Hover Instead Of Flight
By
Clave_Dark_5,
Posted on: 2009-09-18 12:22 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
You can't get hover to flight itself very easily, but (speaking from experience here) a mere two blessings of the zephyr (travel/end, travel) gets Hover to be about sprint speed. Slot two BoTZ and say... a Fly IO (plus another in swift) and you'll move at a pretty good combat clip and look totally awesome. If the end use really worries you, two BoTZ, and two LoTG (def/end, any other) keeps use down a lot, buffs protection slightly, and well, gives you a place to toss one of those global procs. 
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I use CityBinder http://sourceforge.net/projects/citybinder/
This will turn Flight on when you move, and Hover the second you stand still. Totally takes care of your END management...and you feet will never have to hit the streets of Paragon again!
It also looks incredibly cool when you come to a dead stop automatically, instead of the flying slide Flight gives ...
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If you use hover for combat, it is sufficient to slot a couple flight speed into hover. It is fast enough to keep up with people in missions. I don't think the end usage is an issue. I think if you have end issue, you will still have end problems if you turn off hover.
You should be aware of powers that only work when you are on the ground, for example burn, ice patch, lightning rod. It is a hassle to turn off hover, ice patch, and turn on hover again.
For the speed-on-demand bind, you should note that if you attack, your traveling power speed will be suppressed for a few seconds. Switching from hover to fly may end up with a suppressed speed if the switch is done just after you attack. And an obvious thing that will lead to suppressed speed is to attack while you move with fly. If you are sure that you will stay in a spot while hover blasting, then you can give the speed-on-demand a try.
Flight with the base slotted for fly speed goes around 53mph.
Hover + Swift both 3 slotted for flight speed goes around 25mpg.
If you use Power Boost on top of that, you'll go 32mph.
Instead of Power Boost, if you use Siphon Speed, you'll be moving at 42mph.
(Numbers pulled from Mids')
Some hints I learned. Do not 3 Slot swift for flight. The benefit you get is very VERY small. I've had hover 3 slotted for some time on many toons. I took both slots out and added 1 to hover and actually gained speed and a slot.
Seriously the difference between hover 3 slotted and 1 slotted was about 2mph if I was lucky. I went through all my toons (I use hover a lot on soooo many) and every toon saw a drastic increase in hover speed by just adding 1 slot to hover over 2 to swift. Tho your MMV, the math was just to hard to ignore.
The other key to making hover is fast is +Speed set bonuses.
My Mercs/Trick Arrow MM has an insane hover speed. I have a lvl 50 flight in swift. 2 lvl 50 Soaring (Flight, Flight/End). I hover faster then any one using spring, by a fair margin. So much so that most people don't believe I'm using hover. It makes traversing around the field easy. Best of all you can completely avoid those annoying caltrops the Knives toss around like confetti.
However I also have around 20% global speed, which is very easy to attain since many sets give you a 5% global.
Good thing is you don't even need to make hard sacrifices to get that. Got a build up? 2 slot Guassian. Got an Aim? 2 slot guassian. Those will net you 5% global each. 2 slotting Force Feedback in a KB power will also get you a 5%. 2 slotting Performance shifter in stamina (the END, +Rech) will get you another 5%.
One of the best ways tho is to 3 slot Winters Gift. You get the effect of both +spd, and the slow resist. 3 slotting them in hover will also give you a 6%. Now I'm not saying those are better then other options but it is an option. (I went this route on one of my /REGEN scrappers because those slows can make the difference of you click not coming back in time)
In closing, on paper 3 slotting swift with fly seems good on paper. In practical appliance both those slots will get you much MUCH more speed if you put em in hover. Plus putting more slots in hover allows you to add some nice perks. LOTG +7.5, Kismet +ACC, Karma KB, etc. Ymmv tho.
My personal favorite is to use 3-slotted hover with Power boost + AM. Add in hasten and you only have a couple of seconds downtime every cycle. Hover speed is near fly speed at that point.
I sometimes even forget to switch to fly when traveling long distances.
I'm working on a new troller and to change things up I decided I'd like to have her hover around as much as I can rather than walking/running. I've heard that with some slotting and so on, you can get Hover's speed up to the of Flight, but I've forgotten how that was done. I'm guessing that taking Swift is part of the deal there, right?
I don't need to have a super-fast Hover speed going for zone traveling; I've never slotted Flight beyond the original slot, so that would be about the target speed I'm looking to get.
Also, what about combating END usage? Slotting? Heck, any thing relevant (combat tactics, odball uses, warnings to watch out for low bridges, etc.) would be greatly appreciated.