RE: Statesmans Comments on Electric Blasters

I think that the whole issue here is that the secondary effect of electricity is not as good as any of the other secondary effects. I gave up playing an elec/elec blaster due to the fact that the secondary effect doesn't do anything noticable unless it's been multi-slotted for it.

For example, without slotting for knockback, an energy blaster can still have a secondary effect that modifies the battle. If the end drain was more severe, but happened about as frequently as knockback, then people might take it seriously.

Heck, I've started watching the end bar for bad guys more, just to see how things go on. I'm currious why the villains don't play by the hero's rules when it comes to end.

Watching 'controller' mobs fire off stun after stun without a noticable drain to their bar is frustrating. It almost seems like the devs designed mobs to only attack with a certain frequency to emulate end limitations, without fully encorporating end into their setup. That, or the bad guys have 6-slotted end reduction on most of their powers...

Two cents given, waiting for change.

Here comes the change: En Drain does need to be socketed on attacks to be effective, but it's potentially far more lethal than the other secondary effects. If that mob is at 0 En, he's done -- every hit you put out will keep him there.

Now, ArchVillians have a mighy 800 En and regenerate that En at a rate of 50 every 5 seconds. That's incredible. What's more incredible is that they don't seem to be vulnerable to the -recovery flag that Electric blasters rely upon for victory. Without that, we're very flashy and largely useless Blasters.

But statesman would never lie to us. He is as reliable as the media! I refuse to believe that my elec blaster powers are worse than my ice powers. The sky is green not blue I tell you. (Head turns slowly around until it faces backwards)

I would bet money that he is playing an electric blaster right now.

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Let's not put words in my mouth here...a SINGLE electric blaster DOES drain endurance from an AV. BUT definitely not enough to make an impact. All secondary effects against AV's are resisted...it takes several electric blasters to make an appreciable dent in an AV (just like it takes many heroes to bring one down).

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So if I had 6 or more people on my team with short circuit 6 slotted for end drain, I might be able to see an appreciable benefit? That's just not acceptible.

As far as I can tell with my own powers, it would take atleast that many. Transference and short circuit are both FULL drains on even level bosses when I use them. If I use both in quick succession on a AV, the bar drops to about 90%, and is full again by the time either of those powers are recharged and ready to use again.

The simple fact is that end drain is NOT effective against AVs. Personally, I don't have an issue with that. You probably shouldn't be able to drain an AV, that'd be too easy. It's just the fact that states said it could be done when very clearly it can't.

though even if he is incorrect (i'm not saying he is mind you, i've certainly not researched it ), don't go too hard on him. if somthing was done on paper it may not have gone perfectly into implimentation and was lost on the grand scheem of things. just imagine how much he has to keep track of, running the development process, overseeing everything. the endurance drain on Elec blasters is a very small slice of the whole picture!

Most every single attack from an elec/elec blaster does drain some sort of end, from Ball Lightning to Zapp to Lightning Bolt. So just use every single one of your attacks and while you are doing massive dmg, you are also draining any mobs/av's end..It may not be a lot, but its a little bit, plus you are doing dmg. Its a win win situation. Slot ur powers with dmg, and do max dmg, while at the same time, doing a little bit of end reduction. Thats what i did. I six slotted Lightning field with 5 dmg/1acc. and SC with 5 dmg. I love my blaster. Wish i could take him to 60.

*edit* and to say that the sec of elec is gimped...is complete BS. I love my blasters sec. I use havoc punch and thunder strike in every battle. On some enemies they do more dmg than my snipe. depending on the mobs resistants to certain attacks. I know some of you may not like the melee range of it...but try this. Get SS, or CJ and run in and click to activate Havoc Punch or Thunder Strike, then in the same time you are activating the powers jump back or run back (in SS instance, but i find CJ works best) and by the time you actually engage in the power you will be out of the enemies melee range. Look me up in the justice server sometime, and i'll show you what i'm talking about.

END drain is pretty useless, the first 25 or so levels I put a lot of end drain in my attacks, and what ended up happening was that on minions it was useless because they died too fast. Slightly better on lts, but again.. they die too quick.

Bosses are better, and once every week/two weeks I could cheer to the team because I drained the boss dry at about the same time he had 10% of his hps left. AVs END never
budged.


So I did the respec and slotted 1 Accuracy and 5 damage, now I'm a slightly less gimpy blaster (but I still don't do the damage of fire/energy, and don't get the control of ice) with a cool electric graphic.

Oh well, I still have fun.

Awesome Avatar Snorii...

level 34 elec/eng blaster here...

end drain as a secondary is usless...

I can go up to a mob of +1s and drain all their end in 2 attacks if I use build up + ball lighting + SC (both slotted for pure end drain). +1 bosses, yup can do those too. AV....not on your life...

ps - i will be reslotting ball lighting to all damage again, it does little to no end drain even FULLY slotted for it..

pps - I love my fire blaster...

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I believe you, but I've also heard some AVs have more than the 100 endurance that heroes are awarded. This could mean that a small portion of the blue bar is worth more to an AV than it is to a hero...

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AV's and monsters have 800 endurance. so one tic is like 40-60 end compaired to our 6-10.

Heh, with the mob regen rate, running a mob out of end is silly to rely on. It takes time to accomplish, only slightly slows a mob if it actually gets done, and requires slotting a power for the drain instead of things like damage...

It really goes hand-in-hand with a previous discussion about the 'other' enhancements that tend to get overlooked. The fact is, there will be few electricity users because it takes so long for any noticable effect of the secondary power to even be seen.

Who really wants to slog through low levels with a limited secondary effect, just so they may be able to create an 'optimum' build that may or may not actually perform as a few people claim.

Heck, the elec/elec blaster is starting to sound more like a mind controller with slow dominates...

It seems to me that to get a major endurance drain you'd likely have to take Energy Manipulation as your secondary and make sure to take that power in it that basicaly doubles the effectiveness of your attacks secondary effects. Then not only would you wind up with the grand endurance drain if you had it running often enough but you have one power at the start that causes 100% knockback if it hits and non kb resistant target attck plus all that lines nice disorient, build-up and endurance conserving power stuff. Perhaps someone posting here should try an Elec/Energy build. Myself I'm running a pair of alts to experiment with elec's endurance drain and or 'staying power'. One is an Elec/Energy the other is a defender with Elec/Rad... though i should likely have made that kinetics, but cant test everything ... I still have to run my main FF/Dark... (completely different play style there too.)

Anyway just food for thought, that perhaps Elec manipulation isn't the best secondary for an elec blaster. I mean that AOE filed is nice for the first 6 levels but after that the agro's gonna murder you. I have already found the Elec/Rad is able to shoot and drain while standing toe to toe with many foes, but since he's only 12, we'll see how he does after the outcasts. After all he cant even mount good debuffs in the rad stuff till after level 22, and certainly not uber debuffs till 27 and fellow SG members can pass SO's to your alt from your main.

Good luck eperimenting all.

Please don't forget that defenders can also be electrical, and we deserve to be just as useful at draining end. So none of that 66% nonsense for the secondary effects. We already give up damage by a huge margin.

My dark/electrical defender makes me say, "Bleh." Instead of feeling super heroic. One of my builds that while it can solo slowly at the pace of maybe reaching level 50 in six years, is not something I will be doing. It's one of my group only builds, but I seriously wish I had taken something other then electric blasts.

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Not true: Controllers and Defenders with Kinetics have access to Transference, which is a superb endurance drain attack. Does anyone else know of other builds that have Endurance drain available?

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Storm Summoning's Lightning Storm Drains End. No idea how much it drains.

At any rate that's 2 defender Primaries and 1 secondary. 2 Controller Secondaries. 1 Blaster primary and 1 secondary.

With how popular Kinetics is for both Controllers and Defenders, its not unreasonable to have 3 effective drainers in a group. Its just not a very effective strat. Easier to hold an AV these days then to keep it tapped out of End.

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Not true: Controllers and Defenders with Kinetics have access to Transference, which is a superb endurance drain attack. Does anyone else know of other builds that have Endurance drain available?

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Storm Summoning's Lightning Storm Drains End. No idea how much it drains.

At any rate that's 2 defender Primaries and 1 secondary. 2 Controller Secondaries. 1 Blaster primary and 1 secondary.

With how popular Kinetics is for both Controllers and Defenders, its not unreasonable to have 3 effective drainers in a group. Its just not a very effective strat. Easier to hold an AV these days then to keep it tapped out of End.

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Fire Tankers get a melee AE End Drain too

Eh? Since when?

I know Ice tankers do.

If you're referring to COnsume, that's fire damage.

I think this issue spans many of the secondary effects. There is a reason Fire is the most popular primary. Its secondary effect is MORE damage (small dot). AR's main secondary is def debuff (if I remember right), which again helps in dealing damage.

Energy gets KB (which is sometimes not good), Ice gets slow (which only helps if the enemy is actually hurting you in some way), electric gets End red (most stuff dies before this becomes effective), Dark Blast gets ACC debuff (which lasts mere seconds). Psionic lowers recharge.

The problem with electric and most other powers in these sets is that the effect is neglegable. Most fights come down to damage. Fire and AR speed up a fight, the rest may help lower damage your group takes, but not enough to matter.

Perhaps the severity of the secondary effects needs to be increased.

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How is it slotted? I have a friend with an electric/energy blaster who drains alot of endurance, and is actually quite an effective blaster.

[/ QUOTE ]I wonder if Power Boost boosts endurance drain? I've never had it, but from it's description it sounds like buildup for secondary effects. It could probably be made perma.

Alright, I begin by apologizing for sounding so condescending. I think that might have prompted your response to be a little more... vindictive than you likely intended.

I'd like to respond to each statement individually,

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States, I hate to be rude, but if you seriously think that an electric blaster's drain can be helpful againest an AV, you obviously have never played one.


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Let's not put words in my mouth here...a SINGLE electric blaster DOES drain endurance from an AV. BUT definitely not enough to make an impact. All secondary effects against AV's are resisted...it takes several electric blasters to make an appreciable dent in an AV (just like it takes many heroes to bring one down).

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I think we both have put words in each others mouths, and unless we're eating alphabet soup, that's a bad thing.

If I may quote you, you said that Electric's endurance drain was "Outstanding". I mearly said it wasn't "Helpful", and neither of us indicated wether it was in a group setting, and apparently, neither of us meant solo.

I too did not mean that an individual electric blaster should be able to drain an Archvillain, such is simply ludicrous, and would make the Electric blaster possibly the most powerful thing in the game, I meant only by my statement that, even in groups full of end drainers (kinetic, electric, and lots of both) I have never seen the bar of any Archvillain ever pass below around 600. The only event in which I could see there being enough drainers in a single archvillain battle to possible make a difference would be againest the hamidon, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he's not gonna be drained any time soon.

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#1 End drain only works if they're fully drained, partial, it's a no go.


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Ooops. That's not true. Some AV powers require an amount of Endurance - so that if the AV doesn't have it - he can't use it. So bringing one down to 0 isn't exactly necessary to have an impact.

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I'd like to begin this by saying I'm not sure of what exactly the cost of Archvillain powers are, but unless they are significantly higher than those of heroes and lesser villains, I can never see an instance of an archvillain draining themselves of 800 endurance to a point of being unable to use powers, even with my, and my friend's assistance .

Perhaps my problem is that I don't have enough drainers, in which case States, I ask simply, under what circumstances have you (as an electric blaster, or kinetic/electric defender) have you in your testing been able to drain an Archvillain, and then, which Archvillain was it? Personally, the most I've ever teamed with on an Archvillain was 5, 3 electric blasters, 1 kinetic/energy defender, and 1 kinetic/eletric defender (uber drainer). The Archvillain was Anti Matter. What exactly Should be needed to drain an archvillain? Not to 0, but to a point of being unable to use their best attacks.

Those are the only questions I ask.

I think we are all in for a surprise when PvP is implemented.

"Oh what did you say tanker?"

*short circuit*

"Uh oh! No more toggles? Muhahahahahaha."

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I think we are all in for a surprise when PvP is implemented.

"Oh what did you say tanker?"

*short circuit*

"Uh oh! No more toggles? Muhahahahahaha."

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I've already discussed PvP, and I can promise you, it'll be a laughable matter for an eletric blaster to get into the melee range to use Short Circuit. (even with fly, as players will actually jump to perform attacks)

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I'm might aswell add "Everything I can say, Rith_the_DM can say a few times better" to my sig and stop posting
I'm not gonna, but I could

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I'm gonna assume that's not a hint of sarcasm in your voice and thank you for the compliment. My balancing abilities come from a few years of working for Psionics Playtest, producing the Mind's Eye. [Censored]

95% defense, with a 90% resist? INvul tankers can reach this, and the other tankers aren't too far behind.

'I'm sorry. Was I supposed to -feel that-? How do you feel about -this-! *squishy elec blaster sound*

End drain isn't psi, and no power in the elec blaster's repitore is nearly as good as, say, the Sappers. You notice how a tanker doesn't really have issue with Anti-matter....the elec blaster (tanker edition)? Of the 3 main end draining aiblities present in elec/elec, he doesn't seem to haev Thunderous Blast (The selfcost would be very high, and why owuld he drain his own end sinec we can't? Not to mention the outcry if he used a power this damaging), nor does he seem to have Short Circuit (this is probablyjust the devs being nice).

However, he does have (and use) power sink, as well as the inherent drain on all other attacks. Did any tankers notice e heavy end drain from him? I don't think there's a whole lot of chance of PvP powers being better- but I'm not a tanker and I couldn't survive a flury of his attacks well enough to notice end drain.

I am honestly not saying that end drain wasn't effective, but I would like to know if it was highly noticable or not. I do think that this is a somewhat valid representation of how the drain should work in PVP. Any comments on this from Scrappers/Tankers would be highly appreciated by me, I know. I've been told that the drain wasn't that high, but I'd like to have more confirmation.

My two cents:

I don't think it's reasonable to expect the end drain from 1-2 electrics to affect an AV.

However, I think that every electric attack should do noticable end drain and have a chance to halt end recovery for a few seconds.

As it is, its a complete waste to slot end reduction in the vast majority of electric powers. I think your average electric power should drain between 10-15 endurance -- that'd make slotting worthwhile, if you chose that strategy.