Massively

We knew this one would be controversial. There's a new patch hitting the CoX live servers today. Along with some welcome fixes for the buff icon issues players have been complaining about, as well as a collection of other changes including fixes to suicidal pets and NPCs, there are changes to Energy Melee in its various versions that have had the forums abuzz with debate. The changes were to 'better balance' the powerset, while keeping Energy Melee as the king of single target burst damage.

The changes that have most players up in arms are the nerf to the stun dealt by Total Focus and an animation change to Energy Transfer, changes that hit the Tank, Brute and Stalker classes. The new animation, while more visually impressive than the old, is slower; an Energy Transfer used to take one second, and now takes 2.67 seconds. (For those that don't know, Energy Transfer is a damaging attack that also has a good chance to stun.)

Despite the usual high levels of communication from the developers, some players are unhappy and consider this a crippling nerf; however, nobody seems to be particularly surprised that some form of nerfing has taken place. Energy Melee really was that good.