Focused Feedback: Electrical Affinity - Powers (Release Candidates)

[Wavicle]

Seems to me Amp Up will be great on ANY Controller or Dominator, on Many Buff/Debuff toons, and on many DPS.

That isn't enough?

Keep in mind that it's the Only single target buff the set gets.

[JayboH]

2 hours ago, Hjarki said:

I agree that Energizing Circuit is one of the core powers of the set.

Yep.   I am actually planning on 5 or 6 slotting it - because the lowest buff it grants will be a quarter bar if maxed out and having it up faster to keep refilling the group will be nice and IMO worth it.

 

Oh, and make sure you take the end mod stun proc for the pet if you are not a MM.  I bought like 8 of them in anticipation.

Edited March 28, 2020 by JayboH

[Sir Myshkin]

Talking about Amp Up, I'm not saying I particularly am lining up to take this power, but I feel that some of the intention behind this power's utility might be getting missed under one massive misconception that it is designed to drop on another support toon.

 

What if I drop it on a Blaster who has two holds in their attack chain, a stun AoE, and slow fields with -Def on their attacks?

 

What if I drop it on a Energy Melee Tanker who has a stun packed into over half of its attacks? What if they just so happen to be a Bio Armor who uses Absorption-building abilities?

 

What if I use it on my Galvanic Sentinel?

 

No, really, what if? Here is Galvanic with Amp Up juicing its Endurance Modification:

 

Here is without:

 

Within two minutes without Amp Up, G.S. can do this to a spawn entirely on its own:

 

Doing the same test with Amp Up, completed it within 45/s.

 

Then someone will say "Well I can just kill the spawn in that time" Sure, you probably could, but I'd also more likely run in with a static-boosted Defibrillate and hit the AoE -Rec/-End, and let Galvanic quickly finish the job within 5-10/s and that leaves me all the time in the world.

 

Did go about testing the other aspects of the power out of curiosity and it does ramp up effects like Farsight's +ToHit effect, which is nice. I feel like the ability should have a +Dam boosting component though to really round out the effect and warrant it being a T9 power. Not give +Dam, but boost the effect of +Dam granting abilities like Build Up, if that's possible. Have it self-contained to the impacted character's natural abilities being "supercharged." I would love to see that team coordination of an Electric Affinity Amping a Nature user and them popping Overgrowth to turn the team into wild Rage Fueled Berserkers. If a Kin can do it with one power, why can't [we] vicariously?

 

Pre Amp

Post Amp

 

Then had my crash-test Corruptor who happened to be Electric Blast go sling some electricity at some Nemesis in the comfort and safety of a Galvanic Discharge.

Since the secondary effects were one thing that hadn't necessarily been fully invested in testing, there we go. The KU effect triggered, and also got the boosted end reduction. The fact that it started as Electric was a plus because that too bumped up 7 additional points. I'm actually somewhat curious to how a duo of Elec/Elec Defenders would turn out on a high-scale build.

 

[Wavicle]

7 minutes ago, Sir Myshkin said:

Talking about Amp Up, I'm not saying I particularly am lining up to take this power, but I feel that some of the intention behind this power's utility might be getting missed under one massive misconception that it is designed to drop on another support toon.

 

What if I drop it on a Blaster who has two holds in their attack chain, a stun AoE, and slow fields with -Def on their attacks?

 

What if I drop it on a Energy Melee Tanker who has a stun packed into over half of its attacks? What if they just so happen to be a Bio Armor who uses Absorption-building abilities?

 

What if I use it on my Galvanic Sentinel?

 

No, really, what if? Here is Galvanic with Amp Up juicing its Endurance Modification:

 

Here is without:

 

Within two minutes without Amp Up, G.S. can do this to a spawn entirely on its own:

 

Doing the same test with Amp Up, completed it within 45/s.

 

Then someone will say "Well I can just kill the spawn in that time" Sure, you probably could, but I'd also more likely run in with a static-boosted Defibrillate and hit the AoE -Rec/-End, and let Galvanic quickly finish the job within 5-10/s and that leaves me all the time in the world.

 

Did go about testing the other aspects of the power out of curiosity and it does ramp up effects like Farsight's +ToHit effect, which is nice. I feel like the ability should have a +Dam boosting component though to really round out the effect and warrant it being a T9 power. Not give +Dam, but boost the effect of +Dam granting abilities like Build Up, if that's possible. Have it self-contained to the impacted character's natural abilities being "supercharged." I would love to see that team coordination of an Electric Affinity Amping a Nature user and them popping Overgrowth to turn the team into wild Rage Fueled Berserkers. If a Kin can do it with one power, why can't [we] vicariously?

 

Pre Amp

Post Amp

 

Then had my crash-test Corruptor who happened to be Electric Blast go sling some electricity at some Nemesis in the comfort and safety of a Galvanic Discharge.

Since the secondary effects were one thing that hadn't necessarily been fully invested in testing, there we go. The KU effect triggered, and also got the boosted end reduction. The fact that it started as Electric was a plus because that too bumped up 7 additional points. I'm actually somewhat curious to how a duo of Elec/Elec Defenders would turn out on a high-scale build.

 

I don’t think you can buff damage buffs.

 

I just think the -end/kb procs should do some energy damage.

[Sir Myshkin]

3 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

I don’t think you can buff damage buffs.

From a simple mathematics basis, they could, but no there's nothing (in public knowledge as I know) in the game that buffs the buff values of Damage specifically. From a numeric stand point though, that integer value should/could be manipulated no differently than how Power Boost manipulates Status values (or in fact the way the entirety of the rest of Amp Up itself works). To implement it it would probably result in needing to add a new unit into the code base and make sure it doesn't conflict with anything that creates the buff value, and targets the value that abilities like BU interact with (assuming, again, that all of those are using the same $code structure...

 

yeah, anyway, complicated short answer is: no, doesn't knowingly exist, but it could if thy wanted to and we could do a quick test of it (although there's a lot of powers to fact check it works correctly with).

[Bopper]

2 minutes ago, Sir Myshkin said:

From a simple mathematics basis, they could, but no there's nothing (in public knowledge as I know) in the game that buffs the buff values of Damage specifically. From a numeric stand point though, that integer value should/could be manipulated no differently than how Power Boost manipulates Status values (or in fact the way the entirety of the rest of Amp Up itself works). To implement it it would probably result in needing to add a new unit into the code base and make sure it doesn't conflict with anything that creates the buff value, and targets the value that abilities like BU interact with (assuming, again, that all of those are using the same $code structure...

 

yeah, anyway, complicated short answer is: no, doesn't knowingly exist, but it could if thy wanted to and we could do a quick test of it (although there's a lot of powers to fact check it works correctly with).

If they can figure it out, they will be able to fix the weird Damage/Damage Resistance dynamic. And if then, we might be able to see Fade, Cold Shields, etc get the benefits of Power Boost as the flag for "Ignore outside buffs" will no longer have to apply to those powers. But as it sits now, there is no strength to Damage (nor strength to Resistance) in the game.

[JayboH]

How did you have Galvanic slotted in those pics

[Meruk]

Not sure if it is a known bug or working as intended but I can use my chain heals/buffs even while I have Afterburner on, they do nothing but use endurance and go into cooldown.

[JayboH]

Ooh good catch

[Sir Myshkin]

17 hours ago, JayboH said:

How did you have Galvanic slotted in those pics

That's the absurdity of it, the only thing I have slotted in Galvanic are two level 50 Acc IO's. The character tested on is also only level 50 with no unlocked Incarnates (so no Alpha enhancement).

 

This is with two level 50 End Mod IO:

 

And this is that, Amp'd Up:

 

As a side note for the record, these are the adjusted Defibrillate totals at 19 stacks of Static:

 

Did a six-stack drain before I thought to capture the screen shot and it managed about 80% drain.

 

Edit: Side note, no, I can't really explain the variance in the numbers off hand from non-amp to non-amp, and amp to amp, just realized they were a bit oddly different. The previous test was done against Rikti (obviously, in the screen shot) which were... I think 47's, and this test was done against 50 CoT Scientists. Assuming resistances coming into play there.

Edited March 30, 2020 by Sir Myshkin

[JayboH]

Considering how incredibly fast electric control can drain enemies by comparison, this seems fine, especially with number of conversations people have made about just how soft the soft-control power of end drain is on PVE critters.

 

Side note: wish Gremlins took end mod sets.

[oedipus_tex]

I'm a few days late responding to this part of the thread, but the reason ToHit benefits so much from Power Boost is ToHit is Schedule B, the same enhancement Schedule as Defense. Power Boost-like powers don't usually follow the enhancement schedules, they boost all effects equally. This is why +Defense and +/- ToHit are so powerful when combined with Power Boost effects. They receive a bigger buff than you can get from enhancements.

 

The reason endurance drain powers usually combine well with Power Boost-like powers is most people don't slot attacks for end drain. 

 

(FWIW the Alpha incarnate slot does follow schedules, because it is an enhancement. Destiny Clarion does not follow schedules, because it is based on Power Boost). 

 

 

[UrbanHound]

Hey folks, not sure where else to ask this at present and while the thought occurred to me to try and test this weekend I didn't get the chance. How does Amp Up interact with characters that have Power Boost or its cousins like Gather Shadows or Power Build Up? Do they stack? 

 

It's likely this was answered/addressed in previous iterations of the beta Electrical Affinity threads. 

[Bopper]

12 minutes ago, UrbanHound said:

Hey folks, not sure where else to ask this at present and while the thought occurred to me to try and test this weekend I didn't get the chance. How does Amp Up interact with characters that have Power Boost or its cousins like Gather Shadows or Power Build Up? Do they stack? 

 

It's likely this was answered/addressed in previous iterations of the beta Electrical Affinity threads. 

The common buffs will likely stack, but keep in mind Amp Up does not boost defense, so if you think you will stack that, you'll be disappointed. I'll have to look up the power descriptions to see what would stack, and I'll have to look up how the powers are flagged to see if the stacking is additive or multiplicative. Give me a few minutes and I should have some more answers.

 

Edit/Update. If you use Power Boost then cast Amp Up, it will not boost the effects of Amp Up (ignores buffs). But, if you cast Amp Up on a player, and that player casts Power Boost, then the Power Boost window will be buffed multiplicatively for the short 15 second window. The effects that get this multiplicative boost are everything but defense.

 

The amount of boost depends on the AT of the character casting Power Boost. If it was a defender, then the buff would become 1.75x1.9834-1 = +247.1%. Since powers typically can only be enhanced up to +300%, this will likely cap those effects at 4x their base value.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Bopper
Answers added

[Doc_Scorpion]

Only tested on MM's in beta... so was kinda surprised on my newly minted EA 'fender...  Does Galvanic Sent not pop up a pet window for not-masterminds?

[Wavicle]

10 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Only tested on MM's in beta... so was kinda surprised on my newly minted EA 'fender...  Does Galvanic Sent not pop up a pet window for not-masterminds?

If you enable the Pet window in your settings it will give you a window, yes.