Conductive aura

[Dauntless]

Does conductive aura _ACTUALLY_ do anything, other than generate more aggro than a brute?   Obviously you have to be close enough to hit and it takes accuracy enhancements.  With a half dozen procs or more from getting mixed in you would think that you would not be gasping for air after just a few attacks.

 

I have two toons with it currently:

 

A level 40 who is just barely permadom and 1acc/2endmod.  I have enough slots so everything has endurance reduction and domination recharges enough now that honestly I don't really need it most of the time.

 

A level 20-something with just the default slot.  Flipping it on seems to deplete endurance completely in just a handful of attacks, a very marked difference from her performance in the late teens and pre-24.

[oedipus_tex]

CA is a must-take power on any Electric build for me. Like most powers, its effectiveness can vary depending on the situations you find yourself in.

 

The debuff side of is pretty straight forward. Unenhanced, each tick, it drains enemies of 10% of their endurance. It does roll for Accuracy so you'll want some in the power. The endurance debuff is equivalent to what you get from a cast of Electric Fences, although completely free and hitting only 8 targets instead of 16.

 

On the buff side, Unenhanced, Conductive Aura supplies +0.03125 recovery to the caster. If you hit 8 targets with it (the cap), you're getting exactly as much Recovery as Inherent Stamina (0.25 Recovery). That's enough reason to take it even if you aren't actually able to floor endurance, which might happen at early levels.

 

It also provides 0.05 Regen per target, not enough to likely matter, but its better than nothing I suppose.

 

Conductive Aura as far as I can immediately recall is the only or one of the only toggle powers that is completely free to run. It's an inverse of the endurance hogs Arctic Air and Hot Feet in that it gives you endurance instead of taking it from you. There's no reason to not run it unless you need to avoid aggro. 

 

 

In terms of CA's overall role in aggressive sapping, you'll probably find the sapper role easier later on in your career. Electric Control is heavily tilted in my opinion toward certain specific secondary combos, especially Psi, Dark, Earth, Ice, or Energy, all of which have either extra -Recovery (Psi) or Power Boost style effects, Grabbing an Alpha slot that increases Endurance Modification makes a huge difference in how viable sapping is as a role. If you want to be able to sap Elite Bosses easily you can also take the Mu pool for Power Sink. The combo of Power Sink, Conductive Aura and Electric Fences (because of its fast anim time) is undeniable. There aren't a ton of situations where being the Elite Boss sapper is all that critical, but it can be fun to instantly destroy the ability of the all-Cyclops packs in the ITF to respond. 

 

 

There are situations where turning CA off is advisable, For example, I don't run it in iTrials, because sapping isn't really needed there, and it just drags aggro back to me needlessly, It may also be worth avoiding in situations where you're trying to be sneaky with Synaptic Overload--again, certain iTrials come to mind.

Edited January 30, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[Dauntless]

8 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

On the buff side, Unenhanced, Conductive Aura supplies +0.03125 recovery to the caster. If you hit 8 targets with it (the cap), you're getting exactly as much Recovery as Inherent Stamina (0.25 Recovery).

 

That is how it is supposed to work.  Is it actually working?  It certainly didn't seem to be these last few nights.

[Dauntless]

Never mind, I guess it does.

 

I unslotted stamina, just the default slot in CA with an accuracy, and ran off to play with hydras in perez park for a while.  

 

0.13 end/sec per hydra, the lower level critters ran in and out, but I usually had 5+ in range.   It looks to take 2-3 seconds before the proc shows up on the combat attributes.  On a more interesting side effect, it seems the regen and recovery procs fire at different rates and last different amounts of time.

 

Well I guess I'm wrong then, it just doesn't feel like it helps much on teams that are steamrolling.  And I guess that is probably why, it feels that way because I am never next to enough someones long enough to make a big difference.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Dauntless

[oedipus_tex]

11 hours ago, Dauntless said:

Well I guess I'm wrong then, it just doesn't feel like it helps much on teams that are steamrolling.  And I guess that is probably why, it feels that way because I am never next to enough someones long enough to make a big difference.

 

 

Electric Control usually has trouble flooring endurance in team content at low to mid levels. You don't have the enhancements yet.

 

Solo, it's a lot more doable. Just drop a Static Field and stand on enemies with your CA running. 

 

End game Electric Control builds often recover some of effectivness.

 

You can see a video of me running CA in this Elec Control video (on Elec/Psi/Psi build).

 

 

 

[Chelsea Rorec]

Preemptive makes CA hilarious.

 

[Panache]

31 minutes ago, Chelsea Rorec said:

Preemptive makes CA hilarious.

 

How so?

[ZorkNemesis]

14 minutes ago, Panache said:

How so?

 

Preemptive should not do anything with Conductive Aura itself since CA doesn't do damage.  It will however add more endurance drains to all your other damaging attacks and will generally result in flatlining everything's endurance much faster when in the aura.

[Panache]

1 hour ago, ZorkNemesis said:

 

Preemptive should not do anything with Conductive Aura itself since CA doesn't do damage.  It will however add more endurance drains to all your other damaging attacks and will generally result in flatlining everything's endurance much faster when in the aura.

Do you mean slotting it IN those attacks?

[ZorkNemesis]

13 minutes ago, Panache said:

Do you mean slotting it IN those attacks?

 

Assuming Preemptive Interface, Interface is a global effect and only needs to be equipped to work on pretty much all of your powers.  Interface Powers work with any non-temporary power that deals damage.  This is what I was thinking of when I responded.

 

Assuming Preemptive Optimization the enhancement set, which I should have considered, that set will give the standard end mod numbers but won't exactly take other powers to new heights, especially if they are attacks.

[Panache]

30 minutes ago, ZorkNemesis said:

 

Assuming Preemptive Interface, Interface is a global effect and only needs to be equipped to work on pretty much all of your powers.  Interface Powers work with any non-temporary power that deals damage.  This is what I was thinking of when I responded.

 

Assuming Preemptive Optimization the enhancement set, which I should have considered, that set will give the standard end mod numbers but won't exactly take other powers to new heights, especially if they are attacks.

Ohhhh…yeah, I was thinking of the IO Set, lol. My bad.

[Chelsea Rorec]

Yeah Preemptive is -END over time and a Recovery debuff in Interface incarnates.

Coupled with Musculature Endurance Mod makes Elec Doms very effective at draining.

You can end drain with just CA and Static Field+Chain Fences.

My Dom is Elec/Elec/Mu so i floor everything so much quicker.

 

[Panache]

Elec/Elec/Mu is the way I went as well; fingers crossed that /Elec gets Charge Up at some point.

Edited February 13, 2022 by Panache

[oedipus_tex]

Electric Dominators got a bit of a usefulness boost recently in the ITF. A bug was fixed that restored toggle abilities to the Romans that allowed them to toggle on a mezz protection aura that provides mezz protection and defense when their allies are near. Electric Control can drain the enemies and detoggle them. Apparently this is how it used to function on live.