Pink Pom Poms of Death. A Energy/Regen Stalker Guide : City of Heroes - Submissions

Energy Melee is a pretty impressive set to choose once you get to the higher levels. While it has an odd (but true) reputation of being the "pink pom-poms of death" set, don't be dissuaded by the eye-candy naysayers. They just envy you. EM is a bit different than the other sets because there are NO multiple-target attacks in the set. I'm a bit used to this since I play an MA Scrapper in CoH, but even HE has one AoE attack. What this means is that the rest of your attacks make up for it by dishing out high levels of pain to the one target it DOES hit. Another nice feature of EM is that part of the damage you deal with every attack is Energy-based. Not as many foes resist Energy attacks, while many resist Lethal and Smashing.

For those who are not familiar with the Brawl Index measurement popularly used on the forums, it is a way to compare each power's damage output to one another. It's based on how much damage a power does compared to Brawl, which has a baseline score of 1. For example, Energy Punch's BI value is 2.7, which means it does 2.7x more damage than Brawl. Add 3 SO damage enhancements to EP (for a +95% boost to damage) and the Brawl Index goes up to over 5.

Barrage
Recommended Slots: 1x accuracy; 2x damage
Endurance Cost: 3.5 endurance
Activation Time: 1.3 seconds
Recharge Time: 2 seconds
Brawl Index: 1.9 Smashing/Energy damage
Status: minor Disorient (foe)
This is a pretty lousy power. It does low damage and should only be used as a filler attack in my opinion. If you build your Stalker like I did, though, you can replace it with Air Superiority, an infinitely more useful attack. Those recommended slots are only if you bother to take it.

Energy Punch
Recommended Slots: 1x accuracy; 3x damage
Endurance Cost: 5.2 endurance
Activation Time: 0.6 seconds
Recharge Time: 4 seconds
Brawl Index: 2.7 Smashing/Energy damage
Status: minor Disorient (foe)
Here we go, a more decent attack. This is more useful for finishing off lieutenants/bosses or dealing with minions. Pick this up as your first attack over Barrage. You may want a recharge enhancement in it eventually, because you'll only have a few consistent attacks if you follow my build. Aside from your big-hitters, you'll have this, Air Superiority, and Bone Smasher for finishing off enemies.

Bone Smasher
Recommended Slots: 1x accuracy; 3x damage; 1x recharge
Endurance Cost: 8.5 endurance
Activation Time: 1.5 seconds
Recharge Time: 8 seconds
Brawl Index: 4.6 Smashing/Energy damage
Status: moderate Disorient (foe)
Now we're talking! This is your first of many devastating attacks, and it's available at level 2! A critical hit with Bone Smasher at level 2 is a beautiful thing indeed. Often times in the early levels, this can be used as a follow-up to Assassin's Strike to defeat bosses.

Assassin's Strike
Recommended Slots: 1x accuracy; 3x damage
Endurance Cost: 14.3 endurance
Activation Time: 4 seconds
Recharge Time: 15 seconds
Brawl Index: 19.4 Smashing/Energy damage (on critical)
Here it is, the reason you picked a Stalker over any other archetype. If you're hidden and you use this attack, you'll do 6x more damage than normal. With this and Build Up, you can cripple a boss to the brink of defeat. I love it when I surprise my team in combat with AS. They hardly notice my stealthed form, and when the boss they are focusing on suddenly drops to 10% health, it takes them a moment to remember there's a Stalker in their team. Mua ha ha! Take this power as soon as you reach level 6. It will make getting to level 8 all the quicker. One tactic that you can use if you've got a recharge rate enhancement or two in it is to AS a boss, juggle him with Air Superiority and hit him with another attack while he's on his back, Placate him, then AS him again. I used to say Scrappers were the 'boss-killer' archetype, but they don't have anything on Stalkers!

Just like Blaster snipes, however, this power is interruptible. Keep this in mind, because if you're twitchy, you may move yourself and stop the animation, wasting endurance. If you're in a team, you have to be wary of cone attacks hitting you, too. As such, I suggest standing behind an enemy when you use this power.

Build Up
Recommended Slots: 1x recharge rate
Endurance Cost: 5.2 endurance
Activation Time: 0.7 seconds
Recharge Time: 90 seconds
Duration: 10 seconds
Status: +50% accuracy (self); +80% damage (self)
Build Up is how my groups know when to charge the enemy. I sit in the middle of a pile of mobs while they stand back. As soon as they see me activate this power, they know I'm about to assassinate a boss and bring all forms of hell upon my hidden self. I suggest slotting it with several recharge rate enhancements so you can use it as soon as Placate becomes available again. While Scrappers don't rely on Build Up to too much of a degree, it is a really useful power for Stalkers. Not only for the added damage to take out a boss quicker, but also to ensure your AS hits, thanks to the +50% accuracy boost it provides.

Placate
Recommended Slots: 1x recharge rate
Endurance Cost: 2.6 endurance
Activation Time: 1.5 seconds
Recharge Time: 60 seconds
Duration: 10 seconds
Range: 40 feet
This is another power to take as soon as possible. Placate makes life so much easier. Did you get the boss' attention despite the Brute on your team's best efforts? No problem! Placate him and then land a critical hit on his lieutenant buddy's head! 3 recharge rate enhancements makes the power even more useful in a team, since you will probably need to use it in combat more than once. "These are not the droids you are looking for."

If you're new to Stalkers and are confused by this power so far, I'll explain. This power is ranged and auto-hits your target. It makes the target no longer aggro you and lasts for 10 seconds. It also makes your next attack a critical hit, assuming nobody hits you in that time (every enemy can see you like normal except for the individual you Placated, so the others WILL attack). I emphasize "HITS you" because misses will not bring you out of your pseudo-hide state. This makes Energy Aura and Super Reflexes more advantageous than Regeneration in this respect. The following 10 seconds can be used in 2 ways. One way is to run from the enemy, assuming he is alone. If you get out of his range before Placate wears off, he will essentially forget you exist. This is good when fighting something that is threatening to faceplant you. The second way is to get a critical hit on one of the enemies near you. The Placated foe will still not see you right away even if you attack the guy next to him, so keep that in mind. And if he's alone, that means you'll have time to Assassin's Strike him. Confused yet? Don't worry, you have plenty of levels to get used to the power.

Stun
Recommended Slots: 1x accuracy
Endurance Cost: 10.2 endurance
Activation Time: 1.8 seconds
Recharge Time: 20 seconds
Duration: 15 seconds
Status: Disorient (foe)
Stun lands a high-magnitude disorient on enemies, and one application is enough to drunkify minions and lieutenants. Stun plus Total Focus will make just about anything dizzy. The damage of this power, though, is laughable. Never slot it for damage. Heck, never slot it period. I won't deny this is a half decent power, but I simply don't have the room for it. Placate seems to be good enough. I made it to 40 without it, so you can too. If you PvP a lot, you'll probably enjoy Stun more than me. In Aleksander's Energy/Energy PvP/PvE Stalker (v.1.0) guide, he attests to as much:
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...this can definitely put the damper on an unwary, toggle-happy defender or controller. IE, Hurricane-types. Something of a sticking point between PvP/PvE'rs, it doesn't have nearly as much use in PvE as it would in PvP, IMHO. If you have the chance to stick it in your build without putting yourself out from the other 'essentials' (as energy has alot of good powers), then grab it.


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Energy Transfer
Recommended Slots: 1x accuracy; 3x damage; 1x recharge rate
Endurance Cost: 10.2 endurance
Activation Time: 1 seconds
Recharge Time: 20 seconds
Brawl Index: 12.7 Smashing/Energy damage
Status: minor damage (self)
This is one of two reasons why you picked Energy Melee over any other primary set. Energy Transfer does a huge amount of damage in a very short amount of time. The endurance cost is decent for the damage it does, too. It takes a while to recharge, but with an enhancement or two in it, it'll be up quicker, which may not be a good thing considering its drawback. Said drawback is that it does a small amount of damage to you when you use it (on the order of about 7-8% of whatever your max life is). You CAN kill yourself with this power! I've done it before by clicking ET at the same time a boss hit me. The boss' attack would normally have brought me to a smidgen of life, but then ET sucks the rest of it away and before I know it, I'm in the Rogue Isles Hospital being counselled by the in-house psychiatrist. You can counteract the life-draining aspect of this power if you use it while hidden, but that replaces your extra critical hit damage. Yes, you heard me, this power does no extra damage when you use it while hidden. But does it really need to?

Total Focus
Recommended Slots: 1x accuracy; 3x damage; 1x endurance cost
Endurance Cost: 18.5 endurance
Activation Time: 3.3 seconds
Recharge Time: 20 seconds
Brawl Index: 9.9 Smashing/Energy damage
Status: Disorient (foe)
This is the second reason you picked EM instead of any other primary set. The damage of this power is on par with Energy Transfer. It takes considerably longer to activate, however, and costs nearly twice as much endurance. I suggest an enhancement to take care of that to a degree. It will always land a high-magnitude disorient effect on anyone you hit with it, plus a very high chance to land an additional minor disorient effect on top of that. This means you can stun bosses with just this one power! A critical hit with this will not yield double damage, unfortunately, but it's still a +30% boost. This means it has just about the same Brawl Index as ET if you use it while hidden. Imagine for a moment, if you will, the sheer damage you can do with Assassin's Strike, Energy Transfer, and Total Focus. Now why on earth would you want to play any other type of Stalker?

Fitness
Due to the nature of a Stalker's playstyle, you won't be in combat for lengthy amounts of time. All your endurance will be spent up front, and between readjusting your position, Placating and moving around, and fleeing to let yourself get hidden again, you will be given plenty of opportunities to recover your lost endurance. If you team a lot and find you have to resort to scrapping, you may find taking and slotting this power to be more useful than a soloer. As much as I dislike scrapping with my Stalker, I have to in a team quite a bit, so I slotted Stamina. Fortunately, I had the slots available.

Flight
Air Superiority fits beautifully into my build, as is mentioned above. It's a great power, doubly so for Stalkers. A common tactic I use on an enemy I don't want to fight is to hit them with Air Superiority, Placate them, then run. Sure it's cheap, but isn't that the point of Stalkers?

Concelment
Stealth stacks with Hide, which is great in PvP combat. It's not so useful in PvE, but there is a small amount of defense bonus from it, which is worth mentioning if your secondary set is defense-oriented. I won't go into length about the 2 powers stacking because there are plenty of other guides out there for PvP Stalkers.

Teleportation
Recall Friend is a very useful power for Stalkers if you plan on teaming up much. I use this power to assist my team with beelining it to the last room of a mission. It helps to skip a bunch of baddies if we find we're somewhat over our heads or such.

REGENERATION (Downtime is for sissies!)

Regeneration has been brought low. It’s still a fun powerful set, but its heyday is passed. Regen gives you no downtime, type neutrality, and near complete status protection (in PvE). The Regeneration set has to be carefully managed as it’s now a click heavy, toggle light set.

On to the powers:

FAST HEALING – Well, you got to take it. Fast healing is a .75 (75%) buff to your base regen rate. You regenerate 25% of your hit points each minute. Fast healing adds 40% to your base regen rate; it does not let you regenerate an additional 40% HP per minute. Unslotted Fast Healing takes your HP regen from 25% of your HP per minute to 43.75% of your HP per minute.

The formula for the buff is: .25 x (1+(.75x[1+sum of enhancers])) The sum of enhancers has changed with ED, see the patch notes.

Others have posted more family friendly explanations of how to calculate the effect of a Regen buff. PM me and I’ll take your through it.

With the changes to Regen and with ED, I recommend that this power be three-slotted but it is not the highest priority to do so. I recommend that you slot the following defenses in order: Reconstruction, Integration, Fast Healing, Dull Pain.


Recommended slotting: Three slots - Heal

RECONSTRUCTION – This is your first real heal. It heals 25% of your current HP total (after buffs) every minute. This is a great low level power that in I6 is needed from level 1-50.

The optimal slotting for reconstruction is 3 recharge SO/3 heal SO. That leads to about a 50% of HP heal every 30 secs, or 100% of HP every minute. Every other combination leads to less HP per minute.



Recommended slotting:

2-11 level: Any trainings you can find
12+ level: three recharge; three heals.

QUICK RECOVERY – This is the reason many people take this set. Quick Recovery is a 33% boost to endurance recovery. I could go through the math with you, but just take, 3-slot it, enjoy it.



Recommended slotting: 3 endurance recovery

DULL PAIN – This is a 40% HP buff which also heals you by an amount equal to 40% of your base HP. The heal portion can be slotted but HP buff cannot. I recommend six-slotting this power for recharge and healing.



Recommended slotting: 3 recharges; 3 heals

INTEGRATION – This is the most important power in the set. It is the linchpin of your set my student. Take it at 16. No later. There is no power available to you at 16 that is more important or useful to you. Integration is a 150% regen buff that also provides incredible resistance and protection to holds, disorient, sleep, immobilize and knock effects.

In Issue 6 the regen buff is only two-thirds enhanceable (100%).



Recommended slotting:

12-21 level: Three Heal DOs
22+: Three Heal SOs RESILIENCE – Resilience provides a large resistance to disorient effects and a 5.6% resist to Sm, Le, toxic. This is definitely worth taking for the passive stun resists, although unless you’re going for extreme defense it need not be slotted. Like all four of the top Regen powers it is optional.



Recommended slotting: Three resists

INSTANT HEALING – Instant Healing has been changed to a click with a ninety second duration. The healing stats were not changed. Instant Healing in this form is an optional power. If you don’t want it, don’t feel like you need to take it. I’m taking it and giving it three slots recharge. That will give it a downtime of about four minutes. Ugh. Instant Healing should be considered Regen’s 38 powers as MoG is awful (see below).



Recommended slotting: three recharge


REVIVE – Revive resurrects you every five minutes. However, your toggles are not turned on automatically, and thus if any enemies are around you are likely to die again. Revive also protects you from additional exp debt for 30 seconds after use. Which is good, since you’ll probably die again unless there are no mobs around. Use inspirations instead, never take this power.



Recommended slotting: I have failed you if you take this power.

MoG – The “Moment of Glory” is no longer anything of the sort. It is a three minute buff which first heals you to full then damages you by 75% of your current HP. Then for the next three minutes you cannot heal or regenerate any damage. In response you are provided a 71% resist buff to all but psionic damage; a 75%+ defense buff to all but psionic damage; an massive endurance regen buff and protection from hold; sleep; disorient; immobilize and knock effects.

At the termination of the three minutes you are left unable to regenerate for 15 seconds.

MoG is a HIGHLY situational power. Before when Instant Healing was a toggle, MoG really only had a use against the Malta and its Sappers. Now it can save you against non-Psi mobs, but this power is pretty bad for a 38 power and I must recommend against it being selected.



Recommended slotting: 38+: 1 to 3 recharges; rest defense buffs