Focused Feedback: Electrical Affinity - Powers (Build 6)

[Galaxy Brain]

Chiming in with more Bot/Elec testing since the removal of Sparky, the set is still very very tanky and I like that, and having a bit more to do per mob is nice. That said, I kinda miss the little guy lol. Didn't realize just how much he was contributing all along!

[Myrmidon]

3 hours ago, Sir Myshkin said:

Tangent on Electric Blast: I did not specifically slot for it beyond Alpha (and planned additional stacking effects with Interface selections), but Short Circuit will not effectively clear a mob's bar consistently at +4. The only scenario I had reasonable success with that idea was on a Kin/Elec Defender that barely managed to get Short Circuit to consistently lock down minions/lieuts on their endurance back on Retail so many years ago.

 

I've already talked about it a couple of times now, and the problem with wiping out the endurance of an entire spawn, on top of all of the -Recovery available to Electric Affinity, means I can walk away without any concern for my safety because they will not recover for a considerable length of time (as the power stands currently in combination with the Galvanic Sentinel). When I tested the set I made absolutely no attempts at building for anything, no global, no recharge, nothing but the core abilities with Acc, End Mod, and Rech as appropriate, and some Res in Faraday and Temp Invuln just to see what numbers I would get out of it (71% between the two on S/L for what it's worth, and 23% on everything else, and IO build will be pretty ridiculous). My point is, I could stack up a swarm of Static, jump into a spawn and fire of Defibrillate, and ... nothing, I didn't have to do anything but make sure the Sentinel was next to the spawn, and it kept them is isolation indefinitely during its duration.

 

And yes, Defib is technically broken right now and is massively over applying Sleep (and probably End Mod) mag/durations, but the point still stands that being able to 100% shut down a spawn from being able to do absolutely anything is not balanced when it is an indefinite effect. If there were no -Recovery involved it might be a different, but the combination of Defibrillate and Discharge is making it better than a perma-hold.

Having tested this in what appears to be nearly the exact same method, I have to completely agree.

[Mystic Fortune]

Let's wait for the power to be 'fixed' and test it out properly before we go calling for it to be weakened.

[oedipus_tex]

6 hours ago, Mystic Fortune said:

Let's wait for the power to be 'fixed' and test it out properly before we go calling for it to be weakened.

 

 

In my case at least I don't actually want it weakened, just rethought.

 

Right now the biggest issue I forsee with it is the big area of effect and large number of targets hit. This should be revised IMO into a smaller number of targets hit but for a very large amount of drain. 

 

Where endurance drain powers have traditionally fallen flat is they drain an equal amount of endurance across the whole group of enemies, which is binary. Either you have enough endurance drain to sap the whole mob, which is amazing, or you don't and it's worthless. Currently the main way to ensure you have enough drain to sap whole mobs is to combine a primary and secondary set that can stack the drains.  

 

Just changing the amount of drain in Defib won't break out of that pattern unless the way targets are being selected is rethought. IMO to be useful the power should ideally hit around 1/3 - 1/2 of the enemy group. The drain amount should be strong enough that you can bank on at least some of the 16 member gang to end up drained. The way the enemies are selected is up to the power designers--it could use a smaller hit box, hit only minions, roll a percent chance, only hit enemies within 10 feet of a Sentinel, or something else. But if the power stays as is, equal drain across a big area, it will fall into the same hole that other endurance drain abilities have been stuck in for so long. 

[Dispari]

As far as MMs go:

* The reason the pet wouldn't take pet sets is because it doesn't do any damage. Nearly all of the enhancements in the sets wouldn't do anything, so it wouldn't make sense for it to take those sets. The added utility an MM might get out of having another power to slot pet IOs into is eliminated. So really we're just comparing having a pet that uses Discharge to using it yourself.

* The new endurance costs are a bit oof, but that's normal for MMs and I'm pretty used to it as a primarily MM player. This makes Energizing Circuit a lot more valuable at least. Discharge is in fact a loooot of endurance, but it's certainly manageable. Certainly not like some of those 60 endurance rez powers or 40 end lightning storm.

* I saw a lot of discussion on Discharge vs pet. My opinion? I like Discharge. It's good to pull with. And it's a good debuff to help keep pets from dying. And with Shock I can drop a -33% damage on a boss when and where I want. It's true the pet uses the same power, but he uses it randomly and may end up wasting it on a single target. And his version has a static recharge time that can't be boosted. And our version is stronger than what the pet uses. I still kind of wish these powers (Shock included) did more, like -RES or -DEF, but this is all right.

There's certainly some utility to having more pets as an MM. I've played necro/dark, thugs/traps, bots/traps, demons/thermal, (and beast/nature but that doesn't have more pets) to 50, several of those more than once. Necro/dark at least 3 times. Extra pets can add things like more damage, a target that pulls aggro, useful extra mez/debuffs/healing, or an extra power to put IOs into. But critically the sentinel provides... basically none of those things. It just quietly uses a non-damaging debuff power that you get yourself (and better) otherwise. At most I could see using it to alpha by dropping it near some enemies. But that's fairly niche.

You can't easily replace the utility of a dark servant, a necro ghost or two that use holds, a bunch of thugs that draw aggro, or the myriad of traps pets that do all kinds of interesting things. Buuuut the sentinel pet is obviously mostly just there to give you a target to bounce powers off of. Since MMs don't need that, the actual utility it offers is minimal. So I'd rather have Discharge. That's just my 2 influence though.

Also I just died due to overaggro because I wasn't paying attention while typing this. Whoops.

[Vanden]

1 hour ago, Dispari said:

Buuuut the sentinel pet is obviously mostly just there to give you a target to bounce powers off of. Since MMs don't need that, the actual utility it offers is minimal.

Nail on the head right here. This is one of two major reasons MMs don't need GS. The other reason is that Electric Affinity is very clicky, and the pet cuts back on the number of powers you need to be firing off regularly, to give you a chance to use your powers from your other power set. But MM primaries are largely fire-and-forget, so the majority of their power use is powers from their secondaries. They have plenty of time to be using another click debuff.

[siolfir]

51 minutes ago, Vanden said:

Nail on the head right here. This is one of two major reasons MMs don't need GS. The other reason is that Electric Affinity is very clicky, and the pet cuts back on the number of powers you need to be firing off regularly, to give you a chance to use your powers from your other power set. But MM primaries are largely fire-and-forget, so the majority of their power use is powers from their secondaries. They have plenty of time to be using another click debuff.

Yes and no. A MM can let their pets manage themselves, especially with active secondaries, but you can also spend just as much time on your primary as any other AT if you want to control exactly what your pets are doing.

[Doc_Scorpion]

19 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Yes and no. A MM can let their pets manage themselves, especially with active secondaries, but you can also spend just as much time on your primary as any other AT if you want to control exactly what your pets are doing.

This.  Depending on how tough the fight is I can spend most of my time healing, buffing, and re-targeting my boys.

[Wavicle]

Just now, Doc_Scorpion said:

This.  Depending on how tough the fight is I can spend most of my time healing, buffing, and re-targeting my boys.

Indeed. Also depends on primary. Beasts for example, does pretty poorly if you don't select targets for them, but does excellent single target damage if you focus fire.

[oedipus_tex]

I thought maybe the pet was removed for MMs because it's one extra creature in there soaking up chains that could have instead gone to the pets. 

 

That said, someone in another thread had a good question about Illusion Control and whether Phantom Army eats up chains that could go to a better target. Has anyone tested this?

[Mystic Fortune]

28 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

I thought maybe the pet was removed for MMs because it's one extra creature in there soaking up chains that could have instead gone to the pets. 

 

That said, someone in another thread had a good question about Illusion Control and whether Phantom Army eats up chains that could go to a better target. Has anyone tested this?

Boy though, I would love it if Phantom Army were not valid targets for buffs. Many a time I've wasted a Temporal Selection on one of my PA.

[Wavicle]

6 minutes ago, Mystic Fortune said:

Boy though, I would love it if Phantom Army were not valid targets for buffs. Many a time I've wasted a Temporal Selection on one of my PA.

I don't know that there's any way to make a pet targetable by attacks but not buffs, or vice versa...

[Hjarki]

1 hour ago, oedipus_tex said:

I thought maybe the pet was removed for MMs because it's one extra creature in there soaking up chains that could have instead gone to the pets. 

 

That said, someone in another thread had a good question about Illusion Control and whether Phantom Army eats up chains that could go to a better target. Has anyone tested this?

Phantom Army can consume bounces (with a big 'immune' message). However, supposedly the prioritization logic means they'll only receive bounces once there are no other (higher priority) targets.

[Mystic Fortune]

Just now, Hjarki said:

Phantom Army can consume bounces (with a big 'immune' message). However, supposedly the prioritization logic means they'll only receive bounces once there are no other (higher priority) targets.

The concern here is for a Mastermind teamed with an Illusion Controller. Unless PA is flagged to be the lowest priority target among other pets, when you target one of your MM pets, PA will still eat up 3 potential jumps.

[Dispari]

2 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

I thought maybe the pet was removed for MMs because it's one extra creature in there soaking up chains that could have instead gone to the pets. 

This is a very good point.

[DarknessEternal]

Why does everyone want Defibrillation to be worse at endurance drain?  Endurance drain is already the most garbage effect you can put on an enemy.

[Myrmidon]

1 hour ago, DarknessEternal said:

Why does everyone want Defibrillation to be worse at endurance drain?  Endurance drain is already the most garbage effect you can put on an enemy.

I don’t think that people want it “worse”, they just want it to be a useful ability.

Edited March 23, 2020 by Myrmidon

[Replacement]

3 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

Why does everyone want Defibrillation to be worse at endurance drain?  Endurance drain is already the most garbage effect you can put on an enemy.

The question at hand is, "is it fair for me to start every fight by completely destroying the ability for an entire spawn to fight back?"  Because that's the territory we're in right now.  Doing 250+ endurance drain in a generous aoe is no joke.  I personally was hitting (I think) 544 endurance drain at level 36 vs level 30 enemies, which is like 330ish endurance before the purple patch, assuming that applies.

 

2 things I should mention here:

• We really need to wait for the next build before casting final judgement on the balance of the ability, given we know there's some wonk going on right now that's getting cleaned up.
• The "enemies can attack even without endurance" thing is a lie.  Endurance drain is very strong once they hit 0, particularly when you pair it with -Recovery (which Galvanic Sentinel does).

Edited March 23, 2020 by Replacement