Focused Feedback: Energy Melee for Scrappers

[Jimmy]

This is a Focused Feedback Thread

• Please note that Focused Feedback threads are heavily moderated to ensure they remain on topic.
  • Any off-topic posts in these threads will be removed without warning.
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• The most up-to-date version of the changes will be listed in the first post.
• The changes in each build will be posted as replies.
  • Changes from the previous build will be listed in green.
  • Any changes or fixes that are only relevant to the beta builds (as in, not changes relevant to the live version of the game) will be listed in blue.

 

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Powerset Proliferation: Energy Melee for Scrappers

Energy Melee has been proliferated to Scrappers, with all the changes mentioned here.

 

Power Order

1.  Energy Punch
2.  Barrage
3.  Bone Smasher
4.  Build Up
5.  Power Crash
6.  Confront
7.  Whirling Hands
8.  Total Focus
9.  Energy Transfer

[Jimmy]

Build 1 - October 24th, 2020

Spoiler

Powerset Proliferation: Energy Melee for Scrappers

Energy Melee has been proliferated to Scrappers, with all the changes mentioned above.

 

Power Order

1.  Energy Punch
2.  Barrage
3.  Bone Smasher
4.  Build Up
5.  Power Crash
6.  Confront
7.  Whirling Hands
8.  Total Focus
9.  Energy Transfer

 

[Myrmidon]

Exactly how many three dollar bills did you people leave under your pillows for the EM Fairy?

[nihilii]

Initial thoughts on reading the patch notes: this will be broken (overpowered) on IOed out scrappers.

Total Focus with Critical Strikes ATO gives you a 1s cast ET and 2/3 chance to crit on ET, and ET heals you on crit.

 

And ET with 10s recharge, whaat?!

 

So basically we get to do TF -> (fast) ET -> Moonbeam -> Bone Smasher -> (slow) ET. Repeat, in slightly less than 10 seconds. 4 extreme damage attacks. ~3/4 of the time losing no HP, ~1/5 of the time losing a little HP, and in very rare cases gaining HP.

 

Perhaps I'm misreading things.

 

Edit: or perhaps I underestimate just how much damage crits add to other scrappers. Got to try it out!

Edited October 24, 2020 by nihilii

[Hew]

9 minutes ago, nihilii said:

Initial thoughts on reading the patch notes: this will be broken (overpowered) on IOed out scrappers.

Erm, maybe you and I don't play the same game, but... IOd scrappers are already pretty broken! Check out what an ma/shield/mu scrapper can do for an alphastrike... And that was before eagle claw aoe boost.

 

[Rejolt]

Remember folks - this is beta. If it  feels OP'd remember it's a high-damage ST-focused set on a ST focused AT (mostly, yes I know STalkers are more so). We're testing to balance it.

[nihilii]

First Pylon time on EM/bio/soul: 87 seconds. With the aforementioned attack chain, except full of holes, because I built this haphazardly and don't even know my recharge times. So that's 87 seconds while waiting for 2, 3, 4, 5 seconds at times... Crazy.

 

I'm thinking in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, we'll definitely see the current iteration of EM challenging TW for ST DPS.

 

-

Edit #1: 90s on try 2. Man, getting that old ET animation back, complete with watching chunks of giant HP bars evaporate, is glorious.

 

-

Edit #2: got another 90s, then decided to respec to try to fix the gaps.

I also forgot to catalyse ATOs.

 

Initial chain was TF -> ET -> Moonbeam -> Barrage -> ET.

Changed to TF -> EP -> ET -> Moonbeam -> Power Crash -> ET

Power Crash does poor DPS, but can take the Arma proc and most importantly the Fury -res proc.

#1: 76s

#2: 75s

#3: 80s

Edited October 24, 2020 by nihilii

[Saikochoro]

The difference from Titan weapons is that EM does not have the same level of AoE power that Titan weapons had in addition to its extreme single target damage. I know they added some AoE damage, but I highly doubt it will be nearly as much as Titan weapons had. I’ll have to test. Though I think it’s fine for EM to have very good single target damage. 

[ScarySai]

Pylon tests will be heavily slanted in this set's favor, considering how it's supposed to be a single target monster.

 

Valid, for sure - but don't judge based off that alone.

 

Run missions and such to get a proper overall look at the set.

[Lines]

Playing casually on an SO build with the ATOs.

 

Honestly it feels really good. Bashing down single targets is really fast paced and the TF>ET combo feels good. It's much slower to chew through groups, but I think that's how this is meant to feel.

 

Power Crash feels a little too feeble to me so far. Maybe on higher difficulty when groups are tighter I'll feel it more, especially with the additional targets from Energy Focus.

 

So happy to have this. ❤️

[nihilii]

9 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

Run missions and such to get a proper overall look at the set.

True. I expect missions will show EM to actually be even more powerful than Pylon tests, at the higher end. I'm getting a glimpse of that in casually fighting level 54 riktis.

 

In real gameplay, we don't need uninterrupted attack chains. New EM is even more bursty than old EM, and the attack chain (at least, my own naive attack chains) has filler we can remove.

 

TF + ET + Moonbeam 1-2-3 punch, massive burst damage and a near guaranteed heal. Tabbing and jumping from target to target, maybe throwing a Whirling Hands to clear remaining fodder.

None of that damage relies on "tricks" like -res procs, too, so it makes for great potential to be multiplied in teamplay. EM might just be THE AV killer again - as it should be. Or at least not too far behind TW.

 

Great changes. 🙂

[Saikochoro]

Alright I put together a EM/SD scrapper with a decent build with all the goodies (perma hasten, softcaps, good resists, procs). 
 

My notes:

-single target burst is very good. Top tier. This is expected from energy melee and I don’t think it is out of line honestly. 
-AoE damage is still on the lower end of sets. The added AoE power is nice, but not amazing, which I think is good. If I didn’t have shield to supplement the AoE, then I would still say several other sets do AoE a lot better. Again, I feel like this is as it should be. 
 

I did a few radios at +4/8 and taking out the bosses was nice and fast. The new AoE feels somewhat slow, which is okay. It did help take down some minions, but it felt better to cycle through the enemies using single target rotations.  Overall clear speed even when favoring AoE powers didn’t seem overly fast.  Other scrappers will definitely have faster kill all times. I think this set will really shine in AV encounters, which I think is proper. 
 

No doubt this is probably going to be the king of single target. My limited testing leans toward that conclusion. However, I think that is how the set always should have been.  Making total focus not crit for the full amount was probably a good compromise and making energy transfer unable to crit was also good. 
 

I do like the heal from crit energy transfer, but even with the critical strikes proc in total focus I did get several unlucky streaks with non crit energy transfers that took my health down noticeably in an extended fight. 
 

Overall I am very pleased. I especially like that they doubled down on the single target nature instead of doing extreme AoE buffs. 

Edited October 24, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Dispari]

Occasionally having a bug with Total Focus using its old (slower) animation instead of the new one. It seems to happen sporadically when I'm flying/hovering, especially when doing a flyby.

[Saikochoro]

Some more testing. Compared to my t3 musculature only savage/bio my fully t4 EM/shield (not using judgment nuke) definitely does not have as much AoE power. The savage/bio easily outclasses it in terms of AoE. It also has some decent single target so overall clear speeds are faster than EM/shield. 
 

That said, EM does take out bosses faster for sure.  After more testing power crash does feel pretty slow and is on the weaker side, but I think this is a good thing. EM should not have very strong AoE in addition to very strong single target.  I think it is a good balance point to have weaker (though still some) AoE and stronger single target. So, I definitely do not think it’s just another Titan weapons, which was king of both.  EM is still definitely single target oriented, which is great. 
 

More testing to follow. 

Edited October 24, 2020 by Saikochoro

[BrandX]

Got on just a bit and made a EM/Regen Scrapper ❤️  No real level up, as I didn't know of the freebie menu at the time, but so far, just having Energy Melee on Scrappers is love 🙂

[Safehouse]

I have been posting in the higher-level EM changes thread, but on the beta server I've been leveling an EM scrapper, so I'm not sure where it makes more sense to post. I am posting about how the set feels as I level up scrapper. Currently have it to level 16 and anticipate posting thoughts on levels 10-20 later today. Below is my post about the first ten levels. Feels good. Bonesmasher wrecks face; especially when it crits!! Levels 10-20 so far have continued to be an absolute blast and I still love it. I struggled against Frostfire, but honestly I've always had a bit of a weirdly hard time with him.

 

If it makes more sense to post here I can do so as well.

 

  

21 hours ago, 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!

 

[Gobbledigook]

On 10/24/2020 at 11:03 PM, Saikochoro said:

Some more testing. Compared to my t3 musculature only savage/bio my fully t4 EM/shield (not using judgment nuke) definitely does not have as much AoE power. The savage/bio easily outclasses it in terms of AoE. It also has some decent single target so overall clear speeds are faster than EM/shield. 
 

That said, EM does take out bosses faster for sure.  After more testing power crash does feel pretty slow and is on the weaker side, but I think this is a good thing. EM should not have very strong AoE in addition to very strong single target.  I think it is a good balance point to have weaker (though still some) AoE and stronger single target. So, I definitely do not think it’s just another Titan weapons, which was king of both.  EM is still definitely single target oriented, which is great. 
 

More testing to follow. 

It is not single target orientated at all. The cone is comparable to other cones but will hit 10 rather than 5 targets, effectively doubling other cone attacks from other sets. Whirling hands is a normal AoE that other sets get also.

 

This set is just as much AoE as other sets and with power crash buff it is even better.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, Gobbledegook said:

It is not single target orientated at all. The cone is comparable to other cones but will hit 10 rather than 5 targets, effectively doubling other cone attacks from other sets. Whirling hands is a normal AoE that other sets get also.

 

This set is just as much AoE as other sets and with power crash buff it is even better.

It is better than it was before, but I can only go based off what I’ve tested and experienced. Several other sets still have better AoE and some sets crush it in terms of AoE. That is honestly expected though from a set that has such strong single target.

 

With the AoE buffs it may have better AoE than some sets now, but EM is not in the top contenders for AoE.  At least not based of of my testing so far. It is however, a top single target set. I still think this is a single target focused set overall, but it did have its AoE improved.  

[aethereal]

I've just run levels 1-8, solo, on an EM/Invul scrapper.  I won't belabor the feedback because nothing terribly exciting came up.  It feels solid, bone smasher hits hard, nothing too crazy so far (besides whatever happened that caused me to incorrectly believe that bone smasher wasn't proccing its stun).

[ABlueThingy]

1 hour ago, Gobbledegook said:

It is not single target orientated at all. The cone is comparable to other cones but will hit 10 rather than 5 targets, effectively doubling other cone attacks from other sets. Whirling hands is a normal AoE that other sets get also.

 

This set is just as much AoE as other sets and with power crash buff it is even better.

When people say EM doesn't have much AoE they're not talking about the actual number of targets they can hit.  It's mostly talking about how much damage they can put out to multiple foes.  While total number of targets does have to be taken into account there's more to it.

 

For the cone, Power Crush, you only hit 10 targets if you first use TF, a long animation ST power. That cuts into your rotation, time spent not doing AoE damage is AoE damage lost. It also just... does less damage. Compare it's damage and you'll find that it has a very fast recharge but very low damage.  You'd have to spam it to get decent AoE.  In this game multiple low damage attacks are generally worse then a few high damage ones. But you can't even spam it at full power because it needs TF for the full AoE range. Having to cast it multiple times to get the same amount of damage as other sets along with needing to use ET every time to take advantage of the AoE size means you can't use Build Up as effectively as the other sets.

 

Whirling hands has similar if not exactly the same end cost/rech/activation of similar 8ft/10 target AoE powers but it just flatly does less damage.

 

Compared to virtually every other set it does very low AoE damage. ie. "it doesn't have much AoE"

 

I only say "Virtually" because I don't know how the Martial Arts and Dark Melee changes are going. Everything else is at least "As good as" Energy Melee.

 

I also don't want all this to imply that I think it's a bad set.  It's AoE is now "Crap" but not "functionally non-existent" which is where it was.  It now has "ok" AoE damage. And cartoonishly high ST damage.  This seems like a fair trade

[aethereal]

14 minutes ago, ABlueThingy said:

Whirling hands has similar if not exactly the same end cost/rech/activation of similar 8ft/10 target AoE powers but it just flatly does less damage.

This seems to not be true anymore?  They didn't put it in the patch notes, but on beta its damage seems comparable with other "whirling"-style PBAoEs.

 

For a level 50 brute, through in-game detailed descriptions:

 

Whirling Axe: 41.71 damage

Whirling Sword: 41.71 damage

Typhoon's Edge:  47.54 damage

Whirling Hands:  49.29 damage

Edited October 26, 2020 by aethereal

[siolfir]

21 minutes ago, aethereal said:

This seems to not be true anymore?  They didn't put it in the patch notes, but on beta its damage seems comparable with other "whirling"-style PBAoEs.

 

For a level 50 brute, through in-game detailed descriptions:

 

Whirling Axe: 41.71 damage

Whirling Sword: 41.71 damage

Typhoon's Edge:  47.54 damage

Whirling Hands:  49.29 damage

It was actually a correction: an 8' radius, 360 degree AoE should be doing the damage that Whirling Hands is now doing; at scale 1 (41.71 damage for a Brute) it should have had a larger radius (just under 11' IIRC). 

[Moonlighter]

My newly tricked out incarnate EM/EA scrapper was getting good times on pylon tests, but comparable to MA and savage melee. I used Energy Aura since it is easy to build and doesn't have extra damage like Bio to skew the test, just a bit of recharge. I was seeing just under 2 mins with variance for all three.

 

I am not sure what nihilii is doing to hit those numbers. I didn't use a scrappersnipe in my chain but I can't see accounting for 80 and 90 second numbers. (I totally believe it, I don't just have the knowledge of the tricks they use.) Edit: Oh it's probably Bio Armor.

 

I was under the impression that damage procs are not multiplied by global damage?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by Moonlighter

[Gobbledigook]

2 hours ago, ABlueThingy said:

When people say EM doesn't have much AoE they're not talking about the actual number of targets they can hit.  It's mostly talking about how much damage they can put out to multiple foes.  While total number of targets does have to be taken into account there's more to it.

 

For the cone, Power Crush, you only hit 10 targets if you first use TF, a long animation ST power. That cuts into your rotation, time spent not doing AoE damage is AoE damage lost. It also just... does less damage. Compare it's damage and you'll find that it has a very fast recharge but very low damage.  You'd have to spam it to get decent AoE.  In this game multiple low damage attacks are generally worse then a few high damage ones. But you can't even spam it at full power because it needs TF for the full AoE range. Having to cast it multiple times to get the same amount of damage as other sets along with needing to use ET every time to take advantage of the AoE size means you can't use Build Up as effectively as the other sets.

 

Whirling hands has similar if not exactly the same end cost/rech/activation of similar 8ft/10 target AoE powers but it just flatly does less damage.

 

Compared to virtually every other set it does very low AoE damage. ie. "it doesn't have much AoE"

 

I only say "Virtually" because I don't know how the Martial Arts and Dark Melee changes are going. Everything else is at least "As good as" Energy Melee.

 

I also don't want all this to imply that I think it's a bad set.  It's AoE is now "Crap" but not "functionally non-existent" which is where it was.  It now has "ok" AoE damage. And cartoonishly high ST damage.  This seems like a fair trade

Whirling hands base damage on a scrapper

Average damage- 78.83

Dpa- 31.53

Activation- 2.5

Recharge- 14

8ft radius

 

Whirling Axe on a Scrapper

Average Damage- 62.56

Dpa- 23.43

Activation- 2.67

Recharge- 14

8ft radius 

 

Powercrash is a little less damage than say Sweeping cross but it has more range and a bigger arc and can hit more targets. If it gets more dps then the range, arc and number of targets would need to be adjusted.

 

Em AoE is not great but it is not bad. I don't see it being worse than some other sets. The single target damage is much better than some other sets though. My EM tanker destroys my DM tanker in single target damage and there is not a lot in it in AoE.

[Hew]

50 minutes ago, Moonlighter said:

 

I am not sure what nihilii is doing to hit those numbers. I didn't use a scrappersnipe in my chain but I can't see accounting for 80 and 90 second numbers. (I totally believe it, I don't just have the knowledge of the tricks they use.) Edit: Oh it's probably Bio Armor.

Moonbeam is just silly. Slotting it for acc/dam/end is a waste of time. Proc it to death, zero recharge in power acc/dam/end trip, and done. It does WAY more damage that way than you know, actually enhancing the power. 😕 With /bio, you are already going to be slotted heavily for recharge, so uptime on instacast moonbeam with massive damage from procs pumps out a steady bunch of stupid damage. Bio +recov powers also give you the fuel you need to not flatline blue when you blow through tons of instastnipes.