Whoa there, Sparky!

[Dannyalcatraz]

I love lightning.

Odds are good that if I'm playing a PC with some kind of elemental power, it either will be or will resemble lightning. So it should come as no surprise that I love Raiden from Mortal Kombat, and Ghidorah from the Godzilla movies.

And now, I'd like to build some 4Ed PCs based on them.

For my Raiden/Yoshimitsu character, I'm going with a Stormsoul Genasi Hybrid Psion/Swordmage. For the Ghidorah PC, he'll be a Dragonborn...well, I don't know yet.

So I'm asking the 4Ed gurus: what classes have the most electrical goodness, regardless of power source? And what feats besides Raging Storm and Arcane Admixture need to be on my radar?

 

[Mummolus]

Battleminds get some early lightning powers - Conductive Defense in particular is very good, an at-will targeting reflex at level 1, and Lightning Rush is arguably one of the more broken interrupts out there. There's also a heroic-tier feat which makes any critical hit with a lightning power optionally deal the same damage to a nearby enemy. Throw in that dragonborn make fantastic battleminds and you might have a winner.

 

[DracoSuave]

One: Screw Admixture. Why are you adding lightning to powers when you should already have nothing but lightning powers?

Two: Storm Soul Sorcerer. Mark of Storm going into Lyrander Storm Rider, which is kapowerful with Storm Sorcerers.

Under the old keyword inheritance rules, you used to be able to use a Lightning weapon to -add- keywords to a power. Under current keyword inheritance rules, because the powers won't deal their old damage types, they cease to have those keywords.

Ask your DM which rule he's using. This is important because if he doesn't use the current version, then you can make all your powers Thunder powers, grab a Lightning weapon, and you can use Echoes of Thunder and Oncoming Storm as your own version of frostcheese. Because every power has the thunder kieyword, you'll get a damage bonus to powers when you hit. Because every power has the lightning keyword, you'll get an attack bonus to powers when you hit. Heroic level frostcheese!

If you can't do that, ignore the Echoes/Ongoing, and make all your powers lightning.

Also, if you're going to get Raging Storm, you'll be better with Tempest Magic which gives the damage bonus, but gives even more damage bonus when you're bloodied.

When it comes to lightning and thunder, sorcerer really is the best class to bring to the table. With a dragonborn, instead of Storm, go Dragon soul (lightning of course), and take the feat Ancient Soul. This will make your breath arcane. Which... is sick. Oh, when you get hit with lightning it also recharges your breath but that's some other thing that's situational and not the point when your breath is arcane and you're a sorcerer.

 

[Mummolus]

When it comes to lightning and thunder, sorcerer really is the best class to bring to the table. With a dragonborn, instead of Storm, go Dragon soul (lightning of course), and take the feat Ancient Soul. This will make your breath arcane. Which... is sick. Oh, when you get hit with lightning it also recharges your breath but that's some other thing that's situational and not the point when your breath is arcane and you're a sorcerer.

So if you were to take a Lightning Dagger, and stab yourself in the arm with it as a MBA, you could potentially use dragon's breath every turn. Huh.

 

[Mentat55]

Certainly sorcerers (either storm or lightning-focused dragon) are the best way to do all lightning all the time, but if you want a few more options, I think that swordmages and stormheart wardens can also be used. They are good if you want someone wielding an electrified sword or hammer or something like that.

 

[Gorgoroth]

if you like a bit of melee with your

lightning sorc stuff, try hybriding ranger with sorcerer.

Mark of Storm is essential. Then take Lightning Breath, Radiant Breath, lightning double axe, swap into jagged double axe at level 11 when you take the martial PP that lets you apply your breath weapon damage types to your weapon, and voila. a cheap way to have radiant, lightning, control (slide 1 with each hit from your attacks). And two extra uses of your breath weapon at level 11 too, which makes it worthwhile to optimize even further. (bolstering breath, hurl breath, etc). Although as a melee guy I don't see hurl breath as useful, when you'll have tons of ranged attacks with the sorcerer powers already. Hybrid talent can be used for whatever you like, TWF, Prime Shot (gives +1 and +5 damage on all your powers, regardless of class), Dragon soul, storm soul, whatever.

I also like the level 16 new ranger utility Howling Winds, but at that point, once you have Lightning Daggers daily, you will have so many ways to slide enemies they won't know what hit'em.

 

[nogray]

So if you were to take a Lightning Dagger, and stab yourself in the arm with it as a MBA, you could potentially use dragon's breath every turn. Huh.

At the cost of your standard action and assuming you deal enough damage to overcome your innate lightning resist (5/10/15), you could do that. It's not that good of an option.

One possible build I was toying with was a Dragonborn Sorcerer|Warlock going for the Ninefold Master. With the level 11 feature, your dragon breath counts as both a warlock and a sorcerer power, so you get to add both curse and sorcerer damage boosts to your breath. A Rod of the Dragonborn makes all your powers have the damage type of your dragon breath (for Draconic Spellcaster), and the Arkhosian Scepter lets you add its enhancement to your dragon breath attack rolls (damage rolls is already covered by the Ninefold Master's Breath Expertise feature, so there is some overlap). The build doesn't really hit its stride until paragon, though. (Note that Draconic Spellcaster will apply to your dragon breath, too, as -- thanks to Ancient Soul and/or the Ninefold Master feature -- your breath is an arcane power that has the same type as your dragon dragon breath.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Whew- a lot to absorb!

One: Screw Admixture. Why are you adding lightning to powers when you should already have nothing but lightning powers?

Because, near as I can tell, no class has a lightning power available at every level (I wouldn't be asking, otherwise). And even so, I might choose a non-lightning power because of it's effects or AoE, and Admixture would let me still put the jolt of a bolt in it.

When it comes to lightning and thunder, sorcerer really is the best class to bring to the table. With a dragonborn, instead of Storm, go Dragon soul (lightning of course), and take the feat Ancient Soul. This will make your breath arcane. Which... is sick. Oh, when you get hit with lightning it also recharges your breath but that's some other thing that's situational and not the point when your breath is arcane and you're a sorcerer.

Where is this feat, and why does making the breath weapon arcane matter?

 

[Mentat55]

Making your breath weapon an arcane power allows the sorcerer's bonus damage feature to apply to your dragon breath, which is very nice for a minor action encounter close blast.

 

[Herschel]

As others have said, Sorcerer is great for lightning as well as Swordmage. Ligthning Lure is also great as a "get over here" power if you want to branch out in your Mortal Kombat theme. If hybriding, you don't have to worry about which impl. to use either and, of course, Genasi are the coolest race in the game.