- You can stack Shock Effect 4 times which will give all your attacks 4 * 12.5% = 50% more damage.
- There are two ways of increasing that Shock Effect maximum:
- +1 Shock Effect Max (legend affix)
- Electrocution Bonus
- Electrocution (5) will increase your damage by 50% per shock stack while the enemy is below 25% HP, i.e. you will get 200% more damage only if below 25% HP in the normal case with 4 stacks.
- Increasing the maximum Shock Effect is only worth it with Electrocution, because you will only gain:
- 1.625/1.5 = 1.083 – 8.3% damage for all attacks plus
- 3.5/3 = 1.167 – 16.7% damage in the 25% HP case with Electrocution, giving you a total of 26.4% more damage in this case.
- Several Execute DMG and Demonic are preferable over Shock Effect Max, since they give you way more damage in the 25% HP case.
- Electrocution makes only sense in a Crushing Blow PvE build, because it backends where Crushing Blow does not deal considerable damage anymore.
- PvP-wise it is mediocre at most, because you deal way less damage if the opponent has more than 25% HP - so it will take longer until he gets below 25% HP. It also forces you to use shock damage.
- PvP-wise Demonic might be the better choice if you want high finishing damage to counter Defiant - it deals a bit less damage, but you don’t need to use shock and stack it and it debuffs healing.
A (kinda) realistic PvP example:
- You deal 3k avg against a 300k HP opponent and have one set slot to choose.
- You need 100 hits to kill the enemy.
- You choose Electrocution.
- You need 75 hits to get the enemy below 25% HP.
- You need 13 hits to finish him.
- Total: 88 hits - or 13.6% avg damage increase.
- You choose Hunger instead.
- You need 78 hits to finish him, or 29% avg damage increase (alongside countless other benefits like faster movement etc.).
Demonic and Electrocution produce cool insanely high damage numbers in PvP, but normally make your char worse than it could be with another set affix.
Hope I could help ;).