Hmmm, think the issue at the core is that End Drain is an indirect Y/N debuff unlike most other debuffs which are direct and normally have some effect which scales against rank and level difference but always have some effect. An Electric is paying for the potential to totally shut off a foe's ability/attack X not simply reduce it xx% (which is what most debuffs do). In this respect it's more like a Hold. The Hold either works and the foe is held unable to do anything or the Hold does not work and the foe can do as it pleases until sufficient mag is stacked on the foe (or sufficient end is drained in the case of Electric).
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Unfortunately the real problem (for the designer) is this isn't true. I've been on teams with multiple 'sappers' and seen them drain an AV/GM's endurance to 0 in well under a minute (often well within 30 seconds) and pretty much shut off their recovery leaving the AV standing around twiddling their thumbs. And it doesn't take IO'd to the gills Incarnate builds to do it either. | The Endurance Drain is a problem because on the enemies it would matter on, it does absolutely nothing. |
So while I'm not convinced the net amount of damage needs tweaking I could see some front loading of the damage (on SC) being a reasonable compromise as that would help solo play where end drain can be problematic ... couldn't begin to guess how often my Electric/Fire has died watching damage tics float up off the foe(s) around him, seems like his entire arsenal is AoE and DoT attacks.
not sure but somewhere in my head was the idea that AVs and such no longer require end to attack... end drain has no effect... did I dream that?
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I used to have an electric blaster, and I seem to remember that it has another effect kind of like KD where the enemies stop fighting for about a second and a half and react to being attacked with an electrified spazm type animation. On electric melee it's an actual sleep effect you yourself can break, but for the blast it's just a short stun.
The spasm is just an animation that the enemies can cancel at any time by moving or attacking. The exact same spasm animation occurs when elec melee sleep procs, which is irritating because you have no indication of whether it worked or not.
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You can sap AVs and even GMs, but they have such a high base amount of recovery and Endurance that it is difficult to keep them floored. Even with heavy drain and -recovery they will occasionally get that tick of End and use it. I sometimes run a team of all /Elec defenders and sometimes feel bad for the AVs.
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Originally Posted by Gr33n
not sure but somewhere in my head was the idea that AVs and such no longer require end to attack... end drain has no effect... did I dream that?
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End drain is pretty ineffectual in any PVE encounter that matters, and Elec blast does poor damage. Generally, most critters aren't badly affected by end drain. It's not really an issue for them - they recharge it relatively quickly
The effectiveness of Electric Melee and Electric Control put Electric Blast firmly in the shade. Frankly there's no reason to play an electric blaster other than thematic reasons these days.
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Describing Electric Blast's "Poor Damage" the way the original poster did is a bit innacurate.
The attacks that Electric Blast has deal either par or better damage. Ball Lightning, for it's recharge time and radius, actually does better damage than it should, due to being DOT. Charged Bolts and Lightning Bolt are verbatim clones of Power Bolt/Blast, or Neutrino Bolt/X Ray Beam. Short Circuit has a bit of a long recharge for the damage it deals, but also has an uncharacteristically wide radius.
Voltaic Sentinel is actually ALMOST animation-free damage in one sense, and is certainly endurance efficient damage, though un-aimable and in small packets making it difficult to quantify it's contribution because you can't count on it to target the most important targets at the right times. Also, the longish summoning animation and frequency with which you must refresh it makes it clunky to fit into one's playstyle, further diluting it's percieved value.
Thunderous Blast is actually the only "Below Par" attack, which while it deals full damage in it's initial blast of damage, it inexplicably deals 66% as much damage as comparable nukes (Nova) on it's "Bonus Damage" ticks. It stands out as a blaster primary attack that pays for it's range with a damage penalty.
Where it falters in single target damage:
No high DPA "third attack". Unless you're running a high-recharge invention build, you can't gaplessly chain your ranged attacks. You can fill out your attack chain with stuff from your secondary, in which case you're not any worse off than anyone besides Fire Blast and Sonic Blast. That of course boldly assumes you have a secondary with attacks to round out from however. No devicer left behind!
Assault rifle shares this problem Verbatim, trading away Aim and a third attack for a slew of AOE and utility powers, and a narrow cone crashless nuke. How they come out in this trade is debatable.
Other sets that share this problem in various ways include: Energy Blast, Radiation Blast, and Sonic Blast all have 3rd blasts that are slow animating, making them not meaningfully better ways to spend your animation seconds. They're good for filling in attack-chain downtime, but only if your other options are exhausted. At least Shout's stacks a longer duration debuff than it's other 2 attacks. But when you have to keep company with sets slinging Blaze, Blazing Arrow, and Bitter Ice Blast, the Jonses get very difficult to keep up with.
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I think one thing that gets ignored when talking about End Drain. Most people expect the game to work like it does when a player runs out of end... you cant attack.. However NPC can attack with little to no end.. HOWEVER what I have noticed is that they will tend to use their lower tier attacks and I have noticed that toggle type powers will shut off when their end gets low enough..
I run an E3 Blaster and it is one of the better combos I have played..
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
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I think that Electrical Blast does get the short end of the stick.
Replacing the Tier 3 Blast with Voltaic Sentinel doesn't help with an archetype that specialises in burst damage.
In order to leverage Short Circuit's endurance drain you need to slot for end mod and recharge, and so you may end up skimping on your damage slotting.
The secondary effect of endurance drain in the single target attacks is laughably small - you'll probably kill a boss before the drain on Charged Bolt and Lighnting Bolt have any effect.
Contrast this with say Ice Blast, where you'll stack -60% Recharge, or Sonic with -40% res, or Enegry Blast, where the boss will barely get to stand up.
All these secondary effects happen without any extra animation or endurance or loss of damage. Electric Blast forces you to stand in almost melee range and use a very slow animating power (Short Circuit) to get any benefit.
Yeah, I've heard this since I started playing... And I started as an Elec/Elec Blaster. So, that is actually my baseline for the scale of damage, meaning that my take on it may be off... but I am happy with what the powerset does.
That being said, I am certainly not opposed to getting more damage from the set.
I also think that the synergy with the Electric primary and secondary somewhat overrides the main issue.
Pair Electric Blast up with most other secondaries and it may not be so favorable.
On paper, it does seem like it gets a bit of a raw deal. Whether or not it truly does, I am honestly not positive (yes, that's an intentional pun... sorry).
I have felt as though my E3 with Alpha Musculature is more like what I always thought the set's damage should feel like.
And, yes, Voltaic Sentinel does get overlooked and passed up - Even by myself! I didn't even take it until we got inherent Fitness and I respec'd it in. It certainly makes a big difference when I do use it. However, I would prefer having a 3rd tier blast instead... but I like to have control of things, hehe.
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I'd be happy if they cut Volty's damage in half and make him attack twice as fast.
At least he'd look useful.
I know he is intellectually, but he doesn't feel so.
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Critters work exactly identically to players when it comes to endurance drain. If you do not have enough endurance to activate the attack, you can't use it.|
Originally Posted by Airhammer
I think one thing that gets ignored when talking about End Drain. Most people expect the game to work like it does when a player runs out of end... you cant attack.. However NPC can attack with little to no end.. HOWEVER what I have noticed is that they will tend to use their lower tier attacks and I have noticed that toggle type powers will shut off when their end gets low enough..
I run an E3 Blaster and it is one of the better combos I have played.. |
Players build for having enough attacks and enough recharge to attack continuously or nearly so. Critters do not. So you notice endurance drain more on a player. If you are constantly trying to attack, temporarily having little or no endurance is immediately noticable. Its not on a critter if the critter is waiting for recharge anyway. It becomes noticable on a critter when attacks start to recharge and become available, and many of them require more endurance than they have. In that case, they must wait for an attack to recharge that doesn't cost more endurance than they have. That's why you observe critters using lower end attacks more: that's all they can afford.
One other thing is that recovery is not continuous: it happens in ticks of 6.67% endurance per tick: faster recovery speeds up the ticks. But that means everyone including players and critters goes from zero to 6.67% endurance in a single jump of recovery. For players with base endurance and minions, that is 6.67 end. For LTs with 150 max endurance, that is 10 end. For Bosses with 200 base end that is 13.34 end. For AVs with 800 base end that is 53.36 end. So if a critter has an attack ready to go and it requires 12 endurance, you can keep a minion or Lt from ever using it by just continuing to stack drain. They'll never have more than 10 end at a time. But a boss will go from 0 to 13 end in one jump and will have a moment when they have more than 12, and they will be able to use that attack as will AVs. The only way to prevent a boss from being able to use an attack that requires 12 end is to either debuff recovery so they cannot get any recovery ticks, or stack drain so fast that the split second they have a recovery tick is not long enough for the critter to decide to fire the attack (they usually take a quarter of a second to "decide" to attack, so that drain has to be basically right on top of the recovery tick).
As a practical matter, drain (without recovery debuff) can *prevent* the use of an attack that needs more endurance than a single recovery tick. It can only *delay* the use of an attack that needs less than one recovery tick.
Critters actually take more endurance than players do to activate a comparable attack. What costs us 5.2 endurance costs them 7.0. The only advantage critters have over players when it comes to endurance drain is that some critters have more max endurance, and they ironically don't have full attack chains and so are waiting around for things to recharge more than players, so drain is a problem less frequently.
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Solo and on SO's perhaps. I think the -Recovery debuff is actually more important (and what one is really looking to leverage) than the -End and it really doesn't require much enhancement to be effective (at a base of 100%). Shutting off their recovery is what really hurts owing to how regaining endurance works (as outlined above by Arcanaville). Getting them to 0 End, ideally rapidly, is merely a step towards leveraging -Recovery. Note that SC also has above average Acc at 1.30. Now add in the usual self To Hit buffs and/or inspires and 1 Acc is probably enough leaving one 5 slots to play with Dam, Rech, Endred and Endmod.| In order to leverage Short Circuit's endurance drain you need to slot for end mod and recharge, and so you may end up skimping on your damage slotting. |
On an IO build cap all 3 (Dam,Rech and Endmod) or at least put them heavily into ED territory. Currently I'm without access to Mids but something along the lines of 3 Obliteration (Dam, Dam/Rech, Acc/Dam/Rech) plus 3 Efficacy Adaptors (Endmod, Endmod/Rech, Acc/Endmod/Rech) or potentially purple (and/or use enhancement boosters) for the Dam, Dam/Rech and Acc/Dam/Rech portion. Toss in Musculature as Electric-Knight mentions and viola.
And going back to Gr33n's post and adding to Arcanaville's yes as far as I know AV's resist -Recovery and -End rather heavily and the purple patch would also apply (http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Archvillain and http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Purple_Patch)
Have to run hopefully this post doesn't getting internet eaten like the last attempt.
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Anything Elite Boss and up, other blast sets lose effectiveness of their secondary effects. The -Res from Sonic will do less on an AV than it will a minion, lieutenant, or boss. The same goes for the -Tohit of Dark, -Def of Rad, Knockback of Energy, -Recharge of Psi, -SPD and -Recharge of Ice.
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Originally Posted by Trick
There was something I noticed a while back, and something that I was reminded of today, therefore I decided to make a post about it. Electric Blast has less damage than other Blaster powersets? Why? The Endurance Drain.
The Endurance Drain is a problem because on the enemies it would matter on, it does absolutely nothing. They can still attack perfectly fine, making it so that Electric Blasters forfeit their damage for nothing. This doesn't mean it's not good. It works well on minions, lieutenants, and alright on bosses. Once you get to Elite Bosses and up, it loses it's effectiveness. So, do you think I have a valid point, and that the Electric Blast damage reduction is unfair for what the Endurance Drain is supposed to make up for? |
I am playtesting a Electric/Energy right now. I honestly have fully end drain maybe 2 individuals. Partially this is because I will not blap and use the PBaoE end drain. End drain is useless to me personally. I am testing Electric to see if I like it for ranged combat.
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All critters LT and higher have some intrinsic resistance to tohit debuffs based on their rank: Lts have 10% resistance to tohit debuffs for example, while bosses and elite bosses have 20% and archvillains have 30%. This is intrinsic to the rank definition and has nothing to do with any powers the critter might have.|
Originally Posted by Hatred666
Anything Elite Boss and up, other blast sets lose effectiveness of their secondary effects. The -Res from Sonic will do less on an AV than it will a minion, lieutenant, or boss. The same goes for the -Tohit of Dark, -Def of Rad, Knockback of Energy, -Recharge of Psi, -SPD and -Recharge of Ice.
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Elite Bosses specifically have 25% resistance to endurance drain and Archvillains have 50% resistance to endurance drain intrinsically - meaning all EBs and all AVs. Neither have intrinsic resistance to recovery debuffs. Again, this is intrinsic to the rank definitions and has nothing to do with any power the critter might have.
None of the standard critter ranks have intrinsic resistance to defense debuffs, knockback, or recharge.
Its literally impossible for anyone to have special resistance to resistance debuffs: the only way to have that is to have resistance to the damage type. 25% smashing resistance will also automatically be 25% resistance to smashing resistance debuffs. There is no other way to resist resistance debuffs.
AVs *usually* get special resistances in their special resistance power, but that's at the will of the critter designer. By default, AVs tend to resist endurance drain, recovery debuffs, defense debuff, regeneration debuffs, recharge debuffs, knock effects, and perception debuffs, and this resistance scales upward with level.
And to reiterate, AVs do not have special resistances against resistance debuffs. To put it another way, anything that was made immune to resistance debuffs would be immune to damage also. The game engine makes no distinction between the two.
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Learned a few things. Thanks for making it clearer.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
All critters LT and higher have some intrinsic resistance to tohit debuffs based on their rank: Lts have 10% resistance to tohit debuffs for example, while bosses and elite bosses have 20% and archvillains have 30%. This is intrinsic to the rank definition and has nothing to do with any powers the critter might have.
Elite Bosses specifically have 25% resistance to endurance drain and Archvillains have 50% resistance to endurance drain intrinsically - meaning all EBs and all AVs. Neither have intrinsic resistance to recovery debuffs. Again, this is intrinsic to the rank definitions and has nothing to do with any power the critter might have. None of the standard critter ranks have intrinsic resistance to defense debuffs, knockback, or recharge. Its literally impossible for anyone to have special resistance to resistance debuffs: the only way to have that is to have resistance to the damage type. 25% smashing resistance will also automatically be 25% resistance to smashing resistance debuffs. There is no other way to resist resistance debuffs. AVs *usually* get special resistances in their special resistance power, but that's at the will of the critter designer. By default, AVs tend to resist endurance drain, recovery debuffs, defense debuff, regeneration debuffs, recharge debuffs, knock effects, and perception debuffs, and this resistance scales upward with level. And to reiterate, AVs do not have special resistances against resistance debuffs. To put it another way, anything that was made immune to resistance debuffs would be immune to damage also. The game engine makes no distinction between the two. |
In a one on one, open field type ranged shoot off like old europe used to have in the latter half of 1700s. Elecs would be removing endurance from the opponent as it does damage, thus removing the number of attacks the opponent can do to the endurance bar, lowering the opponents damage and therefore evening things up.
Often total damage given to finish a mob is greater than damage needed so there is no exact science with it. DoTs maybe best used first, but any DoT given yet not required is no more overkill than the norm. If so raise levels of mobs or something.
In Mids doing the comparisons I am not seeing a problem really anyway.
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I will reiterate, my Elec Blaster is now 49, and I have seen NO example of my end draining anybody that has helped me in any combat.
Do you know the one thing I do like about End Drain? No knockback. It is the only Ranged combat (Ranged Ball attack, Ranged Nuke) that does not have redraw or Knockback. In fact, very few of the ball attacks are ranged, and almost none of the nukes are ranged. In fact the only other is Ice that has a ranged nuke without redraw, but it gets no ball attack.
And you know what I love in a Nuke that crashes my hover, end, and toggles? Being right in amidst over a dozen mobs I just irritated. Genius I tell you. That is what is called "Ranged Combat" in CoH. Pure Genius. Ranged, I don't think that means what you think it means.
So yes, for me Electrical has effectively no secondary effect. But in trying to make Blasters that are actually Ranged you take whatever ugly sticks of wood you can get and build from there.
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That's technically not possible unless you don't fight bosses at all. Many bosses will, before they can kill you, actually drain their own end low enough to begin to impede their own ability to use their attacks at maximum speed. By definition, any endurance drain at all will speed that process up and generate significant damage mitigation. However, it seems most people only consider endurance drain to be of any benefit if it stops the critter from attacking at all, and it usually won't do that.
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Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
I will reiterate, my Elec Blaster is now 49, and I have seen NO example of my end draining anybody that has helped me in any combat.
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This is a common issue. Some people don't believe proactive mitigation actually _IS_ effective mitigation unless it completely prevents attacks from happening. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's technically not possible unless you don't fight bosses at all. Many bosses will, before they can kill you, actually drain their own end low enough to begin to impede their own ability to use their attacks at maximum speed. By definition, any endurance drain at all will speed that process up and generate significant damage mitigation. However, it seems most people only consider endurance drain to be of any benefit if it stops the critter from attacking at all, and it usually won't do that.
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This viewpoint is often reflected in how people see things like World of Confusion: Its activation interval is notably higher than its confuse duration, so obviously that's not useful because it's not going to keep anyone confused long enough to matter.
But it does matter. It causes small hitches and gaps in enemy attacks aimed at the players. This is small, but it adds up, even without things like Contagious Confusion in the mix.
Whether I used World of Confusion or not, even before I got a lot of my invention slotting done, significantly contributed to the question of "Did I die in this mission? yes/no".
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
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Its very possible Aracanaville, because I have done it. Keep in mind I mostly game on steamrolling ITFs, and I only like playing fire support for big teams. My main strategy is to use find effective ways to use build up and ball attack, with plinking on ST to fill in time. The combats are almost as confusing as I trials. trying to find good targets center mass mobs is most of the work I do. I just did a manti last night, so was exemplared, fought bosses, did not notice drain helping me at all. Maybe it was, but things died pretty fast, thankfully. I do not recall seeing anyones blue bars debuffed enough to be significant, and i watch all targets that I am ST on. Old Brute habit.
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What kind of powers are you using? If you're just using Ball Lightning and your ST attacks, the end drain is going to take a long while. You need to use Short Circuit, etc., to make a big hit on their end bars, and then Ball Lightning and the ST attacks are enough to keep 'em down or most of the way down.|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Its very possible Aracanaville, because I have done it. Keep in mind I mostly game on steamrolling ITFs, and I only like playing fire support for big teams. My main strategy is to use find effective ways to use build up and ball attack, with plinking on ST to fill in time. The combats are almost as confusing as I trials. trying to find good targets center mass mobs is most of the work I do. I just did a manti last night, so was exemplared, fought bosses, did not notice drain helping me at all. Maybe it was, but things died pretty fast, thankfully. I do not recall seeing anyones blue bars debuffed enough to be significant, and i watch all targets that I am ST on. Old Brute habit.
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Sorry if you knew that already, but it wasn't quite clear if you were using more powers or not. Still, using Short Circuit and Power Sink let my E^3 Blaster drain everyone in a regular mob in a few seconds from the level 35 on (and he was able to do it fairly well with just Short Circuit and his other powers). He even end drained a War Walker EB he was soloing on an Apex.
He does have the Interface proc that end drains, which helped with that, but it still stands in my experience that end drain helps with most mobs.
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I deleted my lvl 50 elec/elec blaster, and my elec/kin corruptor. I have not yet deleted my kin/elec defender, but it is probably nostalgia more than anything else.
Elec blast sucks. It is too bad because it is very nice thematically.
Just admit that the cards are against you (which is too bad!) and roll a elec/cold troller or something similar, and be happy to have end drain and not suck.
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A partial selection from my 50's on Freedom: Ail = Ice/Traps, Luck = Street Justice/Super Reflexes Stalker, Mist = Bane, Pixy = Trick Arrow/Archery, Pure = Gravity/Energy, Smoke = Fire/Fire Dominator
There was something I noticed a while back, and something that I was reminded of today, therefore I decided to make a post about it. Electric Blast has less damage than other Blaster powersets? Why? The Endurance Drain.
The Endurance Drain is a problem because on the enemies it would matter on, it does absolutely nothing. They can still attack perfectly fine, making it so that Electric Blasters forfeit their damage for nothing. This doesn't mean it's not good. It works well on minions, lieutenants, and alright on bosses. Once you get to Elite Bosses and up, it loses it's effectiveness. So, do you think I have a valid point, and that the Electric Blast damage reduction is unfair for what the Endurance Drain is supposed to make up for?
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