Fitness is dead; long live Fitness.

The +to hit takes up a slot in a defense power so do the lotg +7.5 globals. To have 5 +7.5s slotted you need 5 defense powers and you need at least one slot from those thats just holding the +to hit. Move one of the +7.5 Globals to Maneuvers or vengeance and you are cooking. Pop a rectified recticle into tactics and its time to laugh at smoke grenades.

The thing about vengeance is you usually don't need it, but when you do you really do. One or two people with it on a team can turn the worst team into an unstoppable force.


And @brand X, with these kind of changes they are going to need +5 on the difficulty slider.

Any chance you could share how to get fitness to show up properly as an inherent pool? I tried a few different ways, and failed each time. Got the pool to show up as inherent, but none of the powers came with and they were lost to limbo somewhere. Then I tried sending the powers individually, but that just caused an error and they were lost in limbo again. I know there's a way to do it, I'm just too much of a newb when it comes to database editing in mid's. Thanks in advance for your (or anyone's) help.

Nope. Have super Speed and a Stealth IO, so no meaningful use for more Stealth. Not a big fan of modern Phase Shift in PvE.

Already have Leadership. May get Assault, may get Vengeance. Don't have Fitness now, so I'll get Health and Stamina for free and will therefore be better at sustaining my optimal DPS. My optimal DPS will improve slightly because I'll have room for another LotG (I already have four) and my attack chain is not currently gapless. I already have a +toHit unique. I have focused Accuracy if I want +perception, though it's certainly cheaper on my blue bar if I use an IO for that, but I'll likely still keep FA for the -toHit debuff resistance.

All I can really say is that I think you have interesting criteria for what might cause a character to wipe regularly, and thus how filling those gaps might transform a character's performance. Things that give me a problem today will be a bit less of a problem tomorrow, but they're still going to be a problem. My characters absolutely will improve, but only the ones where I have found a way to stack more defense on an existing defense build are likely see what I consider big changes in overall performance.

This is bigtime hyperbole.

On the solo side of things, only a very few characters can solo at those settings today, and only against some things. Primarily, they are softcapped characters. If they want to stomp around the game against arbitrary foe factions, they're basically SR, and really expensive Shield builds, because those are the only ones who can get the Defense Debuff Resistance to stand impassive in the face of things like Cimerorans or Vanguard. Even BillZ doesn't waltz over +4/x8 Arachnos.

On the team side of things, people already walk over content. You don't need these changes to hit the hard defense cap at 50. You just need a team with multiple sources of strong defense buffs, which are regularly available from Cold Domination, Force Fields and Villain epic ATs, with the occasional Vengeance tossed in. Will more people achieve this now? Quite possibly. But if we don't need +5 now for teams, there's no way in hell we're going to need it tomorrow. (My opinion is that we could use +5 now, and these changes are relatively minor to the people who would use that setting today.)

That's pretty nice. You've got a situation where you have slots that you don't especially value in the place you have them. Being able to take new powers and add a few slots them is something I can see being transformative. I've looked, and on all my existing characters I would have to sacrifice something I don't want to decrease if I moved slots, so my high end is going to move less in general.

I'm not familiar with PVP at all but since we all just got the same buff does that really mean your PVP performance is "drastically improved?"

Yes. Currently I lack the mobility many of the other PvPers have since I don't have SJ. As it stands now, I have no way to get back the defense I lose by entering a PvP zone due to PvP's diminishing returns. With the addition of single slotted Elude, during its uptime I'll be very close to softcapped again if not past it.

Better mobility + less incoming hits = greatly increased effectiveness. Not that I pvp all that often, but the point was to show that some of us will be getting a considerable buff from this change without any sacrifice to our builds at all.

My point is that most people you encounter just got 3 new slots too. So while you might be more powerful than you used to be, so is everyone else, and that includes people doing the same thing you are; i.e. making a PVP side-spec out of an otherwise PVE build.

A lot of people run PvP builds without fitness, adding the powers for free will make a huge difference in staying power and fighting style/inspiration usage.

Those that currently use the fitness pool will be able to, as Bill said, pick up powers they otherwise had to sacrifice.

It will make a very big difference in a lot of cases.

I fail to see your point. It doesn't matter what everyone else is doing.

It's full on power creep. Folks are posting in this thread that it will be some huge sacrifice to spread out more slots amongst more powers.

I'm showing that this is a silly belief.

Even in PvE adding single slotted elude means that the current defense killers out there become a non-issue. Not that they're much of an issue these days anyway.

In the case of PvP, while it's certainly possible that there are other players that dip into it only occasionally like I do and will be altering their builds in similar ways, the secondary point is that I'll get to be that much closer to the serious PvPers without having to bother with a PvP-centric build and do so without making any sacrifices at all with my primary build.

These same PvPers will probably also enjoy being able to throw in PvE-centric powers that they might have left out of their PvP builds.

I'm not, however, making a judgement call on this change. I'll enjoy it for no other reason but that I do run through lowbies all the time. Having stamina at level 2 means that soloing these lowbies will become even faster.

What I AM pondering is the general ramifications of this change in the end game. What I've shown is one example of how much more powerful in general this change will make my main character with a simple respec that won't involve any loss or even adjustment of the currently slotted enhancements.

And I can already solo at +4/x8. Against some groups, it's a cakewalk. Against others, it's not. Against the groups that are difficult because of odd tohit rules, see master illusionist pets or nemesis vengeance and devouring earth crystals, elude is going to push them into the easy realm.

And we'll be getting this on top of incarnate powers over the next few issues.

A few nights ago, I recreated (for the 50th time or so) my peacebringer. Unlike in the past, she now gets sands of mu, the blackwand, the nemesis staff, a buff pet, faster base speed on sprint, energy flight and combat flight and ninja run.

Needless to say, leveling this PB now has already gone considerably faster than in the past. With I-19, there will be another huge buff to leveling speed with the addition of inherent fitness.

I guess I'm wondering when the devs are going to go ahead and hand out the instant level 50 button.

I have no doubt that PVP will change, but again the thing with PVP is we are fighting each other.

It's also not clear to me that having PVP specs and PVE specs closer to each other is something to be avoided.

If we're still talking about PVP, then I confess I don't understand the question. I know this is a hot button topic for you, so I can hear your concern, but hear me out.

In PVP we are not fighting an unchanging opponent, we are fighting each other. Since all of us just got buffed, the challenge isn't any greater or lesser, it's just different. In a worst case scenario as you've described it, toons who are effective in PVE will also be effective in PVP. I don't see how that is an example of power creep or even how it is undesireable. It's true that the in-zone mobs will be easier to deal with and scoring a Shivan or something might be easier. But other players? They are just fighting under different circumstances. Some builds will rise and fall, but that will always be the case.

If tomorrow they decided to go a step further and eliminate the hated movement suppression mechanic and tweaked down heal decay, that too would would technically be a "buff," but would not be "power creep." It's just a change to the nature of the battle, because it affects you AND your opponents.

On the PVE side I do see some potential issues. But the problems I see with leaving Stamina the way it was are much more glaring.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

I see where our miscommunication is coming from.

The PvP example was just that, an example. I also showed where this change, using the exact same power changes as in my PvP example, also benefits me heavily in PvE.

As you state, the enemies in PvE are static. They can't gripe about the unfairness of the power creep that is occurring and has been occurring for quite some time in this game. This change is causing further PvE power creep.

From a purely PvE standpoint, the addition of assault to my current build, done so without any sacrifice to the build at all, will change my single target damage output on paper from 203 DPS to 210 DPS. I've already covered how the addition of elude will affect PvE.

This the power creep in the end game I speak of.

You know what else I'll be able to do in PvE alone should I wish it come I-19?

I'll be able to dump combat jumping and replace it with maneuvers, leave off super jump, replace it with physical perfection and now have an open pool to add hasten On Top Of the +recharge alpha slot which is going to punch me right into the range for the followup, slash, focus, repeat without pause attack chain.

My DPS will then go from the aforementioned 210 DPS up to 239 DPS while also leaving me softcapped to everything with even more regen and recovery than I had before.

Power creep. Huge, possibly ridiculous, power creep.

And it will be glorious.

But man, all those respecs are gonna suck. They are gonna make bank selling them.

And then the nerf bat will swing and we'll all go play that space game coming out eventually.

IMO this speaks to the overpowered-ness of a handful of IOs more than to whether the original formula for endurance usage and Stamina was reasonable. Castle did say during the BotZ nerf he had no plans to nerf Luck of the Gambler, but it's not implausible to me that he could change his mind.

Do you consider your build normal for an average (meaning casual) player?

I don't have a single character near the soft cap for anything. Most of my characters use standard IOs and a few sets here and there. I don't really play this game to be a broker or mathematician, I play it to have a good time smashing bad guys (or occasionally good guys).

Yes, this change will make things easier in the early game. It will give me more flexibility in the high level game, but I'm hardly expecting it to make me uber in any sense of the word.

I doubt that people like me are really in the minority. Perhaps the vocal on the forums minority, but not the in-game minority.

It's not a problem of a few standout IOs. It is a systemic issue with the development team's current mindset regarding the direction the game is headed.

Once upon a time, high defense was relegated to a few powersets. Now every blaster worth his salt is softcapped to range.

+recharge is being granted in a vast number of sets. As are +HP and +regen boosts.

I am not arguing against this particular change in a vacuum. I was no doubt one of the ones rooting for it in the past, but that was before the days when I could sustain a non-stop attack chain at full tilt indefinitely thanks to the benefits of SetIOs.

There are several, as I see it, severe flaws in this game that making this inherent fitness change now exacerbates.

There's already Too Much personal buffing. This change is going to allow for even more across the board for everyone that has uses fitness in their builds.

I accept that many players don't give a damn. Many players were perfectly happy with the game as it was back when a tank could herd everything in Perez Park to the point that they were stacked halfway up the war wall while a blaster could lay waste to them in complete safety.

I actually am happy we'll no longer have to trudge through 20 levels of stamina-less existence.

What I am not happy about is the impending ED or GDN level nerf that is going to have to occur to balance everything back out.

And no, I don't consider the slightly higher difficulty that currently exists in Praetoria to be enough to balance this out.

No, I don't think that my main's build is the norm. It's not even the norm for my stable of characters. I have two 50s that are tricked out. Two 50s that have little more than basic IOs. All the rest are between levels 6 and 39 with the vast majority of enhancements being standard TOs, DOs, SOs with a splattering of various IOs.

For the most part, this change is going to mean that I no longer need to be as concerned as I am about endurance consumption and downtime. For the most part this is going to mean nothing but an increase in my leveling speed.

It might also mean that I give tanks and defenders another chance since heightened recovery will mean more time to utilize their piss-poor damage output.

Nothing is free. I want to know what the tradeoff is going to have to be for this sudden boon.

We can hope it's a fix to buff stacking (the ones that stack badly, as opposed to the nice ones like +HPs and +damage).