What to pair with /Elec...

[Gammos]

Hey all,

 

So! I'm thinking of a new toon using Elec Affinity. The -end drain aspect intrigues me and I need to find a primary that plays well with it. My top concerns for the primary are:

 

1) Damage

2) AoE

3) Durability

 

I was thinking of Fire/, Dark/ and Water/

-Fire/ because of the high damage and AoE goodness

-Dark because I think it would be interesting to drain their end and then have them waste their remaining end whiffing at me (-to hit)

-Water b/c I've never tried it and I heard its also major AoE fun.

 

This is probably just gonna be a fun toon to play on teams with (unless if becomes better than I imagined) so i'm not married to any primary yet. If you all think of a better primary for my interests, please let me know! Thanks!

 

 

-Gammos

[Apparition]

Not better, but an alternate.  Dual Pistols.  It's not as high damage as Fire, but it has plenty of AoE goodness, and if you want, you can add on the debuff pain in the form of Chemical ammunition.  Plus, it looks awesome. :D

[Psyonico]

So here's the thing about end drain in PvE... It's all or nothing, so although Dark sounds tempting (and it is a very good set) enemies won't really be wasting end.  If they have end, they will be able to attack is kind of the way that it works.

 

So, Purely draining, Elec/ is your best choice, however, it is lower in damage than any of the sets that you mentioned.

 

I haven't played him yet, but I rolled an Elec/Rad defender with the idea that Elec doesn't have any -def or -res and since Rad is all -def, you can proc for that in a couple places.

[Phalanx480bc]

26 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

So here's the thing about end drain in PvE... It's all or nothing, so although Dark sounds tempting (and it is a very good set) enemies won't really be wasting end.  If they have end, they will be able to attack is kind of the way that it works.

 

So, Purely draining, Elec/ is your best choice, however, it is lower in damage than any of the sets that you mentioned.

 

I haven't played him yet, but I rolled an Elec/Rad defender with the idea that Elec doesn't have any -def or -res and since Rad is all -def, you can proc for that in a couple places.

I think he means that if they do have a few points of endurance and manage to get off an attack, it is likely to miss, only serving to finish the job of draining their endurance for you.

[Gammos]

18 hours ago, Phalanx480bc said:

I think he means that if they do have a few points of endurance and manage to get off an attack, it is likely to miss, only serving to finish the job of draining their endurance for you.

Bingo. That was my thought process...is that viable? Or is the -to hit not enough to stack?

 

Anyone have experierence with Water? It does also seem like another viable combo.

[Hjarki]

1 hour ago, Gammos said:

Bingo. That was my thought process...is that viable? Or is the -to hit not enough to stack?

 

Anyone have experierence with Water? It does also seem like another viable combo.

I played around with end drain extensively on test.

 

Against large spawns, you can completely neutralize them with the right powers. That being said, the 'right power' is Chain Fences from Electric Control since it's both a decent end drain power and one of the best -recovery powers in the game. It'll take you a few seconds to shut down your enemies but once they're shut down, they're shut down. They just sit there, patiently waiting to be killed.

 

Against AV/GM, it's a different story. While you can shred through their end bar rapidly (again, with the right powers), you need significant amounts of -recovery to keep them floored. Unfortunately, AV/GM appear to have basic attacks that cost no endurance so you can't completely shut them down. The amount of effort keeping them at the -recovery floor also tends to preclude doing substantial damage.,

 

In terms of Water, I don't see it as a particularly good combo due to the amount of activity in Electric Affinity interfering with the overall mechanics of the set. I think you're better off with sets like Fire and Psionic that have fast-activating big single target attacks.

[Gammos]

2 hours ago, Hjarki said:

In terms of Water, I don't see it as a particularly good combo due to the amount of activity in Electric Affinity interfering with the overall mechanics of the set. I think you're better off with sets like Fire and Psionic that have fast-activating big single target attacks.

 

 

Greats points! I'll look into Psi...I wasn't sure about that because Psi is so resisted in end game. Does it have a lot of AoE?

[Seigmoraig]

I made mine with Dark Blast I was looking at Water for a second but I didn't want another set with a stacking mechanic. The reason I settled on Dark was because it has great AoE (If you like Cones), some good disruption (Knockback, -to hit) and a heal power to supplement /elec's somewhat lacking self heal potential

[Gammos]

2 hours ago, Seigmoraig said:

I was looking at Water for a second but I didn't want another set with a stacking mechanic. 

Very underrated point for me! I can barely keep up with the new stacking mechanics...Dark would be good for some normalcy haha.

 

Ok, Dark it is! 😄

[Phalanx480bc]

4 hours ago, Seigmoraig said:

I made mine with Dark Blast I was looking at Water for a second but I didn't want another set with a stacking mechanic. The reason I settled on Dark was because it has great AoE (If you like Cones), some good disruption (Knockback, -to hit) and a heal power to supplement /elec's somewhat lacking self heal potential

With two 50 SOs and just Hasten you get a 31% heal every 4.5 seconds that has no accuracy check and also heals your Galvanic Sentinel.  Isn't that a pretty good self heal vs. a 16% heal every 4.5 seconds that has an accuracy check and only heals you?

[Seigmoraig]

2 hours ago, Phalanx480bc said:

With two 50 SOs and just Hasten you get a 31% heal every 4.5 seconds that has no accuracy check and also heals your Galvanic Sentinel.  Isn't that a pretty good self heal vs. a 16% heal every 4.5 seconds that has an accuracy check and only heals you?

When you are in a party it's not guaranteed that the heal will even bounce to you depending on the team comp even if you target your sentinel

[r0y]

On 4/2/2020 at 7:06 PM, Apparition said:

Not better, but an alternate.  Dual Pistols.  It's not as high damage as Fire, but it has plenty of AoE goodness, and if you want, you can add on the debuff pain in the form of Chemical ammunition.  Plus, it looks awesome. 😄

While I second Dual Pistols, I would not go Chemical Burn if I was shooting for damage (see, pun intended!).  I'd stick with the Incendiary for more DoTs.  Damage debuff is not so important, IMO.   I might do it on a defender version, where I forgo damage and am there for buffage/debuffage, however!

 

While I love Fire Blast, I have to day, DP is not bad at all.  I recently made a DP/Fire blaster and am enjoying it immensely (I have 3 fire blasters, 1 fire corrupter) and I have to say, it "feels" as potent as fire (no other set felt as close to the performance of fire blast than DP).  I don't know if that's only on a blaster, as I don't really like corrupters (I either go damage/blasters or support/defender, don't need to be in the middle).

 

Maybe I'll roll one, but with well over 30 level 50's, fully IO'd out, I'm getting a bit burned out.

[ZeeHero]

I'm really liking Elec/Elec corruptor. first time I've liked electric blast on a corruptor.

[r0y]

22 hours ago, Phalanx480bc said:

With two 50 SOs and just Hasten you get a 31% heal every 4.5 seconds that has no accuracy check and also heals your Galvanic Sentinel.  Isn't that a pretty good self heal vs. a 16% heal every 4.5 seconds that has an accuracy check and only heals you?

 

19 hours ago, Seigmoraig said:

When you are in a party it's not guaranteed that the heal will even bounce to you depending on the team comp even if you target your sentinel

Both good points.  In actuality, if built correctly, a dark blast toon will not be hit that often, and not need the self heal as much.  Of course if you ARE hit, it's likely to be a LOT and the small amount of heal that Siphon Life brings (even if slotted purely for healing) is not enough / too far apart to say you.  Also, with Life Drain, you've lowered the mob's (well, one of them) to-hit by 10%-16% depending how you slot thing.

 

That said, I typically slot siphon life for damage only (maybe 4 + 2, dam+heal); use four Devastations for the +dam bonus, and 2 miracles for the recovery bonus.  Siphon Life hits almost (about 10% less) as hard as Gloom, but is not a DoT, so it's more "life saver" (literally and figuratively) than Gloom, if one needs to "hurry up and finish that guy off before he kills me" scenario.

 

Two scenarios for Life Drain:  another single-target decent damage attack to add to the chain, or a single-target debuff / self heal. 

Edited April 6, 2020 by r0y

[r0y]

On 4/2/2020 at 7:54 PM, Psyonico said:

So here's the thing about end drain in PvE... It's all or nothing, so although Dark sounds tempting (and it is a very good set) enemies won't really be wasting end.  If they have end, they will be able to attack is kind of the way that it works.

 

So, Purely draining, Elec/ is your best choice, however, it is lower in damage than any of the sets that you mentioned.

 

I haven't played him yet, but I rolled an Elec/Rad defender with the idea that Elec doesn't have any -def or -res and since Rad is all -def, you can proc for that in a couple places.

Good post, absolutely correct.

 

I'd only add that if one really wants to drain endurance (vs. draining health), then roll a Elec/Elect Controller, as it's damage is probably on par with Electric Blast (lol).

[Cutter]

I'll add a second vote for Pistols. Only mid-20s with mine but it feels good. I'm taking Experimentation>Speed of Sound, so eventually I can use the Jaunt sub-power to TP into the middle of mobs, Hail > Faraday > Rain. Strongly considering whichever of the darkity-dark themed epics has Soul Drain for more buffs.

Edited April 6, 2020 by Cutter
wrong power name

[mbre2006]

On 4/6/2020 at 12:10 PM, ZeeHero said:

I'm really liking Elec/Elec corruptor. first time I've liked electric blast on a corruptor.

Same. I got mine to 40 today.