a 1-2 punch while dealing more damage.

 

So while it may feel like a bit of a penalty at later levels when you have a choice between using BS or fET, before that point it is still very helpful. At lower levels this is giving us better control and more damage than current on live.

 

I say better because a lot of people currently skip stun due to it’s lack of damage, but they’ll be getting its functionality without even needing to change their build now.

 

 

[Golden Azrael]

I@m really enjoying the BS stun from the TF energy focus.

 

The new EM on tank should come with a health warning.

 

IT's that GOOD.

 

Are the AoE's stunning more now?  I had a few Devouring Earth doing the twirly bird.

 

It's good.  More mitigation.

 

Azrael.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Golden Azrael