Is electric/ really low damage?

The electric primary gets a lot of disrespect for being low damage since it only has two single target attacks. I have heard it a thousand times. So I have a question to ask. When the dasmage per attack. the cast time, and the recharge time are all taken into account, is it really bad, or how bad is it? The defender version was ghastly, but I am having good success with the blaster primary. It seems to be doing better than my archery/ at the same level. So can anybody report the true numbers on this old argument. And I am talking about primary only comparisons, because any primary can use the same secondary.

It's okay. Better now with the Blaster changes, but I think something needs to be done with Sparky. I have him on my Corruptor, and even with Scourge I find myself not bothering with him.

One thing about Elec is that it's very end efficient. With the drain-back effect, Elec is the Claws of the Blaster primaries.

In terms of both single-target damage and AOE damage, Electric/* is squarely in the middle of the road.

Electric gets a really bad rap--it's actually a pretty strong set because it has lots of survival tools other Blaster sets don't have, such as Short Circuit and Tesla Cage.

EndDrain is much maligned on these boards and in the game, mostly by people who don't know how to leverage it effectively. The real trick isn't in the drain--it's in the -Recovery effects Electric has. Both Short Circuit and Tesla Cage have guaranteed 100% -Recovery; make use of that. That means even a boss unheld by Tesla Cage will not be able to regenerate Endurance, period, as long as you continue to cycle the Cage on him or her. If you can manage to get the boss to 0, either through multiple uses of Short Circuit or by other means, he or she simply won't be able to get any Endurance back. There are a tiny handful of exceptions, but as an Electric/*, you'll learn who those are as you progress (mostly Carnies and Malta Mechs).

I have a level 50 electric/electric and I found him anything but bad. He could two shot same level minions and had enough aoe's to take a decent chunk out of any group we were fighting.

I started adding medium priced sets to him once he hit 37 and at no point did I feel weak for the entire journey to 50.

Plus I should add you can have great fun with an electic blasters nova called Thunderous Blast. Let a tank herd a couple of groups together, trigger your build ups then let loose with the blast and you do awsome damage. For those that are left pop a blue .. run in close and use consume to replenish your end. Then use your remaining blasts to clear up the survivors.

It heartily recommend this AT.

Its a low damage set, especially low on burst damage, because it lacks the third heavy hitter 10 second blast.
Voltaic Sentinel helps, but certainly doesnt add burst damage.

Both AoEs are DoT, as well, and one of them (Short Circuit)often ends up not getting full damage slotting in favour of END drain.

The secondary effect of END drain is set up very strangely, ie all packed into a single long animation PBAoE power, and requires very specific buidls to leverage fully, but despite that, the overall control and damage mitigation is very good for a blaster.

My first 50 was a Elec/Elec who played very much like a Dominator - hold or drain them first, then go to town with the damage.
I found this much more successful than playing as a classic Blaster and neutralising threats by immediate defeat - my first priority was always how to hold or drain everyone.

Elec/ blast has a couple of strikes against it- some of which are real and some of which are imaginary.

1) "No third, big hitting, single target attack." This is true. It used to combine with "The first two ST attacks are slow", which is no longer true. . . but there's still visible, calculable disadvantages to not having the third attack.
2) "Sparky sucks." Sort of true. If you are fighting a hard target, Sparky is actually pretty good... but otherwise you end up with something that hits five guys one time each. I don't know if Sparky actually goes out of his way to shoot unaggroed enemies or if it's just perception.
3) "Weak in AOE". You have two AOE's in the set. Both are "normal" AOE- not as strong as Frost Breath or Fire Breath, but in roughly the same range as fireball, Explosive Blast, Energy Torrent. Both of them are damage over time, which creates the illusion that they suck, and one of them is PBAOE (bad on aggro) and usually slotted for EndMod instead of damage. You don't really have to choose; if you're willing to Frankenslot a lot you can have damage, endmod, acc, AND recharge. However, you do have the problem of waiting quite a long time for both AOEs to do their work, and having to be in melee range of a lot of people for 2.67 seconds for one of them.

4) I've heard people say that Thunderous Blast sucks. As far as I know these people are unambiguously wrong. Ranged nuke, that you can fire and jump behind cover, is a win.

Upsides of Elec:
1) Sparky IS good against AV's and other hard targets.
2) You CAN, sometimes, get really good End Drain. This is one place where "Secondaries work well with any primary" is not true... End Drain gets special secret bonuses from /Elec and /Energy.
3) Ranged Nuke, as mentioned.
4) Real tier 2- seems like a minor thing, but Fire (for instance) almost has two tier 1's. You hit people with Lightning Bolt and they know they've been kissed. Likewise, it's got a real hold, a real snipe, and a real Build Up. (Disorient is almost as good... almost.)

Elec is different from other Blaster primaries. It may be a little worse at some things but, mostly, it's just DIFFERENT. If you are expecting a Fire Blaster with sparks, you're going to play an Elec Blaster really badly.

Yeah, what Fulmens said, more or less.

Regarding the AOE thing--I've rarely been on teams where the Ball Lightning's full DOT doesn't go off--it's usually completed by the time my follow-up (Static Discharge) strikes. Sometimes, if I'm the only Blaster on the team, all of Short Circuit's DOT gets off, too.

Also, "Frankenslotting" Short Circuit was pretty cheap, all things considered, at least when I did it, and mine's a pretty darn good tool in my arsenal. You just have to be smart.

Fulmens is right that if you are expecting a Fire Blaster with sparks, you're going to be very, very disappointed. The set requires forethought on your part as a player. It requires that you understand the tools you've been given and leverage them.

You trade off some of Fire's damage for significantly greater control and, if you're smart, safety. That gives you a fairly significant margin of error, both solo and on teams.

Now I'm tempted to try arc 40062, except based on my experience it would never actually start the mission.

Don't forget the ranged nuke is also weaker than the PBAoE ones. The lack of the T-3 heavy blast and a cone (your 2nd AoE, Short Circuit, isn't much of a damage power) really drag the overall damage down--I'd only place Elec over Son & Psi for overall damage (tho Psi kills Elec for pure ST damage). Of course, you get a lot of mitigation in the exchange, prolly 3rd overall behind Son & Ice.

I was just mulling this over this morning. I've got a lvl 50 elec/elec/elec, and I did the Khan TF last night. I was doing quite well through most of it (dispite having to re-learn how to play him on the fly, as it had been a while and he's so different). However, we all had to stop the TF because, while we were doing damage to Reichsman, it wasn't going fast enough and we were literally falling asleep. Now, I'm not fully enhanced, after last respec and transferring my monies to help build my farm toon has left me a bit broke, but I was wondering if I might not get a bit more bang for my buck slotting IO Sets for damage rather than recharge to help compensate for elec being so middle-of-the-road.

It seemed like a good idea to slot for recharge and make up for lost damage by firing more shots. This would certainly make my endurance draining more effective, but would I be better suited slotting sets that offer damage buffs over recovery buffs where it's applicable?

This seems like a pretty good place to put this question, as a possible solution to the feeling that elec/ is a little weak. (Don't get me wrong, though. Elec is still my fave by far.)

Fulmens: Get a team for it. Really, it's a fun mission, and I'm 7 rates short of 100.

dave_p: Actually, Short Circuit is a damage power. It's a fairly significant one, too, since it can hit up to 16 foes, as opposed to most other sets' limit of 10 on their second AOE. Its radius of 20' nearly guarantees that, unless you're completely incompetent, you'll hit those 16 foes if they're available to be hit. If you slot it appropriately, you can do both significant drain and significant damage with the power.

schattenbolt: I did the Khan TF on my 50 elec/elec/elec last night on a team with a Tank, a */FF Controller, a FF/* Defender, a Peacebringer, and a Kinetics/* Defender. We did just fine. I've got the badge to prove it.

Frankly, I think people seriously contort, and in most cases gimp, their builds trying to get Set IO bonuses. I work to add those bonuses on top of an already strong build, but if getting +3% Recharge is going to force me to drop critical powers or critical slotting, the minor Set IO bonuses can go. Of course, on CB, I'm Hami-O'd to the gills...

Well, we had two emp defenders, one elec/fire blaster, me (elec/elec), a tank, a BS/Regen scrapper, and a FF/Energy defender. Part of my fear was that we didn't have enough damage, and only had seven people.

I certainly would not gimp my build for the sake of set bonuses. I'm just thinking that if I can use those bonuses to make a solid build better, then I will.

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dave_p: Actually, Short Circuit is a damage power. It's a fairly significant one, too, since it can hit up to 16 foes, as opposed to most other sets' limit of 10 on their second AOE. Its radius of 20' nearly guarantees that, unless you're completely incompetent, you'll hit those 16 foes if they're available to be hit. If you slot it appropriately, you can do both significant drain and significant damage with the power.

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Ignoring Sonic & Psi, which have absolutely pathetic AoE damage, Short Circuit's DPA is about half of the next weakest AoE power (and far less than most). In that it does AoE damage, it should absolutely be slotted for damage, and yes, if you happen to leverage it to hit the cap, it'd start to even out w/the cones, but I'd still hesitate to call it a true AoE damage power. Considering it roots you for 3 sec in PBAoE range, if not for the end drain, I don't know how often I'd be firing it off, unless I were PBAoE oriented w/say Elec/Fire or Elec/MM.

Here are just a few examples as a way of compaisons:

Code:[/color]

Elec Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	End	DPE	DPA

Ball Lightning	63.81	1.07	16	15.184	4.20 	48.34

Short Circuit	56.3	3	20	15.6	3.61 	17.77 <<<



Energy Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	End	DPE	DPA

Energy Torrent	60.06	1.07	12	11.856	5.07 	45.50

Explosive Blast	56.31	1.67	16	15.184	3.71 	30.47



Fire Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	End	DPE	DPA

Fire Ball	78.782	1	16	15.184	5.19 	66.31

Rain of Fire	126.8	2.03	60	26	4.88 	56.51

Fire Breath	109.8	2.67	16	15.184	7.23 	37.81



Ice Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	End	DPE	DPA

Frost Breath	87.58	2.67	16	15.184	5.77 	30.16

Ice Storm	117	2.03	60	15.6	7.50 	52.14

dave_p:

Those numbers are very, very misleading. They're also incorrect--your division's wrong. I'm not sure why, but it is. For example, Ball Lightning's single-target DPA should be 59.64 (63.81 Damage / 1.07 Activation Time). There are division errors all the way through your data--you'll want to recheck them all.

For all AOEs, you need to multiply DPA (and DPS, which you ignored) over the number of potential targets.

If you don't do that, you come up with extraordinarily skewed data. The damage an AOE does to any single target is irrelevant--if you care about that, you might as well simply be using single-target attacks, because no AOE is going to match them in DPA or DPS.

I'll post the correct numbers, and also post them factored for total DPA and DPS, as soon as I've run them all (again--I did this years ago, but lost the sheet of paper they were written on). I can tell you now, however, that overall, Electric's going to beat out Energy and Ice for overall AOE damage.

Another plus for Electric that people seem to forget is that it does pure Energy damage, unlike (ironically) Energy and Sonic, which do a mix of Smashing and Energy. Since Energy damage is not too often resisted, that does help Electric's damage a bit.

That being said, I've had an Electric/Electric Blaster stuck in the mid-30's for a while now. I've respecced him several times, but I've never been quite happy with how he plays.

Part of the problem is that I mostly solo, which makes Electric's lack of a third good single-target attack particularly noticeable.

It makes me wish that at least one of the epic power pools had a heavy-hitting single target attack as the first power for those sets like Electric and Assault Rifle which are missing the third ST attack in their primary.

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dave_p:

Those numbers are very, very misleading. They're also incorrect--your division's wrong. I'm not sure why, but it is. For example, Ball Lightning's single-target DPA should be 59.64 (63.81 Damage / 1.07 Activation Time). There are division errors all the way through your data--you'll want to recheck them all.

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No, they're exactly as accurate as City of Data is and account for Arcanatime. Straight divisions are what's misleading. And I already said that if you manage to hit the AoE cap for SS, you catch up to the cone attacks or ranged AoEs, but again, if your starting point is 1/2 of those other attacks, you're still not catching all the way up, even if you happen to hit all 16 mobs, which, lets face it, rarely happens.

Elec might beat out Ice becaues Ice Storm recharges so slowly, but then IC has approx 3x the DPA or SS (yeah, yeah, it's a rain). Blizzard also far outdamages TB too--I'd call those two a wash. Elec absolutely does not beat out En (hardly an AoE powerhouse itself) for any practical purposes. Ball Lightning does a hair more damage than ET, but ET recharges faster, and EB outdamages & outrecharges SS. Yes, you could argue Elec does decent AoE damage (more than En or Ice) given absolutely perfect conditions, but for most practical situations, it's below average.

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dave_p:

Those numbers are very, very misleading. They're also incorrect--your division's wrong. I'm not sure why, but it is. For example, Ball Lightning's single-target DPA should be 59.64 (63.81 Damage / 1.07 Activation Time). There are division errors all the way through your data--you'll want to recheck them all.

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No, they're exactly as accurate as City of Data is and account for Arcanatime. Straight divisions are what's misleading. And I already said that if you manage to hit the AoE cap for SS, you catch up to the cone attacks or ranged AoEs, but again, if your starting point is 1/2 of those other attacks, you're still not catching all the way up, even if you happen to hit all 16 mobs, which, lets face it, rarely happens.

Elec might beat out Ice becaues Ice Storm recharges so slowly, but then IC has approx 3x the DPA or SS (yeah, yeah, it's a rain). Blizzard also far outdamages TB too--I'd call those two a wash. Elec absolutely does not beat out En (hardly an AoE powerhouse itself) for any practical purposes. Ball Lightning does a hair more damage than ET, but ET recharges faster, and EB outdamages & outrecharges SS. Yes, you could argue Elec does decent AoE damage (more than En or Ice) given absolutely perfect conditions, but for most practical situations, it's below average.

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Oh, I see. We're dealing with "fuzzy math" here. If straight division is supposedly "misleading", then exactly how are you making the division?

Or is that just an elaborate way of saying "I can throw any numbers out there I want, even if they're completely and utterly mathematically incorrect, but you have to believe me because I'm invoking Arcanaville's name in the middle"? Because that's what it looks like.

Also, you're assuming "SS" (Short Circuit? Shouldn't that be "SC") "rarely" hits all 16 mobs. In my five+ years of playing an Electric Blaster, on any full team, it's not a rarity at all--it's a certainty that it's going to hit all 16 targets.

Elec's okay. It's no damage juggernaut like fire, but it has a very solid utility power in Tesla Cage. And I don't think anyone argues elec's at the bottom of the totem pole anymore, now that the ******* son of psi blast has been dumped on our AT.

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dave_p:

Those numbers are very, very misleading. They're also incorrect--your division's wrong. I'm not sure why, but it is. For example, Ball Lightning's single-target DPA should be 59.64 (63.81 Damage / 1.07 Activation Time). There are division errors all the way through your data--you'll want to recheck them all.

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No, they're exactly as accurate as City of Data is and account for Arcanatime. Straight divisions are what's misleading. And I already said that if you manage to hit the AoE cap for SS, you catch up to the cone attacks or ranged AoEs, but again, if your starting point is 1/2 of those other attacks, you're still not catching all the way up, even if you happen to hit all 16 mobs, which, lets face it, rarely happens.

Elec might beat out Ice becaues Ice Storm recharges so slowly, but then IC has approx 3x the DPA or SS (yeah, yeah, it's a rain). Blizzard also far outdamages TB too--I'd call those two a wash. Elec absolutely does not beat out En (hardly an AoE powerhouse itself) for any practical purposes. Ball Lightning does a hair more damage than ET, but ET recharges faster, and EB outdamages & outrecharges SS. Yes, you could argue Elec does decent AoE damage (more than En or Ice) given absolutely perfect conditions, but for most practical situations, it's below average.

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One thing to note here:

Blizzard has such high numbers for damage because half of its damage is typed as Lethal, which is heavily resisted in the game from the 30's on.

TB is weaker numerically because its a Targeted AoE attack (i.e., mobs can't run out of the nukes AoE), but only 20-25% of its damage is Smashing (also heavily resisted). The remainder is all Energy damage (which, while somewhat more commonly resisted in the later game, is still far less-resisted by most mob types than Lethal).

As a lvl 50 E3 Blaster, I can easily say that Elec/ is not a Blaster primary that will mow mobs down all that quickly unless paired with a secondary that adds significant damage capability (Fire/MM/Elec/nrg). However, it does have good mitigation, and despite the maligning of Sparky by many forum-goers, I have I have to say that I find it very helpful in helping take out hard targets more easily. Bosses and higher go down much faster with Sparky around (and not just because of his rather large Defiance buff), and while Sparky sometimes attacks minions that you're attacking, it has been helpful in taking out runners with a sliver of health left as well.

So yeah, not huge on the damage scale based on raw numbers, but unless you take, say, /Ice as your secondary, you're not really going to be hurting for overall damage output. You won't mow stuff down like a Arch/MM will, but you'll take spawns out with relative ease and safety.

This is the correct data, with the correct division:

Code:[/color]

Elec Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	End	DPE	DPA

Ball Lightning	63.81	1.07	16	15.184	4.20 	59.64

Short Circuit	56.3	3	20	15.6	3.61 	18.77 



Energy Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	End	DPE	DPA

Energy Torrent	60.06	1.07	12	11.856	5.07 	56.13

Explosive Blast	56.31	1.67	16	15.184	3.71 	33.72



Fire Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	End	DPE	DPA

Fire Ball	78.782	1	16	15.184	5.19 	78.782

Rain of Fire	126.8	2.03	60	26	4.88 	62.46

Fire Breath	109.8	2.67	16	15.184	7.23 	41.12



Ice Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	End	DPE	DPA

Frost Breath	87.58	2.67	16	15.184	5.77 	32.80

Ice Storm	117	2.03	60	15.6	7.50 	57.64

Elec Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	DPA	MaxTarg	DPA-Total	DPS	DPS-Total

Ball Lightning	63.81	1.07	16	59.64	16	954.24		3.74	59.84	

Short Circuit	56.3	3	20	18.77 	16	300.32		2.45	39.2



Energy Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	DPA	MaxTarg	DPA-Total	DPS	DPS-Total

Energy Torrent	60.06	1.07	12	56.13	10	561.3		4.60	46.0

Explosive Blast	56.31	1.67	16	33.72	16	539.52		3.19	51.04



Ice Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	DPA	MaxTarg	DPA-Total	DPS	DPS-Total

Frost Breath	87.58	2.67	16	32.80	10	328		4.69	46.9

Ice Storm	117	2.03	60	57.64	16	922.24		1.89	30.24

Electric Blast:	954.24 (Ball Lightning Total DPA) + 300.32 (Short Circuit Total DPA)	= 1254.56 Total AOE DPA

Energy Blast: 	561.3 (Energy Torrent Total DPA) + 539.52 (Explosive Blast Total DPA)	= 1100.82 Total AOE DPA

Ice Blast: 	328 (Frost Breath Total DPA) + 922.24 (Ice Storm Total DPA)		= 1250.24 Total AOE DPA

Electric Blast:	59.84 (Ball Lightning Total DPS) + 39.2 (Short Circuit Total DPS)	= 99.04 Total AOE DPS

Energy Blast: 	46.0 (Energy Torrent Total DPS) + 51.04 (Explosive Blast Total DPS)	= 97.04 Total AOE DPS

Ice Blast: 	46.9 (Frost Breath Total DPS) + 30.24 (Ice Storm Total DPS)		= 77.14 Total AOE DPS

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dave_p:

Those numbers are very, very misleading. They're also incorrect--your division's wrong. I'm not sure why, but it is. For example, Ball Lightning's single-target DPA should be 59.64 (63.81 Damage / 1.07 Activation Time). There are division errors all the way through your data--you'll want to recheck them all.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, they're exactly as accurate as City of Data is and account for Arcanatime. Straight divisions are what's misleading. And I already said that if you manage to hit the AoE cap for SS, you catch up to the cone attacks or ranged AoEs, but again, if your starting point is 1/2 of those other attacks, you're still not catching all the way up, even if you happen to hit all 16 mobs, which, lets face it, rarely happens.

Elec might beat out Ice becaues Ice Storm recharges so slowly, but then IC has approx 3x the DPA or SS (yeah, yeah, it's a rain). Blizzard also far outdamages TB too--I'd call those two a wash. Elec absolutely does not beat out En (hardly an AoE powerhouse itself) for any practical purposes. Ball Lightning does a hair more damage than ET, but ET recharges faster, and EB outdamages & outrecharges SS. Yes, you could argue Elec does decent AoE damage (more than En or Ice) given absolutely perfect conditions, but for most practical situations, it's below average.

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Oh, I see. We're dealing with "fuzzy math" here. If straight division is supposedly "misleading", then exactly how are you making the division?

Or is that just an elaborate way of saying "I can throw any numbers out there I want, even if they're completely and utterly mathematically incorrect, but you have to believe me because I'm invoking Arcanaville's name in the middle"? Because that's what it looks like.

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When it comes to actual in-game practices, "Arcanatime" (so named because Arcanaville did extensive testing to uncover the existence of and precise length of "server ticks") is much more accurate than the published cast times of powers.

This is because although an animation might last 1.07 seconds, you can't actually begin a new power animation until the server tick in which your animation finishes expires, and another server tick elapses, during which you are flagged "good to go" for your next power animation.

Server ticks are 0.132 seconds each. So, to calculate the "Arcanatime" for a given power, you divide the published activation time by 0.132sec...

1.07sec / 0.132sec = 8.106

..and then round up to the next integer, because the server tick has to expire before anything else can happen...

8.106 rounded up = 9 ticks

...and then add 1 tick, because the server and client take 1 tick to "sync up" and flag you as good to go for your next power animation...

9 + 1 = 10 ticks

...so the actual, in-practice, in-game cast time of a power with a 1.07sec animation is

10 ticks * 0.132sec = 1.32sec.

That's how long the power will actually take to animate in-game.

These numbers aren't just "fuzzy math" or "whatever numbers we want" which you must believe because they contain a reference to Arcanaville.

Believe them or not according to your own skepticism, but those who calculate attack chains to account for Arcanatime will produce much more accurate estimates than those who don't.

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This is the correct data, with the correct division:

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No, it's not. If you do not know what Arcanatime is, I'd suggest doing a bit of research (should be easy enough) before engaging in this level of number-crunching. No offense, but I'm not going to waste a lot of time looking over numbers that I can tell from the first line are incorrect.

Edit: Oops, I see Chaos_String has kindly given an explanation. If you think that's "fuzzy math", there's nothing more for me to say in this debate.

Using your own numbers:

Code:[/color]

Elec Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	DPA	MaxTarg	DPA-Total

Ball Lightning	63.81	1.07	16	48.34	16	773.44		

Short Circuit	56.3	3	20	17.77	16	284.32	<<<<



Energy Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	DPA	MaxTarg	DPA-Total

Energy Torrent	60.06	1.07	12	45.50	10	455

Explosive Blast	56.31	1.67	16	30.47	16	487.52



Ice Blast	Dam	Act	Rech	DPA	MaxTarg	DPA-Total

Frost Breath	87.58	2.67	16	30.16	10	301.6	<<<<

Ice Storm	117	2.03	60	52.14	16	834.24

Electric Blast:	773.44 (Ball Lightning Total DPA) + 284.32 (Short Circuit Total DPA)	= 1057.76 Total AOE DPA

Energy Blast:	455 (Energy Torrent Total DPA) + 487.52 (Explosive Blast Total DPA)	= 942.52 Total AOE DPA

Ice Blast:	301.6 (Frost Breath Total DPA) + 834.24 (Ice Storm Total DPA)		= 1135.84 Total AOE DPA

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One of the advantages Elec Blast gets is that the AoE powers show up very early. My Elec/MM has three AoE powers available for Positron. Add in that energy and psi are both quite effective against clockwork.

Elec's only real shortcoming is the lack of a 40' single target tier3. Personally, I would make Zapp be that t3 and keep Sparky unchanged.

I'd make telsa cage more akin to cosmic burst