Affinity Decision: Electrical or Marine?

[One IV All]

Hi all!

Making a return after being away for some time. I'd love to use one of the support sets that came out post sunset: either Electrical Affinity or Marine Affinity.

I'm looking to run it on either a Defender or Corruptor, and I'm open on the blast set as I know I'll primarily be supporting. Which would you recommend to someone returning to the game? Does one shine more over the other in Endgame/4* content?

Thanks in advance!

[tidge]

I haven't played much Electrical Affinity... it's perfectly fine. This is just my personal opinion, but it feels like a better (visually, certainly) form of Empathy... sort of like how Willpower feels  (to me) like a better spin on Regeneration.

 

Marine Affinity has more of a debuff/control feel to it. It feels like it can be a little on the OP side on teams. Marine is probably a little better for solo play (for these ATs).

 

Personally, I would go with a Defender for Marine Affinity and a Corruptor for Electrical Affinity... only because (my opinion) I could delay the choices of what's cool about Electrical Affinity (secondary) but I'd want (almost) all the Marine Affinity powers ASAP (primary).

 

Just about any well-built AT can be fine in teamed End Game/Hard Mode content. Personally, at least half of that kind of battle is being able to survive, so as to not be a liability for the team. For solo, you are (of course) on your own. The more "controlly" power sets are IMO generally better at surviving when things go pear-shaped, MMV.

[Without_Pause]

Both sets are busy and if you want to primarily do support, roll either as a Defender. It is likely too early to judge MA although it seems to get rather good reviews. I do know EA has been mentioned as one of the best for harder content. I still need to figure out builds for both. 

[Uun]

I haven't tried Marine yet, but I can offer a few comments on Electric:

• Electric has 7 ally buff powers and 2 foe debuff powers (3 if you include Defibrillate). One of the debuffs is a pet and the other is single target, but they both do the same thing (-regen, -dmg and -end). This is overwhelmingly a buff set.
• The durations and recharges on the AoE buffs are fairly short. Empowering Circuit (+dmg, +tohit) has a 60s duration and 15s recharge. Insulating Circuit (+absorb) has a 30s duration and 20s recharge. Energizing Circuit provides a big endurance boost (plus a 5s recharge buff) and has a 35s recharge. Rejuvenating Circuit (heal) has an 8s recharge. You're going to be really busy if you want to keep the team buffed.
• Most of the buff powers are chains. The chains initially hit a maximum of 4 targets, but the maximum increases by 3 for each stack of Static you have. Static is granted each time you use a buff power and has a 30s duration unless consumed (the only power that consumes Static is Defibrillate). If you've got a team of 8, you want to keep your Static up so your buffs can hit your entire team. [Electric has a disadvantage in league play since its buffs don't have the 255 target max enjoyed by other sets.]

[Lhanis]

I've played a lot of EA and a bit of MA, and I definitely agree that they are both very busy sets that really want you to focus on them. Interestingly, MA seems to fill a similar niche to Kinetics for me in how you are largely focused on juicing your team's damage, though there's more control and defense in place of the sheer power Fulcrum Shift provides. EA gets some of that, but its more similar to Empathy's spot-healing and support like Tidge mentioned above.

 

The biggest difference in playstyle in my opinion is simply that EA suffers when the team is mobile, it really wants people to be stationary and together for chains and Faraday Cage... not a problem when everyone's pummeling down a hard target, but awkward elsewhere. MA is much more... free, I feel. Toroidal is a fire-and-forget aoe buff, Shifting tides anchors to a player, Barrier Reef (MA's alternative to Faraday) is portable and follows you like a pet.

 

My preference is definitely MA. There's just something about dropping a Tidepool on enemies, using Whitecap to teleport into it for debuffs and CC, and following it up with your PBAoE Nuke to shred an entire group (which usually results in Tidepool triggering a frenzy and amping the damage boost it provides you to deal with anything left standing) that does it for me in a way EA simply can't replicate. Even if MA wasn't as good as it is, it just flows (pun intended) so much better than EA to me.

Edited August 22 by Lhanis

[Maelwys]

On 8/19/2024 at 11:25 PM, One IV All said:

Affinity Decision: Electrical or Marine?

Darkness!
(It might be "Controller only", but it's consistently touted as one of the best all-round defensive sets... think Dark Miasma but with the cracks filled in)

Other than that, my vote would be to go Marine. A Marine/Dark Defender would be better only if you REALLY care about pushing you teammate's effective Defense as high as possible... and other than that go for a Corruptor (any primary works really; but Ice, Fire and Elec are the typical gotos) for maximum damage. The reasoning here is that IIRC the Absorb and Recharge buffs are the same values on a Corruptor and a Defender; so the main draw from going Defender are the slightly higher Defense and Damage buffs.

Electrical Affinity is OK... but I find it underwhelming and annoyingly slow if you've played the likes of Thermal (for example) before.

[drbuzzard]

I have played both fairly extensively (both are defenders). 

 

The electrical affinity set is a better healer and buffer. It is a weak debuffer. Best you can shoot for with EA on the debuff side is trying to be a sapper and that is of limited utility. You will do a bangup job of keeping a team healthy and amped up a bit (pun intended). It's not kinetics which has some drastic effects, but it is certainly one of the better sets for keeping people on their feet reactively. 

 

Marine is a mixed bag of buffs and debuffs. It plays a bit weird, with something of a kinetics feel to the style as another has mentioned. It is not, however, as drastically powerful as kinetics. It is definitely effective., though lacks some key debuffs (regen, but it does -max HP, so that may work out the same). 

 

Honestly I don't keep track of the meta for 4* hard mode. Given that cold seems to have the top spot always taken for the debuff side (for good reason), you might fare better on the repairing people side with electrical in trying to be appealing (though I think nature is favored there).