Electrical Blast is bad, don't use it

[oedipus_tex]

56 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

It's not that it isnt a good effect, the problem is that it is black and white.

 

End drain only works if you get, and keep, an opponent at 0 endurance. As I detailed in the numbers, this is essentially worthless on Minions and LTs where you will kill them faster than you drain them, making focusing on draining those targets unnecessary. 

 

For bosses+, you will drain faster than you kill on average. But, they also have 200 - 800 endurance or for AVs, massive endurance drain and -rec resistances. 1 tick of their recovery if you lapse is good enough for them to swing with a lot of their move pool since they still have normal end costs compared to their massive pool. This also limits how much drain effects them on the way to 0 as they can essentially be unaffected until that point.

 

Once at 0, only -rec really matters as the end drain has no additional effects, and at that point you are fighting a statue.

 

It's just a very weird design choice that is either not notable or OP.

 

 

 

This is true, but related to why Electric Blast is very difficult for players to deal with when used by enemies. 

 

Part of the reason the situation is so binary is most mobs don't have good shields that are worth detoggling, whereas players do. If you End drain a Tanker, Brute, or Scrapper player, you've totally disarmed them.

 

Most mobs don't have toggle shields, they have native Resistance that they keep regardless of what their endurance is. If could detoggle it to break through, you'd gain whatever percentage of Resistance back.

 

This probably wouldn't work in current PVE because the farm model is so established. I hold out hope though of some "last level" content that is designed with the current meta in mind that provides much more variation in enemy design. 

 

Barring that, see my idea about giving Elec sets a chance for reverse Conserve Power, which causes powers to cost more endurance for a period of time. That would achieve nearly the same effect as what happens when players notice their endurance bar dropping.

 

 

[Bossk_Hogg]

8 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Electric Blast is an interesting place because when used by players endurance drain is not great but when used by enemies, even with lower damage output it is perhaps the most dangerous blast set. It's worth discussing why.

 

Most players go into fights assuming they will need to continue fighting to the end. Enemies on the other hand are on a suicide mission.

 

Players often also depend on a series of toggles. If they get detoggled they significantly lose power.

 

Moving some enemy resistance, defense, and mezz protection that is currently automatic to enemies into toggles would make Endurance Drain a much more attractive effect. 

It is my understanding that enemies don't actually have toggles. They have clicks that act as toggles, with a set duration. Also, they don't really use endurance the way players do. So long as they have 1 endurance, they can use anything they want.  It's why end drain can't really ever be "fixed", otherwise it just becomes a hold. We need to look at other solutions to buffing the set, rather than ripping apart the guts of how NPC's work. 

[Galaxy Brain]

Yeah, end drain is not the same between players and NPCs, and even if we could drain to detoggle, it's still a waste compared to killing or a traditional hold.

[DougGraves]

Electric melee has a chance for sleep built into its attacks in addition to the -END.   They should just add that for blasters.

[Galaxy Brain]

Elec manipulation attacks also have the sleep.

 

Honestly, I'd rather the chance for +end be looked at in the elec attacks. The end drain is guarenteed on hit, but there is only a 30% chance to refund endurance back to you. Why not make the return 100% chance at a lower value assuming you hit? End mod would then effect both the drain and the return and give the elec attacks better results when you still have somebody drained.

 

There is also design space within Aim imo. That could be made into some unique power up besides the generic version we have now... 

 

Call it "High Voltage" and reduce the +ToHit and +Dam some and add in +End Mod and +Rech. 

 

Tesla cage doing actual damage would be nice

 

A chain lightning (Zapp??) Somewhere. Zapp on Elec Blast only would be a good candidate for "Zapping Chain" or the like, a unique snipe that can bounce to up to 3-4 additional targets.  Tesla cage being boosted would help ST damage still as I assume the chain would deal less damage.

 

And Voltaic Sentinel can stay, maybe just make his shock attack faster / better.

Edited October 21, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[oedipus_tex]

2 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

It is my understanding that enemies don't actually have toggles. They have clicks that act as toggles, with a set duration. Also, they don't really use endurance the way players do. So long as they have 1 endurance, they can use anything they want.  It's why end drain can't really ever be "fixed", otherwise it just becomes a hold. We need to look at other solutions to buffing the set, rather than ripping apart the guts of how NPC's work. 

 

Are we sure about this? I just tested using an Electric Dominator versus some custom made enemies in the AE.  I gave them the Arctic Air toggle power from Ice Control. They consistently kept the power up until I endurance drained them, then the power would instantly drop.

 

I did notice most enemy armors don't seem to drop when they run out of endurance (at least looking at the animation). But it does seem at least possible for enemies to have toggle powers that bottom out.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if the AE works differently than the rest of the game of course.

 

Someone should check the Hurricane power that Tsoo Sorcerors have. That one definitely detoggles if you mezz them, I have done it many times. I bet it also drops if you endurance drain them.

 

 

Pics below arent the best. I turned off Conductive Aura for better control over when enemies hit bottom endurance. You can see the guy on the left gets detoggled. The next screenshot was taken a few seconds later when he had regained a little endurance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Galaxy Brain]

AE enemies are most likely coded differently than normal enemies.

 

Try the same in an AE mish with troll LTs when they toggle on armors.

[Jeneki]

Perhaps debuff toggles are treated differently.  For example, Banished Pantheon lieutenants (mid-level ones with storm toggles like hurricane and snowstorm) will lose their toggles.

 

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by Jeneki

[StratoNexus]

6 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

It is my understanding that enemies don't actually have toggles. They have clicks that act as toggles, with a set duration. Also, they don't really use endurance the way players do. So long as they have 1 endurance, they can use anything they want.  It's why end drain can't really ever be "fixed", otherwise it just becomes a hold. We need to look at other solutions to buffing the set, rather than ripping apart the guts of how NPC's work. 

This is not true. Enemy attacks cost endurance and if they do not have enough, they cannot use them. However, see below.

 

The way end recovery works is by giving you a percentage of your max endurance every so often. Higher recovery shortens the time to gain a "tick" of endurance, not the amount gained per tick (although if you increase your max endurance, that does increase the amount per tick). You can greatly increase the time between ticks with -recovery and even stop recovery altogether with enough -recovery. Powers that improve your recovery, like Stamina, decrease the time between ticks.

 

However, tougher opponents have a bigger max endurance and if you fail to keep enough -recovery to keep the enemy from getting any ticks at all, even 1 tick will give them enough endurance to activate even an "expensive" power usually.

 

It is not that they can activate any power with 1 endurance, but in general, against the opponents that matter, they can activate most of their powers after just 1 tick of gaining endurance.

 

One option to help would be to give some attacks the ability to debuff enemy End costs (i.e. make them more expensive). I know players have this stat and I assume mobs have it as well. That way the enemy could gain a tick and still likely be able to use weaker attacks, but the costly powers would still be out of reach. This way the end drain is still more useful, but not a total hold. Debuffing end costs would also help drain the enemy faster, since their powers cost more and might put some powers out of reach even before totally draining the enemy.

 

I am not sure it is necessary to buff Electric Blast this way, but it should be possible and is not a flatly binary defacto hold, but hopefully a more nuanced method of helping the -Endurance/Recovery work better.

[Galaxy Brain]

Great write up @StratoNexus. On the sheet I linked prior it goes into some more detail on how long it takes elec blast to drain for a blaster at a base level. It's really only relevant vs Bosses and Elite bosses, and laughable vs AVs.

 

Elec Blast (along with most blasts sets) needs some love ala assault sets. Up above I tossed out some recommendations that alongside end return as a more focused side effect should make it more valuable. The end drain portion more or less works as intended and focusing too much on that front is missing the other design space that electricity can look into.

Edited October 21, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[VV]

If we are going into "What if" and "how to fix it", what if NPCs Endurance was allowed to go negative? One of the problems is that you can only drain End down to 0, then one tick of their recovery, and boom they can hit you with a nice attack. Given that the computer has 0 reaction time, it makes it very difficult for a player to keep them at 0 so they cannot get off an attack. If you could drain them negative, then they would have to recover back up to positive, making it possible to keep them down. Then again, this just turns an Elec/ blaster into a 3rd rate controller, and who wants that? So, maybe it's not such a good idea.

[Frostweaver]

naww, cause if you did that you could negative players too, and that would make sappers ten times as much of a nightmare as they are now.

[Shred Monkey]

instead of goign negative.... give powers a large but brief recovery rate debuff.   Same effect, but not a hole you can't dig out of.

[Galaxy Brain]

7 hours ago, VV said:

If we are going into "What if" and "how to fix it", what if NPCs Endurance was allowed to go negative? One of the problems is that you can only drain End down to 0, then one tick of their recovery, and boom they can hit you with a nice attack. Given that the computer has 0 reaction time, it makes it very difficult for a player to keep them at 0 so they cannot get off an attack. If you could drain them negative, then they would have to recover back up to positive, making it possible to keep them down. Then again, this just turns an Elec/ blaster into a 3rd rate controller, and who wants that? So, maybe it's not such a good idea.

Honestly, End Drain as a mechanic is fundamentally wacky and not worth rewriting enemies for. When it works, it works as I detailed in the sheet posted prior. Elec Blast on a blaster can drain most enemies dry in about 12ish seconds of continual fire with VS helping out, and even faster if you slot for end mod or lean on Short Circuit / Thunderous Blast. If anything, frankenslotting End Mod sets for End/Rech or such could be useful here or there to leverage the attacks better.

 

End Drain is binary and non-immediate. Ice's Slow or Sonic's -Res is immediately useful and stacks up to become better as you fight. Elec's Sapping is only useful vs targets that can survive blasts long enough to be drained, and then it takes time to actually drain them down to a safe level. Even if they can fire off a high-power attack if they are allowed to tick end once in your assault, the net safety gain is pretty dang good. Its just that as an attacking set, having essentially just 1 power that excels at end drain in SC (Thunderous Blast is not consistent enough to rely on just for Sapping purposes... though it's really nice) makes the secondary effect just kinda.... odd. Elec Control is really the only Elec set in the game with great consistent end drain as it has multiple powers that can drain groups efficiently as opposed to just 1 power (usually Power Sink or Short Circuit) that does all the work.

 

All the other elec sets are awesome due to powers not directly tied to end drain either, though it is a perk. Elec Melee has Lightning Rod and a Chain Attack. Elec Armor has great passives, energize and power sink. Elec Manip has amazing melee attacks, and Power Sink. Elec Blast has Voltaic Sentinel, a very slow PBAoE, and a Ranged Nuke.

 

Thunderous Blast is awesome, especially with the overall changes to nukes which lets you actually leverage it's drain effects but as a nuke its on such a long timer to not be a staple like Rain of Arrows / etc.

 

SC loses out on damage and animation time in exchange for radius (it is decent there) and end drain, which requires slotting + other powers to be effective. As we have all gone over, unless you have Boost Power or Power Sink on top of SC, the drain is sort of meaningless as even ~70% of an end bar gone is nothing to an NPC. Power Sink does not match the range of SC, and neither does Ball Lightning IIRC and the latter can only be boosted to about ~14% end drain via enhancements (Blaster Values), leaving enemies still with enough end to matter (Another 15% ish). You would need to then use a couple of ST attacks per enemy to fully drain their end, by which point the -Recovery on other targets probably would have worn off.

 

Elec Blast by itself does not have the power to effectively use it's side effect. Other elec sets besides elec control focus on other electrical tropes, or if they do drain it uses Power Sink which Returns Endurance to emulate Electrical Power.

 

I say if anything, pull away some of the -End from Short Circuit as it is not enough to focus on anyways. Add back damage and/or animation speed to it instead. The way it is animated + the massive graphic makes it look like it should be a massive, dangerous electrical discharge instead of an end drain.

 

As mentioned before, Aim is a slot that has room to play with. Looking at /Time and how it's Build Up variant trades 20% damage for 20% Recharge, Aim in Elec Blast could probably pull the same thing. Take say, X% away from the massive +ToHit it gives (even if you axed like 25% it would still be overkill tohit for most content) and apply that to +End Mod and/or +Rech to boost up the set's natural end mod and/or electrical "Speed".

 

Also make Tesla Cage deal real damage like Sentinels. Not the same scale sure, but enough to be worthwhile. Sparky could probably use a bit of love too with either a faster or harder hitting bolt.

 

Those alone would make elec blast feel much more effective IMO.

 

For more far fetched ideas, perhaps Zapp could have a chain component where it can jump to 2-3 additional targets (Damage adjusted of course). The attacks that have a 30% chance to return end could just have a 100% end return if you don't miss for less end returned than we have now, or at least the Aim replacement could make the powers have a 100% chance while active.

 

 

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, Shred Monkey said:

instead of goign negative.... give powers a large but brief recovery rate debuff.   Same effect, but not a hole you can't dig out of.

All elec blast powers have -100% recovery for various amounts of time except Thunderous Blast. 

[Omega-202]

I would increase the +end refund on electric powers to help balance things out.  Right now, most powers have a 30% chance of refunding 50% of the power's end cost.  I would up that to at least 30/100 or 50/80.  That would allow electric users to focus more attention on doing damage whereas other sets may have to allot more build resources to end management.  

[oedipus_tex]

FWIW I just did a test with Arch Mages from the Circle of Thorns group. Draining all of their endurance causes their Dispersion Bubble to drop. So it appears enemies do have the capability of having powers that drop when endurance is reduced to zero.

Edited October 22, 2019 by oedipus_tex

[Bossk_Hogg]

7 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

I would increase the +end refund on electric powers to help balance things out.  Right now, most powers have a 30% chance of refunding 50% of the power's end cost.  I would up that to at least 30/100 or 50/80.  That would allow electric users to focus more attention on doing damage whereas other sets may have to allot more build resources to end management.  

Are any electric blasters really suffering for endurance though? The sustains work ridiculously well to keep me topped off at least. It might be nice for defenders/corrupters, but I need more damage/recharge/etc, not more endurance on my electric blaster and sentinel.

[Bossk_Hogg]

1 minute ago, oedipus_tex said:

FWIW I just did a test with Arch Mages from the Circle of Thorns group. Draining all of their endurance causes their Dispersion Bubble to drop. So it appears enemies do have the capability of having powers that drop when endurance is reduced to zero.

Good to know! Thanks for testing. I was going off incorrect info that mobs dont have toggles like normal players. 

[oedipus_tex]

6 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Good to know! Thanks for testing. I was going off incorrect info that mobs dont have toggles like normal players. 

 

No worries. FWIW a few seconds later I happened upon a Possessed Scientist with a version of Earth armor. Endurance draining him caused it to drop. So it's not limited to just AoEs.

 

These mechanics are much easier to observe on an Electric Dominator where draining is more feasible and contributes somewhat to damage output by removing enemy toggles.

Edited October 22, 2019 by oedipus_tex

[Omega-202]

19 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Are any electric blasters really suffering for endurance though? The sustains work ridiculously well to keep me topped off at least. It might be nice for defenders/corrupters, but I need more damage/recharge/etc, not more endurance on my electric blaster and sentinel.

Sure, maybe not most relevant for Blasters, but I was more thinking of all of the other ATs.  Literally every AT besides the Kheldians have access to electric blast attacks.  

 

How about making it so that 50% of End restored to the attacker also transfers to nearby allies in a 10' radius?  

[Galaxy Brain]

Dropping toggles is one thing, stopping actions is another.

 

Either way, elec blast by itself wont drain quickly unless you heavily sacrifice damage which is an odd choice for an offense set.

[atletikus]

Just witnessed a level 9 Electric/Dark troller drain Eochai while Back Allay Brawler tanked him. Eochai just stood there taking it for a good while. Wasn't entirely reliable, but I was pretty amazed a low-level or any level could do that to a GM.  Even though GM-arresting is like 0.1% of the game at best, I'm starting to re-think Electricity drain effects being useless.

[Galaxy Brain]

1 hour ago, atletikus said:

Just witnessed a level 9 Electric/Dark troller drain Eochai while Back Allay Brawler tanked him. Eochai just stood there taking it for a good while. Wasn't entirely reliable, but I was pretty amazed a low-level or any level could do that to a GM.  Even though GM-arresting is like 0.1% of the game at best, I'm starting to re-think Electricity drain effects being useless.

It's not useless, it's more that Elec Control is the one set that is designed to really do it well.

[VV]

I love the ever-changing title of this thread