Electrical Affinity...?

[Ultimo]

So... I've been leveling a character (based loosely on Reed Richards).  I gave him Electrical Affinity and Beam Rifle.  Now, the rifle is pretty fair.  He's a Defender, of course, so it's not doing a ton of damage or anything, but it looks right.

The issue I feel I'm having is with Electrical Affinity.  At first, I thought it would be good for him, but I'm rather underwhelmed by it.  Its healing power seems pretty weak, and it offers little actual protection, either to the team or to the character (Mister Mech).  I don't know, what's the general opinion of Electrical Affinity as a power set?  Am I missing something?  Is it awesome and I'm just not seeing it?

 

 

As a secondary thought...

I'm not sure what else I could give him.  Obviously, there's no stretching powers, so that's out... He's known for his gadgets, so the beam rifle is good for that.  His actual powers, though, are essentially melee.  He's a puncher, and soaker of damage... more, he often controls his enemies by binding them with his arms or body.  Ideally, Mister Mech should be using the same kinds of tactics, binding and hindering enemies... and I can get some melee and toughness from the Fighting pool... so what other set would you use (while keeping the beam rifle), and how would you rationalize it?

[nihilii]

Day #2658 of Ultimo trying out a new powerset and finding it an underperformer. But when 99% if not 100% of powersets underperform, what would be a performer? 🤔

 

I enjoy your threads as a guilty pleasure, although they puzzle me. Yes, Electrical Affinity is actually awesome when it comes to protection, either to the team or the character. You can basically spam the heal and the absorb for massive sustainability, and with the Sentinel you don't even need a team to protect yourself. The mez protection power is insanely good for a squishie. AND you can refill your end consistently, even as a lowbie.

The only real problem with EA is that it's a very active set, and has little to nothing to boost offense. But man, as for having "little actual protection" I have to throw my hands up in the air because all you need to do as EA is basically mash hotkeys without thinking, and you live indefinitely and support your team well. It's probably the most lenient powerset out there for mitigation.

[Dark Dove]

30 minutes ago, nihilii said:

But when 99% if not 100% of powersets underperform, what would be a performer?

 

Fire Blast!

[Naraka]

Shock Therapy's biggest asset is the mez protection.  Not only does it recharge quick enough that you can move it where you want it and have full mez protection (it even protects against knockback) but you can also use it as a breakfree.  It has decent heal/absorb and with certain power combos, you can also drain a foe's END.  It's an overall well-rounded support set with a little of everything but is a bit spammy.

 

I think the best AT for Shock Therapy is Mastermind since you probably don't have that many attacks to use and you can protect your pets from getting knocked around too much.

[Hew]

shock therapy? Do you mean elec affin?

 

Elec affin is amazing. You finding it lack lustre probably has to do with what you expect derived from excessive play of overly effective/strong sets. Amp Up is AMAZING. Faraday Cage is AMAZING. The +end/+rech can be made to have a 50% or better uptime with absolutely enormous self-+rech using just the sentinel. In team play, it is thoroughly amazing; you can tell when an elec affin is on the team, as they tend to act like a little bit of everything + a whole lot of mez prot/+resist + Amp Up. I have seen teams fall apart when an elec affin left, because they fill so many holes so effectively. It is a very layered set where you dont have 1 _function_ that is mondo powerful and then a bunch of less powerfull but still capable functions. It is like the Bio or Rad armor of defensive affinities.

[KC4800]

Electrical Affinity is great on a MM. Haven't played it on a defender, but I would assume if its like any other shared power set in the game, it's going to be even better as a Defender Primary. Are you trying to solo a defender with it?

 

It's really going to shine on teams. Solo not so much.

[oedipus_tex]

Electrical Affinity is a very well designed set. You can see where serious thought went into how to fit the pieces together. It falls exactly where it should IMO. 

 

I agree that Mastermind or Controller are probably ideal for this set. In a lot of ways it plays similar to Kinetics in terms of busy-ness. A secondary set that is hands-free helps calm things a bit. It also helps a lot IMO to have a pet that's around 24-7 to consistently be able to bounce chains off of.

Edited July 4, 2021 by oedipus_tex

[SmalltalkJava]

I enjoy it on my Mercs/Elec Mastermind.   I like mercs because they are ranged and I can pop the Faraday Cage to make us not get Held or knocked around.  Once we have the cage up, I just tell them to Stay and put them on Defensive or aggressive as I need to.     Since they are all ranged they can stay in the cage and attack mobs out side of it.   On a Defender, and if you solo, then you'd have to make sure your Voltaic Sentinel pet was up or else most of your abilities would be useless.    

 

Either way its pretty fun.   

 

 

[arcane]

Shock therapy’s fine. It’s insanely good at what it does actually.

[Ultimo]

10 hours ago, nihilii said:

Day #2658 of Ultimo trying out a new powerset and finding it an underperformer. But when 99% if not 100% of powersets underperform, what would be a performer? 🤔

 

I enjoy your threads as a guilty pleasure, although they puzzle me. Yes, Electrical Affinity is actually awesome when it comes to protection, either to the team or the character. You can basically spam the heal and the absorb for massive sustainability, and with the Sentinel you don't even need a team to protect yourself. The mez protection power is insanely good for a squishie. AND you can refill your end consistently, even as a lowbie.

The only real problem with EA is that it's a very active set, and has little to nothing to boost offense. But man, as for having "little actual protection" I have to throw my hands up in the air because all you need to do as EA is basically mash hotkeys without thinking, and you live indefinitely and support your team well. It's probably the most lenient powerset out there for mitigation.

Ok, so it's not the set, it's me.  That's really what I was asking...  It must mature a bit later, the character is only just L20 now.

 

There are plenty of sets I don't think underperform.  Invulnerability is very effective, as is Willpower, as is Shield Defense (though this one is HARD on endurance)... For Defenders, Force Field is pretty awesome (though it would be nice to be able to benefit ourselves), as are thinks like Empathy and Radiation.... Time is not bad... but matures a little later, too...  I'm just trying out other sets and experimenting with characters... and I often find them a bit lacking in one way or another... because I'm comparing to sets like those I named.

 

EA struck me as underwhelming because the heal was pretty weak, though I could spam it... I just couldn't keep up with the damage the team was taking.  Faraday Cage does provide a little resistance, but it's not all that much.  It does provide the status protection though.  I hadn't thought of that.

 

I suppose I'll stick with it.  The only alternative I had in mind was to change to Traps/Beam Rifle.

[arcane]

It sounds like you’re expecting the set to do something it doesn’t do rather than channeling what the set does really really well yes. And don’t judge those circuits until you’ve spammed them on a large team. The effects aren’t supposed to feel incredible on a single target.

[Outrider_01]

I found EA underwhelming, but its in the effects applied. 

 

 

The heal gets weak over distance which makes sense with electric power theme, but with people nearby it would be jumping between targets and so even a 114! followed by a few 10! heal ticks would up the effectiveness a bit, the endurance cost is the same compared to Heal or Radiant aura with the only offset is that the radius is huge compared those 2; the heal can effectively travel up to sniper range at a costume contest with more Static and people lined up.

 

Faraday I find annoying because the radius is small in comparison to it being a stationary summon, would like to see a floating pet with a short duration like force field generator.  Cast, you move a bit because what fight is stationary and yet its easier to position FF bubble as you just have to move.  Not saying to turn Faraday to a toggle, but something that doesn't need to be summoned every 10 seconds.

 

The rez is god awful with that short  range, been knocked out of range to activate vs the radius yet Dark Miasma Howling has no issues.

 

The 3 XYZ circuits are cool and all, but the Static effect is next to worthless while you chain cast it.  It only increases target cap, but would be nice if Static increased the effects like the heal or endurance recovery kind of like how Nature does; or even consume some stacks like Savage Melee.  The increase modifier doesn't have to be huge, but even .5% per stack x 15 stacks isn't a huge game breaker sinse the bonus is 7.5, as going to the first point it would increase the EA heal amount with the range while balancing itself with Radiant/Heal aura in endurance cost.  The Static effect just increases target cap which increases range at this point, the weak low 100ish doesn't really justify the effect.

[Hew]

5 hours ago, Ultimo said:

EA struck me as underwhelming because the heal was pretty weak,

You get an absorb. You get +recov + +recharge in one power, in a chain, that you can spam and get 50% uptime on value that exceeds many other powers that provide +rech in context. The heal? Really kind of beat. Get in the middle of melee, drop cage, profit. Chains bounce off everyone doing everything, its easy to keep the absorb shield up along with the +recov, FARADAY CAGE MAKES THINGS CHEAPER TO CAST FOR EVERYONE IN THE BUBBLE, you get -recov/-end resist in the cage... There is a million things you get out of the set. Green numbers are _definitely_ not it.

[Hew]

2 hours ago, Outrider_01 said:

the Static effect is next to worthless while you chain cast it.  It only increases target cap,

Actually it is immensely helpful. You really don't know when you have it up, but when you have it down, you spam like crazy to get the same mileage out of chains as when you have high static count and only have to cast one or two chains.

[Ultimo]

I'm trying a different approach for the character, and made him a Blaster, Beam Rifle and Atomic Manipulation.  There's some decent holds in there, and it fits his scientist background.

We'll see if I feel any better about it.

[Ultimo]

Well, got both of them to L20, and I have to say I'm enjoying the Blaster more.  He just feels more in character, and more effective overall.  So, I believe I'll stick with him.  I already have a bunch of Defenders anyway, and they're awfully slow to solo.

 

Appreciation for the input.