Talking crap about Elec...

[DreadShinobi]

54 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

It's not false, they have the same exact power options. If the goal is to compare elec blast and fire, you don't introduce a secondary into it, especially in not such a lopsided fashion. Elec isn't even in the same league as the other blast sets, it's not even close and it needs help.

 

And that goes double for the ATs that can't take filler attacks, like blasters can.

 

Lol yeah you didnt read or understand what i posted. Blasters DO have secondaries with filler attacks. Those filler attacks have varying values of benefit between different primaries. They are not the same.

 

It does go double for defenders and corrs that can't take filler attacks to support an elec blast attack chain. This is a blaster thread.

 

Elec blast does need help. What you just said doesn't support what i quoted of you previously where you said secondaries are irrelevant because every primary has access to the same secondaries. Different primaries are going to receive different values of benefit from adding melee attacks to the attack chain. It is pointless to compare blast set performance without factoring in what can be gained by your secondary because it will vary from set to set for reasons i already stated. Unless you are going for a pure ranged build and sacrificing a good 40% of potential damage output or you are a corruptor or defenders, blast sets can then be compared more 1:1.

[ScarySai]

As much as I love the idea of going back and forth with someone who fails to understand the concept of a fair comparison, I think I'll just write you off and go about my day.

[DreadShinobi]

On 5/8/2021 at 10:30 PM, Myrmidon said:

I can already tell that this thread is going to be entertaining.

 

[DreadShinobi]

3 hours ago, underfyre said:

The Incarnates chosen are whatever yielded the highest damage. Agility/Nerve because a Blaster chasing defenses will take one or the other.

It's a trap! Always Intuition Radial or Musculature for blasters. At best Agility/Nerve is going to provide about 3.2% S/L defense with a scorpion shield, and about 1.3-1.4% defense to the rest of your defense values if you have CJ/Maneuvers/Weave. The defensive bonus is easily replaceable and the dps loss is significant. Agility will also likely be reducing your proc damage.

 

My Fire/EM build with a scorpion shield has 45.05% S/L defense (my other blasters use a resist shield). If I switch to Agility I get 48.33% S/L defense. 

With agility and blaze slotted 5 apoc w/ proc and gladiator jav proc = 463 avg dmg

with intuition radial = 514.2 avg dmg

with musculature core = 528.8 avg dmg

Edited May 10, 2021 by DreadShinobi

[Monos King]

On 5/8/2021 at 11:54 AM, macskull said:

Voltaic Sentinel is also a pretty awful power which doesn't help the set out either.

I think voltaic sentinel should get short circuit. And short circuit is replaced with a cool ST mini thunderous blast that also has a chance to zap a lot of end.

Or tesla just gets the abyssal gaze treatment and voltaic sentinel still gets short circuit.

[DarknessEternal]

On 5/10/2021 at 12:16 AM, DreadShinobi said:

 Blasters DO have secondaries with filler attacks. Those filler attacks have varying values of benefit between different primaries. They are not the same.

 

 

If you're trying to compare X to Y, adding Z to both is irrelevant.  That's how math works.

 

If Z is making X better than Y, then whatever part of Z that makes X better should also be used in Y.  This gets you back to X+Z < Y+Z.  So you can just ignore Z.

 

Fire Blast is greater than Electric Blast.  Adding Fire Melee to both only makes Fire Blast + Fire Melee greater than Electric Blast + Fire Melee since you are just adding the same constant to both.

 

As for how underfyre gets Electric Blast so high, he's cheating for Voltaic Sentinel to make it much better than it actually is  I presume his intention was that it would be activated beforehand by assigning it 0 activation, but that's cherry picking.  It has to be cast at some point, you can't just discard it's animation (so about .61 in his listed setup)  At the very least, it's animation should be given a value averaged out over the course of the attack string.  At the very best, it should also actually follow Voltaic Sentinel's in-game attack pattern.  He currently has an attack string of 11.23 seconds.  Voltaic Sentinel shoots three times in that space, and there's no in-game way of making it hit for the 272 damage per shot he's given it.  At average end-game slotting, Voltaic Sentinel will be providing a total of around 272 in 11s, definitely not that much per it's 3 shots.

 

 

Edited May 11, 2021 by DarknessEternal

[Underfyre]

4 minutes ago, DarknessEternal said:

Fire Blast is greater than Electric Blast.  Adding Fire Melee to both only makes Fire Blast + Fire Melee greater than Electric Blast + Fire Melee since you are just adding the same constant to both.

While true, the primaries will have varying responses to how they react to the added secondary. For instance, If I used Atomic as the secondary on Electric it yielded a higher DPS increase than I got when I used the same things with Fire. As has been pointed out, Fire basically has a coherent attack chain with just its primary, while Electric clearly needs a boost from the secondary. BUT, adding the secondary into the mix with the Fire also showed that Fire's damage went even higher when combined with a secondary. Adding a third or fourth attack from the secondary patches up the fact that Electric doesn't really have a lot going for it in the single target department. Adding those same attacks to Fire will simply replace one of the weaker attacks from the primary. Overall both sets will end up doing similar damage.

 

So over all is Fire more capable as a primary and only a primary? Yes. Is it better off with a secondary? Also yes. Dos this make Fire better than everyone else? Hardly.

[Monos King]

6 hours ago, underfyre said:

So over all is Fire more capable as a primary and only a primary? Yes. Is it better off with a secondary? Also yes. Dos this make Fire better than everyone else? Hardly.

Wait, what?

[macskull]

6 hours ago, underfyre said:

So over all is Fire more capable as a primary and only a primary? Yes. Is it better off with a secondary? Also yes. Dos this make Fire better than everyone else? Hardly.

"This set is better than comparable sets both on its own merits and when combined with secondary powersets, therefore it is not better than other sets."

 

I'm confused here.

 

On another note, here's some actual data on clear speed for each ranged attacks done by @Galaxy Brain which represents how a set will perform in more-or-less actual conditions encountered in the game. These numbers are with SOs only so there is plenty of room for improvement but adding IOs into the mix (specifically for global recharge which is what's required to make the attack chains you want) only further helps Fire because of how ridiculously good the DPA on Blaze and Fireball are. The only real IO options that can get other sets close to Fire are when you start adding procs into the mix and that's only because Fire can't slot any additional damage procs besides those available to ranged damage sets.

 

TL;DR: There's a reason Fire (and far less commonly, Ice) is the only ranged set you see on most high-end, DPS-crazy ranged character builds.

 

[ScarySai]

7 hours ago, underfyre said:

So over all is Fire more capable as a primary and only a primary? Yes. Is it better off with a secondary? Also yes. Dos this make Fire better than everyone else? Hardly.

 

There's only so many polite ways to tell you you're wrong.

[Sovera]

Might I suggest some sort of test that proves or disproves things? I have always disliked these forum arguments where one person insists everyone else is wrong but they have found the secret holy grail.

 

Downing a pylon, perhaps? Or whatever other metric such as the Scrapper forum Trapdoor test.

[Replacement]

Tl:dr for the entire thread seems to be: elec is a bit behind fire but not as far behind as people think. Let's go to war over the single-digit percentages?

 

My opinion, based on how I and my friends play and not spreadsheet attack chains:

Elec blast is fine enough, but "almost as good as other sets" with no discernible secondary effect feels bad.  There's no amount of proving its high-end worth to change that.

[arcane]

Electric Blast is absolutely fine unless your goal is unconditionally to achieve the absolute best numbers at all time, regardless of what the margin over the next best thing is. Hardcore organized PvPers have to do this. Pylon time nuts have to do this. Etc.

 

If you’re like me, and you already have several characters with Fire Blast, Ice Blast, Beam Rifle, Psionic Melee, etc... and you have given up on the PvP scene and only continue to create new characters because trying new powers is FUN? Electric Blast has zero issues in that case.

[Snarky]

I have sort of moved on to Ice.  There are numerous reasons for that.  From my (admittedly unscientific) perspective Ice and Electric are real similar in damage.  Ice has better ST (I believe...) and is one of the reasons I moved to it.  Those AVs do not burn themselves down.  Ice has a secondary effect!  I enhance that with set bonuses and Incarnate choices!  (And i am sure the hate will roll in for picking non optimal Incarnate powers...)  Because while everyone says secondary effects are important (Elec is so screwed!  Did you hear what they did to it?  It has no secondary effect really...) as soon as you start building for them you are in cuckoo land.  (Why would you even bother with secondary effect?  Dont they know stuff should already be dead?)  

 

But i build a Super character.  That includes a back story, power choices that make sense, and a theme.  That locks me out of Ranged sets like Water Blast because my mind comes up with nothing.  The set reminds me of "Wonder Twins power Activate...."  Like, WTF, what do i do with this?  Water, steam, er ice....hmmmm.  There is a backstory there somewhere but you need to give me a second.  Ah!  A character was hit by a gamma explosion on the sinking titanic and absorded the ships steam powers and the icy chill of the North Atlantic!  So, another undead then....  hmmmmm odd.

[BZRKR]

5 hours ago, Snarky said:

That locks me out of Ranged sets like Water Blast because my mind comes up with nothing.

Maybe something along the lines of "A Wizard did it"?

[DrInfernus]

10 hours ago, arcane said:

Electric Blast is absolutely fine unless your goal is unconditionally to achieve the absolute best numbers at all time, regardless of what the margin over the next best thing is. Hardcore organized PvPers have to do this. Pylon time nuts have to do this. Etc.

 

If you’re like me, and you already have several characters with Fire Blast, Ice Blast, Beam Rifle, Psionic Melee, etc... and you have given up on the PvP scene and only continue to create new characters because trying new powers is FUN? Electric Blast has zero issues in that case.

I’m bored of fire blast to be honest. I mean, it’s a lovely set, that’s why I have used it so much on so many different characters, but I almost felt like I was playing City of Fire Blast at one stage. 
 

Decided to make something new based on concept alone (a nuclear reactor) and made an Elec/Rad/Elec Corruptor. Just as much fun as anything else I’ve played. 

[arcane]

11 minutes ago, DrInfernus said:

I’m bored of fire blast to be honest. I mean, it’s a lovely set, that’s why I have used it so much on so many different characters, but I almost felt like I was playing City of Fire Blast at one stage. 
 

Decided to make something new based on concept alone (a nuclear reactor) and made an Elec/Rad/Elec Corruptor. Just as much fun as anything else I’ve played. 

Yeah, it’s not that I actually think Electric Blast is as good as Fire on paper, it’s that I value variety more than the relatively negligible difference (at least negligible if you aren’t clocking your run times to the second on every little thing you’re supposedly doing for fun).

[DrInfernus]

1 minute ago, arcane said:

Yeah, it’s not that I actually think Electric Blast is as good as Fire on paper, it’s that I value variety more than the relatively negligible difference (at least negligible if you aren’t clocking your run times to the second on every little thing you’re supposedly doing for fun).

I’m with you 100% 👍🏻👍🏻

[KauaiJim]

Well, it's good to know I don't have to throw out my main (E³).  It's always embarrassing when I'm enjoying a toon and shouldn't be!  😳

 

By the way, I find a box of Junior Mints to be very complimentary to a lot of popcorn.  It sort of "clears the palate" so you can enjoy more.  😁 

[Nemu]

I only have 1 fire blaster, and it is the reason I came back to CoH. It's my most powerful character and I don't feel the need to do fire/anything else.

 

I do have 4 electric blasters however, I find it more interesting to build and the set really benefits from secondaries that can supplement single target fillers.  I play just as aggressively on those as I do my fire blaster but the electric blasters feel slower due to animation times and that makes my teammates happy because they can sneak in some kills.

 

The things that draws me back to electric blast:

1 - Lazy AoE, 2 relatively fast recharging large radius AoEs that don't require a lot of positioning.

2 - End drain, I like it, especially for harder targets.

3 - It pairs well with all the melee heavy secondaries and I love to punch face.

[KelvinKole]

Wonder how the dps charts shake out with a proc’d Tesla cage? Can get 5 procs and an accuracy IO in there, with excellent proc rate. That’s something fire can’t do (but doesn’t need to do). It might fill the void of a high damage single target attack quite well. The animation time is just a bit annoying. 

[Nemu]

10 second recharge on TC no? I don't think it'll be all that great since most procs are 3.5ppm. 16s/20s are the sweet spots for proc monster holds.

[KelvinKole]

It can take two purples at 4.5ppm, which each have a 90% chance to proc. And then three more at 3.5, which each have a 70% chance to proc. I’m not a mathematician, but odds seem good you’ll get at least 3 regularly. Both purples and a rare would get you 285 damage. 

[Nemu]

I forgot the thing takes 2 seconds to cast, yuck. Sure, if you have absolutely no other powers to sink those procs in I suppose you can slot cage that way. But there are better options in the secondary or even hero epics if we look at a complete build.

[Underfyre]

On 5/18/2021 at 4:06 PM, KelvinKole said:

Wonder how the dps charts shake out with a proc’d Tesla cage? Can get 5 procs and an accuracy IO in there, with excellent proc rate. That’s something fire can’t do (but doesn’t need to do). It might fill the void of a high damage single target attack quite well. The animation time is just a bit annoying. 

 

Well, the problem is the 2.17s cast time. With such a low base damage, it doesn't really matter how many procs you stack in it. Even if it's all 3 epics and 3 regular procs, assuming 90% chance, you have 482.9 damage. With a base of 9.38 damage tacked on, it doesn't break 500 damage. Depending on the secondary you more than likely have better options for single target damage doing the dame-ish damage on a <1.4 cast time.