Alpha Slot Info

http://goingrogue.na.cityofheroes.co...lpha-slot.html

Discuss.

whoa, official numbers! didnt see those in the info announced before

So if I understand...

For instance, if I want my blaster to be super accurate id select the "nerve" alpha slot. If I wanted to further enhance down that tree id either have to choose +acc and hold dur or +acc and defense.

Neither of those 2 options particularly help a blaster much. Generally they don't have holds or defense.

All of the alpha slots worked out that way. No particular synergy further down the tree.

First impression isnt overwhelming, but most of the implementation in this game has worked out better than I thought. Ill wait on giving it the big booo after I see how it works out in actual gameplay.

If my understanding isn't correct on what I described above, someone please shed light on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf My favorite combo is Faceplant/DebtCap with the TeamWipe Ancillary

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari Yeah, I like Blasters too.

You've pretty much got it JMS. I also agree with the assessment as to synergy. Looking through the list of bonuses I see three that I think most people will end up using:
Musculature Core Paragon (damage)
Musculature Radial Paragon (damage and endurance reduction)
Spiritual Core Paragon (recharge)

Some melee characters will probably follow the Cardiac or Nerve paths to boost their resistance/defense but the bonuses there seem a little low.

For example a Shield Defense Tanker gets 20% defense without enhancements (5% of that is from Phalanx and thus unenhanceable). Lets assume he puts 3 SOs (or equivalent) in his powers. This gives his a total defense of 28.4%. Now he adds one of the Alpha Enhancements with 20% defense two thirds of which ignores ED. His effective enhancement bonus goes from 56% to about 70% which raises his defense to about 30.6%. It's not a bad bonus but compared to the damage, recharge or damage/endurance ones it seems weak. Maybe I'm missing something though.

I think the selling point is the ED exemption. While I admit many of these Alpha choice would lack luster in my scrapper (which I play more) I could see their utility on other ATs. I do think Cardiac will be the obvious most popular form the onset. It's rarely efficient to slot more than one endurance reduction in our powers. Now, we've essentially be granted a "7th" slot in every power for endurance reduction. I tend to slot all my resistance powers until the hit DR from ED. Suddenly getting addition resistance above that doesn't seem like anything to sneeze at. Not that it's something to write home about either. As we move into the rarer slotting options, where ED exception get higher, things start to look rather impressive.

There are so many possibilities here. I can already think of about five different ways to slot these into my three main Scrappers and what different kind of set bonuses I can go after because of this.

I'm going to probably spend as much time tweaking my builds in Mid's as I will playing the game.

Remember with the Rare and Very rare that it in essence takes you to lvl 51

For my scrapper I'm going to use the Cardiac boost since my Shield Scrapper is already Soft Capped with good recharge. The less end I use the better!

There is a really good chance I may do that too, though the idea of getting that top ST attack chain for my fm/sd does sound really really appealing. So many decisions!

I'll be going for the Spiritual Core boost on Murcielago, the faster I can get Soul Drain up, the better.

Sooo many options. Spiritual for getting uber recharge by brute force, nerve for getting uber recharge on soft-capped toons by making it easier to softcap with sets and hence more opportunities for recharge slotting, or even musculature for /SR toons that don't need any more defense and recharge. And spiritual is the holy grail for regen toons.

This is going to be fun for top shelf dm/shield builds. An extra 30 percent global recharge is going to be pretty crazy - I'll be able to drop ~15 percent global recharge from sets and still get perma hasten, and then use those set bonuses to boost hp/regen/resistance.
Might end up rolling a KM/Regen for the +recharge healing boost as mentioned above.

/drool

I think by far and away the popular sets are going to be Recharge and Damage. There are going to be some examples where other sets are potentially more popular but I really see those as being rare at best.

The key features of the others, Accuracy and Endurance Reduction, typically are taken care of automatically just by wise slotting and additional focus there gives basically nothing back. Especially Accuracy. How many builds are there out there that don't have 95% chance to hit against the vast majority of enemies? Do you want to sacrifice the Alpha slot for the 0.1% of the time you have to hit someone who just used a t9?

Effects such as +Resistance or +Defence are very very minor. Defence sets can expect 3-4% out of the Alpha by taking it. I don't think the amount you "save" devoting sets to defence by taking the Alpha for it is in any way going to justify the lost opportunity of just having oodles more recharge or damage.

For some Scrappers who are already at a huge recharge reduction it might give them a bit more breathing room to relax on sets, but additional recharge is easily eaten up by its own diminishing returns. Taking advantage of this additional breathing room to try and save inf might jsut end up being extremely expensive because tailoring a build in that fashion is going to mean that exemplaring and losing the Alpha slot could be very rough - people might need 2 complete builds if they want to min-max as far as possible. For most though that pick recharge, they are just going to see a fraction of a second taken off some of the key powers and ight do better with damage. Emphasis on "might" do better.

I really see the biggest benefit of this going in the way of people who use minimal IOs already. The strongest returns on Recharge especially occurs when you first begin to increase it.

My fire/sr scrapper is definitely going for Musculature core paragon. He's already softcapped, and has enough recharge and endurance recovery to run a seamless Incinterate-cremate-GFS chain. An extra 30+ percent damage boost though? Yes please!

This is going to be interesting...

My Kat/Inv is going for Paragon Core definitely to allow a gapless GC > GD > GC > SD chain. Elec/SD will probably take muscular for more damage and better endurance management. I have no idea what I'll do with all my other characters, but I know I'm going to be running a lot of TFs!

I've already pencilled in a couple of dates with my old friend the pylon. Now to decide: Spiritual or Musculature? Spiritual or Musculature? Hmmm, tough call.

The level shift is probably going to suck for keeping Soul Drain fodder alive though.