SuperReflexes....To Hasten or Not To Hasten??
Hasten provides a 70% recharge buff when active.
Quickness provides 20%.
My claws/sr has 97.5% global recharge buff but does not have hasten in his build. It's not hard at all to find the 50% more recharge buff from SetIOs and you then wouldn't have to deal with hasten's end crash or the lack of its buff when it's down.
That said, if you plan to PvP with your claws/sr, it's not a bad idea to go for max recharge, meaning hasten+quickness+everything else you can get in there, so that you can get elude up as much as possible.
If you have no plans for PvP, hasten is only useful if you're trying to go for one of the end all be all attack chains of doom for max DPS.
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Can "Quickness" + various I/Os = Hasten? Or should I take Hasten, as well, for added recharge?
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I'd probably wait until much later in the build, though. At 16, a Claws/SR doesn't have very much to hasten in the first place.
As an aside, Quickness is too weak, provably so. I haven't said that in almost a year, so I thought I'd stick that in there.
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That said, if you plan to PvP with your claws/sr, it's not a bad idea to go for max recharge, meaning hasten+quickness+everything else you can get in there, so that you can get elude up as much as possible.
If you have no plans for PvP, hasten is only useful if you're trying to go for one of the end all be all attack chains of doom for max DPS. |
As an aside, Quickness is too weak, provably so. I haven't said that in almost a year, so I thought I'd stick that in there. |
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Even considering the run and fly speed buffs, slow resistance and the fact that it's a passive?
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I'm pretty sure that even in SR's current better situation and the added slow resistance I could still prove Quickness has a much lower buff than it ought to have when factoring in the twin requirements that it should contribute to the set in a way that enhances set balance rather than hurts it (in either direction) and it doesn't provide enough buff relative to its cost (which, as a passive, is its power choice cost).
Its worth noting that Hasten, a power pool power with no prerequisites, starts off with no slotting offering +0.23 recharge, averaged over its uptime, compared to the +0.2 that Quickness offers. That's *without slotting Hasten*. Granted, Hasten has an endurance crash penalty, but cost averaged over its unslotted cycle time that cost is only 0.045 eps. That's less than Combat Jumping, whose endurance costs are considered to be practically zero.
That doesn't account for the other buffs in Quickness, but Quickness is already starting off essentially in the hole to a power pool power *before* I slot it. I'm pretty sure if I did the analysis again today, I'd come to the same conclusion. You can't make that sort of argument with analogous QoL powers like, say, Quick Recovery.
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My claws/SR hasn't felt the need for hasten. I run every attack chain seamlessly. But claws have intrisicly fast recharge times on is attacks anyway. Now if you had DM or BS or FM etc, then I would say Hasten is important to reach your top end DPS chains.
I'm pretty reserved with my Hasten use on my DM/SR, I really only use it as an Oh Crap! button or a "I needs to kill these guys ASAP" button, Team wipe on an ITF and I'm... as I usually am the last man standing.
I use it on AVs, pylons, and large groups mainly, I could live without it but the real question then would be "Why?"
I wasn't exactly starved for slots or powers eventually taking hurdle at 49.
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That doesn't account for the other buffs in Quickness, but Quickness is already starting off essentially in the hole to a power pool power *before* I slot it. I'm pretty sure if I did the analysis again today, I'd come to the same conclusion. You can't make that sort of argument with analogous QoL powers like, say, Quick Recovery.
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Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
+0.7 part of the time is way different than +0.23 (or even +0.5 or +0.6) all the time, in terms of attack chains and whatnot.
Comparing Quickness to Hasten should involve considering the fact that Quickness can stack with Hasten.
Personally, while min/maxing it often makes no sense for me to get Hasten, considering the four power pool limit and the much better return you get from defense rather than recharge, past a certain point. Quickness/LR on the other hand, I'd never consider skipping either of those.
If you guys want to argue it's underpowered until it gets buffed, fine with me though. I won't hide that I find the idea silly, but I certainly won't complain about getting a buff on a few characters that really shouldn't have one.
A couple years ago, before the slow resistance was added, I did an analysis that attempted to normalize the costs intrinsic in those buffs relative to their cost within the power pools. I came to the conclusion that Quickness, even as a passive, was almost certainly significantly weaker than it ought to be, at a time when Super Reflexes itself was also weaker than it ought to be and therefore couldn't be applying downward balance pressure in Quickness.
I'm pretty sure that even in SR's current better situation and the added slow resistance I could still prove Quickness has a much lower buff than it ought to have when factoring in the twin requirements that it should contribute to the set in a way that enhances set balance rather than hurts it (in either direction) and it doesn't provide enough buff relative to its cost (which, as a passive, is its power choice cost). Its worth noting that Hasten, a power pool power with no prerequisites, starts off with no slotting offering +0.23 recharge, averaged over its uptime, compared to the +0.2 that Quickness offers. That's *without slotting Hasten*. Granted, Hasten has an endurance crash penalty, but cost averaged over its unslotted cycle time that cost is only 0.045 eps. That's less than Combat Jumping, whose endurance costs are considered to be practically zero. That doesn't account for the other buffs in Quickness, but Quickness is already starting off essentially in the hole to a power pool power *before* I slot it. I'm pretty sure if I did the analysis again today, I'd come to the same conclusion. You can't make that sort of argument with analogous QoL powers like, say, Quick Recovery. |
People might be surprised how often I skip Hasten. It's not that it isn't a great power, but that there are only so many power pools I can take, and I don't mind middle of the road attack chains while leveling. I wouldn't want to see Hasten nerfed, because I think the Speed pool is reasonably well balanced with the other power pools, being somewhere in the middle of the pack. Plus I like the idea that it CAN be made permanent for an insane investment, since I like having full time buffs rather than part time buffs.
As for buffing Quickness, OK, I'll buy the argument. Or at least I won't complain about a Quickness buff. Since Super Reflexes itself doesn't really benefit from additional recharge, it will probably only have a minor affect on just some builds. As long as it isn't a huge buff, I'm not thinking of big balance concerns.
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Well, I would probably argue, for all the same reasons and a few more, that Quickness is balanced. Quickness provides only slightly less recharge than completely unslotted Hasten for no endurance cost whatsover and at all times, while simultaneously increasing movement speed (a QoL improvement) and resistance to -move and -rech debuffs (an improvement to situational stability of the character). It provides 44.7% of the benefit of slotted Hasten (44.75% +rech) while costing 2 power slots less and being completely unaffected by state changes (dieing and resurrecting, -rech debuffs, etc). The cost in power choices are functionally the same, but Quickness comes out rather far ahead in terms of required additional slotting (none v. 2) and permanence, not to mention the additional QoL value (which is probably the only thing making it arguably "better" and thereby more "powerful" than a pool power). I'd argue that it's actually reasonably well balanced, though, I don't think it would be untoward to increase the +rech by a small amount (most likely 5-10%) in order to account for its presence in an AT power set, but not much more.
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While you could argue that Hasten takes a power pick and two slots, in fact the Hastened attack chains can often drop an attack power or even two, and those missing attacks represent a far great slot investment than Hasten itself.
The real cost of Hasten isn't in power picks or slots, it is the loss of a power pool.
The big problem with Hasten is that it not only represents a huge boost in defensive clicks coming back online, but for most sets it represents a significant increase in DPS. The second function is where I have a conceptual problem with the power; it shouldn't represent such a large gain in DPS. The problem here is that most sets have attacks that are wildly out of whack in terms of DPA. What I would like to see it some of the lower DPA attacks buffed so attack chains without Hasten would not sacrifice so much to involve other attacks in their chain.
Looking at MA for example, the loss of Hasten is a big DPS hit. But bring Thunder Kick and Eagle Claw up in DPA so using them wasn't so... bad and the lack of Hasten is more acceptable. Though one reason MA is so drastic without Hasten is Storm Kick is so good compared to all the other lackluster attacks that anything you can do to get it available again really boosts the attack chain.
I don't mind Hasten providing a huge boost to defensive sets like Regen that are highly dependent on recharge, but a scrapper with SR or Willpower should be able to skip Hasten without a huge loss of DPS.
TLDR version:
To soften Hasten's effect, make another pass through attack powers and bring up the DPA of some of the lackluster powers so longer attack chains that do not depend on Hasten do not take a DPS hit.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
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Hasten being too efficient :
Most of the pool powers represent enormous boosts to builds. Why single out Hasten ?
I see many more builds with Stamina than Hasten. I see many more scrapper builds with Weave than Hasten. I'd argue both of these powers are much more important - or gamebreaking if you want, it's all a matter of perspective - than Hasten.
I'd argue CJ is much more important than Hasten too for some people ; I certainly wouldn't make a build without CJ. Ever.
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Skipping Hasten being a big DPS hit :
Taking DB as an example, BF -> AV (doesn't require Hasten) is about 200 DPS. BF -> AS -> SS -> AS is about 240 DPS and requires extreme recharge focus. That's a ~20% difference in damage, which can be considered significant. Consider for a second the survivability sacrifices you're going to have to make for any secondary except SR to be able to run the second chain, though. Forget the softcap on Invul and WP, for example - that, right there, is an enormous difference in mitigation even before considering defense debuffs.
I see the same trend on most builds, taking Hasten and focusing on recharge to run the best attack chains always involve a proportionally bigger drop in survivability. The outlier here is SR ; it can reach maximum survivability and still have plenty of room to work towards high recharge bonuses and the best attack chains for any build, partly thanks to, you guessed it, Quickness.
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If all DPA were identical or close enough to make the difference irrelevant, there'd be hardly any point getting Hasten or going for +recharge bonuses for sets with passive mitigation, allowing people to grab everything without any drawback. Most likely every SR, WP and Invul builds would look the same, and the case could be made even for other secondaries, because let's face it, defense is so broken in the right situations, and content is so easy to manipulate so you only have to face the right situations for the best rewards, getting a bit more defense is often more beneficial than lowering the recharge on whatever click heal you've got even on a build starting with 0% defense and 0% DDR.
Hasten being too efficient :
Most of the pool powers represent enormous boosts to builds. Why single out Hasten ? |
Weave and Combat Jumping are more of a gray area. The importance of Weave and Combat Jumping is just a reflection that +Defense is broken. If non-defense builds were capped at 40% defense, or if set Resistance bonuses where normalized and fixed to be competitive with defense then these powers aren't as unreasonable.
Taking DB as an example, BF -> AV (doesn't require Hasten) is about 200 DPS. BF -> AS -> SS -> AS is about 240 DPS and requires extreme recharge focus. That's a ~20% difference in damage, which can be considered significant. Consider for a second the survivability sacrifices you're going to have to make for any secondary except SR to be able to run the second chain, though. Forget the softcap on Invul and WP, for example - that, right there, is an enormous difference in mitigation even before considering defense debuffs. |
I see the same trend on most builds, taking Hasten and focusing on recharge to run the best attack chains always involve a proportionally bigger drop in survivability. The outlier here is SR ; it can reach maximum survivability and still have plenty of room to work towards high recharge bonuses and the best attack chains for any build, partly thanks to, you guessed it, Quickness. |
Just because defense stacking is powerful (maybe too powerful?) in this game is no reason to justify the state of Hasten. Are there things more broken than Hasten? Yes. Do I wish I could create attack chains without Hasten that don't feel gimped? Yes, despite the other conditions of the game.
If all DPA were identical or close enough to make the difference irrelevant, there'd be hardly any point getting Hasten or going for +recharge bonuses for sets with passive mitigation, allowing people to grab everything without any drawback. Most likely every SR, WP and Invul builds would look the same, and the case could be made even for other secondaries, because let's face it, defense is so broken in the right situations, and content is so easy to manipulate so you only have to face the right situations for the best rewards, getting a bit more defense is often more beneficial than lowering the recharge on whatever click heal you've got even on a build starting with 0% defense and 0% DDR. |
~ Build Up powers recycle faster. This would provide a boost to overall DPS, just not as extreme.
~ Stacking buffs overlap. Claws and Super Strength would still benefit from Hasten to stack buffs.
~ Defensive clicks are up faster.
~ Controllers/Defenders get their control/healing/debuff/pet powers up faster.
In fact, Hasten would still be a must have for many builds. It just wouldn't provide an unnecessary boost in DPS on top of its other benefits.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
Well, I would probably argue, for all the same reasons and a few more, that Quickness is balanced. Quickness provides only slightly less recharge than completely unslotted Hasten for no endurance cost whatsover and at all times, while simultaneously increasing movement speed (a QoL improvement) and resistance to -move and -rech debuffs (an improvement to situational stability of the character). It provides 44.7% of the benefit of slotted Hasten (44.75% +rech) while costing 2 power slots less and being completely unaffected by state changes (dieing and resurrecting, -rech debuffs, etc). The cost in power choices are functionally the same, but Quickness comes out rather far ahead in terms of required additional slotting (none v. 2) and permanence, not to mention the additional QoL value (which is probably the only thing making it arguably "better" and thereby more "powerful" than a pool power). I'd argue that it's actually reasonably well balanced, though, I don't think it would be untoward to increase the +rech by a small amount (most likely 5-10%) in order to account for its presence in an AT power set, but not much more.
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Unslotted, Hasten's benefit is slightly higher than Quickness' recharge benefit for a relatively negligable endurance cost. The question is whether Quickness' other benefits are sufficiently high to *both* overcome the fact that Hasten's recharge benefit can be (essentially) enhanced *and* that Quickness is supposed to be intrinsicly stronger by a significant margin.
Although this isn't strong enough to prove the point, it is a significant set of data points that Quick Recovery is 20% stronger than Stamina *and* Stamina has a two power selection prerequisite, which makes QR's true value significantly more than 20% higher. Fast Healing is nearly twice as strong as Health, which itself has a one-power prerequisite.
*At Best* Quickness' value is a little more than 50% stronger than the strength of its power pool equivalent, given that Quickness' buffs are about equal to Swift and half of Hasten with a plus/minus hedge for the slotting opportunity (essentially, 1.5 power pool choices). And that presumes swift has the same value as Hasten does.
The power pool argument is not the sole argument suggesting that Quickness is underpowered. Its just one supporting line of thought. There are several more that converge on that conclusion, including the issue of what effect +Recharge has on SR. Practiced Brawler has a 120s duration and 200s recharge. With its default slot slotted with an even SO its not perma: it takes +66.7% recharge to make PB perma. PB also has a 0.087 eps cost associated with it if its slotted to perma without endurance reduction (10.4/120). That's actually pretty high relative to defensive toggles which average about 0.13 eps (its 67% of a defensive toggle) considering it only offers status protection *and* SR has three defensive toggles, so PB isn't especially powerful given its inability to be made perma out of the box. If Quickness was +0.33 recharge rather than +0.2 recharge, the combination of quickness + one SO would make PB perma. At its current strength, Quickness can't close the gap on PB alone, forcing an additional slot (or Hasten) whether you take it or not.
Another line of thought considers the question of endurance. Endurance is designed to be a bottleneck on performance, and it is at the slotting levels the game (and the powersets) are balanced for. Most QoL (meaning non-defensive, not non-functional) buffs improve effective DPE, or increase total recovery which increases the bottleneck. Quick Recovery does this, and the tohit buff in Invincibility does this. Its pretty clear of the original four scrapper secondaries, Dark Armor was intended to be limited by endurance (the design of Dark Regeneration demonstrates this), which is why it doesn't also have an endurance cost mitigator. But SR doesn't follow this design theory, and yet Quickness' recharge benefit does *not* improve the DPE bottleneck. Recharge actually doesn't improve your net kill/sec at all; it only allows you to burn through your endurance quicker. For advanced builds with very low or non-existent endurance issues (especially with inventions) this is not significant, but for the balance point target for the powersets it is.
In total there were about six different lines of thought that suggested that either:
1. Quickness be increased to 0.33
2. Quickness have an eps benefit to balance the +recharge benefit
3. Quickness have alternate mechanical advantages.
At least, so I thought when I9 came out, Quickness could be an invention mule. That turned out to be false, reinstating the third possibility.
I'll dig up a copy of the original analysis (if I have it) and update it with current numbers, and see if the argument ends up stronger or weaker. I'm not 100% certain which it will be, but I'm pretty sure it won't be invalidated by anything that happened since that time.
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If PvP ( I know claws/SR not ideal for pvp, but let's not go down that road), or planning to solo AV's I would recommend it. Not necessary, but recharge is always nice in these situations. Not required, but recharge is better for most occasions, especially if someone applies slows to you. If you have the influence, then you can make an really pricey IO'ed build where it may be possible to skip hasten, but not required.
I take hasten on half my builds, and with my SR scrapper, I took it, but that is for AV soloing and the more speed the better. I'm also a 63 month vet and I can get SJ without having to pick CJ. If the build it too tight however, forget about it and enjoy. Claws is quick recharge as it is. If too stressful, make friends with kins and rads and let them speed you up.
I don't think you can argue successfully that Quickness might lag Hasten, but it has other buffs and doesn't cost endurance, so its fine. That's not an argument that its balanced, that's an argument that the situation is too confused to make a judgement. Its essentially obfuscating the situation and saying obfuscated situations are probably ok.
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Unslotted, Hasten's benefit is slightly higher than Quickness' recharge benefit for a relatively negligable endurance cost. The question is whether Quickness' other benefits are sufficiently high to *both* overcome the fact that Hasten's recharge benefit can be (essentially) enhanced *and* that Quickness is supposed to be intrinsicly stronger by a significant margin. |
Although this isn't strong enough to prove the point, it is a significant set of data points that Quick Recovery is 20% stronger than Stamina *and* Stamina has a two power selection prerequisite, which makes QR's true value significantly more than 20% higher. Fast Healing is nearly twice as strong as Health, which itself has a one-power prerequisite. |
*At Best* Quickness' value is a little more than 50% stronger than the strength of its power pool equivalent, given that Quickness' buffs are about equal to Swift and half of Hasten with a plus/minus hedge for the slotting opportunity (essentially, 1.5 power pool choices). And that presumes swift has the same value as Hasten does. |
Debuff resistance is not, nor should it ever be, an ignored value under the confines of a balance debate, especially when it's one of the fundamental useful attributes of a power.
The power pool argument is not the sole argument suggesting that Quickness is underpowered. Its just one supporting line of thought. There are several more that converge on that conclusion, including the issue of what effect +Recharge has on SR. Practiced Brawler has a 120s duration and 200s recharge. With its default slot slotted with an even SO its not perma: it takes +66.7% recharge to make PB perma. PB also has a 0.087 eps cost associated with it if its slotted to perma without endurance reduction (10.4/120). That's actually pretty high relative to defensive toggles which average about 0.13 eps (its 67% of a defensive toggle) considering it only offers status protection *and* SR has three defensive toggles, so PB isn't especially powerful given its inability to be made perma out of the box. If Quickness was +0.33 recharge rather than +0.2 recharge, the combination of quickness + one SO would make PB perma. At its current strength, Quickness can't close the gap on PB alone, forcing an additional slot (or Hasten) whether you take it or not. |
Besides, you're operating under the assumption that PB should only require a single slot. If you look at all of the other mez toggles, they generally require at least 1 slot devoted to them in order to achieve manageable endurance unless the set they are within specifically has additional endurance assistance.
3. Quickness have alternate mechanical advantages. |
I'll dig up a copy of the original analysis (if I have it) and update it with current numbers, and see if the argument ends up stronger or weaker. I'm not 100% certain which it will be, but I'm pretty sure it won't be invalidated by anything that happened since that time. |
Actually, at best, Quickness' value is substantially more. Under the effects of -rech, Quickness is substantially more useful than Hasten. The ability to ignore 40% of incoming -rech debuffs and not have the benefit of the power itself reduced by the presence of that debuff make it substantially better. The permanence of the power and the ability to make the character as a whole more able to resist changing conditions is something you cannot ignore as you are almost always guilty of.
... I would love to see what analysis you've got and whether any of them actually do anything to address the comparative advantages of passives over activated powers (animation time use, absolute permanence, stable personal benefit) and debuff resistance (attribute stability). If you're going to ignore those benefits, you're doing nothing to actually address fully half of the benefits that Quickness offers. |
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It really depends on what your planning for your /SR. I have a lvl 50 MA/SR, fully IO'd with out hasten I still clock 176.3% haste on Mids. I do have 4 LoG 7.5 Global Recharge Io's, and I have Practice Brawler slotted with 2 Recharge IO's so I still Stack PB. That being said, I do not PvP with him.(Unless it's just a friendly Arena Match)
It really depends on what your planning for your /SR. I have a lvl 50 MA/SR, fully IO'd with out hasten I still clock 176.3% haste on Mids. I do have 4 LoG 7.5 Global Recharge Io's, and I have Practice Brawler slotted with 2 Recharge IO's so I still Stack PB. That being said, I do not PvP with him.(Unless it's just a friendly Arena Match)
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Personally I always take Hasten on pretty much any toon, more recharge is never a bad thing.
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I have hasten on just about every toon.
On my DM/SR I have perma-hasten, had to loose a travel power to get it but hey ninja run helps.
After 5+ yrs in the game, I'm running my 1st Claws/SR Scrap. She just dinged lvl 16. It'd seem that....with SR's "Quickness" and a few I/Os in later lvls to further increase movement speed...Hasten may not be necessary.
Can "Quickness" + various I/Os = Hasten? Or should I take Hasten, as well, for added recharge?
Thanks in advance!
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