Electrical Affinity - Discussion

[Crysis]

On 4/23/2020 at 1:40 PM, Coyote said:

 

Absolutely. I would certainly take, proc, and use attacks for Beasts, Demons, and Necros.

Whereas Bots attacks are terrible, and I am not wasting valuable attack time by using draining attacks... my best attack is Nemesis Staff, lol.

Photon Grenade procc’ed out ain’t horrible.  It’s not good either but it’s at least better than a temp power and since you’ll skip Repair on the primary for Bots it’s likely worth it.  Def better than Arcane Bolt.

[Papaschtroumpf]

lol that's just a ringing endorsement!

I'm considering respec'ing into 5-slotted Defibrillate+6-slotted discharge to see if it makes the drain worth it. Defibrillate is not up quite often though (I think every 40s with my current build?)

[Dixa]

so getting one to 50 I can say it's for sure no thugs/time

 

until you get a patron immob this set makes mobs scatter like crazy which can make it hard to keep your pets in the bubble and close enough together for your chains.

 

the real stars of the set are the shield, the heal and the end restore powers. target the arsonist for everything so he gets the biggest shield and biggest heal. 4/8 fights take a bit and the pets do run out of endurance. chrono shift does ok with this, but the ea end regen does it far far better.

 

but it's still no thugs/time unless you are fighting packs of mobs with copious amounts of both tohit buffs and knockback. 

[Crysis]

I’m pretty much done with Bots/EA.  It’s inferior in every way possible to Bots/Storm, Bots/Time and Bots/Traps.  Very sub-par to Thugs/Storm and Thugs/Time.  
 

Respec, strip all IO’s,  xfer them to a better toon and delete.  EA isn’t bad, it’s just NOT GOOD.  All hat, no cowboy.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Crysis

[Crysis]

On 4/27/2020 at 12:44 PM, Dixa said:

 

until you get a patron immob this set makes mobs scatter like crazy which can make it hard to keep your pets in the bubble and close enough together for your chains.

 

I found that scattering effect as well, but others in this thread have said it wasn't happening to them.  Don't know if that's EA draining making them flee, the Burn patches from the Bots, or some combination unique to the two in play.  But it was VERY annoying for so many levels until I got the Immob.

[WindDemon21]

The new ai changes just make sure to put them in goto mode on self so they stay near you and in the cage

[Dixa]

2 hours ago, Crysis said:

I found that scattering effect as well, but others in this thread have said it wasn't happening to them.  Don't know if that's EA draining making them flee, the Burn patches from the Bots, or some combination unique to the two in play.  But it was VERY annoying for so many levels until I got the Immob.

You see the scattering effect before you have any ground target aoe's. i'm doing thugs/ela and saw it as soon as I was able to ramp up to 1/6 which was about level 8 or 9. 

 

goto doesn't stop them from running off to chase all of these mobs immediately unfortunately. not sure what goto changes you guys are talking about but the behavior is about the same as back on live. 

[Crysis]

10 minutes ago, Dixa said:

You see the scattering effect before you have any ground target aoe's. i'm doing thugs/ela and saw it as soon as I was able to ramp up to 1/6 which was about level 8 or 9. 

 

goto doesn't stop them from running off to chase all of these mobs immediately unfortunately. not sure what goto changes you guys are talking about but the behavior is about the same as back on live. 

I'm sorry, wasn't clear.

 

The issue isn't controlling the henchmen.  It's that for some reason, when playing my Bots/EA, once I started draining spawn endurance, they'd start running quickly away.  So without a group immobilize from the Patron Pool/Epics, you would end up having to chase the runners back down, provoke them back (if you play that way) or otherwise send your henchmen to chase them down, which is usually a great way to pull aggro onto yourself from nearby spawns.

 

Others have not reported this issue but for me it became overwhelmingly annoying.  It's like the AI is coded that once they have no END, they just...flee.  But again, could have been related to the Burn patches from the Bots also.  Hard to tell.

[plainguy]

13 hours ago, Crysis said:

I’m pretty much done with Bots/EA.  It’s inferior in every way possible to Bots/Storm, Bots/Time and Bots/Traps.  Very sub-par to Thugs/Storm and Thugs/Time.  
 

Respec, strip all IO’s,  xfer them to a better toon and delete.  EA isn’t bad, it’s just NOT GOOD.  All hat, no cowboy.

I have no reason to kiss Crysis backside. 

What I like is how he explains a build, talks about the numbers behind it and its really well thought out and to me makes sense. So with that after reading a bunch of his write ups I put him on my list of trust his words. He knows what he talking about.

 

With that said for me this was enough to stop my Bots/EA at lvl 42..  If he isn't feeling it then I know I won't be feeling it either.  Even being able to PL a toon it just isn't worth my effort and time.  

 

 

[Crysis]

2 minutes ago, plainguy said:

I have no reason to kiss Crysis backside. 

What I like is how he explains a build, talks about the numbers behind it and its really well thought out and to me makes sense. So with that after reading a bunch of his write ups I put him on my list of trust his words. He knows what he talking about.

 

With that said for me this was enough to stop my Bots/EA at lvl 42..  If he isn't feeling it then I know I won't be feeling it either.  Even being able to PL a toon it just isn't worth my effort and time.  

 

 

I appreciate the kind words but to be clear, this isn't the right playstyle/powerset combo for ME.  I was burned quite a bit going with builds that I would invest HEAVILY in (time/effort/build criteria and eventually IO sets/purples/Incarnates) and then literally just stopped and parked them.  This was a fun project because I really tried to make the set shine.  But it just never...did.  Not for me anyways.

 

I confess to being a min/max'er.  If I can't solo +4/x8 on a MM I'm doing something wrong or the set just won't allow for it.  This one....not going into top tier by any means.  Too much of the secondary set is redundant/not worth slotting, and it does little to augment Bots (other than the healing making them fairly sturdy).

 

Demons/EA....I can see how that would work far better.  Maybe even some of the other primaries like Beasts.  But I love Bots/everything and this feels like it's in the same class as /Trick Arrow for a MM.  It wasn't well designed around the henchmen-are-your-weapons class mechanic.  It should do far more to buff THEM along with team-mates and it just...doesn't.

 

Thematically, however....if that's your thing....great combo.  Short-circuiting robots look really cool.  

[plainguy]

4 minutes ago, Crysis said:

I'm sorry, wasn't clear.

 

The issue isn't controlling the henchmen.  It's that for some reason, when playing my Bots/EA, once I started draining spawn endurance, they'd start running quickly away.  So without a group immobilize from the Patron Pool/Epics, you would end up having to chase the runners back down, provoke them back (if you play that way) or otherwise send your henchmen to chase them down, which is usually a great way to pull aggro onto yourself from nearby spawns.

 

Others have not reported this issue but for me it became overwhelmingly annoying.  It's like the AI is coded that once they have no END, they just...flee.  But again, could have been related to the Burn patches from the Bots also.  Hard to tell.

I have been draining mobs with MU and seen them running off as well, as this on my odd petless mastermind builds I just move on to the next group in the mission and hope they come back after me. 

Most of the mobs I notice are  the Bosses.  I of course see this A LOT with the council werewolves as they really cannot be held and higher cons and run off a lot regardless.  But running a council mission I can have 3 or 4 werewolves running away from me when I drag down their endurance next to nothing. 

 

I can only imagine with a set made to do this specifically. 

Again I brought this up earlier in the thread. I hate to beat up on the Devs. People giving away their free time to do this stuff. I don't think this was the right set to start off with as the first new set introduced into Homecoming. 

 

But the horse has left the barn, so now they need to tune it, if they can. But I can't imagine they are going to rework ALL the AI for ALL the mobs NOT to run away because of this set. 

 

 

 

[plainguy]

8 minutes ago, Crysis said:

I appreciate the kind words but to be clear, this isn't the right playstyle/powerset combo for ME.  I was burned quite a bit going with builds that I would invest HEAVILY in (time/effort/build criteria and eventually IO sets/purples/Incarnates) and then literally just stopped and parked them.  This was a fun project because I really tried to make the set shine.  But it just never...did.  Not for me anyways.

 

I confess to being a min/max'er.  If I can't solo +4/x8 on a MM I'm doing something wrong or the set just won't allow for it.  This one....not going into top tier by any means.  Too much of the secondary set is redundant/not worth slotting, and it does little to augment Bots (other than the healing making them fairly sturdy).

 

Demons/EA....I can see how that would work far better.  Maybe even some of the other primaries like Beasts.  But I love Bots/everything and this feels like it's in the same class as /Trick Arrow for a MM.  It wasn't well designed around the henchmen-are-your-weapons class mechanic.  It should do far more to buff THEM along with team-mates and it just...doesn't.

 

Thematically, however....if that's your thing....great combo.  Short-circuiting robots look really cool.  

For me its the time and game money spent as well. 

I don't know about anyone else but creating the build at level 50 and buying all these IOs or finding them across all my toons take HOURS.. I mean HOURS.. can be anywhere between 4 to 6 hours just buying/bidding on IO's needed. Transferring over IOs needed. Money.. Salvage.  If I am bidding on big items like Winter IOs it can take a day(s) to see if I was successful.  

 

As they say in the real world. Its either TIME or MONEY. 

Its either you have the money a just buy the things you need or you take the time to search all your toons to save some money and pool it all together.

 

 

 

 

[Crysis]

23 minutes ago, plainguy said:

I have been draining mobs with MU and seen them running off as well, as this on my odd petless mastermind builds I just move on to the next group in the mission and hope they come back after me. 

Most of the mobs I notice are  the Bosses.  

 

 

 

Exactly what I'm seeing, mainly on Bosses, but Lieuts do it also.  Minions far less, but that's likely because they are gone faster.  

But again, not everyone in the thread seems to find this "fleeing" mechanic to be true.  I don't know what causes it but it's annoying and takes away from the killing speed of Bots since many of the heavy hitters are AOE's.

[Coyote]

1 hour ago, Crysis said:

But again, not everyone in the thread seems to find this "fleeing" mechanic to be true.  I don't know what causes it but it's annoying and takes away from the killing speed of Bots since many of the heavy hitters are AOE's.

 

I'm going to put out a theory from what I noticed on an AV... I had the AV drained, and he started running and didn't stop. That actually made it hard for me to drain him, so he regained Endurance, came back and attacked. I re-drained him, and he stood there for a minute getting bashed by all of my toys, although he could have run.

 

So I'm wondering if, maybe, a mob with 0 Endurance doesn't make any more AI choices. Like, what's the point of spending processing time figuring out actions when you have no Endurance? May as well break off the decision-making (and AI decision making can be a VERY calculation-intensive process), and return FALSE, and go to the next cycle. So perhaps if you drain them when they are trying to run, they won't change that until they regain Endurance? Conversely, if you drain them when they are in attack option, they may not reconsider? I don't know if this explains why I've seen mobs at 0 Endurance stay there and get beat on, while others just take off for the hills.

 

Warwolves do run like crazy. I wonder if it's because they're almost never Immobilized, so they're either in an attack animation or moving. So they're likely to get drained mid-move, at which point they just don't stop. I don't know. I agree, though, that's it's pretty annoying to combine the ISMs with endurance draining, without having an Immobilize to keep the mobs from running. I'm seriously considering getting the winter IO with chance to Immobilize and add that to the Stun chance to Immobilize IO and using them in Photon Grenade.

[tjknight]

I dont think Crysis is imagining  the "flee" behavior of endurance drained NPCs. I notice it frequently on my EA defender.  Bosses and higher run like hell when they have no endurance.

 

I have two EA MMs (Thugs & Ninja) and I think the experience with them has been ok. But heres the point,  it's rare for me to solo my MMs higher than around +2. So the pets are wiping out mobs before they can run. If I were running at higher diffs, I have no doubt there'd be issues with bosses running away. 

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by tjknight

[Crysis]

2 hours ago, Coyote said:

 

I'm going to put out a theory from what I noticed on an AV... I had the AV drained, and he started running and didn't stop. That actually made it hard for me to drain him, so he regained Endurance, came back and attacked. I re-drained him, and he stood there for a minute getting bashed by all of my toys, although he could have run.

 

So I'm wondering if, maybe, a mob with 0 Endurance doesn't make any more AI choices. Like, what's the point of spending processing time figuring out actions when you have no Endurance? May as well break off the decision-making (and AI decision making can be a VERY calculation-intensive process), and return FALSE, and go to the next cycle. So perhaps if you drain them when they are trying to run, they won't change that until they regain Endurance? Conversely, if you drain them when they are in attack option, they may not reconsider? I don't know if this explains why I've seen mobs at 0 Endurance stay there and get beat on, while others just take off for the hills.

 

Warwolves do run like crazy. I wonder if it's because they're almost never Immobilized, so they're either in an attack animation or moving. So they're likely to get drained mid-move, at which point they just don't stop. I don't know. I agree, though, that's it's pretty annoying to combine the ISMs with endurance draining, without having an Immobilize to keep the mobs from running. I'm seriously considering getting the winter IO with chance to Immobilize and add that to the Stun chance to Immobilize IO and using them in Photon Grenade.

Seems very logical.

 

 

[Nemu]

EA is a defensive support set.. I like my Thugs/EA. I know that if I get on a team I can pull a team through very bad situations because EA offers layered mitigation that covers a lot of debuff holes that result in cascade failure such as -recharge, mez, end drain/-recovery, kb, -to hit and lastly damage. The absorb and the heal cycle quickly and can top off a team facing multiple adds and in a war of attrition EA has the most tools in its kit to make sure that the team comes out on top.

 

It's not a DPS set for sure, but as a survival support set I think it's a powerhouse.

[laudwic]

Running Demons/EA and have a good/easy time and have gotten to 38.  Has anyone used the Mu Mastery epic set for the extra -End?  I am hoping with the Immobilize and the additional -End I can get a getto hold to assist my Demons.

[TheSpiritFox]

Demons/Ea worked out fine for me. Took bonfire for mitigation and it works well. 

 

My two actual complaints about /ea on masterminds are this. 

 

1) EA truly does not do enough to help with pet damage or debuffing enemies and honestly needs some kinda help with that. Some CC, some debuff, some better buff that affects pets specifically. Maybe like double the EA buffs on pets if cast by the owning mastermind?

 

2) Far worse. Discharge is bullshit. Bullshit I tell you. We are the ONLY EA who doesn't get the extra pet AS THE PET CLASS which has the side effect of making an already busy ass set even busier. We didn't need discharge we needed a pet to cast it for us to save us both endurance and time like everyone else gets and I think that should absolutely be reverted and it won't be so we're stuck with discharge. And yes I said don't do it when they were testing no one listened. It sucked in beta and it sucks now. 

[Hopestar]

I prefer Discharge honestly, being able to hit the entire group because I'm aiming it and not the braindead AI aiming it at the edge of the group.
What is wrong with the set is Amp Up not affecting your henchmen at all and Insulating Circuit being extremely late level.
After Amp Up is fixed, I think it should be:

1. Shock
2. Rejuvenating Circuit
3. Empowering Circuit
4. Energizing Circuit
5. Faraday Cage
6. Insulating Circuit
7. Discharge
8. Defibrillate
9. Amp Up

Obviously it would be nice if Insulating was more like 3rd and empowering was 6th, but I'm trying to go along with balance here.

[TheSpiritFox]

2 hours ago, Hopestar said:

I prefer Discharge honestly, being able to hit the entire group because I'm aiming it and not the braindead AI aiming it at the edge of the group.
What is wrong with the set is Amp Up not affecting your henchmen at all and Insulating Circuit being extremely late level.
After Amp Up is fixed, I think it should be:

1. Shock
2. Rejuvenating Circuit
3. Empowering Circuit
4. Energizing Circuit
5. Faraday Cage
6. Insulating Circuit
7. Discharge
8. Defibrillate
9. Amp Up

Obviously it would be nice if Insulating was more like 3rd and empowering was 6th, but I'm trying to go along with balance here.

I would honestly like to see you move empowering up to 6 and move the other 3 above it down 1

Buff empowering to compensate. 

Edited October 11, 2020 by TheSpiritFox

[KC4800]

Here I was casting AmpUp on my Assault Bot thinking it did something. Oh well, as a thematic power it works. (Just pretending here....role play and all that)

 

If I was teaming with another MM and cast AmpUp on his pets, would it do anything then?

[roleki]

 

On 5/5/2020 at 8:13 PM, Nemu said:

EA is a defensive support set.. I like my Thugs/EA. I know that if I get on a team I can pull a team through very bad situations because EA offers layered mitigation that covers a lot of debuff holes that result in cascade failure such as -recharge, mez, end drain/-recovery, kb, -to hit and lastly damage. The absorb and the heal cycle quickly and can top off a team facing multiple adds and in a war of attrition EA has the most tools in its kit to make sure that the team comes out on top.

 

It's not a DPS set for sure, but as a survival support set I think it's a powerhouse.

Also, it's one of very few support sets that isn't dependent on the members of the team being at a certain spot on the map to get their buffs.  If you really wanted to, you could set your henchmen off at two targets/mobs across the map and still heal/buff them effectively.  

[Hopestar]

2 hours ago, KC4800 said:

Here I was casting AmpUp on my Assault Bot thinking it did something. Oh well, as a thematic power it works. (Just pretending here....role play and all that)

 

If I was teaming with another MM and cast AmpUp on his pets, would it do anything then?

You'd have to cast it on the MM then they have to resummon their pets to get the effects.

[khy]

EA may be less than perfect but I still love it. Especially when grouping, I don't solo a whole lot.

 

I haven't been playing much this summer though, and I'm getting back into it now - anyone have a good Thug/EA build I can stealborrow?