Electric Blasters

[Bioflame]

So, after reading the changes to Electric Blast, it got me wondering...is it any good now?

 

I've yet to read any post about it after the new changes. Seems people are not interested?

And how about the secondary, probably a good match would be Dev, Enrg or Elec?

 

Any thoughts?

[DarknessEternal]

It's fine.  It's much worse than Fire, and much better than half the other sets.

 

The End Draining days are over though, don't bother.  You can't even drain 1% off of something that doesn't die to quick to matter.

 

Voltaic Sentinel and the animation speed ups were the real gain.  Shock and Tesla Cage are completely irrelevant and non-impactful.

Edited January 10, 2022 by DarknessEternal

[Parabola]

4 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

The End Draining days are over though, don't bother.  You can't even drain 1% off of something that doesn't die to quick to matter.

 

Voltaic Sentinel and the animation speed ups were the real gain.  Shock and Tesla Cage are completely irrelevant and non-impactful.

I have to disagree with this assessment*. If you frankenslot short circuit to bump up its end drain and use charge up to spike it you can do noticeable end drain even on a blaster. Even if you don't flatline enemies (and I do flatline them often) you can get them into the range of shock and do extra damage, which may not be huge but every little helps. Blasters usually swim in end so they don't get much from the end return mechanic though.

 

Tesla cage is an odd one. I will always want to take hold powers so the extra mechanics are a nice bonus, and aoe of any description is never useless. The low base damage encourages proc slotting but that doesn't do anything for the chaining aoe, whether that is worth any extra damage slotting itself I'm very unsure about. All in all I was taking the power anyway so however I slot it more damage is always welcome.

 

* You may be talking about team performance? There you will indeed rarely see anything drained enough to matter. Then again 'enemies are dying too fast for my (insert powerset mechanic here) to matter' isn't an uncommon issue.

 

18 hours ago, Bio-Flame said:

And how about the secondary

I've paired it with ice, and martial would be another good fit. The problem with end drain is if you flatline the enemy they will immediately run to the hills. Having a slow aura gives you time to then shoot the slow motion runners in the back which is hugely satisfying. Slow in general is fantastic mitigation as the ai often seems to get confused and enemies wind up faffing around rather than attacking.

[Sirius.Games]

The problem with ELEC on a blaster vs corruptor is ELEC wants to start in the middle of everything and more importantly with shocked ball lightning just comes in line with fireball.

 

I use the concept on an elec/kin corruptor using the drain for survivability.

 

The primary benefit of shocked comes from taking down bosses and leuts because you get the damage boost. Because it's more lacking in single target you will have to make up for it in the secondary.

 

Ranking in effectiveness in clearing mobs it's behind fire, ice, and water but likely in that secondary teir. Worse than dark for survival but better in damage.

 

You nailed the secondaries that it likes. 

[DarknessEternal]

8 hours ago, Parabola said:

* You may be talking about team performance? There you will indeed rarely see anything drained enough to matter. Then again 'enemies are dying too fast for my (insert powerset mechanic here) to matter' isn't an uncommon issue.

 

 

Even when not on a team this is why End Drain is pointless.  Anything Boss and smaller will die before end drained.  Anything EB or higher can no longer be end drained below 100%.

[Parabola]

1 minute ago, DarknessEternal said:

Even when not on a team this is why End Drain is pointless.  Anything Boss and smaller will die before end drained.  Anything EB or higher can no longer be end drained below 100%.

I get use out of end drain and regularly drain ordinary enemies before defeating them. I'm not sure about av's but eb's can certainly be drained flat if there is more than one elec on the team. And as I said above even if you don't drain the enemy all the way the extra damage from shock isn't nothing.

 

I'm picking up that you'd like end drain to do more but pointless is a strong word.

[DarknessEternal]

3 minutes ago, Parabola said:

I get use out of end drain and regularly drain ordinary enemies before defeating them. I'm not sure about av's but eb's can certainly be drained flat if there is more than one elec on the team. And as I said above even if you don't drain the enemy all the way the extra damage from shock isn't nothing.

 

I'm picking up that you'd like end drain to do more but pointless is a strong word.

If you have at least 2 guys on a team, EBs will be dead before end drain will matter.  Once again, pointless.

[Parabola]

1 minute ago, DarknessEternal said:

If you have at least 2 guys on a team, EBs will be dead before end drain will matter.  Once again, pointless.

Oh ok, whatever. We are seeing different things.

[Neogumbercules]

I started playing an Elec corr not realizing that the SHOCKED effect is only 20% now. I think I read the patch notes that indicated it was +100%. Sadly, I'm not really sure it's worth playing around an end-drain mechanic just to eek out up to 20% more damage on drained enemies (that are probably dead/about to be dead anyway). There are sets out there that have more up front damage, or better secondary effects, or a real T3 blast, and they don't have to jump hoops or play at point-blank range to function.

 

Unfortunately the buffs to elec are just extremely underwhelming to me, and I think the devs here really missed the ball on this particular revamp.

[Novacat]

I think the problem is that it doesn't seem to address the issue of AVs ending up with 85+% resistance to the mechanic anyway. Shock is readily showing itself against minion/Lts (and as long as you aren't all +4/x8 bosses too), being almost a mini-scourge to things you shut down with short-circuit...

But that's exactly the issue: "to things you shut down." They're 'already dead' so to speak.

 

If you'd need two corruptors with high Endmod slotting to bring an AV down to no END by the time he'd be dead anyway had they focused on damage or at least a tiny amount of -regen instead, the fight would be over, not "starting to give a bonus". Elec blaster doesn't get as much of the secondary effect to work with, and shock can't start happening at all, 0%, if you cannot bring it under 80%.

That's where it's still lacking - one of the original problems of Elec.

[Jiro Ito]

My main toon is an elec/energy blaster and I enjoy it very much.  I've had fire/ and ice/ and they're awesome, and I didn't enjoy water/ at all, but I wanted something different and not so obvious for my main guy and badger, and I never get tired of him.  I don't worry about the end drain effect at all in my build or playstyle as overall it's pretty negligible.  Thunderous Blast does a nice job of draining end and leaving EBs and AVs without much to do for a little bit but I don't plan or count on it as a mechanic to defeat enemies; I just spec for as much damage as I can do, and it's plenty.  The change to Voltaic Sentinel being a toggle was nice, as I went from hardly ever using it and considering dropping it to summoning ol Sparky every mission.  Getting mezzed drops him but some good defense in your build will help that.

 

Recommended!

[laudwic]

I have a Electrical Blast/Electricity Manipulation blaster in his early 40s that is fun and does fine.  The attack of Ball Lightning (run behind it as it goes in) Short Circuit, then Thunder Strike does wonders to even con minions.  I generally do not worry about endurance drain on my blaster as he takes things down quickly.  When I do want to drain, using charge up with Thunderous Blast does well, then short circuit and power sink do a good job of killing what is left.  I'm having fun with him.  I primarily solo and go between a bunch of characters.

 

With my defender on the other hand, EA/EB, I made that character after the changes and I have gotten that one to 50 (16 vet levels) primarily soloing and the occasional task force.  No farming.  You can absolutely drain EBs to nothing or essentially nothing.  Remember, they may be able to do a minor attack, no big deal.  The minor attacks aren't what defeat you, their massive attacks are.  If you drain them down to nothing, they aren't dropping their nukes or similar.  I soloed all the requirements of the portal jockey badge and drained each and every one of the EBs (only one I didn't get to no blue showing was the Clockwork king)  

[arcane]

On 1/10/2022 at 1:08 PM, DarknessEternal said:

Even when not on a team this is why End Drain is pointless.  Anything Boss and smaller will die before end drained.  Anything EB or higher can no longer be end drained below 100%.

That’s contrary to the reality of my experience, at least. The important distinction here is that trying to drain mobs to zero as mitigation is fairly pointless now, BUT, draining them a little to get Shocked procs is by no means pointless. Opening with Short Circuit and following up with Ball Lightning now makes the Ball Lightning reliably stronger. This is just a fact that you’re leaving out.

 

But if your argument is going to be “everything is still dead too quickly for it to matter”, then it sounds like the set has zero problems. Can’t claim problems in this game if your enemies are all on the ground.

Edited February 2, 2022 by arcane

[DarknessEternal]

Why are you cherry picking one thing I said and ignoring everything else, for example:

 

"It's fine.  It's much worse than Fire, and much better than half the other sets."

[arcane]

Just now, DarknessEternal said:

Why are you cherry picking one thing I said and ignoring everything else, for example:

 

"It's fine.  It's much worse than Fire, and much better than half the other sets."

Because you’re saying something clearly in complete opposition to my perceived reality, regardless of whatever other irrelevant things you said? I didn’t know I was required to write an all-encompassing dissertation to post 🙂

[DarknessEternal]

Also, I never said anything about small drains to get Shocked.  I only commented on complete end drain.  Which is impossible/pointless to try for.

 

This was clearly stated in my other posts.

Edited February 2, 2022 by DarknessEternal

[arcane]

8 minutes ago, DarknessEternal said:

Also, I never said anything about small drains to get Shocked.  I only commented on complete end drain.  Which is impossible/pointless to try for.

 

This was clearly stated in my other posts.

Literally none of your posts state that “only complete” end drain is pointless nor do any of them point to the benefits of small end drains. I just checked.

 

Clarify that better in your first post next time instead of your 5th.

[DarknessEternal]

You're the one who necro'd this thread to cherry pick a single line out.  When the actual discussion of the electric blast changes were taking place across many threads, you can find it there.

 

If you want to argue with month old comments, the burden is on you to see what's relevant.

Edited February 2, 2022 by DarknessEternal

[arcane]

5 minutes ago, DarknessEternal said:

You're the one who necro'd this thread to cherry pick a single line out.  When the actual discussion of the electric blast changes were taking place across many threads, you can find it there.

 

If you want to argue with month old comments, the burden is on you to see what's relevant.

I responded to the most recent thread in the subforum. If that’s a necro...

 

Well just calm down brotato