Electrical Affinity is too click-intensive.

[r0y]

I played it a bit on Beta and I rolled an Ice/ElecAffinity corrupter on regular (Everlasting).  Here are my thoughts:

 

I like the powers and what they offer, it is nice to see a "newer" mechanic used in the buffing world (chain-jumping).  Feels decent and opens up a lot of nice thematic and role play options, should one choose that playstyle.

 

I did not like, however, that it made me feel like I was playing a Dominator.  Not for the damage and control, but for the insane amount of button mashing.  For point-and-click players, this is probably not an issue; however, for players similar to me that press keys to activate powers, there's only so many one wishes to press to achieve desired results.  Hence my comparison to Dominators:  great concept, but far too many clicks to achieve.

 

I took only a few powers in my Ice Blast primary:  Ice Blast, Freeze Ray, Bitter Ice Blast; along with Aim, Ice Storm and Blizzard.  Six powers.  Gives me many openings for the secondary (new) set that I want to play.  I took everything except defibrillate (which I might get later, but doubt it).

 

EVER SINGLE POWER is a click to use.  ALL of them. Click. Click. Click. Click.  Even if they last a decent amount and have low recharge (the near-useless pet and the über Faraday Cage):  still have to remember to keep clicking.  OK, well, now I am not blasting / corrupting.  I either forget or skip buffing because I need to deal damage, or I sit there as a buff-bot, not really adding damage to my team.  I guess as a defender (the way I play them, not focusing on damage) it is fine, but for Corrupters, it seems a tough road to do both so far.

 

Can the buffs last longer?  Doubtful, as they are great buffs:  Energizing Circuit = 125% recharge for 5 seconds.  Five.  Ooo.  To make this really useful as a +recharge, one will spam it every time it is up (I have it up every 26s or so currently).  Then there is Empowering Circuit, which is like a mini build-up (30% dam + 12% tohit on a corrupter) that lasts for 1 minute, but doesn't stack,  Mine recharges in less than 9s so it's always up, and since teams I play with rarely want to stick together, this is helpful.  But I'm spamming this and the heal and faraday cage (since we move), with Energizing Circuit added in every time it's up.  Oh, and the sentinel, if I wanted it out all the time would need re-summoning every 2 minutes, assuming something didn't kill it sooner.

 

So in normal play, that's 3-5 clicks.  I just hit 35 and got Insulating Circuit (similar recharge as the mini build-up, it likely doesn't stack the absorb - though I haven't tested that) so there's another click to throw in a lot.  Amp Up is a long-recharge tier 9, so I'll not consider that a normal routine click.

 

What this all means that to provide support as Electrical Affinity, one should expect to add between 4 and 6 clicks to your attack chain... which is often 4-6 clicks itself.  That's a LOT of clicking for a chain.

 

It sure would have been nice to have a toggle or longer-lasting buffs:

Shock is fine, not a bad debuff; would be nice if this chained (similar to poison, where most debuff hits main target, and ½ hits the mobs around it)

Rejuvenating Circuit is be fine as is.

Galvanic Sentinel seems utterly useless in teams, but mandatory for solo play.  Would be nice if it lasted longer than 2 min, but for a Tier 3, it's understandable.

Energizing Circuit is a great "here's some endurance immediately added to your bar" power, and it fine with it's recharge, but the 5s +rech?  I'd rather have 10s of +60% or 20s of +30%

Faraday Cage is likely a little OP, but because of the annoyance factor baked in, it makes up for it.  If it was a bubble, it'd have to be nerfed a hair; if it was a follow-bubble, nerfed even less.

Empowering Circuit comes close to "normal" shield-like click buffs (2 min duration) why could it not also be 2 min?

Defibrillate - haven't used, seems cool.  I might work it into the build...

Insulating Circuit like Rejuvenating Circuit seems fine as a spam-click.  Would be great if it was just the heal and aborb that one needed to spam (or better, they were combined).  Absorb hopefully will stack, but seeing how it works on blaster secondaries (where they don't) I am not hopeful.

Amp Up seems fine (from the looks, haven't tested it yet)

 

Whole lotta clickin' goin' on with Electrical Affinity.  Be warned.  Some might like this type of "active click" playstyle; not me, I like a smoother flowing / streamlined playstyle.  Maybe it's just not good for corrupters.  I imagine that for Masterminds it's awesome (as you finally have something to constantly be doing).  Even a non-damage-dealing Defender strategy would be good here (like a /sonic or /dark to add debuffs).

[Burnt Toast]

My main is an elect/elect corruptor and I don't find it any more clicky than...any other set.

I mean Empathy is pretty clicky... heal other, heal aura, absorb pain, clear mind, fort, adrenaline boost.... 

[MrSnottyPants]

I've macro'ed up my elec/elec defender to cut down on selecting an ally, and will add one more to pick myself as the location for the sentinel.

[Solarverse]

I don't know, I felt like Kin was more click intensive than Ele Aff.

[Oubliette_Red]

10 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

I don't know, I felt like Kin was more click intensive than Ele Aff.

Werd.

[Zvi]

I have to second this - it's great for Masterminds, or even certain Controller types... but it really doesn't feel like a good set to use for Defenders or Corruptors or anything with more than a couple of buttons to push in their accompanying powerset. Chaining self-clicks would work far better; even if only on a couple of the powers. (I'm on the fence as to whether I'd prefer Faraday as-is or as a toggle aura.)

[Cutter]

1 hour ago, MrSnottyPants said:

I've macro'ed up my elec/elec defender to cut down on selecting an ally, and will add one more to pick myself as the location for the sentinel.

I've seen that done with numpad binds, but not macros. Would you be willing to share? 🙂

[MTeague]

I play a Mind/Kin.  There's always something I'm supposed to be clicking every time I turn around.  😉

 

[DougGraves]

I did a matching of controller primaries and secondaries and one of the key factors was clickiness.  Dark and Mind are the most clicky controls, kinetics was the most clicky secondary - I haven't tried electric yet

 

 

[merrypessimist]

I play elec on a corruptor, (rad/elec) and haven't really noticed any serious amounts of button jamming needed.  I just put all the elec buffs/boosts on one power tray in a row and just hold the chord-key while I run a finger down the relevant ones (i.e. skipping the heal on a full healthy team, etc.).  Minimal effort and still effective.

[MrSnottyPants]

On 4/9/2020 at 11:44 AM, Cutter said:

I've seen that done with numpad binds, but not macros. Would you be willing to share? 🙂

It's the same idea - I just like having these on the power bar, so I create them with /macro instead of /bind

[plainguy]

Would have been nice if they made Faraday cage a toggle 

[Apparition]

2 hours ago, plainguy said:

Would have been nice if they made Faraday cage a toggle 

 

Faraday Cage would have to have been seriously nerfed to make it a toggle.  It provides Sleep and Knockback protection (which Dispersion Bubble and Sonic Dispersion do not), and all of the mez protection it provides are greater numbers than the mez protection that Dispersion Bubble and Sonic Dispersion provide.

[AShyStarspawn]

Faraday Cage makes playing MM much easier for me as mezzes, which generally is what ends up killing me, are pretty much rendered nonexistent barring the very rare fears and confuses.

[Outrider_01]

You must never of played a Kinetic or Force Field back in the day, when SB and bubbles was single target.  Most of buffs were single targets, and along with the debuffs taging targets like Siphon Power/Drain.

 

lots of macro options to target team mates and sorta "tab" through them fast, learning who bitches SB is too fast and Null the Gull didn't exist.  Was pretty good at tagging those that wanted it and avoiding the complainers; unless they died and they got SB to get their timers back up.

[Ironscarlet]

 

 

 

If you don't click is it still fun?

 

Edited April 19, 2020 by Ironscarlet

[Naraka]

On 4/9/2020 at 1:50 PM, KSinclaire said:

I have to second this - it's great for Masterminds, or even certain Controller types... but it really doesn't feel like a good set to use for Defenders or Corruptors or anything with more than a couple of buttons to push in their accompanying powerset. Chaining self-clicks would work far better; even if only on a couple of the powers. (I'm on the fence as to whether I'd prefer Faraday as-is or as a toggle aura.)

I had this mentality when I was reading about the set on the beta forums.  A clicky set like this aimed to support a medium-sized team most efficiently would favor a MM moreso than a Corruptor or Defender.  It's not that it's worse on those ATs, it's just the power prioritization favors a set that already uses AI pets and/or doesn't have that many other powers to manage.

 

My Ninjas/Shock Therapy MM is quite fun and rather offensive in nature.  I'm moreso using Energizing Circuit to as an END return than for the recharge.  Giving pets KB protection is a great help.  As for supporting a team, it's pretty much the same deal but since your pets are your damage, you can just go full Shock Therapy and occasionally issue pet commands at the same time.

 

Some have said that having a powerset that doesn't favor a Defender/Corruptor playstyle is antithetical but it's not, it just takes the player prioritizing their powers, for example, you might not need to constantly move Faraday Cage all the time, or you might be better off not spamming Energizing Circuit or just throwing out Empowering on your Blaster or Stalker to give their attacks extra oomph and the chains are just icing (personally don't even care about the +dmg, I'm just trying to keep my pets' hit rate high).  You can use all those powers, but if you also want to throw out blasts or controls, you likely have to pick an order of operation that works for you.

[Coyote]

4 hours ago, Naraka said:

You can use all those powers, but if you also want to throw out blasts or controls, you likely have to pick an order of operation that works for you.

 

Another thought is that like many other click-intensive support sets, if you will pair it with a Blast set, then pick a Blast set with fast animations. That way it's easier to sneak in the attacks in between support powers. Ice, Fire, Psy, and maybe Dark all seem like they can sneak in fast attacks with under 1.5 second activations, including snipes for three of them. But I would avoid sets like Rad, Dual Pistols, Water Blast, etc, which generally get a lot of their mileage from powers with longer activation time.

[Jaguaratron]

Not everything is passive, its not hard or complex to use only thing I dislike about it is the fact that its so VFX heavy

[Papaschtroumpf]

I often find it hard to determine when to reapply the buffs, the absorb and the mini-buildup. They come back up so quick (I have a lot of recharge) but hard to spot if the need reapplied yet 

 

The speed boost gets reapplied any time it's up. The heal I apply when i see health bars moved although I'm not good enough to target the right player quick enough, which is where lots of static stacks help.

 

I found that applying different colors to the effects helps too: green for heal, blue for speed recharge/end and yellow for the to-hit/damage buff. The yellow sparks around my bots show the buff is still up, but I don't see a visual clue for the absorb, and somehow I have a hard time spotting the right icons on the teammate or bits status.

[Abraxus]

Out of curiosity, I created an Electrical Affinity Defender, and had such fun with it that she was L50 in a matter of days.  To be honest, I didn't find it any more click intensive than any other set.  At least, not noticeably anyway. 

[Vulpoid]

9 hours ago, Papaschtroumpf said:

I found that applying different colors to the effects helps too: green for heal, blue for speed recharge/end and yellow for the to-hit/damage buff.

This is brilliant.

[Replacement]

I haven't played with this set since the beta testing (and all of that solo). Some notes.

 

-Your Galvanic Sentinel is your AOE shock. I think people keep feeling like it's weak because -damage, -recovery, -regeneration are all "invisible power" type debuffs. That is, even when they're significantly helping, it's hard to notice.

 

That said, since I haven't played this set in a full team environment, maybe the problem is squishiness?

 

-Energizing Circuit's +recharge seems very much like a consolation bonus for folks who maybe didn't need the +endurance.  Personally, this is the power I'd consider ditching after 30 or so. It seems like it feels wasted when you aren't using it, but that it was never truly meant to be a normal-rotation click. Self-counterpoint: I think the short duration super burst is neat and thematic.

 

-I'm not thrilled with heal AND absorb using the same mechanics. I could see, for example, changing the Absorb to a smaller but recurring +absorb to make it more of a duration buff. 

 

-I never tested Defibrillate after they fixed some stuff (25000 endurance drain, lol) but it should still be a really powerful sap and sleep. It's pretty neat to use it offensively while everyone's still alive. Basically betting the house that you won't lose.

Edited April 26, 2020 by Replacement

[Vulpoid]

3 hours ago, Replacement said:

-I never tested Defibrillate after they fixed some stuff ..... but it should still be a really powerful sap and sleep.

I use it just like Howling Twilight from the Dark Powers... all the time whenever up as a debuff/control. Nobody needs to be dead to use it!

[ForeverLaxx]

I only ran into two major issues with my Elec Affinity character. The first is that the powers recharge too quickly for buffs that last awhile, so the set feels like it's extra clicky when it doesn't need to be, as those buffs often don't stack with each other. I'll forget to "rebuff" often just because the cooldowns and buff durations are so far apart. 5 second recharges on buffs that last 1-2 minutes just makes the set feel weird unless they hit everyone 100% of the time (and it doesn't).

 

The other issue I kept running into is admittedly narrow overall, but since we can't control who the buffs bounce to, Illusion Controllers can be your worst enemy when trying to buff/heal multiple people at once. Phantom Army, pets that can't be buffed or healed, will take up a bounce (or more), often wasting your use of the power. This is the only time I find the short recharge helpful and it may not be possible in the game code to exclude these targets for one reason or another. I just know that I was on a TF with an Illusion Controller and was getting increasingly frustrated with being forced to use my multiple heal/buff powers as single-target ones despite them being balanced as an AoE.

Edited April 26, 2020 by ForeverLaxx