Is -end / -recovery an efficient mitigation technique?
By
Afterimage,
Posted on: 2010-01-19 10:35 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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You can basically say the same about any kind of control, though. A team of eight fire/ blasters could probably level just about anything in the game short of an AV from sheer firepower, but some people just want to play Earth/FF controllers. Which is really what I consider my Elec/Elec. I'm not a blaster, I'm a controller who just happens to be very, very violent.
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Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper
My problem with the sapping playstyle is that by the time it's done any good, the enemies would already be dead if you'd built for damage instead of endurance drain.
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Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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Most mez takes place within about 3 seconds of engaging the spawn, and can even be used to alpha. Things like Flashfire, Seeds of Confusion, or Volcanic Gasses. Outside of long-recharge nukes and such, there aren't really any end drain powers that can do that.
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Originally Posted by Kelenar
You can basically say the same about any kind of control, though. A team of eight fire/ blasters could probably level just about anything in the game short of an AV from sheer firepower, but some people just want to play Earth/FF controllers. Which is really what I consider my Elec/Elec. I'm not a blaster, I'm a controller who just happens to be very, very violent.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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If I'm doing the math right[1], using Power Boost/Short Circuit from stealth gives you about 95% end drain on an even-con enemy. That's an alpha strike- they may or may not get a shot off before it lands. [2]|
Originally Posted by Dispari
Most mez takes place within about 3 seconds of engaging the spawn, and can even be used to alpha. Things like Flashfire, Seeds of Confusion, or Volcanic Gasses. Outside of long-recharge nukes and such, there aren't really any end drain powers that can do that.
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Minor downsides:
* That's 76% drain on a +2 enemy, and even if you back it up with an unslotted-for-drain Ball Lightning that's only 87% or something.
* With slotting, Power Boost is up about every 30 seconds. That may be legitimately considered "not fast enough".
[1] "If my math is right, and it sometimes is"... I'm not Tony Stark.
[2] I think the current status is that if you miss, they get to fire back from the moment you start the attack; if you hit, they don't get to fire back until the effect lands. I don't know if they can fire back, alert their buddies who you hit, and the buddies fire back. It's all terribly confusing.
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The nice thing, however, is that end-draining characters can do other stuff along with the blue shutdown. Electric blasters do good damage, Kin/electrics can do their shutdown by throwing short circuit into a regular buff/debuff chain, and so on. A side fact: Giant monsters, especially early-occuring ones, are vulnerable to sapping, but almost immune to many control effects. This makes sapping one of the only forms of 'control' that works on them.
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Originally Posted by Dispari
Most mez takes place within about 3 seconds of engaging the spawn, and can even be used to alpha. Things like Flashfire, Seeds of Confusion, or Volcanic Gasses. Outside of long-recharge nukes and such, there aren't really any end drain powers that can do that.
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Originally Posted by Fulmens
If I'm doing the math right[1], using Power Boost/Short Circuit from stealth gives you about 95% end drain on an even-con enemy.
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| The nice thing, however, is that end-draining characters can do other stuff along with the blue shutdown. |
Is it something that comes in handy on every team? Not really, but neither have most blaster secondary effects (lol, -def) for me. When the team is low on aggro control and/or defense, though, it can go a long way toward cutting down the return fire.
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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Short Circuit is melee though, so you'll almost assuredly have to get into range where they'll attack you. Mez options like Flashfire and Seeds of Confusion don't have that same drawback. Also, every Controller and Dom primary has some sort of quick-mez they can use, but not every end drain person has access to Power Boost.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
If I'm doing the math right[1], using Power Boost/Short Circuit from stealth gives you about 95% end drain on an even-con enemy. That's an alpha strike- they may or may not get a shot off before it lands.
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Granted, I'm not trying to say that an Elec Blaster should have the same sort of powerful and reliable damage mitigation that a Controller has. Just that comparing end drain to a mez is kind of apples to oranges.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Having played two "sapper" toons (E^3 Blaster, Rad/Elec Defender), I'd say
that my anecdotal experience mirrors that of many of the other posters here.
My Blaster can definitely drain entire groups and keep them drained. However,
I don't open fights that way. As others noted, Short Circuit draws the alpha strike
aggro - a Very Bad Thing... 
My typical approach on this guy is to snipe-kill one mob, Tesla Cage another,
by which time I start getting hit back by whoever is left - at that point,
using drain is a beautiful thing, and makes the rest of the fight pretty easy.
For Bosses, I 2-stack holds first, and then drain.
If you are teaming, you can drain right away (once the aggro is established
on your tank or designated "aggro-magnet") 
You really do need SC and Power Sink for this to work well tho - the attacks
don't drain well enough to deplete endurance, but will maintain them at 0
once the first two powers have done the initial drain.
My blaster uses his draining technique quite frequently, and effectively.
My defender is nowhere near as good at sapping as the blaster due in large
part to not having access to Power Sink in his build. That said, tho, his
radiation de-buffs make casting Short Circuit a much safer proposition
in general. Additionally, he has Choking Cloud as well.
In the end, his debuffs and holds work well enough that sapping is largely
unneeded, and not all that useful except with Bosses. It's a technique
he rarely uses.
YMMV.
Regards,
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My experience of Elec/Energy (after the I14(?) nerf to Power Boost) was that once I got Power Boost at 28 and fully slotted SC for end drain, I could drain a group of even-con's with a Power-Boosted Short Circuit. +1's required Ball Lightning too (slotted mainly for damage over end drain).
Unfotunately, almost every character I have is fighting at Invincible (+2/x1 these days) by level 28, so the End drain wasn't enough on the +2s and +3s I was facing.
Before this nerf, +2s and +3s could be drained. Why the devs saw fit to further marginalise end drain is beyond me.
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Nerf the PvE to placate the (nigh non-existent) PvP. |
Originally Posted by DrMike2000
Why the devs saw fit to further marginalise end drain is beyond me.
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It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...
I once built a sapper build with an elec/elec blaster. It was based on a posted build I read in the blaster forum. I used 3 end mod and 3 recharge reducers in Short Circuit, and was too low level to have Power Sink. It relied on the inherent accuracy to hit, along with the boost from aim and build up. This was pre-inventions, so SO's were as good as it got.
It worked, sort of. I could jump into melee range with a group, launch Short Circuit, then regular attacks and then Short Circuit again as soon as it was up. It drained their endurance, but they could still brawl.
The problem was, if instead I had opened with aim+build up+Zapp, I would have one shotted a minion, then Tesla Caged the lieutenant. That would leave me only one minion to fight (solo). I got beat up less by not using Short Circuit.
It worked better against bosses, provided I used defense buff inspirations to live long enough to use Short Circuit twice. Reducing a boss or an elite boss to using only his weakest attacks was nice, but he could still attack. It mitigated in the sense that his attack rate and damage dropped, as he ran dry, recovered a little, attacked a little, ran dry again. Boss fights were the only ones long enough to get much mileage out of it.
I tried this against an AV on a team. I think I counted around 11 applications before the AV's blue bar neared the bottom. By then its red bar was also near empty, so it was pretty pointless to try.
And as far as regular boss fights go, I recently started playing a very old Elec/Devices blaster again. I noticed that in those boss fights where I don't lay out a big mine field in advance, then the boss's blue bar eventually is drained just from spamming charged bolts, lightning bolt, tesla cage and zapp. Short Circuit isn't necessary, its just quicker.
According to the data in the power descriptions most of the electric attacks have a small chance to cause a recovery debuff for a few seconds. Attack fast enough and I guess they add up.
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That's entirely debatable on multiple accounts. Because end drain requires the target to have no endurance (or so very little endurance that they might as well not have any) and to remain at that endurance total, you're going to get one of two things when attempting to sap a group: pitiful damage because you're having to slot virtually everything with end mod or enemies attack a lot more often than you'd prefer.|
Originally Posted by Seldom
The nice thing, however, is that end-draining characters can do other stuff along with the blue shutdown.
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End drain isn't an effective or reliable method of mitigation because enemies need so very friggin' little endurance that you're going to be spending way too much effort to achieve a benefit that is, at most, mediocre and effective only on the weakest of foes.
I say this having actually played multiple sapper toons to 50: an elec/nrg blaster (created and 50ed before the first big end drain nerf when Cryptic was in charge) and an elec/stone tanker. The elec/nrg blaster is reasonably proficient at sapping except that, in order to do so, I've had to trade a boatload of damage for it. As it stands, Short Circuit is either useless as an AoE or useless as a drain (because the targets are either dead by the time I get the multiple applications of SC or functionally immune to end drain thanks to rank or level) and, thanks to being elec blast, my damage is already sub par to most blasters (in order to be an effective damage dealer, she is pretty much required to close to melee). The tanker attempts to drain targets with slotted Power Sink and Lightning Field but, once again, it doesn't really contribute much since you need to keep targets' endurance floored in order for it to be even remotely functional.
The best way to think of -end and -recov as a form of mitigation is to think of it as something like damage except that enemies don't die, they just stand back up and keep swinging. If you miss or forget to reapply the -recov (once you actually manage to get the target's end down with your -end), all of your work is undone and that's assuming that it even did anything in the first place. At least with mez effects, you know that if you actually manage to overcome their protection, they'll be out of the fight for at least 3-4 seconds. With end drain, you can be sure they'll be out of the fight for about half a second before they get enough endurance to use virtually all of their attacks again.
In summation, thanks Cryptic for making end drain functionally useless. Rather than doing something to balance the situation, you overreacted and made end drain functionally useless by making enemy attacks virtually free. How nice...
My elec/wp/mu brute who has only one mu power (fences) and who's only sapper sloting is a deflated ego proc in RttC drains bosses by the time they reach half health. I dont get attacked afterwards unless I have to go to the bathroom. (auto CB isnt enough, so sad) (chain is CB-CI-CB-JL)
This leads me to believe that actually picking a more sap capable toon and sloting it for sapping will provide better results than people who claim you would drain a boss' green bar faster if you sloted for damage would have you believe.
Perhaps you are trying to sap with no -recovery powers?
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Well, I was talking more towards my experience on a kin/electric, which makes me disagree with you entirely. The little guy can keep every team member topped off with +recharge/recovery/speed, cap everyone's damage, and sap 99% of the game's enemies without much trouble. (Amongst the 'weakest foes' kept powerless for their entire fights: Adamastor, babbage,eochi, every boss,every elite boss I've met, any pre-40ish AV's.) Two go-to powers (transfusion/transference) are great refills and sap foes. Use those on a target, all it needs is a quick short circuit and they're left wheezing. Throw in fulcrum shift, and the little stuff keels over sapped, the big stuff can't retaliate for its last remaining life, and your team can cream stuff too. Win/win.
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Originally Posted by Umbral
That's entirely debatable on multiple accounts. Because end drain requires the target to have no endurance (or so very little endurance that they might as well not have any) and to remain at that endurance total, you're going to get one of two things when attempting to sap a group: pitiful damage because you're having to slot virtually everything with end mod or enemies attack a lot more often than you'd prefer.
End drain isn't an effective or reliable method of mitigation because enemies need so very friggin' little endurance that you're going to be spending way too much effort to achieve a benefit that is, at most, mediocre and effective only on the weakest of foes. |
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The key issue there is "team." An "anything"/kin is full of win on team. My elec/kin corruptor is the life of the party on a team.|
Originally Posted by Seldom
Well, I was talking more towards my experience on a kin/electric, which makes me disagree with you entirely. The little guy can keep every team member topped off with +recharge/recovery/speed, cap everyone's damage, and sap 99% of the game's enemies without much trouble. (Amongst the 'weakest foes' kept powerless for their entire fights: Adamastor, babbage,eochi, every boss,every elite boss I've met, any pre-40ish AV's.) Two go-to powers (transfusion/transference) are great refills and sap foes. Use those on a target, all it needs is a quick short circuit and they're left wheezing. Throw in fulcrum shift, and the little stuff keels over sapped, the big stuff can't retaliate for its last remaining life, and your team can cream stuff too. Win/win.
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Soloing him is like lining up for a continuing series of crotch shots. My corruptor is my debt badge collector.
When the sapping works it's pretty neat. Specifically it's pretty cool to drain a boss and watch him swing impotently at you. It has a nice villainous feel. I actually tend to think it works pretty well against elite bosses. That is, I can usually just take out a Boss without the draining, but with an EB I think sapping does allow me to beat some of them more easily than without the sapping.
Groups are a whole different story. I tend to successfully drain groups around 75% of the time. The other 25% I either die or blow through a chunk of inspirations. 25% is too often.
If they have any kind of mez, you're dead. If one or two of them hang back outside the range of your powers, you are taking a beating (or at least wasting significant time). If you miss, you are taking a beating.
You can get past some of that with IOs (stealth and -KB). However after spending a decent amount of cash you will still end up thinking "why don't I just kill everyone instead of sapping?" or "good lord my brute would have been through three spawns by now."
In short, it is a mitigation technique, but it is far from "efficient."
If you love "challenges" (and I do) it might be fun. Otherwise don't do it unless you plan to team heavily.
Are people slotting for defense with their sappers? I'm still leveling up my E^3, so I don't have too much experience with the sapping part of it, but I've decided to get his defense up to Smashing and Lethal, so he'll be able to sap safely. I don't think it's going to slow him down too much, either. Ball Lightning, Lightning Field, my melee attacks, etc. will clear things plenty fast. Might be a good idea to only sap with certain mobs, too. If it's a small group of minions, it's probably not needed.
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Actually, big, hard targets like AVs and GMs tend to be easier to sap than minions IME, especially on a character with a good single-target endurance drain power (like Transference). The reason is that the endurance drain doesn't change overmuch in effectiveness against the hard targets, but they're big sacks of HP which take a while to bring down, giving you the time required to sap them. It's the masses of minions and lieutenants which are hard to sap before they die (and, depending on your build, your team, and what's going on, bosses as well).|
Originally Posted by Seldom
Amongst the 'weakest foes' kept powerless for their entire fights: Adamastor, babbage,eochi, every boss,every elite boss I've met, any pre-40ish AV's.
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That's the big problem with endurance drain. It takes too long to be effective. I can drop Enervating Field and reduce the damage output of the entire spawn by 25%, and it takes me all of 1.5s to do. It also increases the damage output of my entire team by 30%. A Kin/Elec will take at least 5.27s to drain a single target of its endurance, and at least 10s to drain a whole spawn (assuming you're at the recharge cap, which is not possible to reach without someone giving you buffs). Once the drain is complete, -recovery must be maintained in order for it to be of use, and the damage reduction depends on how many powers the targets have, thus it's use varies between enemy groups, between level ranges... hell, even between spawns. Other forms of damage mitigation are constant, and faster to apply.
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