Let's talk about pre-20 endurance management.
By
AprilShade,
Posted on: 2009-04-18 16:05 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
1. Don't do anything at relentless or even ruthless and waste a lot of endurance by missing.
2. Don't bother with +dmg. Just +acc and -end if endurance is such a big issue.
3. Just don't waste attacks if you don't need to. I've seen people wasting heavy hits on a target that only has 5% health left. Just wait for the tier 1 to cycle back. It doesn't take that long.
Rest often. 
I really don't see a big issue with endurance before stamina. The +acc newbie buff is already so good.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
I find that most of my End issues are solved at 12 with the introduction of DOs (and thus the slotting of EndRedux and Accuracy into my attacks and most frequently used powers), personally.
And I find that, even Redside, one good, solid team can take me to 12 in just a few hours at the absolute worst, and that generally it's not an issue for me.
That said, shortening Rest's recharge rate wouldn't be a bad thing, but I'd say also that I'd be willing to sacrifice some of it's overall effectiveness to compensate for it.
End discounts, I'm not so much in-jive with, because it helps teach newer players proper endurance management (that is golden later on), and teaches old players trying new things how to balance stuff out with their new combination
Regarding Brawl and Toggles... Eh. I don't really find them that big of a drain on my overall endurance, and don't think adjusting either is really necessary, or helpful to the greater problem as a whole (endurance management).
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1. Don't do anything at relentless or even ruthless and waste a lot of endurance by missing.
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In general, missing doesn't become a major endurance drain with sufficient accuracy slotting. Which isn't too hard to get.
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2. Don't bother with +dmg. Just +acc and -end if endurance is such a big issue.
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That's not necessarily entirely good advice. Damage increases dpe exactly as much as -end does, but it also increases dps.
In general, I'd slot accuracy first, damage second, then endurance as needed, with the rest going to recharge. The problem is that at the low levels, you don't necessarily have the slots (or the money!) to get that much benefit past the accuracy slotting.
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Just don't waste attacks if you don't need to. I've seen people wasting heavy hits on a target that only has 5% health left. Just wait for the tier 1 to cycle back. It doesn't take that long.
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This is true, but I really don't think that pre-20 endurance problems can be entirely chalked up to using Cremate instead of Scorch.
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Rest often.
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See #1 in the OP.
I agree with your point here and I want to approach it a bit differently.
The view point of a brand New CoX player. You don't know anyone so getting inf assistance is unlikely. You don't have a super group. You have no clue how to use the market much less gain inf rather than lose inf through it. You may not have (or want at least until you can run the basic controls well enough not to look like a total n00b) a team and your first impression of the game is the make it break it of whether you enjoy it enough to continue playing past the trial.
When you are a brand new player running out of end continually may be the make it or break it of whether you want to switch from trial to paying.
If you use the inf you get to continually up date your TOs (which makes sense if you read any of the tutorial information) you won't have enough at level 12 to buy more than 1 or 2 DOs.
Even on Heroic about 1/3 of spawns in missions are +1 critters. You can use an entire end bar (not to mention health bar) trying to defeat a single +1 lieutenant and you can spend that end in less than 1/3 of the recharge time of rest.
Keeping all that in mind I would suggest.....
1) Cuting the recharge time on rest by 50-75%. I have to rest every other to every third spawn with a non-twinked toon prior to DOs. I generally only slot what TOs drop and I sell all my salvage drops at the market at inflated prices to be able to afford a complete set of DOs at level 12.
2) Tweak (weigh) the TOs that drop. Yes I know that they are all ready weighted but even as it is it's not weighted even close to the reality of what you need. I can't remember a time ever on any alt (I have many) that I ever was able to have an unexpired acc and/or an unexpired end red in every power that I had from slotting drops but that after a couple of missions I have an entire tray full of stuns, ranges, defense debuffs, to hit debuffs, to hit buffs, etc. At this level it is a total waste to slot for anything but the basics. More priority on the RNG dropping acc and end red might even steer the newb in the right direction for slotting powers.
3) Adjust the costs of TOs and DOs. In this day of inventions is it really over powered for a newbie to be able to have unexpired TOs in each and every slot? Is it even over powered to allow them to be able to afford a full set of DOs at level 12 or 13? I don't think so. I'd cut the cost of TOs by 90% and DOs by 50%. If you slot carefully in the early levels you still should have enough influence to slot a complete (or nearly complete) set of SOs at 22 the same as any veteran player that can use the market or transfer influence from an alt. Do we really want to put the new player off? Not being able to fill a slot with an enhancement takes much of the excitement out of getting new slots as you level.
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This is true, but I really don't think that pre-20 endurance problems can be entirely chalked up to using Cremate instead of Scorch.
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maybe not Cremate but don't use a AoE to kill one guy that is almost dead, and yes it does wates a lot of end. AoE have higher End cost then ST attacks and also I would do that post 20 too.
"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"- Chesty Puller US Marine Corps
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The view point of a brand New CoX player. You don't know anyone so getting inf assistance is unlikely. You don't have a super group. You have no clue how to use the market much less gain inf rather than lose inf through it. You may not have (or want at least until you can run the basic controls well enough not to look like a total n00b) a team and your first impression of the game is the make it break it of whether you enjoy it enough to continue playing past the trial.
When you are a brand new player running out of end continually may be the make it or break it of whether you want to switch from trial to paying.
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I understand the point, but this isn't really different than any other game. When you start a new game, you usually don't have a very good idea of what you're doing, and you're not very good at the game. A game without a learning curve would have to be incredibly shallow.
Balancing Endurance in the early levels is a tricky issue. On one hand, yeah- sometimes it can be not very fun. On the other hand, you're supposed to weaker in the early levels and become progessively more powerful and self-sufficient. You're not supposed to be buzzsawing through enemies on your own early on.
It's a tricky balance between not making the early levels too frustrating, and not making them a cakewalk.
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The view point of a brand New CoX player. You don't know anyone so getting inf assistance is unlikely. You don't have a super group. You have no clue how to use the market much less gain inf rather than lose inf through it. You may not have (or want at least until you can run the basic controls well enough not to look like a total n00b) a team and your first impression of the game is the make it break it of whether you enjoy it enough to continue playing past the trial.
When you are a brand new player running out of end continually may be the make it or break it of whether you want to switch from trial to paying.
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I understand the point, but this isn't really different than any other game. When you start a new game, you usually don't have a very good idea of what you're doing, and you're not very good at the game. A game without a learning curve would have to be incredibly shallow.
Balancing Endurance in the early levels is a tricky issue. On one hand, yeah- sometimes it can be not very fun. On the other hand, you're supposed to weaker in the early levels and become progessively more powerful and self-sufficient. You're not supposed to be buzzsawing through enemies on your own early on.
It's a tricky balance between not making the early levels too frustrating, and not making them a cakewalk.
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Yeah -- how would you know you'd become more powerful if you started out fully capable?
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
Sometimes I wish we got more blue inspirations in the early game.
That'd solve lots of endurance problems without fidgiting with the mechanics.
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1.) Reduce (or eliminate) the recharge on Rest.
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It's already pretty quick. I drop a recharge in it, to make it come back even quicker. With hasten and 1 recharge IO, it's up just about every minute.
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2.) Zero endurance use for Brawl (and possibly the origin inherents.)
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Geeeeeeaaaargh no, for one reason, two words; PROC PUNCH
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3.) Longer duration on toggle pulses.
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Could just have the shields tick their cost less frequently. But shields don't have as adverse an effect on end usage as ANYTHING ELSE. Attacks/buffspam/debuffspam > shield for endurance leeching.
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4.) Endurance discount at low levels.
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That'd be nice.
I suggest something like Beginner's Luck for Endurance. You're hella energetic and rip-roaring to go on your new hero/villain trout chucker head bopper. I mean, who wouldn't be if you just busted out of jail/learned you can create/control/trow trout at people?
Then you get old. And tired. At like, clearance level 20. And you can barely wake up in the morning without groaning and trow trouting the alarm clock, muttering how everything tastes like fish.
...
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Okay, so I know that this comes up pretty regularly, but usually in the form of "GIEV ME STAMINA NAO 4 FREE!!!" threads. I'd like to stay away from that, and instead look at the possibility of making the 1-19 game a little easier on the blue bar.
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We just got that not very long ago. Beginner's Luck. Less missing, less endurance wasted on missed attacks, more endurance available to attack more frequently or with heavier hitters, and since it scales down slowly, it gives the player time to acquire DOs or IOs to enhance accuracy, thus compensating for the gradual falloff of BL and continuing the endurance preservation when it's needed most.
Since BL was implemented, I've only had low level endurance problems with one character, a dominator, and that AT has its own endurance supplementary option.
Well I'm one of the people who has massive end troubles at the lower levels. Rest doesn't recharge nearly fast enough, so once I'm out of end and rest isn't recharged, I tend to go AFK for a while, or Alt-Tab and do something else for a while. IMO no game should force frequent periods of inactivity on you, especially at the lower levels where newer people will first experience the game.
Yes, I slot accuracy. I know better than to waste big attacks and AOEs when they're not necessary. I like to keep moving, and usually one or two spawns is it, and if rest isn't up, time for a break.
I see the long recharge on rest as a legacy of old game design that hasn't been rethought in the modern gaming environment.
As for brawl and the origin temp power, maybe it would be going too far to make them end free, but at least lower the end cost. Brawl has a much worse DPE than any standard attack. Same for the origin temp. Why, of all things, would the powers that are used almost exclusively (aside from Brutes) at the lowest levels, pre-Stamina, have such unusually high end costs? It's completely backwards. If anything it should be flipped, so they cost less end than regular attacks to help through the lower levels.
As for an end discount at the lower levels, along the same line as beginner's luck, I'm all for it. When we first got beginner's luck I figured it would take care of most of my end troubles, since I wouldn't be missing as much. It did help, but is not nearly enough. Being able to rest more often would have a similar effect, but an end discount would remove the need to constantly pause every two spawns.
QR
I'm not going to break your post down point by point. Rather, I'm going to point out that I frequently take my characters from 1-27 without using a single enhancement. Granted, my play experience probably lends a great deal to my ability to handle my blue bar for 27 levels without any kind of endurance management tools (outside of Stamina at 20 on some of them). Taking this into account, I'm going to talk specifically about the 1-20 section.
It's as simple as not speeding around as fast as you can to kill as quick as you can. Honest. Knowing that you have few powers, either to keep yourself alive or to defeat your foe, should key you in on a pace you may want to play at if you want to move through missions with minimal breaks. While I personally have no issue stopping every 3-4 spawns to take a knee, I'm aware that some people just don't want to have to stop. In order for them to not stop, though, they need to slow down and most aren't willing to do this (or think they shouldn't have to).
That's my take on it. If the player just slew down in their "pre-Stamina" days, they'd find that their blue bar is much more full than they'd expect. Taking a shift from a fully-enhanced character to a not-enhanced character can have this kind of "I don't have enough Endurance!" backlash.
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it depends on the AT im useing (really only have end issues with tanks and brutes at low lvs and to a much lesser degree trollers and doms) if a willpower or fire tank this is solved pretty early by quick recovery or consume
always turn of sprint of course (and not just for the fight and turn it back on to sprint to the next on 1/2 a blue bar but when you enter the mission turn sprint off unless your ends nearly gone and you have to excape)
if you dont mind either "wasting" your second build by making some odd choices for slots early on or if you have a vet respec try putting 2 or even 3 recharges in rest maybe one or more in haste also sure that means less slots for things you want but its really not that much and you can have a slot in it and one in a power youd normally slot
(once you get higher just /respec and sell all the enh you got pick your powers the way you want and go slot them as you would with only 1 slot in rest etc
(for tanks eraly on i also do nothing but slot my toggles for end red since if the toggles drop i have0 dmg resist or defence so better to have .17/s drain with lower def then .26/s with only slightly higher def or dmg resist
and just because you have a toggle doesnt mean it needs to be on ALL the time you dont need to have energy shields on for fighting snakes and if your surounded by 4 hellion slammers and one buckshot kill the damed and drop your energy defence and keep your smashing active)
not sure how all that works (never put more then one slot in rest myself) as for making rest not have a recharge though i think that whould be a bit overkill especially in teams where 7 members could cover for you drawing agro from the GM or AV while you rotated so eveyone had full end all the time you want rest to come up faster sacrafice slots to it (hell even slot interupt reduction in it to rest 'n' run without waiting as long for rest to take effect
My first thought when I joined this game was "holy crap, that guy is flying.' and 'holy crap, I can jump!' rather than 'what is the best way to min-max my endurance bar so that I can acheive the greatest desired dps over a period of time.'
Point being, new players don't know that their endurance is a problem yet. Especially coming off a slower MMO, it's probably entirely acceptable to them. It's only later, when you know what you had, that you begin missing it.
That being said, I don't have many endurance issues at the lower levels anymore. When at the 'TO stage' I stick mostly to acc for all my powers, and endredux for any toggles. I typically hold off on most toggles until DO's, but always take my status resistance (when applicaple) as soon as possible. I mostly build toward getting any useful passives, a quick 3 power attack chain, and a travel power and stamina.
Far beyond anything I can do to ease my stamina use, however, is using inspirations. I save every blue inspiration until I need it, and convert every inspiration into a blue as soon as I get three of them. Just doing this, I rarely find myself needing to rest at any level, nevermind 1-20.
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I play a ton of alts, and I had played twenty characters past 10 before I had one hit 20. I never hit end problems except when scrambling in a life or death situation. Then when I got my first character to 20 and got stamina, all my other alts started having end problems.
Stamina and EndRdx SOs let you button mash continuously. Most any other MMO I've played, I had to pace attacks to manage mana or stamina or whatnot. I did that here until I learned it could be better. A half second or so delay before mashing the next button would make a huge difference.
Now I'm back to fine (barring a few ATs that have poor End early attacks, like tankers seem awful for DPE) I just pace the attacks, take a small breather between fights and save the blues for LT fights. And I aggressively manage toggles, almost never sprint between fights, if minions aren't hurting me much I turn off defense toggles, etc.
However, I could totally see rest being on a much shorter recharge. It has enough other burdens built into it.
(QR)
I think the real key is greatly reducing the recharge in rest (probably in the neighborhood of 60-75%.) I see no reason for it to take 3 mins to recharge. other than a blatant time sink. I know of other games that have an out-of-combat buff to health/endurance recovery for the entire game, I don't see why rest, a power that makes you incredibly vulnerable, shouldn't be available nearly all the time.
As for brawl... I could see it costing 0 endurance only if the devs removed the ability to put sets into it, otherwise, lowering the end to 1 or 1.5 would probably be sufficient.
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Okay, so I know that this comes up pretty regularly, but usually in the form of "GIEV ME STAMINA NAO 4 FREE!!!" threads. I'd like to stay away from that, and instead look at the possibility of making the 1-19 game a little easier on the blue bar. As has been pointed out ad nauseum, there are tons of ways to mitigate endurance usage: accolades, Stamina and other +recovery/+end powers, slotting for endrx, IO sets, etc.
However, most of these tend to be much less effective in the early game. Consequently, I find that when I'm soloing, I am continually having serious endurance problems -- generally seem to have to stop and wait to recover about every other fight, fighting on tenacious or rugged. (I like my bosses to be bosses, thank you.) While one could maybe make a case that there's nothing wrong with this, or that I should lern2playn00b, I doubt I'm the only one that has a problem with the status quo.
(Along similar lines, waiting around for the green bar to regenerate is also pretty aggravating. Quite simply, the downtime that seems to be a necessary part of the pre-20 game strikes me as an unnessecary time-sink, and is for me at least something of a barrier to leveling up lowbie alts. At least for me -- YMMV.)
So, with that said, here are a couple possibilities for ways to make the early game a little more endurance friendly for your average soloist:
1.) Reduce (or eliminate) the recharge on Rest.
I have a hard time with arguments that this would enable exploits, simply because it's impossible to contribute to XP-gain while you're in Rest. Similarly, the long activation time enforces a non-trivial amount of down-time -- to go from blinking-red to full health generally takes 15-20 seconds. I'd argue that this is close to the maximum amount of downtime you can have before boredom sets in.
A short (<30-60 s) recharge on rest would be balanced by your vulnerability while resting. In general, regardless of the recharge on Rest, you're always better not resting, except when not resting would lead to a trip to the ER. So I can't agree with the argument that balance requires a long recharge on Rest.
2.) Zero endurance use for Brawl (and possibly the origin inherents.)
Other MMOs have a free "auto-attack" that you can always use, regardless of whether or not you have any "mana" or whatever left -- WoW always lets you take a normal swing with your basic weapons, for example. One of the reasons why running out of endurance is so problematic in CoX is the fact that you absolutely can't do anything when the blue bar is empty. Making Brawl an endurance-free attack would allow you to maintain at least some offensive output even when you're out of endurance, albeit at a greatly reduced level. While making CoX like other MMOs is not a desirable goal in and of itself, I think this is one area in which it could be useful.
3.) Longer duration on toggle pulses.
Along similar lines, suppose that toggles continued to provide defense for, say, 4-5 seconds after they shut off -- perhaps at a reduced level. (I'm pretty sure there are straightforward ways to implement this with current game mechanics.) In this way, you'd have a few seconds to respond to endurance drain before your defenses shut down.
4.) Endurance discount at low levels.
Basically just like doing for endurance what they already did for accuracy. Pretty straightforward in concept, not sure how easy it would be to implement.
I'm not suggesting that all of these be added -- that would probably be overkill. If it were entirely up to me, I'd use some form of 1 and 2, as I'm sort of less enthusiastic about 3 and 4.
What do y'all think?
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One accuracy, one Endurance, and one Damage in each of my attacks before I hit 20 pretty much eliminates my endurance problems on anything but the lowest damage of Archetypes. If you are running a Defender or Controller you have to slot your heals, buffs, and debuffs for endurance for a little while. 1 endurance redux for every 2 other enhancements is a good rule of thumb. on defenders and controllers you may have to choose between healing, debuffing, and attacking but that is why you are playing a team oriented AT.
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I really don't see a big issue with endurance before stamina.
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ditto.
There are a tremendous # of options available to circumvent annoyance.
My current favorite is slotting cheap set IOs that give +rec bonuses.
My fire/axe tank breezed through to 20 thanks to slotting for end redux and +rec...if he can do it, anyone can.
Options are there for those who choose to seek them out.
No need to spoon-feed players everything.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
(QR)
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I really don't see a big issue with endurance before stamina.
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Yeah, but lots of other players do.
I'm certainly not going to come out and say that everyone has problems with endurance management pre-20 -- that's manifestly not the case. By the same token, the fact that some people do not have problems managing their endurance in the early game does not necessarily imply that the status quo is perfectly fine. Enough people do seem to have problems with it, and it's a sufficiently unfun form of challenge to those that do have to deal with it that it seems pretty clear to me that it could use a little bit of attention.
My own experience is that I'm generally fine on endurance -- i.e., I don't run dry before Rest recharges -- when I'm teaming. When I'm solo, though, I either have to spend time standing around between individual attacks, or spend more time standing around between fights. Either way, I personally find it to be an irritating time sink rather than a challenge. (I don't think I'm alone in that opinion.) So I guess I would be curious as to how much those that are not having end problems are running solo vs. teaming.
I'd also have to ask who would be hurt with a shorter recharge on Rest. The 1-20 game is a comparatively small fraction of the total 1-50 game, timewise, so reducing down-time here isn't going to suddenly make people zip to 50 five times quicker. (In fact, I'd probably roll even more alts if the lowbie game were more enjoyable to me.) I've heard that it would make regen, empaths, and other stuff that can provide +regen/+recov less attractive, but I don't think that argument holds water: rest is (except in some extreme corner cases) useless in combat, and takes a pretty long time even to activate in the first place.
So what arguments are there against lowering the recharge on Rest, other than that wouldn't be necessary for some characters who are okay on endurance already?
Regarding lowering/eliminating the endurance costs on Brawl:
I for one wouldn't see endurance-free six-slotted Brawl with a bunch of procs in it as particularly unbalancing. That might seem strange on its face, but I think you have to look at this in the context of the opportunity cost of such a power.
First of all, most lowbies aren't going to be able to pick up a bunch of procs -- they're not cheap! Secondly -- and stop me if I'm wrong here, I'm not checking this too closely -- since Brawl is just straight-up ST damage with no slottable secondary effects, there aren't too many procs you could use. ToD+Hecatomb, and then the chance for KD from Kinetic Combat (I think) would be about all you could add, right? Compare that to what you can do with, say, Gambler's Cut, Neutrino Bolt, etc., and Brawl as a proc-mule doesn't look quite as good. Furthermore, by the time you get far enough in to have collected all of this stuff, you're probably well past the point where endurance management is an issue for most builds. Also, you have to look at the opportunity cost -- 5 slots in Brawl is five slots you can't use elsewhere. I think it might be interesting to make Brawl sufficiently attractive that slotting it up could be a worthwhile choice. It would add more choices, more diversity, and I'm having trouble imagining any particularly game-breaking scenario that would arise as a result. (I'd be very interested to be proven wrong on this though...)
Be that as it may, it's completely unclear to me why Brawl should have a DPE which is so much worse than just a normal attack. At the very least, given Brawl's weakness, it shouldn't be an end-hog as well.
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Yeah, but lots of other players do.
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Options are available for anyone who cares to use them.
Back in the day, when options were fewer and the gaming environment was harsher, there were valid complaints to make.
Now, with xp smoothing and IO sets and temp travel powers and all the other amenities that have graded the highway of the lower levels to a relatively flat plane, heaven forbid you have to spend a few hours of your character's life paying attention to your endurance usage!
My advice to anyone who feels persecuted by the first 20 levels of the game is suck it up.
Failing that, try slotting some end redux in key powers.
Don't run your toggles 24/7.
Grab a couple of cheap set IOs that give +rec.
Store endurance inspirations for big fights- turn other insp drops you get into endurance.
Buy medium end inspirations on the market- I regularly pick them up for less than 100 inf (I turn them into something else, but if you need end there they are).
The burden of the first 20 stamina-free levels doesn't need further lightening, they've already jettisoned most of the weight.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Yeah, but lots of other players do.
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Options are available for anyone who cares to use them.
Back in the day, when options were fewer and the gaming environment was harsher, there were valid complaints to make.
Now, with xp smoothing and IO sets and temp travel powers and all the other amenities that have graded the highway of the lower levels to a relatively flat plane, heaven forbid you have to spend a few hours of your character's life paying attention to your endurance usage!
My advice to anyone who feels persecuted by the first 20 levels of the game is suck it up.
Failing that, try slotting some end redux in key powers.
Don't run your toggles 24/7.
Grab a couple of cheap set IOs that give +rec.
Store endurance inspirations for big fights- turn other insp drops you get into endurance.
Buy medium end inspirations on the market- I regularly pick them up for less than 100 inf (I turn them into something else, but if you need end there they are).
The burden of the first 20 stamina-free levels doesn't need further lightening, they've already jettisoned most of the weight.
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qft. The days of having no other option but stamina are long gone.
Hell the days of having no other option but to slot end redux are long gone.
I don't understand how any can complain about end management nowadays at any level.
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Anyone else remember when Rest had a 20 minute recharge? I think I had it like 4 slotted back on my first character when I started playing in I4.
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Anyone else remember when Rest had a 20 minute recharge? I think I had it like 4 slotted back on my first character when I started playing in I4.
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Indeed.
It used to be something that was available every other mission.
Now....I can't remember the last time I needed to rest and it wasn't up.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Okay, so I know that this comes up pretty regularly, but usually in the form of "GIEV ME STAMINA NAO 4 FREE!!!" threads. I'd like to stay away from that, and instead look at the possibility of making the 1-19 game a little easier on the blue bar. As has been pointed out ad nauseum, there are tons of ways to mitigate endurance usage: accolades, Stamina and other +recovery/+end powers, slotting for endrx, IO sets, etc.
However, most of these tend to be much less effective in the early game. Consequently, I find that when I'm soloing, I am continually having serious endurance problems -- generally seem to have to stop and wait to recover about every other fight, fighting on tenacious or rugged. (I like my bosses to be bosses, thank you.) While one could maybe make a case that there's nothing wrong with this, or that I should lern2playn00b, I doubt I'm the only one that has a problem with the status quo.
(Along similar lines, waiting around for the green bar to regenerate is also pretty aggravating. Quite simply, the downtime that seems to be a necessary part of the pre-20 game strikes me as an unnessecary time-sink, and is for me at least something of a barrier to leveling up lowbie alts. At least for me -- YMMV.)
So, with that said, here are a couple possibilities for ways to make the early game a little more endurance friendly for your average soloist:
1.) Reduce (or eliminate) the recharge on Rest.
I have a hard time with arguments that this would enable exploits, simply because it's impossible to contribute to XP-gain while you're in Rest. Similarly, the long activation time enforces a non-trivial amount of down-time -- to go from blinking-red to full health generally takes 15-20 seconds. I'd argue that this is close to the maximum amount of downtime you can have before boredom sets in.
A short (<30-60 s) recharge on rest would be balanced by your vulnerability while resting. In general, regardless of the recharge on Rest, you're always better not resting, except when not resting would lead to a trip to the ER. So I can't agree with the argument that balance requires a long recharge on Rest.
2.) Zero endurance use for Brawl (and possibly the origin inherents.)
Other MMOs have a free "auto-attack" that you can always use, regardless of whether or not you have any "mana" or whatever left -- WoW always lets you take a normal swing with your basic weapons, for example. One of the reasons why running out of endurance is so problematic in CoX is the fact that you absolutely can't do anything when the blue bar is empty. Making Brawl an endurance-free attack would allow you to maintain at least some offensive output even when you're out of endurance, albeit at a greatly reduced level. While making CoX like other MMOs is not a desirable goal in and of itself, I think this is one area in which it could be useful.
3.) Longer duration on toggle pulses.
Along similar lines, suppose that toggles continued to provide defense for, say, 4-5 seconds after they shut off -- perhaps at a reduced level. (I'm pretty sure there are straightforward ways to implement this with current game mechanics.) In this way, you'd have a few seconds to respond to endurance drain before your defenses shut down.
4.) Endurance discount at low levels.
Basically just like doing for endurance what they already did for accuracy. Pretty straightforward in concept, not sure how easy it would be to implement.
I'm not suggesting that all of these be added -- that would probably be overkill. If it were entirely up to me, I'd use some form of 1 and 2, as I'm sort of less enthusiastic about 3 and 4.
What do y'all think?