Official Thread for Brutes: Electric Shields
By
13th_Stranger,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 24:02 in Developers' Corner
Personally, I don't see "team with AT X" as a valid solution to balance issues. As I have said earlier in this thread, when dealing with certain holes in this set, unless they are addressed will do one of several things:
Create a dependence upon certain inspirations. - No AT power set should be balanced around the steady use of particular inspirations.
Create a dependence upon teaming with selective AT powerset combinations. - No single AT powerset should be dependant upon teaming with a particular powerset combination in order to be effective.
Create a dependence upon certain power pool choices and thus, sacrifice more power choices and enhancements for said power choices within the powerset in comparison to other sets within the same AT.
Granted, every set should have some draw backs to it, that's only fair.
However, this set has too many. Granted, the bonuses this set has are nice. Looking at the set as a whole, it looks to be like a combination of a pure resist version of Energey Aura and Dark Armor.
The problem for me is the combination of the type of drawbacks with this design. I can understand not having defense. I can understand not having a heal. I can even undestand not having knock back or immobilization protection. I can even see why electric armor doesn't resist toxic damage (although I can also see how it would).
I can't understand why it has all of the above.
Also, why would the final power pretty much provide every kind of protection available within the set (except slow resist and speed which is in an auto power) and psionics.
Yet also provide immoblization and knock back protection which is not in the rest of the set at all. Personally, I am hoping that lack of immoblization / knock back protection being earlier in the set is something of an oversight that was missed.
I dont really mind the lack of KB or Imm. u need to get a travels power anyways, this only means u get one more power
but i really hope grounded becomes a toggle like rooted, w/ less regen to compensate for not having a slow effect ( being slowed would go against the set)
If you read the description on the character creation scree ( I didn't until the third time)
It expressly says no heal and no toxic resistance.
Which makes thsi set unique in 2 bad ways
1) The only resistance based set with no heal power
2) The only "armor" set without Toxic resistance or defense. Seriously EVERY SINGLE OTHER SET has some amount of toxic resistance.
That's bad form devs too many holes.
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If you read the description on the character creation scree ( I didn't until the third time)
It expressly says no heal and no toxic resistance.
Which makes thsi set unique in 2 bad ways
1) The only resistance based set with no heal power
2) The only "armor" set without Toxic resistance or defense. Seriously EVERY SINGLE OTHER SET has some amount of toxic resistance.
That's bad form devs too many holes.
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I don't mind the lack of toxic resistance so much, since the set has good psionic resistance instead. It's just the lack of a self heal plus the status effect holes that bother me. But I agree that there are too many holes.
I just got Static shield on my brute and was looking at what it protects against. It protects against both Endurance Drain and Endurance Recovery. Other then the Mu minions, I don't know of any other villian type in both CoH or CoV that drains/debuffs so much. Could not one of those be removed from Static Charge and replaced with Knockback/down protection? I would prefer to see drain removed, as both electric melee and lighting field do recover some endurance back, Conserve Power/Power Sink, and endurance drain/recovery plus endurance regen in the 38 click power.
Don't know if it has been mentioned before, only about half way through this thread and saw some mention of changing the Grounded power into something like Rooted. It would be easier to remove one of the Endurance Drain/Recovery and replace with either immoblize/knockback then redesign an entire power to act different.
I'm interested in keeping the -recovery resistance as is, it's impossible to get any other way and it looks to be a pretty good pvp combo.
I can tell you from /EA that end drain is a problem when you have power sink and that's when you dodge most of it.
Mu, Longbow, CoT air mage's, I've heard rumors of Malta in the high game all drain endurance.
I doubt lightning field recovers end (someone suggested it should earlier)
From the 13 levels of elec melee (brute), 18 lvls of elec manipulation (blaster), and elec blaster primary. The end recovery from single target elec attacks is laughable it's a % chance for a portion of the end used to be returned
Translation: You'll get 2-4 end points back every 5 attacks or so.
I love the end drain resistance (80% in static alone) I can get hover, or CJ/Acro to deal with KB/KD but nothing else in the game can protect me from all the end drain mobs. (if they aren't bad now wait until 40.)
I can't say this enough. There is no need to plea bargin better powers for this set, it is underpowered. We should be getting something to bring it up not trading away our unique qualities to cover a hole.
I'm still pushing for a +recovery (75-100%) to be added to grounded.
With the hole in it's damage resistance, it could stand to use some form of healing.
I still like the idea of having a healing power work similar to the way Invincibility does and have it be put on top of Lightning field. Call it an entropy field and have fun.
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I can't say this enough. There is no need to plea bargin better powers for this set, it is underpowered. We should be getting something to bring it up not trading away our unique qualities to cover a hole.
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*shrug* Higher resists than Fire armor or Dark Armor, more niche protection than even Dark Armor. Couple spiffy utility powers. I really don't see this set getting more utility. I would like to see some re-ordering of the set. A run speed boost at lvl 24? uh... why? Energy Drain at 35? Ugh. I'd really like to see the passives open up very early in the set... like tier 2 tier 3. Energy Drain at 24 or 28 at the latest. Why have the set differentiators so late? You're playing Dark or Fire armor with different FX till the mid 20s or so. Why?
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I doubt lightning field recovers end (someone suggested it should earlier)
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slot with an endurance modification. in fact, if you do this with any of their powers that can have this slotted, you won't burn through end as quickly.
my lvl 5 elec/elec brute did this. I rest a lot still, but not nearly as much as I did before adding these in. 
im happy to see ppl are advocating self heal
i wonder , and im probably being naive, if we could get feedback from the devs- "we are not changing the set" or "we are considering such and such ideas"
that way i can stop daydreaming of eletric shields changing into a great set insdead of a decent one
i may be wrong but if the eletric sets hit live as is there will be massive "[censored]"
I am not talking about massive amounts of endurance recovery from attacks, but its enough to keep my toggles going and I have only had my endurance drain to the point all my toggles dropped twice, but this is from 1-10. I have just started my early teens. I don't even care for the Malta sappers drains, it takes them like 3 blasts to get my 44 blaster down the point my toggles start shutting down and they are usually dead or incapacitated by then. Mu are a pain, but EVERY attack applies -recovery and that is over kill in my opinion. Simply giving them a quick burst type power for damage and a heavier attack with -recovery would be easier to deal with.
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I'm interested in keeping the -recovery resistance as is, it's impossible to get any other way and it looks to be a pretty good pvp combo.
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Endurance drain is cut in PvP, you only do 1/4 effectiveness against a player then you did in PvE. example 100 drain cut to 25. Electric blasters can't drain a villian melee fast enough while that melee beats on them. So I don't see any point for resistance to endurance drain for PvP, only thing I would fear is a Kinetic Def/Controller/Corr but i think they can only drain about 1/3 a bar per shot.
@Zen_Concern
That's a good idea. Would it be a +recovery per mob in melee or a straight heal this many points per pulse per mob? (or is there a difference?)
@Frosteburn
True it does have higher resists than the other brute sets, but it offers less damage mitigation. Heals (and dull pain) are a universal damage counter. I was thinking earlier about this; any set that can't outright resist a damage type (or dodge it) can heal back the damage taken. The sets with no heal (SR and EA) can dodge every damage type. DA resists everything electric does plus toxic, has a self heal, and crowd control. (but it has the most toys)
Electric unslotted resist (other sets)
S/L 26.5% (22.5%)
Nrg ~60% (DA 15% FA 22.5%)
-Nrg 20.6% (DA 30% FA 22.5%)
Fire 26.5% (DA 22.5% FA 60%)
Cold 26.5% (DA 22.5% FA 15%)
Toxic 0% (DA 15% FA 15%)
Psi 26.5% (DA 37.5% FA 0%)
Electric armor gets on average 2% more resistance than DA and 4% more than FA (this doesn't include the defense DA gets)
Yes Elec aura gets some cool tricks. The end drain resistance is great (DA gets some too) not too sure about the slow. But us that really worth having the only set that can't recovery from a damage type?
Now I realize outside of Vahz and high level arachnos toxic isn't that prevalent but just go look at a couple of the survival guides around (Arcanaville's is a good one) healing is quite a damage mitigater. Look at regen they got all heals because they have no resistances (except a tiny bit in resiliance).
Basically those mildly higher resistance numbers don't actually add up to make a more survivable brute.
*edit*
If you use 1 def=2 res Energy Aura gets an average resist of 31.7%...that's a level of base resists that a heal is no longer required.
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Unbiased finding: I haven't read any posts so I know this has probably already been mentioned.
I say drop conserve power since we already have power sink, and add an HP booster or Heal. Let's just call it "defibrilator" for now. 
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Yeah, I suggested that power and name about 30 pages ago :-)
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Electric unslotted resist (other sets)
S/L 26.5% (22.5%)
Nrg ~60% (DA 15% FA 22.5%)
-Nrg 20.6% (DA 30% FA 22.5%)
Fire 26.5% (DA 22.5% FA 60%)
Cold 26.5% (DA 22.5% FA 15%)
Toxic 0% (DA 15% FA 15%)
Psi 26.5% (DA 37.5% FA 0%)
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Your numbers are slightly off
Smashing/Lethal is 26.25%
Fire is 26.25%
Cold is 26.25%
Negative is 22.5%
Energy is 61.925%
Psionic is 26.25%
This includes Static Shield, Conductive Shield, Grounded and Charged Armor.
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@Zen_Concern
That's a good idea. Would it be a +recovery per mob in melee or a straight heal this many points per pulse per mob? (or is there a difference?)
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In regards to turning adding a health version of invinceability to lightning field, I had planned to have it work almost exactly like invinceability. Say a 70% increase while one mob is in range and an additional 5% for every additional mob in range up to the cap. Slotting health only increases the initial 70% increase. So you could slot this power to give you a healing rate identical to health from the powerpool.
Not bad considering that it would still be a damage Aura and your basic taunt aura. So, you get more agro, you heal slightly more, do slightly more damage and your team is argueably a little safer.
It in no way has any advantage over ANY of the click heals, especially in PvP.
Oh, and for those bringing up DA, remember that DA can heal from 1 HP to full with Dark Regeneration. It can do that every 30 seconds. If you don't think that is freaking awesome damage mitigation, you haven't tanked for 8 man teams set to invinceable and fought +3 mobs with a scrapper. I am not saying DA is overpowered, far from it since it has a really nice hole in knockback protection which conveniently hampers Dark Regeneration. I am just saying that the Electric Brute does have room to move up no matter what set you compare it to. If it didn't have any resist holes or had higher resist numbers, I would think that it would be just fine. However, with the current numbers it doesn't offer enough raw surviveability to make use of it's nifty utility powers.
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Now I realize outside of Vahz and high level arachnos toxic isn't that prevalent but just go look at a couple of the survival guides around (Arcanaville's is a good one) healing is quite a damage mitigater. Look at regen they got all heals because they have no resistances (except a tiny bit in resiliance).
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Well...there's also the ranged spit from DE devoured bosses, and a ranged dart type attack from the totem BP bosses. Not sure how often they show up in CoV, but those attacks hurt. On the plus side, they stop using them in melee range.
Culex's resistance guide
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Endurance drain is cut in PvP, you only do 1/4 effectiveness against a player then you did in PvE. example 100 drain cut to 25. Electric blasters can't drain a villian melee fast enough while that melee beats on them. So I don't see any point for resistance to endurance drain for PvP, only thing I would fear is a Kinetic Def/Controller/Corr but i think they can only drain about 1/3 a bar per shot.
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One of my best toggle droppers is end drain. I love using energy drain on hard to hit targets like /sr scrappers of anyone running ff. Down go their toggles, theyre shocked, i kill. Ice tanks have an autohit energy drain too. And I would hardly discount a 1/3 of your bar end drain.
I suggest that "Grounded" be replaced by some sort of click heal. Also, the heal should be moved much earlier in the powerset than Grounded is currently positioned.
Total Focus is a hold, right?
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Endurance drain is cut in PvP, you only do 1/4 effectiveness against a player then you did in PvE. example 100 drain cut to 25. Electric blasters can't drain a villian melee fast enough while that melee beats on them. So I don't see any point for resistance to endurance drain for PvP, only thing I would fear is a Kinetic Def/Controller/Corr but i think they can only drain about 1/3 a bar per shot.
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One of my best toggle droppers is end drain. I love using energy drain on hard to hit targets like /sr scrappers of anyone running ff. Down go their toggles, theyre shocked, i kill. Ice tanks have an autohit energy drain too. And I would hardly discount a 1/3 of your bar end drain.
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With the cut to endurance drain, the only time you can drop a toggle is if they are already sucking wind. It would be very difficult for both an elec blaster and /sr scrapper who are at full/hp, for the electric blaster to outright drain the scrapper before the scrapper kills the blaster unless your really luckly. It might be a viable tactic, but I don't find it to be very effiecient for a quick kill against a melee.
Actually, EA has holes in its mitigation, too. It has no psi defense that I know of, outside of energy cloak, and toxic defense is an issue with all typed defense sets. But it does have +hp (but not a heal) in overload.
That's exactly my point Energy Cloak is +def all (psi and toxic {which is covered by the positional portion of all } included). Yes it's just one power, but the set still get damage mitigation to those damage types.
It's not as great as the other shields in EA but it's still something (guessed to be 7.5%) and you have as much toxic damage mitigation as Invulnerable, Fire and DA
That's not much of a defensive hole.
*edit*
I'm done talking about Energy Aura in this thread I'm sorry I brought it up.
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I suggest that "Grounded" be replaced by some sort of click heal. Also, the heal should be moved much earlier in the powerset than Grounded is currently positioned.
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No way. Every set needs at least one absolutely worthless passive defense that no sane brute will ever take. Otherwise Invul will feel bad with two.
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That's exactly my point Energy Cloak is +def all (psi, and toxic included). Yes it's just one power, but the set still get damage mitigation to those damage types.
It's not as great as the other shields in EA but it's still something (guessed to be 7.5%) and you have as much toxic damage mitigation as Invulnerable, Fire and DA
That's not much of a defensive hole.
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Nope. No Toxic Defense for EA. Toxic Defense does not exist in game. EA has some positional defense that works against any attack no matter its type though.
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
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yes we are very clever
hehe "boing"
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BOXING since apparently you couldn't figure it out on your own. Thanks for disregarding the whole point of the post simply because I had a typo. Sorry for not being perfect while typing. The fact remains that with no shields running it is not possible to keep Fury built up without running out of endurance. So once you add in the shields even with endurance cost reductions you need something. The fact that conserve comes at 28 and power sink comes at 35 leaves the set needing stamina before that to even keep Fury built up and run the shields at the same time. Things like this should have been a factor when they introduced ED and gave the endurance discount.