Focused Feedback: Electrical Affinity - Powers (Build 5) (Now on Masterminds, Corruptors and Controllers!)

[Jimmy]

This is a Focused Feedback Thread

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• Changes from the previous build will be listed in green.
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New Support Powerset: Electrical Affinity

You are able to control and manipulate electricity to aid your allies and weaken your enemies. Some Electrical Affinity powers build Static, which increases the number of targets your Circuit powers can chain to.

• The set has been built around chaining powers and a stacking / combo system that's similar to those found in many of the more modern melee and ranged damage sets, with a focus on wide variety of buffs for the whole team as well as damage and endurance debuffs for your enemies.
• Electrical Affinity also introduces and makes use of a brand new mechanic which allows powers to dynamically change the number of targets they can hit - in this case, the four Circuit powers hit more targets for every stack of Static that you currently have.
• Electrical Affinity is now available for Defenders, Corruptors, Controllers and Masterminds.
• Electrical Affinity now has both a Hero (blue) and Villain (red) default theme available for all ATs, along with the light and dark customisable themes.

Powers

•  T1: Shock (Ranged, Foe -DMG, -End, -Recovery, -Regen)
  • Strike a single foe with a highly-charged electrical shock, draining some endurance and moderately reducing their recovery, regeneration and damage output. Recharge: Slow
•  T2: Rejuvenating Circuit (Ranged (Chain), Ally Heal, Self +Static)
  • Create a circuit of healing energy between several nearby allies, healing them for a small amount. Every stack of Static you have will cause this power to chain to additional allies. The first few targets in the chain receive a more potent effect. Rejuvenating Circuit grants 1 stack of Static. Recharge: Moderate
•  T3: Galvanic Sentinel (Summon Galvanic Sentinel: Ranged Debuff Special)
  • Summons a Galvanic Sentinel to your aid. The Galvanic Sentinel shocks and weakens your foes, draining some endurance and reducing their regeneration, recovery, and damage output. The Galvanic Sentinel can be buffed and healed, and may be targeted with your Circuit powers. Recharge: Slow
    • Now has a much larger hitbox to click on (still has no collision)
    • The Galvanic Sentinel's powers will now show up in the info window of the summon power
•  T4: Energizing Circuit (Ranged (Chain), Ally +End, +Recharge, Self +Static)
  • Create a circuit of pure energy between several nearby allies, restoring a small amount of their endurance and significantly increasing their attack rate for a short time. Every stack of Static you have will cause this power to chain to additional allies. The first few targets in the chain receive a more potent effect. Energizing Circuit grants 1 stack of Static. Recharge: Slow
•  T5: Faraday Cage (Location (PBAoE), Team +Res(All DMG but Toxic, Status, Knockback, -Rech, -Rec, -End))
  • Create a large energy barrier at your location which provides all allies within resistance to all damage except Toxic. They are also protected from status effects, knockbacks, endurance drain, recovery debuffs and recharge debuffs. Casting this power again will move the energy barrier to your location. Standing inside your own Faraday Cage will grant you a stack of Static every 5 seconds. Recharge: Moderate
    • Standing inside your own Faraday Cage will now grant you a stack of Static every 5 seconds
    • The protective buff from Faraday Cage will now persist for 5 seconds after leaving the cage
    • No longer grants toxic resistance (this was an error)
    • Now grants protection from KB, TP, KU, -rech and -end in PvP (this was also an error)
    • The looping sound effect will now quieten down after a few seconds
•  T6: Empowering Circuit: (Ranged (Chain), Ally +DMG, +Tohit, Self +Static)
  • Create a circuit of empowering energy between several nearby allies, increasing their damage output and chance to hit for a short time. Every stack of Static you have will cause this power to chain to additional allies. The first few targets in the chain receive a more potent effect. Empowering Circuit grants 1 stack of Static. Recharge: Slow
•  T7: Defibrillate (Melee (Targeted AoE), Ally Rez, Foe Sleep, -End, -Recovery)
  • Strike a target with a highly-charged jolt of electricity, reviving all nearby allies and draining all nearby foes. Any enemies affected will be drained of some endurance, have their recovery reduced and be put to sleep for a short time. Defibrillate consumes all stacks of Static, and the strength of the offensive component of this power scales with the number of stacks consumed. Allies will always be revived with full health and endurance regardless of the number of Static stacks consumed. Recharge: Long
    • Can now be activated on any target, friend or foe
    • Now drains all stacks of Static
    • Any dead ally caught in the AoE will be revived as before
    • Any enemy caught in the AoE will have some endurance drained, be put to sleep, and have their recovery reduced
      • The strength of the endurance drain and duration of the sleep / debuff scales with the number of stacks of Static you currently have
•  T8: Insulating Circuit (Ranged (Chain), Ally +Absorb, Self +Static)
  • Create a circuit of protective energy between several nearby allies, granting them a small protective shield. Every stack of Static you have will cause this power to chain to additional allies. The first few targets in the chain receive a more potent effect. Insulating Circuit grants 1 stack of Static. Recharge: Slow
•  T9: Amp Up (Ranged, Ally +Special, +Recharge)
  • Empower an ally with raw energy, causing all of their abilities to unleash chained bolts of electricity at nearby foes. These bolts drain a small amount of endurance and have a chance to knock up the target. Amp Up also moderately increases their attack rate and greatly boosts the secondary effects of their powers. Their power effects like heals, defense debuffs, endurance drains, disorients, holds, immobilizes and more, are all improved. Recharge: Very Long
    • The tooltip no longer states that this power boosts defense buffs (it never did, this in line with other long-duration +special powers such as Adrenal Booster)
•  Static (Circuit Boost)
  • Every stack of Static you have increases the number of targets your Circuit powers can chain to by 3.

[DMW45]

Here's hoping it's as good on MMs as I thought it would be~!

[Dan Petro]

Suggestion - Give Energizing circuit a tapered off recharge buff, 125% for 5 seconds, 50% for 25 seconds, 25% for 30 seconds similar to the way ageless works (can adjust the numbers however) I was basing it off speed boost And/OR   Add X amount of -recovery and -end drain resistance to the power.

 

 

[nyttyn]

Rolled up a Robotics/Electrical Affinity MM, took it for a few missions, at first +0/x1 then +3/x3 it seemed to work as intended and was fun and successful. Only loaded it up with level 40 IOs that seemed basically okay off the top of my head, but it performed well and was comfy to play even then. The only two things I'd really note about it that are MM specific are that - it'd be nice if the chain bounce range could be increased for one, as pets tend to scatter about a lot and some extra lee-way would be much appreciated. Feels just a bit too small right now. It'd also be nice if Faraday Cage's buff lasted longer when outside of it because pets like to run all over the place but that's just getting greedy. 

 

I don't think I saw Amp Up ever once knock up a target though? Maybe I just missed it but it didn't seem to ever knock any targets up when used on my pets. Could just be poor observation on my part

I'm not the best of players so I just geared it up with basic IOs and turned my brain off (with the exception of two global rech LOTGs and Performance Shifter in Stamina) but it seemed like a good, solid set for masterminds? Outside of the kinda small chain bounce range thing. Definitely as someone who's not very smart at building characters it seemed to Just Work and I look forward to it hitting live. 

 

On a non-balance related note, Rejuvenating Circuit, Energizing Circuit, and Insulating Circuit didn't fully get recolored during Customization - it'd be nice if that could be changed so that you fully colored the power. 

Edited March 14, 2020 by nyttyn

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, Dan Petro said:

Suggestion - Give Energizing circuit a tapered off recharge buff, 125% for 5 seconds, 50% for 25 seconds, 25% for 30 seconds similar to the way ageless works (can adjust the numbers however) I was basing it off speed boost And/OR   Add X amount of -recovery and -end drain resistance to the power.

 

 

The staggering is interesting, but do you mean 125% for 5 sec, 50% for the next 25 sec, and 25% for the final 30 sec? So 1 minute of buff? Or is it stacked like that?

Edited March 14, 2020 by Bopper

[JayboH]

Not sure if this has been reported yet, but pets are not keeping Electric Affinity buffs when zoning.

 

EDIT:  there is no icon on the buff bar showing the pet summon, which means you don't have a way of knowing when it is just about to dissipate (by blinking.)  That might be useful to some.

Edited March 14, 2020 by JayboH

[JayboH]

2 hours ago, Dan Petro said:

Suggestion - Give Energizing circuit a tapered off recharge buff, 125% for 5 seconds, 50% for 25 seconds, 25% for 30 seconds similar to the way ageless works (can adjust the numbers however) I was basing it off speed boost And/OR   Add X amount of -recovery and -end drain resistance to the power.

 

 

Instead of +end or in addition?  I kind of prefer +end because it differentiates the set from Kin.

 

By the way, the stun proc in the G.Sentinel is pretty cool.

Edited March 14, 2020 by JayboH

[Troo]

6 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Electrical Affinity is now available for Defenders, Corruptors, Controllers and Masterminds.

awesome

[lobster]

I was able to hop in and try a demons/elec at level 40 with full basic level 40 ios for a few missions.

 

It felt...OK.  Like.  Kinda.  Just there?   The elec pet didn't seem to do anything.  I guess it was debuffing end, but as a whole I wasn't draining enough to make it matter?  I basically just kept chaining the 4 chain buffs on my pet and...that was it.  Not particularly interesting. 

 

I'll put some more time into it this weekend and try and drill down on each power a bit.  I will say that, knowing it wasn't a damage pet, I instinctively wanted the pet to change into melee and pbaoe debuff enemies end and recovery, but it seemed to just sit back and "blast" it's minor end drain (I only had 2 end mods slotted in it, but my pets were killing everything too fast for it to matter)?

 

It's probably too late for raw set feedback, but it feels like it needs at least 1 less buff and 1 more offensive ability.  Removing or combining one of the chain buffs and replacing it with something like ?jolting chain? (the chain knockdown ability from some other set I can't remember right now), but with an extra offensive effect - maybe -res, or stun or something, would go a long way to making the set feel more interesting.  Or maybe something using the short circuit animation, some kind of EMP or magnetic field manipulation effect.   Maybe a pbaoe transference type thing that drains endurance and buffs ally recharge and movement speed based on # of targets hit?  I mean, there are ton of things you can do with electricity....

 

Also, I think you guys missed an opportunity on Faraday Cage - making it so this also debuffs enemies would add some more build and playstyle choices.  It could drain end every tick like static field, or debuff res (I like debuffing res for the symmetry with buffing res, but that could just be me!) or def or whatever.  (I get that set has an end manipulation feel but...there's only so much of one thing that you can do.  Also, at the point I was testing it, it felt like Kinetics or an elec/elec blaster or anyone with short circuit+a secondary effect buffing buff is better at draining (and filling in kin's case) endurance.

 

Don't get me wrong, I definitely thing a set named "Electrical Affinity" belongs in CoH...I just want it to be more interesting.

 

[JayboH]

The Sentinel drains endurance, debuffs enemy damage, debuffs enemy regeneration, tanks damage, and debuffs enemy recovery.  Add the stun proc and mobs get disoriented too from time to time.

 

I wish the pet had Mastermind updates for following rules.  It sometimes still follows real slow - but it will also engage at full range of its abilities which is outside of chaining range from the caster.

Edited March 14, 2020 by JayboH

[r0y]

Just noticed that the Sentinels attack, but cannot IGNITE oil slick (from Trick Arrow).  Also seems the heal, etc. (chain elec affinity powers) do not ignite oil slick...  I thought "energy" (in addition to fire) ignited it?

[JayboH]

10 minutes ago, r0y said:

Just noticed that the Sentinels attack, but cannot IGNITE oil slick (from Trick Arrow).  Also seems the heal, etc. (chain elec affinity powers) do not ignite oil slick...  I thought "energy" (in addition to fire) ignited it?

Energy or fire damage.  Those powers do not have damage.

[csr]

Electrical Affinity seems to have a hard time remembering power customization.  I made a Controller and as I tweaked my costume to look better with the power customization I chose, each time I came back to power customization EA had reset to Heroic.

 

[Edit:]

 

On Masterminds and Corruptors Power Customization of EA would reset to Villainous each time I backed up to change a costume part.

 

On Defenders and Controllers it reset to Heroic.

Edited March 14, 2020 by csr

[General Idiot]

That happened to me when I made a controller as well. I thought I might have accidentally reset it back to Heroic myself when I made the character because when I redid it in the tailor once in game it saved fine and persisted through a couple of tailor sessions at least. Possibly it only resets during character creation, but I would've thought those two interfaces would be running off the same code. CoH spaghetti code strikes again, perhaps.

[Dan Petro]

5 hours ago, Bopper said:

The staggering is interesting, but do you mean 125% for 5 sec, 50% for the next 25 sec, and 25% for the final 30 sec? So 1 minute of buff? Or is it stacked like that?

The buff would last for 60 seconds (speed boost is 120) For 5 seconds you'd have 125% recharge, for 30 seconds you'd have 50% recharge (Speed boost potency) and for the final 30 seconds you'd have 25% recharge.  The numbers could honestly be whatever.  Even if it tapered down to like 10 to 7.5% recharge it'd be kind of cool rather than just 5 seconds then nothing.  

 

Applying the buff before the timer was up would give the ally another boost of end as well as refresh the duration of the recharge buff (not stack it). 

[Jimmy]

7 hours ago, JayboH said:

Not sure if this has been reported yet, but pets are not keeping Electric Affinity buffs when zoning.

 

EDIT:  there is no icon on the buff bar showing the pet summon, which means you don't have a way of knowing when it is just about to dissipate (by blinking.)  That might be useful to some.

Pets generally don't keep buffs through zoning. Upgrades are different as they are permanent granted powers.

 

Pet icon will be fixed in the next build 👍

[GuyPerfect]

4 hours ago, csr said:

Electrical Affinity seems to have a hard time remembering power customization.  I made a Controller and as I tweaked my costume to look better with the power customization I chose, each time I came back to power customization EA had reset to Heroic.

This applies to Electrical Blast on Blaster and Corruptor as well. It pertains to the new tech that allows the Heroic and Villainous themes to function: the policy that is initializing the power set theme is a little heavy-handed. I'll adjust this for the next build.

 

4 hours ago, General Idiot said:

Possibly it only resets during character creation, but I would've thought those two interfaces would be running off the same code. CoH spaghetti code strikes again, perhaps.

It only resets during character creation. Power customization is just one interface: one code module. Give the original devs a little credit!

[Galaxy Brain]

Initial feedback from a lvl 32 bot/elec:

 

The chaining abilities feel awesome, and look awesome in a bunched up formation of robots.

 

Empowering circuit is especially nice to refill your own end. Forgot to put a perf shifter in it, but thatd likely be huge returns.

 

Faraday cage makes an excellent defensive position. 

 

Have to mirror what others said tho in that I do not notice the end drain. Even against a +3 boss I kill it with SO slotted bots faster than shock and the sentinel can drain it....

 

So far it's very fun tho, just maybe needs a bit more offensive oomph somewhere?

[Dispari]

I set up a level 28 beast/elec MM to try some things out. I only used common (level 25) IOs and two of the pet uniques (for RES and DEF). Here are my thoughts:
 

1) Galvanic Sentinel feels useless for an MM, and ultimately I skipped it. This may just be a uniquely MM problem of course, but MMs have tons of pets to bounce powers off of starting at level 1. I think I'd feel happier if MMs just had the power the sentinel uses (Discharge). Being able to use it at will, where you want, would feel more useful to me. For MM at least. There's precedent for sets being slightly different across ATs like this, Darkness Affinity for controllers being the best example, but the tier 9 power for Traps is also uniquely changed for MMs as another.

2) Energizing Circuit is okay, but I feel like it's not as useful for an MM. MM pets usually don't run out of endurance, and the +recharge buff doesn't work on them at all. I put this power off for a while, and I mostly just used it to refill my own endurance, though my dire wolf did occasionally need it. Useful but... could be better.

3) Insulating Circuit comes waaaaaaaaaay too late in set. This was kind of an issue on Defender but it's much more noticeable on other ATs where it doesn't come until 35. As an absorb power, I'd consider it one of the basic "keep people alive" powers in the set. Most other sets get all those powers on the table by about level 16-20. Time and Pain are some of the latest those comes at (28 for Farsight and World of Pain). So I think IC needs to be bumped up at least 1 tier, if not 2. Energizing Circuit and Defribrillate are two powers I wouldn't mind seeing moved down if it meant I could put absorb on people (pets) earlier.

4) Can I just point out that two of the powers are abbreviated "EC" and that could be cleared up so referring to powers is slightly less confusing?

Positive feedback...

1) Overall the set feels solid on MM. Pets are fairly durable thanks to the +RES and they don't get thrown around a lot, which is a fairly unique bonus for a support set. The +damage is also useful, and I didn't have trouble keeping my pets alive even when I accidentally got more than one group.

2) Shock feels good as something for my MM to do. I have less powers to use so it feels useful to pick out tougher guys and lower their damage. Having Discharge like I mentioned above would be nice.

3) I thought the target cap would be an issue, but with how chaining works now, it's trivial to get at least one stack of Static which lets a power hit all your pets and you. So I didn't mind this at all. Targeting through badguys even worked for me most of the time (since they're usually attacking a pet), so I didn't even feel the need to switch targets often.

4) The duration on EC (see? You don't know which one I mean) feels much nicer, I don't feel the need to spam it to upkeep the damage buff anymore.

Set is feeling good overall, keep up the good work!

[Abacus]

Something is happening on the costume creator, in that you can pick colors for Electrical Affinity, but if you go back to changing your costume, the color picks get reset to the default Hero/Villain themes. Don't think that's intended because is kinda annoying.

[Bopper]

2 hours ago, Dispari said:

I think I'd feel happier if MMs just had the power the sentinel uses (Discharge)

This is something I'm curious with the Sentinel, which is how aggressive is it with its power? The numbers show a 3s recharge, so ideally it would be spammed every 4 seconds. If it's doing that, then it would be preferred to let the sentinel spam while I focus on other powers. 

 

The exception to that might be the AI in Sentinel not changing targets. Ideally it would spread the debuff as much as possible, however I wouldn't be surprised if it keeps hitting the same targets over and over again. If that's the case, then I could see the desire of manually spreading out the debuff, but it would be a lot of work for an already active set.

[Galaxy Brain]

More feedback after more Bots/Elec time:

 

This combo is excellent for tankerminding. The chain heal is fast and reliable, hits yourself, and combined with the Res and -Damage you can apply to a tougher target makes you laugh at a lot of dangerous situations. Empowering Circuit I also underrated earlier, passing the buff around once the A.Bot has the initial buff keeps everyone dealing great damage. I don't even have the Absorb Chain yet!

 

Perf Shifter in the Energizing Circuit makes it consistently give back 25% of my end bar it seems. 

 

Defibrillator doesn't seem too good for an MM that constantly tosses out AoE missiles and Lasers.... possibly skippable.

 

The End Drain is still not noticeable even on a tough target before they get lasered to death. What is nice is the stacking of -Damage + Faraday tho. End Drain as a mechanic could use a once-over in general IMHO (coming from somebody who mained an elec3 blaster on live), as talked about in the Suggestions Forum. Maybe it's more noticeable vs an EB?

 

 

Overall it feels very solid and leads to a very tanky team. One thing I could not notice tho is that the Sentinel's Discharge states it is a 10ft radius AoE, but I couldn't notice it hit multiple targets. Is this a typo?

 

 

 

[ScarySai]

Finally giving this a go, since I actually have a much better frame of reference for MMs than defenders.

 

Trying it on bots, I'm pretty happy with the results, it's fairly tanky and hard to take down, though a few small things make it seem 'eh' for me.

 

1: Shock and Amp Up really feel like they should be chain powers, were it not for me using Defrib, AoE debuffing is kinda weak. Additionally, When I fire off my absorb and buffs off, I often feel like I have nothing to do aside from spam circuits to keep myself busy.

 

2: Empowering should have a slightly longer CD, but stack, or the buff should get stronger with more static The single 22% is kinda underwhelming for masterminds.

 

@Galaxy BrainTry a panacea proc in Rejuv.

 

Edit: I really don't like the pet, it's not firing off it's ability reliably enough to justify it's existence over just mashing discharge ourselves.

 

Edit 2: Current build, will refine slotting should I further test it. Had some extra slots where they weren't needed due to it being a copy of my bots/traps in terms of pool/primary.  Left a LOTG out of protectors while testing to measure how much it would be needed in the power, which seems minimal now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2020 by ScarySai

[JayboH]

Like I said, try the stun proc in the pet.  Just try it.

[Replacement]

I like the idea of removing the pet from the MM version in favor of a version of Discharge. Maybe the Controller version too. I like the idea (at this moment, at least) of some differences between the ATs.

 

As was also mentioned... It's probably too late for it, but an offensive chain power could be pretty nice too.