Energy Melee

For the longest time I have wanted to play a toon with EM. I have a tank at 32 with EM, but honestly, I hate tanks damage output. So my question is, should I play it on a brute or a stalker? I like to play toons that dishout damage and can survive. I understand that whirling hands damage is, well below subpar, but I'm fine with that.

If you're a level 32 tank, then you're four levels away from having an attack. Energy Transfer honestly changes the set, even if it isn't as good as it used to be.

Stalkers aren't as durable as Brutes, but they can survive fairly well, as long as you don't pick /regeneration.

Have you played a stalker before?

Willpower and Ninjitsu are both good sets. Ninjitsu is easier to softcap, obviously, but it can be done with Willpower too, at least for Smashing/Lethal. My Electric Melee/Willpower Stalker feels very sturdy.

That said, if you're thinking about making an Energy Aura brute anyway, try to get your Tanker to level 36 before making the decision. A properly slotted Energy Transfer might just change your enjoyment of the character.

Though, in my case, I still couldn't enjoy Stone Armour/Energy Melee, so I no longer have a level 36 Stone tank, I've got a level 30 Willpower/Energy Melee instead.

I love my wp/em tanker. Especially since Tankers got bruising. Wham, wham, 700-1000 damage done. It's flashy, it's slow, it's terrible DPS - but every time I hear energy transfer charging I know that something is going to get it.

Though honestly a lot of times, especially late game, it feels like he out damages my broadsword scrapper. It's an illusion, but a persistant one.

Although it's a shadow of its former self (no mag 4 stun on TF, ET animating forever) I prefer EM on Stalkers. Em/Nin is a good combo, Nin is great with anything really.

Might i suggest /energy assault on dominator?

I would say go EM/WP on a brute or EM/Shields on a brute. Reason being is that the stalker version gets partial crit on TF and no crit on ET. While the stalker might have higher base damage you can easily leverage fury and the shield aura to make it more deadly. Honestly I was hoping scrappers get it eventually but my fear is that they will neuter it like the stalker version and take away the crits.

It sounds like you'd prefer the Brute. I prefer the Stalker, but I am free to admit it's sometimes a bit of an acquired taste.

Another Stalker vote right here.

Personally I love my em/elec brute for some mayhem in the RWZ. Despite the long animation in ET I still dig the set. It takes a special love for the set. And yes an tank with em needs to "love" the set. Mine is still 42 and I started him in 2005.

My personal opinion:

If you run smallish teams or solo, Energy Melee is great.

The larger your team, or the more adept they are at spamming AOE damage, the more you're going to hate it, as that situation can render the two biggest attacks worthless.

Edit: Stalker Energy Transfer -does- "crit" but it doesn't do extra damage when doing so, it just removes the self damage aspect of the power.

If you like Blaster, EM for them is quite fun. You can knock back people that get in your face, and the three melee attacks it gets pack quite a wallop.

I like the set okay on melee characters, though. It takes a little recharge in Barrage now, but the first three attack (Barrage, Energy Punch, and Bone Smasher) are fairly fast animating and do good damage. They're good for when you don't need a bigger hit from ET or TF.

I have an Ice/EM Tank currently, but I'm thinking about doing something with the new changes to EA... EM might involve those.

I decided to remake my Inv/EM tanker into an EM/EA brute. Getting the big attacks as tier 7 and 9 in the primary, instead of tier 8 and 9 in the secondary should definitely help.

Now I'm just waiting for the last of my IO's to sell after 4 or 5 respecs to strip them all outta there.

While I continue to find EM in need of some love. Really it was never this OMG set on any decent team, where my WP/EM Tanker would continuously hit dead enemies with TF, and was pretty much relying on ET to get some serious damage in on an enemy before the rest of the team killed it.

Even targetting the bosses, on those awesome teams of AOE carnage, my TF would animate and hit a dead body. :/

With the change, ET runs into that problem. Wasn't so bad when it was 1 attack, but 2?

And of course, I didn't care for the new animation. Maybe if I did, it wouldn't have continued to matter, as I love TF's animation, and so it wiffing didn't bother me to much as I was enjoying the set.

Now all it has it's cool pinkness (which other players keep changing into ugly colors ).

One way to improve the set is to transfer it over to Scrappers in Proliferation 4,0 When it gets ported over to Scrappers (changes or not) I'm sure to try at least a EM/Regen Scrapper

Also, am I correct in assuming that Energy Punch is skippable? It seems to be the lowest damaging attack.

I had an EM/NIN stalker and an EM/EA brute (both are getting replaced). I wouldn't recommend EM to anyone right now. Just too slow. Just use KM or wait to see what happens down the road with EM.

It used to be a decent and fun single target set, but now it's just meh.