Bartacus

My only thought is that Combat Teleport, to me, oversteps the uniqueness of the same power from Martial combat. I'm happy to see that power proliferated, but it was/is one of the most unique powers in the game. Should this really be offered to everyone via power pool?

Just want the devs to know that I'm excited about balance passes. I haven't played in a bit primarily because endgame and poor balance (some OP sets, other sets that woefully underperform)

I initially thought this was an intentional choice until I found out that I could choose Spectrum as a left/right boot and something else for the other one. But, Spectrum is not an option when splitting left/right gloves. It should be under Smooth/Bare and then the style at the very bottom, but it isn't. Thanks.

I actually agree with this. I know that NOW is not the time to implement this change. But, I do still think this is the change to make. It would not tip the balance of the set significantly, but would make its T9 feel useful. Yeah, and weren't people complaining the entire time about how not useful Amp Up feels? I mean, that seemed pretty consistent. I agree, the set as a whole IS pretty good. But not stronger than other comparable sets. It does not seem outside the realm of reason to see a buff to Amp Up given this reality. Specifically, it just feels bad to have such a unique power be so... underwhelming. Discharge procs are so cool! But the cooldown makes it so you can only have it on one person. This may not be the popular opinion, but I would easily just as soon remove +Special entirely from the ability if we could give Discharge procs to more people. That, to me, is more unique and interesting.... which is very important when adding a new set to such an old game.

I disagree strongly. Have you used it? it's not nearly as strong as Adrenaline boost from Empathy. You don't seriously think that 800% Recovery, 500% Regen AND 100% recharge is on the same level as 75% to special do you? That means 75% to defense buffs, heals, holds, etc? If so I'd have to disagree with you strongly. The former is much more useful to an individual than the latter. Amp Up I've strongly considered dropping for something else. I only keep it because it's cool to cast, not because it's a very good power. Especially at higher levels of play, +Special is not an inherently great buff. It's useful but it's also difficult to play around. Again, the teammates that I think it would be useful on would be like a Bubbler or something with Defense buffs. But, Then they have to (in the short window of the buff) make sure everyone is re-bubbled. It's just not that useful. To me, take the part about the power that is truly unique and make it the main focus. Giving Discharge procs to the entire team or even half of the team would be way more cool and feel like a much stronger T9 than giving it to one person and giving them special.

OK. I know this set JUST came out... but it's also been on the beta environment for a while so its not like nobody has had ANY time to test it and play around with it. Please stick with me here. I know it just got released, and I know that Amp Up in particular isn't 'useless' or anything like that. Electrical Affinity as a whole is an OK powerset. It's fun in teams. It allows you to buff teams Endurance, Spike their Recharge, Buff their damage a bit, and heal/absorb shield people. It's pretty good as a whole. I don't think it outshines other sets that do similar things (such as Nature, for example), but it's still a solid set. Faraday Cage alone makes the set pretty unique. All this said, I think that Amp Up is very underwhelming for a T9 buff. Everyone says that the +Special on it is underrated. I would disagree. I've found that playing around the +Special during the Amp Up duration is kind of tricky and generally not worth it. I have typically been casting this ability on Blasters instead of support types because of the DISCHARGE procs. I believe that the Discharge Procs from Amp Up are perhaps the most unique aspect of the set. But it feels really sad to only be able to give this to one person. I propose that Amp Up be able to chain to others JUST like the other chaining abilities in the set (with diminishing returns on each chain). Specifically, I do not propose that the +Special carries to others, but only the Discharge procs. In addition to this, I think that the ability should have a longer recharge. I think Amp Up should feel like an ability that, when it's up, really AMPS UP the team with Discharge procs. But, that it should have a longer cooldown so that it's either very difficult or impossible to permanently have up. I think that would make this ability shine, and be much more unique than it currently is, and would FEEL like an awesome, unique, team-oriented buff when it is off CD. What do you guys think?

He's okay, yea. Its really frustrating that he only lasts a minute but like everyone else said its free dps. On my Elec/Elec I'll probably replace it with the summon power from epic pools but that's only because i'm strapped for power slots and I'd have to choose between voltaic and that pet.

Yep. You can find the 'unofficial' patch over on the tools section of the forums.

Yeah, what Coyote said. I have mine slotted for End/End Mod and End Mod/Recharge currently. It feels like a small boost to my end when I use it. Nothing major though. I only have 2 slots in it.

I rarely use Shock in normal gameplay. I use it on AVs/EBs though. maybe a tougher boss. Maybe that doesn't justify the 6 slots? Idk. I could put 6 in energizing instead. I just want the extra ranged def.

I think when leveling, 6 slotting energizing over galvanic makes more sense for sure. I find that at 50, most people have their end problems sorted out (including myself). Have you tried using the stun proc on Galvanic? maybe it is worth using. I think mainly I want some end mod in Galvanic at 50 because the drain can be powerful against bosses/Elite bosses that I take longer to defeat. And, against other foes I won't really need the stun anyway it seems like? I'm not sure. I'm also thinking about dropping Defib + Voltaic Sentinel and picking up Summon Disruptor instead. Maybe then I can use Amp Up on it, and I'll get more mileage out of Empowering Circuit when solo.

Woops! Fixed.

more thoughts: Galvanic Sentinel seems to struggle going through elevators sometimes. That's annoying. Just had a fight where I needed to run to him to heal myself and could not because he was on the prior floor. Currently, I drain enemies faster than I kill them at +2 or so. So, that feels useful as a tool for survival. At least right now, while I'm soloing in DA. I do feel very survivable with Faraday as a mez protect and having a nice shield/heal available. Bosses and such, even higher level bosses, don't seem to pose a major threat because I can drain them so fast. I also fought Adamastor earlier and had him drained completely of endurance. Maybe he has a lower resistance to such, but that seemed useful. I also notice that the -DMG that Sentinel provides helps my survivability a lot. And, I don't have to cast anything for it. That's nice. I also just, for the first time, was low on endurance and found use for Energizing to give me a quick end boost. Some Suggestions so far: Man I really wish that I could have Amp Up on myself if only for the Proc chance. I think something that would make that ability be truly unique and SHINE would be to make the Discharge proc it comes with an AOE that hits everyone around the target. NOT the +Special buff because I think that would be overkill to be able to receive that buff yourself. But, WOW do I dream of being able to give myself and the whole team the Discharge proc. That would feel TRULY unique in this game. EDIT: I promise to consolidate these thoughts in the main post when I finish playing it much more!

Truthfully, the more I think about it, Nature seems like it's just flat out better than Electrical Affinity. Obviously Nature doesn't have Faraday and Faraday is great - Mez protection is hard to find on squishies. And, obviously, EA has a lot of -end and -recovery. But, the trade off is a lot more damage on its damage buff. A -res debuff which is more useful than -end/-recovery. Some -tohit. More -regen. Heals/Buffs that don't require a target. Really, it feels like the only reason to choose Electrical Affinity over Nature is if you really want Mez Protection as a tradeoff for all those other things.

I think if its immune to damage then the effects wont bounce off of it. Could be wrong here. I think regarding Short Circuit I was wanting to put an -Res proc in it as well so that I'd have a little bit of -Res available when solo. So, not entirely for the -Recov/-End Yeah, energizing can be useful to patch up my Perma-Hasten hole and that's how I've been using it. Idk how necessary perma hasten even is though on this build. Everything recharges fast except for Amp Up anyway. And Amp Up doesn't seem amazing to me yet.

Hello everyone! yesterday I got my Electric Affinity to level 50 (do not judge me for this please) and I started fiddling around with the set. I really wanted to give personal thoughts/updates on what I feel are the strengths of the set and what the weaknesses are. What the set feels like, and all of that. I am not an expert! But I thought it would be fun to post updates as I learn more about this brand new set. In addition, I want to hear from you all what is working for you! What do you like/dislike? What builds have worked for you? What are the sets strengths? What are its weaknesses? Where does it shine? Etc. For starters, this is my initial build at 50 for an Elec/Elec Defender. I do not have incarnates yet, but I am planning on Musculature with End Mod: Here were my initial thoughts on the powers, consolidated thoughts are below: Here's a review on the powers. Shock (5/10): I like this power for AVs/GMs. I only 6 slotted it for the ranged bonus and because I wasn't sure where else to put it. I think it's okay for a T1 power. Rejuvenating Circuit (7/10): A bread and butter heal. This works well in teams because if multiple people need a heal, it's easy to apply (rather than trying to position yourself for a PBAoE heal). Galvanic Sentinel (6/10): The premise behind this power is awesome. the AoE -DMG and -End/-Recovery debuffs are really cool, especially when solo. In practice, it dies often and I don't think it lasts long enough. Given that it's a debuff pet, I think this thing should be WAY more tanky and should probably have a 3-4 minute duration instead of a 2 minute duration like Dark Servant (another debuff pet). Energizing Circuit (3/10): This power has uses. It has a nice +Recharge steroid similar to Force Feedback procs. And that can help close the gap on a perma hasten build. However, I hardly need to cast this at all because my end problems are solved at 50 and most everyone elses are too. The +Recharge isn't worth the cast time in most cases. It is cool that it applies it to multiple people, but I might skip this on my next build. Faraday Cage (10/10): Awesome ability. It's a pocket breakfree on a fast cast. Makes setting up for engages that will take longer really enjoyable. Bonus points for +20% Res to all. I love this ability, and it's the best in the set. Empowering Circuit (7/10): Who doesn't love a mini buildup on most or all of your team? It's permanent, easily. I think this is a great power. Other sets have abilities that outclass its +Dmg, but they're usually T9s, have long recharge, or don't apply to the whole team. Defibrillate (5/10): When you have a lot of stacks and you're solo, the drain can be really powerful. But, I'm not sure it's worth a slot unless you just want to be a team player and have a res. Considering I might run Barrier anyway, I may take this out. Insulating Circuit (9/10): Very useful on teams. Very useful solo if you can cast it off of Galvanic Sentinel, which is a big IF since he dies often. Amp Up (3/10): This is cool for the person that you cast it on... kind of? I don't know. The +Special seems very situational. The Discharge/Damage proc is really cool and unique! That said, I think for a T9 it feels lackluster. I think that this ability should be able to chain to other people just like the other spells, but ONLY the Discharge portion. The Special could stay on the first target. This would feel unique, and powerful. This would allow the Solo Defender to use it as well, which, considering the reason Sentinel exists is for soloability, seems to make sense. In addition, it has a very long cooldown as is but being able to cast on multiple people (chaining to them) would justify the long cooldown. Currently, it does not. And other general thoughts on how the set plays Solo: It's OK solo. Faraday Cage is excellent. That helps a ton solo. being able to self buff with circuits is also nice. However, Sentinel dies a lot and sometimes isn't in range to self buff. Which is strange. At times it feels like I should be close enough to receive the buff if I cast it on my sentinel, and I do not. That ends up being not very fun, and can get you killed. Maybe the radius on Circuit powers should be increased. I'm not sure. Sentinel also needs to be more tanky some how. Especially considering it does 0 damage and I can't use Amp Up to help it deal damage through procs. If you're soloing only, just skip Amp up. As mentioned above, I really really wish this could be used on the Sentinel to provide discharge procs. Ideally I could receive that benefit myself (without the +Special because that would be broken). That would make Amp Up feel way more useful. Currently, I drain things a lot of things faster than I kill them when I'm solo. -DMG from Sentinel and Shock help a lot with survivability too. Team: When going from 1-50, I think this set would be very useful on teams. Similar to other support sets in the healing/buffing category (such as Empathy, and Thermal). Buffs/heals recharge quickly and can help the team keep moving and stay alive. On incarnated teams, some of the effects feel pretty useless. Perhaps not more useless than other buff sets, but I find myself just casting Insulating and Empowering and then just blasting away with my secondary. I'll Amp Up a blaster or something occasionally because the procs are juicy on them. I haven't tried Amping Up a support and here's why: in high levels, they don't need me to amp them up in order to keep people alive. And that's the only type of effect it would have. Better defense buffs? Better heals? Better To hit buffs? none of these matter enough on a team that's already not dying. I just cast it on the blaster and let them hit big numbers. Faraday can sometimes be used if you're waiting on ambushes, but you probably won't have time to recast it from mob to mob unless you don't want to use anything else. I just use it as a breakfree. Sentinel, Shock, and Defib are all pretty useless (except to revive with Defib, obviously). On normal teams unless you're fighting an AV, these don't matter at all. AVs/GMs: I've still only fought one GM and it was Adamastor. with 4 people, we floored his end. But, that was probably a combination of myself and an electric melee scrapper. I anticipate this set will be somewhat useful in these situations, but not more useful than other debuff sets. I do look forward to seeing if I can solo any AVs with this set due to the survivability Overall 6/10: This set is a lot of fun. I think it is middle of the road in usefulness. Basing a lot of core mechanics on end drain was risky because, truthfully, in a lot of scenarios, enemies will die before they are drained. Faraday is perhaps the best 'bubble' available when it comes to having mez protect in a support set. This carries the set, I think. Circuits feel useful and spammy but its pretty fun even if I don't know if I'm helping. Amp Up is a huge disappointment to me, and I genuinely think that if you could give the Discharge proc team to teammates similar to circuit buffs, this set would be incredible and unique.

earlier today on my Electric Affinity defender I had my sentinel out and, when attacked by a zeus titan's gas of some sort he either teleported or ran unreasonably fast very far away. As a result I could not heal myself off of him. Idk if it's a bug or if its just a bad AI rule that makes it run away but I thought I'd throw it in here anyway since if it happens often that will severely hinder EA's ability to solo. thanks.

I mean, you can use it without dying but you still have to slow down when it crashes to wait for it to end or otherwise chug a ton of blues and retoggle. maybe i'm missing something here, but the crash is a significant debuff that most people don't want to deal with.

I would rather just see more T9s go the way of Rad Armor where the buff is less substantial but there's no crash. If that were the case, a lot of them would be more useful.

those are cool suggestions! i actually like that a lot.

Yeah, I don't know what your other characters are but I have a LOT of 50s (not intended as a flex - only to make a point here)... my poison isn't in my top 10 and he's IO'd out for defense. it's underperforming compared to other debuff sets, no question. I mean, I did say (in bold, explicitly) that I'm not here to compare which sets need the most help. Only to suggest that poison could use a buff. I don't see why we should pay no attention to poison just because other sets need buffed. they all need to be addressed, I think.

I did not read the whole thread... just the main post and a few others. I didn't mean to assume that everyone is calling to be TW/Bio tier for every powerset; just that I worry that underperforming powersets will always feel underperforming compared to the god-tier stuff. lol! 😨I mean someone had to say it I guess!

Let me begin by saying that I think there are other powersets that are undertuned, and specifically other support powersets that are undertuned and perhaps struggling more than Poison is in the current state of the game. Powersets like Force Field and Trick Arrow struggle to find a place in the current 'meta' of the game. I am not here to discuss whether they should be buffed first or not... but merely here to discuss what I feel is an underperforming powerset: Poison. Please try to stay focused on Poison instead of referencing other powersets as being more in need. Additionally, I am talking about non-MM poison because I have no experience with Poison on MMs. I believe Poison has some issues when compared to other Support sets. The main problem I see is that many do not see it as a powerset worth taking. If you want a debuff set, there are others that fill that role and do a little more. Examples: -Radiation provides debuffs in the form of toggles. This is of course a positive and a negative, as it requires mez resistance I believe. However, you do not have to "hit" your debuff (no accuracy check). Also, Rad has solid -Regen, a self heal, and AM. For this reason, most will take Rad over Poison. -Regen is very important vs AVs and GMs which are the most important targets for debuffs. -Cold, which is the most comparable debuff set. Cold offers similar levels of -res to entire groups, and in addition to this has the defensive toggle that gives +Def and some solid elemental +Res. Worth noting that Cold can hit -60% Res without Achilles but doesn't have the same uptime as Poison does. However, it hits multiple targets, and does not suffer as much Debuff % loss when transferring to non-defenders. (Sleet is still 30% on all ATs, Heat Loss suffers a 6% loss) Poisons strengths: -STRONG single target debuffs on Defender. 40% res debuff from Envenom. 25% more from Venemous Gas. This is without Achilles procs or other -Res procs. That's ignoring the tohit, defense, and damage debuffs which are all also significant. -Recharge from Neurotoxic breath is also strong. -Poison Trap is a great proc monster -Venomous Gas has 4 strong debuffs in one AoE toggle that is autohit Poisons problems: -Similar to other toggle debuffs, mezzes hurt a ton. This is particularly noticeable on Poison where its survivability requires that its debuffs are on. -Survivability is rough. No toggle with any kind of defensive bonus. No self heal. Some of this can be overcome with IOs, but it takes a lot more work on Poison. Every other support set in the game has one of those two things: a defensive toggle or a self heal (except for Trick Arrow which is not exactly the gold standard). -Poison seems considerably worse on non Defenders because while it loses a similar percentage of its debuffs as most, this is made worse by the way Envenom and Weaken work. That is, that half of the debuff 'splashes' onto nearby targets. This isn't so bad when the values are as high as they are on defenders, but on other ATs I think Poison struggles even MORE to find a reason to be chosen above other debuff sets. I do not see why you would pick poison over Cold on non-defenders... ever. (except theme, of course) Some notes on Poison's identity: I do not propose that we add some kind of self heal or defensive toggle to Poison because of the problem above, and here's why: I think Poison's identity is STRONG debuffs. Especially STRONG single target debuffs. It has to pay a price for this strength if other debuff sets cannot match it. This is probably why it has no self heal, and no defensive toggle. Here are some suggestions to make it a more survivable set without just adding a new power and making it Rad 2.0 or something: -Give Venomous Gas some mez protection (5 protection to hold/disorient/sleep?) to the caster (not to teammates). This will allow poison to excel moreso at debuffing than other sets at the cost of defensive ability, since it can keep Venomous Gas active. -Buff Paralytic Poison somehow. I think the idea in putting this in was to give it some kind of CC similar to Fearsome Stare in Dark Miasma. I do not think very many people take this power, but it would be cool to see this be more useful somehow. Maybe make it do damage? or give it -Regen (~150% with 30s duration?) so that it can compete with other debuffing sets? I think either of those suggestions would make this power more unique in the support power context and would go a long way. What do you think? How could poison be buffed? Or, if you don't think it should be buffed... why not?

The poll doesn't have an option for response to nerfs as "I would welcome them and enjoy them." They're all negative, which shows your bias. Anyways, I think when it comes to teams and playing content with other people... having powersets and ATs that are ridiculously broken makes you feel useless and like you aren't contributing, as has been mentioned. The problem with buffing everything up to the level of the 'broken-tier' powersets, is something called power creep. Power creep is especially bad in a game like this where most of the content is already easy. I do think the focus should be on buffing things that are undertuned, but I don't see why you wouldn't nerf things that are way overtuned as well. TW stands out as an obviously overtuned powerset. I don't think anyone wants to see it made into something that underperforms, but certainly made into something that doesn't make everything else look like trash by comparison. I think in short, it feels bad to play a superhero game and feel not useful (or super) compared to the person next to you that decided to build a fire/fire blaster and can clear everything before you touch it. You might think that's petty and I'm insecure or something, but this is an MMO that's meant to be played with other people. I want to be able to play something different and also be able to contribute meaningfully in a team. Sometimes when teaming with stuff that's overpowered, it feels like I'm not.

Nobody is using FF as a benchmark. Someone specifically said something about FF doing as well as time and that's, frankly, complete bullshit. That's why it was brought up. FF brings mez resist, and that's the difference. Time brings -res, +recharge, +tohit, -damage, -tohit in addition to bringing soft capped defenses. FF only brings softcapped defenses for teammates, not for yourself too, and it takes 4 powers to do it instead of 2. FF is by no means the benchmark, but someone tried to compare the two and tbh that's laughable to me. I think the basis for this thread is that if Time's Defense buff couldn't be powerboosted, the set would still be top tier. And I agree with that. I don't think that even talking about Kin is a fair comparison because they do very different things. FS is very, very strong. But Kin also doesn't have ANY defensive abilities for yourself, and minimal debuffs. That's the trade off. Lots of damage, but lower survivability. Time, however, has basically everything you could want from a support set. Offensive buffs, defensive buffs (probably the BEST defensive buff in the game), and debuffs (including -res, -dmg, and -tohit). The only thing missing is an ability to debuff regen by a large amount. It has a little bit, but you'd need some help if you wanted to solo AVs/GMs I'd suspect. This is what makes time so powerful. And, it would still be very very powerful if you could not powerboost it's Defense Buff.