Electricity

ELECTRICITY



Electric Bolt





Energy Builder


Energy Generation, Ranged Electrical Damage
Electric Bolt fires shocking arcs of electricity into your enemy.
Click

• Single target Electrical damage
  
• Generates energy
  
• Chance for attack to arc to secondary target doing single target electrical damage
  
• Chance of applying Negative Ions, a short duration effect which causes future Electrical attacks to arc to secondary targets
  

Chain Lightning





No Requirements


Charged Ranged Electrical Damage
Chain Lightning allows you to emit a powerful, directed blast of
electrical energy at a target, which might arc to other nearby targets
as well.
Tap

• Single target electrical damage
  
• Chance of applying Negative Ions, a short duration effect which causes future Electrical attacks to arc to secondary targets
  

Charge

• Chains the effects of the Tap action up to three additional targets in proximity to other affected targets
  
• Charging does not increase the energy cost of Chain Lightning
  

Sparkstorm





Requires 1 power from Electricity or 2 non energy building powers from any framework


Maintained Close Area Effect Electrical Damage
Sparkstorm is a shower of electrical energy which damages foes close
to you. Show them that they do not want to get too close to your
electric personality.
Maintain

• Deals electrical damage to nearby enemies
  
• Chance for attack to arc to secondary target doing single target electrical damage
  
• Chance of applying Negative Ions, a short duration effect which causes future Electrical attacks to arc to secondary targets
  
• If a target with Negative Ions is hit, the target is knocked back and Negative Ions is removed
  

Lightning Arc





Requires 1 power from Electricity or 2 non energy building powers from any framework


Maintained Ranged Electrical Damage
Lightning Arc is a sustained barrage of electricity which may arc to additional foes near your target.
Maintain

• Single target electrical damage.
  
• Damage and energy cost increase per period. Damage increases faster than the energy cost.
  
• Chance for attack to arc to secondary target doing single target electrical damage
  
• Automatically chains to arc to secondary target doing single target electrical damage
  

Ionic Reverberation





Requires 1 powers from Electricity or 2 non energy building powers from any framework


Innate Passive, Secondary Energy Unlock
Ionic Reverberation causes a small amount of energy to return to you
each time one of your electrical attacks arcs to another enemy.
Innate Passive

• Does not need to be slotted in order to function
  
• Generates energy each time one of your electrical attacks arcs to a target affected by the Negative Ions debuff
  

Electric Shield





Requires 1 power from Electricity or 2 non energy building powers from any framework


Block Slot Enhancement
Electrical Shield creates a protective barrier of crackling
electricity that significantly reduces incoming damage and causes
enemies around you to receive a nasty shock.
Maintain

• Self damage reduction
  
• Deals light electrical damage to enemies in melee range
  
• Lingers for several seconds after block is released
  

Electric Sheath





Requires 1 power from Electricity or 2 non energy building powers from any framework


Electrical Self Buff, Energy Form
Electric Sheath coats you in a tight field of Electricity, improving your combat abilities for a short period of time.
Click

• Increases damage of non-energy-generating attacks
  
• Gain energy when dealt damage
  
• Can be used while held or confused
  
• Assists in breaking out of holds
  
• Increases energy equilibrium
  
• Energy rises to equilibrium faster
  
• Reduces rate of energy decay
  
• Counts as an Energy Form
  

Electric Form





Requires 3 powers from Electricity or 5 non energy building powers from any framework


Slotted Passive, Damage Buff, Damage Resistance Buff, Energy Form
Your mastery of electricity grants you the knowledge of how to most
effectively use your energy powers and how to reduce the effect of your
attacker’s energy attacks.
Slotted Passive

• Can be slotted in an Offensive or Balanced passive power slot
  
• Only active while in combat
  
• Increases all of your energy (electricity, sonic, particle) damage. This increase scales with your Endurance.
  
• Increases your resistance to all energy effects and greatly
  increases your resistance to electricity effects. These resistances
  scale with your Recovery.
  
• Generates a small amount of energy when you are struck with electrical attacks
  
• Increases your energy equilibrium and the rate your energy builds to your equilibrium
  
• Counts as an Energy Form
  

Thunderstrike





Requires 3 powers from Electricity or 5 non energy building powers from any framework


Charged Ranged Area Electrical Damage
Thunderstrike calls upon the forces of nature to deliver a powerful bolt of lightning onto your enemies.
Tap

• Single target electrical damage
  
• Deals half damage to other targets around the primary target
  
• Chance of applying Negative Ions, a short duration effect which causes future Electrical attacks to arc to secondary targets.
  

Charge

• Increases the damage and energy cost of the Tap effect.
  

Electrocute





Requires 3 powers from Electricity or 5 non energy building powers from any framework


Ranged Immobilization
Electrocute temporarily immobilizes a target with a massive jolt to their nervous system.
Tap

• Applies hold to target
  
• Applies Negative Ions, a short duration effect which causes future Electrical attacks to arc to secondary targets.
  

Charge

• If charged over 50%, chains Arc to a nearby enemy dealing electrical damage
  
• If fully charged, chains Arc to nearby enemies dealing electrical damage
  

Ball Lightning





Requires 5 powers from Electricity or 8 non energy building powers from any framework


Uncontrolled Electrical Combat Pet
Ball Lightning summons a sphere of electrical energy to fight your
foe. It chases them down, and will do damage to other nearby enemies as
well.
Click

• Summons one Ball Lightning to attack your target
  
• Ball Lightning deals electrical damage to nearby targets.
  
• Ball Lighting has a small chance to chain single target electrical damage to nearby enemies.
  
• After 12 sec, Ball Lightning detonates, dealing electrical damage
  to nearby targets, each of those hits has a 50% chance to chain single
  target electrical damage to an additional target.
  

Gigabolt





Requires 5 powers from Electricity or 8 non energy building powers from any framework


Ranged Cylinder Electrical Damage
Gigabolt allows you to summon 1.21 gigawatts to blast your foes.
Tap

• Deals electrical damage to anything in line with your primary target
  
• Chance of applying Negative Ions, a short duration effect which causes future Electrical attacks to arc to secondary targets.
  
• Chance to chain single target electrical damage
  

Charge

• Increases damage and energy cost of the Tap effect
  
• Can only be charged while affected by an Energy Form
  
• Removes Energy Form effect
  

I have an electicity hero, now at level 18. The powers I took were

Electrical bolt- energy builder, no advantages
Sparkstorm- toggle advantage
Ionic Reverberation
Teleport
Electric Form (rank 3)
Electric Sheath- 90s buff for 12s, breakfree
Gigabolt- cone
Field Drones- health bots

This character absolutely rocks. The party begins the second you advantage sparkstorm so it is a toggle. You click it, and for about 4s it does its stuff and you can do other things. Without this advantage you are locked in place for the maintain and can do nothing else. With it you can move around, turn your energy builder on auto, and even tap things like Gigabolt. Sparkstorm is your primary defense because it knocks melee off of you, forcing them to spend all their time trying to close, and taking damage all the time. The winning tactic is to port near a big group, target one and turn on your energy builder, turn off teleport to phase in, and sparkstorm. The whole group drops dead fast. I was doing this in the tents down in the desert to farm up crafting materials, literally blowing tent after tent clear with no problems.

Ionic reverberation in this build restores your endurance so you can spam sparkstorm over and over til stuff dies. You do not really need to spend any time with an energy builder since dead minions tend to refill you for another sparkstorm.

I pumped electric form first to rank 3 thinking I would try out other powers in the set and having them all amplified by the form would help. If I had to do it over, I would have started with 2 pts to advantage sparkstorm into a toggle. Electric form helps damage and gives some mitigation v. energy. You are still squishie though.

I took electric sheath as a way to breakfree from holds and deal with bosses. It is not an active defense, so I can also use something like resurgance if I want.

Gigabolt sets up a 5' cone of length 100' that kills anything in its path. Right now it is a bit buggy, not letting you charge it for an alpha strike unless you first tap some other power. Tap damage is fine though, particularly if you are moving around with an active sparkstorm toggle. I love it for pulling.

I took the field drones to heal me. With sparkstorm going off, the only guys going after the drones are people at long range. Overall they heal nicely. The main drawback to the drones is their AI is stupid (they dont follow well) and need to be resummoned with 1/2 your equilibrium. If you don't have a high recovery, you either need to combat cast them (which is not good), or do something like put them up post combat, or maybe use a power like dark transfusion. The end/rec build for electicity plus electric form lend themselves to easy casting of drones prior to combat, overcoming their central drawback of requiring frequent resummon.

The other powers I tried were
-Chain lightning: it is good for the tutorial, but sparkstorm is vastly better. With starting stats and a full charge you could dent a hivekeeper. Arcing was not very impressive.
-Lightning arc- I took this originally instead of electric sheath, then retconned out of it at 14 when I could get gigabolt. This is a maintained single target damage dealer with a chance to arc. Sparkstorm spam is good for bosses because the knockback can disrupt and mitigate their powers, but for doing pure damage for energy lightning arc was better. This power is set up to be used in combination with the hold (electrocute), since it does +100% damage against held foes. My problem with the combo is where you really want single target damage is against bosses, and it is hard landing a hold on a boss.

Remaining powers I am considering

-Electric shield- this shield persists a few seconds after releasing, and it ups elemental resistance. You can get a 2pt advantage that will strike back against foes attacking you if your energy is high. In boss fights you shield block and retailiate by turning on your toggle (sparkstorm) and maybe tapping a gigabolt or two before you have to once again bunker under shield for the boss chargup attack. I am not sure how the counter strike damage is with the talent, but it is worth exploring. THe persist means you can drop it to retoggle your sparkstorm and still maintain block protection.

-Ball Lightning- I am thinking this might be nice for bosses, since you could summon them and shield block while they do their stuff.

Stats: End/Rec are for the energy form. Damage scales with end, rec helps with the elemental defense. You want rec anyway since it gives you a larger endurance pool to start a fight with and begin sparkstorm. I went like this
Super End
Super Rec
end/rec
end/con
rec/con
rec +8
end+8
con+8

Note with low ego and str, breaking out of holds is a problem, which is why I reserve electric sheath for that role and tend to wear gear that reduces hold duration. I like going with the rec/end gear with con being a third consideration. With an electic, the main question is will your health bar be large enough to let you blast it dead. Upping your lethality and health total is the winning combo. Going for a crit build like dex/ego would really hurt...yeah you would get bigger crits, but your base wouldnt be as high.

Overall this character is a lot of fun, and it was a hoot turning on sparkstorm, energy gain, and gigabolting Fight Club in a big group.

My electric character is now 23. I picked up the shield block, and electrocute.

I tried chain lightning. It does very modest AoE damage then explodes. Typical values are ticcing for 10-20, then exploding for 300. Compare this to a tap hit with gigabolt of 200-300, or sparkstorm hits of 30-60 (rank 2). Perhaps after you rank it up and take triplicity (for 3 ball lightnings) it would perform better. The slow cooldown (30s) make this undesirable.

Thunderstrike was also 'meh' with a 19s recharge and modest damage.

I wound up taking electrocute. Electrocute works just fine. A typical group has a problem guy and if you open with a full charge electrocute on him, he is held and your damage v. him is increased. I then spam gigabolts and get up close and personal with sparkstorm + energy builder. This took me from wiping on Godron (+2's to me) to defeating them easily, as I could hold the lancer or the adjucators and mow down the rest.

Field drones help with my lack of defense. The healing is slow and steady, and sometimes adds focus on them instead of me. At rank 3 they survive much better and it is only the horrible AI that makes me unsummon them now.

I am shooting for mindful reinforcement at 26...not sure how well the mitigation is going to work without presense or ego, but it might be nice. I played around some with the force shields from crafting, and they really helped...something that I can run while in electric form would be nice. Resurgance in an end/rec build is not so hot.

Thanks a lot for the detailed write up. You have a great amount of information in your posts and I think I may create a lightning guy to try it out.

A bit more, based upon understanding electricities mechanics

Found this in the wiki for gigabolt
-----------------------------------
http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Gigabolt

Gigabolt allows you to summon 1.21 gigawatts to blast your foes.
Requirements: Requires 5 powers from Electricity or 58non-energy building powers from another framework.
Method: Tap

Deals electrical damage to anything in line with your primary target. (Cylinder AoE)
50% Chance of applying Negative Ions, a short duration effect which causes future electrical attacks to arc to secondary targets.
75% Chance to chain single target electrical damage.
Method: Charge


Increases damage and energy cost of the tap effect.
Can only be charged while affected by an energy form.
Remove energy form effect.
ADVANTAGES
Accelerated Metabolism
Every time you use this ability you have a chance to return a small amount of energy.

Death Arc
Any enemies killed by Gigabolt will unleash AoE damage to nearby targets.

Advanced Info:

100 foot range; 10 foot cylinder
Targets 5 foes
2.33 second charge
0.83 second activation
43-141 energy (based on charge)

and they define negative ions as

Negative Ions, a short duration effect which causes future electrical attacks to arc to a secondary target
-------------------------------
OK so part of the goal of electricity is to have your attacks arc. Some abilities have a chance to apply negative ions. Creatures with negative ions will arc you next attack. This is where something like Gigabolt is really nasty, since there is a 50% chance to apply negative ions to any target it hits, and the bolt passes through and hits anything in its path. So if you have a group of 4, odds are after your first gigabolt 2 of them will have negative ions. A follow up gigabolt will then arc off those two and deal damage to the others. Furthermore even if you do not get negative ions, you get an arc 75% of the time with gigabolt.

So the way I had been playing was to port into a group, and while I was dephased pick a target and turn on the energy builder. Then I would dephase and turn on the sparkstorm toggle. Stuff would die.

I tried this in project awakening. I would port in and do the sparkstorm number, only to have several groups add and the turrets pop up and the focused fire of the room would toast me.

So I started pulling with gigabolt. Gigabolt has a long range, so I would hang on the other side of a door and maybe tag a patrol with it. First bolt would go through and arc and light up a few guys with negative ions. I could then bolt again (just tapping), and bolt a third time pretty much killing all. If anything got close, I would turn on sparkstorm and it would knock it away. Having a narrow door meant they had to close into a cluster in the door, making gigabolt more effective.

So now I could use sparkstorm as a defensive shield, knocking stuff off me, and let gigabolt do the main work on killing stuff.

This technique was highly effective until I started fighting Godron. Godron groups would have a lancer or a slavemaster or adjucator, which were just plain nasty. If you did not drop them fast, they would kill you. Without them tightly clustered, much of the killing power of gigabolt is lost (the main hit is minor compared to the arcing). Were I to port in, the sparkstorm was not enough to kill them quickly, and they would tend to scatter out of range of the sparkstorm and wear me down. What broke this impasse was using electrocute on the tough one, holding it in position, then porting on top of it and turning on sparkstorm. usually another melee type would close, and I could then have sparkstorm + gigabolt arc off of the main held target to rapidly drop the adds. I could also swing about my held target to line up a gigabolt to hit both it and the guy standing off.

So I think much of the playing style of Electricity is going to be exploiting enemy AI to make them cluster tightly. Running away and gigabolting as you run would tend to hit all of the guys chasing and drop them. So that should be an effective technique. Turning corners or using doorways to force them to close and cluster to get line of sight on you should also magnifiy the damage of gigabolt and up your kill rate. Ideal situations are things such as the Hunter Patriot recruit misssion, where you can find a line of 5 recruits, and just send the gigabolt on through the entire line, which with arcing, kills them in a couple taps.

I also found out why Gigabolt could not be charged. Gigabolt can only be charged if you are in an energy form state. Electric form reads (from wiki)

-------------
Your mastery of electricity grants you the knowledge of how to most effectively use your energy powers and how to reduce the effect of your attacker’s energy attacks.
Requirements: Requires 3 powers from Electricity or 5 non-energy building powers from another framework.
Method: Slotted Passive


Can be slotted in an Offensive or Balanced passive power slot
Only active while in combat
Increased all of your energy (electricity, sonic, particle) damage. This increase scales with your Endurance.
Increase your resistance to all energy effects and greatly increases your resistance to electricity effects. These resistances scale with your Recovery
Generates a small amount of energy when you are struck with electrical attacks
Increase your energy equilibrium and the rate your energy builds to your equilibrium.
Counts as an energy form.
-------------

The part to notice is the 'only active while in combat'. So until the game recognizes you as in combat, electric form does not turn on, and you can not charge gigabolt. If you come out of teleport at range to a group where they can not see you, that first gigabolt will not charge. So you can not charge that gigabolt up and alpha strike kill another group unless you are in combat. So maybe you can drag a henchman along with you to a new group, with him doing minor damage to you, but holding you in combat, then you charge up gigabolt on a new group. I don't do that though. I just tap gigabolt, since you get about as much damage tapping it (probably more) because each tap means more can get negative ions. If you charge that is fewer taps, and you will not arc as much.

About the only time I bother with a charge is if I get a knockback on a boss. Then I know I am not going to get hammered for the next few seconds as the boss gets back up off the ground and resumes its attack sequence.

I do think though lightning arc is a better attack for a single surviving target. If there are multiples clustered, the gigabolt is going to give you more damage from arcing. But if it is just one, perhaps the maintained attack lightning arc on the heels of a hold is the way to go.

lol, 1.21 Gigiwatts!

Electrobunny is shaping up well and hit 31 last night.

I got mindful reinforcement at 26, and ranked it up to rank 3. Even though I am end/rec, this is pretty decent mitigation when added atop field drones for healing. Expect a no cooldown 750pt heal or so, whenever you want. You can not turtle with it like a telepath who has much higher absorption and heal values from ego/pre, but you can cast it without much thought since end is cheap in an end/rec build. Between mindful reinforcement and healing drones, I was taking on the patrolling leader groups from Destroids Rise Again (zone mission in Millenium city) and winning half the time. The prescription was to get the drones up, double stack mindful reinforcement, target the leader and Ball Lightning then spam gigabolt. I am pretty sure I am seeing it stack, where if the top shield holds, the bottom untouched shield heals for the full unused shield value.

Mindful reinforcement is useful for healing drones. Know the annoying AI part where they sit there healing each other and will not follow? Well you can toss mindful reinforcement on them post combat, and when the shield wears off, they heal up and follow. It sure beats waiting for dismiss to actually occur.

I have been noticing more and more people picking up gigabolt. I have also noticed more and more people playing bunnies. I suppose if I drove a VW bug, I would notice more and more VW bugs on the road. Damage for me now on Monster Isle v. lvl 32-34s is 300-600 or so per tap. Attributes end/rec are closing in on the cap, which seems to actually be closer to 150 attribute for 32% damage cap. Pretty much 3 taps of Gigabolt will take out a whole group of nasties. Villains will plow through that, only to hit the sparkstorm and get tossed. If you go to the range limit of 100 with gigabolt, many creatures will close to 50 before attacking, letting you get off several gigabolts before they even damage you.

I wound up taking Ball Lightning at 29. Arc lightning is a maintain, and without extra long duration on Electrocute, you can not reliably maintain it to its full potential. I like tap powers since I can tap it, then shield block, or maybe renew Mindful reinforcement...I am not comitted exclusively to an action for a length of time that forces me to be stationary. Perhaps later, after I max out electrocute I will try a maxxed out arc lightning and see if that becomes my 'boss killer'. Blocking becomes more and more important at higher levels for me. For instance there are these bull and bear guys in Monster Isle that charge you...if you block them when they charge, you take little damage, and whatever charged you takes damage in return (apparently blocking any knockback attack will damage the attacker).

So Ball Lightning is a 'fire and forget' effect. I took triplicity, and at 31 just pumped it to rank 2. Triplicity summons 3 balls, one of which explodes after 12s. The AoE damage from the balls is pretty solid and more effective in a confined space. I like how I can sick the ball lightning on them and do my shield block/mindful reinforcement/tap gigabolt thing, and have all that damage add for the periods I am under shield block. Damage is something like 20-40 per tic per ball, each second, for 12 seconds. Triplicity is essential for this. I only bother with this attack if we are talking villains or tough enemies where it can run its full duration. Henchmen should be gigabolt spammed.

I did try out the Electicity shield block advantage which does damage to an attacker. That advantage is really expensive (3pts). It only did 100ish (between 1/3 and 1/6th gigabolt's damage). I retconned out of it and put those advantage points in ranking up Mindful Reinforcement instead. This talent is worth it, but it is just lower priority to the many other things you can get.