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Exploding Penguin -> Energy Flow and its Role in ED's Battle System (7/20/2013 11:07:15)
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Well, I just enjoy writing these kind of posts, so hopefully some people will actually read this entire thing and put in feedback and their opinions!
Energy (EP) is a very important thing in ED's Battle System today, so I've decided to make a thread analyzing its role in battles. Please note that this is all speculation supported by research, so while I'm trying to make everything said here as accurate as possible, there are some opinions and possibly things that people will strongly disagree with.
Energy is a vital tool in ED which is important to all classes. With fundamental damage weakened, it is extremely important for a player to control the flow of energy. The "flow" of energy is how energy circulates among the battles, whether it is stolen, created, or removed.
The Uses of Energy
Energy, unlike before in previous phases, is far more useful in Omega. This is mainly because it is emphasized for increased damage in a single turn or for playing defensively with buffs and field medic. Different classes have different uses for energy, but all classes definitely need it if they want to have a chance at winning.
So What is the Flow of Energy Anyways?
Since energy is such a vital tool, a key to winning in ED's PvP system is by controlling the flow of the energy. Some classes can merely leech energy off of others or remove it, while others can actually put more energy into circulation. These attributes are all vital parts of determining the ranking and balance among classes. By controlling the flow of energy, a player can easily subject the opponent to fundamental attacks with no offensive and defensive measures. Because of this and other reasons, controlling the flow of energy in a fight is extremely important for winning, more so than it would seem at first glance.
Skills that change the flow of energy in a fight
Here are the skills and cores that change the flow of energy:
Atom Smasher: Easily the best skill for controlling energy flow. With its extremely low base cost it is almost unstoppable, and the fact that it has a short cooldown compared to other energy removers means it can be used even more. A skill like this can easily seal caster builds and others who can only regain energy/use their skills ever 2 turns of higher.
Reroute: The only passive which can alter the flow of energy. This passive is actually not that good mainly because it can be maniuplated to no end to prevent the player who has reroute from doing anything with the energy. However, this is one of the very few ways of creating energy and placing it back into circulation, so it's a vital skill nonetheless.
EMP Grenade: The easiest and most efficient way to pretty much neutralize an opponent. Taking away energy at a pretty fast scaling rate with a large base value, this unblockable skill can stop high debuff users on turn one if used before the debuff comes. However, high levels of this skill limit its use to only once or twice per fight due to the high base energy cost. However, this skill is still extremely useful for taking an early advantage in controlling the flow of energy in a battle.
Static Charge: Unique skill because it is the only one where a player can place energy into circulation on will. This is an extremely useful skill because unlike reroute (and generator, which can only be used once), the player can choose when they want to place the energy into circulation. However, this seemingly great skill for controlling energy flow is very weak right now because it barely gives any energy. In the end, it's just a leeching tool for static smash and assimilation.
Static Smash: A much-favored skill for controlling energy flow, this skill has become an almost necessity on merc tank builds. It costs no energy to use, leeches energy with decent efficiency, and can remove a lot from the opponent at one time. This skill in itself is a great controller of energy flow, but is limited in its current skill tree due to the high skill point requirement for effective use, the fact that it can be blocked, and its long cooldown.
Assimilation: Much like static smash, except arguably better for controlling energy flow. This is because it not only deals damage and gives rage to the user, but it also leeches energy with 100% efficiency AND its energy leeching effects are not changed by blocks. This makes the skill extremely dependable because it's guaranteed energy. In many cases, it's like an improved static with a longer cooldown.
Frostbite/frost shards: A very annoying skill which can be used strategically and paced right to stop static samshers, assimilation users, and static charge players even when they previously had very little energy. Overall, this skill can take a decent amount of energy while transforming blockable strike damage into a deflectable. This active primary core can be extremely useful as a secondary and emergency way of removing energy if necessary, and can also be a nice thing to use to win in endgame stages.
Generator: Hands down the first core anyone should buy. It instantly puts energy into circulation, and heals some too. however, it can only be used once so its actual control over the flow of energy is weak compared to the better skills like atom smasher.
Energy Storm: A unique core which can remove energy in an annoying fashion in 2v2, given certain situations. In 1v1 it is useful as a secondary way of removing energy, but frost shards is still better. Overall has very weak control over the flow of energy, but since it's so underused some players will not expect you to pull it out and remove 10+ energy in one turn compared to 5 energy per turn.
Energy Shot: A core which has very little use in controlling energy flow. It's really a last-ditch thing because it removes barely anything and puts your sidearm into cooldown.
Classes and Their Grip on Energy Flow and circulation
Let's start with the basic classes...
BH
At the start of a fight, high EMP BHs can easily cripple opponents by taking control of the energy flow and removing all of the opponent's energy. Of course, the enemy could just EMP, atom smash, etc... back and neutralize the situation, resulting in a quick stalemate/endgame-like situation where both players have exhausted their energy, in which case BH's matchup with other classes/build types would determine the victor. However, even with such a sharp EP removing skill, BHs themselves don't have that strong of control over energy flow. They have no ways of generating/leeching more energy from their skill pool, and once BHs have exhausted their energy they must depend on blood lust and weak fundamental damage.
TM
Arguably one of the best classes at controlling energy flow, TMs are the only class with 2 ways of recovering energy: reroute and assimilation. Even if a player tries to work around reroute, assimilation will strike back and take energy anyways. Only atom smasher can counter this because of its faster cooldown and its low energy cost. TMs have a strong grip with energy flow and can easily use it to their advantage when playing defensively with their low-energy costing buffs, but when it comes to offense and healing they need more at one time, sometimes resulting in difficulties.
Merc
Recently rising to power simply because static smash was introduced, mercs have a decent control of energy flow, although their less-than-100% efficiency will remove some energy from circulation with their skill. However, static smash is still an amazing way of taking a lot of energy and returning massive amounts back to mercs in the same turn. This is important for mercs because their skills need lots of energy to use, so synergy with the skill is quite strong.
CH
CH at first seems like a good class to control the flow of energy with, but upon closer inspection they are actually just as strong as a BH at it. This is because static charge simply cannot give enough energy in 1 single turn unless under special and rare circumstances, and if static is used in normal situations, the CH will probably just end up feeding Merc and TM opponents energy. However, EMP still is a great skill for getting an early upper hand at the beginning of the fight.
BM
Blood mage has absolutely no control over the flow of energy, but makes up for that with other strengths that the class has. However, the class is extremely susceptible to a high EMP followed by a strong debuff.
TLM
I would have to argue that TLM is the best at controlling energy flow, mainly because they can pretty much destroy an enemy's hope of ever getting enough energy for something with repeated atom smashes. However, with this great advantage that TLM has, they have great weaknesses in other areas such as almost no offensive capabilities from their skill pool, and the fact that rerouote is easy to work around.
Energy Flow in 1v1
Energy flow in 1v1 is important to control, because if you do so then you can pretty much reduce your opponent to only using basic attacks every turn. This is especially important on debuff classes because the opponent cannot protect against the debuff, but it can also be extremely useful on certain tankier classes as well to slowly wear down the opponent's health while preventing them from healing. The player controlling energy flow in 1v1 essentially controls what the opponent can do and greatly limits the opponent to predictable attacks each turn.
Energy Flow in 2v2
Energy flow in 2v2 is very hard to control. First of all, 2v2 fights start with double energy and thus have 2x the consumption of energy. Also, focusing control of a single opponent's energy will simply result in temporarily stopping them, but their ally will probably just generator them or use their full energy pool against you. Controlling the energy pool is much harder in 2v2 and does not always yield as great results as it does in 1v1, but it still gives definite advantage. However, a main focus in 2v2 is collaboration, which definitely overpowers a team controlling the energy flow.
...That's about all I have to say on energy flow. For those who actually read this entire thing (which wasn't actually that long), thanks for spending your time on it!
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