Elec?

I just looked through the guides section and saw not a single mention of Electric Blast.

I looked through the first page and a half and saw a similar lack of mention of Electric Blast.

I've recently begun working on an Elec/Kin Corruptor, and I've seen comments that Electric Blast on blasters is fairly gimped, so I find myself wondering if there's some disadvantage to Electric Blast, on Corruptors or in general? What strengths and weaknesses does it have?

And if it plays at or above average Corruptor primaries, why no guide?

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Ice/Ice Blaster. Dedication to concept is an ugly thing.
Claws/WP Brute. Sex without the angst.
Every CoX character lies somewhere on this spectrum.

Very few people write guides these days. Period. The fact that guides have been written for it in the defender and blaster forums makes the need for a corr version all the less likely needed.

The strength of Elec is that it does a number of things. The problem is, it doesn't do any of them well enough to stand out. It's has two ST attacks if you skip the pet, so it's ST damage can be lacking. I didn't find the pet all that useful, FWIW. It has two AoEs, but one generally gets slotted for at least some end mod so you aren't getting two full AoEs out of it as well.

It has controls, but it's biggest selling point is end drain and that it is hit-or-miss at best. SC takes a full 3 seconds to animate. It needs to be applied twice before it actually end drains on an AoE level unless you have a power to combo with it like Power Boost. In other words, by the time end drain takes over, a decent part of the battle has happened. This say nothing of the fact that if there is a controller, or dom on the team they have already AoE mezzed the mob and thus the additional end drain is adding marginal mitigation, or how ever so small of a sliver a mob needs and they will still attack. In short, it's a blast set that was given mitigation tools, but they can't be too good, or they step on the toes of controllers and doms, but the blasts can't be that good either due to the mitigation the set has.

Now, there are times when it does stand out and lord knows I have dropped jaws on my Kin/elec. It's tough to die when stuff can't attack you and suddenly the little defender is the one standing and not the other teammates. When end drain works, it really is effective. On the LGTF, Famine, who I believe is the end draining one, is painfully easy to end drain and that's a huge boon for a team. Some AVs can be end drained. Some, despite my best efforts, simply can not be, or at least at a rate that would make a difference. If their end bar goes down as fast as their health bar, then end drain won't really matter.

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Hmm. Well, it's an interesting perspective, but that leaves me with the next question, which is what should I be looking to accomplish with an Elec/Kin Corruptor?

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Ice/Ice Blaster. Dedication to concept is an ugly thing.
Claws/WP Brute. Sex without the angst.
Every CoX character lies somewhere on this spectrum.

Kinetics is arguably the best secondary to pair with Elec IMO. The damage on Elec isn't that great, but Fulcrum Shift helps that a lot. Fulcrum Shift lets you slot Short Circuit primarily as a sapping power but still get good damage out of it, giving you two AoEs. Transference provides a lot of sapping muscle and Elec provides the -rec and a little more -end to keep them empty.

As for what you should be looking to accomplish with an Elec/Kin Corr, what do you mean? Build wise? Generally?

Build wise I'd aim for the same stuff I recommend for almost any Corr build. Softcap s/l defense with Scorpion Shield (s/l defense is of particular benefit for Kinetics since they spend a lot of time in melee) and as much recharge as you can get. Siphon Speed will keep you zipping around so you can nip into melee, hit FS and SC then nip back out again as well as bring your AoEs and important Kin powers back up faster. Fulcrum Shift works wonders for Elecs damage.

As for generally, uh, normal Kin stuff I guess. I've got a Kinetics guide in my sig which you may find helpful. Not Elec/Kin but the same principles are applicable, especially since Rad (the primary of my Kin) also has a PBAoE.

Elec/Kin is a solid combo, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I wouldn't say Elec is gimped damage wise. It doesn't do as much damage as Fire, but nothing does. I personally don't like not having a t3 blast, but that may not be an issue for you. Kinetics goes a long way to shoring up the weaknesses of Elec and augmenting its strengths.

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