Official Thread for Brutes: Electric Shields
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 24:02 in Developers' Corner
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when is turning a toggle off not an option? it'd just be for knockback protection, and if you need the knockback protection, then you'd just have to live without jumping for a lil bit
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Please play a stone tanker/brute with regularity if you think it's at all convenient and safe to run around with your status toggle off. Being locked to the ground is only trading one form of limit on travel power for another, it is in no way a solution and is actually worse than what is in place now - at least /electric has a choice between fly and leaping. Stone tank is VERY awkward to play and move around with a fast team without Teleport. Particularly in PVP areas, you would be whacko to turn off your status toggle for 10 seconds just to hop a 1 foot curb.
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*Note* I'm not particularly in favour of this change. I honestly don't care all that much. I'll probably go hover/teleport. *Note*
With this change you'd have three options. Take teleport and the toggle that grounds you. Take Hover/Fly or Hover/Teleport or Hover/SS or Hover/SJ. Take CJ/SJ/Acro. Without this proposed change, you have two options, Acro or Hover. With it you'd have three options.
Many of you seem to be arguing against this change because it would "lock you into taking teleport yadda yadda." No. It wouldn't. You'd still have the option of going the hover root or the Acro root. You'd be losing nothing. Except a passive that most people won't take.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) - Whitman
Consistency is the defense of a small mind. - Beldin
how can you see having knockback protection not any better than what /elec currently has? are you on drugs like the devs?
As of now, you can take 3 different pools for travel with this current build. Well, 2.5 It has already been explained. Read back a bit. The leaping pool and a combination of teleport and flying pool. For everyone interested in tough, you can even take SS + Boxing/Tough/Weave. You'll be fast enough, skip lightning reflexes and get aidother/aidself. Its all there man, just think hard.
Current prospective elec/elec build covering immob and knockback resistance...
6 prim
6 sec
3 fitness
2 teleportation
1 hover
2 medicine
or
5 prim
6 sec
3 flight (as, hover, fly)
3 fitness (with health)
3 fighting (boxing, tough, weave)
or
5 prim
6 sec
3 flight
1 leaping
3 fitness
2 medicine
or
6 prim
6 sec
3 leaping
3 fitness
2 medicine
All of these selections work in either pve or pvp or both respectively and if you are imaginative enough, you can slot them exactly the way they should while keeping all high end attacks full damage, all attack full acc and all shields 3 slotted for dam resistance + 1 endurance reduction. If this is cookie cutting, I'll take the oatmeal raisen.
There is simply no argument unless you are fighting vehemently for a power specifically designed for super speeders in an environment that has radically become more vertically friendly.
Once again, you are the weakest link and are thus deemed, E-untough LOL LOL LOL.
Oh, it is also possible to ditch stamina in later builds so that you can pick up conserve power and select 2 more powers from your power pool of choice.
post power sink build prospective can give you exactly what you want.
6 prim
7 sec (power sink and conserve power included)
2 SS
3 leaping
2 medicine
This is, of course, based off of a level 40 build. With 4 more extra powers you can forgo the last two PPP's for boxing and tough.
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how can you see having knockback protection not any better than what /elec currently has? are you on drugs like the devs?
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Are you familiar with what is like to play locked to the ground? Play a stone tank/brute up to granite and then campaign for a change like this. Stone is the worst PVP set for that prime reason, you give up mobility for status protection. It's acceptable in edit: PVM because b) the great majority of players take Teleport, and b) the environment is very very predictable and Teleport is a reasonable way to move around. The main complaint in this thread has been not so much that the set lacks knockback protection, but that the workaround requires the player to select a specific travel pool. Locking you to the ground in order to get knockback resist is doing exactly the same thing.
I certainly don't object to getting free knockback protection, but trading it for being locked to the ground is D U M B.
*Edited by Cricket*
you could just get acro and not get the power that comes in your secondary, but for ppl who dont want superjump it would give them another option of travel while still being able to get KB resist
and it sometimes seems like the devs are on drugs. have you seen our patron powers? they do like twice the dmg of brawl at best
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Are you familiar with what is like to play locked to the ground?
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As someone who constantly ran around Rooted with my Stone Tanker, I do. And while I'm not enamored of -jump, I'd have to say that I prefer being stuck standing on the ground, to being stuck with my [censored] on the ground.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Yes, but what if I want the features of grounded as they currently are but I don't want to be locked to the ground?
it's all moot anyway. we're just putting out a decent suggestion that the devs probably haven't even read yet
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Yes, but what if I want the features of grounded as they currently are but I don't want to be locked to the ground?
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What features? It's what, just some worthless piddly resistance bonus? And then what, some minor added defense against (not any actual magnitude of protection from, mind) an effect that's far less prevalent and troublesome than Knockback? That'd like picking a bag of crap over a suitcase full of money.
Unless grounded offers some grand benefit that I'm forgetting.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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So lay off with wanting to turn the set into something less unique just because you don't like what its offering. If you want higher protection go make an invulnerability brute, its why the set exists. If you want to be a tanker go invul, if you want something different and more varied go elec.
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This has been my take on it too, actually.
I don't like the no heal/KB/Immob concept at all. I do, however, like the idea of the set and don't want that to change. I would just like to see some existing powers within the set have a bit more added to them... to really justify the downsides it's been handed.
Don't remove the powers that are there. Don't revamp the set. We all know this isn't going to happen anyway. Let's keep our proposals and ideas within the realm of reality please.
People with the ridiculous "Rooted for Grounded" idea, I'm looking at you.
Also, this is a bit off topic but needs to be said. Some of you need to exercise some maturity in this thread.
Some people think the set needs fixing, some don't. Such is life.
If you love the set as is, then say so and provide examples why. If you don't, respond in the same fashion.
Agree or disagree and provide your ideas, but don't degenerate into calling people names and telling them to suck it up.
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Don't remove the powers that are there. Don't revamp the set. We all know this isn't going to happen anyway. Let's keep our proposals and ideas within the realm of reality please.
People with the ridiculous "Rooted for Grounded" idea, I'm looking at you.
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Unfortunately given the Devs standard M.O. any "reasonable" proposal will have to have some drawback for the set such as rooting. If there's a chance in Hel that they'll add to the set without mucking it up in some other fashion, I'm certainly all for it, but it'd be atypical.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Which is why our testing needs to quantitatively show that the set can't take a hit as well as the other sets do.
If we can show that the set actually "does" perform subpar, then changes could come to improve it. Maybe not in Issue 7, but later on down the road (the set won't change much from what's on test, I almost guarantee it).
On the other hand, if our testing shows that the set actually performs decently on par with the others, then... well, we suck it up and deal.
So, git testin'! Don't let bias skew your posts though. Honestly. That goes for both sides of the debate.
Also, my comment you quoted was directed towards the idea of adding completely new powers to the set, in place of what's already there. Something as drastically different as this pseudo-Rooted thing fits that bill and is just not that realistic.
I have suggested Conserve Power be replaced with Quick Recovery, which technically is removing a power and replacing it with another, but those powers both deal with endurance management, just differently. I don't see a suggestion like that outside the realm of possibility, but who knows.
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If we can show that the set actually "does" perform subpar, then changes could come to improve it.
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That is based on the assumption that the dev team considers it especially necessary for all protection sets to be equally protective , which is obviously not the case. Fire vs. Stone especially post-38 is the biggest contrast in the most situations, or EA vs. Stone in cases where your opponent does heavy Def debuff or is simply highly accurate.
Fire accepts a second damage buff and Burn, as good or bad as it may be (and post epics with AOE immob, with Burn buffable, it may be QUITE good again); EA accepts endo drain and odd status resists that are generally a bit hard to get (repel) and of course KB resist. Seems pretty clear that the other odd things in Electric gets are - to the dev team anyhow - an adequate trade.
This may be asking a bit much, but can a dev post here explaining why they planned the set out this way? I'm still having trouble understanding why /elec is the only +res set in the game without a self heal.
A simple post weighing the pluses against the minuses from a dev viewpoint might put an end to the knockback debate at the very least.
Kinetic Fusion - lvl 50 EM/EA Brute
Galvanized - lvl 50 Bots/Dark Mastermind
Umetrus - lvl 50 Fire/Kin Corruptor
Psychotropic Pstud - lvl 50 Mind/Psi Dom
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This may be asking a bit much, but can a dev post here explaining why they planned the set out this way? I'm still having trouble understanding why /elec is the only +res set in the game without a self heal.
A simple post weighing the pluses against the minuses from a dev viewpoint might put an end to the knockback debate at the very least.
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I'm not quite understandig why this isn't obvious.
The Devs (for whatever reason) place an extreme premium on Psionic damage protection. There is a lesser, but still notable, premium on -Recharge and Endurance recovery powers.
Elec, in its current form, has all three. So it needs to be missing something to make up for this.
Step back and look at the overall set balance: If I was an /Invuln Tank, and I could get 40% PSI +Resist, at the cost of taking either the Flight or Jumping pool, would I do so?
Oh, and you people arguing about Grounded, you do realize that -Jump and -Fly make no thematic sense, right? 
"I do not think that word means, what you think it means." 
Currently playing:
Infaerna Who knew Fire/Fire Brutes were fun to play?
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This may be asking a bit much, but can a dev post here explaining why they planned the set out this way? I'm still having trouble understanding why /elec is the only +res set in the game without a self heal.
A simple post weighing the pluses against the minuses from a dev viewpoint might put an end to the knockback debate at the very least.
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I'm not quite understandig why this isn't obvious.
The Devs (for whatever reason) place an extreme premium on Psionic damage protection. There is a lesser, but still notable, premium on -Recharge and Endurance recovery powers.
Elec, in its current form, has all three. So it needs to be missing something to make up for this.
Step back and look at the overall set balance: If I was an /Invuln Tank, and I could get 40% PSI +Resist, at the cost of taking either the Flight or Jumping pool, would I do so?
Oh, and you people arguing about Grounded, you do realize that -Jump and -Fly make no thematic sense, right? "I do not think that word means, what you think it means."
[/ QUOTE ]Ever played a dark armor before? resist to every damage including Psi (59%!), fear, end drain, acc debuff, immob, has a self heal only at the cost of no knockback and practically no defense.
ELA is downright lackluster in flexibility right now, I'm still settled on dark armor and invuln... Why should I pick ELA?
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Ever played a dark armor before? resist to every damage including Psi (59%!), fear, end drain, acc debuff, immob, has a self heal only at the cost of no knockback and practically no defense.
ELA is downright lackluster in flexibility right now, I'm still settled on dark armor and invuln... Why should I pick ELA?
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Cause ELA has
- auto +rech
- power sink (DA is heavy on end and a pain if you dont have DM)
- conserve power
...
I am not saying ELA is perfect and that the trade of no heal for end tools and other stuff is fair. But it is far from being gimp.
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This adds up to
Fire 6 +'s, 10 -'s
DA 11 +'s, 5 -'s
Elec 7 +'s, 9 -'s
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Breaking it down to raw numbers simply doesn't work especially considering how you have missed a few critical facts. While Dark Armor offers alot of crowd control you'll find that the Cloak of Fear loses almost all effectiveness when combined with Death Shroud. The heal bonus for DA also requires enemies within melee range, while fire armor operates at all times. Likewise FA needs enemies within range to recover endurance while Elec Armor can reduce its endurance cost without nearby enemies.
The stun aura for DA is also a bad thing because it needs to be combined with a heal to in order to avoid killing the brute. DA in general suffers from working against building your Rage meter because of how it stops all incoming attacks. DA might be safer, but frankly its better overall to have resistances and tons of rage enhanced damage as all crowd control results in is a stalemate.
So to say that DA comes out on top isn't accurate since some of its benefits are mutally exclusive from one another or require special conditions or additional powers to function with no drawbacks.
Some people see a lack of a heal as a weakness, yet not one single person would claim that Energy Armor or Super Reflexes is underperforming and they don't have heals or dull pain either. A heal is a perk, not a requirement at all. Knockback and immobilisation is the only weakness Electrical Armor suffers from and it can be fixed with a single powerpool if you choose to take it. Frankly though I've taken my fire tanker from 1 to 26 without any knockback protection and while it might be annoying when it happens its rarely killed me and its a limitation I choose to accept but will eventually plug with acrobatics anyway since SJ was always intended for the character. If people are concerned about knockback you can also consider getting hover which leads into the flight travelpower. So don't claim you're being pidgeon holed into SJ because for starters a character works fine without KB resistance and secondly you have at least two powerpools which over protection from it.
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Some people see a lack of a heal as a weakness, yet not one single person would claim that Energy Armor or Super Reflexes is underperforming and they don't have heals or dull pain either.
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You don't read Arcanaville's post much do you? He has a LONG hypermath intensive post over on the Scrapper forum that shows that one of the greatest determinates to a defensive sets performance is a self-heal.
As for Elec Armor, it's going live without major changes. Enough people are willing to accept the disadvantages. That makes baby Geko happy. Whatever Statesman says about balance, the devs are more than willing to allow some sets to outperform others.
Electric Armor's 38 is very nice and that should at least allow Electric Brutes to take on their AVs and Elite Bosses in the 40s. Shrug. I'm almost willing to go through the frustration just so I can whine about it later. 
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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Some people see a lack of a heal as a weakness, yet not one single person would claim that Energy Armor or Super Reflexes is underperforming and they don't have heals or dull pain either.
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I believe the "having no heal is a weakness" camp have specifically stated a number of times in this thread that it's "having no heal in a +Res set is a weakness." Super Reflexes and Energy Aura are both +Def sets.
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Re: Grounded
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What features? It's what, just some worthless piddly resistance bonus? And then what, some minor added defense against (not any actual magnitude of protection from, mind) an effect that's far less prevalent and troublesome than Knockback? That'd like picking a bag of crap over a suitcase full of money.
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Oops, forum downtime made me miss this.
- Cap your Energy resist; it's good to be at the cap
- Bump to Negative resist, which the set is otherwise weaker against and is really a pretty popular damage type in PVM
- Endo drain resist; it is likely that having both endo drain resist powers will provide complete immunity, and it is certain that having only one will not - and if you're thinking endo drain is uncommon or not dangerous, I guess you simply skip Malta and Carnie missions in PVM and are willing to be weak in this area in PVP
- PASSIVE
All of these are useful and valuable in their current form.
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I believe the "having no heal is a weakness" camp have specifically stated a number of times in this thread that it's "having no heal in a +Res set is a weakness." Super Reflexes and Energy Aura are both +Def sets.
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As horrible a blasphemy as this may sound:
Maybe the set just won't be uber awesome at herding max aggro mobs and tanking like Stone or Invuln are. And maybe that's okay.
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Re: Grounded
Oops, forum downtime made me miss this.
- Cap your Energy resist; it's good to be at the cap
- Bump to Negative resist, which the set is otherwise weaker against and is really a pretty popular damage type in PVM
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An increase of, what, about 7.5% with slots? Passives generally get gimped with regards to such bonuses.
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- Endo drain resist; it is likely that having both endo drain resist powers will provide complete immunity, and it is certain that having only one will not - and if you're thinking endo drain is uncommon or not dangerous, I guess you simply skip Malta and Carnie missions in PVM and are willing to be weak in this area in PVP
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Most passive protections of this nature cannot provide immunity as they actually don't fully protect you (I believe I want to say "don't offer any Magnitude of protection") but rather just reduce the amount of time you'll be under the effect.
I did several Carnie missions with my Dark/Dark Corruptor without having any Endurance problems. Indeed, the only Endurance problems I've had involved certain Longbow agents and their ability to instantly drain your End bar in one shot (dunno if they can still do that or not).
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
LOL. I don't care what you think is tough or raw or smart. The funny thing is that you can mass debate all you want and you still aren't going to get anything along the lines of that stupid toggle or anything remotely resembling it...you are just going to get blisters son. So, you have any comments on bugs or graphical issues related to this pretty much set in stone secondary that will eventually be fixed?