The unaddressed problem with new Electric powers

[Steampunkette]

22 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

Not - rech. - damage is what it needs.

Not Recharge, Recovery. If I wanted Recharge I'd have had an H at the end as -Rech.

[Leogunner]

56 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

So we should add -rec to all -end effects?

 

Works for me! Problem solved!

I still propose a newer debuff opposite of an Endurance Discount, being an Endurance Tax. Then you just have to make sure the mob's attacks have appropriate base cost. 

[Galaxy Brain]

I can plug in defender values as well for comparison later.

 

As for the enemy recovery, the issue is that all but minions have well over 100 endurance, recover end in %'s of endurance like we do, but still have the same end costs per power.

 

A boss with 200 endurance still only needs 8 end to toss a power out, equaling 4 end cost for us. They then recover 2x as much end as we do per tick... so yeah

[DrBasics]

The recovery is not the problem as it was stated earlier in the thread, all the enemy needs is 1 endurance to cast any ability. And some abilities cost 0 (like the Death Mage suicide explosion).

[Galaxy Brain]

Although when they tick end they always get plenty if they arent a minion, can we actually confirm they just need "not 0" to cast?

[Bossk_Hogg]

7 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

 

 

Not every playstyle is "100% cutting edge break out the spreadsheets, boys, we're going in!" effective. And they shouldn't be.

Nope, but there's no reason not to fix a few glaring issues with the set. Thunderous Blast using the wrong damage formula, resulting in a longer recharge than the other nukes (fixed on sentinels), no T3 blast (fixed on sentinels with the Tesla Cage adjustment) and voltaic sentinel not being worth casting, let alone slotting.

 

Eventually they will aim to add in harder difficulty settings. It would be nice to have the underperforming sets brought up before that time.  

[Steampunkette]

19 hours ago, Bossk_Hogg said:

Nope, but there's no reason not to fix a few glaring issues with the set. Thunderous Blast using the wrong damage formula, resulting in a longer recharge than the other nukes (fixed on sentinels), no T3 blast (fixed on sentinels with the Tesla Cage adjustment) and voltaic sentinel not being worth casting, let alone slotting.

 

Eventually they will aim to add in harder difficulty settings. It would be nice to have the underperforming sets brought up before that time.  

Oh, sure. I can agree with that kind of modification.

 

But killing Sapping in order to add -Dam or -Res or some other thing is just wrong, to me.

 

Which is what this thread is -actually- about. The OP doesn't like the new set getting -end instead of something "More Useful"

[Draeth Darkstar]

23 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I can plug in defender values as well for comparison later.

 

As for the enemy recovery, the issue is that all but minions have well over 100 endurance, recover end in %'s of endurance like we do, but still have the same end costs per power.

 

A boss with 200 endurance still only needs 8 end to toss a power out, equaling 4 end cost for us. They then recover 2x as much end as we do per tick... so yeah

If you decide to update your spreadsheet with time-to-drain values for a Defender, could you also add a comparison of time-to-kill values from a blast set with good DPS?

 

  

2 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

Oh, sure. I can agree with that kind of modification.

 

But killing Sapping in order to add -Dam or -Res or some other thing is just wrong, to me.

 

Which is what this thread is -actually- about. The OP doesn't like the new set getting -end instead of something "More Useful"

 

What I don't like is the new set getting only -End for its offensive support mechanic and the focus of two of its powers (one of which you will be forced to take on anything but a Defender) in a game where -End does literally nothing in the majority of situations presented by its default gameplay loop. The argument that building your entire character around sapping Endurance and then playing by yourself so that you actually see it do something before your terrible DPS can catch up to your EDPS does not change that fact.

 

When TTK > TTDrain, Drain contributes nothing to you. Every set that has Drain as its main secondary effect pays a heavy price for it, they get few or no other secondary effects and bottom-of-the-barrel DPS. That's not a fair or balanced dichotomy.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Draeth Darkstar

[Steampunkette]

45 minutes ago, Draeth Darkstar said:

If you decide to update your spreadsheet with time-to-drain values for a Defender, could you also add a comparison of time-to-kill values from a blast set with good DPS?

 

  

 

What I don't like is the new set getting only -End for its offensive support mechanic and the focus of two of its powers (one of which you will be forced to take on anything but a Defender) in a game where -End does literally nothing in the majority of situations presented by its default gameplay loop. The argument that building your entire character around sapping Endurance and then playing by yourself so that you actually see it do something before your terrible DPS can catch up to your EDPS does not change that fact.

 

When TTK > TTDrain, Drain contributes nothing to you. Every set that has Drain as its main secondary effect pays a heavy price for it, they get few or no other secondary effects and bottom-of-the-barrel DPS. That's not a fair or balanced dichotomy.

When TTK > TTDrain drain does something for you. It's when TTK < TTD that drain does nothing.

 

That said: "This one power everyone but defenders is FORCED to take sucks!" is hardly a strong argument considering the number of sets where that's the case...

 

Lemme just load up the beta and get the real numbers per power. For Defenders, obviously, since I can't check it on other classes (yet!)

 

Tier 1) Shock: -20% End, -50% Recovery, -31% damage. The main goal of this power is CLEARLY the 31% Damage Debuff, with the End Drain and -Recovery being added bonuses. Potent added bonuses, if you intend to Sap, but hardly the main event.

Tier 2) Rejuvenating Circuit: Chain Heal, no sapping involved.

Tier 3) Galvanic Sentinel: I can't actually view the real numbers on Discharge, here... 

Tier 4) Energizing Circuit: Grants Endurance to allies.

Tier 5) Faraday Cage: Resistance and End buffs along with protection to control. VERY NICE and stacks with Shock's Damage Debuff.

Tier 6) Empowering Circuit: Big damage buff chain. 40% is huge.

Tier 7) Defibrillate: Rez. Nothing spectacular.

Tier 😎 Insulating Circuit: Some Absorb in a Chain.

Tier 9) Amp Up: Big general buff

 

So... I'm... I fail to see what the problem is, here. Shock's the only power at all that does End Drain or -Recovery for the whole set (Which is fairly weird, for an electric set, really) but it's pretty much a nifty "Nod to Electric" on top of the big damage debuff.

 

Looking through the other tier 1 Defender Powers the only one that I found which was more directly debilitating as a debuff was Corrosive Enzymes for Nature Affinity: A power people complain about having to take even though it adds -25% Resistance on top of of the -31% damage.

 

Is it -REALLY- just this one singular power in the whole set people are complaining over? It's a single nod to sapping that pairs Electrical Affinity pretty well with Electric Blast, but is ultimately not that important of a power to the set, overall. It is your general "Skippable Tier 1" for most builds.

 

... Y'all are crazy. I am eager to play an Elec/Elec Defender or Elec/Elec Controller, now.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Steampunkette

[Draeth Darkstar]

30 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Looking through the other tier 1 Defender Powers the only one that I found which was more directly debilitating as a debuff was Corrosive Enzymes for Nature Affinity: A power people complain about having to take even though it adds -25% Resistance on top of of the -31% damage.

You're really making my point for me, here. -25% Res and -31% Damage is already considered a weak power when it's only effective on a single target, and -Res is probably the second best debuff in the game. A power that has -31% Damage as its only effect under most circumstances is unbelievably terrible.

 

The Discharge power of the Galvanic Sentinel is the same Discharge power that was in the first version of the set. All it does is -Dam and -End, not even -Recovery, it has a low summon duration, no other powers, and it eats your Static stacks when you summon it. It's completely skippable.

 

If you want to debate the rest of the Electrical Affinity set's effects, you can take that to the Focused Feedback thread, as you already noted yourself, that's not the point of this one.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Draeth Darkstar

[Steampunkette]

People don't that corrosive is weak. people complain about corrosive because it doesn't fit in with the rest of the sets abilities. Specifically the rest of the freaking set is all heal over time and this is a weird attack debuff which makes you grow a flower for a hand and is out of step with the rest of the set.

 

You could make that argument about shock... But in either case I offer a resounding "Meh"

[Cidri]

Electric Melee has a sleep instead of an end drain. This could be applied to other electric powersets too. Not ideal, but at least it does SOMETHING.

[Replacement]

14 hours ago, Cidri said:

Electric Melee has a sleep instead of an end drain. This could be applied to other electric powersets too. Not ideal, but at least it does SOMETHING.

Indeed.  If you think about it, the sleep effect (iirc, it plays a "shocked" animation), even if it's a middling chance and a short duration, is really good for buying more time for sapping.

 

I also like the idea of either an Endurance tax, or simply lowering the max end of EB/AV/GM.  Even if the Resist values were tuned so Time-to-Zero-Endurance stays the same, this would result in them getting less Endurance/tick, which would be really nice.

[Galaxy Brain]

Ran the defender base numbers, and we see the following at base:

 

Minions don't seem worthwhile to drain, at least +0/+1.

 

 

Oh, and lets look at 95% damage enhancement, 30% boost from Vigilance, and 1 enhancement for End Drain:

 

 

 

And lets assume you have something like Enervating Field or Tar Patch which is a layer of -30%ish Resist:

 

 

Corruptors would be somewhere in between all this and Scourge is silly.... so yeah

 

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2020 by Galaxy Brain

[Steampunkette]

You know, it's faster for a Dominator to just blast and melee any enemy they fight than it is to try and use controls and -then- kill them.

 

So they should just use their damaging powers instead of trying to use controls!

 

Am I doin' it right?

 

Sapping is a playstyle. Like Blapping or playing a character who isn't 100% focused on dishing out damage. Repeatedly showing that it would be faster to kill enemies (Specifically minions and LTs) doesn't really have much weight when you consider that.

 

You're also only throwing out attack powers. There's also stuff like Conductive Aura which deals no damage. Or Jolting Chain which deals little. Or Power Sink and Lightning Field. Things which sap as a primary component, but which are best paired with damage-focused powers that ALSO sap as a secondary for MAXIMUM END FUCKERY.

 

As previously noted, upthread: Static Field + Conductive Aura shuts down the LTs/Minions, Jolting Chain finishes off their endurance at about the same time the Boss's end bottoms out. Which lets you focus your attacks on the boss without worrying about the minions and LTs, then mop everyone up when they're utterly sapped.

 

Team up with an /Elec blaster to Power Sink and it goes even faster. Or an Elec/ Blaster to throw off Short Circuit.

 

I continue to think "Meh" to the "Sapping needs to go!" Mindset. If you wanna add more damage to powers to bring them more in line with other sets fine. But don't kill my playstyle just 'cause you prefer a more efficient one.

[Galaxy Brain]

7 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

You know, it's faster for a Dominator to just blast and melee any enemy they fight than it is to try and use controls and -then- kill them.

 

So they should just use their damaging powers instead of trying to use controls!

 

Am I doin' it right?

Well that's the thing, Dominator / True CC powers apply safety immediately where sapping attacks do not + are attacks

 

9 minutes ago, Steampunkette said:

Sapping is a playstyle. Like Blapping or playing a character who isn't 100% focused on dishing out damage. Repeatedly showing that it would be faster to kill enemies (Specifically minions and LTs) doesn't really have much weight when you consider that.

 

You're also only throwing out attack powers. There's also stuff like Conductive Aura which deals no damage. Or Jolting Chain which deals little. Or Power Sink and Lightning Field. Things which sap as a primary component, but which are best paired with damage-focused powers that ALSO sap as a secondary for MAXIMUM END FUCKERY.

 

As previously noted, upthread: Static Field + Conductive Aura shuts down the LTs/Minions, Jolting Chain finishes off their endurance at about the same time the Boss's end bottoms out. Which lets you focus your attacks on the boss without worrying about the minions and LTs, then mop everyone up when they're utterly sapped.

 

Team up with an /Elec blaster to Power Sink and it goes even faster. Or an Elec/ Blaster to throw off Short Circuit.

 

I continue to think "Meh" to the "Sapping needs to go!" Mindset. If you wanna add more damage to powers to bring them more in line with other sets fine. But don't kill my playstyle just 'cause you prefer a more efficient one.

I've played an elec/elec/elec blaster for years on live, I know all about both blapping and end drain.

 

I would open with SC + PS to drain mobs, but I essentially never noticed the effects from any other power but those two as Ball lightning, Static Discharge, Blaps, etc would just kill enemies outright without need of further drainage. That is not to say that sapping is not viable or powerful! But that all the power of it, in my experience, is really rooted in a few powers.

 

What we seem to be circling around here is that there are certain key powers are what really do the sapping, while others really... don't. Other sets apply slows, -Def, controls, etc that are all immediately useful. Attacks that apply -End, unless it is a lot of it, are more often not really notable for their secondary effect. Powers like conductive aura, Power Sink, etc are all notable because their main focus is to drain end and not their secondary effect. It just so happens that you kinda need all or nothing for this particular effect to matter which can be questionable, given to get to "all" you need particular synergies else you run into the situation where you may end up killing faster than draining and the effect never comes into play!

[Steampunkette]

4 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Well that's the thing, Dominator / True CC powers apply safety immediately where sapping attacks do not + are attacks

 

I've played an elec/elec/elec blaster for years on live, I know all about both blapping and end drain.

 

I would open with SC + PS to drain mobs, but I essentially never noticed the effects from any other power but those two as Ball lightning, Static Discharge, Blaps, etc would just kill enemies outright without need of further drainage. That is not to say that sapping is not viable or powerful! But that all the power of it, in my experience, is really rooted in a few powers.

 

What we seem to be circling around here is that there are certain key powers are what really do the sapping, while others really... don't. Other sets apply slows, -Def, controls, etc that are all immediately useful. Attacks that apply -End, unless it is a lot of it, are more often not really notable for their secondary effect. Powers like conductive aura, Power Sink, etc are all notable because their main focus is to drain end and not their secondary effect. It just so happens that you kinda need all or nothing for this particular effect to matter which can be questionable, given to get to "all" you need particular synergies else you run into the situation where you may end up killing faster than draining and the effect never comes into play!

There are certain powers which create -fast- sapping. Or which work well to create a baseline for other powers to sap off of.

 

But you can't throw off Power Sink once and be done sapping a group. Nor can you do it with just Short Circuit. Those powers are platforms that allow the rest of the powers to rise up and make your enemies suck wind. Or you can combine them for a one-two shutdown.

 

And as an "Assaulter" Electro Dom, I -need- the -recovery in Electric Assault to keep my enemies bottomed out, 'cause just draining their end and calling it a day? Doesn't exactly cut the mustard.

 

Sapping's a package deal. You get the big powers and the little ones together to fully shut down groups on the regular. It's more frantic, for me, than just playing a Control-Focused character, even though the result (Absolute Damage Mitigation) is the same. 'Cause you've got to keep an eye on which enemies are about to start recovering endurance and make sure that they don't.

 

It's one of my favorite ways to play.

[Troo]

What happens when two sappers team? Or more?

 

 

[Galaxy Brain]

I like it too! 

 

Its just as you said though, you need -End, -Recovery, and quick + constant application to keep it going else in the time before full drain you are essentially fighting in the open. In most situations, other secondaries have similar mitigation over time or immediate effects when it comes to control. There are certainly edge cases where you can effectively drain hard targets, but often the ones you'd want to sap dry have extreme resistance to it, which is true of other debuffs too but they don't need to be 100% to "work".

 

I think what we all want here is for End Drain to just be better in some way given that it is a very fun playstyle, but it takes so much effort to work and the sets that have it typically end up sacrificing numerically too.

 

[Galaxy Brain]

2 minutes ago, Troo said:

What happens when two sappers team? Or more?

 

 

They sap twice as fast, which while awesome... in the case of blasters they have the same "Ratio" of Damage - Drain if you have say, 2 elec/elec blasters tossing out AoEs and blaps.

[roBurky]

The problem with endurance drain as a secondary effect is that it does nothing until it drains the enemy completely, and its not completely clear during play how much effect it has when you do achieve it. The obvious improvement is to make it have perceivable effects after only partially draining an enemy.

 

Making a widespread change to how endurance works generally in the game is surely too much work to go through to make one or two powersets feel better. But I think adding some specific effects to electric powersets that depend on the target's endurance level should be very feasible.

 

I imagine:

 

1) Add a scourge-style damage bonus to all electric attacks whenever the target is below a particular level of endurance. For Electric Blast, this should end up feeling like an open-ended combo system. Open with an EndMod-enhanced Short Circuit or Thunderous Blast, and now enemies are more vulnerable to your other attacks. But the effect can also trigger from repeated un-enhanced attacks against a tough enemy in a sustained fight.

 

2) Copy the minor unreliable sleep and stun secondary effects from Electric Melee to Electric Blast. Then add an additional guaranteed high-magnitude sleep or stun effect to all powers that drain endurance that only happens when the target is at very low endurance. This should make sapping an enemy to empty have a much more visible consequence, rather than them simply standing still not attacking, and eliminates concerns about whether sapping is effective given the end costs and recovery of enemies.

 

 

It would also be nice if some arch-villains that currently seem effectively immune to endurance drain were made a little more vulnerable to it. But I think the changes above would be enough.

Edited March 9, 2020 by roBurky

[Galaxy Brain]

48 minutes ago, roBurky said:

2) Copy the minor unreliable sleep and stun secondary effects from Electric Melee to Electric Blast. Then add an additional guaranteed high-magnitude sleep or stun effect to all powers that drain endurance that only happens when the target is at very low endurance. This should make sapping an enemy to empty have a much more visible consequence, rather than them simply standing still not attacking, and eliminates concerns about whether sapping is effective given the end costs and recovery of enemies.

I think this would be nice specifically to give people a bit of wiggle-room between when you do fully drain and when the enemy regains a tick of endurance. Instead of being able to attack immediately, the enemy is still slept / stunned and gives you bonus reward for managing to fully drain.

 

The scourge effect is nice too 😉

[Communistpenguin]

Here's a crazy thought that might not even be possible... what if elec powers made other powers cost more to cast? Like, instead of just draining, it added a % of end to cast to a mobs powers. So instead of costing 1 end or whatever, now it costs 10 or 20 end to cast. It would make more powerful abilities too expensive to cast if you could drain the mob of enough end, while leaving their weaker abilities still available.

 

[Leo_G]

1 hour ago, Communistpenguin said:

Here's a crazy thought that might not even be possible... what if elec powers made other powers cost more to cast? Like, instead of just draining, it added a % of end to cast to a mobs powers. So instead of costing 1 end or whatever, now it costs 10 or 20 end to cast. It would make more powerful abilities too expensive to cast if you could drain the mob of enough end, while leaving their weaker abilities still available.

 

An Endurance Tax (as opposed to an Endurance Discount).

 

I think the only problem is, after people pointed out, is that endurance costs of NPCs isn't relegated (and mobs sometimes have more than 100 END thus their tics of +recovery are larger than we might think).  Some are very cheap so an endurance tax of 100% would take a 7 END power is now just 14 END.  I think a possible work around is just having a static +END Cost effect.  Like dropping a foe's END to 0 adds 20END to all their powers' costs for 8sec.

 

8 hours ago, roBurky said:

1) Add a scourge-style damage bonus to all electric attacks whenever the target is below a particular level of endurance. For Electric Blast, this should end up feeling like an open-ended combo system. Open with an EndMod-enhanced Short Circuit or Thunderous Blast, and now enemies are more vulnerable to your other attacks. But the effect can also trigger from repeated un-enhanced attacks against a tough enemy in a sustained fight.

A Mana-burn concept.

 

I like it in other games and think it could have been a good option for Elec but might require a whole new type of set instead.

[Galaxy Brain]

Spitballing.... what about Reverse Scourge?

 

The more End a target has, the more "Electric Feedback" they receive when struck by electrical abilities. Essentially a bonus amount of energy damage that either scales directly or the chance to occur scales directly off of target endurance. When it procs, you deal extra electrical damage and end drain but as you continue to drain and make the fight safer this effect diminishes?