Set Me Straight in Energy Melee

[Shred Monkey]

On 6/10/2021 at 12:39 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Mostly being the operative word. Still sucks a butt when your chain has both the long and slow animations.

 

Edit: Style and flow-wise... damage output is quite nice.

 

I just settled on using it once... my (stalker) rotation is Bone Smasher>Total Focus>Bone Smasher>Assassin's Strke>Energy Transfer>repeat.... Flow is great... The hide proc is in assassin's strike so I get the crit on ET for fairly reliable heal. 

 

I looked at ET>TF>ET>snipe>AS> repeat... the amount of recharge I needed in ET meant slotting for procs.  Ideally the hide proc would got in ET so it triggers a crit TF and gives double focus, but it doesn't proc as much as desired since ET is slotted for recharge.  That left me with about the same DPS (maybe a little better) and a much more awkward flow. 

 

The deal breaker was that my first chain allows me to use use the body epic pool for more endurance recovery.  This lets me leave use rebirth destiny instead of Ageless, and leave infiltration and sprint toggled most of the time.

 

But yes, to the OP, Energy Melee is now great.  Before it was visually fantastic, but math showed it to be under-performing damage with no functional upside.

 

 

[BurningDezire]

On 6/13/2021 at 8:57 AM, nihilii said:

It's very hard to overstate just how much of an end discount is attained by having your best attack be completely end free.

 

A procced out EM chain with fast ET and no slow ET eats about ~2.5 EPS.

 

A procced out Staff chain is about ~3 EPS.

 

If you run fast ET + slow ET in a chain, as some are fond to do, EM's EPS goes down even further.

 

That's attack chains, theorycraft by excellence. Real play has you using TF + 0 end ET 100% of the time, while Bone Smasher and Energy Punch may or may not activated. Pushing the EPS further down.

 

And that is just EPS, mostly the psychological version of being end light (we want to attack as fast as we can, regardless of powerset).

 

When it comes to Damage-Per-Endurance, EM is fantastic. Once again because of ET.

 

Essentially, you consume less end than other powersets attacking at full speed. *and* you deal more damage, attacking at full speed. So your endurance efficiency is greater than a simple look at EPS might suggest, because you defeat enemies faster.

 

But really, I am typing up rationalisations after the fact. My simple experience that leads me to this enthusiastic opinion has been that the way I build meleers (procs procs procs), they ALL need Ageless to sustain themselves.

 

Except EM. I can run procced out EM with just Cardiac - and pick up Barrier as a result.

 

Sometimes I still run Ageless and Musculature regardless, but either way. The existence of that choice, unique to EM for my own builds, easily illustrates just how end light EM is.

 

It's also great fun to have a 0 end attack to fall back to, in extreme situations. Say you mess up your end management, mobs enddrained you, you've got a few points of end left and you desperately want to keep your toggles up, until some helpful end management click recharges... Slow ET, wait, slow ET, wait, slow ET keeps you in the fight until you can pick the pace up again.

 

 

 

Maybe dmg per endurance but endurance per power his HORRIBLE on EM. Just right click a power and go to detailed info. Compare it to other powersets like Katana for example. Total Focus has a endurance cost of 18.51!!!

[nihilii]

I'll happily die on the hill comparing endurance per power is a largely irrelevant metric, if we don't consider damage as well.

 

The speed at which you can drain your endurance bar using powers in a vacuum matters little compared to the speed at which you can defeat things; or, to put it another way, using 5 attacks costing 5 endurance (5 * 5 = 25 endurance spent) each to kill a lieutenant is not better than using 2 attacks costing 12.5 endurance (2 * 12.5 = 25 endurance spent) each to kill that same lieutenant.

 

Most powersets that "feel" light on end turn out to do so because they're light damage. Which, in practice, often makes them end heavier. It takes longer to defeat things -> toggles spend more time "draining" endurance.

 

EM is an even more special case because it has ET and its 0 end cost. There is simply no substitute, EM is the most end efficient powerset right now. If you spam ET on a 4 second enhanced recharge, it doesn't matter how many Total Focus you throw in between. You will end up spending less end than on any other powerset.

The impact on end management is even more extreme than a naive analysis based on the above could show. As long as you've got your health in check through other means, ET is basically Brawl. It means you can spend most of your endurance bar with no worry, knowing that the moment you get low, you can fallback on using ET and ET exclusively, to deal decent damage still and be endurance positive no matter what.

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by nihilii

[BurningDezire]

6 hours ago, nihilii said:

I'll happily die on the hill comparing endurance per power is a largely irrelevant metric, if we don't consider damage as well.

 

The speed at which you can drain your endurance bar using powers in a vacuum matters little compared to the speed at which you can defeat things; or, to put it another way, using 5 attacks costing 5 endurance (5 * 5 = 25 endurance spent) each to kill a lieutenant is not better than using 2 attacks costing 12.5 endurance (2 * 12.5 = 25 endurance spent) each to kill that same lieutenant.

 

Most powersets that "feel" light on end turn out to do so because they're light damage. Which, in practice, often makes them end heavier. It takes longer to defeat things -> toggles spend more time "draining" endurance.

 

EM is an even more special case because it has ET and its 0 end cost. There is simply no substitute, EM is the most end efficient powerset right now. If you spam ET on a 4 second enhanced recharge, it doesn't matter how many Total Focus you throw in between. You will end up spending less end than on any other powerset.

The impact on end management is even more extreme than a naive analysis based on the above could show. As long as you've got your health in check through other means, ET is basically Brawl. It means you can spend most of your endurance bar with no worry, knowing that the moment you get low, you can fallback on using ET and ET exclusively, to deal decent damage still and be endurance positive no matter what.

 

 

 

I haven't tried EM before and am leveling it via missions. I don't doubt what you say, but DAMN I'm so not used to running out of end---especially when TF misses. My toggles are constantly dropping due to end drain. It's a pain to level up with such high end costs per power. Haven't fully slotted it so I imagine it will be better end game. Also, the speed at which you can kill things carries more weight than how fast your end bar drains is conditional. If you're in a long mission with LOTS of baddies, I'd rather go with a powerset that's light on end and can keep killing instead of waiting for my end bar to recover. ET isn't always going to be recharged.

[I-Dirty]

I would LOVE to see a em/bio build if someone can show it

[I-Dirty]

Or not 😄

[Without_Pause]

The loss of AoE for Stalkers makes me lean away from EM for them. It isn't like EM needs more high damage ST attacks.  Currently running a EM/ea scrapper. 

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

The loss of AoE for Stalkers makes me lean away from EM for them. It isn't like EM needs more high damage ST attacks.  Currently running a EM/ea scrapper. 

Note that their version of the cone attack is higher damage/longer recharge.

[Without_Pause]

They also get 6 ST attacks when end game builds focus on 3-4. Even on a leveling build and 5 seems overkill. Hell, Elec didn't lose any AoE, but lost a control for AS.

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

They also get 6 ST attacks when end game builds focus on 3-4. Even on a leveling build and 5 seems overkill. Hell, Elec didn't lose any AoE, but lost a control for AS.

I'm not saying that Stalkers have the best version of energy melee or anything, just that the AoE deficit they have is mitigated by a better cone attack.

 

I believe that to the extent that we think of pylon tests as having anything useful to say about ST damage, scrapper EM comes out slightly ahead of stalker EM (though to some extent that's surely due to scrapper bio armor as well).  I think the big case for stalker EM is being able to predict exactly which attacks crit much more than scrappers can, given the unusual crit mechanics for TF and ET.

[Without_Pause]

Best place for the 50% Crit proc? 

[aethereal]

Total Focus.

 

If you feel the need to put it into an AoE because you live in AoE land, then, first, stop playing Energy Melee, and second it's better in Whirling Hands than Power Crash.

 

I guess there's some kind of argument for saying, "I really want to get crits on TF, so I don't want the proc there."  The other choices are I guess Energy Transfer and Bone Smasher.  Neither are particularly attractive in my opinion.  They have base recharges of 10s and 8s respectively, so with a 3 PPM proc, you are way down in "not very reliable" land.  Note that Bone Smasher actually does more critical damage (pure critical, I mean, not crit + regular damage) than either TF or ET, so I think it's actually more valuable to get the crits on BS than the low damage, but bonus special effect stuff for TF or ET.  If you want to be able to count on the double-charge or energy focus or the heal, play a stalker, who can choose to pretty reliably get those bonuses, not hope that BS procs a +50% crit and then hope that TF or ET crits.

[SomeGuy]

I slap my ATO2 in ET and do pretty well.

 

Decided on this going back and forth between TF and ET (and discussion with Kanil). My numbers don't lie. I was getting better results in ET. I DEFINITELY didn't want to even attempt BS for it. I might use BS in my rotation a 1/3 of the time.

 

Try both. Not like Unslotters aren't dirt cheap. See what works best for you and your playstyle. I'm definitely gonna agree that putting it in an AOE is just silly. EM is not the set for that.

 

TF. Build Up. ET crits and procs. Zapp crit. ET. TF. ET crits and procs. BS crits. Zapp crits. ET procs. TF crits. ET.

 

It does this. A lot.

Edited October 12, 2021 by SomeGuy

[Without_Pause]

Build is 24, so this is a bit of preplanning on my part for when they get unlocked.

[Sovera]

14 hours ago, aethereal said:

Total Focus.

 

If you feel the need to put it into an AoE because you live in AoE land, then, first, stop playing Energy Melee, and second it's better in Whirling Hands than Power Crash.

 

I guess there's some kind of argument for saying, "I really want to get crits on TF, so I don't want the proc there."  The other choices are I guess Energy Transfer and Bone Smasher.  Neither are particularly attractive in my opinion.  They have base recharges of 10s and 8s respectively, so with a 3 PPM proc, you are way down in "not very reliable" land.  Note that Bone Smasher actually does more critical damage (pure critical, I mean, not crit + regular damage) than either TF or ET, so I think it's actually more valuable to get the crits on BS than the low damage, but bonus special effect stuff for TF or ET.  If you want to be able to count on the double-charge or energy focus or the heal, play a stalker, who can choose to pretty reliably get those bonuses, not hope that BS procs a +50% crit and then hope that TF or ET crits.

 

All good points. There is one last thing to consider which is the duration of the 50%. At 3.5 seconds and assuming it procs when the hit actually hits then an option that would make TF enjoy the proc will eat 2.8 seconds of those 3.5. Where in TF it lands, then ET (1.2), Energy Punch (1) leaves it at 2.1. Ample time to still land Bone Smasher and thus have all three within the 50% buff.