Focused Feedback: Energy Melee Revamp

[Keen]

On 10/24/2020 at 8:33 AM, Jimmy said:

•  Barrage
  • If used with Energy Focus: 100% chance for stun and applies a weakening (-special and -regen) effect to the target
    • This effect has been moved from Bone Smasher to Barrage
•  Bone Smasher
  • Cast time reduced from 1.5s to 1.27s
  • No longer consumes Energy Focus, allowing it to be more freely used in attack chains
    • This effect has been moved to Barrage

I think I understand why this had to be done (Tankers?), but boy do I loathe Barrage's animation. No longer a skippable power for me 😞 

[Troo]

6 respecs and I'll be back with additional feedback. (thank goodness for the freebie menu)

 

Thanks for addressing the timing and stalker chance for.

[WindDemon21]

On 10/24/2020 at 8:33 AM, Jimmy said:

 Energy Punch

• Recharge increased from 4s to 5s
• End cost increased from 5.2 to 6.032
• Damage increased from scale 1 to scale 1.16

Please keep this at 4 seconds to use as the attack filler power it should be without needing crazy recharge to make a fluid chain.

[Troo]

@WindDemon21 that's a good catch. The set is not short damage. (and other reasons)

[aethereal]

Very initial feedback on build 2 based on like literally 10 minutes of play:  I like the stun being moved to barrage.  Makes it easier for me to move to a secondary target, stun them, and then keep my big hitters on the main target I'm taking down.

 

EDIT:  Also if I crit on TF, I can lay down two guaranteed stuns in pretty rapid succession, which sometimes is what I want.

Edited October 31, 2020 by aethereal

[ScarySai]

Energy punch is fine. No touchy.

[Bopper]

I would MUCH prefer Energy Punch remain at 5s recharge. If EM is going to be a top ST melee damage set, it will need the top damage attacks. Making EP average again will not help in that. The only time EP is difficult to use as a filler attack is when it is being used to fill every other attack in a chain, which isn't needed in this set givin that you have Bone Smasher and Energy Transfer each with high uptimes, and you have AoEs that are slow enough where EP will recharge well enough in time.

[WindDemon21]

5 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Energy punch is fine. No touchy.

At 4 seconds I'm assuming was what you were referring to. Yes it's fine, keep it at 4 seconds please for it's filler ability.

[ScarySai]

You have a bone smasher that is entirely unrestricted now, you have your filler. 

 

The set is perfect now and people are still complaining.

Edited October 31, 2020 by ScarySai

[WindDemon21]

3 minutes ago, Bopper said:

I would MUCH prefer Energy Punch remain at 5s recharge. If EM is going to be a top ST melee damage set, it will need the top damage attacks. Making EP average again will not help in that. The only time EP is difficult to use as a filler attack is when it is being used to fill every other attack in a chain, which isn't needed in this set givin that you have Bone Smasher and Energy Transfer each with high uptimes, and you have AoEs that are slow enough where EP will recharge well enough in time.

Its obviously for the ST chain factoring aoes in the tier 1 is almost never needed then later on.

 

In ST though I'm thinking tf (crit proc) > ep > et > ep > bs > ep > tf repeat which without insanely high amounts of rech you can't do fluidly with it at 5 seconds (and not till much later in the build as well) at 4 seconds with one of the highest DPAs it should well make its worth in that middle filler.

[WindDemon21]

8 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

You have a bone smasher that is entirely unrestricted now, you have your filler. 

What do you mean unrestricted?

[aethereal]

Just now, WindDemon21 said:

What do you mean unrestricted?

They mean it won't use up an EF stack that you hope to reserve for ET.

[WindDemon21]

1 minute ago, aethereal said:

They mean it won't use up an EF stack that you hope to reserve for ET.

Oh, well yeah doesn't change what I said about the attack chain though.

 

EM will still be king of ST at this rate with it still at 4 seconds.

[WindDemon21]

I'm assuming as is now though TF (proc) > bs > ep > et > bs > ep > tf? What is the -regen value on barrage?

Edited October 31, 2020 by WindDemon21

[ScarySai]

Don't fix what isn't broken, Wind.

 

If your build is unable to reach a highish recharge, bs and EP make for good filler between heavy hits. 

Edited October 31, 2020 by ScarySai
Correcting autocorrect

[Myrmidon]

Every game change isn’t made around optimized DPS chains.

[ScarySai]

The new chains are both better and easier to build for, as well.

[WindDemon21]

9 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Don't fix what isn't broken, Wind.

 

If your build is unable to reach a highish recharge, bs and EP make for good filler between heavy hits. 

More so that I don't like how you're (more so) forced to do it for this and can't even do it now. I usually do build for high rech but depending on secondary you can't always get as much as you want. Now with it as 5 seconds there will be a noticeable and annoying slight gap between ep attacks. Ie look at ET, when at 1s you can get 4s down to about 1s for ep to offside it, but at 5s the best will be about .3s off now.

 

Would also be nice if barrage focus was the stun, but the -regen was moved to any other ST power (honestly ET makes more sense cause you're TRANSFERRING their regen to heal you)

 

Cause otherwise barrage seems like the only skippable attack but that -regen kinda doesn't when fighting AVs.

Edited October 31, 2020 by WindDemon21

[WindDemon21]

9 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

Every game change isn’t made around optimized DPS chains.

But considering that EP basically has no specialty to it, it should only be about its filler in a dps chain.

[Bopper]

27 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

Its obviously for the ST chain factoring aoes in the tier 1 is almost never needed then later on.

 

In ST though I'm thinking tf (crit proc) > ep > et > ep > bs > ep > tf repeat which without insanely high amounts of rech you can't do fluidly with it at 5 seconds (and not till much later in the build as well) at 4 seconds with one of the highest DPAs it should well make its worth in that middle filler.

Try

TF > BS > EP > ET > BS > EP > Repeat

 

BS will require +256% recharge

Your chain with EP at 4s would need +237% recharge

 

That's not much of a difference, and you wouldn't neuter your damage. And if you can't reach that level of recharge, leave the 0.13s gap and enjoy the extra damage.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Bopper

[WindDemon21]

12 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Try

TF > BS > EP > ET > BS > EP > Repeat

 

BS will require +256% recharge

Your chain with EP at 4s would need +237% recharge

 

That's not much of a difference, and you wouldn't neuter your damage. And if you can't reach that level of recharge, leave the 0.13s gap and enjoy the extra damage.

That's what i was thinking too, just not a fan of it coming so late to have *a* chain, that is without barrage, which i'm on the fence about, the -regen is nice, but otherwise i hate the animation, has the lowest DPA IIRC now, and kinda needs that spot to skip an attack. What's it's -regen, and can that be moved to ET which makes more sense.

[WindDemon21]

I'm thinking that when the crit proc doens't go off, to use barrage instead of ET, but i feel at odds with the -heal in ET, even at max crit on a scrapper, that's going to average 2 heals per 1 non-heal (66%) so after 3 uses it's only a 10% heal net average. Instead of taking your health, would make more sense for the -regen to be in ET, and that's what's giving you the heal.

[ScarySai]

 

[Bopper]

45 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

I'm thinking that when the crit proc doens't go off, to use barrage instead of ET, but i feel at odds with the -heal in ET, even at max crit on a scrapper, that's going to average 2 heals per 1 non-heal (66%) so after 3 uses it's only a 10% heal net average. Instead of taking your health, would make more sense for the -regen to be in ET, and that's what's giving you the heal.

-Heal (technically self damage) has ALWAYS been a part of ET. If anything, it actually got buffed in Issue 27 because before it used Melee Damage modifier tables for self damage, now it uses Melee Heal Self modifier tables. That might hurt Brutes more, actually, but this is a buff to the other ATs.

 

Since this is proliferated to Scrappers we don't have anything to compare it to, so let me explain how it works currently for Stalkers (which is how it would have worked for Scrappers if we proliferated without changes). The self damage would have been ~50% stronger, and there would be no crit heal. Currently, the crit only stops the damage from happening, not heal you back the life you would have lost. So in this case...instead of taking damage in the form of ~15% of your base health 90% of the time, you are taking damage in the form of 10% of your base health 90% of the time and healing 10% of your base health 10% of the time (assuming you have no buffs to your chance to crit, which...you will). So whatever feelings you are at odds with, trust me...it would be much worse if we go back to the way things work currently on Live.

 

55 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

What's it's -regen, and can that be moved to ET which makes more sense.

It is 100% regeneration debuff, and that will not go to Energy Transfer. Fast Energy Transfer is all the Energy Focus buff it will get, and honestly, it's more than enough.

[WindDemon21]

5 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Since this is proliferated to Scrappers we don't have anything to compare it to, so let me explain how it works currently for Stalkers (which is how it would have worked for Scrappers if we proliferated without changes). The self damage would have been ~50% stronger, and there would be no crit heal. Currently, the crit only stops the damage from happening, not heal you back the life you would have lost. So in this case...instead of taking damage in the form of ~15% of your base health 90% of the time, you are taking damage in the form of 10% of your base health 90% of the time and healing 10% of your base health 10% of the time (assuming you have no buffs to your chance to crit, which...you will). So whatever feelings you are at odds with, trust me...it would be much worse if we go back to the way things work currently on Live.

That's not how it reads, and according to how it reads should be notified as a bug: This power only crits for 28% additional damage, but when it crits, it will not only avoid the self-damage, but will actually heals you for 10% of your base Max HP

So it does not hurt you, and ALSO should heal you according to the text.

 

7 minutes ago, Bopper said:

It is 100% regeneration debuff, and that will not go to Energy Transfer. Fast Energy Transfer is all the Energy Focus buff it will get, and honestly, it's more than enough.

Oh i totally get that, more-so saying how it makes much more sense in ET though, and I don't like how it makes me feel like i have to get barrage for AV fights, where it would otherwise be the only skippable power in the set.