How does one manage multiple slotted passives?

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I've been looking around at various electricity builds and they all take a defensive passive (usually regeneration although I'm leaning towards PFF) plus they also take Electric form. How do you use both efficiently? You can only have one going at a time and switching builds has a cooldown plus I don't even know if you can even switch while in combat. Or is the plan to run around in balance mode and switch between them? Are you able to hot-key different passives? Or are we talking about only busting out the defense in PvP and using Electric Form in PvE only?

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I would imagine it's the latter, also when you are grped and have a tank and not taking dmg, well you don't need regen and you should be in offensive stance if you are a DPSer which regen can't go in your passive then so you would use electric form.

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Electric form is an offensive passive (balanced/offensive) while PFF is defensive (balanced/defensive).

You more or less have to switch builds, unless you want to manually open your skills panel and try to drag the skill icons back and forth to change while you stay in balanced. :rolleyes:That doesn't sound very practical.

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Basically take the best passive for the job. If you will need the regen then switch to it. If not then use an offensive passive. Its easy enough to switch.

I thought I remebered seeing an interview where someone said there would be certain roles with more than 1 passive slots. Or maybe im just high.

[Archived Post]

I've been looking around at various electricity builds and they all take a defensive passive (usually regeneration although I'm leaning towards PFF) plus they also take Electric form. How do you use both efficiently? You can only have one going at a time and switching builds has a cooldown plus I don't even know if you can even switch while in combat. Or is the plan to run around in balance mode and switch between them? Are you able to hot-key different passives? Or are we talking about only busting out the defense in PvP and using Electric Form in PvE only?

Defense for soloing -- mostly everything. I think offensive forms for when you have someone else taking damage. Perhaps when you are taking down weaker mobs. IDK, but I seemed to think that after ~lvl 15 or 20 in OB, offensive passives paled in comparison to defense (at least for leveling / soloing). Maybe some have found workable builds. 3-4 Villans on you in the late teen levels through endgame is bad bad news in offensive form.

All this being said, although I have no experience with endgame CO (who does?) it would seem that you would get much use out of offensive passives in groups, and most people have extra powers to burn anyway.

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yeah set them up with the build switches and role switches... so dps passive + avenger (+20% damage -50%hp and whatever else etc), and defensive passive + guardian or protector roles...

you can basically swap from tank to dps to normal to support roles via builds and the roles.. and stack you passives and items and abilities accordingly

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I took the offensive for TK... and it's decent (though I had played with taking PFF and increased survivability).

If you're in a powerset that you know does not have 14 powers total in it (Element, MA ones) you could take a defensive Passive at 8 and take up its offensive passive down the road.

Just an idea.

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Thanks for the responses. You pretty much summed up what I thought I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing some cool way to swap passives on the fly besides switching builds and the limitations that has. This also let's me better plan when to take Electric Form (probably a little later on in the build when grouping is more important.)

Any thoughts on regen vs PFF? I was leaning towards PFF since it would scale off of END as I was going to stick with END/REC super stats they suggest for Electricity. But I could be persuaded different if regen was just that awesome... )

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Yeah I am taking a defensive passive now, but will get an offensive passive later to use when grouping.

[Archived Post]

Thanks for the responses. You pretty much summed up what I thought I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing some cool way to swap passives on the fly besides switching builds and the limitations that has. This also let's me better plan when to take Electric Form (probably a little later on in the build when grouping is more important.)

Any thoughts on regen vs PFF? I was leaning towards PFF since it would scale off of END as I was going to stick with END/REC super stats they suggest for Electricity. But I could be persuaded different if regen was just that awesome... )

Regen doesn't depend on a stat so doesn't "scale" with a stat.

PFF is good even without high END (Total HPs of it) or EGO (Regen of it).

Go with your character concept :). All defensive passive are good, it's a matter of opinion which is best at this point.

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i generally use a defensive passive in the earlier levels, makes leveling easier and it's hard to fit in all the supplementary defenses/heals needed to be effective with an offensive passive in those earlier levels. around level 30 or so is when i find i have enough survivability to have an offensive build.

then, it's all about jumping into a fight in defensive mode, debuffing, locking down, then switching to offensive and finishing.