Looks Like This Is The End[urance Guide]

Looks Like This Is The End…A Short Guide To Endurance Management

Nobody needs endurance for endurance sake. Endurance is needed in order to use your powers effectively – with no endurance you can’t do anything (as anyone familiar with Sappers can attest). Endurance is affected by two factors: how much you use and the rate at which it is recovered. If your usage is greater than your recovery rate over any period of time, you will have to rest (i.e., stop using) until you recover. Management is designed to prevent this from occurring at inconvenient times. How do you know you have an endurance problem? To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, you’ll know it when you see it.

Endurance Recovery

Every character starts with 100 endurance. This amount does not scale with level, although it can be increased with certain accolades. Base end recovery is 100/min, so if you have nothing running you can go from 0 to full in one minute. Stamina adds 25/min to your base end recovery. This can be enhanced to 49/min with 3 SO’s, allowing you to go from 0 to full in 40 seconds. Do you have to get Stamina? No. You need to decide whether it is better to have access to more powers or to be able to enhance your powers for other attributes than EndRed. Adding Stamina effectively reduces the number of EndRed enhancements you need – you are trading powers for slots.

There are also buffs available that enhance endurance recovery or provide one-shot bursts of endurance. Access to these buffs, whether self-provided or by a teammate, should be considered in your decision to take Stamina or not.

Self: Conserve Power (Energy Manipulation/Luminous Aura/4 APP’s), Consume (Fiery Aura/Fire Manipulation/Fire Mastery), Quick Recovery (Regeneration), Dark Consumption (Dark Melee/Dark Mastery), Power Sink (Electricity Manipulation/Electricity Mastery), Energy Absorption (Ice Armor), Stygian Circle (Umbral Aura)
Other: Adrenalin Boost (Empathy), Speed Boost (Kinetics)
Self & Other: Recovery Aura (Empathy), Transference (Kinetics), Accelerate Metabolism (Radiation Emission)

Enhancements

One of the most important aspect of managing endurance usage is understanding how endurance reduction enhancements function. Like recharge reduction enhancements (and any others which reduce some aspect of a power), EndRed enhancement operation is not self evident. Relative to their base value they have a smaller effect than the enhancement schedule would suggest, plus the incremental amount of absolute endurance reduction diminishes with each successive enhancement to a power.

Say you slot an EndRed SO. EndRed is on Schedule A, so one would assume that raw endurance usage is reduced by 33.33%. Its not that simple. The problem is that enhancements always apply to the base value so that multiple enhancements do not compound. Think about what would happen if you slotted three enhancements. You obviously can’t reduce endurance by 99.99%. Here’s what the system does:

1/(1+Total Enhancement Value)
1 SO: 1/(1+0.3333) = 0.75 (25% reduction)
2 SO: 1/(1+0.6666) = 0.60 (15% reduction)
3 SO: 1+(1+0.9500) = 0.51 (9% reduction)

For example, if you have a power which uses 24 endurance to activate, you will save 6 endurance for the first SO, 3.6 for the second SO, and a mere 2.1 for the third SO. You save less endurance from the second and third slots combined than you save from the first. Understanding this mechanic will help you determine whether to slot a second EndRed in one power or the first in another.

Wait you say, I’m being cheated. Not so. Assume a fictitious attack chain with 5 attacks where each attack uses 8 endurance and has a 2 second activation. That’s 240 end/min. Excluding end recovery you can attack at that rate for 25 seconds. Say you slot 1 EndRed SO in each attack – now you’re saving 60 end/min and you can attack for 33 seconds, a 33.33% improvement [(33-25)/25]. Slot a 2nd EndRed SO and you can fight for 41 seconds, a 66.67% improvement over the base value [(41-25)/25]. As you can see, the percentage improvement matches Schedule A. You do get the full value of the SO, just not the way you would think.

Slotting/Toggles

It seems like one of the first articles of CoX dogma is that the best way to reduce endurance usage is to slot endurance reduction in your toggles. Only problem is that most of the time your toggles aren’t what’s eating your endurance. Over time, your attacks and other click powers use far more endurance than do your toggles.

Lets take something common like the Leadership pool. Each of those toggles uses 23 end/min (46 end/min if you run two). Armors are not as expensive as you would think. To run all three Invulnerability toggles costs 43 end/min. The three Dark Armor armors cost a total of 37 end/min. The two Fiery Aura armors cost a total of 34 end/min. Damage auras are more expensive - running Death Shroud or Blazing Aura alone costs 31 end/min. Compare these figures to the fictitious attack chain above – each attack uses 48 end/min. In this case, an EndRed enhancement in any attack would save more endurance than one in each toggle. (There are exceptions - some toggles are notorious hogs.)

OK, no more toggle slotting for me - I’ll just slot EndRed in my attacks. Not so fast. The problem is you only have 6 slots per attack. If your preferred slotting is 1 Acc/3 Dmg/1 RechRed/1 EndRed, then you’re golden. But what if you want 2 Acc (for PVP, or if you regularly fight +2’s and +3’s). Now you’re faced with a tradeoff – do you drop Dmg, RechRed or EndRed? If you drop Dmg it will take you longer to defeat your foe (using more endurance and risking your health). On the other hand, toggles often don’t have enough attributes to require 6 slots, making them ready candidates for EndRed slots, particularly in the late game when you have more slots than you know what to do with. It may not be the most end efficient route, but as long as your effectiveness is not impaired it may not matter.

Where should I slot then? The first task is to figure out where you are using your end. Calculate the end cost per minute for your powers and rank them. There are a variety of ways to do this. Toggles are easy since they’re always on. For attacks, you could take your attack chain and estimate how often you use each attack over a minute and multiply that by each power’s end cost. Or you could run a program like HeroStats to determine how many times each power was used over some period of time and multiply that rate by each power’s end cost. Since each power uses end at a different rate and is used in varying frequency, it should be readily apparent which are using the most endurance. This exercise should allow you to determine the relative benefit of slotting EndRed in different powers, as well as the relative merit of a second slot in one power compared to a first in another. EndRed enhancements are somewhat unique in that they are fungible – you care more about the cumulative effect than the effect on the power(s) slotted.

Consider our fictitious attack chain. With 2 EndRed SO’s in each attack your usage drops from 240 end/min to 144 end/min. Without Stamina you would still have a net loss of 44 end/min and you still could only attack for 2½ minutes before running out of endurance. But if you had Stamina 3-slotted with SO’s you would have a net surplus of almost 5 end/min (assuming no toggles running) and could fight indefinitely. The reality is that you don’t need to build your character to fight indefinitely (and you do run toggles). There is usually a balance point which allows you to fight comfortably for the duration of a battle. Getting there may involve a bit of trial and error.

Obvious Stuff

I haven’t really touched on it, but there are some obvious things you can do to save endurance. Turn travel powers off in combat. For example, Super Speed and Super Jump use 27 end/min. Fly uses 120 end/min. Even Sprint uses almost 18 end/min. Don’t use AoE attacks on single targets. AoE’s, and to a lesser extent cones, use far more endurance per unit of damage than do single target attacks. Don’t use your big heavy-hitting attack to take the last sliver of health from a foe.

Data

All endurance cost data presented comes from: http://www.nofuture.org.uk/coh/powers/ (Pool power figures are here: http://www.nofuture.org.uk/coh/power...php?cat=Pool). The numbers listed are not estimates, they are the real numbers used in-game.

Recap

• EndRed enhancements have a diminishing absolute return (although the percentage return is constant). You get less effect from the second and very little value from the third. All things being equal, it is often better to add the first EndRed enhancement to something else than the second to an already enhanced power.
• Toggles generally do not use as much endurance over time as do attacks and other click powers. Other than very heavy users, such as damage auras and toggle debuffs, you often get a better return slotting EndRed in your click powers. However, this needs to be balanced with your need to slot powers for other attributes.
• Endurance management doesn’t have to be a scientific exercise. Don’t get hung up on the math. You slot some EndRed, and if you’re still sucking wind you slot some more. But if you understand the mechanics you can get better value out of those slots and potentially reduce the number of slots devoted to EndRed.

Really nice guide Hudson! 5 * for u!

Well done! I'll take a harder look at my slotting after reading this.

This is a great guide. Endurance management's always been difficult for my main lv. 48 BS/DA scrapper, and it's given me some things to think about for my next respec. I have Stamina, but it only has an end modification in its original slot, and I'm still running dry in long, drawn-out battles, so I'll probably add more slots to it.

My lv. 25 Stalker has some end problems right now, but he's Energy Melee/Energy Aura, and he'll have access to both Energy Drain (availible at 28) and Conserve Power (availible at 35), so I'm hoping he'll be able to get away with not taking Stamina and its prerequisites if I can tough it out for 3 more levels.

Spot on. I was just trying to explain this to someone earlier.

I use a quick spreadsheet to sort it out myself for each build.

1) Slot the Attack Chain first, minimum 1 endrdx, 2 endrdx when possible.
2) In general, 3 endrdx is seldom benificial. It's typically better to add the 1'st or 2'nd endrdx to another power of similar cost. Aim for Pairs, not Triplets.

PS) The same (appears to be) true of Recharge Reduction, Interrupt Reduction.

One thing to note: for PvP builds, unlimited endurance may in fact be something you want to shoot for, to compensate for possible use of temp powers, endurance drain, and the fact that in a zone like Siren's, you may well be moving from combat to combat with only a few seconds in between -- and that with your travel power active.

For PvE, you tend to only need enough to get you through enough fights to reach your next rest recharge or +EndRec power cycle.

Wanna know what I think?-TOO BAD I'll tell you anyways. I like to see numbers, but on my lv34 Emp/Dark (who doesn't attack except for tentacles and usually doesn't have any end crashes) I put my EndReduxes into my Leadership toggles, not my main heals. Absorb Pain, Heal Other, and Healing Aura all have 3 Heal SO's, and they did all have 3 recharge SO's (though I removed 1 from Absorb Pain when I respeced, because I didn't use it that regularly). If I were to drop a RechRed for an EndRed, that might save me some endurance but it might also slow my heal rate enough to kill my teammate. So all my Leadership toggles are 2 slotted with EndRed, but reading this is important if I didn't have stamina, RA, and would be picking up Conserve Power. I prefer to use buffs to let me save my slots for more important things. Arguably enough though, if my end management was bad enough, everyone on my team would die because of it.

Good guide! You've actually influenced the way I may re-spec my scrapper... or at least swap some slotting around.

Very very interesting.

Great post. I saw a post recently that stated the longest range you could get out of flight would be to slot 2 endredux 1 flight speed. This coalesces with that. You don't get there the fastest but, you can go the farthest. Such is the way of end.

Another great tip is to use Speed on Demand (SoD) binds. These will help auto manage your travel endurance in mission and out.



Combat buffing, Transfusion, Increase Density, Twilight Grasp, Heal Other, Clear Mind, Radiant Aura, Aid Other, Aid Self, Warmth, Cauterize & Alkaloid are all burst effects and do not have time limitations. Since time is a major factor in the endurance math I exclude them from endurance reductions. As always ymmv.

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Great post. I saw a post recently that stated the longest range you could get out of flight would be to slot 2 endredux 1 flight speed. This coalesces with that. You don't get there the fastest but, you can go the farthest. Such is the way of end.

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Depends if you have stamina and if you use flight in combat. If you have stamina and don't use flight in combat, you should be pretty safe just slotting flight for speed (unless you keep A LOT of toggles running).

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Great post. I saw a post recently that stated the longest range you could get out of flight would be to slot 2 endredux 1 flight speed. This coalesces with that. You don't get there the fastest but, you can go the farthest. Such is the way of end.

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Depends if you have stamina and if you use flight in combat. If you have stamina and don't use flight in combat, you should be pretty safe just slotting flight for speed (unless you keep A LOT of toggles running).

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True, at that point slotting runs into the play style and power choices question. An kin/elec with no stamina running assault/tactics would be fine but also flight in combat would eventually run out of end unless you kept up the pace of play and threw transfusion at every mob successfully. However with a SoD bind in place set to Hover at every pause in flight would help conserve end. This would also give a limited knockback protection.

To get back to your original post I will be using my free respect on my fire/dark corrupter to slot as you recommended.

Thanks for the guide!!

It has inspired me to go an fix the End Cost for ALL of the toggles in game and start working on End Cost for ALL powers (a BIG job).

This program WILL be ACCURATE!

Glad you wrote this. I always wondered how end reducing enhancements truly affect endurance. Now I know!

Wow. Great Guide. Like seriously.

Fantastic guide! It's nice to see someone finally give the exact numbers for what that third reducer does. It's always felt tiny, but seeing that "9%" spelled out in, er, blue and white may finally give me the courage to drop the third recharge from powers like Build Up and self-heals (at least during the levels where slots are still in short supply).

Two minor suggestions that I'll add from my own experience:

On deciding whether to take Stamina:
Of course, it's still (sadly) mandatory for most builds of most ATs. But if you find you're on the fence, one thing to consider is how much of your End is going to toggles. If you have few or no toggles (e.g. most Blasters and Dominators), it's easy to modulate your endurance usage on the fly, by pausing for just a moment between fights or skipping one use of an End-heavy attack. Of course having plenty of End is always better, but if your build is tight for powers and slots, a character like this can fall well short of "infinite attack chain" without suffering too badly.

On the other hand, if you're more toggle-heavy (e.g. most melee ATs), modulating your End use is much more frustrating. If most of your toggles are essential, then it's very hard to modulate your End use in combat, and pausing between combats won't earn you much unless you drop and reraise your toggles every time. Toggles with long recharge times (Hot Feet, Choking Cloud) can also be frustrating in this regard. Plus, psychologically, I find that it's simply not fun having to worry about turning toggles on and off; somehow, it feels more intrusive than just factoring End use into your already multi-factorial decision about what attack to use next. So for characters with multiple or heavy toggles, I always go for Stamina.

(To a lesser extent, this also applies to alternative End-recovery tools like Consume, Transference and Drain Psyche. I have several squishies who live by these powers and never miss Stamina at all. My toggle-heavy Brute, however, still felt awkward even with Dark Consumption and Consume, one of the more famously viable Staminaless combos. Without very heavy End Red slotting in all toggles, my standing-still End recovery was trivial, and I felt like I was always at risk of exhaustion. Dropping those powers for Stamina made play feel much smoother, and let me focus on punching instead of toggling.)

-- On deciding which attacks to slot with End Reducers:
An important thing to consider is which situations are most likely to run you dry. For example, my BS/Regen Scrapper has the glorious QR+Stamina combo, and almost never runs out of Endurance, even with Focused Accuracy running and his two most expensive attacks double-slotted for Recharge. He went most of his life without ever slotting a single End Red (and then just two in FA once I hit the 40s). Once I started fighting a lot of AVs, however, I found that long AV fights could zero me out. What to slot? Hack. This wasn't the obvious target, since it's a relatively cheap attack and doesn't get used all that frequently; in normal combat, the two top attacks usually alternate with the PBAoEs. Against an AV, however, that third single-target attack sees much heavier usage. A single End Red in Hack (which had only been 4-slotted and hence had room to spare) completely solved the problem. Likewise for my Inv/Ice tank: I had one End Red in each toggle, but found AVs could run me down. One End Red in my basic single-target attack, and all was golden.

Arguably the hardest character to manage endurance on is a bots/ff mastermind. Keeping 7 people and 6 robots all healthy, bubbled, upgraded (in the bots case), AND keeping your must have defensive toggles up can be insanely draining. Needless to say, unless you want to be one of those cranky gits that NEVER buffs anyone, stamina and good endurance management is a must have.


Some powers are definately worth slotting up while others aren't needed. For instance, insulation shield and deflection shield will both be spammed constantly and are worth every slot of end reduction you can get. Force bubble and dispersion bubble as well. And henchmen upgrade endurance reductions are just about a must have these days. Ironically, I've found protector bots can benefit from one endred as they will punch themselves out when left to their own devices. On the other hand, personal force field is a waste of an end red simply because when you throw that up... you won't be doing much of anything anyhow. Hover is so cheap that you don't really need an end red on it.


Knowing what toggles you need to have up is also important, as you don't *always* need force bubble running, or temp powers. On the other hand, its better to use a blue when you're low on end than risk accidently detoggling yourself at a critical moment.


Oh and needless to say hami-Os are worth their weight in gold as far as endurance reductions go. 3 defense/end red Hami os per bubble or defense toggle and you're golden


I hope this helps a lot of MMs who are always winded.