Voltaic Sentinel

[Solvernia]

could always change it to -recovery

 

mobs can't attack if they can't regain endurance at all

[_NOPE_]

That's what I just said!

[Solvernia]

That's what I just said!

 

yeah you posted that literally while I was typing the reply

[_NOPE_]

GMTA

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Just to clarify something, all of the attacks in Electrical Blast have a chance of doing -recovery, but only Short Circuit, Thunderous Blast and Tesla Cage are guaranteed to do -recovery, the others have a 20%-50% chance (and much shorter durations).

 

Now personally I'm fine with saying that you need to use Short Circuit or Thunderous Blast to reliably drain groups of enemies, but I think you could make a decent argument for buffing the durations and/or proc chances for the -recovery powers on the single target attacks to make it easier to drain a single target without having to use Tesla Cage.

 

As a side note -recovery is useless without -endurance so replacing the -endurance with -recovery would be a bad change.

 

[_NOPE_]

Just to clarify something, all of the attacks in Electrical Blast have a chance of doing -recovery, but only Short Circuit, Thunderous Blast and Tesla Cage are guaranteed to do -recovery, the others have a 20%-50% chance (and much shorter durations).

 

Now personally I'm fine with saying that you need to use Short Circuit or Thunderous Blast to reliably drain groups of enemies, but I think you could make a decent argument for buffing the durations and/or proc chances for the -recovery powers on the single target attacks to make it easier to drain a single target without having to use Tesla Cage.

 

As a side note -recovery is useless without -endurance so replacing the -endurance with -recovery would be a bad change.

 

I never said replace, I said add. Now, finding that they all have a chance to do -REC is news to me, I guess I never actually LOOKED at the powers, but yeah... I'd say instead of making it a proc, how about we just give every power a 100% chance to -REC and keep the endurance drain at the current level? That way, an Electrical blaster can for sure keep an enemy drained at all times, but it still takes a bit of work for them to get them there.

[Scarlet Shocker]

Just to clarify something, all of the attacks in Electrical Blast have a chance of doing -recovery, but only Short Circuit, Thunderous Blast and Tesla Cage are guaranteed to do -recovery, the others have a 20%-50% chance (and much shorter durations).

 

Now personally I'm fine with saying that you need to use Short Circuit or Thunderous Blast to reliably drain groups of enemies, but I think you could make a decent argument for buffing the durations and/or proc chances for the -recovery powers on the single target attacks to make it easier to drain a single target without having to use Tesla Cage.

 

As a side note -recovery is useless without -endurance so replacing the -endurance with -recovery would be a bad change.

 

There's a compelling argument for it.

 

The descriptions say something along the lines of "there's a chance of reducing the enemie's endurance and returning a small proportion of that back to you." Sadly in practical terms, it's negligible, on both counts. Even an even conning (white) opponent will function perfectly well unless s/he has absolutely no End left and even then they regain it very rapidly.

 

Any chance of End recovery from most powers is so small to be unnoticeable, so it's hard to see Elec's secondary power feature as anything more than window dressing. Especially when up against more than bosses, who are impervious to the effects.

 

Personally I'd like to see most attacks have a -End component and the signature powers (VS included) as having a -Recovery element. If you have the potential to reduce an AV to 0 End and stop him attacking even briefly, that would be great, and would reinvigorate a set that is desperately in need of loving.

 

[Vanden]

could always change it to -recovery

 

mobs can't attack if they can't regain endurance at all

You really need both. Most mobs have big enough endurance pools that they wouldn’t bottom themselves out before you can kill them.

[Galaxy Brain]

As others and I have noted, the way end drain works as a secondary effect really needs help to be meaningful as npcs really dont care unless they are kept at 0 end, and hit 0 end quickly.

 

Still tho, making VS just friendlier to use either by increasing its effectiveness or sticking to you closer / moving faster would be nice. On paper it should be great but in practice it has a lot of nuances that other sets do not have to deal with to get equal or better output.

 

Also make Tesla cage deal decent damage like on Sentinels? :p

[Solvernia]

biggest problem with both -end and -recovery is that NPCs with 0 end and 0 recovery are basically just perma-held

 

nobody would play anything other than elec blasters if it were that easy to make everything unable to attack forever

[Galaxy Brain]

biggest problem with both -end and -recovery is that NPCs with 0 end and 0 recovery are basically just perma-held

 

nobody would play anything other than elec blasters if it were that easy to make everything unable to attack forever

 

On the flip side, unless you can get to that state reliably it is essentially useless and immediately questionable as a side effect compared to say, ice or psychic -rech

 

Edit:

 

I guess another thing is that elec blast in CoH seems more themed around like "electrical power" youd see in a house vs being zapped by lightning bolts. Modern interpretations of such elemental attacks usually have it focused on speed, stunning, chaining targets and the like moreso than draining power

[Solvernia]

storm summoning has exactly the 'explody lightning bolt' thing you're thinking of, elec blast really is more like, uh, sith lightning

[Galaxy Brain]

storm summoning has exactly the 'explody lightning bolt' thing you're thinking of, elec blast really is more like, uh, sith lightning

 

Yeah, which is where part of the problem is. Theres no Thor or even storm styled lightning attacks where you directly smack people with lightning. Storm summoning had a bit of that but it's not the focus

[Solvernia]

there's no clown summoning either but it'd sure be nice to summon clowns

[Galaxy Brain]

there's no clown summoning either but it'd sure be nice to summon clowns

 

Clown summoning is nowhere near as pervasive as an elemental power :P

[Solvernia]

there's no clown summoning either but it'd sure be nice to summon clowns

 

Clown summoning is nowhere near as pervasive as an elemental power :P

 

sure it is. clowns are everywhere IRL, do you see people throwing around lightning bolts IRL, i thought not. clearly clowns are more important than lightning

 

actually now that i think about it i haven't seen a single actual clown in CoH. there's a million powers that let you shoot lightning, but exactly 0 that summon clowns, so why not start with clowns and do the lightning thing later

 

we were even promised a clown summoning set back on live before shutdown, clearly there has to be something in the works

[Galaxy Brain]

there's no clown summoning either but it'd sure be nice to summon clowns

 

Clown summoning is nowhere near as pervasive as an elemental power :P

 

sure it is. clowns are everywhere IRL, do you see people throwing around lightning bolts IRL, i thought not. clearly clowns are more important than lightning

 

actually now that i think about it i haven't seen a single actual clown in CoH. there's a million powers that let you shoot lightning, but exactly 0 that summon clowns, so why not start with clowns and do the lightning thing later

 

we were even promised a clown summoning set back on live before shutdown, clearly there has to be something in the works

 

You know, clowns have those electric buzzers on their hands... we may be onto something here

[Scarlet Shocker]

there's no clown summoning either but it'd sure be nice to summon clowns

 

That is factually incorrect. Have you tried to run a DFB recently?  ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Galaxy Brain]

But yeah, VS could at the least use some love to stick by the caster better, if not make the dps a bit more impactful given the nuances over a standard attack (and being so high tier in the set wherever it appears).

 

I do think as we have all said tho, elec blast could use a once over. The sentinel version has an actually damaging hold like Ice Blast does, which would be nice. End drain really does not hurt NPCs unless they get drained and kept at 0, at which point it becomes OP. Without changing combat as a whole this is a bit too black and white... but at least the end drain can have more consistent recovery debuffs and then return endurance much more frequently?

[n00baka]

I've always thought the whole Endurance system for NPCs could use an overhaul. They have too much endurance for too few attacks that use too little endurance each anyway. I have no idea what a viable fix would be, but I've always wanted something less binary. Something where their more damaging or AoE attacks require an amount of endurance that could actually be stalled out, while still allowing smaller attacks through. Kind of the -Recovery version of -Recharge.

[_NOPE_]

I've always thought the whole Endurance system for NPCs could use an overhaul. They have too much endurance for too few attacks that use too little endurance each anyway. I have no idea what a viable fix would be, but I've always wanted something less binary. Something where their more damaging or AoE attacks require an amount of endurance that could actually be stalled out, while still allowing smaller attacks through. Kind of the -Recovery version of -Recharge.

 

Maybe change their attacks to behave more like player attacks and use as much endurance as player attacks do? That'd probably go a long way...

[Lumicat]

On 5/25/2019 at 10:43 PM, illunic said:

I'm sure anyone who has used this ability can attest to how useless the ability feel, which is sad because it feels like one of the unique abilities of the electric  blast / assault pools. It's damage is laughable, even when slotted, you can only have one up at a time, and for some reason it seems to like to move into melee range.  I really like the concept of this ability so I've got some idea's that might i improve the skill and make the little sparky ball useful.

 

- Make it last until it gets killed.

- Put it on a leash so it doesn't stray too far from the player.

- Do something about it's damage.

 

Currently according to the in-game info at 50 the sentinel hits for ~44 every ~3.5s (1s / 2.5s)  unslotted.  Honestly I bringing it up to the beginning bolts damage (~62) or maybe a bit above would help this skill immensely.

Definitely needs to last longer. At least 2-4 minutes to make it really worthwhile