How to survive before Stamina


Alannon

 

Posted

[u]How to Survive Before Stamina.[u]

This is aimed a Level 1-20, the pre-Stamina days, but many of the tactics can be carried right through to level 50.

I have been playing CoH/V for 3+ years, and have run every AT in the game, except a stalker, up to at least level 20. Most of my characters do not have major problems with endurance before they get stamina

I wrote this guide in the hope of helping people have more fun in the early levels by not running out of endurance every 10 seconds.

Obviously some of these tactics can only be applied solo, some in teams, others can be used in either situation. I'll leave it to you to think about them yourselves.

I have not spelt out every situation imaginable for endurance saving, just some guidelines.


**Turn Sprint off during combat**

Sprint is draining away your endurance, and doing nothing for your survivability. Sure, if you get into trouble and decide it's time to high-tail it out of there, whack it on and run, but don't leave it on during combat. This is the most common mistake of people who complain they have no endurance. If you want to move fast in combat, slot swift/hurdle, team with a Kinetisist or be a Kinetisist.


**It's not a race to get to the next mob!**

Simply walking (as opposed to sprinting) to the next mob will allow you to gain a little extra endurance, allowing you to last possibly all the way through the fight, rather than getting that annoying "donk" and the "out of endurance" message just before it's over.


**Use your Inspirations**

(Part 1)

Every single inspiration, bar awakens, potentially saves you endurance. How?

Endurance (Blue) : This one is obvious. Not saving you endurance but gives you 25% of your endurance back.

Accuracy (Yellow): You hit more often. Therefore you require less swings to kill a mob. Less swings = less endurance used!

Damage (Red): You do more damage!At least 25% more. The more damage each hit does, the less you need to hit them. More endurance for you!

Heal (Green): If you have a self heal power, and a respite in your tray, which will you use? The respite, obviously. It costs no endurance to use the respite. Don't save it for later. More will drop.

Damage Resistance (Orange): If they don't hit you as hard, you won't have to heal yourself as often (if you have can do this) OR someone else won't have to waste their endurance healing you. (Or you just wont die as fast, a bonus in itself!) If you have a damage resistance/defense shield and have oranges in your tray, turn your shield off. Use the oranges!

Defense (Purple): See Damage resistance.

I often run my brutes solo without their shields on at low levels. Facing three white minions, I just don't need them. The inpirations work fine.

(Part 2)

Often people will try to give you inspirations if you are in trouble. If your tray if full, how will someone give a Catch a Breath (Blue)? Not to mention a Respite (green) when your health is at 2!


(Part 3)

Inpirations are NOT rare. USE them. Don't save them for a rainy day. Every day is a rainy day in the Rouge Isles and Paragon City. If your tray is full you are not getting any more! Use that damage in your tray, another one will drop any second. Maybe an accuracy. It doesn't matter, they are all saving you endurance. And the more endurance you save, the longer you can fight without stopping. The longer you fight without stopping, the more inspirations will drop, and the more inspirations that drop...

**Think of other people's end problems **

Keep an eye on other people's endurance bars - you may have some way to help them out

Don't wait for the Empath to heal you - use that respite you have sitting in the tray. Or the purple, so you stop being hit as often and they don't have to perma-heal you.

Are you a regen scrapper who never needs blue yet has a tray of them? Give them to the Dark Defender who is stuggling to keep their toggles up.

Kinetics Defender on the team? Everyone's bar is full EXCEPT THEIRS. It takes endurance to buff people. If you want Speed Boost, give them your blues!

**Don't use your biggest attack**

If something has only a slither of health left, don't whack it with your biggest, most damaging, most endurance sucking attack! Just wait a moment until your low damage, low endurance attack recharges.

**Turn off Travel Powers in combat**

As for sprint, turn them off. There is no reason to have travel powers on during combat (Super Spead, Super Leap and Flight) Travel powers are surpressed during combat, meaning your travel power is reduced to base running or hover speed. So... all your travel power is doing, during combat, is sucking an inordinate amount of endurance. If you must fly in combat, slot hover. If you must run fast, slot swift. If you need to leap around, combat jumping and/or hurdle.


**Slot for Accuracy**

When slotting your powers - slot for accuracy before damage. If you miss, it's a complete waste of endurance. Make sure you have enough accuracies to hit the level of critter you regularly fight.

**Know your Mobs**

Take note of the endurance sappers in the mobs and take them out first (or as soon as practical) Some examples of low level endurance drainers are CoT Energy Mages and Mu Strikers. Clockwork also drain end, but they all do, so you are out of luck there. Get a Force Field Defender/Controller/Mastermind to help you out (see below; Powersets which can help)

**Toggles, Toggles, Toggles**

Toggles use endurance. Do you need to be running all those toggles? Some examples:

Radiation Emissions - Does your team need Enervating Field up for that entire mob? Perhaps they only need it while the boss is alive.

Dark Armour: What ememies are you fighting? What type of damage are they doing? No Psi damage, no mezzing - turn off Obsidian Shield. Longbow perhaps? Turn on your fire shield (Murky Cloud), take out the Flamers, then turn it off.

Sonic Resonance/Force Fields: Do they mobs you are fighting actaully have mezzing abilities? Dispertion Field may not need to be on (Yes It does give +res/+def to you too. Weigh up whether it's worth the endurance cost.)

PBAoE Damage Auras: Are there enough enemies in range to bother running the aura? These aura are quite costly, so standing next to one enemy and buring it away is not a good use of your endurance. Turn the aura off and punch him in the nose.


**Powersets which can help your endurance problems**

Team with people who can grant endurance recovery/protection.

(Please note, these power descriptions are very basic. For more in depth discussions, please see the many guides available on these forums)

Also, please don't assume that just because a power is available at a said level, that the person has taken it. Always ask!

Radiation Emission (Hero and Villain)
Endurance Power: Accelerate Metabolism
What it does: PBAoE Team Buff. Grants, amongst other things, increased endurance recovery for two minutes
Available to: Defenders - Level 2
Controllers - Level 4
Corruptor - Level 4

Kinetics (Hero and Villain)
Endurance Power: Speed Boost
What it does: Speed Boost: Single target ALLY ONLY buff. Amongst other things, grants endurance recovery bonus for 2 minutes.
Available to: Defenders - Level 12
Controllers - Level 20
Corruptors - Level 20

Endurance Power: Transference
What it does: Enemy targeted close range endurance heal
Available to: Defenders: Level 26
Controllers: Level 35
Corruptors: Level 35

Empathy (Hero only)
Endurance Power: Recovery Aura and Aderalin Boost
What it does:Team buff, PBAoE, Grants endurance recovery bonus for 90 seconds
Available to: Defenders: Level 18
Controllers: Level 28

Cold Domination: (Villan only)
Endurance Power: Heat Loss
What it does: Not sure how this one works, not seen or used it. I do know it gives endurance to yourself and your nearby allies.
Available to: Corruptors: Level 32

Storm Summoning: (Hero Only)
Endurance Power: O2 Boost
What it does: Single target ally only heal. As well as healing, protects the target from endurance drain for a short time
Available to: Defenders: Level 1
Controllers: Level 2

Force Fields: (Hero and Villain)
Endurance Power: Insulation Shield
What does it do: Ally ONLY Single target buff. Give the target resistance to Endurance drain.
Available to: Defenders: Level 6
Controller: Level 10
Masterminds Level 4


**The Other Side**

You could always become one of these Endurance saving creatures and everyone will appreciate you keeping their batteries recharged.


Feel free to add your ideas!

-'Tanya


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Endurance Power: Transfusion
What it does: Enemy targeted close range endurance heal


[/ QUOTE ]

Should be Transference.

Also, there is a pre-lvl 20 power for scrappers that is actually better than stamina: Quick Recovery, from the Regen powerset. It's available at lvl 4 and is base 30% end recovery (Stamina is base 25%).


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Posted

Transfusion has been amended to Transference. Thankyou for pointing it out.

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I intended to imply by the title "Powersets which can help your endurance problems" the list was intended to mention AT's which can help OTHERS recover endurance/reduce endurance drain. You will also notice Consume, Conserve Power, etc, are missing from this list.

Self buffs are not mentioned as they only assist the caster only in endurance recovery/cost. It is not really an advantage to team with you because you have a self endurance buff.

If you wish to play a scrapper, and want to know what the scrapper buffs do for you, read a scrapper guide. This was simply pointing out what others can do for you.

The ALLY recovery bonus of each set was highlighted because some people do not know what ally endurance bonuses powersets provide.

What can you do, other than use the POWERS you have, to reduce your endurance toll?


 

Posted

Great guide.

Using inspirations is one of the most overlooked ways of helping yourself generally. Often I've been lying dead on the floor and have tried to pass newly dropping inspirations on team-mates only to get the "has no room" message.

Nice one Ant.

-H


 

Posted

Very good guide, interesting, and it applies to everyone!


 

Posted

One other point to add, I've read on other posts:

Sometimes it's bettter to slot Endurance reduction enhancements in click powers before slotting them in toggle powers.

This may or may not be true for specific powers, but in general, rather than blindly slotting an Endurance reduction enhancement in a toggle before a click power, the player may want to evaluate how much the click power costs them over time used vs. how much the toggle costs them.


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Posted

Might want to add that there are buffs you can get if you are in a Sg/Vg base. Now that we have ways of getting that kind of salvage easier, you can just put a bid on the market for it. The buffs maybe short but can easily be renewed between missions.


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Posted

Something to mention for Speed Boost is that it is good to slot END Mods in it. Without at least one END Mod, the increased attack rate can actually make people go through endurance faster. Since Defenders get SB at 12, you will have access to DOs, use them. Speed Boost with 3 SO END Mod will make even the most END hungry blaster recover endurance.

Additional Run Speed is usually not necessary.


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Posted

Thanks everyone for the comments!

SeriousGeorge, while you made a good point, this is not a slotting guide. If I gave slotting advice for all the powers, this would be a very long guide, and unnecessarily so. There are plenty of guides detailing how various powers should be slotted to get the most out of them.

EvilRyu, that's a great point, I would add that to the main list if I could still edit!

Galadiman, that is also a valid point, I didn't include that as I wanted to keep it to "simple" things to do. Something like that is a bit analytical but is a good point for anyone wanting to look into it.

One other thing I wanted to add (I had two but can't remember the other at the moment)

Your origin inherent is quite an expensive power for unimpressive damage, consider just waiting for brawl to recharge. (For comparison, about half of blaster's tier one attacks use less endurance [City of Data] )


 

Posted

Nice guide. One thing I didn't see at first readthrough was mention of the obvious:

When you have a set like a blaster or scrapper primary, you're WELL advised to review the end cost per recharge time, and get 2-4 of the highest end regular chain powers one [1] end redux slot. The first question I always get asked about my Broadsword/SR is: doesn't endurance make your life miserable? And the answer has always been: no. I put off focused senses for a bit, made sure to have an end redux in pretty much every BS attack, and frankly, I've been hovering in combat, just because I can and it looks cool, since DOs.

Even more specifically, if you have painful end woes, take a look at the end per recharge base on just the powers you know you constantly spam, but aren't quite sure you'd instantly die if you spammed just a little more slowly. Anything that's got, say, 3x recharge and 0x End redux in it, that's high end, substituting an EndRdx for a Recharge will make a world of difference-- it should reduce your EPS (with SOs, with that power) by 36%.

Also, to elaborate on toggle use: Any toggle that's AOE, is expensive. If you have that kind of toggle (and actually this goes for the chocie to click a click AoE too): take it as a solemn vow that you will turn the toggle off (or NOT click the AoE) when there are fewer than 4 mobs nearby.


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Posted

Nice work, I am always trying to tell people these things and they don't listen! : ) It's particularly annoying when I am, in fact, trying to give them my extra blues.


 

Posted

REST

That's right, it's not just for healing; it fills the blue bar, too. I've seen many a player go from spawn to spawn with little END left and then crash during a fight without ever stopping to use Rest. There's no shame in Resting. Create a bind or macro:

/bind ctrl+r "l I'm gonna rest for just about 10 seconds, you can go on without me if you want, I'll catch up.$$powexecname Rest"

Then it's your team's decision whether to wait for you or not. While Resting, you can turn on any self-buff toggles you want, especially if you had to turn them off to save END. A recharge in Rest should bring it up to make it available every second or third fight.

For protracted battles, I've even backed up around a corner to Rest just to refill END and then jump back into the fight.


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Posted

[ QUOTE ]
REST

That's right, it's not just for healing; it fills the blue bar, too. I've seen many a player go from spawn to spawn with little END left and then crash during a fight without ever stopping to use Rest. There's no shame in Resting. Create a bind or macro:

/bind ctrl+r "l I'm gonna rest for just about 10 seconds, you can go on without me if you want, I'll catch up.$$powexecname Rest"

Then it's your team's decision whether to wait for you or not. While Resting, you can turn on any self-buff toggles you want, especially if you had to turn them off to save END. A recharge in Rest should bring it up to make it available every second or third fight.

For protracted battles, I've even backed up around a corner to Rest just to refill END and then jump back into the fight.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's some good advice. I've done all of those things every so often.


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Posted

Also, check City of Data for the REAL endurance costs of your powers. I have a friend who slotted END reducers into his Combat Jumping. Turns out CJ uses .013 END/sec, not enough to notice.

Also, with Vet reward prestige Sprint powers, I find I can put a Run on one of them, a Jump in another, an END reducer on a third, and just choose the right Sprint equivalent for the job.


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