How to fix Electric blast

[Bossk_Hogg]

13 minutes ago, Trickshooter said:

Off the top of my head, I would say if anything, Geyser and Overcharge are really the problem in the comparison to Thunderous Blast, but I wouldn't want to get them nerfed. 🤐

But they fall in line with the melee nukes, given that they recharge faster. T Blast is the outlier and should be fixed. Sentinel Electric Blast already fixed this as well. 

 

The T9's all use the ranged modifier as well. There isnt a damage penalty for being ranged. It wouldnt surprise me if the OG devs slapped one on there randomly, because they sucked at power math.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Bossk_Hogg

[Trickshooter]

8 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

But they fall in line with the melee nukes, given that they recharge faster. T Blast is the outlier and should be fixed. Sentinel Electric Blast already fixed this as well. 

 

The T9's all use the ranged modifier as well. There isnt a damage penalty for being ranged. It wouldnt surprise me if the OG devs slapped one on there randomly, because they sucked at power math.

Realistically, the best solution probably would have been to make Thunderous Blast match Overcharge and Geyser when all the nukes were rebalanced in Issue 24, but lowering it's damage lower than the other legacy nukes might have been seen as nerfing a set that was already considered weak by most of the playerbase.

[Bossk_Hogg]

Why not let it deal the same damage as the PBAE nukes and put it on a 145 second timer? The only reason Overcharge/Geyser deal less than the PBAE's is because they recharge faster. They recharge in 85% of the time and deal 87% of the damage. End drain isnt nearly as good as a hold, stun or massive accuracy debuff, which the other ones have, and there isnt a modifier in the formula for range anyways.

 

T Blast really does just have a "screw you" tax. it's time to stop accepting it.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Bossk_Hogg

[Galaxy Brain]

Im just gonna quote myself from the Elec Blast thread in the Blaster forums:

 

 

 

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.

[Demon Shell]

31 minutes ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

End drain isnt nearly as good as a hold, stun or massive accuracy debuff, which the other ones have, and there isnt a modifier in the formula for range anyways.

This is why I suggested adding -rec to it. Doesn't its short help text say it's supposed to have that anyway?

[Galaxy Brain]

32 minutes ago, Demon Shell said:

This is why I suggested adding -rec to it. Doesn't its short help text say it's supposed to have that anyway?

All Elec Blast powers except for Thunderous Blast have 100% -Rec for different lengths of time

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AW5_KjMAykxJhSdMflR1uSfOsfknNvSyZDsLmoFohjw/edit#gid=0 

[Trickshooter]

11 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

All Elec Blast powers except for Thunderous Blast have 100% -Rec for different lengths of time

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AW5_KjMAykxJhSdMflR1uSfOsfknNvSyZDsLmoFohjw/edit#gid=0 

Unfortunately most of them are only a chance to occur.

[Demon Shell]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

All Elec Blast powers except for Thunderous Blast have 100% -Rec for different lengths of time

A -rec on the nuke, when coupled with the -end, would have a similar effect as a stun/hold.

 

Given the option to jump in right after and SC, it wouldn't even need to be a very long -rec, just enough to stop an Alpha.

[Razor Cure]

9 hours ago, HelenCarnate said:

That is just -end.  They still can recover and attack once they have endurance. 

I know it was just minus end. But I was hovering over the Bosses blue bar, and he STILL used an attack when at zero. Before his normal recovery kicked in.

[Vanden]

16 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

I know it was just minus end. But I was hovering over the Bosses blue bar, and he STILL used an attack when at zero. Before his normal recovery kicked in.

Being controlled by the server, a boss would be able to activate a power on the exact same server tick it recovered endurance. And this would all happen before the server sends this info to your client for you to see. And someone else posted that the AI doesn’t actually have to have enough endurance to use powers, only more than zero. If that’s true, the boss could’ve regained endurance, and immediately spent it on a power that cost more end to use than a single tick of recovery would grant, keeping their total end at 0.

[Haijinx]

5 hours ago, Trickshooter said:

I just want to add that I would love for Tesla Cage to do more damage and for Short Circuit to animate faster. I think those are solid suggestions, and while some people are going to be averse to change simply because they love a set/power just fine as it is, I think overall most people would (eventually lol) be very happy with those changes.

You could for example use the AIM/ Build up animation for Short Circuit.  

[Galaxy Brain]

24 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Being controlled by the server, a boss would be able to activate a power on the exact same server tick it recovered endurance. And this would all happen before the server sends this info to your client for you to see. And someone else posted that the AI doesn’t actually have to have enough endurance to use powers, only more than zero. If that’s true, the boss could’ve regained endurance, and immediately spent it on a power that cost more end to use than a single tick of recovery would grant, keeping their total end at 0.

More likely that the 1 tick was enough end to run any power they want. Bosses have 200 endurance, elites + AV's have 800. They all share the same endurance costs though, so their recovery gives back proportionately way more per tick compared to their costs.

[Cooltastic]

Maybe we should increase the chance for the -rec debuff to apply on all powers. 

 

[Crysta Clear]

On 10/22/2019 at 7:28 AM, SmalltalkJava said:

Yeah,   I think elec should probably do -end and also a -end recovery.  that way it cover that recovery hole.

It already does. Every single one of my electric blasts imposes -100% recovery for around the same duration as its damage buff from my inherent as a blaster.

[Zepp]

Just to confirm, it is not a chance for -100% recovery, it is -100% recovery (according to the IG description). This should, however be extended to the T9 and perhaps increased (to account for resists).

[Solarverse]

On 10/21/2019 at 11:47 PM, HelenCarnate said:

 so dropping the recharge and animation time is probably the best way to go.

 

Next is Tesla Cage.  I would love to see this have more damage but can understand keeping it low.  However, it also only has an 8 second hold when all the other stuns and holds in every other blaster primary are 9.5 seconds or longer in addition to most of them doing far more damage and almost all of them being cast faster.  If I had my way the stats would be the same as Freeze Ray which would up the damage to 125.1

These two suggestions right here are right on par with what I felt. Ice is a great comparison to use for Testla's Cage and bringing the top tier power in line with all the others is also prime.

 

I am so glad I am not the only person who feels this way.

[Communistpenguin]

Just a pie in the sky thought, turn aim into a mini Power Build up. So clicking aim boosts -end and -end recovery, and maybe a +recharge for the playyer

Edited October 23, 2019 by Communistpenguin

[aethereal]

It would be a much bigger balance chore, but I think that the best way to improve electric blast while giving it more of a unique theme would be to add a chance-to-chain to one or two of the attacks (like the electric melee attack or the electric control knockdown).  More AoE to a set is always welcome, and -end and -recovery is an inherently problematic secondary effect.

[Galaxy Brain]

2 hours ago, Communistpenguin said:

Just a pie in the sky thought, turn aim into a mini Power Build up. So clicking aim boosts -end and -end recovery, and maybe a +recharge for the playyer

Had the same thought in my earlier post 🙂 

 

It would be super thematic!

[Solarverse]

13 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Had the same thought in my earlier post 🙂 

 

It would be super thematic!

I don 't know, I actually kind of liked the brilliant idea aethereal had.

 

[Communistpenguin]

So my pov on this is a bit biased, since i play elec as a defender secondary. So im not expecting to kill things quickly. So for me the -end and -end recovery are more useful than a random chance of my blast hitting another target for less damage. I need consistent effects. With end drain i can lockdown a troublesome boss long enough to defeat it. 

[Frostweaver]

yeah, but -end on a defender is actually a useful effect. We are not expecting to kill ANYTHING in less than 12 seconds, so sucking them dry to the point where they mostly brawl is a decent debuff to protect your team.

Defenders don't really have that much problem with electric blast(except maybe wishing that it had more debuffs for better slotting options). It's Blasters That don't know how crappy the set performs at high levels that feel the shaft when they have sunk the time to get to 30+

The sniper changes improved things a little compared to sets without snipes, So electric isn't completely crappy anymore, but it's still considerably behind the lowest-performing alternatives.

To be completely honest, I wouldn't even mind if they ignored electric blast on defenders/corrupters as long as they helped blasters. Even though my 'main' is a time/elec defender.

Edited October 24, 2019 by Frostweaver

[aethereal]

I wasn't actually thinking of taking away -end and -recovery, just adding a chance to chain to, I dunno, maybe Lightning Bolt and Zapp.

 

But my point was, not trying to tune -end and -recovery UP into a more useful secondary.  They're such an all-or-nothing debuff that it's really hard to get good balance around them.  My main on live was an elec/kin corruptor, and it was like "no secondary effect, no secondary effect, no secondary effect, EB is mostly locked down, AV totally ignores my secondary effect."

 

EDIT:  Maybe instead of Zapp, Tesla Cage could produce chain arcs in a short range around itself throughout its duration, that'd solve the "Tesla Cage is not good" thing while also giving Electric Blast a bit more oomph and theme.  This would admittedly be a nightmare to balance.

Edited October 24, 2019 by aethereal

[Galaxy Brain]

 

 

17 hours ago, Solarverse said:

I don 't know, I actually kind of liked the brilliant idea aethereal had.

 

On 10/22/2019 at 2:21 PM, Galaxy Brain said:

 

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".

 

 

Either way, I think that is unused design space that many newer sets take advantage of very well instead of just having BU or Aim.

 

 

 

31 minutes ago, aethereal said:

EDIT:  Maybe instead of Zapp, Tesla Cage could produce chain arcs in a short range around itself throughout its duration, that'd solve the "Tesla Cage is not good" thing while also giving Electric Blast a bit more oomph and theme.  This would admittedly be a nightmare to balance.

This could be cool too! Like while held, the target gains the Electrical Field damage toggle?

[Jeneki]

Back in the live days (before quick snipe) I advocated for damage in Tesla Cage as well.  The length of the animation time is more than enough to justify it.