Trouble doing decent DPS(Elec), any suggestions?

Hi, I am a returner on DCUO.

Played long time ago near when game was released
then I recently started from scratch.

so far I played for 5-6 months with Elec / Flight / Might based with Hand-blaster

started with Gadget but changed Elec. cuz I love the healing/dps at the same time.



so NOW

I have 341 CR with most FP regular stuff, Goggles and Wings
Arts, Solar Amp(200), Trans Card(180), Strat Card(180)
Skill Points at 256 - Hand Blaster Mastery, all movement passives on, rest on Might/ Crit+/ Might&Power
and Mods are at



I know and understand probably many many people ask "what's best for me?"
so I tried googling, watching YouTube, but still I couldn't get the best answer for what I should do,
and most of them are like 3-4 year old threads and information.

so why try getting info on internet while you can ask your symptoms to those experts?



+ This is my current load-out for raid bosses,
when add phase on instances, I take Tesla Ball and Electrocute instead of Ionic Drain and Heat Vision.

Today, I tried few runs on FFE and FVE, most of the time I'm like half less DPS than others...
(and they were like CR339 and such...)
the group people were nice and not kicking me out, but still I felt shame and sorry for them
like I'm only a burden to the team..

Any suggestions would be nice

Most important is learning the powers themselves and what situations to use them in. How do you use that set up? When you attack a boss what order do you use those powers in? When you attack trash mobs what order?

I mostly do 1-2-3 and when ionic Drain is done and on CD, again 2 then HV, and then again 2-3 .. but only on single target = bosses

that's the most I can tell about the rotation and with perfect-timing I can say.

or maybe I need to change a bit? I think I set that up from watching some YT video or blog-guide stuff.

Hello and welcome back!

Hmm.. have you tried reading Oracle's database or the Weapons and Power thread in this forum? They are more than likely to be up to date. As Quantum Rising suggests, take another look at your powers and what you are using for your rotation. The devs have changed how bosses/trash mobs work (some trash mobs have more defense/health) within the year so your loadout may be highly outdated.

The most noticeable thing I see is that your not using circuit breaker. It ups the damage to your normal rotation so I'd recommend giving it a try.

As Powrer Surge said. Circuit breaker is a must have for electric DPSing. Another thing is your artifact setup. Trans, and Strat are great, but Solar amp is only good for a few situations especially with electric.

I’m not gonna tell you to dump money into other artifacts, but you should definitely try to level up scrap (to spam CB) maybe look into leveling EOG and grimorium. Artifacts best work in certain situations and most elite players have several artifacts that best fit those situations. Just running trans strat and solar won’t do it. If you just want to keep the same three artifacts and don’t want to level others. You’re better off with Grim or Scrap instead of Solar.

A lot of those players probably have maxed out their Might and Power stat points and that’s also a decent boost to DPS. You need about 370ish SP to fully max out might and power but you don’t need max SP but it is a big help.

Are you running nitro soders and compound omegas? I know that players like to use the bottled city soder but the nitros increase your might for about 30 minutes or until your next KO and the compound is also 30 minutes but doesn’t wear off if you ko. If you ever do decide to run the nitros. Get them off the broker (or craft em), and get the ones that are named after the current latest episode.

Last but not least positioning. How are you positioned? Are you max range DPSing? That can cause you to miss out on damage because you’re only targeting the ads that are in your range but since you’re max range it won’t be every ad that might’ve been grabbed by the tank. With electric AOE you should definitely be in the mid range. With electric ST. It’s not that strong but should hit decently and it’s nice that you already have solar amp at 200 because this is the best (and only) situation to use solar amp with electric. With single target it’s best to stay ranged though.

With all of that being said. You should definitely check out Obsidian Chill’s videos as he does go more in depth on every power including electric and that could definitely help you much more than I could

I used to be a huge HUGE fan of Megavolt...especially since I couldn't see the damage increase from Circuit Breaker. That was until last year...I decided to try it again and now I could see the difference.

I do pretty good with the same Artifact set up you have, and I've tried others, but just can't seem to make them work as good as Trans/Strat/Solar Amp. Before you go changing out any artifacts, give this loadout and rotation a go:

[I don't know what system you're on so i'm just listing this in the order of rotation more or less, and you can set it up on your bar how you'd like]

Arc Lightning
Electrogenesis
Tesla Ball
Heat Vision (Amplified)
Ionic Drain
Circuit Breaker (Supercharge)

While your DoTs are going off, you'll be going between heat vision, Ionic drain and Arc Lightning. If you really want to be more focused on the boss and there are less adds, switch out Electrogenesis for Tesla Blast or Overcharge. No matter what you decide to use, always make sure to have Tesla BALL in your loadout and going off as much as possible in your rotations. Tesla Ball helps you quickly build up your Supercharge. If you do get rid of Solar Amp, heat vision would still be useful for single target, but otherwise you'd want to have Voltaic Blast on your tray.

And speaking of Supercharge, if you really are considering switching out your third Artifact (Solar Amp), i'd go with Scrap of the Soul Cloak to maximize your Supercharge build ups.

I saw a video the other day where someone was using Robot Sidekick with Electric. I guess it could be used in the place of a DoT (Electrogenesis or Electrocute). Personally I wouldn't because once it gets destroyed, you'd have to use trickery to summon it back quickly without it getting destroyed (if you spend too much time trying to re-summon it, you lose out on a lot of damage). Test it out on the dummies and see how that feels to you.

Good luck OP.

First I want to say welcome back. Don’t get frustrated. You picked a power you liked and are asking help to use it. Nothing wrong with that. I’ll help as best I can. First of all do you happen to have a second armory you can use for dps? It will be difficult to keep switching loadouts between fights. This will make it so that you lag behind the rest of the group which means you will do less damage. I’ll give you a few loadouts and will tell you whether they are for aoe or single target (st). So pick the one you prefer.

The first aoe will be pretty much the standard loadout most electric dps use. Loadout is aoe:
Arc lightning, voltaic blast, Tesla ball, electrogenesis, electrocute, and circuit breaker

The rotation is: genesis > arc > voltaic > tesla > arc > voltaic > electrocute > arc > voltaic > tesla > arc > voltaic > repeat

This is the one you will see most electric use and do good aoe damage with. I mean there is a reason it’s the standard loadout. However it’s not the one I use and I’ll explain later why


The second aoe loadout is:
Heat vision, arc lightning, Tesla ball, voltaic blast, robot sidekick, and circuit breaker

The rotation is:
Arc > Tesla ball > voltaic > heat vision (this first part is the starting part of the rotation when getting to new adds. After that is set up the rotation is standard) > arc > Tesla > voltaic > arc > heat vision > repeat from second arc

This one is the one I mainly use but I’ll explain later


The final aoe loadout I’ll share is this one. The loadout is:
Heat vision, arc lightning, Tesla ball, electrocute, electro genesis, and circuit breaker

The rotation is:
Genesis > arc (using these 2 first is just to get your initial dots up ASAP. The actual rotation starts here) > heat vision > arc > Tesla > electrocute > arc > heat vision > arc > Tesla > genesis > arc > repeat starting from heat vision

This one is a mix from the standard loadout and the new one I use. I’ll explain when this one is better.

Ok so now you have 3 aoe loadouts to chose from. All 3 are strong don’t get me wrong but there is a reason I don’t use the standard loadout. That is because the rev up time is longer with the standard loadout. Most adds will die before the standard loadout kicks into full damage. If all the groups of adds get pulled together than yes this will be great but that rarely happens. Most of the time you will be hitting adds with have your half your rotation.

The one I use which is the second one I gave you hits revs up to max damage pretty fast. It also isn’t fully saturated with abilities that require large groups of adds to do good. If you notice, most groups of adds are in pairs of 3. Some groups are next to each other so the tank can pull them together. But normally you will fight adds in groups of 3. Tesla ball, arc lightning, and genesis all do better with more adds because of how they split. The second adds voltaic blast into the mix instead of genesis to add the missing full burst that you wouldn’t have with the 3rd rotation.

And this bring me to the 3rd loadout. I actually prefer this over the standard loadout too. This has a faster rev up time compared to the standard but slower than the second one. However this shines more in fight that last longer and are aoe. Think of FVe last 2 boss fights. During the 2nd boss fight the tank can pull them together and you will have a high density of targets. This is where this loadout out shines the second loadout. And it having HV means it also shines over the first loadout too.

Now this is the part that you need to pay attention with electric aoe. Arc and genesis have a heavy draw back. If arc kills a target than it will no longer bounce to additional targets. So always aim at targets with higher health. And genesis is an aura that’s placed in the 2 nearest targets to you. However if they die than they also take the aura with them and you lose the dot.


Now for ST:
The loadout is:
Heat vision, electro static bomb (ESB), electrogenesis, ionic drain, robot sidekick, and circuit breaker

The rotation is:
Genesis > heat vision > ESB > ionic drain > ESB >

You will repeat the rotation of HV > ESB > IO > ESB. However whenever genesis is off cooldown you will use it in place of electro static bomb for that section of the rotation. This loadout works better if you have grimorium leveled up. This is because grim will set up the polarized PI which boosts ESB. If you don’t have it than use Tesla blast (the ST ability) in place of ESB. Be careful with bosses that jump, move, charge, teleport like brainiac in FFe, and zoom in RWe. They ESB is a projectile. So if the boss moves you lose the damage. In these situations you will do better with Tesla blast.


The second loadout is:
Heat vision, arc lightning, Tesla ball, ionic drain, robot sidekick, and circuit breaker

The rotation is:
Arc > Tesla > heat vision > ionic drain > repeat

This loadout is for bosses that summon adds. The arc and Tesla will make it so you kill things the adds around the boss too. Think of bosses like aquaman in RWe and grodd in FVe.


Overall electric shines in aoe situations but it can struggle a little in ST situations. But remember. Circuit breaker is your key to ST. It’s boost your overall damage. If you are in an EoG group than keep following the green circles. Make sure you have the supercharged circuit breaker head mod and the extended sc chest mod. The faster you can get CB up the better you will do.

I’m typing from my phone so I can’t add a link. But if you want visuals to how these loadouts work. I have some of them in my electric guide video. The video itself is outdated but on the Prec side. The might still shows some of these loadouts. You can clip on the link in my signature to get there. Anyways hope it helps.

Orb for DPS????

Wouldn't grim be a terrible choice for might based electric? He applies the wrong pi. I'd think it makes way more sense to use quislet (pet vs pet arti) since he would be popping the strong attack with use of a supercharge. Plus at 200 rank, he becomes a baby scrap. So him and scrap with trans or eog if you're with smart players and you could be stacking neo venom and electro genesis pretty non stop no? I ask because I don't use electric so don't think I'm trying to show people up with knowledge or anything lol

I tried testing it on live. For aoe quislet is better but for ST grim was better. That was probably a month ago that I tested

Gotcha. Butttt still have to ask if you were using quislet at 200 and getting more super build up aka were you using supercharges while testing? I'm not implying that quislet does more damage vs grim (pet vs pet) I'm asking if getting the supercharge faster can over take using grim. You may have the exact same answer if you were in fact using supers while testing.

For SP, I would suggest not worrying about HB mastery, after your damage crits and movement mode, and iconic powers put everything in Might/Power.
I see you have some health and dom mods in your generator. I suggest all power for blues and resto for yellow since you like to heal.

Is your damage half overall or half on boss damage? I usually just focus on my boss damage for elite raids, but it's good to have arc and Tesla ball in your load out because they help with adds when needed. As others have said Circuit breaker is a must for electric DPS. If you really want to be near the top of the DPS charts you need the trans and strat cards at 200 each. For my Celestial main I was always about 10-20% below until I got both to 200. My electric only has the trans at 200, no strat yet, so I'm OK being 10-20% below the top.

What you say here is very true. With green circles electric DPS can be at the top with CB up most the time.

I dropped electrogenesis for adds because they die so quickly. I also use Robot Sidekick instead of electro genesis for bosses. Have you done any damage comparison for EG vs. RSK? I guess I can try it out.

Your 2nd load out is the one I use for bosses and I suggest it for PJ. It has a nice flow with arc, tb, ID, HV, repeat.

Genesis vs robot is a bit of a hard one. The main loadout I use for adds doesn’t use genesis or electrocute. Genesis can do more damage but that doesn’t mean you will. I use genesis for situations like the 2nd boss of FVe where I know things will live longer. Otherwise robot is better. The second ST loadout is the one I use for bosses like grodd in FVe where adds spawn. But generally use the first build like in FFe.

Electric isn’t about 1 build fits all. You kinda need to be able to more flexible with your loadout

Yup both at 200. The base damage from quislest with the burst damage from hitting abilities and damage from the sc usage does not do enough for the base damage of the beam. I was unfortunately disappointed since I do like the quislet more lol. Even the extra sc wasn’t enough. I’ll check again sometime this week to double check

Solid answer. Just learning for a league mate that's been looking to improve. It's amazing the difference between us in some runs vs us in another even tho he's changed nothing between them. Basically, he's using me as his benchmark and we run instances that make for a good dps comparison. And then rerun with whatever changes he wants to make. But we can go into fvr, use a build and be right with me. Then go into ffr and I'll beat on him pretty badly. Electric clearly needs a lot of armories!

Is this a recent testing? He did get buffed a little over a month ago. And I hated him pre buff. After the buff, love him.

I thought he was buffed more than a month ago? I did test him a month ago and use quis aoe and grim st I’ll have to retest soon. It’s been so busy with the test server and other stuff. Plus helping league and friends get feats lol.

Also this probably came without saying. But everything was tested on live. Just in case anyone was curious lol

On my electric main I have 11 armories in my base lol. Usually what I’ll do is prepare what I’m running. For example if I know I’ll be the dps for x content I’ll set 3 of my armories depending on what I’m doing. Hallways armory, and 2 boss armories that fit what I’m running. With a healer armory in case I have to switch.

So using FVe for example. If I run with a friend who is a tank I know he likes to pull all the adds in all the hallways. So my add loadout will be the one with genesis since there is more aoe.

Then for bosses I’ll use the second armory I will use the 2nd boss armory. For the second and 3rd boss I can use my aoe loadout that i used for the adds in the gorilla hallways so my 3rd dps loadout would be the 2nd aoe loadout with robot instead of genesis. This is because the civilians don’t live long enough to use genesis. So I’m FVe I’ll use 2 add loadouts and 1 boss loadout.

If my friend isn’t tanking and I get a random tank than I’ll use just the aoe robot add loadout and st loadout.

In FFe I’ll use the robot add loadout depending on if tank same as FVe and for ST I’ll use the first ST loadout I use without Tesla ball. This is because I don’t have to worry so much about adds.

So on and so one lol

Check out these videos from Chill and Ieddy. Chills is from last year so i'm not sure if it's still a meta build now a days but Ieddys is from july

Wow... Thank you all for amazingly detailed answers

I have tested out with new DPS Loadout with Circuit Breaker(+Mod)





^ Here's the result of FFR today.

I realized that I have to keep up the DoTs like Tesla Ball and Electrocute since I have 17% debuff from Trans Card (currently at 180).

and yeah in that way, I can get more crits which result in getting more Strat Card DoTs.
Plus, Thanks for telling me about the Circuit Breaker... it gives HUGE difference

I am also thinking to change Solar Amp to Quislet or Grim Pet Art.

Do you guys think I should level up both separately 1.for AoE setting and 2.Grim for Boss fight setting?
dunno if it's that worth or I can simply do Grim and it will do fine
OR even I can just stay Solar Amp? with HV and do the rotation?

and yes, I do have Armories for different settings
but mostly on different looks and for Healer Role

Thanks in advance
and just FYI, I'm currently in EU so I couldn't response so quick
Thanks all who replied here, especially thanks Deity for the whole thing it really helped