Mag 1 holds as a secondary effect

Just an odd idea that popped into my head...

Imagine a blast set with Mag 1 holds on all the attacks as a secondary effect. ie two hits on a minion would hold it, 3 on a lieutenant or 4 on a boss. They could be reasonably long-lived (10 seconds or so) so that with some slotting for recharge and hold duration you could have a decent chance of holding a boss that had your undivided attention.

This came from thinking about Electrical Blast again in the big "tedious" thread here. Ice's Recharge debuff, Energy's knockback and Dark's To Hit debuff all mean that if you concentrate your fire on a hard target with the intent of damaging them, you reduce their damage output one way or another. A single hit wont do much, but multiple ones will add up.

I've always though Electrical Blast's end drains should do this, and have a bit more oomph to the end drain in its single target attacks.

It occurred to me that a cumulative hold could have the same effect.
Maybe a Mag 1 stun would be better, so it wouldn't stack so well with Hold procs like Devastation or Lockdown?

Would it be overpowered to have a Mag 1 stun/hold on the AoE's?

If you were to make a Blast set like this, what theme would suit it?

Ok, so you want a 100% chance to fire mag 1 mez in every blast power. Right? I can see this *not* happening. Power Buildup for one would be beastly with this. You would have controllers complaining your stepping on their toes. Can you imagine defenders with this blast set? YIKES that would be nasty. The damage would also probably be really low. Why? To make up for the fact almost nothing would ever be able to attack you.

Then there's PvP. Oh man I can hear the whining already. A blaster capable of perma-holding any and everyone? Aint gonna happen.

Sounds like a really nice Powerset Idea.

It would probably have very limited AoE powers because of stacking effects.

Stuns would combine well with Dark Mastery, but not sure what kind of power would make sense, since we already have just about every blast type you could imagine.

Toxic Blast with the puke animation. Nice
I was thinking of the grey ball weapon used on Mr. Incredible, but have no idea what to call it. Goo Blast? Muck Blast?


Blast sets already have some pretty impressive control.

Say you're a gutsy solo Blaster looking at a +2 Boss. Ice blast has about 2 seconds of unheld aggro-time before the boss is held.
An Electrical Blaster is 1 recharge of Tesla Cage away from perma-holding the boss, about 5 seconds with slotting?

A Mag 1 set would require you to unload 4 atacks on the boss before he stopped hitting you, which would take at least 5 seconds, right?

Once you've got them held, Blasters typically have quite a touch-and-go feeling of keeping them held in my experience, even with an extra hold like Shocking Bolt thrown in. Thats roughly what I'd be aiming for here - a bit of setup time and a sustained barrage with maybe 1 SO worth of Hold enhancement could just about hold a +2 boss, with the odd miss (or Carnie phase or whatever) giving them a bit of wriggle room to attack.

Power Boost would maybe extend this to keeping two bosses contained?

A Controller on the other hand, has a 20% chance of holding a boss before they even notice them, and then either 4 seconds (ST hold rechareg with slotting) or their AoE hold to sela the deal, from which point the Boss will never move again, even if you miss or get briefly mezzed yourself.

I doubt this would step on a Controller's toes any worse than an Ice Blaster already does.

As for AoE - being able to keep a pack of minions perma-stunned or held would probably be too much (even though anyone can do that with a temp power). We currently have Dark Pit on a long timer and Short Circuit with all its wobbly flaws (need 10s exposed to multiple melee targets to drain a group), and AoE knockbacks like Energy Blast, which scatter groups to avoid perma-mez.

Some options are:
- Two AoE's, only one gets the stun, and it can't be perma'd. So its really a tool for stacking, either with allies or your ST blasts.

- Two AoEs with Mag 1 stun but longish recharge. This could get tricky with purpled out high end builds....

- AoEs dont have the secondary effect.

- AoE's get a less than 100% chance of applying the stun.

Any of these could prevent you from making Flashfire and its sibling powers obsolete.

PVP is another matter, and one I know very little about. I do know that holds work in a very different manner there though, with suppression and resistacne rather than protection for melee-ers.

Electrical Blast has 100% chance of some end drain on everything. Partial end drain is like a mag 1 hold - useless until stacked hard enough at which point it becomes absolute mitigation.

Knockback will temporarily stop a Boss with one hit, which a mag 1 mez definitely won't.
So 1 attack with 30% chance to KB (Power Blast) is roughly equivalent to 3 or 4 attacks that will stack a 100% hold? sort of? kind of?

In my experience, Elec. Blast has always been the runt of the litter, hiding in the corner due to lower damage but no other real effect to back it up. Endurance Drain's always been a disappointment to me, so if a mag 1 hold was added to the ST attacks/Voltaic Sentinel with a, say, 80% chance to tick (like Energy's knockback) then I feel it'd be an improvement, though maybe not enough to pump it up.

I'd also like to see Elec gain a Chain Induction-like effect to Lightning Bolt or Zapp (maybe Voltaic Sentinel's attack?), but that would be for another thread.