To put it simply, power creep. IOs and other secondary sets' buffing.
Back in i7 Elec Armor was the only secondary (along with EA) that could provide unlimited endurance. And with Brute playstyle, that's a huge bonus. In a world of no IOs, there were no perma-dullpains, frankenslotting or -KB IOs. That made the extra recharge, endurance and res to psy quite nice.
But now? If you want unlimited endurance, roll /WP, or get enough +recovery bonuses. Perma DP achieved by IOs give a lot more survivability to the secondaries that have them, not to mention that those other sets benefit a lot more from having IOs.
The power creep which has caused other sets to go up, Elec can't keep up even with similar investment in slotting because Elec is just resistance + endurance fiddling, and those don't have good set bonuses that would help /Elec in the survivability area, while other sets can get most of /Elec's benefits.
Nothing's happened to /Elec, the others have just gone stronger and the game revolves around getting stronger. The other sets can do it but for /Elec it's limited.
i see the thread on how to fix /elec and while considering the suggestions i first need to understand...
WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO /ELEC?? (since i left)
i played my elec/elec brute to lvl50 a back in '06. i played him mostly solo and he was awesome. the lack of ST heavy hitters wasnt an issue at all because i only used the little punches to build fury. back then JL wasnt worth it (positioning) and CI didnt work but that didnt matter. i would run around with LF gathering at least a couple of good sized spawns and LR them to death. it didnt matter whether they did energy damage or not. having aid self + tough was all the extra i needed. i used pretty much standard slotting of my armors with a healthy dose of power sink to keep the go juice full...during my time away i fondly remembered my elec/elec was easily my favorite villain and one of the things that made me want to reactivate
anyway after i reactivate i read the forums and keep seeing people talking about fixing /elec? i think maybe its just people who want super-uberness. /elec is fine i said
so i take my brute ( same build) on a solo mish against a couple EBs and after much running, power surging and dying (huh?) i decide to just try a regular mish. nothing extreme and not even close to what i did before. maybe im just getting used to him again
it was arachnos. i zone in and see the first small spawn. one +1 minion and a +1 lute. there is another +1 spawn of 2 minions and 1 lute further down the hallway. BAH!! child's play. my AoEs wont even have to work hard. i turn on LF and grab the first couple foes as i run to the 2nd spawn to start work. the 1st spawn hasnt even caught up to the fight yet and im at less than half HP. i wound up running away with only a little sliver of health. i killed a couple of them but i was near death...i could have gone power surge again but i never needed that before for a group like that before
has there been a reduction or change to /elec since i left? did foes start doing more damage? this just isnt the /elec i remember.