Low Level Fitness

While many people were out working on becoming incarnates of various deities tonight I decided to make one of the character ideas I've had on hold for a while to see how Inherent Fitness impacts the low levels. I'll get to that Incarnate stuff at some point, but not today.

So earlier tonight I made Fever Quill, the Spines/Fire scrapper. To be honest I didn't expect Stamina with just the base slot filled with a TO to have much of an impact. Boy was I wrong. My power choices as of level 8 are:

Barb Swipe
Lunge
Spine Burst
Fiery Aura
Blazing Aura
Healing Flames

I also have sufficient veteran rewards that I have Sands of Mu, the Blackwand, and a Nemesis Staff. Long story short: I spammed every Primary and Veteran attack every time they were up, and I purposely put myself in situations where I would take enough damage to need to use Healing Flames often.

I never got below 75% endurance during any mission tonight, even when I got the Quick Reflexes buff from Secondary Mutation and was able to hit attacks even more often. I did have to use Rest once, but that was only because I took out 3 spawns of +1 Praetorian Resistance thanks to those silly PPD I was trying to rescue chasing runners and bringing back friends. Even then, I was resting to heal, not restore End.

To say the least, I am impressed and pleasantly surprised. In retrospect it makes sense though, since I don't have sufficient slotting to have any sort of meaningful recharge there is enough of a delay that my End bar has frequent opportunities to recover. For this reason, Stamina has a far greater impact on the lowest levels than I thought it would.

My hat's off to you, Devs. You just made the low levels not only tolerable, but really fun. And this is coming from a person that normally hates the 1-20 stretch.

Man, that is eight different kinds of awesome to hear. Now I just need to put together a few new builds to take advantage of it.

Later on,
Gate

Well, my story is more mid-levels than low, but free Stamina and Health made a huge difference.

I had an Axe/Shield Brute at 36-ish, and she was in a bad state. Even with everything slotted for end reduction, I was still using up probably two thirds of my endurance bar per fight, running out mid-combat and having to rest far more often than Rest actually recharged. With Stamina even single-slotted with a yellow SO, I managed to turn this around to where I almost never had to choose between resting or fighting a spawn unprepared. If anything, I started resting for health, rather than endurance, which is a HUGE improvement.

Time to eat my cake and have it, too, actually. The game awaits!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

I was skeptical in the beginning, but I really am enjoying how this frees me up to pick a couple more attack powers (or defensive powers, or whatever) at lower levels. Characters who normally would have been a bit slow and boring in their early levels now have a bit of OOMPH!

And a spring in their step. For real.

I've had a similar experience. I made a Fire/Dark Corruptor. They can be pretty rough at low levels, both for having room to pick up all the good powers, and for endurance usage. Now I can get the good stuff earlier. Also, the only time I've gotten low on endurance was during the protest zone event. That's to be expected during long minutes of constant attacking, healing, etc.

It's great, isn't it? I haven't actually minded respeccing all that much, because of how much cackling I've been able to do at my new builds. My Stalker in particular was happy as larry, due to not having to juggle Bu+ Placate/Travel/Fitness in the 12-20 range. Now it's just stabstabstabpainstabawesomestab

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger 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.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I think what I like the most is that I'm able to run my shield toggles on lowbie melee characters now. Pre-Stamina it was really difficult to maintain my toggles while keeping up an attack chain without having to rest every fight. It's definitely increased my enjoyment of the lower level game, and considering the severity of my altitis, this is a good, good thing.

Yeah, the thing is, even unslotted, Stamina really gives a huge boost to recovery. 25%. That essentially means that if you have four attacks that you use all the time, and you have them slotted so they keep your Endurance exactly constant, you can add a fifth one and you won't lose any more Endurance. That's 25% more damage. And that's with no slots.

Of course, that's a massive oversimplification of the issue, but it still helps demonstrate what's going on, I think. It wasn't just having to pick Stamina, or choose to do without it, it was being unable to pick it until level 20. Having it from level 2 cannot help but make a huge difference, no matter what you think about the later performance.

Not to mention that it also makes up for being unable to slot Temp Powers, much as the low level Accuracy bonus helps with not being able to slot Accuracy, in the early levels. It makes things like Sands of Mu and the Origin Powers much more useful, although it's taken away one of the benefits of dropping Brawl's End cost.

I've actually been more surprised by the movement boost! I always took Stamina, so all my respecs were pretty much just moving into inherent fitness so I could fit some fun single-slot powers in (mostly ones I plan to fill with LOTG +rech, yay!) but I was amazed at how much faster I move now! THAT is definitely a bright spot for me, as the base movement rate is SO sludgy. Being able to slot a run-speed IO in Swift right off the bat makes it so I never have to turn Sprint on, which in the end, also helps with blue issues

I am now enjoying my Stone/Dark Brute all the more.

No longer do I have to stop every fight to wait for rest at level 4!

Now if only they would add Beginner's Luck to Praetoria.

Fitness is going to have a huge impact on characters below level 20. Depending on power choices, it very well might have a huge impact on almost all characters(that will just depend on the individual build).

I can now take Grant Invis whenever the hell I want to. Hmm. Maybe I'll get around to trying a supportive character again...

Yeah, I was dubious about this change at first as it seemed a bit like a kludge, but the difference it's making makes it seem more and more like pure genius the more I play around with it

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville 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.

Is it worth respeccing mid level (20-30) characters out of Fitness?

I'm liking inherent Fitness much more than I thought I would, mostly because it's having a much bigger impact than I thought it would. I'm no longer inwardly groaning when I load up a low level character.

The to-hit bonus is about you hitting them. The Beginner's Luck bonus helps you hit them.

Them hitting you is a different subject entirely. Not saying you are wrong, just that it's not the same subject.

I just finally tried out a new toon so I could experience the inherent Fitness and it does make a huge difference even at level 4! I really love it. One of the best changes EVAR! :P