The Voltic Beast- A guide to Electric Armor for Brutes

Vince The Insane's Guide to Electric Armor for Brutes

Introduction

I wish I could recall the name of the thread this phrase was posted in, so I could give proper credit to the person who said it, as it's the most accurate description of Electric Armor I've ever heard.

"Electric Armor is like a wild but majestic mustang. It will seem unruly and unreliable at first, but with time and training it will be a beast of magnificent power and grace."

Welcome to my guide for Electric Armor. Since there's a distinct lack of post-I12 information on this bad boy, I've decided to throw yet another guide together for your reading pleasure. Electric Armor is indeed a wild beast in that it has a multitude of great powers that are all honestly worth taking. Great resists, excellent status protection, fantastic utility powers, and a Tier 9 that will do more than just provide unstoppability.

In order to understand Electric Armor, I'll first need to describe each power in detail, and then tie them all together. So before I get ahead of myself, let's check out what this set has in store for us.



Charged Armor
Toggle: Self +Res(Smash, Lethal, Energy)

Charged Armor is your everyday Smashing/Lethal Resistance shield. But wait, it has Energy Resistance! Thus is the benefit of an elementally-themed armor. At a base of 26.25% resist, it's a pretty hefty shield out of the box! Enhanced to the ED cap, this shield gives a beefy 41.82% resistance (at least for me it did) to Smashing/Lethal/Energy. Whopping, I say! When you activate this power, you fire sparks from your body as long as the toggle is active.

Slotting: 2 End, 2 ResBuff
IO Slotting: Any 40+ Resistance IO set will do. Pick to your taste!

Rating: *****

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Lightning Field
Toggle: PBAoE Minor DoT(Energy), Foe -End

Lightning Field is the Damage Aura of Electric Armor. It's a PBAoE toggle that chips away at the health of any enemies surrounding you, and also drains endurance! It even functions as a taunt aura, should you have the proper amount of accuracy. The only downside is the endurance cost, a meaty 1.04 End/sec.

TIP: Used in conjunction with Power Sink, this handy toggle will keep endurance-drained enemies the way they are-- endurance drained.

Slotting: 1 or 2 EndRdx, 1 Acc, 1 Dam (three to four slots to your flavor)
IO Slotting: A nice PBAoE set such as Obliteration.

Rating: ****

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Conductive Shield
Toggle: Self +Res(Fire, Cold, Energy, Negative)

Conductive Shield is your standard Fire/Cold shield, with the added bonus of having even more Energy resistance and some fair Negative Energy resistance. Another 26.25% resistance is offered up by Conductive Shield for Fire, Cold and Energy. However, Negative Energy is only resisted with 15% base. Not bad, but not great. The upside to this is, if you enhance to the ED cap you have another 41.82% resistance. If you're keeping track, this means you're at 83.64% resistance to Energy damage, just under 7% from the Brute resist cap! When you activate this power, bolts of lighting will constantly shoot up your body starting from your feet as long as the power is active. Nifty, huh?

Slotting: 2 End, 2 ResBuff
IO Slotting: Any 40+ Resistance IO set will do. Pick to your taste!

Rating: *****

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Static Shield
Toggle: Self +Res(Psionics, Disorient, Hold, Sleep, Teleport, End Drain, -Recovery)

Holy crap! Did you read that? Resistance to Psionics, the usual status effects, AND Teleport/End Drain/-Recovery? Look at this thing! It's like a circus of awesome! Static Shield provides you with your much-needed status protection. Not only that, it also provides Psionic resistance, another 26.25%. Added benefits include not being able to be teleported, a rather useful thing to have when you encounter baddies with such a power, or go to PvP! Sappers will crap themselves as their guns harmlessly zap you with the resistance to End Drain and Recovery! Is there nothing this power doesn't do? Knockback and immobilize. But there's hope yet!

Slotting: 2 End, 2 ResBuff
IO Slotting: Any 40+ Resistance IO set will do. Pick to your taste!

Rating: *****

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Grounded
Auto: Self +Res(Energy, Negative, Immobilize, Knockback, End Drain)

Man, those Malta are gonna be angry. Grounded is a great auto power. Not only is it auto and never costs you a thing, it also closes the gap in your already epic defenses: knockback and immobilize. On top of that, it provides even MORE resistance to Energy, Negative Energy, and Endurance Drain. With this power, you'll cap your Energy resistance at 90%. Grounded, out of the box, provides Mag 15.578 KB protection, 9.375% Energy Resistance, Mag 6 Immobilize protection, 7.5% Negative Energy Resistance, and 70% Endurance Drain resistance. Holy freaking Moses! The only caveat is you HAVE to be on the ground for it to work, so don't go too high!

TIP: Grounded is why I recommend the Speed pool for all Electric Armor users. Stay on the ground!

Slotting: 2 Res
IO Slotting: If you're building for defense, here's a great place to drop the 3% global defense unique.

Rating: ****

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Lightning Reflexes
Auto: Self +Res(-Recharge, -SPD), +Recharge, +SPD

This armor set doesn't have enough awesome! Not enough resistance! Throw more at it, I say! Lightning Reflexes provides you with a Recharge and Run Speed/Fly Speed boost. 20% recharge to be exact, and included in this is resistance to recharge and speed slow. It's like Swift with a free Recharge bonus and mitigation to slow effects!

TIP: With this, I never need Sprint and Super Speed doesn't need more than one slot. Sweet!

Slotting: 2 Run Speeds. Run Forrest, r-- wow that's fast.

Rating: *****

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Energize
Self Endurance Discount, Heal, +Regen

Until recently, this power was just Conserve Power. Yahoo, less endurance! It was then changed to the ridiculously nifty Energize, a self-heal AND endurance discount! Energize will give you a hefty 374 point heal at level 50, unenhanced. I've seen mine heal for 600+ slotted well. The added benefit of healing is, after you use it you have 30 seconds of 60% endurance discount, so go wild killing whatever's trying to kill you.

UPDATE: Forgot to post this! Energize also has a very respectable +Regeneration component built in to it. With Brute HP numbers, you'll find yourself rapidly healing off incoming damage.

Slotting: 2 Heal, 2 Rech
IO Slotting: A really good healing IO set. Put as much recharge as you can!

Rating: *****

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Power Sink
PBAoE, Foe -End, -Recovery, Self +End

Crap, all these toggles have me running out of endurance like a suicidal Sapper. But wait, what's this? Power Sink! Power Sink is AMAZING. You gain endurance for every foe around you (up to 10), at 25 endurance per enemy. That's right, 4 hits and you're done. It also saps the endurance of those around you, and that bit's enhanceable! Still don't think this power is awesome? It's freaking autohit. Oh yeah, baby.

TIP: Used with Lightning Field, you can keep an entire spawn of baddies at zero endurance. Slot for recharge!

Slotting: 2 Recharge, 2 EndMod
IO Slotting: Performance Shifter, as much EndMod and Recharge as you can.

Rating: *****

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Power Surge
Self +Res(All DMG but Psionics, Disorient, Sleep, Hold, Immobilize, Repel, Knockback, End Drain, -Recovery, Teleport), +Recovery, +Special(EMP Pulse)

Wow. Just look at that list of bonuses. Power Surge is your Tier 9 Armor, the king of all Electric Armor powers. Activate this baby and you'll turn into a giant grinning (yes, grinning!) golem of lightning, untouchable by the forces of those around you. Out of the box this power gives 52.5% resistance to all but Energy/Negative Energy, 60% resistance to Energy, and 45% resistance to Negative Energy. These numbers are all enhanceable. For the sake of ease, let me just say that nothing is going to lay a status effect on you while this power is active. You even get a significant boost to your recovery! Now the caveat to such an awesome Tier 9 is this: When this thing wears off, you're down to 1 health and 0 endurance. You're cannon fodder. But hang on, there's still hope! As this thing nukes you to 1 health, it fires off a PBAoE hold called EM Pulse. This thing will lock everything it hits into a Mag 3 Hold for 22.35 seconds. It also severely debuffs regeneration! If you're fighting anything robotic, it'll cause High damage as well!

Oh, and remember, the coolest part about this power:
"HRAAAAAAAAH!" FZOOOWWWWN!

TIP: Slot this thing for a little bit of accuracy so EM Pulse lands. Keep an eye on the icon in your buff list so you know when it's time to run like hell and find shelter!

Slotting: 2 Rech, 2 ResBuff, 2 Accuracy
IO Slotting: Aegis, with room for one or two Common Accuracy IO's. If you're feeling fun, slot in two Performance Shifters.

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The most important thing I can tell you about this Armor set is that it works best when every toggle/auto power is active. Fully loaded and fully active this set is a dynamo of resistance, with a powerful heal and an even more powerful endurance tool at your disposal. When things get hairy and you don't want to fall in battle, hit Power Surge and become a force of nature for 3 minutes.

The guide is now open to suggestions and corrections! Hit me!

very nice. thank you for putting this together.

quick question regarding grounded. wouldn't taking combat jumping, slotted with a -KB proc, give you enough protection if something hit you while you were jumping around? definitely planning on taking grounded but that way you wouldn't have to be quite as worried about staying on the ground at all times in combat

thanks again

It's nice to know that we have an up to date Electric Armor guide now!

I thought I would throw out my semi-expensive build to you guys... Don't know why... It might help someone!

Slight edit... i posted the wrong build before! HERE is the correct one!

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Updated the guide; forgot to mention Lightning Reflexes' Slow/Recharge resist and Energize's +Regen component.

A nice alternative to consider is slotting IO slots for +regen. It's a bit easier to acquire than trying to get a respectable amount of defense starting from zero. With a brute's high hp count, and the set's good resists, the combined regeneration from Energize, Health, and IO set bonuses can go a long way to keeping you up in a fight while costing much less to acquire than a lot of defense.

Your necropost got it to my attention on one of my infrequent forum dives. Edit: Well it wasn't so buried that I couldn't necropost it a second time anyway.

For my 50 SS/Electric brute, I preferred 6x Crushing impacts in each melee damage power for the +2.5% psi res to build on the psi res from static shield.

I went ahead and got boxing and tough (but not weave). To conserve powers, I declined to take Jab and slotted out boxing to replace it. I barely use it, but the bonuses are still nice.

The three electric shields + Tough are frankenslotted with 3x Titanium coating (R/E, R/E/R, R) and 2x Impervium Armor (R/E and 3% Psi Res). I drop a 5th Imp Arm Psi Res along with the Aegis Psi Res in Grounded. The net +28% psi res was worth the slight loss of res in the other categories.

When I was new to sets, I use Aegis (R/E and R) with the Titanium Coatings and only got like +3% more than I do with this. That's ED for you. Changing to Impervium Armor was kind of like pulling 2-3% off each damage type and stacking it all in Psi.

I have a build that has these fantastic resists and softcap to Sm/Le, and good defense to pretty much, not quite as much Rech...but decent...Elec really is a great set.