Focused Feedback: Energy Melee Revamp

[Croax]

Ok i tested now a EM/Bio Stalker and i wanted to give some Feedback. I build for maximal Damage and went a little bit lower on the defenses this time. I am amazed how much damage i could dish out but i had some troubles with the survivability. When Bio Armor allowed the enemys to smash my health into the orange red and i had a TF crit, i killed my self, because of 2 ETs. I will more likely ignore the damage i received to kick asses. Well but with bio if i do not use my clickys i will die. and i did die a lot. until i managed to really be carefull. i think in teams i can be more reckless but with a EM/EA Stalker i could just keep on smashing. In my Opinion the Energy Melee aas it is now is the best Version of Energy Melee ever. This Set is really good balanced at this point. 

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

I'm putting together a high-end EM stalker to test this, but my gut feeling is that Stalker EM is so good at single-target that its AoE shouldn't be buffed more.

 

It's crazy for a set to have three super-hard-hitting ST attacks (Assassin's Strike, Total Focus, Energy Transfer), on timers that make it easy to get them all into a single 10s rotation (stalkers don't want a less-than 10s rotation because of the lockout on the chance-to-hide proc), one of them twice.

 

Then throw in a Snipe from the Epic

[BrandX]

Personal opinion, but after some play through, I kinda like the -Regen/-Special in BS.  However, I still like Barrage feeling like it got buffed 😛

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, BrandX said:

 

Then throw in a Snipe from the Epic

Yep.  You can, if you so desire, do literally 5 "much higher DPA-than-average" attacks (albeit at pretty brutal health cost) in a 10 second rotation, all but one of those attacks on less than 1.5 second arcanatime.  Now, I dunno, maybe the lack of full-damage crits on two of those gets this down to not being as good as it sounds, but it sounds amazingly good.

[Troo]

On 11/8/2020 at 6:01 AM, 0th Power said:

if you have stored energy and use total focus it doesn’t reset the stored energy time, not sure if that’s a bug or a feature.

  This has been mentioned and hopefully it is being addressed. A new EF should not be prevented by the first (for all ATs). @Captain Powerhouse

 

Could a stalker potentially have 4 EFs? I did not test for that.

14 hours ago, Tactical said:

what are people's thoughts of Stalker's Power Crash matching Tankers for AoE Count/EF usage?

because they only get one and it's the lesser of the two.. I can see what your saying.

[Direct Crit]

9 hours ago, aethereal said:

I'm putting together a high-end EM stalker to test this, but my gut feeling is that Stalker EM is so good at single-target that its AoE shouldn't be buffed more.

 

It's crazy for a set to have three super-hard-hitting ST attacks (Assassin's Strike, Total Focus, Energy Transfer), on timers that make it easy to get them all into a single 10s rotation (stalkers don't want a less-than 10s rotation because of the lockout on the chance-to-hide proc), one of them twice.

My only counter to this is that I don't believe there's such a thing as 'too good' at single target. The best Single Target set will still lose dramatically for a majority of game situations to a solid AoE set, and this is part of why the set is getting AoE added to it in the first place. Being the Single Target Champion­ has been Stalker's theme for a long while and it's obvious that despite that they needed a lot of love, and still do for older sets.

On AVs? Sure, absolutely that's great to have but the reality is that the game doesn't have you fighting AVs 95% of the time, and isn't balanced around solo play either. That's my only reasoning why the Stalker Power Crash should have more AoE. Because at the end of the day this set will likely still clear general missions slower than Stalker sets with stronger AoE.

[Azera]

On 11/7/2020 at 7:19 PM, Tsuko said:

This was the build i used for the hours long slow ITF and EM aoe test :

 

Tanker - Shield Defense - Energy Melee V4.mxd 5.49 kB · 15 downloads

 

 

Thank you. I appreciate it. I've already picked up a few things from the first look over.

 

[Tsuko]

12 minutes ago, Azera said:

Thank you. I appreciate it. I've already picked up a few things from the first look over.

 

You dont have to thank me 🙂 it's @Werner build with just a bit of me inside 😛

[Golden Azrael]

On 11/6/2020 at 9:46 PM, ScarySai said:

Speak for yourself.

 

ET was strong before it crit at all, now it's very, VERY nice. 

 

I disagree with Powerhouse on a lot of things, but I will say it here: He absolutely nailed energy melee's overhaul and should get praise for it.

Word.

 

True.  Cap Powerhouse absolutely nailed Energy Melee's overhaul.  And the praise from me has been abundant.  'Because.'

 

A passionate work of art.  And proves Coh's legacy is in safe hands.  Plays like a dream.  A fun, engaging, plays like butter and knocks seven bells of **** out of the mobs melee set.  *stands and applauds.

 

Stand up....for the Powerhouse...stand up....for the Powerhouse...stand up....for the....  *(Football chant.)

 

Can't wait for it to go live.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

9 hours ago, BrandX said:

Personal opinion, but after some play through, I kinda like the -Regen/-Special in BS.  However, I still like Barrage feeling like it got buffed 😛

Bonesmasher.  It's such a good EM 'classic' power.  I liked it having what it says on the tin.  Some 'specials in there.'  -regen.  A special.  100% stun.

 

Take -regen and 100% stun.  What do ya THINK is gunna happen to ya if ya get BoneSMASHERED?

 

'That's gonna hurt in the morning, Son...'  

 

Debilitating effect is in the name...   A 100% stun (as a choice) to knock them senseless makes total sense to me.  In lieu of the Stun that got taken out.

 

Apart from that?  I just want to roll this now.  On live.  Play it until my fingers bleed....again....and again...faster and faster....AoE...STACK ATTACK!  Rinse those mobs....after I've done that?  What's left can be Mother Trucked ET or BS'd to death.

 

I don't remember grinding Dev Earth or Arties this ez.  Power Crash and Whirling may be 'medicore' invidually?  But together they take the top and 'bottom' off mobs.  Leave the formerly rampant mob looking somewhat shell shocked, ragged and thread bare.

 

EM.  Is.  Now.  Brutal.  I wince when I play it.  This is 'put hairs on your chest' tanking.  This is a Gift from the Tanking Gods.  *SMITE THEM.  BRING SUFFERING DOWN UPON THE MALTA!  BRING SUFFERING UPON THE COUNCIL VAMPIRES!!!

 

Mob, 'Wut?!'

Me?  'KER-POW!'

 

How's dat?  You like broken teeth to go wit yer cornflakes...?  Munch on that sonny boy...

 

Azrael.

[Werner]

1 hour ago, Tsuko said:

1 hour ago, Azera said:

Thank you. I appreciate it. I've already picked up a few things from the first look over.

 

You dont have to thank me 🙂 it's @Werner build with just a bit of me inside 😛

Thank you, though Energy Melee vs. Martial Arts makes the build at least half yours. I'll need to figure Energy Melee out soon, though. A friend's favorite hero is an Energy Melee/Super Reflexes Brute. I designed his original build, so I'd like to bring it up to date. Hopefully he'll enjoy the Energy Melee changes. It sounds like he very likely will.

[Golden Azrael]

Interesting test.  

 

I just went on my 'Artie' test mission.  +2 x 6.

 

Set myself the task of defeating the mob with 'just' Bonesmasher.  Just to see how fast and often I can get the stun.  So I piled on Hasten and Ageless.  Turbo charged BS!  😛  

 

Didn't take long to take down the mob.  Stunned with half a bar of HPs gone and then 'Good night vienna.'  POW!  Stunned or broken in a heap on the floor is fine by me.

 

Comes up reasonably often.  Twirly birds.  On about 3 or 4 Artie Ninja Ladies.  All walking around with the 'I don't know T.C' tongue out.  Np problem, Benny.

 

Is it me or does this EM set playing even smoother than ever?  Def' better than the last time I tested.  It's a subtle thing.  But the overall experience is...  It plays beautifully.  No sticking points.  Or lulls.  Is it getting the hell tweaked outta it?  Even BS seems be be swifter and harder and stunnier.  (Hey, don't mind me...if you want to slip in a 75-80% chance to stun on BS...I won't tell...)

 

It's being tuned really well.  Very good polishing on the set, here.  Feels rapid, super smooth and brutal hard, bone crunchingly good.

 

Booyyy.  This plays really well.  Very tasty.

 

I would caveat my experience by saying I have the L50 with bells and whistles incarnates on.  Ageless and Spiritual can do alot to the smoothness of builds. 

 

I may take my hand to trying EM at the 1-10, 11-20 and 21-32 areas next.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

Devouring Earth.

 

BU.  Power Crash.  + Whirling.

 

Herd Thinner.

 

What I like about the 'new' EM Tanking set is the sheer combinations of attacks that can 'Rope a Dope' or 'Rumble in the Bronx' that you can rinse the mobs with.

 

You can finish with Short ET....Long ET....Energy PUnch...BS....Power Crash....

 

I even like rotating me some rope a doping T1-3 attacks with barrage, EP or BS.  I even got a stun off a 'non' Energy Focus Barrage...

 

Floats like a buttertank, stings like a truck.

 

Azrael.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Golden Azrael

[0th Power]

Ive played through a couple missions in dark astoria with my inv/em tanker (with the vahz wasting disease - see bug report in other thread)

 

Tanker lv 50+1 inv/EM, fully IOed

 

First of all, new EM plays a whole lot better than what it is now on liver servers, but its still not what it was pre-nerf, and I dont just mean power wise.  While playing at lv 29 (my last test) it was a pretty hands free run.  I didn't have to pay attention to the order i picked my attacks, just click click click.  At level 50, with energy transfer and power crash (i dont think i used barrage once) i had to be cognizant of using energy transfer immediately after total focus to avoid the long animation, which, to me, is unplayable bad.  (side note, i very rarly even use ET or TF on live if i play this tanker at all).  It felt like i was having to avoid using power in order to use fast ET and wasn't using it at all.  

 

Played some more, same character:

I tried just using power crash in EF mode and with my tanker I did not see the noticeable difference in EF and out of EF.  PC is a great power, but for a tanker with the increased targets, energy focus is overkill.  Maybe in a farming situation or on a non-tanker it is welcome, but I cant see wasting fast ET for PC.

 

Suggestions... (i posted them on the previous page but here they are again. bold is what i really want...)

-Remove ET from EF mode, give it fast animation and give WH a knockdown in EF mode 

-remove PC from EF mode

-Give PC a knockdown in EF for tankers(or all?)

 

 

 

[Golden Azrael]

EM.  You had me at 'Hello.'

 

Love the AoE stacking.  Power Crash has really lifted the entire set from a grind fest with a monologue 'click this...and then click this...and then click this...' attack chain.

 

You can play it vanilla.

 

Or pour sprinkles on your gameplay ice cream.

 

You can have a 'set attack chain.'

 

Click random buttons.

 

or use Energy Focus to make the play more thought provoking and absorbing.  (But a choice of 3 stun, AoE or Short ET is hardly mentally taxing...)

 

Is it on live yet? 😄

 

Azrael.

[0th Power]

52 minutes ago, Golden Azrael said:

You can play it vanilla.

I agree with this until energy transfer comes into the picture.  

[Gobbledigook]

20 minutes ago, 0th Power said:

I agree with this until energy transfer comes into the picture.  

If you slot the powers right the attack chain will flow much better.  Experiment some more and +recharge is good.

 

ET is still a very good attack even when slow. Fast ET is amazingly good. Fast ET on a 10 second cooldown that was fast all the time would be seriously OP.

 

Powercrash with a Knockdown would be a little too much maybe with FF proc in it.

 

If it isn't flowing well for you, you probably aren't using it to it's best yet. It certainly does for a lot of others. Don't give up on it yet.

 

As a Tanker you choose whether to concentrate on AoE (PC) or single target (ET). Use PC to clear mobs then switch to ET to finish any bosses etc.

 

The only thing i would remove if any would be Energy Focus from Barrage as i don't think it is needed really. I can't ever imagine using it over a fast ET.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[0th Power]

1 minute ago, Gobbledegook said:

If you slot the powers right the attack chain will flow much better.  Experiment some more and +recharge is good.

 

ET is still a very good attack even when slow. Fast ET is amazingly good. Fast ET on a 10 second cooldown that was fast all the time would be seriously OP.

 

Powercrash with a Knockdown would be a little too much maybe with FF proc in it.

 

If it isn't flowing well for you, you probably aren't using it to it's best yet. It certainly does for a lot of others. Don't give up on it yet.

 

As a Tanker you choose whether to concentrate on AoE (PC) or single target (ET). Use PC to clear mobs then switch to ET to finish any bosses etc.

 

 

 

 

 

I understand that on paper long ET is a good power, but in practice, it is a terrible power and will hit a defeated mob about 1/2 the time.  If ET needs a longer cooldown, I would be great with it.  If it needs less damage, or more self damage, great.  The long animation is a no go for me.  If this is how we get it on live, I will probably play my tank a bit more often, but it will be either lower end content to avoid the ET problem, or I will avoid using powercrash which is what was happening in my test sessions.

 

I will do some more testing to try and figure out how to make lemonade, but as of now, I think EM still needs tweaking. 

[Gobbledigook]

5 minutes ago, 0th Power said:

I understand that on paper long ET is a good power, but in practice, it is a terrible power and will hit a defeated mob about 1/2 the time.  If ET needs a longer cooldown, I would be great with it.  If it needs less damage, or more self damage, great.  The long animation is a no go for me.  If this is how we get it on live, I will probably play my tank a bit more often, but it will be either lower end content to avoid the ET problem, or I will avoid using powercrash which is what was happening in my test sessions.

 

I will do some more testing to try and figure out how to make lemonade, but as of now, I think EM still needs tweaking. 

Slot TF with more recharge (heca set) and proc ET up more. TF and ET will then be closer in cooldown. Get some recharge in the build.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[0th Power]

IIRC my TF recharge is les than ET (not 100% sure)

 

My issue is more I cant use PC after TF, until i use ET, rather than TF is not up yes in order to use ET.

[BrandX]

2 minutes ago, 0th Power said:

IIRC my TF recharge is les than ET (not 100% sure)

 

My issue is more I cant use PC after TF, until i use ET, rather than TF is not up yes in order to use ET.

 

That's what keeps EM going for such high ST damage.  You have to decide, do you want more targets in your AOE attack or that nice ET.

 

PC is also still giving you the ability to attack more at once.  Though on my build, I have WH, I believe, down to recharge pretty fast, so it's not like I feel the sweat (never did with EM myself to be honest, but now it does more damage), of no AOE.

[0th Power]

3 minutes ago, BrandX said:

 

That's what keeps EM going for such high ST damage.  You have to decide, do you want more targets in your AOE attack or that nice ET.

 

PC is also still giving you the ability to attack more at once.  Though on my build, I have WH, I believe, down to recharge pretty fast, so it's not like I feel the sweat (never did with EM myself to be honest, but now it does more damage), of no AOE.

I am not interested in the increased targets of PC (which i didnt even notice when i tested that part of the power out).  Once again, my problem has to do with the fact that i cant use PC between TF and ET.

 

 

edit - i love PC as a power, but i would rather lose any benefits from energy focus so i would have to worry less about being stuck with long ET.  

Edited November 10, 2020 by 0th Power
added more clarity (hopefully)

[Gobbledigook]

17 minutes ago, 0th Power said:

I am not interested in the increased targets of PC (which i didnt even notice when i tested that part of the power out).  Once again, my problem has to do with the fact that i cant use PC between TF and ET.

 

 

edit - i love PC as a power, but i would rather lose any benefits from energy focus so i would have to worry less about being stuck with long ET.  

PC cone will be hard to hit it's target cap unless the mobs are lined up perfectly so EF on PC is not always very good.

 

Why would you want to use PC between TF-ET? ET will take one second to go off. Use PC just after it. It really isn't an issue. TF-ET-PC-EP/BS/Barrage or something like that, /repeat. If you want to clear the herd more then follow TF with PC and forget ET until mobs are down and use WH instead. If you want to clear a boss then forget PC and add another single target like gloom or BS etc.

 

I really can not see the problem. I find it very easy.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[0th Power]

The problem is that is limiting the choices for the order of powers executed.  If I use total focus and defeat that enemy (or it has a small amount of heath left), I would like to use PC (or WH, but I usually lead with that), then another hard hit with ET.  

 

Edited November 10, 2020 by 0th Power
deleted unhelpful feedback

[Wavicle]

1 hour ago, 0th Power said:

The problem is that is limiting the choices for the order of powers executed.  If I use total focus and defeat that enemy (or it has a small amount of heath left), I would like to use PC (or WH, but I usually lead with that), then another hard hit with ET.  

 

Yes, there is an optimal order. Refusing to do this optimal order will not get you the optimal performance. The problem only exists because you refuse to adjust your tactics.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Wavicle