Elec/Energy...or Elec/Elec?

Okay, so after trying and trying to get a Dom off the ground, I think I finally have it nailed down to an Electric Control/Energy Assault Dominator. Trouble is, I cannot seem to shake this nagging feeling that maybe I should have rolled Elec/Elec. Any experience Doms have any input as to one over the other?

Thank you!

I've not seen too many good things said about /Energy at all. I can say that every /Energy Dom I've rolled has been deleted before 20.

As for /Elec, my main is Elec/Elec/Mu and he is just a murder machine. I love playing him to the point where he's overthrown my previous main of 6+ years (my Elec/Elec Blaster). The debate between /Energy and /Elec for A a Dom is very similar to the debate between /Energy and /Elec for a Blaster: it basically comes down to constant small End Drain from /Elec vs. quick one-shot End Drain with Power Boost.

A lot of people disparage End Drain as a mitigation tool, but as the proud owner of 6 Elec/Elec toons, I've had a great deal of experience with End Drain. It's not as effective as a Hold or Stun but it's on par with a Fear or Slow which helps. This is especially true when you consider that Conductive Aura can drain most enemies in a few seconds and it's a no end cost toggle (that won't drop when you get mezzed if you have Domination up) and will drain WHILE you're attacking. The question than becomes: do you want the level of mitigation provided by End Drain to be dictated by how fast Power Boost recharges or by how quickly you can pound your opponent's face in with your Elec Assault powers. For me the answer is obvious, but your mileage may vary.

tl; dr version: I'm bored, staying with my parents waiting for Hurricane Irene to hit. Take /Elec and feel free to post any other questions cause it looks to be a potentially boring couple of days.

From what I understand, most of the problems with Energy Assault got cleared up when it's damage modifiers were changed. And yes, the Power Boost vs Build Up quandary is something I have been mulling over, i.e. do I want more damage or more powerful secondary effects at the ready. One reason Energy Assault also enticed me was that many of it's powers have Disorient as a secondary effect...and Disorients are effected by Domination.

However, I find Electric Assault to be a bit more Balanced between Range and Melee, and has AoE that is not just mediocre at best. Plus, I am a sucker for themed characters (though since I will be putting her through Praetoria and making her a hero, I may end up giving her Primal Forces Mastery instead of Mu Mastery, but that is thinking way ahead).

So it looks like I will be re-rolling her as an Elec/Elec Dom. So do you have any advice to give on the lower levels, leveling, powers that are must haves, powers that are a waste, etc?

Thank you!

My one big regret from leveling up my Elec/Elec Dom was putting off Conductive Aura until the early 20s. He came up before inherent fitness and at that time I subscribed to the philosophy that the all toggle powers needed to be held off till 20 when I got Stamina. After I took it, I checked the end cost and realized it was 0. /facepalm

Anyway, /Elec oddly benefits from its sole decent AoE power (Static Discharge) coming so late (Thunderstrike is garbage IMHO. More on that later.). Because it comes so late you can focus on the first 5 powers of /Elec (two ST melee, two ST ranged, and Build Up). I would highly recommend taking an slotting them all as early as possible. From your primary, your bread and butter powers in the early levels are Tesla Cage, Jolting Chain, Conductive Aura, and Static Field. If you take the 9 powers I just talked about (plus travel and pool powers as needed) you can develop an awesome leveling strategy by the time you hit 20 that you will use until you hit 50.

Here's my strategy:

1) Find a mob.

2) Throw Jolting Chain.

3) While the mobs are flopping, drop Static Field right underneath them. Most mobs will be slept before they get up.

4) Use Tesla Cage on the hardest target in the bunch (or the first target you plan to kill, depending on your preference.)

5) Charge in (after popping Build Up, if it's up) and use your awesome early-game attack chain (Charged Bolts, Lightning Bolt, Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, in whatever order you choose) to kill a single SLEEPING MINION.

6) Reapply Tesla Cage/Static Field as needed as you repeat Step 5 for each remaining minion in the mob. At this point you probably haven't been hit much because your all-ST attack chain won't wake anyone but the one you've just killed.

7) Once all the soft targets are dead, turn your attention to the aforementioned hard target. By this point s/he is gasping for END (you remembered to toggle on Conductive Aura, right?). CA won't wake the mob while it drains them and now you can stomp the hard target and throw in Tesla Cage as needed to make sure he stays a statue.

8) Lather, rinse, repeat.

This is the strategy I used for probably 38 levels (once I got Static Field). As you level up you can just pick up whatever extra powers you want to add in and it just gets better and better.

Here's what I took and skipped (again YMMV):

Skipped:

Primary: Electric Fence (as a long time Blaster player, I have no love for ST immobilizes)

Secondary: Zapp (the play style explained above is too fast-paced for a snipe attack), Thunder Strike (this is the Blaster version of the power, not the Melee AT power AFAIK and thus causes KB, not KD, thus knocking everyone out of your Static Field and defeating your whole strategy), Voltaic Sentinel (I never took this power on my Blaster OR my Dom. I don't know why but I just don't like it.)

Took:

Primary: Chain Fences (taken very late in the build, slotted with Efficacy Adapter for extra End Drain and recharge bonus), Paralyzing Blast (essential to my level 50 +0/x6 soloing strategy), Synaptic Overload (depending on your feelings about confuse powers. I personally hate them, but Coercive Persuasion sets are so relatively cheap for purple sets that I took it just to slot the set), Gremlins (some people love them, some people hate them, but overall I find they keep just enough of the enemy aggro off of me to make them worthwhile)

Secondary: Static Discharge (visually it's probably my favorite power in either set. It defeats the purpose of the strategy I explained above to an extent, but it's nice to have on teams or when you get a few of the AoE hard control powers and want to kill a mob faster than you can with my above strategy.

For what it's worth, I took Mu as my APP (I also love themed characters). I took Ball Lightning for extra AoE damage and Charged Armor to slot a -KB IO in for times I'm building domination instead of in the midst of perma-Dom and skipped the rest. The only one I would say is LESS skippable is Power Sink, but an Elec/Elec Dom already passively drains so well with Conductive Aura and after achieving perma-Dom, I never need to top off my blue bar.

I hope all that helps. Keep posting any questions you have and I'm happy to help. Writing about my favorite character is a lot more fun than I would have thought. I might have even been inspired to write a guide about running an Electriple Dominator after all this.

(P.S. I'm still trying to get "Electriple" for Elec/Elec/Elec characters to catch on after 7 years. Did it work?)

I actually took Voltaic Sentinel on my Elec/Elec/Mu Dom. I found that once I got Synaptic Overload I was rarely using Static Field as my main control but as an opener. This meant that by the time I'd used Synaptic Overload, ran in and summoned Voltaic Sentinel most of the mob was confused and partially drained of endurance anyway.

HA! Good call on using Electriple as a name, Kheldarn. I'm glad you liked my impromptu guide. I'm still considering doing a fullblown guide in the near future.


As I said earlier, feel free to post any questions you might have, especially when you get to the point where you're doing IOs. I check the Dom boards more than I check any others.

I was wondering why no one said they took surge of power? I was thinking with a performance shifter: chance for +end in conductive aura and stamina an end crash wouldn't even be a problem. Not to mention powersink. Speaking of powersink though, it seems like that would be a great way to immediately drain any mob.

My personal preference is not to take any of the Tier 9-esque God-Mode powers. Between all of the mezz I can throw out, my Tier 4 Barrier power, and ~20% Ranged defense, survivability has never been an issue for me.

I also commented on my choice to skip Power Sink earlier in the thread. I use it on my other Elec toons (I have a lot of them), but I never found I dropped it as soon as I needed to free up a power slot on my Dom.

Here's my earlier quote for reference:

"For what it's worth, I took Mu as my APP (I also love themed characters). I took Ball Lightning for extra AoE damage and Charged Armor to slot a -KB IO in for times I'm building domination instead of in the midst of perma-Dom and skipped the rest. The only one I would say is LESS skippable is Power Sink, but an Elec/Elec Dom already passively drains so well with Conductive Aura and after achieving perma-Dom, I never need to top off my blue bar. "

Bonus: Voltaic sentinel doesn't attack sleeping foes.

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Do procs like fort. hyp: chance to placate and Call of the Sandman: chance to heal self work in static field?

Energy Assault has rather good Single Target and decent AoE.

Don't dismiss it outright.

Energy Assault also has the most absurd levelling power in the world. Power Push at level 4 is gonzo, with its insane accuracy and damage.

Also, the heal proc in static field heals the pseudopet.

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I'd like to add that the chance for placate works........ really well in static field. If you like to have enemies on you and not killing your gremlins, DON'T use that proc. I had it in SF on my Elec/Cold and I ended up replacing it because my gremlins died ALOT if the enemies weren't focused on me.

For my Dom, I'd go /Elec:

I almost always take VS... it isn't great but after casting, it's an END free set of attacks that keeps attacking even if you're mezzed and it helps with sapping

Between Static Field and Synaptic Overload... you have time to Zapp (if that's your preference)

Conductive drains pretty fast but Chain Fences does just as much per application (nice, low level combo)

Plus /Elec is a sync set - plays into your primary's strength.

I have only one dominator and that is Electric/Electric. Just frankin slotted mine for recharge. Very good lock down set imo

I don't think I've heard one negative thing said about elec/, maybe I'm doing it wrong. I tend to die a lot on teams, more than any other dom I've made. The controls work so slowly (*glares at Synaptic Overload*) or softly (static field) in comparison to any other set. I use the kd a lot though (more than the ST hold), but I swear something I'm using (the AoE immob?) is an aggro magnet. The reason I use jolting chain and the aoe immob in the first place is due to their recovery stopping/end sapping ability which works as a ghetto hold. Generally attacks have a small chance for -recov., but not those AoE attacks:

Attack End drain Chance* Duration
Charged Brawl -7% 20% 2s
Jolting Chain -10% 50% 8s
Chain Fences -17% 40% 6s

*chance for -recov not end drain
Those two seem to be the only way to control the mob using endurance drain.

If you're relying on those powers when you're teaming Yogi, I don't know what Seeds of Confusion has to say to you, but I bet it's not pretty.

The weirdest thing I noticed in Elec/ is that the sleep aggros, but the confuse doesn't.

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