Energy Explosion and Pulse Wave questions

[Dark_Jedi_21]

Im a newer player and have never understood the benefits of these powers. Can someone please explain to me how, why they are useful?
Do they bypass damage reducers?
Do they ignore stealth?
Do the effect characters on your squad as well as your enemies?

[SFBull]

Im a newer player and have never understood the benefits of these powers. Can someone please explain to me how, why they are useful?
Do they bypass damage reducers?
Do they ignore stealth?
Do the effect characters on your squad as well as your enemies?

Energy explosion is useful on groups of enemies, especially if your EE user has multiple target capabilities, or if the opposing target has stealthed soft targets adjacent to it. For example if your opponent has his taxi carry up a bat ally to hindering, but you can draw line of fire to the taxi, then you might be able to ping the bat ally from range even though they are stealthed due to the splash effect of energy explosion. To answer your questions: no; not directly, but if the stealthed character is adjacent to one of the original targets of the attack it can be damaged by the splash effect; again if they are adjacent to the original target of the attack.

Pulse wave is one of my favorite powers as it ignores all powers, abilities and traits of all figures in its range. This lets you bypass damage reducers, hit stealthed targets, avoid mystics, etc. of all figs in the blast radius. To answer your questions: yes; yes, but they would get the hindering terrain bonus; yes.

[Surfer13]

EE doesn't bypass damage reduction.

Pulse wave does.

[IceHot]

EE is also really good against Mastermind as all damage is DEALT at once. Mastermind likes to clump guys so since the damage is generally passed through this lets you double up on that damage.

[Dark_Jedi_21]

Also does the damage always become one for Energy Explosion and Pulse Wave? I know you can Nova Blast with Pulse Wave for full damage. But since EE does not bypass reducers it seems alot less effective if its always one damage.

[Questions]

Also does the damage always become one for Energy Explosion and Pulse Wave? I know you can Nova Blast with Pulse Wave for full damage. But since EE does not bypass reducers it seems alot less effective if its always one damage.

Damage dealt with Energy Explosion is based on the number of times a character is hit, not damage value. So multiple :bolt: (or a special power) is the way to deal more than one damage to any given character with Energy Explosion.

With Pulse Wave, the damage value becomes 1 if the lines of fire can be drawn to two or more characters. If the line of fire can only be drawn to one character then the damage value does not become 1.

[SFBull]

Also does the damage always become one for Energy Explosion and Pulse Wave? I know you can Nova Blast with Pulse Wave for full damage. But since EE does not bypass reducers it seems alot less effective if its always one damage.

EE does not have a printed damage, rather the damage is based on the number of times you are hit by the power with the attack. This is why multiple target energy explosion characters are better than single targets. For example:

XXABCDXX
XXEFGHXX

If you targeted B&C with an energy explosion attack from a character with 2 targets you would deal 1 damage to A (1 splash from B), 2 to B (1 from attack, 1 from splash from C), 2 to C 1 from attack, 1 from splash from B), 1 to D (1 splash from C), 1 to E (1 splash from B), 2 to F (1 splash from B, 1 splash from C), 2 to G (1 splash from B, 1 splash from C), and 1 to H (1 splash from C).

For pulse wave, if there is more than one figure (opposing or friendly) within the pulse wave range, then the damage becomes one (unless you are using the pulse wave feat), but if there is only one figure in range (must be opposing to make the attack legal) you use the attacker's damage value for the attack.

[Noah Towns]

Who would you say is the best Pulse Wave figure? Without the feat.
What click has the best EE?

[normalview]

Who would you say is the best Pulse Wave figure?

Very subjective. A high AV is always nice, as is a high damage for when you can catch just a single character in range... but other than that, it depends on what you want them to be able to do.

For example, I tend to prefer characters with shorter ranges as it allows you to more easily catch a single character in range. But long range PW-ers can deal a little bit of damage to a lot of characters.

What click has the best EE?

Any character that has multiple :bolt:, long range, and high AV. Running Shot is nice, too. The rest (point cost, other powers, TAs, etc) will totally depend on what exactly you want him to do.

[Faster Than Flash]

Thorbuster is good for pulsewave.

[pincheoue]

I like Nimrod and the Human torch for Pulse Wave, They give you other options in case pulse wave is not the best choice at the time.

As far as energy explosion goes, I dont use it that much. If I do it is usually on a cheap generic figure, like the old swat units. If I remember correctly Pyro is a useful figure for EE, he also has RCE, and Barrier with multiple targets. All of the figs I have are only useful in Golden age format. Alas no mula for new figs right now.:cry:

[dringopingo]

I don't use either much but if you feel like practising then you could do worse than Lightning Lad from Legion of Superheroes starter he's 70pt wildcard with running shot,
1st click EE then click 2+3 Pulse wave and click 4+5 back to EE with a bit of RCE threw in at the end.