Actually Playing Elec/Elec

[HunterIV4]

So elec/elec really fit a character concept I wanted to try and so I rolled an elec/elec defender. It works OK, and there are plenty of good builds out there for me to find, but I've been struggling on how to actually PLAY the darn thing, particularly when soloing.

 

I get that you can use your buffs on the galvanic sentinel to chain them back to you, but constantly having to hit my "select Sparky" macro before buffing is more tedious than when I play an MM. The buffs seem to wear off very quickly and I'm constantly having to rebuff, resummon the sentinel, and the combo feels incredibly "clicky." It works, don't get me wrong, but I'm 13 levels in and I already feel like I'm having to work twice as hard as other sets to solo effectively.

 

Am I trying to do too much? Is there a shortcut people use to make this more manageable? It seems like there's so much advice out there about how to build various combinations but very little advice on how to actually play those combinations. Maybe the combo just isn't for me, which is fair, but I figured I'd see if people had any advice before giving up on the character.

[Six-Six]

I can vouch for this combo 100%. I was surprised how it turned out to be one of my strongest. One of my benchmarks is facing Silver Mantis in Black Scropion's arc in the late 40s. This bloke not only stood his ground, but barely flinched.

Anyhoo, I mostly solo, and a few things that worked for me (may not necessarily work for you) are:

 

Set Galavanic (and Later Voltaic) to keybinds:
bind G powexec_location Front:10 Galavanic Sentinel -- summons GS 10ft. in front of me with one click (you can change the distance in increments of 5, or use "Self")
bind T powexec_name Voltaic Sentinel -- Toggles Voltaic on (since they turned VS into a toggle)
bind C powexec_name Rejuvenating Circuit
bind V powexec_name Energizing Circuit
of course, you may choose any key you want instead. I tend to use the ones near my WASD fingers.

I didn't take the last 4 primaries because I rarely had allies with me to use them on... and it gave me space for attack power picks. But you can do the same with the other chain powers and even Faraday Cage so that everything is one button click on the keyboard. Again, this works for me because my nimbleness with the mouse is not as good and I can never locate the cursor pointer during a heated fight.

If you're having trouble selecting your floating sentinels to fire off RC and EC, have the pet window open and select them from there. Another way to select THE ENEMY atttacking your sentinels instead of your sentinels.When you have a foe selected and fire off RC or EC, it goes to THEIR target, which are your Sentinels. This is a hit-and-miss thing until you find the specific foe with the Tab, but I can do this faster by Tab Selecting instead of (again) finding the mouse pointer and guiding it to the pet or pet window.

Edit:
Forgot about the macros:
I more of a keybind guy than a macro guy. But since you already have a Select Sparky macro, why not just add to the string. I might be off here, but the syntax should be:
/macro Select Sparky "[your particular command to select GS]$$powexec_name Rejuvenating Circuit$$powexec_name Energizing Circuit"
The way it works should be you just click the macro button once to select pet, twice to heal, 3x to recover. (disclaimer: I have been known to botch up macro strings)

And since you have such a hardworking macro, you may want to opt for a better looking icon than the dull generic grey one. You can find one here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uHUi6BWFTYj4wbfGBs3LjZL88Fym6B-8EwDr18YZcY8/edit#gid=0
Just replace /macro with /macroimage [specific icon name]. the rest should be the same.

Edited September 8, 2022 by Six-Six

[HunterIV4]

Thank you, I'll give it another shot. I did have a summon macro but I was using my own location, which would sometimes spin me around, which was annoying. I don't use the number keys for activating powers on any of my characters and use EDSF for movement so I admit my setup is a bit strange, but it's a habit I got into after years of WoW raiding (I move with EDSF and activate powers with WRGVCXAQTB, with shift+ for second row and ctrl+ for third row, I hate reaching for number keys while trying to move around). Instead I use the number keys for inspirations. It's a similar idea, though, to using the binds.

 

I'm not entirely sure why I'm struggling so much with it. I've played MMs and kheldians and didn't have as many issues with controls. I didn't know about the automatic target of target feature, that's neat, although the sentinel never seems to keep aggro when I'm soloing (maybe I'm too low level?). I've also died several times when I didn't notice the sentinel was too far away for the chain to reach me and my heal whiffed, heh.

 

I'm only using IOs for now since I'm not convinced I'll want to invest in the character, maybe that's the problem? Dunno, feels really squishy, even under the cage (although not getting knocked over every 3 seconds is nice). I probably got spoiled since the last character I leveled was a tanker, lol. I appreciate the assistance!

[Six-Six]

Ya, the powexec_location Self would annoyingly turn me around as well. That's why I prefer powexec_location Front:X... X being distance in feet in multiples of 5.

And nothing wrong with non-set IOs, especially when you've got Faraday Cage up and running. But I'd advise you to keep to SOs in the low levels if you don't mind coughing up some inf from time to time. their percentage values far exceed those of standard IOs. they balance out around 35, and then the SOs continue to lag behind until 50. 

[Ankhammon]

Solo strategies I've used.

 

I'd have the little sentinel running around tanking for me (taking alpha anyway). 

For lower levels just spawn him in the middle of the pack, this is easy as they can't bring him down in one round of blasts and then I swoop in and hit some drains and all is well. 

When you are getting to the point you want bigger game, I'd suggest getting stealth IO+SS on your self and then run past the mobs. This will allow GS to follow and still take the alpha. If you are having issues with him living there are alternatives to help out like the temp HP power from Sorcery set (forgot the name).

And when you get into your 40s you can always get Soul mastery for the extra end drain options.