Powers with "Crunch"... and those without

[oedipus_tex]

There are some aspects of a power that are easy to define. Damage, recharge, etc, even animation time.

 

A more nebulous concept is how a power feels. Sometimes, an excellent power just has a wishy washy or inconsequential feel to it. Other times, a power has an amazing feel but sub-par effects. Sometimes it's just right. And sometimes both the feel and the effects are weaksauce.

What are your favorite examples of powers with good crunch and bad crunch? What are examples where the effects and the crunch don't line up?

[SuperPlyx]

Good crunch, War Mace Crowd Control, I love everything about it.

[oedipus_tex]

I was gonna wait for more people to post, but here are a few of mine:

 

 

Earth Control > Stalagmites

There are a couple of powers in game that perform an AoE stun, and of all of them, this one is my favorite. The delay between when you click the button to when the power effects fire is very short and jut has this fantastic feel I don't get from Flashfire or Heart of Darkness. 

 

 

Storm Summoning > Thunderclap

Here's a situation with a great, unique particle effect, wonderful booming sound effect and... relatively weak result in most cases. It's unfortunate. This is a good power on Controllers with an AoE stun tho.

 

 

Energy Blast > Energy Torrent

This power just feels like it hits like a ton of bricks. It's funny because it's not all that different than other cone blasts, but somehow just feels great.

 

 

Shield Defense > Shield Charge

I figure we'll see this one listed a lot, might as well mention it up front. 

[Coyote]

Almost everything in Stone Melee or Earth Assault. It hits hard, shakes your screen, and puts a low-grade subsonic rumble in your video card.

 

Spring Attack has a nice animation and crunchy landing. Too bad the damage is so bad, although I think that may be due to some bugs.

[Eva Destruction]

I've been leveling up a War Mace Scrapper and I find the set very satisfyingly crunchy.  Also very satisfying in the make things dead department.

[Normal Thomas]

Soul Storm has the most satisfying animation in the game from the wind up to the hold itself to the pose you strike after using it.

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 hours ago, SuperPlyx said:

Good crunch, War Mace Crowd Control, I love everything about it.

We have a winner.  Who's coming in second?

[summers]

Foot Stomp!

[Grindingsucks]

Spinning Strike, Crushing Uppercut, Foot Stomp, Whirling smash, Jawbreaker, Air Superiority, Flurry (when it hits), Arcane Bolt, Mighty Judgement power.

Edited February 8, 2021 by Grindingsucks
spelling

[Coyote]

2 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

We have a winner.  Who's coming in second?

 

Titan Weapons is bringing the challenge for second place.

Because Stone Melee is in first 😛

[BelleSorciere]

Frost Breath and Fire Breath in Ice and Fire Blast respectively have always felt like they have little to no impact. Frost Breath especially. 

[nihilii]

Some excellent choices listed already.

 

Fireball and Blaze have good crunch. Meaty GFX and great power. Fire attacks tend to sound amazing, that deep noise tied to the DoTs. Even Fire Cages feels powerful to use, despite its piddly damage.

 

The new TF + fast ET combo. Ohh. Dev team definitely hit a homerun on that revamp.

 

Atom Smasher, which I guess was listed already because it's the same animation as Mighty Judgement, IIRC. There is an extra nice aspect to Atom Smasher on meleers after popping Build Up, seeing a flurry of damage numbers from the "Contamined" effect.

Crane Kick. You can feel the dislocated... whatever, wherever the enemy in front of you was hit, you are now sure it's dislocated.

[JnEricsonx]

5 hours ago, Normal Thomas said:

Soul Storm has the most satisfying animation in the game from the wind up to the hold itself to the pose you strike after using it.

I have had people ask my chars that use that "What the hell did you just do to them?"

[ZorkNemesis]

Heavy hitting screen shakers like Stone Melee/Earth Assault and Super Strength are up there for the good crunch.  KO Blow and Seismic Smash in particular really feel like they bring the hurt.

 

I see people listing Crowd Control from War Mace, what about Pendulum from Mace's sister set Battle Axe?  It's basically the same thing, but with a freaking axe.

 

If you want an example of bad crunch, I nominate Self-Destruct, one of the prestige powers from P2W.  The ten-second explosion countdown with the sparking and smoking and finally the mushroom cloud resulting in you actually dying....and barely any damage is done.  It doesn't have nearly as much impact as it should. 

 

Another bad one is the Nuclear Blast from Warburg.  You are quite literally nuking your enemy from orbit and while the impact results in a ton of screen shaking and fiery explosions, the damage it does leaves something to be desired.  It's really no more powerful than a standard unenhanced Blaster T9.  It will drop minions but that's about it.  It also halts recovery, but it's been shown that endurance generally means nothing to critters.

 

Also, LRM Rocket from Munitions Mastery.  Despite being a rocket launcher, the damage leaves a little bit to be desired.  How come Council and Column dudes have better bazookas than the superheroes?

[Carnifax]

Howling Twilight. Sounds like you've just rewritten reality when it fires off. 

 

Geyser from Water Blast : aka I just made the Earth itself explode underneath you. 

 

Those without Crunch : Most of the melee holds like Frozen Touch. Totally understated yet the enemy is dead in seconds. The Warshade version is the same : "I'm gently reaching out to you... [dead]". Only one which matches the effect is Seismic Smash. 

[Xenosone]

Thunderstrike. Jumping in the air and crashing down on targets.

Lightning rod.

 

Without: spring attack. Even watching it closely it really looks like it does zero damage.

[golstat2003]

Fireball, especially if you have the purple KD proc in it. After a footsomp it's sooooo satisfying. 😈

[DougGraves]

I have just tried Beam Rifle vs Assault Rifle.  Everyone says the numbers for Beam are better.  But in play, assault rifle feels so much better.  The sound, the knockdown/back. 

[Nemu]

I find the things that feel crunchy typically knock things up/down/back.

 

Everything Axe, skipping other weapon sets because Axe doesn't get enough love/recognition.

 

All the hand claps. Even though no damage those still feel crunchy.

[Normal Thomas]

12 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

I have just tried Beam Rifle vs Assault Rifle.  Everyone says the numbers for Beam are better.  But in play, assault rifle feels so much better.  The sound, the knockdown/back. 

Beam Rifle sounds effects don't have nearly enough punch to them. I wish they'd use some of the Pulse Rifle/Robots sound effects. Those are much more satisfying in comparison.

[Coyotedancer]

The whole Staff Melee set feels really whiffy to me... I know damage is being done and all that. I can see the numbers... But... Yeah. It seems like my character is doing a huge amount of just flailing around.

 

Street on the other hand? I love how "Oh, owie. THAT looked painful." the set is. Mace likewise. They may not objectively be The Best as far as damage sets go, but everything they do just looks like being smacked with a sack of bricks.  

 

ETA: And yeah. Water's Geyser attack is great for that, too. Even the similar, smaller AoE attack is satisfying. And Mighty... Oh, how I love Mighty. XD

 

 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2021 by Coyotedancer

[Eva Destruction]

12 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

If you want an example of bad crunch, I nominate Self-Destruct, one of the prestige powers from P2W.  The ten-second explosion countdown with the sparking and smoking and finally the mushroom cloud resulting in you actually dying....and barely any damage is done.  It doesn't have nearly as much impact as it should.

The only thing it's really good for is weaseling out of  babysitting Captain Hotpants in the Underground trial.

 

12 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

Also, LRM Rocket from Munitions Mastery.  Despite being a rocket launcher, the damage leaves a little bit to be desired.  How come Council and Column dudes have better bazookas than the superheroes?

That is because they get bazookas.  We have to fire a rocket from a frankengun.  Redraw shemdraw, gimme an actual rocket launcher for LRM and it might actually make Munitions worth taking (at least until the novelty wears off.)

[Hew]

19 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

We have a winner.  Who's coming in second?

Seismic smash

[Dreamboat]

KOing a mook with Crane Kick whilst there's a wall a foot behind them is one of life's simple pleasures

[Vulf]

Psionic Melee surprisingly has some good haptics and sounds.

 

Telekinetic Blow and Greater Psi Blade.

 

Water Blast has sufficient knockdowns, satisfying your thirst for enemy ragdolling.

Edited February 9, 2021 by Vulf