StratoNexus

Your contention that the damage is delivered slower is in direct conflict with the results of the studies you cite. Those studies are about damage per unit of time. EM consistently delivers more single target damage faster than almost every other set, according to those studies.

I struggle with you ignoring or downplaying the stuns. While I may feel the devs placed too high a value on them, I certainly feel you place too low a value on them.

Since you ignore or downplay aspects of EM that I feel are important (the stuns, and you now seem to saying its single target damage is average, when its actually top tier), obviously I cannot agree with your conclusion that the underperformance is clear and blatant.

While I would love to see the set get another AoE damage power, that is just my personal bias speaking. The game has room for single target sets, and this one has been that way since launch, so I see no reason to change it now. However, my desire for an AoE could be satisfied nicely by making Stun an AoE with low damage and just the stun. That may be too out of character for the set, but I think it would be nifty and is certainly more interesting than just slapping damage into Stun.

After reading this, I am fully behind Option 1. Always love new costume pieces, but it drives me nuts how long it takes sometimes to find stuff in the massive costume editor. Avoiding clutter is worth some minor change on a few of my costume pieces (and it seems likely in almost all cases I'd prefer the newer look anyway).

That changes things, all of the ones on my list operate best in melee. All of the best AoE choices, IMO, involve PBAoEs, especially if we want to descirbe it as balls-out. However, some ranger builds can come close and are also very interesting to play.

The Fire^3 Dom could be made a ranger, but Hot Feet is really good, so just like the /Fire blaster it wants to be in melee.

Fire/Men blaster is a good choice. But the best ranger I have played is a Rifle/Mental blaster, although an Archery/Mental might be even better (although the Rifle blossoms sooner).

VEATs can make some nice ranger builds as well, IME.

Fire/Dark Corruptors are wicked good with Tar Patch + Rain of Fire + Fire Ball + Fire Breath, and Fire has great single target powers to back it up as well.

I thought the +80% was from Assault. How does that work with splitting up?

Glad to see you thought this through.

On highly optimized solo builds, +80% damage would be big. Of course, it is not +80% solo, but on teams.

On teams, it is a drop in the bucket. Sorry your teams think an additional +80% damage matters on top of what they already bring. Most of my teams would yawn at that, and that is without kinetics, with a kin, it becomes not just insignificant, but irrelevant.

You may be right, Psion1 mentioned that.

However, BillZ's complaints seemed more aesthetic. Much more like something that could be satisfied with an alternate animation.

Stun is a power which stuns and deals Smashing/Energy damage. So is Whirling Hands! Cottage preserved.

Everybody wins!

The thread about alternate animations might indicate that something like this could occur. How hard would it be to just mimic the exact same Siphon Life animation we currently have, but make it opposite handed? How hard would it be to make it alternate, like Brawl does? Maybe allow the Stun or Focused Burst animations as alternates?

Highly optimized solo build... damage on a team...

Like teams can't already eclipse +80% damage just by having three people firing off AoEs at the same enemies.

Teams are going to run amok! OH NOES!!!!

No, no. You make Whirling Hands like Foot Stomp (except keep the stun and remove the KD) and replace Stun in the Stalker set with WH!

Everybody wins!

GDN was unrelated to IOs. ED was specifically introduced because the standard SO (and even more so HO) enhancers were already putting characters about where the limits of the game could handle challenge-wise.

They could not introduce any type of skills system that further improved characters and still function within game limits of what they felt they could design at the time.

The premise of a control power sacrificing damage for that control has been apparently thrown out the window in most cases (at least when it comes to armored melee attack sets). Only Stun and Touch of Fear remain now that MA had its control power changed.

That being said, you are being unfair. You attempt to demonstrate that most sets get 1 extreme damage power, Clobber, KoB, ET, SS. Yet you then try to point at TF and say, "Look how badly it compares to Clobber." Except EM is the only set to even get two extreme attacks. The fact that one of those attacks has merely average DPA instead of above average DPA is not in and of itself evidence of any problem. It is also improtant to remember that DPA is indeed a very good metric to look at, but it is not the only metric to consider, especially when we start talking about the really high powered attacks. As much as we (rightfully) downplay its importance on the forums, sometimes, the fact that a power puts out a big orange number needs to be considered. ET deals 1.82 times the damage of Incinerate (which is not really Fiery's big hitter, but it is the power you listed, so I stuck with it), 1.56 times the damage of Clobber, and 1.28 times that of Seismic Smash.

OTOH, in about the same time it takes to animate ET, Mace can activate Clobber + Pulverize, dealing the same damage as ET, with a guaranteed mag 3 stun and a chance for a mag 5 (but it should be noted that the stun duration of ET is significantly greater than either Clobber to Pulverize). Mace will also have spent twice the endurance, and of course EM will have taken damage.

Not both. Adding damage to Stun seems pointless, the set already has 5 single target attacks and two big hitters. Adding the AoE stun is much more interesting, IMO.

I like your idea of making Stun a targeted AoE mag 2 disorient, with a very small radius of an additional 1 mag (so it can hit the "main" target with a mag 3). The idea also has the advantage that it seems like it would be appropriate for all the ATs that get Stun.

Yeah, I often want to ask for a 10 ft. radius on Burst, but my Whirling Mace is the same 8 ft., so I am used to it.

That being said, ever since they increased the range on melee attacks to 7 ft., it is actually possible to hit something with a single target melee attack and yet miss it with an 8 ft. PBAoE. I presume this is because the PBAoE range starts at the center of your character, whereas the single target attack range starts at the edge of your character. That makes 7 ft. longer than 8 ft.

The fact that SOs are sufficient does not mean that IOs are not the next logical step from SOs. IOs are the next logical step after SOs, but they are an optional step (while SOs are optional as well, they are pretty dang easy to handle so most people will take that step up from TOs).

I know it is not extremely complicated. It is just an unneeded extra little complication. And it clutters things unnecessarily. And it keeps TOs as worthless.

I agree it is not needed, but I obviously feel it would be an improvement.

I think you are overtstating the progression, since after a brief time playing, most people learn that the progression is: Ignore TOs, probably get DOs at 12, switch to SOs at 22, if inclined learn and use IOs. I'd rather the sense of progression be: use TOs until 22, then switch to SOs, if inclined learn and use IOs. This would make drops more useful as well, and I think it is always interesting when I am encouraged to slot what drops as opposed to the current situation where I vendor or market almost all my drops early game.

You are definitely overstating the power level of slotting DOs early game. Level 1-7 go by so fast and you have so few slots, it is irrelevant. At 8-12 the enemies are powerful enough for those few slots you have to be useful, and I would like them to be that as opposed to just leave them empty because TOs are garbage. From 12 on, DO level power is already available, so my suggestion is no change there. I think my idea would actually make you feel more powerful as you level because you are getting useful slots and enhancements.

Barrage, Energy Punch, and Bonesmasher are all fine attacks with respectable animations.

Energy Transfer's animation time is well within reason compared to other similar attacks. Total Focus is on the long end, but other sets have their own long animations (Tremor, Thunderstrike, OTC, Combustion,etc.).

The ability to stun is pretty potent, IME. I know I get a lot of mileage out of it on my Stalker. The set was never great at AoE and its single target damage output is still spectacular. So relative to other sets, its still pretty much in the same place it always was. It was and is spectacular at single target damage. It was and is great at stunning foes. It was and is poor at AoE damage (although with Taunt and WH it is still decent at AoE aggro control).

It is interesting that Energy Melee and Dark Melee are the only two sets left with a single target control with low or no damage. Both sets lack AoE, both are good at single target damage, and both have gobs of control/utility.

Those will stack, although neither are very large (but both are still good powers).

A PBAoE Rifler is an interesting idea. So much of the good stuff on Rifle is cones, so you would normally play at range, but I think your concept could work.

Here is a possible idea, I took Full Auto because it is just too juicy to pass up, IMO.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.803
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 50 Magic Blaster
Primary Power Set: Assault Rifle
Secondary Power Set: Fire Manipulation
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Cold Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Burst -- Empty(A), Empty(3), Empty(19), Empty(25), Empty(37)
Level 1: Ring of Fire -- Empty(A), Empty(7), Empty(37), Empty(42), Empty(43)
Level 2: Slug -- Empty(A), Empty(3), Empty(7), Empty(17), Empty(25)
Level 4: Combustion -- Empty(A), Empty(5), Empty(5), Empty(13), Empty(15)
Level 6: Hurdle -- Empty(A)
Level 8: Fire Sword -- Empty(A), Empty(9), Empty(9), Empty(19), Empty(23)
Level 10: Fire Sword Circle -- Empty(A), Empty(11), Empty(11), Empty(13), Empty(15), Empty(46)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- Empty(A), Empty(43), Empty(46)
Level 14: Health -- Empty(A), Empty(42), Empty(42), Empty(46)
Level 16: Build Up -- Empty(A), Empty(17), Empty(23)
Level 18: Super Jump -- Empty(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- Empty(A), Empty(21), Empty(21)
Level 22: Acrobatics -- Empty(A)
Level 24: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 26: Ignite -- Empty(A), Empty(27), Empty(27), Empty(31), Empty(33)
Level 28: Consume -- Empty(A), Empty(29), Empty(29), Empty(40), Empty(43)
Level 30: Tough -- Empty(A), Empty(31), Empty(31), Empty(34)
Level 32: Full Auto -- Empty(A), Empty(33), Empty(33), Empty(34), Empty(34)
Level 35: Burn -- Empty(A), Empty(36), Empty(36), Empty(36), Empty(37)
Level 38: Hot Feet -- Empty(A), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(39), Empty(40), Empty(40)
Level 41: Flash Freeze -- Empty(A)
Level 44: Frozen Armor -- Empty(A), Empty(45), Empty(45), Empty(45)
Level 47: Weave -- Empty(A), Empty(48), Empty(48), Empty(48)
Level 49: Hibernate -- Empty(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Defiance
Level 2: Ninja Run

Energy Transfer deals more damage than KoB. Outside of criticals/scourge, it would be the best damage per click single target attack at the damage cap, with the stalker slightly edging out the brute.

Is this the Demand and Ideas forum? Can I make it a demand and have that work? Because if I could, I'd demand it, but since I can't, I'll stick to suggesting it.

I also would like to demand a few other things... ah, nvm.

Well, it eliminates a step, but I believe the learning curve from TO to SO to IO would be smoother than the current learning of TO to DO to SO to IO. SOs are pretty easy to figure out, there are 5 types. There are 10 types of DOs and the half graphics are a bit harder to see than the full SO graphics. It is also easier to remember, I am magic so I need the magic store or the magic SO, as opposed to I am magic so I can slot the ones that also have natural or mutation, but not the natural/tech or mutation/science, which half of the DO is my origin again?

I think it would also be nicer if people were actually rewarded with results for slotting enhancements as opposed to whatever it is TOs do.