Bots/Nature or Bots/Elec?

[JnEricsonx]

I've no experience with Elec as of yet,but I did like Nature for my Beast MM.  Being able to toss a light heal quickly ahead of me at my murder fluffies while they were chewing out guts did my heart good.

[plainguy]

The biggest complaint with Electric is, it is very clicky power set.. You always need to activate something. Many wished certain powers were toggles.. 

 

Nature I don't have on any mastermind because personally for me,  I hate that look.  But beyond the clicky nature of Electric I have read some good things about it. 

 

I want to give out names here for whom is smart on this stuff, but then I would feel bad if I forgot a player on that list. 

But there are some here that will hopefully respond with some numbers and better insight with like I said real game play statistics 

[The_Warpact]

I have no experience on MMs with /nature just on 'fenders. That being said its heals/debuffs to be sure.

EA on the other hand I have a Necro and Demons with it, it is a clicky set BUT, I find it very favorable for pets that might go into melee or hybrid as the res shield is very nice.

I love hitting the absorb shield and dmg buff prior to engagement and letting the pets lay waste to mobs.

My demons are also my badger and it successful solo Eochai this weekend 3x.

 

Now that being said, I dont know how it would work for bots, I like keeping defense with ranged and res with melee but thats me.

But, I also figured nature would be a melee/hybrid secondary for those types of pets. Obviously, with bots thats a little different. 

I would say pull up mids do a couple of example builds and check what you would like more. Or just scroll back through some of the MM pages, I seem to remember someone doing a bots/ea not too long ago, might be good reference in it.

 

 

[Hedgefund]

Both secondaries have remarkably similar effects - mitigation via aborb and resists.  A funky heal.  A stationary patch where you and your minions should be.  A damage/to-hit buff.  You could go point-by-point and perhaps make arguments in both directions. 

 

If either is advantageous to the other one, it's not by much.  To me, it would boil down to - "I've played nature, I haven't played elec" so I'd choose EA in this case.  There's no wrong choice.

[Meknomancer]

For me it comes down to fun over survivability. Nature is a fun set. Elec is 3 repeated clicks and occasional faraday cage...its a yawnfest on any AT. Your entire playtime is spent hitting your main 3 circuits, you won't die, your pets won't die, you can pretty much solo everything if you can stay awake.

[Agorazium]

I have a Bots/EA that is one of my most fun toons. EA is a very busy set which I think works better on an MM since you have plenty of time to make the most of every power, and IMO EA builds are pretty flexible depending on what you want/need out of the set. I was able to solo +1x8 at level 36 (when you pick up the +Absorb and slot it out) with pets rarely ever dying thanks to the layered mitigation EA offers. I also really appreciate Empowering Circuit's +tohit buff, which when stacked with Tactics ensures my pets don't miss often in spite of their level disadvantage.

 

The downside is that my single-target damage is terrible. EA does not do a lot outside of Empowering Circuit to boost damage and has no -res. I ended up taking Corrosive Vial for the -res proc but it still takes a while to take down bosses. 

 

Side note, I don't think building EA as a sapper is the optimal way to play the set, but I took both AOEs from Mu Mastery which when stacked with Discharge tend to sap end naturally. It's a nice extra bit of pseudo-mitigation.

 

I would not play Nature on an MM because many of the powers have long cooldowns and I think it would be boring, but that's really a question of personal playstyle.

[misatz]

I play a Beast/Nature. I leveled up solo and group and had a lot of fun with it. Some powers have long cool downs yes,but once you get higher it works out. I just unlocked Incr today and working on those skills. only vet 3 😛 I would think Bots would be more powerful and live longer with range fighting and you can group fly fight with them. Nature has a lot of powerful heals with ticks. yeah it might look weird with nature on bots ,but you can always change the color to match you and the bots lol

[Neiska]

My main toon is Bots/Ea, vet level 250+. I would like to highlight that while EA "can" be a very clicky set, doesn't mean it "has" to be. As an example, if your +damage buff is still up, and its refreshed, that doesn't mean you "have" to click it. Same goes with the heals, absorbs, so on. Personally for me, clicking things when they are needed and not when they are off cooldown is more relaxed than other powersets. Once I adopted this stance it was relaxed enough for me to multibox masterminds as my EA at the lead. A lot of the time, I simply have the +absorb on autocast, and use everything else only when its needed, such as the heals or +END.

 

I do wonder if people who say EA is clicky only click its powers whenever its available, not when its needed. But thats just me musing.

[Meknomancer]

I do tend to overclick them tbh.....why? Its elec and theres very little else to do with the set. I totally understand why players love it and i'm sure it can be very relaxing, i started with elec/elec corr then bots/elec and demons/elec and i only enjoy playing the corr and i'm pretty sure thats because once i've stuck on the buffs i get to use one of my fav attack sets. I love mm's but /elec just doesn't have anything that appeals to me. It feels like an overpowered set and not one you have to work at playing well, bit like rad armour or bio armour. I love that HC is constantly bringing us more of everything maybe its just me that feels like its missing the fun factor.

[Meknomancer]

The ability to dual box so easily with the set only seems to prove my point 😛 Theres nothing you need to do so where's the fun?

[Meknomancer]

If you got those 250 vet levels outside AE i'll be truly impressed, playing /elec that hard takes stamina. If you got them from AE then i'll just point at my fire brutes.

[Neiska]

13 hours ago, Meknomancer said:

The ability to dual box so easily with the set only seems to prove my point 😛 Theres nothing you need to do so where's the fun?

 

When solo, there is more to do. When tripple boxing you can keep up a perma barrier wither through buffs or incarnates. So you take less damage and so on.

 

13 hours ago, Meknomancer said:

If you got those 250 vet levels outside AE i'll be truly impressed, playing /elec that hard takes stamina. If you got them from AE then i'll just point at my fire brutes.

 

I'd say I got about half of those from AE, the rest a mix of activities. Not sure what your fire brutes have to do with anything, either the topic, or comparing apples to oranges.

 

You do you though, its okay to not like a set. Personally its one of my favorite secondary's, because it really is an all in one package and its thematic.

[Meknomancer]

Ah the AE vet levels thing was a bit of a joke. I used to play on torch a lot and one of the domi's there was silly high vet levels over 1000 and was proud of never having got a single one through AE and said to me one day "AE vet levels don't count" after i pointed out my 5000+ on a rad/fire. I assumed it meant working for your xp running tf/trials rather than simply sitting in AE as mobs head towards you when you can basically afk and level up. But yes i totally understand why you can love /elec it is as you say everything in one package i was only giving my opinion to the original post as to which would be more fun.

[Clave Dark 5]

I had a Mercs/Nature and it worked out well for me.  As described, you basically set up a "safe hill" to stand on, plant your pets there, and then tell them who to aim at.  Or put them there and then run into the foes with BodyGuard on, playing "tanky MM."  I'm pretty sure my build wasn't great, yet I still found it fun and workable.  Haven't tried an Elec yet.

[arson054]

On 10/11/2021 at 6:04 PM, misatz said:

I play a Beast/Nature. I leveled up solo and group and had a lot of fun with it. Some powers have long cool downs yes,but once you get higher it works out. I just unlocked Incr today and working on those skills. only vet 3 😛 I would think Bots would be more powerful and live longer with range fighting and you can group fly fight with them. Nature has a lot of powerful heals with ticks. yeah it might look weird with nature on bots ,but you can always change the color to match you and the bots lol

 

Hi there,

 

How did you slot your toon? My BM/Nature is 44 now and trying to figure out slotting. I do love the BM/Nature sets though!

[Mack008]

I've got a Merc/Elec, and I'll echo the comments about it feeling 'clicky.' 

 

Additionally, you have to be proactive with the buffs.  In particular, Insulating Circuit (the one with the Absorb) really needs to be applied before a fight starts. 

 

And since all the effects use the "chain" mechanism, it takes a little getting used to.  Where with other sets you can just tap your AoE heal, with /Elec you have to select a henchman and hope that the effect arcs to all the others.  Normally that's not much of a problem, but if you're on a team it can be a bit unpredictable.  (Especially if you don't have many stacks built up.)

[SmalltalkJava]

I tend toward nature because of Entangling Aura. I love that pbaoe hold.