A New Take on Fitness
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Exactly! And thus why they WANT Fitness. Again, not a NEED. They WANT it.
And yes, they're normally fit. So they take the FITNESS pool. But not taking it, lets them do their concepts of not being fit. |
Meh. I personally just hate how Fitness is handled. Its three power slots I would much, much rather use on other powers, any powers. But I have to take them to avoid moving at the pace of a snail and permanantly having to rest, which, for me, is the epitome of Not Fun.
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Or they could simply not slot end red? That'd work too.
Meh. I personally just hate how Fitness is handled. Its three power slots I would much, much rather use on other powers, any powers. But I have to take them to avoid moving at the pace of a snail and permanantly having to rest, which, for me, is the epitome of Not Fun. |
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Speaking subjectively, I notice that on the majority of the characters I have rolled over the years, all of them have been given Fitness to include Stamina. The exception was a Trick Arrow/Archery defender.
And at the beginning levels (1-6), which are pretty quick anyway, I can solo any AT and the Rest clickie is clicked moderately.
Upwards (7-19) of that I prefer teams because End costs are reduced as there are more people to go for enemies and, if including buffers/debuffers, the whole process speeds up anyway.
When the magical moment of selecting Stamina arrives I feel freer to either pursue soloing (if capable) or teaming depending on my mood.
But I do not wish to get rid of the blue bar, or make Stamina an inherent (or Health for that matter, which also gives out that nifty sleep resist).
It's part of the tactics and planning of making a character I am comfortable with, without letting me run riot over everything.
No blue bar because Stamina is an inherent (and unslottable, remember) means EB and AV fights that result in a lot more insp popping later on, and would potentially lead to only certain powersets being wanted for TFs and the like (Kinetics and Cold Domination spring to mind here).
As it stands, any AT can take on a regular TF or SF. I;d like to keep things that way.
Meh. I personally just hate how Fitness is handled. Its three power slots I would much, much rather use on other powers, any powers. But I have to take them to avoid moving at the pace of a snail and permanantly having to rest, which, for me, is the epitome of Not Fun.
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I will agree that there may or may not be a few certain combos that really benefit from Stamina, but most can do just fine without it if you don't live under the impression that you must crank up the difficulty into the stratosphere or you're not man enough. I see enough people into their 40s without Stamina to know it's not just me, so I refuse to agree that it's a "must-have."
And to address what Bubba said - almost all builds benefit from Stamina, yes. If your goal is performance above all else, then the theme of power picks really isn't going to matter. Pick whatever's best. Not everyone's priorities stack that way, however, and for some of us it's quite possible to skip Stamina and take a power that's cooler, instead. One doesn't have to run at ultra mode difficulty or solo Rikti Pylons to feel accomplished if one prefers a different kind of experience.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Actually thanks to the addition of Ninja run I've found that not having to do the whole 'delay proper travel power indefinitely' thing which means that all my characters are freed up at 6 to pick swift/hurdle, 14 or 16 (depending on whether something important arrives powerset wise like say scrapper mez protection toggles) for health and 20 or 22 for stamina.
Surely people have got to see something wrong when the answer to most peoples problems with endurance isn't answered by 'slot endredux in your attacks and toggles' but 'get Stamina' by the majority of people ingame and on the forums. In some cases, say Spines/Fire getting stamina AND slotting for endredux isn't enough thanks to running six toggles at once (the two resist toggles, the mez prot toggle, the two PBAOE toggles and Tough) and I'm slotting invention +recov bonuses soley as well. It's only once most of those sets and physical perfection from the body mastery pool are gained will it even itself out.
I dread to think what that build would be like without stamina...
Surely people have got to see something wrong when the answer to most peoples problems with endurance isn't answered by 'slot endredux in your attacks and toggles' but 'get Stamina' by the majority of people ingame and on the forums.
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And, to add to this, everyone's answer is "just take Stamina," but then everyone seems to conveniently ignore all the complaints from people who feel like they HAVE to take Stamina, but hate having to dedicate the slots. Stamina is NOT a free power pick that anyone would be crazy not to get. To get Stamina, you need to NOT get three other powers, and early on when you actually need those power picks. Stamina has a cost, but people keep ignoring that fact and arguing that it's a must-have.
Obviously, slotting endurance reduction has its own cost, too, but as far as I'm concerned, that cost is significantly lower, at least depending on what you want out of a build. If you're determined to pump out as much recharge as you can, you're going to need those slots, but I know enough people who don't build for that to know it's not everyone who feels that way.
Stamina is a choice. I would really not be opposed to just getting it for free, because to be honest, flat stat boosts just aren't cool as powers to take. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm more than convinced it's well possible to play without Stamina on practically any build, and I have ample evidence in my own characters to prove it. Not everyone may LIKE to, but that kind of luxury has its cost.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Alright, I've got a challenge for peeps.
Go and roll an MA/SR Scrapper. You are;
-Not allowed to transfer inf to it. You can only use inf generated on that toon.
-Restricted to TO/DO/SOs. The game is meant to be balanced around them, not IOs.
-Not allowed to take Stamina.
See how far you get. If you honestly can say you find that possible without devolving into a screaming mess, then I may have been proved wrong. *shrug*
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Alright, I've got a challenge for peeps.
Go and roll an MA/SR Scrapper. You are; -Not allowed to transfer inf to it. You can only use inf generated on that toon. -Restricted to TO/DO/SOs. The game is meant to be balanced around them, not IOs. -Not allowed to take Stamina. See how far you get. If you honestly can say you find that possible without devolving into a screaming mess, then I may have been proved wrong. *shrug* |
1. Samuel Tow on Victory: Katana/SR Scrapper who routinely runs Focused Fighting, Focused Senses, Evasion, Combat Jumping and Focused Accuracy. He's on Common Inventions now, but back when he was on SOs back when he hit 50 in January 2005, and he was running Stealth back then, too. He was unpleasant to play back in the day, but one respec later at around I6 when ED hit made him perfectly capable with just SOs.
2. Crash McGuier on Victor: Martial Arts/Invulnerability Scrapper who routinely runs Temporary Invulnerability, Unyielding, Invincibility and Combat Jumping, with generous helpings of non-perma Elude. Never had a problem with her. Got her to 46 some time in 2006 or 2007, getting her from 42-46 after Inventions came out. Up to 42, she went on SOs alone. Since that, she ran on Common Inventions. Got her to 50 some time last year.
3. Revenant Jack on Victory: Dark/Dark Scrapper who routinely runs Dark Embrace, Murky Cloud, Obsidian Shield, Cloak of Darkness, Oppressive Gloom and Hover. He did that on SOs just fine, he does even better now that he's on Common Enhancements. Got him to 33 back in 2005, putting him off for two years to play CoV when that came out. Picked him back up last year and I got him to 41 on Commons, I believe. Never had a problem with endurance. I didn't list Death Shroud because I haven't slotted that on him yet (will do in the late 40s) and I didn't list Cloak of Fear because it sucks.
No Stamina on any of the above. Outside of Sam back in 2004 (when it really WAS a pain, but my build sucked), I've never had a complaint about this. Ever, really. They all play just fine. If anything, I'd complain about Dark Armour's lack of knockback protection and Martial Arts' anaemic damage.
One counter-example:
Ezikiel Bane on Victory: Stone/Stone Brute. Getting him to 50 sucked. Big time. Stone Armour basically required me to run all of its toggles. That's Rock Armour, Brimstone Armour, Crystal Armour, Minerals and Rooted, and he was running Mud Pots, to boot. I got him to 50 on just SOs, but it was not a fun ride. At one point, some time in 2007, I respecced him into Stamina, dropping the Presence pool, basically because it Presence fixed all of Stone Armour's drawbacks, and he's doing just fine now. I COULD have played him without Stamina, but it was a chore to do so. This is THE ONLY character I've ever taken Stamina on. Ever. In all the almost six years since I started in May of 2004, this guy is the only one of mine who has Stamina.
I currently have 8 50s (I think). They are:
1. Kat/SR Scrapper, no Stamina, no Sets.
2. Stone/Stone Brute, YES Stamina, no Sets.
3. AR/Dev Blaster, no Stamina, no Sets.
4. Energy/Energy Brute, no Stamina, no Sets.
5. Energy/Energy Blaster, no Stamina, no Sets.
6. Mercs/Traps Mastermind, no Stamina, no Sets.
7. BS/Inv Scrapper, no Stamina, no Sets.
8. MA/Inv Scrapper, no Stamina, no Sets.
Outside of that one YES Stamina, I've had no problems to speak of.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Hm. Thats actaully impressive.
Maybe the percieved problem isn't stamina, as much as the enhancements, then? A lot of people these days (or so it gets touted a lot) and myself are simply not bothering with TOs or DOs and waiting until SOs, because the numbers, especially in TOs, suck so badly.
DOs I admit do make a difference, but if you;
-Dont use the market and simply sell your drops to the store
-Dont get run through a lot of high level sk'd content
-Dont transfer money from another char
then it's nigh on impossible to slot a character fully, at nearly any given level. Once you hit 30+ or thereabouts this stops being an issue. Which, ironically, is when you worry least about it anyway, because by that time you have the majority of your powers in place, heavier attacks, better shields/secondaries, etc etc.
I think that is what bugs me most; the levels running up to 22 often feel like running half-cocked. Maybe it's just me *shrug*
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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I neglected to mention: None of these characters got influence grandfathered from my other characters. I've never done Inf transfers. Occasionally I've borrowed, but even that was rare.
In the old days, I could agree with you that we were poor. A set of DOs was expensive. A set of SOs was nigh-on unachievable at the time they show up. But that was then, this is now. I realise "the Market" is something people regard as one thing that should be optional, but even as an avid hater of player-run economies, I've still found it to be an incredibly easy place to make money for NO WORK AT ALL.
The reason I can state the above is that people farm their ***** off, so many people are very rich and very loose with their purse strings, which is why we see Luck Charms going for tens of thousands and rare salvage going for millions. What I do every time my inventories fill up is drop by the market, drop my entire inventory onto my transaction slots, then systematically check the last five sales and number of bidders on each item. If it has sold for a lot of money and there are more bidders than sellers, I list the thing for a nominal price, basically what it'll sell for at the vendors. It's a very small risk. When I bid a piece of rare salvage for 5000, the most I can lose is 250, which is a drop in the ocean, and the most I can get is around 1.5 million. JUST that buys me a full set of SOs at level 22, let alone anything else I can sell.
This is NOT "marketeering." It doesn't require knowledge of the market, it doesn't require research, it doesn't require long, boring machinations. You basically look at the prices, look at the bidders and sellers, and either list for 1 (say) or move on to the next item. Common salvage I list for 250, uncommon for 1000 and rare for 5000. Common recipes I don't bother to list (they don't sell, and the prices and bidders say so), but any uncommon, rare, unique or purple recipes I list for 5000 if they look like they're selling for more than about 10-15 000. Yeah, you get blue-balled on a few times that look like they're selling for 2 000 000, but you only get 50 000, but by and large PEOPLE WANT WHAT YOU HAVE!
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Well, I don't know...I think I'm going to have to agree with Einsam. While it is certainly *possible* to go without stamina on the builds you are referring to (regen/willpower), the sad truth is most players pick up stamina in conjunction with QR anyways.
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In the past I've also played a DM/Fire brute and an emp/elec defender that didn't take stamina. I have a fire/axe tank who was able to put it off for a good while via canny use of set IOs with +rec bonuses.
As Cat noted, making stamina inherent would trivialize the entire structure of endurance and make quite a few powers useless. They might as well just chuck the whole idea out the window.
I wouldn't hold my breath on that happening.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
This is NOT "marketeering." It doesn't require knowledge of the market, it doesn't require research, it doesn't require long, boring machinations. You basically look at the prices, look at the bidders and sellers, and either list for 1 (say) or move on to the next item.
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50 million inf at level 32, all from running contact missions and pricing drops to move.
Unless you crave purples and PvP IOs you can make more inf than you can ever spend by simply playing 'normally' and selling your junk on the market.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
or, don't even bother looking at the prices for most stuff and just list for 1 (or 5, or 100, or any suitably low number) and vendor anything that doesn't sell instantly. I'm doing this on my aforementioned stalker.....here, let me find the thread....here we go.
50 million inf at level 32, all from running contact missions and pricing drops to move. Unless you crave purples and PvP IOs you can make more inf than you can ever spend by simply playing 'normally' and selling your junk on the market. |
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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That's actually a one-sided question with a partial answer, making it incredibly misleading. People pick Stamina over endurance slotting for the simple fact that endurance slotting is harder to plan out, harder to achieve and generally more cumbersome. Endurance slotting can meet AND EXCEED the benefit from Stamina if one knows what to do and how to go about doing it, and I'm talking SOs here. Few people want to bother, however, because "just take Stamina" is so much simpler. That, and to really fix endurance with enhancements requires SOs, which become all of two levels later than Stamina.
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And, to add to this, everyone's answer is "just take Stamina," but then everyone seems to conveniently ignore all the complaints from people who feel like they HAVE to take Stamina, but hate having to dedicate the slots. Stamina is NOT a free power pick that anyone would be crazy not to get. To get Stamina, you need to NOT get three other powers, and early on when you actually need those power picks. Stamina has a cost, but people keep ignoring that fact and arguing that it's a must-have. |
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
Or that, I guess. I prefer to look at the numbers because a lot of rare salvage pieces don't sell well, so listing them TOO low would sell them for, like, 5 and lose me some Inf. I gather that doesn't add up to much, but it's a lot like what I do, just with trivially lower base prices.
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I flip uncommons sometimes- the inf I make is trivial, but the exercise entertains me.
And that's the point of playing a game, isn't it. =D
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
If I sacrafice accuracy or damage for End Red, then every time I miss or don't quite kill them with the power I just doubled the slightly reduced cost.
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As far as damage to endurance goes, that's where DPA, DPE and EPA come into play. It's a fairly simple stat to work out (basically, damage divided by animation time, damage divided by endurance, endurance divided by animation time, respectively), and it helps out BIG TIME. Arcana and others have done a lot of work in pinning down exactly how the subtleties of these work, but suffice it to say it's not hard to figure out on your own, or indeed find guides for.
And again, you never have to sacrifice "damage" for endurance. Even with an accuracy and three damage slotting, you still have two slots left over. You COULD slot recharge in these, but all that does is lower your damage over time, but does little to lower your burst damage capability, which is really what comes into play for most ATs that really revolve around killing things before you die.
Granted, that's not exactly "simple" as such, but as I said, solving endurance problems through enhancements is more complicated than Stamina. It's not an inferior choice, at least not by much, it just takes more work figuring things out to achieve. It's be a LOT easier if our in-game numbers actually supplied us with DPE metrics, but they don't.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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one SO or generic IO's worth of end reduction isn't "slight".
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One accuracy Common is going to cap your to-hit against most things. Unless you plan on cranking your difficulty hard - in which case I have no sympathy for your build concerns - this should be more than sufficient.
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And again, you never have to sacrifice "damage" for endurance. Even with an accuracy and three damage slotting, you still have two slots left over. |
Granted, that's not exactly "simple" as such, but as I said, solving endurance problems through enhancements is more complicated than Stamina. It's not an inferior choice, at least not by much, it just takes more work figuring things out to achieve. It's be a LOT easier if our in-game numbers actually supplied us with DPE metrics, but they don't. |
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
The powers where it's worth slotting endredux at all will see substantial savings from one slot.
and for some low end/high recharge powers that get spammed constantly 1 or 2 points adds up to big savings over the course of a spawn or two.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
/no.
This idea isn't a 'new take' on Fitness. You'd be a fool to think you're the first one to suggest making it inherent.
Easiest example: Jab vs. Knockout Blow. Both have a DPE value of around 1.192, which is what many powers are balanced to. But even though Jab only costs 3.536 points, it actually costs you 1.152 per second over time. Knockout Blow, by contrast, despite costing 18.512, costs you around 0.68 points of endurance per second over time. Granted. Knockout Blow takes a bigger bite out of your endurance bar, but over time it actually costs LESS. A lot of small powers will also cost less per second of activation than some big ones, as well, though I can't think of a good example right now.
Knockout Blow has a cycle of 27.23 seconds, whereas Jab has a cycle of 3.07 seconds. In the time Knockout Blow cycles once, you'll have used Jab a little under nine times times. A level 50 endurance reducer is 42.4%, bringing Jab's cost down from 3.536 to 2.483, which is a gain of 1.053. A level 50 endurance reducer in Knockout Blow brings it down from 18.512 to 13. giving you a gain of 5.512 points. However, You'll have used Jab nine times, saving nine times 1.053, or essentially saving you 9.477 points of endurance. That's a not insignificant bargain.
Again, this stuff isn't simple, and that's the problem - using enhancements and slotting your powers is more complicated than Stamina, hence why people default to just taking the power. But this that I've been describing here costs me half an hour for a character's ENTIRE LIFE. That's a significantly smaller cost than three power picks and two slots, besides.
[quote]I play on whatever teams come along and have to be prepared for that. Not enough of them come along to be too picky, and the vast majority of them play on a higher difficulty.[quote]
Accuracy in a team environment is rarely an issue, as I've been finding out over the years. If team-mates don't have to-hit buffs or defence debuffs, the team together still pump out enough offence to offset any slotting inefficiencies. That's what a team is FOR. Unless you build for pushing the envelope (or possibly being required to), you shouldn't need to go beyond one enhancement. But again, if you DO, then Stamina is the cost. That's cost vs. return in action, hence it's balanced.
That will be universally true as soon as you convince the devs to give every power six slots right off the shelf. Ofttimes, especially prior to the 30s, my attacks and such have less than six slots. |
Even with End Reds slotted, the problem often isn't solved. It's not solved until the recovery rate exceeds the endurance spent by a comfortable margin. |
Endurance management is part build, part discipline. You are not INTENDED to recover more than use use, so it becomes a matter of how you use it and what you do with it. This is where DPE comes into play, telling you which attacks are how efficient and which you should use when. A cone is typically needs 3-4 targets to break even with single target attacks, and an AoE typically needs 4-5 targets. Use them on less than their respective minimums and you're spending more endurance on fewer targets.
If you WANT to break the system and void a balancing mechanic, then go for it. But understand that it has a cost.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Keep thinking. Keep posting. Just be prepared to either defend your idea or keep an open mind as to why it may not work (preferably defend it AND keep an open mind).
"Null is as much an argument "for removing the cottage rule" as the moon being round is for buying tennis shoes." -Memphis Bill