Should I drop Lightning Arc for Conc Beam?

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I'm thinking of dropping Lightning Arc for Concussive Beam after the nerf to Never Strikes Twice. It seems to do better damage until Arc builds up, but I can move and there's a knockback. Any opinions?

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changed the title to try and get more hits ;-)

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With the amount of energy Conc Beam eats in comparison, I still prefer Arc Lightning myself.

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It's true that Conc beam eats more energy, but I always charge to full END before I use Lightning Arc anyways, since lightning Arc's damage gets so much better the longer you maintain it. Of course, it starts off at roughly half of Conc Beam's damage, but builds up to ~125% of it after a considerable time. What I'm most interested in is the ability to move while maintaining the power, and the constant knockback would be a good way to make it harder for opponents to attack me.

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It sounds like you've thought it through and would prefer to use the beam, so I think you should go ahead and do that. You know the advantages and they're what you're looking for.

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I've never seen concussor beam get up to 800-900, it's usually like 300ish on the character I have it on, and lightning arc has broken 1000 a tick with my lightning guy. If you like the knockback, that's sort of the point of it (which is why I have it on my force character) but for straight damage, lightning arc is hands down better. Plus the lightning damage bonus from electrocute doesn't apply to concussor beam.

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Concussor beam really helps against those circle of primal dominion users ;)

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I've never seen concussor beam get up to 800-900, it's usually like 300ish on the character I have it on, and lightning arc has broken 1000 a tick with my lightning guy. If you like the knockback, that's sort of the point of it (which is why I have it on my force character) but for straight damage, lightning arc is hands down better. Plus the lightning damage bonus from electrocute doesn't apply to concussor beam.

How do you get it that high? I have 32% damage on both Rec and End, which I believe is the max you can get from superstats. At level 35 the highest my Lilghtning Arc has hit is about 470 and that's almost at the end of the charge.

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How do you get it that high? I have 32% damage on both Rec and End, which I believe is the max you can get from superstats. At level 35 the highest my Lilghtning Arc has hit is about 470 and that's almost at the end of the charge.

Avenger role, lightning form l3, lightning sheathe l2, electrocute advantage and 30ish% on each of my superstats. If the stars align right, I've seen it tick for 1200, though usually either electrocute or lightning sheath wear off by that last tick, or the mob dies.

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Avenger role, lightning form l3, lightning sheathe l2, electrocute advantage and 30ish% on each of my superstats. If the stars align right, I've seen it tick for 1200, though usually either electrocute or lightning sheath wear off by that last tick, or the mob dies.
I'm still a bit curious about that - Conc beam benefits from almost all of those, too, so I'm wondering if you couldn't have gotten some higher numbers for Conc beam. Was this before the NST nerf?

The way things scale in this game is extremely unclear, so I wouldn't be too surprised to find out that the two abilities scale drastically different from each other for some reason. However, my testing in the power house puts Conc beam ahead of Lightning Arc on damage for at least 8-10 seconds...

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I never had NST, but even in defensive role, with none of the special bonuses, it usually peaks at 500-600ish.

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Does anyone else have some experience with this at high levels?

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I wouldn't be surprised. Laser sword hits for 1200 without the stars aligning and hits nearly as fast as the ticks. Gigabolt hits for 600 and is aoe.

The numbers don't sound all that out of whack. That said, I have no intention of ranking it up after NST has been terminated.

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I'm not doubting the numbers, but it seems odd to me that Lightning Arc's damage is somehow so much better than Conc beam's, when at my level the two are fairly equal... Lightning arc starts off at 70 and climbs to 160 while conc beam stays at a steady 130 or so... Can I make my decision based on the way the skills behave now?