Electronics; is it worth it?

[Codename Quincy]

for a non healer i mean.

surely someone has done some math on this.  i mean, yes electronics benefits all of your abilities, but i'm beginning to think it's not worth it.  i don't have any good numbers, but with 2200ish electronics, a sticky bomb is hitting in the area of 400k.  most of the time i hit 2 or 3 targets, so 800-1200k per bomb.  but i can only do this every 45 seconds, and sometimes i miss.  so add that to my weapon damage in the same time frame, and i couldn't even guess what that is without a parse, because that dps number is pretty garbage.  in that 45 seconds, would someone who front-loaded firearms do more?  also wondering if your elec stat affects resist rates on flashbangs etc. 

 

[HHHope]

I think it's dependant on what you're build is. Personally - I put little to no effort in electronics and I honestl feel fine. I found the only time my electronic score played into effect was when I was using damage skills. Since I'm using pulse & overdose I honestly haven't felt my electronic score has effected my skills. Maybe I'm completely wrong though lol 

 

[Yurika889]

I believe that not only do you need to have electronics  stacked but a fair bit of skill cooldown. if you stack enough talents/gear talents you can severely reduce your skill cooldowns. 

 

[ThePassionateGamer]

Hi there.

Electronics builds are absolutely worthwhile and very versatile at the same time.

The higher your electronics value / your skillpower the lower the cooldowns so with high enough skillpower and the synergy of a good talent choice your can significantly lower your cooldowns to the point where you can activate your skills again before their duration ends (in case of skills that have a duration of course). The weapon talent "Coolheaded" or a good Caduceus (Namend assault rifle) will also help greatly with your cooldowns.

There are plenty good electronics builds out there. It all depends a bit on what you want to do. Solo play? Damage buff? Healer? Crowd Control? Tank?

All those "roles" can be archived with a good electronics build.

I currently run a damage buff build for the groups I play with.  I use Pulse with the tactical scanner mod together with Smart Cover with the Recharger mod. That boosts damage when in cover that is in range of my smartcover for over 40% with my current skillpower of around 37k whilst it also gives you 50% damage reduction. The Pulse raises the crit chance and crit damage greatly I don't recall the exact values right now but combined it buffs your damage output better then anything else I found so far except the signature skill "Tactical Link" which has a way longer cooldown. So a 100k Vector (possible value with low firearms but good mods) would have 140K base DPS and something like 210k ore more on a critical hit which you will land with at least every second bullet if not more often (as said I can't remember the bonus from the pulse atm). But it is kinda only really good in group play. Solo you just need some kind of healing too.

So yes with enough electronics and stamina you can deal insane ammounts of damage and at the same time you can just by changing skills and talents adapt to many different situations. Wanna go the tank route? Take the ballistic shield which will have several hundred K HP (500k with the reactive targeting mod at max. skillpower afaik) or with the kinetic breaker mod to receive some healing. 2nd skill can be first aid to heal yourself when needed or a crowd control skill like sticky bomb with flash bang to flank the bigger npc's (MG or shield guys) to shoot their weak point (ammo packs). Wanna go for max. base damage buff? Take the Mobile Cover skill with the countermeasures mod and combine it with smart cover with the recharger mod. That gives you a huge damage reduction and over 50% base damage buff. I do not know yet where the skills are capped. The only skill I know for certain is the sticky bomb with BFB mod that is capped at 250k damage (without talent bonuses for hitting more then one enemy etc.). So I do not know where the limit is for the buffs you can get from any other skill. Maybe you can get a damage reduction of 70 - 80% if you stack mobile cover with smart cover or get a damage buff of 70% when maxed out on skillpower. :wink:

 

[ADK-Joker]

yes. sometimes.

 

[MichFan]

I would say absolutely worth it. The nice thing about them is if you roll your backpack the right way you can actually give your skill power a huge boost with out having to change much of your gear. I am currently sitting at less than 1100 Electronics but have skill power close to 19,000 due to a couple of mods and my backpack roll. 

As another poster said the true damage you can due with things like pulse plus the ability to have a strong heal and all of it recharge quickly IMO is way better than having a high DPS that isn't truly accurate anyways. 

 

[Xeromaus]

for a non healer i mean.

surely someone has done some math on this.  i mean, yes electronics benefits all of your abilities, but i'm beginning to think it's not worth it.  i don't have any good numbers, but with 2200ish electronics, a sticky bomb is hitting in the area of 400k.  most of the time i hit 2 or 3 targets, so 800-1200k per bomb.  but i can only do this every 45 seconds, and sometimes i miss.  so add that to my weapon damage in the same time frame, and i couldn't even guess what that is without a parse, because that dps number is pretty garbage.  in that 45 seconds, would someone who front-loaded firearms do more?  also wondering if your elec stat affects resist rates on flashbangs etc. 

Absolutely firearms will do more in that time. Actually, a pure build will start doing more damage after roughly 8-12 shots (or one on a sniper) if crits line up nicely, which could be as short as 2 seconds. Factor in the new gear sets' bonuses, and you can shorten that even further. Where your build will SHINE however is in the DZ. That one sticky bomb can one shot a group of 4 rather easily, as most don't build pvp suits for exotic resilience. Couple that with a healer build and you're welcome on my squad any day.

Electronics do not boost resistances as far as I know, there are specific stats available on gear that pertains to resisting each kind of stun/impairment.

 

[Xeromaus]

I would say absolutely worth it. The nice thing about them is if you roll your backpack the right way you can actually give your skill power a huge boost with out having to change much of your gear. I am currently sitting at less than 1100 Electronics but have skill power close to 19,000 due to a couple of mods and my backpack roll. 

As another poster said the true damage you can due with things like pulse plus the ability to have a strong heal and all of it recharge quickly IMO is way better than having a high DPS that isn't truly accurate anyways. 

Making use of pulse bonuses is also aim dependant, it's just timed instead of being a constant increase. That being said, increasing your base damage is always a more reliable way to increase overall damage, as crits/headshots multiply off of your base. Your base always hits, your crits/headshots don't. By the same logic that makes DPS inaccurate, crit/headshot is even more inaccurate, especially to a moving target like a player.

To be 100% real, we all need both. We need the base damage high enough to make the crit/headshot grow larger. One without the other is useless....unless you wanna bet it all on a sniper one bullet cycle at a time. As for pulse, there's a whole separate argument to be had whether the +damage is worth it over using the skill slot for another stun/heal/defense.

 

[MichFan]

Absolutely firearms will do more in that time. Actually, a pure build will start doing more damage after roughly 8-12 shots (or one on a sniper) if crits line up nicely, which could be as short as 2 seconds. Factor in the new gear sets' bonuses, and you can shorten that even further. Where your build will SHINE however is in the DZ. That one sticky bomb can one shot a group of 4 rather easily, as most don't build pvp suits for exotic resilience. Couple that with a healer build and you're welcome on my squad any day.

Electronics do not boost resistances as far as I know, there are specific stats available on gear that pertains to resisting each kind of stun/impairment.

Correct, they just make your two skills that much more effective and also quickens the cool down time. I believe that it does boost resistance on the Booster Shot with the damage reduction and boost mod attached but that is the only one. 

 

[Xeromaus]

Correct, they just make your two skills that much more effective and also quickens the cool down time. I believe that it does boost resistance on the Booster Shot with the damage reduction and boost mod attached but that is the only one. 

Correct on the booster, I forgot that one.

 

[g1nt3r]

Hi there.

Electronics builds are absolutely worthwhile and very versatile at the same time.

The higher your electronics value / your skillpower the lower the cooldowns so with high enough skillpower and the synergy of a good talent choice your can significantly lower your cooldowns to the point where you can activate your skills again before their duration ends (in case of skills that have a duration of course). The weapon talent "Coolheaded" or a good Caduceus (Namend assault rifle) will also help greatly with your cooldowns.

There are plenty good electronics builds out there. It all depends a bit on what you want to do. Solo play? Damage buff? Healer? Crowd Control? Tank?

All those "roles" can be archived with a good electronics build.

I currently run a damage buff build for the groups I play with.  I use Pulse with the tactical scanner mod together with Smart Cover with the Recharger mod. That boosts damage when in cover that is in range of my smartcover for over 40% with my current skillpower of around 37k whilst it also gives you 50% damage reduction. The Pulse raises the crit chance and crit damage greatly I don't recall the exact values right now but combined it buffs your damage output better then anything else I found so far except the signature skill "Tactical Link" which has a way longer cooldown. So a 100k Vector (possible value with low firearms but good mods) would have 140K base DPS and something like 210k ore more on a critical hit which you will land with at least every second bullet if not more often (as said I can't remember the bonus from the pulse atm). But it is kinda only really good in group play. Solo you just need some kind of healing too.

So yes with enough electronics and stamina you can deal insane ammounts of damage and at the same time you can just by changing skills and talents adapt to many different situations. Wanna go the tank route? Take the ballistic shield which will have several hundred K HP (500k with the reactive targeting mod at max. skillpower afaik) or with the kinetic breaker mod to receive some healing. 2nd skill can be first aid to heal yourself when needed or a crowd control skill like sticky bomb with flash bang to flank the bigger npc's (MG or shield guys) to shoot their weak point (ammo packs). Wanna go for max. base damage buff? Take the Mobile Cover skill with the countermeasures mod and combine it with smart cover with the recharger mod. That gives you a huge damage reduction and over 50% base damage buff. I do not know yet where the skills are capped. The only skill I know for certain is the sticky bomb with BFB mod that is capped at 250k damage (without talent bonuses for hitting more then one enemy etc.). So I do not know where the limit is for the buffs you can get from any other skill. Maybe you can get a damage reduction of 70 - 80% if you stack mobile cover with smart cover or get a damage buff of 70% when maxed out on skillpower. :wink:

Man wouldn't mind having you in my squad. Your build sounds pretty damn good bud.

 

[ThePassionateGamer]

Man wouldn't mind having you in my squad. Your build sounds pretty damn good bud.

I don't know when you play and in which timezone since I play in CEST atm I can't say if we would find enough chances to form a group. PM me if you still wanna give it a try, then I send you my ingame name so that you can add me.

But I made a mistake with mentioning the mobile cover with an additional damage boost. It does give you some resistances against blasts and damage but no damage boost. I don't know why I had in mind that it does give you 10% more base damage. So sorry for that. :wink:

 

[ThePassionateGamer]

...Your base always hits, your crits/headshots don't. By the same logic that makes DPS inaccurate, crit/headshot is even more inaccurate, especially to a moving target like a player.

To be 100% real, we all need both. We need the base damage high enough to make the crit/headshot grow larger. One without the other is useless....unless you wanna bet it all on a sniper one bullet cycle at a time. As for pulse, there's a whole separate argument to be had whether the +damage is worth it over using the skill slot for another stun/heal/defense.

To say that "your base always hits" is like you would say I always land a normal hit but not always a headshot like you had 100% perfect aim on center mass even on "a moving target like a player" like you wrote, which I guess you do not. :wink:

I think with inacurate DPS he meant that the games calculation does take into account things that do not really matter (like the accuracy stat) and it assumes that every bullet hits when calculating the DPS it shows you. As some other players already demonstrated in this forum, accuracy can increase your paper DPS alot while it won't do the same thing ingame unless you shoot extreme long salvoes at longer ranges where the tighter grouping may come in handy.

The "smart cover" does give you a flat out base damage increase and the "pulse" increases your crit chance to around 50% if you have at least some percent on your gear and or weapon/mods. So every 2nd hit you land no matter where you land it, will be a critical. Even if you do not have any "+crit damage %" on your gear or weapon you would get 40 - 50 % from the pulse which is multiplied from your already raised base damage. So as long as both skills are up and you shoot from "smart cover" boosted cover you will have around 40% increase from the cover and 25% increase through criticals (+50% damage for every 2nd hit). The above values all assume that you heavily spec into skillpower. Of course all this is situational and not near as good as long as you can't shoot of of the boosted cover. There a pure damage build or a stamina + firearms build surely has its perks. But then again only that single agent benefits from his firepower. From the electronics build the whole group can benefit. Just Imagine an agent who's build just maxes DPS which many try to do. Now take his 200k DPS or whatever ha may have and add 65% or a bit more on top of that. That's where electronics build shine. Group play. That agent would melt down enemies with ease while he has to be kept alive by a dedicated medic and supported by a damage buff build. It all ends up in the right group composition.

A group with the right skill composition does not sacrifice anything imo if one agent takes over the support role. Sure if you got 4 Agents which all have pulse equipped then it is a big waste of skill slots. Because the single dedicated support agent can with the right gear and talents keep the pulse up all the time. I can't do this right now so I still have a small gap in the skills uptime but as stated before I'm far from "perfectly" or even "really good" geared. My gear score atm is "only" 171.

 

[Xeromaus]

To say that "your base always hits" is like you would say I always land a normal hit but not always a headshot like you had 100% perfect aim on center mass even on "a moving target like a player" like you wrote, which I guess you do not. :wink:

I think with inacurate DPS he meant that the games calculation does take into account things that do not really matter (like the accuracy stat) and it assumes that every bullet hits when calculating the DPS it shows you. As some other players already demonstrated in this forum, accuracy can increase your paper DPS alot while it won't do the same thing ingame unless you shoot extreme long salvoes at longer ranges where the tighter grouping may come in handy.

The "smart cover" does give you a flat out base damage increase and the "pulse" increases your crit chance to around 50% if you have at least some percent on your gear and or weapon/mods. So every 2nd hit you land no matter where you land it, will be a critical. Even if you do not have any "+crit damage %" on your gear or weapon you would get 40 - 50 % from the pulse which is multiplied from your already raised base damage. So as long as both skills are up and you shoot from "smart cover" boosted cover you will have around 40% increase from the cover and 25% increase through criticals (+50% damage for every 2nd hit). The above values all assume that you heavily spec into skillpower. Of course all this is situational and not near as good as long as you can't shoot of of the boosted cover. There a pure damage build or a stamina + firearms build surely has its perks. But then again only that single agent benefits from his firepower. From the electronics build the whole group can benefit. Just Imagine an agent who's build just maxes DPS which many try to do. Now take his 200k DPS or whatever ha may have and add 65% or a bit more on top of that. That's where electronics build shine. Group play. That agent would melt down enemies with ease while he has to be kept alive by a dedicated medic and supported by a damage buff build. It all ends up in the right group composition.

A group with the right skill composition does not sacrifice anything imo if one agent takes over the support role. Sure if you got 4 Agents which all have pulse equipped then it is a big waste of skill slots. Because the single dedicated support agent can with the right gear and talents keep the pulse up all the time. I can't do this right now so I still have a small gap in the skills uptime but as stated before I'm far from "perfectly" or even "really good" geared. My gear score atm is "only" 171.

If you land a hit at all, your base score factors in. That's what "your base always hits" means. Landing that hit with any amount of critical doesn't guarantee a critical, nor does exceptional aim guarantee a headshot against a moving target. Base damage is consistency, crit is spikes. Damage starts from the ground and moves up, doing it backwards invites issues. You're more than correct to say my aim isn't perfect, but I do build stability or range into every weapon to minimize the misses, even if it costs me some damage.

I am one of those players that's demonstrated the inaccuracies in DPS, as well as ways to get a true score of your damage, it's on these boards under general discussion.

You make an assumption about critical percentage that doesn't hold up under testing. I can and do hold 50-60% critical chance without pulse, and not every 2nd shot lands a critical. In the long run, over thouands of bullets, it should work out exactly, but in shorter sample sizes, no. Sometimes you get lucky with crit strings, sometimes you don't, but it's a rare thing that your actual % is the % of crits landed. I've had a sniper mag that critted almost every time with low chance, and an smg mag that critted only a few times with a high chance.

I've been that agent with 250k+ dps. I've also been the agent that depended on the group. Neither way is better, as both have drawbacks. The high end DPS is squishy and requires careful play, the player relying on the group is only truly effective if the entire group is standing (or at least the sources of buffs and heals). Both ways are effective in their own way, but when it's down to brass tacks, I personally want to know that EVERY squad member can stand alone when they have/need to, and not on a timer. I find it better to be somewhere in the middle, with built in redundancies in your squad, and never a full spec one way or the other, but enough to be effective. If one player goes down and takes 1/4th of your plan with him/her (or more depending on how specialized you are), that's a huge problem for your group that needs to be corrected immediately, regardless of danger. On the other hand, if a player goes down, and your group can proceed as normal until a lull in action allows a rez, that's not a problem at all.

Your way can work. My way can work. In both ways, we're still dependent on the group as a whole to finish a mission. But, if the incursion has shown us anything, it's that individuals specced all one way or another, or built to do just one thing, isn't the plan that works more often. Everyone needs to be able to hold their own, even if only briefly, in any situation that can arise. For some enemies it doesn't matter how high you boost damage, they don't take any. There are some things that can't be out healed. There are some builds that can not be the last man standing and save the run. Your best odds are to factor it all in, not just the numbers.

 

[ThePassionateGamer]

If you land a hit at all, your base score factors in. That's what "your base always hits" means. Landing that hit with any amount of critical doesn't guarantee a critical, nor does exceptional aim guarantee a headshot against a moving target. Base damage is consistency, crit is spikes. Damage starts from the ground and moves up, doing it backwards invites issues. You're more than correct to say my aim isn't perfect, but I do build stability or range into every weapon to minimize the misses, even if it costs me some damage.

I am one of those players that's demonstrated the inaccuracies in DPS, as well as ways to get a true score of your damage, it's on these boards under general discussion.

You make an assumption about critical percentage that doesn't hold up under testing. I can and do hold 50-60% critical chance without pulse, and not every 2nd shot lands a critical. In the long run, over thouands of bullets, it should work out exactly, but in shorter sample sizes, no. Sometimes you get lucky with crit strings, sometimes you don't, but it's a rare thing that your actual % is the % of crits landed. I've had a sniper mag that critted almost every time with low chance, and an smg mag that critted only a few times with a high chance.

I've been that agent with 250k+ dps. I've also been the agent that depended on the group. Neither way is better, as both have drawbacks. The high end DPS is squishy and requires careful play, the player relying on the group is only truly effective if the entire group is standing (or at least the sources of buffs and heals). Both ways are effective in their own way, but when it's down to brass tacks, I personally want to know that EVERY squad member can stand alone when they have/need to, and not on a timer. I find it better to be somewhere in the middle, with built in redundancies in your squad, and never a full spec one way or the other, but enough to be effective. If one player goes down and takes 1/4th of your plan with him/her (or more depending on how specialized you are), that's a huge problem for your group that needs to be corrected immediately, regardless of danger. On the other hand, if a player goes down, and your group can proceed as normal until a lull in action allows a rez, that's not a problem at all.

Your way can work. My way can work. In both ways, we're still dependent on the group as a whole to finish a mission. But, if the incursion has shown us anything, it's that individuals specced all one way or another, or built to do just one thing, isn't the plan that works more often. Everyone needs to be able to hold their own, even if only briefly, in any situation that can arise. For some enemies it doesn't matter how high you boost damage, they don't take any. There are some things that can't be out healed. There are some builds that can not be the last man standing and save the run. Your best odds are to factor it all in, not just the numbers.

Ah ok now I see what you meant and I did not thought that the crit chance was so much RNG. I mean sure I know like in Roulette you can chose red and get a 50% chance that it lands on red does not mean that it can't land on black 5 times in a row. So yes you are right there too...I may have over simplified my example there.

The part that you are more dependant the more each member of a group specialises into one thing is also very true we learned that the hard way yesterday as we tried the "Falcon Lost" for the first time. Maybe we all have to adjust our builds some more. I will try to see what I can get out of my current gear and see where it leads me. Maybe I still can be partly buffing the group while still having a good chance on my own.

You gave me some good thoughts here. Thx.

EDIT: If you don't mind could you point me to your current build as an example pls? Is it up here somewhere?

 

[Xeromaus]

Ah ok now I see what you meant and I did not thought that the crit chance was so much RNG. I mean sure I know like in Roulette you can chose red and get a 50% chance that it lands on red does not mean that it can't land on black 5 times in a row. So yes you are right there too...I may have over simplified my example there.

The part that you are more dependant the more each member of a group specialises into one thing is also very true we learned that the hard way yesterday as we tried the "Falcon Lost" for the first time. Maybe we all have to adjust our builds some more. I will try to see what I can get out of my current gear and see where it leads me. Maybe I still can be partly buffing the group while still having a good chance on my own.

You gave me some good thoughts here. Thx.

I believe the 4 class squad can work in falcon lost, but maybe only after you gain a few pieces from it (one hell of a catch-22 there).

As long as I'm posting a short reply, I gotta say...I H.A.T.E. smart cover. It's a beautiful thing when you can afford to be immobile, but the moment you have to roll away it's useless. If you wanna keep your build with only minor tweaks, maybe swap that one for an ammo station or a booster shot, and an emergency  heal on your sig skill. Now you're a healer AND the booster, your gear is free to drop some stats in favor of other areas getting a bump up, and some of your electronics stat can be reallocated without much change to your effectiveness, so there's your damage too.

 

[Liberty Walk]

I agree with a few of you here. I went with the high dps and tank build and honestly if you can keep your skill power over 10k you will be fine in dz and end game  Pve. 

We had a guy with 40k+ skill power and he kept healing us. I am running 190k plus dps and 107k health currently with Sentry's Call Armor and Striker pieces. 

I can tell you that a level 34 enemy used one melee on me and I was running 116k health at that time and I went down in one hit. Lol  my gear score is over 200 and is 208 with my best stuff.

btw if you can get your hands on a Warlord, it's the new Midas. 60 rounds and better stability than the vector. 

 

[Xeromaus]

EDIT: If you don't mind could you point me to your current build as an example pls? Is it up here somewhere?

Normally atm, I'm running 188/70/practically none, with stun sticky, airburst seeker, and survivor link. Gear/weapon stat focus on armor destruction, elite damage, critical damage/chance, base damage, with minor focuses on headshot, armor, range, and threat generation. Every weapon with a grip gets a double stability model (normal and horizontal). LMG for crowd control/threat, BMAK/M44 for mid to long range, Vector/Cassidy/sawed off for close quarters. Most common carry combo: BMAK, Vector, Sawed off. Most common weapon talents are Destructive, Deadly, and Self-Preserved. Talents: One is None, Precision, Combat Medic, Wildfire. Set pieces in strikers, hoping to add 2 from sentries soon.

When I run electronics, I'm usually heading for the DZ with a high damage/health squad in tow. Running booster shot(or BFB sticky if there's a lot of rogues), pulse scanner, and recovery link. Build is rather balanced in the main stats, so nothing is max efficiency, but it's functional enough to give us an edge when we need it.

Any tweaking I do to a build comes more from the character page stats (gear bonuses) than main stats, so I keep a few extra pieces of each type in my inventory, and a few more in my stash.

 

[Yurika889]

As for pulse, there's a whole separate argument to be had whether the +damage is worth it over using the skill slot for another stun/heal/defense.

That argument could be made since it relies on many factors. To name a few: uptime, IF players hit intended targets, # of players it benefits(with more being better and solo play other skills may be better like BFB((but this too can miss, higher CD, dependant on multiple ememies, and having them stack or spread)), a hard cap of 100% crit (it is 100% since agent crit chance cap is 60% from gear and self alone, but because Pulse only applys a buff to players against the pulsed target it exceeds that 60% capto be 100% if u reach the pulse crit hit chance skill based cap of 40%). Against other players exotic damage will always be better since armor mitigation is only for bullets, so it (pulse) suffers from heavily armored players. The pulse mod makes pulsed targets take 10-15% more damage (I don't remember which of those It is) 

However, IMO the damage bonus your group gets from one pulse is irreplaceable. It makes everyone do significantly more damage than other skills can do. Given that other skills (maybe with a few niche exceptions), like any CC, do not gain much more benefit from stacking Electronics skill, and work fine with at base.

~~~

Electronics IMO has a target range of skill points you should have to be best effective. with an actual HARD cap where you wont get any more benefit for more Elec skill. Further I feel that it should have stamina/survival as a secondary and firearms only for weapon talents.

 But being able to be a Force Multiplier (Force Multiplier: A capability that, when added to and employed by a combat force, significantly increases the combat potential of that force and thus enhances the probability of successful mission accomplishment.) in pve or if you run into a group of Rogues can easily snuff them out switching to a BFB problem solver.

   :catsmirk:

btw if you can get your hands on a Warlord, it's the new Midas. 60 rounds and better stability than the vector. 

And thanks for that heads up!