Energy Melee for Tanker or Scrapper?

[VPrime]

What AT do you prefer Energy Melee on?

[Championess]

Stalker

[Maelwys]

Energy Melee is typically best on a Stalker (because the chain is missing a good filler whenever you're chaining TF + "Quick" Energy Transfer).

It can be made to work on a Scrapper; but you need an Epic Snipe and a lot of recharge and global recharge.
The basic attack chain is: Total Focus > Energy Transfer > Bonesmasher > Moonbeam/Zapp > Energy Transfer > Bonesmasher.
(You'll need to get the recharge times down to at least 2.76s for Bonesmasher, 8.05s for the Snipe, 3.03s for Energy Transfer and 6.86s for Total Focus!)
Stick the "Superior Critical Strikes" ATO proc into Energy Transfer.
Everything except the two "Energy Transfers" will fall into the Critical Hit buff window; so once the chain gets going Total Focus will often gain +50% chance to Crit (which grants 2x Energy Focus stacks making both Energy Transfers "Quick" - improving DPA and making the second Energy Transfer fall into the Critical Hit buff window as well!)
 

Edited Monday at 11:37 PM by Maelwys

[Championess]

Yeah the 2 stacks of Energy Release you get for ET is big.  Stalkers get automatically the 2 if you lead with TF out of hide then follow with ET.  Plus then you get another beefy ST attack in AS.  Critting is less predictable on Scrappers and you won't get the 3rd beefy attack which you have to dig into pools for zapp/moonbeam.  Also Stalkers are coolest.

Edited Monday at 11:44 PM by Championess

[Biff Pow]

I've played it on Scrapper and Tanker and I prefer Tanker because you get the toughness with a good damage output.

[Maelwys]

44 minutes ago, Championess said:

Critting is less predictable on Scrappers

It's not too bad with TF's improved Critical range (TF Crits don't care about critter rank, it's got a flat 10% base rate vs everything) plus the ATOS (+6% +50%).
Admittedly that's once the above chain gets going though - getting it to *BEGIN* critting at the start of the fight is why you pick /Ninjitsu...  💥 👊

A bit more seriously though: EM is stupendous for Single Target damage but is very much let down by horrible AoE damage potential. At least Scrappers get one semi-reliable AoE in Whirling Hands. The only EM toon I actually enjoy teaming with is a EM/Rad Scrapper for that reason - procced Ground Zero and Radiation Therapy solve a lot of issues!
 

Edited Tuesday at 12:27 AM by Maelwys

[Psyonico]

My favorite Energy Melee toon is a Bio/EM tank.  It does very respectable damage and is quite survivable.