Is Dark/Elec any good?

[Bjornalf]

As the title says, Is Dark/Electric any good? and any suggestions on powers to skip and or a build?

I'm figuring the knockback powers are only good solo as it'd annoy a group (I've had an NRG/NRG before ;)

[Novacat]

First, there's a knockback-to-knockdown unique you can take advantage of, and good placement (or flying) can mitigate most of the team-unfriendliness of knockback. So even in a group, it's not necessarily something to worry about.

 

The one thing you'll want to maybe reconsider is that /elec (as well as elec/) do endurance drain, but this is rather... binary. Either they're empty, or they're at full power. And it takes a LOT to empty things especially higher conning Bosses through AVs. So as a secondary, even with Power Sink, unless you're willing to go for Electrical Mastery to support it (and a lot of EndMods) you may have to simply ignore one part of your powers and almost pretend it isn't there unless you've got other electrical (and/or Kinetics) friends.

 

This isn't a problem with your particular combination but rather the electric sets themselves: they're never enough for drain to eventually add up to a proper shut-down all on their own. That said, if you take Electrical Mastery and mod for drain, you can supplement Power-Sink enough to make a difference - maybe take the Preemptive for your Incarnate Interface, and Tempest set's "chance of end drain" as a solo into one or more of your ranged attacks to help round out the drain.

 

Other than that, your main defense (and that of your friends) will be -Hit on all parts of your primary. Between that and Drain, Musculature's Radial Paragon path may be the ideal Alpha slot for you: ups damage (you're a blaster), to-hit debuffs (darkness primary), and endurance modification (stamina, force of thunder, and all of your electrical attacks).

 

For powers, personally I'd take Gloom, Moonbeam (a fast hard-hitter under Aim or yellows or when lots of friends have Tactics up, plus for pulling), and focus on the cones, disorients and point-blank AoEs - you're not really going to be made for the 80ft rangeband, even with some range ups you'd probably around 60ft for at least two of your three cones, and then in things faces with all of your Point-Blanks. The sleeps can work through purple triangles IIRC but need a lot of stacking, so IF you just want to take one of the two, I'd take charged brawl over havoc punch. Do NOT forget Force of Thunder; it's a Disorient/KB with a tiny radius around you but every minute it's where your regen and recovery come from.

 

For more specific stuff though, you'd have to ask an expert. Probably someone here has a far more refined build than my half-assed alt.

[Tater Todd]

As the title says, Is Dark/Electric any good? and any suggestions on powers to skip and or a build?

I'm figuring the knockback powers are only good solo as it'd annoy a group (I've had an NRG/NRG before ;)

 

It's and interesting combo.  Dark Blast is mostly focused on ranged attacks and /Elec has a lot of melee.  I don't want to discourage you from rolling that combo just keep in mind you will be sometimes jumping in and out of melee.  Out of Dark I would skip Umbral Torrent due to the KB and I would skip Lightning Field, Force of Thunder and Thunder Strike all three of those powers have a lot of KB.  The reason why I said to skip Lightning Field was because I personally don't care for dmg toggle powers unless they have high potential for excellent procs even though one could argue that end drain can give you some soft control.

 

I'm curious as to why you chose this combo.  You could do Dark/Elec with other ATs that would dish out more damage and be more team friendly.