Edit "Buff" Electric Blasting

[Joshex]

Back when the game was live under paragon studios my first and foremost toon was an electric energy blaster... after years of trying to make it work, I realized that for a DAMAGE CENTRIC AT, DAMAGE was NOT the strong point of this set.. at all. even when enhanced for damage. it's pitiful. It's only saving grace is it can sap things to maybe prevent some attacks but you have to run a bit to make that work again it's only somewhat protected.

 

the problem here should be obvious, blasters primary sets should be about damage DoT, and things like regen debuff. end drain should be a much less quantified secondary ability. half the end drain, double the damage!

 

seriously "moderate damage" should not be the phrase you see for the majority (5 of 9) of the attacks on a ranged damage set on a damage centric AT.. it should be something like 2 to 3 moderate, 3 to 4 high, 1 self buff, and the rest "extreme" to "superior", granted the set already has 2 extreme damage attacks but only 1 High damage and... what the actual.. "no"? there is an attack [tesla cage] with minor.. MINOR damage? seriously? on a ranged damage AT?!

 

[Short Circuit] while good as a hail mary last ditch survival effort for if you get ambushed, a melee PBAOE attack on a ranged set is.. kinda silly cause it forces you to get close to death. I mean that's what your secondaries are for! I suggest replacing this attack with some sort of ranged AOE or chain or both attack.

 

 

This could be it. a Ranged Chain power. much like a ranged higher damage version of the electric melee [Chain Induction], in the melee set it's moderate damage, on the blaster set it should be high damage. why not chain + damage over time? where the initial damage is high and the damage decreases over time.

 

so yeah I agree with Galaxy brain, there needs to be some sort of change to this set.

 

why back in the days I played this toon, I noticed that my attacks did nothing to purple con enemy's health bars.. even when IOed. others attacks would take away 10% to 50% in a single hit, but.. electric blasting? why are you even..? at least you're trying, don't feel bad. oh hah now you're on the floor..

 

In fact to make it work as damage I had to rely on my secondary and buff with pool powers to blap.

 

This should not happen.

 

These are suggestions based on years of experience trying to fix it with enhancements and bonuses. hint it's still below what an average non damage centric toon will do with basic enhancements.

 

so will the devs help with this? what do other players think?

Edited May 4, 2020 by Joshex

[SwitchFade]

I don't think electric blast was ever nerfed, it was just always weak.

 

So, do you mean "buff electric blast"?

[Joshex]

2 hours ago, SwitchFade said:

I don't think electric blast was ever nerfed, it was just always weak.

 

So, do you mean "buff electric blast"?

Absolutely! lets go with that! make a few changes and buff it for damage, taking away some of it's end mod ability and trading it for proportionate damage.

[SwitchFade]

I would absolutely yes vote an elec buff, as it was always weak, the balance reason being END drain flavor.

 

The issue with end drain is, it's only effective if you can get a MOB to zero end and keep them there. Often, a single tick of end recovery is enough to continue attacking.

 

Further, hardened targets have massive recovery and END pools 

 

Additionally, the sentinel version of elec blast is superior to the blaster one mechanically, and I vote should be the blaster version as well.

 

This has all been covered in multiple threads about elec though, so I'm just rehashing old material.

[aethereal]

A chain power would be thematically satisfying, but I think it's a valid critique that the problem with elec blast is focused/single-target damage, its AoE is fine.  Honestly, all it probably super needs is to increase the speed and duration of the sentinel and maybe the damage of the sentinel's attacks a bit.  It gives up a hard-hitting blast for the sentinel, so it should get something comparable back.

[Outrider_01]

I was brain farting the exact same idea about chaining just a couple of days ago.

 

On another note, why not chain it as the "charge" gets more powerful.  Like, every time you hit it with a single target attack energy damage gets higher; kinda like how sonic debuffs but only for energy. 

 

Or another "defiance" type buff for the electric blast set; like how the combo builder sets (water); you build up more bonus energy damage on yourself and than include defiance on top of it.  Would be a weak buff, but multiplied by +damage -damage and defiance it would even out a bit with other sets.

[ShardWarrior]

I agree with this.  Blasters should be doing what they do best - damage.  Keep the higher END drain for Defenders and Corruptors.

[Galaxy Brain]

While its AoE is "ok", why not push for top tier?

 

VS needs some love to make it actually help reliably in a ST dps situation, and with that plus the sniper changes it could be in a solid spot there. A Chain Lightning power is thematic, oddly lacking from just 1 electric set (unless you count elec armor or manipulation I guess), and would cement elec blast as an AoE specialist.

[Yomo Kimyata]

5 hours ago, Joshex said:

Absolutely! lets go with that! make a few changes and buff it for damage, taking away some of it's end mod ability and trading it for proportionate damage.

They call that "fire blast", I believe.

[Joshex]

33 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

They call that "fire blast", I believe.

It would have a vague similarity, the same way in which energy blasting is similar. The difference would be in the presentation. Such as chain, stun (electric shock) and Dot where fire blasting lacks stun. also the powers themselves will be different in intensity and order of acquisition with some electric only caveats. this makes it different enough.

 

for example we are discussing decreasing DoT over time and intensity build-up effects, fire has pretty straight forwards smooth DoT the same value till the burn wears off. but electric DoT hits with a little less each second and typically lasts a shorter time dealing much higher DoT in short order rather than fire's small amounts of DoT over a long time.

 

 

4 hours ago, Outrider_01 said:

I was brain farting the exact same idea about chaining just a couple of days ago.

 

On another note, why not chain it as the "charge" gets more powerful.  Like, every time you hit it with a single target attack energy damage gets higher; kinda like how sonic debuffs but only for energy. 

 

Or another "defiance" type buff for the electric blast set; like how the combo builder sets (water); you build up more bonus energy damage on yourself and than include defiance on top of it.  Would be a weak buff, but multiplied by +damage -damage and defiance it would even out a bit with other sets.

 

This is a good idea instead of End drain  have each attack make the next one more effective on that target. It's something to consider. I'm guessing Electric blasting came about real early and hasn't been touched or even updated since conception. There are lots of new abilities it could and should benefit from.

 

The question is, what do we do with powers that are replaced in the fashion I suggest for Short Circuit? if this were my MMO idea I'd do level tiering have both options available at the same level but make it so the user can only pick one of them. or just replace it entirely and dust our hands off.

 

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

While its AoE is "ok", why not push for top tier?

 

VS needs some love to make it actually help reliably in a ST dps situation, and with that plus the sniper changes it could be in a solid spot there. A Chain Lightning power is thematic, oddly lacking from just 1 electric set (unless you count elec armor or manipulation I guess), and would cement elec blast as an AoE specialist.

As it rightly should be, electricity has that tendency to jump around, arc, and generally shock everything in the vicinity of the strike zone. should be an AoE specialist and it would seem to me that after electric blasting's conception the devs agreed with this concept as they progressed forwards and made electric melee, electric control and electric assault they are all rather AoE heavy.

 

Just one note I must specify, I often have to correct my English students when talking about game terminology and abbreviations and acronyms, D.P.S. stands for "Damage Per Second", some foolish mortals over in WoW and LoL who didn't know that thought it was somehow synonymous for "Damage dealer P.S."  and too many English lessons for foreign language students call things like a brute, blaster, warrior/berserker or whatever you call it "A DPS"  as if "DPS" to them is some sort of noun term embodiment of the archetype rather than a term to describe a number rating the potential to deal damage over time averaged by second. I do believe you are using it correctly but I thought I'd float that point. I believe the confusion started when one of these foolish mortals over-read a chat conversation where someone said "I have good DPS" where DPS is used correctly as a noun to describe the number of damage per second being good, then they misinterpreted it and made a similar character and said "now I have a DPS too" which is incorrect usage. every character has "a DPS rating".

 

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Joshex

[Yomo Kimyata]

I guess that you want the best parts of elec blast and the best parts of fire blast in one power?  Maybe ask for a new set rather than making old sets easier for everyone?  I enjoy playing underperforming sets, personally.

[Neogumbercules]

I feel like it would be pretty easy to buff Elec without breaking anything. 

 

Speed up the DoT on Ball Lightning and Short Circuit, and in short circuit, give it the Irradiate animation so you can blast it out faster. 

 

Give the hold T3 damage and turn voltaic sentinel into a toggle as a QoL feature (end cost equal to re-casting on cool down). Maybe swap the positions of Volty and the hold/attack (can't remember the name). 

 

Increase the range on Thunderous Blast. It seems short but maybe that's just my bad memory.

 

If you want to get creative, throw some chaining effects into the set to spice it up. 

 

I feel like once we start digging into screwing around with endurance drain and recovery debuffs we turn it into a big fiasco. 

[Joshex]

11 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I guess that you want the best parts of elec blast and the best parts of fire blast in one power?  Maybe ask for a new set rather than making old sets easier for everyone?  I enjoy playing underperforming sets, personally.

nope, it's electric blast, we don't want fireballs here. though they are both cousins where both are bodies of plasma arcing between fuel or energy sources, fire arcs from fuel combustion, where as electric arcs based on the content of electrons protons and neutrons in the air and the composition of atoms it's passing.

 

the question is, given the inherent traits of each type of plasma scientifically, which would be the heavier damage dealer?

 

fire is hot, it can burn it can leave lasting damage and staying in a fire for too long can kill you (though to be honest it's breathing the smoke that kills you first) but the fire is just as capable of roasting you alive if it happens to have a strong gust of wind come fuel it. but not given such a wind fire deals damage over time with an initial lasting damage from the intial shock to the body in temperature change.

 

Electricity is actually hotter than fire. Go ahead make a big bonfire on the beach. it takes a pretty big one to see any glass form in the sand and only in the middle of the fire and only after a long time (20 to 30 minutes). electric on the other hand, one quick strike turns stones and sand to glass. it's been rated at over 4000 kelvin. to be fair it's not the electricity itself which carries the heat, its the electrons coursing through it in an incredibly dense stream that when they pass through the target they force the sudden speedy relocation of billions of electrons, where electron motion causes atom motion which causes heat. Conductive surface or not there will typically be some lingering arcs of electricity after such a strike.

 

while a person can sometimes walk away from being struck by lightning or shocked by a live wire, it's far less likely than say a fireman dying from fire. even without equipment people survive in burning buildings. in fact it's usually not the fire that kills people it's the lack of oxygen in the air or falling debris.

 

so to be fair, electricity should have higher initial damage than fire blasting. and some decreasing DoT. where as fire should have less initial damage but steady DoT over a longer period.

 

both sap end, but in physics all this is is taking away your energy to respond. Fire does this by forcing your body to slowly and gradually lose energy due to lack of oxygen and heat buildup. electricity gives a sudden shock which typically makes people frozen in place and trying to figure out what happened but quickly recover, so it's more of a stun than an end drain. people can still move after getting shocked by electricity, it's more of the shock reaction that makes people take quick breaths and step back.

 

So if I had to say what would be the difference in end drain I'd say it's the manner in which they are applied:

 

Fire end drain; slow over time.

 

Electric end drain: sudden short lived not very powerful drain but high chance for stun.

 

 

We are not trying to turn electric blasting into fireblasting, they will be statistically different and it's powers will be different in the way they strike. all we are doing here is revisiting a very early powerset and giving it some much needed restoration given all the numerous things it could have had that were not available at it's conception. such as chain attacks.

 

keep in mind MANY power sets were revisited and statistically boosted or statistically nerfed during Live. electric blasting... for some reason got ignored. probably cause so few people used it because it was weaker than other sets. I think most people gave up on it rather than complained so the devs never really got the message from the player base that it needed any changes and they most certainly wouldn't nerf it because it wasn't overpowered. So it largely remained unchanged after all these years.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Joshex