Electricity DPS

Discussion in 'War Room (Powers, Artifacts, & Builds)' started by Azrain, Jul 21, 2013.

  1. Azrain New Player

    Started my toon with the intention of choosing a dps class not played often, so I chose electricity. I'm cr 93 atm and starting to see that as elec dps keeping up with HL or gadgets is impossible. It always seems i'm at least 20% damage less than those classes. I have fully modded my gear with might/prec Vs and expert Vs. I have 72 sp atm and have distributed it among the dps innates. I have checked guides and fine tuned my loadout to its current form : Static push, electrogenesis, wired, electrocute, voltaic bolt and electro static bomb.

    I use cr 83 DW when melee and rifle at ranged and clip accordingly and use the pi interactions accordingly. After all this when checking on the dps I can never keep up with HL or gadgets, or mental for that matter. What I'm wondering is electricity even considered a viable dps class? I read through a recent post regarding the dps classes https://forums.station.sony.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/what-can-keep-up-with-hard-light-dps.164514/
    There was not even one mention of electricity as a dps class.

    So just wanted your views on electricity as a dps class.
  2. Sidetracked New Player

    I pretty much quit the game after T4, but I could keep up and outdamage HL players from time to time.
    This is a T4 perspective. If T5 content is fundamentally different then ignore it please.
    I've got 142 SP. You should work on yours as 72 seems a bit too few, but you should be good at around 80-90.
    I was using 1-hander, but you can make bow work with some effort too.
    Loadout was this:
    Attract; Wired; Electrogenesis; Electrocute; Voltaic Bolt. 6th slot is your choice. I was using Flux, as it was a really handy pvp power and I was lazy to respec.
    I will not tell you the rotation, but I will tell you that attract can be clipped with anything, except jumping and that Voltaic bolt is a 50% modifier.
    If you are absolutely lazy I think there is a guide that explains Attract and its usage somewhere though.
    Electricity has been my absolute favourite power since it was released. It unfortunately got the back hand a bit, but is still pretty viable.

    Hope you find what you are looking for in Electricity.
  3. The Saiyan New Player

    I used static push, Ebomb, attract, electrocute, voltaic bolt, electro Genesis. Attract can clip into anything. I clipped it with powers all the time. Cast attract them immediately cast Ebomb you won't see the attract animation but still get the damage. Plus to genesis on the add or boss with the most health, cause when the add dies the aura disappears. This loses the dot. I would start with push, attract Ebomb clip. Weapon clip to electrocute. Then weapon or attract clip to genesis or bolt. Reapeat. I used attract /Ebomb clip alot.
  4. ACW37162 Loyal Player

    In lower end content where everything KO's quickly it very hard. Your skill points are low im not sure you have enough to buy all of the first level weapon innates.

    In higher end content your ability to apply dots shines. Look at overcharge in T5 content and yes electricity can keep up with HL in most cases. As electric your probably better of running a pure might build then a might/prec build because a majority of damage is dot based.

    Knowing your rotations.
    Knowing how to manage your power
    Knowing the content and where to place yourself and which powers to use
    Using consumable and trinkets effectively
    Having more than one DPS trinket.
  5. Matrix242 Active Player

    I completely understand how you feel. It's nearly impossible for me to keep up with a hard-light, mental, fire or gadgets dps. I'm full t5 with Vs mods and some experts. For nexus I recommend using overcharge instead of voltaic bolt, but you can use voltaic bolt for lower level stuff. I am planning on switching powers to mental because electric probably won't do as much damage until it gets a revamp. Also the only time I will beat a hard-light dps is if they don't use it to its best (clipping like crazy).
  6. The Saiyan New Player

    Electric has a couple viable options which is nice compared to quantum which I currently am. In t5 raids especially I can really only run one specific loadout. Where with electric you have burst or dots. I've ran 5-7 dot loadouts and burst like stated before. I think I'll eventually switch back and make up some videos of the two different styles electric has to offer. When I was electric the only time I couldn't keep up was when there was a huge lack of adds like in prime but my burst loadout kept me towards the front in damage. I've since stacked about 600 might so it would be interesting to see the numbers from when I was electric.
  7. shaun10656 New Player

    I can out dps light and gadgets I don't see a lot of gadgets around as a earth dps I was actually out earth dps when I was electric ironic lol
  8. Remander Steadfast Player

    Electricity can DPS just fine. Your SP are too low to get even the first tier DPS innates. Considering you're CR 93, I'm assuming you're running T5. If so, most DPS you're up against will have far more SP, so you lose damage right there. Also, I suspect you aren't benefiting from Voltaic Bolt, unless you're using consumables. Wired won't cut it. I'd drop it for Overcharge. As others have said, Attract helps with burst, because of the clipping. Without knowing your rotations, it's hard to guide you.
  9. Azrain New Player

    Thanks for the input guys, I'll take heart in the fact that some elec dps can keep up with the likes of HL. I do have to work on my sp as many of you suggested. To clarify my rotation using my loadout, static push > ebomb > electrocute > weapon combo /clip > electrogenesis /clip > wired > weapon combo /clip > voltaic bolt.

    So I make use of the polarize pi from static push by using bomb and electrocute straight after to get the increased damage and extra dot. I clip electrogenesis with wired since it has fairly long cast time and use voltaic bolt once the electrify pi is applied to spread the extra dots. I never considered overcharge and will look into it. From whats suggested so far I'm thinking replacing wired and voltaic with attract and overcharge should be my first change. I'll look into it and see how it changes my dps.
  10. Holy Demon New Player

    Playing a HL dps, I've only seen one electric dps who has outdpsed me once in FR. Now he puts out 100-200k less than I do since he's become undergeared than I am, and I've started to farm some more sp (back then I was 60sp vs his 110 sp). I've never run nexus/paradox with him, for obvious reason, but he has complained about the lack of ranged option for electric. And concerning HL, I know plenty of HL dps who outdps me, as well as HL dps who cant even do half of my dps, so outdps-ing a HL is not too amazing a feat, a lot of HL DPS don't execute their combo properly at all.

    Also, gadget dps do much better damage than HL dps. Their rifle-power-rifle-power rotation can easily keep up with HL's FFF, and when they start using rifle-photon blast in boss, HL has no way of catching up with that kind of damage(And I've tried using lightblast, didn't work out at all). Not to mention, the learning curve of gadget is way less steeper than HL's. I'd say HL dps is on par with Quantum dps.
  11. mgkaenzo Committed Player

    If you can't keep up ANY gadget or hl dps I'm sure that you can't keep up a lots of player in every powerset. I have been electric in T4 and damage was very good and on what I know about the power I'm sure that it's very good for T5.
  12. Hard Night New Player

    After playing both, I can say that's not true. They both require practice to the point where the jump clips have to feel natural...actually I'll say I mess up combos from time to time on my Gadgets, but rarely ever did on my HL (ps3 player). If they can't do one good combo as HL then they definitely can't make Gadgets look good. Mental on the other hand, is much easier to manage, Quantum too.

    @OP
    Probably because t5 is mainly about boss killing and small time aoeing (usually 3 or 4 things to kill at one time). Electricity isn't much of a boss killer and its meant to destroy giant groups of adds, while boss killer power sets (Mental for example) have massive single target damage plus pretty decent aoe, and mixed power sets (like Fire) are less specialized but good at both.

    Fact of the matter is, some dps sets are just better at certain points in the game. Being under geared or facing high hp opponents means dot stacking with a bit of burst is effective. Being over geared or facing low hp opponents means burst is dominant. Gates is about aoe, Prime is about single target...before t5, those 2 were the "dps test zones" (usually Gates from what I've seen) and plenty of powersets were labled decent or worse. Now t5 is out and you see the return of Mental, Nature players here and there, cast time powers have made a return (especially with the home turf mod), and power sets that were by top tier in melee range aren't the be all end all for dps anymore.
  13. insinceremelody New Player

    I recently switched to electric DPS, and I would say it is definitely viable. It's just not for scoreboard chasers most of the time. I've run Nexus with my league a number of times and we never have a problem beating it (barring cheap artifacts in the last room) even if I'm coming in under them in damage. Of course, most of them have expert mods while I only have fives right now.

    There will always be min-maxers in MMOs who won't tolerate any deviation from the OP flavor of the month, and to be honest, if the group feels that they have to kick you because you aren't right up there with the #1 in damage out, they probably aren't going to beat it after you leave. Play whatever power you think is fun and leave the rest to the "uber-l33ts" who spend $50 a week replaying Nexus and Paradox.
  14. Remander Steadfast Player

    I'm currently running Attract, Overcharge, Electrostatic Bomb, Static Push, Electrogenesis, and Electrocute. I subbed EG for Wired based on testing by Elusian (see Max Volt's Guide in Oracle's Database). With 109 SP, I have all the DPS crit innates plus the 2 Iconic Power DPS innates. Thus, the extra buff from Wired doesn't get me as much at this point as the extra DoT from EG.

    I usually set up EG and EC (preceded by SP) as my DoTs to start a fight, unless I'm dealing with low HP adds. The rest of the time, I simply rotate weapon combo/Attract/OC>EB (or combo/Attract/EB for low HP adds), throwing SP in as needed to keep polarized up. Once EG and EC are off CD, I set them up again, assuming there is enough fight duration left to justify it. The charges from OC will stack (up to 4 times, with this rotation), and any adds at close range will also take damage. When polarized is up, Attract will kick up and EB will pull adds together, which serves to keep them juggled inside the DoT field of EG and EC. It's pretty potent and can be used at mid-long range (need mid range for SP and EG casts). Elusian has run this loadout with great success in T5 raids. My DPS gear isn't ready for those yet, so I stick to healing them. ;)
  15. Holy Demon New Player

    Actually, the jump clipping of HL is much harder than Gadget. With HL, the jump has be timed correctly with snap trap/grasping hand, too early(e.g immediately after casting snap trap) and you will fail to clip fan, too late (e.g when you see the fan animation) and you're losing out on dps. It's even worse that many HL dps go on without even knowing that their timing is wrong. If you see a double ram, or your fan is showing (these 2 are the most common timing), then you've messed up that jump clip. Heck, and if you're gonna use Martial arts with HL, be prepared for hand cramps. While with gadget, you can clip fear gas as soon as you cast it. Anybody can learn that in 15 minutes.

    The other major clipping technique is much harder as well for HL: clipping whip vs clipping with defib/intim. Same reason, whip chain has to be clipped perfectly so that you won't move forward by the whip at all. To date, I've yet to see any HL dps who can consistently do that (they will mess up sometimes by moving forward a tiny bit). With defib/intim, you don't even need practice to do that.
  16. Azrain New Player

    I'm also running the same loadout you mentioned after the input from this thread. I do have a few questions though. Is attract a linear aoe, kinda similar to static push which is a cone aoe? Or is it a single target skill? Also, not sure if I'm using overcharge correctly. Do you use it on cd so you can get the 4 charges off? It seems to be a very high power consumption rotation. Also, similar to my previous question about attract, when overcharge charges and blows up, does it have an aoe effect? Just curious since I just added these 2 skills to my loadout and still getting the hang of them.

    Thanks again for all the input!!
  17. Flash New Player

    Been elec since day one (I would say I was one of the first 10 even :p) switched to gadgets about 6 months ago, but messing around with elec again now. If you're just looking for a go-to loadout for now i'd use
    Electroburst>Voltaic>Electrocute>Wired>Electrostatic bomb> Electrogen

    I have another loadout, but don't want to say what it is until i'm done messing with it.
  18. Remander Steadfast Player

    Attract is pretty much single target, rather than cone, like SP is. With OC, you just keep applying it in rotation. Once the hit count for the charges gets high enough to trigger the explosion, all of the accrued charges (4 or so) will go off simultaneously, damaging the target and nearby adds for an identical amount. Yes, it is very high power consumption, but you can cut back, when needed, by extending weapon combos and/or dropping out a power, such as Attract. Just need to gauge the power.
  19. Liightmare New Player

    attract is def 100% cone not single target
    • Like x 1
  20. DEATHTAG New Player

    Electric is fun to play but with the lack of 60% power or a finisher, it is very limited on burst damage. It's more the player who can keep this power set at the top of the score card imo. Your skill points is a HUGH problem for you. To fully spec DPS you need 140+ sp to get all the might, prec, and crit chance and damage. And you are at the half way point. Work on your feats. Otherwise it doesn't matter what power set you play. If your a decent player, that and your gear can only take you so far. Happy feat hunting!