Is the Charged Trait Useful?

Ch4mpTW

Is there actual any use for the Charged trait on weapons? Let alone Maelstrom Weapons?

I've been sitting back and wondering if by a chance a Charged Maelstrom's Ice Staff could be of any use, due to Charged increasing the chance of a status effect. Therefore, I've been wondering if that could somehow synergize with an ice build including the warden class that's upcoming. Or if I should just stick with the sharpened trait. What do you all think?

Mashille

dpencil

Healers running lightning staffs for more consussed -> off balance -> exploiter

Solariken

Charged is awesome if you build around proccing status effects. In No-CP PvP, you can be very effective with a Charged weapon. For example, you could use the Affliction set with a Destro staff with a poison enchant - one Force Pulse could proc Burning, Chilled, Concussed (+Minor Vulnerability), Poisoned, and Minor Defile simultaneously. It's downright savage...

Kammakazi

Yeah I use it for my PvE DD burning build w/ 5x Torug's Pact & flame enchantment

paulsimonps

dpencil wrote: »

Healers running lightning staffs for more consussed -> off balance -> exploiter

THIS ^ Especially if the lightning staff is enchanted with a shock glyph. Works really well.

Xsorus

I'll use an example, you could go Sharpened for example with a 1 hander, gain bit of physical pen

or you could go Charged on a 1 hander, slap a disease enchant on it and have a 40% chance to proccing a 15% heal debuff that stacks with the major heal debuff.

Shad0wfire99

Very situational. Healers running Charged Lightning staves with Blockade of Lightning in trials comes to mind. Anywhere else, though? Nah.

Solariken

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

Okay, I'm getting some mixed vibes. Lol. So apparently the Charged trait isn't completely useless, and has its uses. However, it also is clearly outperformed by sharpened? Which would be better for PvP, and why?

There isn't a silver bullet answer @Ch4mpTW because Charged is more situational than Sharpened.

Think of it this way - Sharpened gives a flat 8% damage boost on non-shielded targets who aren't already fully penetrated. You know what else gives an 8% damage boost? Minor Vulnerability which procs on shock damage. So if you run at least one other status effect proc type in your build, Charged is a better choice for you in that scenario IMO because you can get the benefit Sharpened would otherwise give, plus more.

Runschei

I think I will stick with sharpened

Ch4mpTW

Okay, I'm getting some mixed vibes. Lol. So apparently the Charged trait isn't completely useless, and has its uses. However, it also is clearly outperformed by sharpened? Which would be better for PvP, and why?

Masel

Definitely has its uses. I use it on many of my chars now. 5 Spinner, 4 Aether with charged inferno with shock enchant on Templar and NB and charged lightning with shock enchant on Sorc and DK with any vMA lightning on the back bar. Especially on a DK the synergy of concussion+lightning blockade+power lash proc is more than enough self-healing to get you through vMA... In most cases Healers will not keep Blockade up 100% of the time, even in 12-man trials, so it is worth running a lightning blockade on another melee DD that stays on the boss and sacrifice 20% of fire blockade on that DD. Plus it's finally something else than boring BSW...

Minor vulnerability: 8% damage.
Exploiter Passive: 10% Damage.
Off-Balance enemies take another 40% increased damage from heavy (and medium) attacks and get stunned WITHOUT cooldown.
So you get an 18% damage increase by yourself plus additional damage from medium weaves and heavy lightning attacks, and no 5 piece bonus can offer you that. In trials, medium weaving and power lash take away the off-balance status for a little while. So that synergy is off there, unless you use a lightning heavy attack build.

On top of that, you keep burning up a lot with force pulse.


Got a few videos of charged staff vMA runs (on Templar, NB and DK) on YT channel if you're interested:

https://youtu.be/pVl9zmvziF4

Anyone who says it's useless hasn't done his or her homework

When it comes to PvP it's hard to say: Both are useless against Shields, both give you a good damage increase. Charged requires you to run a lightning blockade and have the enemy stay in that to be better than sharpened, but it can be really good. In duels it has been a lot of fun to run the charged build, especially against stamina characters because they can't deal with it because they can't shield...