Electrocution status buff?

[NekuZX]

The electric status is useful, there is absolutely no denying. 80% slowdown is good. The damage is fine, if a bit underwhelming. No need to fill up a bar to apply it like elemental effects, although most sources of electricity proc it by a random chance so you might still need a few shots to apply it.

Here's the thing. I always felt it felt rather weak in terms of combat. There are some weapon overclocks that apply electric status on enemies, usually at a cost. But almost every one of those end up being the low-tier overclocks of their respective weapons. The electric reload of gk2; electric charged shots for the m1000; electro minelets for the burst rifle; stubby's voltaic arc...

I feel something's wrong when almost every time that a weapon must make a trade off for the ability to apply electricity, the benefit ends up being underwhelmingly small even if the drawback is also minimal. It doesn't help that other overclocks compete for the attention and almost always win.

Maybe the status is fine, and its just that a majority of sources of electrocution are undertuned. But as is, electrocution mostly serves as a surrogate stun, and a tiny amount of extra damage if you have the time to spare letting the effect run its course instead of shooting at the bugs.
Electricity also has no special interactions with neither terrain nor enemies. Unlike heat which can instantly kill robots, remove webs, melt ice and ignite flammable goo. Or cold which instantly kills flying enemies, prevents on-death effects and lets you ignore armor.
Electrified is just kinda there being a rather small bonus.

So. I believe it could use a buff. To expand its versatility, improve underwhelming overclocks and make it more exciting to use besides idly waiting 3 seconds between shots to save ammo.

There are many options available so here are my proposals.

a)Electrocution as an area aoe:
Electrified enemies share it's damage over time to enemies that are literally right next to them, with a range that scales with enemy size (just how enemies act as a heat source when on fire).
The idea being that, because the damage is so low over such a short duration, perhaps a single electrified grunt could damage one or two other grunts that are literally making contact with it. Not necesarily causing slowdown as well, only merely sharing that little bit of damage if the enemies are tightly packed.
So with this change, you can now try spreading the the status over a couple enemies in a crowded swarm to slightly weaken them, making them easier to pick off. And if the damage accumulates between multiple electrified enemies, then it could even become a viable way to kill enemies just like heat or toxin. Not as quickly, but gets the advantage of being more effective against groups.

b)Accumulating damage:
What if you could apply electric status multiple times to stack the damage? Each instance of electrocution having its own timer, so you no longer have to hold back your shots for fear of missing out on that extra damage, and letting you keep enemies electrified without having to wait for the status to run out so you can proc them again. To balance it though, maybe electrocuted enemies have a lower chance of being electrocuted again, so its hard to stack a massive amount of electrocution to kill heavy targets too easily.
This improves the depht of the status, letting you choose between saving ammo by letting the status run as usual, or spending the extra ammo to kill them faster with an overkill amount of electric DoT. This makes it more effective against single targets and makes the playstyle more active.

c)More elemental interactions:
This one is a bit trickier. Instead of simple numerical changes, perhaps the status produces special effects on certain enemies, giving you more tactical utility while still doing its usual job.
For example, perhaps exploders explode faster when electrocuted and spread the electrocution to other enemies caught in the explosion range.
Maybe rival tech will attempt to attack any electrified enemies including other robots, like a sort of pheromones effect but for robots.
The reason this idea is a bit tricky is because it takes some creativity to get interesting and balanced ideas that stand out.


Thanks for reading my rambling about electrocution in this game about funny dwarves. Yes it is quite a nitpick to criticize electrocution this deeply, but I love the game and simply hope to share my opinions so they might change the game for the better.
I've given my opinions and hope that others can agree, but do please let me know what you people think.

[Chibbity]

I find electricity to be one of the best status effects in the game personally, especially full electro build stubby; or on the Drak.

Some of the weapons that can take it are a touch lackluster with it yeah, but that's really more an issue with the implementation on the given weapon; not with the effect itself.

[vindicar]

Perhaps shock status should spread from enemy to enemy - or indeed have a large AoE, which would be less expensive computationally. That'd make it a useful swarmstopper.

[NekuZX]

Originally posted by vindicar:

Perhaps shock status should spread from enemy to enemy - or indeed have a large AoE, which would be less expensive computationally. That'd make it a useful swarmstopper.

I specifically suggested a very very small area damage, because the slowdown by itself is actually super useful. But some overclocks trade damage for the ability to electrocute, which implies electricity is a good way to deal damage (which it absolutely isn't).
Just a bit of damage to enemies right next to each other would potentially encourage a player to measure the distance between enemies so they can deal as much damage as they can by electrocuting as few enemies as they can.
But the slowdown doesn't spread to nearby enemies, only the damage, meaning that the enemies who are not electrocuted will leave damage range fairly quickly. So the player might also be encouraged to try stuns or other slowdowns to keep enemies together.

This one suggestion should make the electrocuted effect feel mostly identical to how it is now, but with some added tactical nuance.