The unaddressed problem with new Electric powers

[Replacement]

19 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

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?

Sounds like that would turn sapping counter-productive. You would seek out ways to lessen the strength of secondary effects on your blaster to optimize your bonus damage.

 

Now, if End damage dealt directly translated to bonus damage , you could be onto something, though it would need to be scaled somehow.

 

I like the idea of combining the scourge concept with sleep. For example, give most electric blast powers an additional line of "mag 2 sleep vs enemies with under x% endurance" with scaling chance based on End.  Then give a couple powers (the nuke for sure) bonus damage under those conditions instead.

 

It would also be a neat wrinkle if actual Corruptor Scourge applied to endurance "damage."

[DrBasics]

What about a reverse sapping effect. Instead of effecting the enemy's blue bar, all (or most or some) electric attacks instead would grant the player a very short blue bar bonus (+Max end, or +rec, or +end reduction).

 

This could lead to more round-about bonuses, like people who felt the need to take an agility or cardiac alpha incarnate can now take an increase ranged/cones or damage. Or some other stuff that I'm sure some of you guys could think of.

 

Just a thought.

 

Alternatively, you could also make electric jump to other targets that do a % of damage (not going to calculate anything) and it could go beyond the target cap.

Edited March 22, 2020 by DrBasics

[oedipus_tex]

I wrote a couple of very long posts about this in the Electric Affinity set.

 

I think the solution for Endurance Drain is a change in philosophy.  We need to start thinking of Endurance Drain in terms of big drains, but to a smaller number of targets.

 

Let's use Short Circuit as an example. It currently drains 35% endurance from all targets within 20 feet. So, one of two things happens. You either have enough endurance drain from other powers to follow up with enough to sap the spawn completely, or else you don't and the drain goes mostly wasted. In practice, this is why Electric Melee, Manipulation, and Assault have to be paired with a set that does endurance drain to have any value.

 

What Electric powers need is a way to produce very large drains to a small number of targets. If you evenly drain 16 mobs to half endurance, it's meaningless. But if you completely drain 5 enemies in a gang of 16, it has tangible benefit.

 

Endurance drain of this nature would need to only affect enemies and not be used in PVP. This is fair, because creatures for the most part do not rely on endurance to maintain toggles.

 

 

Here's a profile for how a power like Ball Lighting might work under this philosophy:

 

 

PROPOSAL: REVISED BALL LIGHTNING (Blaster)

• 100% chance for -7% Endurance (same as now)
• 10% chance for -85% Endurance (new) (only to critters)

 

Endurance scales with the Purple patch. Also, the 100% chance for -7% stacks with the -85%, so if you roll the 10% chance, a same level mob is drained -92% (before slotting) and a +4 is drained by about -46%. Slotting for End Mod could bring this number upward.

 

You wouldn't want to remove the existing 100% chance for drain from any power since players have already built around that. You'd just want to add a chance for a big drain to some of the powers.

 

 

 

One point of contention is that I also think when these powers roll over from Blaster to Defender or Corruptor, the chance should adjust. For example:

 

 

PROPOSAL: REVISED BALL LIGHTNING (Defender)

• 100% chance for -7% Endurance (same as now)
• 15% chance for -115% Endurance (new) (only to critters)

 

 

 

You could also adjust pets this way.

 

PROPOSAL: VOLTAIC SENTINEL blasts

• 100% chance for -10% endurance
• 25% chance for -85% Endurance (new)

 

Chance numbers were adjusted upward because the player has no control over what the Sentinel attacks.

 

 

 

I discussed in the Electric Affinity thread how there are other alternatives to rolling a percent chance. You could make the area very small, only hit Minions and Lieutenants, etc. Basically whatever you want to do to keep the number of targets low.

Edited March 22, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Galaxy Brain]

I support @oedipus_tex's suggestion for a chance of critical-drainage 🙂

[Joshex]

electric control is OP. I built several toons based on it before shutdown, 1 was a elec/elec dominator the other a emp/elec controller, you just need to know which powers to enhance in what way, without enhancement yeah it's maybe capable of tanking -1 x8 in a slow fashion, even still thats just completely tanking on x8!

 

How? electric control has several nice features, such as a sleep field (enhance for Sleep not end mod, if your enemies are slept they can't fight much better than end drain). immobilization keep them in place inbetween sleep fields (enhance for end mod, so even inbetween sleep fields they can barely attack). and confuse, makem attack each other. add in your two pets and upgrade for pet damage and you have an unstoppable killer.

 

yes you can sleep an AV and a GM and anything. if a dom, enhance electric assault for damage and a little end mod on any dot or long lasting effect powers.

 

 

but yeah, I would like to float the idea of including a -recovery aspect to these powers and also maybe some way to drain additional end beyond the standard bar to keep enemies below 1 end. like sap them so far that it gives them -100 end at the -end cap.. but yeah speaking as a person who made an elec blaster as my very first toon, speaking as that blaster sapped Reichsman. yeah electric powers are op. it's just not going to be the same play style as other powersets. different enhancements different goals. your goal is to sleep em, drain em and mow them down.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I feel like I may be missing something.  I'm not an expert in endurance drain, but it seems to be working as intended?  It's not the fastest way to defeat enemies, but it is much safer than many other ways.

 

For context, I recently started 7 characters and am running them all through the same content redside, currently in their late 20s.  One of them is a Elec/Kin Corruptor.  I'm not going to claim that he's as good as a TW/Bio scrapper, but he's able to do quite well for himself (certainly much better than the Archery /Pain corruptor).  In fact, with bosses, EBs and Heroes (I'm not running AVs) his damage to safety profile is much better than most of the others.  Two applications of Short Circuit, maybe three for EBs, with an occasional Ball Lightning keeps them drained and then I slowly punch them to defeat in near complete safety.  That low damage/high safety seems to be a fair tradeoff compared to high damage/low safety.

 

Is the problem that it just doesn't do as much damage as other sets?  Unless we make all sets equal, there will always be some sets/combos that are stronger than others.

[Galaxy Brain]

59 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I feel like I may be missing something.  I'm not an expert in endurance drain, but it seems to be working as intended?  It's not the fastest way to defeat enemies, but it is much safer than many other ways.

 

For context, I recently started 7 characters and am running them all through the same content redside, currently in their late 20s.  One of them is a Elec/Kin Corruptor.  I'm not going to claim that he's as good as a TW/Bio scrapper, but he's able to do quite well for himself (certainly much better than the Archery /Pain corruptor).  In fact, with bosses, EBs and Heroes (I'm not running AVs) his damage to safety profile is much better than most of the others.  Two applications of Short Circuit, maybe three for EBs, with an occasional Ball Lightning keeps them drained and then I slowly punch them to defeat in near complete safety.  That low damage/high safety seems to be a fair tradeoff compared to high damage/low safety.

 

Is the problem that it just doesn't do as much damage as other sets?  Unless we make all sets equal, there will always be some sets/combos that are stronger than others.

The bigger issue is that there are other effects that can have similar safety in a much faster application (IE, hard controls or just killing the enemies). Sure, if you can drain an enemy and keep them drained they are essentially as good as dead, but if you can hold/stun them all in 2 seconds or kill them before you can drain them then the end drain was meaningless. 

This doesnt make drain bad, it just makes it very niche in that very specific combos are needed in order for it to "Work" while other effects just get to "work"

[Monos King]

I like the critical drain idea, but I think endurance drain is plenty fine how it is now.

 

I'm pretty sure the bigger issue is that everything is obligatorily put through the helpless-death test where if it isn't 2 second killing after a quick hold it's deemed useless because damage is king and holds are uber accessible. "Can it kill them...now?"

 

This kind of becomes a game difficulty conversation once it's viewed from that lense. Have you guys specced high -end moves? It's debilitating, Thunderous Blast alone can leech an EB end instantly and render everyone more helpless to status effects if they ran toggles. Electrical blast otherwise is in the same zone as other blasts with debuffs; the debuff is secondary and minor. It wouldn't make sense to give it a critical drainage off of the power alone (maybe doms and trolls) just as it wouldn't make sense to give ice blast critical slows. And various enemies have high immunity to literal immunity to slows.

 

Holds are the ultimate CC when potent, we aren't going to get every debuff there. I'm with @Yomo Kimyata , they are potent in different scenarios. I for one like total drainage more than holds, and continuously comparing everything to damage life4ever and hold-haven is probably going to cause issues since those are way too effective in the current game, to a point of spawning debates.

[Galaxy Brain]

5 hours ago, Monos King said:

Electrical blast otherwise is in the same zone as other blasts with debuffs; the debuff is secondary and minor. It wouldn't make sense to give it a critical drainage off of the power alone (maybe doms and trolls) just as it wouldn't make sense to give ice blast critical slows. And various enemies have high immunity to literal immunity to slows.

Wanna pull this point out to mention that unlike other secondary effects, unfortunately end drain does nothing until it hits 100% drainage. On elec blast in particular, most character with these attacks will kill most enemies before they are drained by the normal attacks. Normal, as in not TB or SC, which of the two only EB can properly drain.

[Monos King]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Wanna pull this point out to mention that unlike other secondary effects, unfortunately end drain does nothing until it hits 100% drainage. On elec blast in particular, most character with these attacks will kill most enemies before they are drained by the normal attacks. Normal, as in not TB or SC, which of the two only EB can properly drain.

I don't see any issue with that because of how total and perfect full end drain is. Slow is a good comparison because it also comes with two effects; -speed and -rech and the strong end drains come with -end and -recovery. A blaster using ice blast could be said to do the same; that -rech isn't going to mean anything at all until it stacks a lot and by then the enemy is usually dead. But like elec, it will shine fully on more durable enemies. This is because the two of them are not CCs. They aren't in the same category as holds, stun, immobilize, sleep, the like. So we shouldn't be comparing them to things like holds at all I don't think. They just happen to be disabling of offenses in the same way -res and -def is disabling of defenses. For what end drain is, it is great. Once I get an enemy down to zero end they are staying there essentially no matter what, whereas with holds things like immunities or protections have the ability to play in. That's -ends advantage. 

 

And end technically does have an affect before full drainage, although this is highly mitigated by NPC low end costs. Certain abilities should be costing too much endurance to use even before drainage.

 

I think what should happen is that NPCs get a decent +recovery buff, but their powers, especially strong ones or buffs, start taking A LOT more end. The +recovery would be there to offset the new end costs and prevent even non drainers from quickly exhausting NPCs as well as to make the -recovery of elec more pronounced in it's usefulness, and then -end would start to see more use as at even half end lieutenants and minions would see themselves unable to activate more end heavy abilities.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Monos King
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[Monos King]

It's worth noting that, again I'm not opposed to critical drainage, but the reasoning for it's necessity seems like it might be going down an iffy road.

[Replacement]

@Monos King The problem I have with your assessment is... I still see around here, at least once/week, someone claiming endurance drain is useless because enemy attacks don't cost endurance.

It's factually incorrect, but there's a reason people keep falling into that trap: it's hard work to sap well, requiring specific power combinations and planning. 

 

Meanwhile, making the more direct builds is worlds easier. A Sapping blaster could be a Blasting blaster. A Sapping defender could be buffing survival stats and debuffing enemies directly. A Sapping controller could be using holds directly, that don't feel like a waste of time every time that freakshow tank knocks off half your health because they just got a tick of endurance.

 

Edit: an ice/fire blaster doesn't have to ignore their Slow effects just because their secondary isn't playing ball. Why should my elec/nin blaster be any different?

Edited March 25, 2020 by Replacement

[Replacement]

Some individualized treatment options I was thinking about:

 

Defenders and Scrappers: Endurance crits as @oedipus_tex mentioned. I think Tex has been dialing back the numbers some but I should mention I don't think anything above even con minions should expect full drains (at least from weaker drain effects) when the effect triggers. I would still expect to need more than one power to remove an enemy's teeth.

 

Blasters, Brutes, and Dominators: "Defiance" style self buff any time you use an End Drain attack that buffs the strength of further End drains. The net result should be that the longer a fight goes (AVs), the more valuable their sapping becomes. This should also empower some power combos on shorter fights (ball lightning followed by short circuit)

 

Controllers, Corruptors, and Tankers: Endurance *and* recovery Scourge. When your opponent's blue bar is under 50%, you have a chance to inflict any Endurance drains or Recovery debuffs twice. The reason for including Recovery on these sets and not the others is because the overall sapping is weaker. These are the guys yelling "and stay down!"

 

Stalkers, Sentinels, and (soon) Masterminds: No clue. I forgot these ATs had access to sapping powers until I typed up the rest of this. 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Replacement

[Tugzug]

Most hearts stop working properly if a strong electric current interferes with the pacemaker cells. Add a chance to instantly slay biological targets for all electric attacks! 

[Monos King]

5 hours ago, Replacement said:

Edit: an ice/fire blaster doesn't have to ignore their Slow effects just because their secondary isn't playing ball. Why should my elec/nin blaster be any different?

Whoa, you actively consider slows from an  ice blaster in your gameplay? That's really impressive. As I stated before though, it's practically negligible. Both slow and end drain on the blast route are overshadowed by damage until the effects stack. Elec actually gets a big debuff with short circuit, making it technically better at debuffing, even. I don't recall Frost Breath or the Ice Rain power offering any significantly better slow.  And even if the supposed imbalance were true, these changes would just shift -end from purportedly lacking to intensely better than something like slow until it also gets a buff. And the cycle continues elsewhere.

 

I mean imagine blasters, who can already be considered lords of the pitch and the most coveted, entering a room and not only dying the floors red but leaving the survivors utterly helpless, because their secondary effect is now essentially a CC. Slows don't stop recharge. Once you get the enemies bar down though, that's a wrap. The advantage difference warrants the initial difference in value between slow and -end.

 

Buutttt I'm a big fan of both the critical drainage and the ideas you just suggested in concept. If I'm choosing one I think won't set any ill precedent or have repercussions, I would really like to see your recovery scourge suggestion.

[Replacement]

28 minutes ago, Monos King said:

And even if the supposed imbalance were true, these changes would just shift -end from purportedly lacking to intensely better than something like slow until it also gets a buff.

This is the crux of the issue. Sapping is binary: it's either doing nothing or full-stopping.

 

Though for the sake of completeness, I should mention -recovery is very important. Even with it, they will eventually get a tick of endurance and use an ability, making it not much different from recharge debuffs.

 

So yeah, the truth is we want Sapping to be good and viable, we want electric blast to be useful, but we have to be careful that we don't go too far the other way, where sapping removes all danger from every fight. Not easy!

 

 

[Galaxy Brain]

@Monos King,

 

Slows do not stop recharge, nor stop movement, but they buy you immediate safe time. As you fight your target, you are both shooting powers at each other over time. Slowing down enemy recharge gives them less chances to throw powers at you, even if it's for a second, where you in turn could damage them without retaliation fast enough to make the difference between taking another hit or not. Slowed Movement also helps depending on the enemy type for the same reason as it takes them longer to get in range to harm you and gives you more opportunity to attack them. It's not much, but it often lets you avoid a good amount of attacks you otherwise could have taken when dealing with the couple of seconds per fight timescale of a blaster. Stacking with a secondary that slows even more enhances this effect to give you bigger windows of time, which proportional to the time combat lasts is significant. 

 

This does not translate the same to end drain which does not offer any mitigation until it is 100%, which makes it much more binary than slowing opponents. On page 3 of this thread I go over how elec blast stacks up for draining enemies, and for most encounters you out damage your drains unless it is a particularly hard fight which in turn has a gamble of being able to survive long enough to apply drain anyways. Slows in the meantime stack up as you fight to continually put the fight in your favor to give much more wiggle room without needing specific combos to slow to max immediately and keep them there. Ice Blast attacking targets will still benefit from slowing them regardless of the amount and the enemy, while elec blast doesnt.

 

Anyways, that is sort of a tangent as we all seem to agree that critical drains are a good idea to explore. I dint think that slows would need a buff honestly if such a change were to occur as they would still remain more consistent than drains.

 

 

 

 

[oedipus_tex]

I think the way to think about Sapping is to compare it to an effect like knockdown or knockback. There are lots and lots of power with Chance for Knockdown, and very few with Chance for -Endurance.

 

When Knockdown hits and it overcomes Resistance and Defense, the effect takes the enemy out of the fight, The effect usually does not last very long. For that reason, Chance to Knockdown tends to be pretty high in blast powers that have it, usually upwards of 50%.

 

 

 

 

The place Sapping is right now is like if Energy Blast and War Mace only caused Knockback /down when paired with Energy Manipulation and Energy Armor.

 

 

 

What makes Sapping different is that once you do get an enemy's bar drained, keeping it there often keeps them out of the fight if you keep hitting them with saps. That's why I keep suggesting a small chance for a big drain. 

 

 

Sapping right now exists in a very awkward spot. Electric Assault and Electric Melee are the worst of the lot. -7% to-10% Endurance drain in these powers is, frankly, worthless. What would make them worthwhile is if there was a chance in some attacks to completely drain a couple of the enemies. Because the effect can end up lasting a long time, you don't want to make it too many enemies. On a power like Ball Lightning I've suggested in the neighborhood of 10-15% chance. In a stack of 16, that's  1.6 - 2.4 enemies in a stack of 16. I'd probably only put this effect in a couple of the AoEs per set, and maybe one hard hitting single target power.

 

 

The benefit of doing this is that when Electric sets are paired with a set that doesn't have additional Sapping capability, at least the sap works. Just like Knockdown work even without a perfect pairing, Sapping should too.

Edited March 25, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[nihilii]

But then, the critical end drain suggestion is a straight buff. I'll take any unnecessary buff to my already top performing Elec Blast characters, thank you.

...and bit my lip very, very hard to not reply to this thread.