Not that I know of. The thunder helm is very helpful but until then I try to defeat them at range.

I think those are good opportunities to just fuse a Zonai device to your weapon. Cannons and beam emitters are good options, IMO, since they'll let you keep a good distance, and range is your best friend with electric enemies.

And let's be honest, you've probably got a bunch of those devices stacking up in your inventory anyway, just toss one on a random tree branch and fire away.

Alternatively, I find that they're usually good targets for muddlebud attacks if you want to go that route. Electric enemies seem to do a ton of damage against their allies, and I think it's because they do such a good job keeping everything stunlocked.

I usually use a staff weapon to keep distance.

You can try to pick them off from a distance & be prepared to grab anything you drop, or invest some time into finding all three pieces of a certain armour & upgrade each piece twice. That'll give you electric shock protection so you can just bash them into submission. AFAIK there's no counter element for lightning, I tried water a couple of times but it didn't work (don't throw water on electrical fires, I guess?).

I used freeze so I could get close to them and then went ham on them

Lightning-resistsnt/-proof equipment.