I can't speak for others, but I have a Fire/Kin with tons of recharge, so I'm going for the end reduction Incarnate slot. Yes, I can use Transference but I'd rather be attacking. 
No one knows yet when the next two tiers of Alpha slots enhancements will be available. Might be i20, might be sooner.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
The majority of controllers benefit most from the Spiritual slotting to get extra Recharge -- to help get controls recharged faster. Some toggle-heavy builds can benefit from Cardiac's Endurance reduction. I can see some people wanting Damage if they have Recharge well slotted already.
LOCAL MAN! The most famous hero of all. There are more newspaper stories about me than anyone else. "Local Man wins Medal of Honor." "Local Man opens Animal Shelter." "Local Man Charged with..." (Um, forget about that one.)
Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control
I've been running toward Musculature, myself. As an Ill/Kin I know I already run around at the Damage Cap, but with ED capped Recharge and Accuracy (as well as minimal endurance issues) the only way for me to go is to pump out even more damage. Plus, later pieces of Musculature will affect my holds. The only reason I'd consider Nerve would be for the added hold/confuse.
By the way, Local Man; I picked up Confuse. Fantastic addition to my arsenal thanks to Inherent Fitness.
My guides:Dark Melee/Dark Armor/Soul Mastery, Illusion Control/Kinetics/Primal Forces Mastery, Electric Armor
"Dark Armor is a complete waste as a tanking set."
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My Ice/Storm just went Cardiac Core after a successful ITF run. I haven't played w/it since so I can't tell how much better my end consumption will be, but I'd always be hurting for end w/2/3's of my toggles on (AA, SM, Hurricane, Man, Tactics, SS, CJ, Ice Armor...) and spamming AoE attacks. And that's w/a fully IO'ed out build w/lots of +recharge. I'm really hoping that Cardiac, even the common, will help out w/my end issues.|
Originally Posted by Local_Man
The majority of controllers benefit most from the Spiritual slotting to get extra Recharge -- to help get controls recharged faster. Some toggle-heavy builds can benefit from Cardiac's Endurance reduction. I can see some people wanting Damage if they have Recharge well slotted already.
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Everyone else gets Spiritual, and it's not even close. I just got Spritual Core Boost (uncommon) on my Fire/Rad and I need to confirm w/Herostats, but I think I got IW down to <10s recharge (AM & Hasten were already perma), and the extra stun doesn't suck either. I'm hoping to get it perma w/Spiritual Core Paragon. I'll be working on my Ill/Kin next to get PA perma'ed out, eve w/o spamming Siphon Speed quite so much. I *may* go Spiritual Radial w/him for the extra heal, but eventually it'll be Core Paragon.
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
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I still find Deceive to be one of my favorite powers on my Illusion Controllers . . . I take it at level 4 on all 6 of them. It is simply fun, as well as being effective. And that Coersive Persuasion proc makes it much more effective with the chance to confuse multiple foes.|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
I've been running toward Musculature, myself. As an Ill/Kin I know I already run around at the Damage Cap, but with ED capped Recharge and Accuracy (as well as minimal endurance issues) the only way for me to go is to pump out even more damage. Plus, later pieces of Musculature will affect my holds. The only reason I'd consider Nerve would be for the added hold/confuse.
By the way, Local Man; I picked up Confuse. Fantastic addition to my arsenal thanks to Inherent Fitness. |
So far, I have only slotted my Ill/Rad's Alpha slot with Spiritual. I have only run 4 of my too many 50s through the Incarnate arc to get the slot. I have had a really busy week with real life stuff, and my little bit of game time has mostly been spent doing respecs for my too many characters before the Freespec gets replaced on Dec. 8.
(I am really, really sick of doing Respecs! Thanks so much to the nice folks at Titan Network for that nice little Titan Sentinel program that lets me copy my current build into Mids, or it would have been even worse.)
LOCAL MAN! The most famous hero of all. There are more newspaper stories about me than anyone else. "Local Man wins Medal of Honor." "Local Man opens Animal Shelter." "Local Man Charged with..." (Um, forget about that one.)
Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control
Hi all, thank you for your suggestions!
I used Musculature for my Mind/TA, since I have so many different mez options already, I thought extra damage may help. If that does not work, I may try for Nerve, I think.
Its good to see the forum is still active! Cheers.
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You can say all of that again!|
Originally Posted by Local_Man
I still find Deceive to be one of my favorite powers on my Illusion Controllers . . . I take it at level 4 on all 6 of them. It is simply fun, as well as being effective. And that Coersive Persuasion proc makes it much more effective with the chance to confuse multiple foes.
So far, I have only slotted my Ill/Rad's Alpha slot with Spiritual. I have only run 4 of my too many 50s through the Incarnate arc to get the slot. I have had a really busy week with real life stuff, and my little bit of game time has mostly been spent doing respecs for my too many characters before the Freespec gets replaced on Dec. 8. (I am really, really sick of doing Respecs! Thanks so much to the nice folks at Titan Network for that nice little Titan Sentinel program that lets me copy my current build into Mids, or it would have been even worse.) |
So far I've unlocked on 12 or my 50s and respec'd about 5 and actually slotted alpha powers on my two mains. (Def-blue, corruptor-red) Ugh...and yes I need to get Sentinal for sanities sake. I spent a lot of the weekend (when not TFing) just looking over the builds and seeing what powers "made sense" and wouldn't disprupt my current builds too much. For the most part most there is usually a couple of single slotted powers that do prove helpful to builds. Typically these end up being on melee types though. Controllers seem (from me at least) to be some of the toughest to find those few powers that make any real difference from a single slot (or the carefully rearrange one or two).
Spiritual does seem to be the default way to go for controllers as recharged controls means safer world, plus with many secondaries having heal powers the little extra boost will be nice in upper tiers. Cardiac seems to be the default second choice for sets like fire/storm that tend to be toggle/end heavy. I'm also thinking of going that way on my Mind/Sonic to boost the strength of my resist bubbles and it tends to run a little end heavy.
@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
Ill/Rad- going for recharge
Ice/Storm- going for end reduction
Ice/Cold- going for damage
Earth/Thermal-going for damage
Fire/Thermal- going for damage
Grav/Kin- going for recharge
Elec/Rad- going for recharge
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
Despite my undying love of recharge, I ended up going with Cardiac Core on my Ill/Rad. I already have over perma for my PA and most of my powers recharge close to instantly so I thought spiritual wouldnt be that helpful. the end reduction however was amazingly helpful for when I am pursuing my goal of dropping AVs/GMs without popping blue skittles. picked core over radial since i liked the boost to range as well.
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I have this odd OCD-ish attitude towards respecs that I developed back when respecs were so limited. In all my years in the game, I have only used an earned or Vet respec maybe 4 times -- but I try to use up my Freespecs before we get a new one. (Area Man still has all 3 earned Respecs and all his vet respecs. All my respecs have been the freebees.) As a result, I did a respec on every significant character I have across every server, which is a lot. I didn't respec all the characters created by my kids, and I may have missed about 3 at level 24 or so on my second account. In most cases I took the existing build and simply added the three powers, but in some cases I did some significant changes in their builds.|
Originally Posted by MentalMaden
So far I've unlocked on 12 or my 50s and respec'd about 5 and actually slotted alpha powers on my two mains. (Def-blue, corruptor-red) Ugh...and yes I need to get Sentinal for sanities sake. I spent a lot of the weekend (when not TFing) just looking over the builds and seeing what powers "made sense" and wouldn't disprupt my current builds too much. For the most part most there is usually a couple of single slotted powers that do prove helpful to builds. Typically these end up being on melee types though. Controllers seem (from me at least) to be some of the toughest to find those few powers that make any real difference from a single slot (or the carefully rearrange one or two).
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As a result, I ended up having to take a lot of powers that I had skipped before. Many of my melee types were able to take the Fighting Pool much earlier, and then fit in a few powers from the APP sets, usually Conserve Power and Physical Perfection. Some characters took a second travel power and may have added Hasten -- adding Super Speed gives them a stealth power that can be slotted for full invisibility.
My controllers added some utility powers in most cases. Sometimes they were powers from my primary or secondary that I would like to have had in my previous build but for lack of room. Some added an extra APP power. A few without self-heals added the Medicine Pool. My Ill/Rad added Recall Friend and Mutation. My Fire/Rad added Mutation and one-slotted Fallout (which I got to use three times on the TF I did soon after! -- on the same guy!). Ice/Storm added Shiver, and the Earth/Storm added Snow Storm and Stone Prison (was tempted to take Salt Crystals). A couple of Plant Controllers added Spore Burst.
As a result, I will be spending some time over the next few weeks manufacturing IOs to fit in all those slots. It will take a while.
LOCAL MAN! The most famous hero of all. There are more newspaper stories about me than anyone else. "Local Man wins Medal of Honor." "Local Man opens Animal Shelter." "Local Man Charged with..." (Um, forget about that one.)
Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control
I went for the recharge-y one on my Fire/Rad. More recharge means more of everything, except maybe Endurance :-/
It also frees up some slots in powers like Lingering Rad, so now I can spend them in my 3 new powers. Bonfire might need that KB magnitude cranked up a few notches >;-D
Stay Gold, Paragon. Stay Gold.
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
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I've been working on my Ice/Storm also (only 2 more shards to go!) and I'm also hoping that Cardiac will do a lot for my end issues. I've got all the Accolades and I'm HEAVILY IOed (including the recovery specials) and my end still stinks. I run out of END really quickly. I' hoping Cardiac will really help.
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Originally Posted by dave_p
My Ice/Storm just went Cardiac Core after a successful ITF run. I haven't played w/it since so I can't tell how much better my end consumption will be, but I'd always be hurting for end w/2/3's of my toggles on (AA, SM, Hurricane, Man, Tactics, SS, CJ, Ice Armor...) and spamming AoE attacks. And that's w/a fully IO'ed out build w/lots of +recharge. I'm really hoping that Cardiac, even the common, will help out w/my end issues..
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Zaphod's just this guy, you know.
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Originally Posted by Dr_Kit
I've been working on my Ice/Storm also (only 2 more shards to go!) and I'm also hoping that Cardiac will do a lot for my end issues. I've got all the Accolades and I'm HEAVILY IOed (including the recovery specials) and my end still stinks. I run out of END really quickly. I' hoping Cardiac will really help.
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My general feeling is that nearly all characters with major endurance issues will be better off skipping the Cardiac, going Spiritual, and selecting an APP that has an endurance recovery power. Even the 360 second recharge on Dark Consumption or Consume, which was ridiculous before, can be whittled down to something semi-reasonable. But Conserve Power, Power Sink and maybe Hibernate seem like the major winners. Maybe I'll be proven wrong the long run, and there will always be outliers, but I can't think of any Controller build that isn't much better off with powers available more often. For one thing, if we go villain, we can now get a second pet more or less permanently, and I understand the Mu pet will even heal you (no promises tho since I havent actually seen it first hand).
I have an Ice/Storm and I an definitely going for the end redux. It will make a huge difference. I really dont need the recharge as I have more than enough with globals and hasten running but summoning the lightning storm and a tornado will KILL your end bar.
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
so previously I had decided to go with cardiac for it. Assuming it would be of help when Soloing GMs. So I finally got a chance to test it out this morning. Sadly the only GM I could track down was Paladin in kings row. Still a GM however...sigh. Anyway, into my standard attack routine with my Ill/rad. I didnt change my pacing at all. pretty much a constant stream of blind/spec wounds/fireblast/fireball/lingering rad while running my rad toggles on him and keeping PA perma cast. normally I'll run a bit around 40 to 50% endurance during the fight and have to ease up from time to time after the PA casting in order for my endurance to catch up. I will generally refuse to pop blues when soloing as it is a personal challenge. (sometimes I'll cheat and use geas of the kind ones however, like against Lusca). Well aaaaanyhoo. I slotted the Cardiac Radial boost into my alpha slot and I think the worst my end got was about 80%. Not a major huge game breaking difference but one that made me very happy. I really cant wait to unlock the higher tiers so that I can start using EM Pulse as part of my routine (normally I dont since it gives me -recovery for a short time and i dont want to pop blues)
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OMG, it's night & day, let me tell you! Base Cardiac (and the Numina's & Miracle uniques) and my Ice/Storm runs all toggles and can spam AoEs like crazy and I can go a long time before reaching for a blue pill. It's freakin' amazing! |
Originally Posted by Dr_Kit
I've been working on my Ice/Storm also (only 2 more shards to go!) and I'm also hoping that Cardiac will do a lot for my end issues. I've got all the Accolades and I'm HEAVILY IOed (including the recovery specials) and my end still stinks. I run out of END really quickly. I' hoping Cardiac will really help.
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Can't wait for the Core Paragon tier to open up.Oedipus_Tex: I think adding more recharge will just make things worse for a */Storm, because I already use Hibernate as a +recovery power more than anything, but I'd be so much more tempted to spam my AoEs (FR, LS, Tornado, etc), all of which are end monsters, that I'd be in more trouble than I started. Cardiac is a true lifesaver for this build.
Griff Mender: Generally speaking, most AV/GM soloers will have enough recovery to spam their ST attacks indefinitely, unless they rely on insps, which you don't. For those builds, I'd go Spiritual, unless you already have like PA perma'ed, then I'd go for more damage. AV soloing calls for 1) survivability, 2) end recovery, and 3) damage. You already have 1 & 2 covered, and all you're looking to do at this point is add more of 3. BTW, my old Fire/Rad soloing build had enough recovery, I actually did cycle in EMP every now and again, esp against robotic AV/GMs. Did make things a bit hairy though.
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
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I logged in just to say the EXACT same thing. I got my 8th shard (I had a common from the ITF) in the middle of a solo mission and created the cardiac right there. BOOM! I went from gasping for breath to having end to spare. "Night & day" are exactly the words I was thinking.|
Originally Posted by dave_p
OMG, it's night & day, let me tell you! Base Cardiac (and the Numina's & Miracle uniques) and my Ice/Storm runs all toggles and can spam AoEs like crazy and I can go a long time before reaching for a blue pill. It's freakin' amazing!
Can't wait for the Core Paragon tier to open up. |
This is the 3rd toon I've equipped the alpha slot on. My claws/regen scrapper saw some gain from the regen/health (got it up to uncommon) but nothing to crow about and my Fire/Fire/Fire blaster didn't notice a lot from the +dam but what a tremendous difference the cardiac made to my ice/storm troller.
Zaphod's just this guy, you know.
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Originally Posted by dave_p
Oedipus_Tex: I think adding more recharge will just make things worse for a */Storm, because I already use Hibernate as a +recovery power more than anything, but I'd be so much more tempted to spam my AoEs (FR, LS, Tornado, etc), all of which are end monsters, that I'd be in more trouble than I started. Cardiac is a true lifesaver for this build.
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That's the thing. +Recharge doesn't just decrease the Recharge on your mainline powers. It decreases the Recharge on your recovery powers too. Powers that were originally very difficult to perma, like Conserve Power, become more attainable.
Conserve Power is 186.3% endurance reduction to endurance costs. Cardiac is a 30 to 40% reduction (I forget exactly how much) when you reach top level. Which is better?
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
That's the thing. +Recharge doesn't just decrease the Recharge on your mainline powers. It decreases the Recharge on your recovery powers too. Powers that were originally very difficult to perma, like Conserve Power, become more attainable.
Conserve Power is 186.3% endurance reduction to endurance costs. Cardiac is a 30 to 40% reduction (I forget exactly how much) when you reach top level. Which is better? |
Responding to myself. Did some checking and it turns out I was wrong on how to calculate Recharge for Conserve Power. The power I'd recommend instead is Power Sink. That one will cost you a single target attack, but you can replace it with another pet if you want instead.
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Exact calculations aside, I think this will be much more true when we get rare and very rare alpha slottage and the non-ED portion goes up to 1/2 and then 2/3rds. Things like Conserve Power are generally already heavily recharge slotted so don't gain full advantage from the Alpha slot.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
That's the thing. +Recharge doesn't just decrease the Recharge on your mainline powers. It decreases the Recharge on your recovery powers too. Powers that were originally very difficult to perma, like Conserve Power, become more attainable.
Conserve Power is 186.3% endurance reduction to endurance costs. Cardiac is a 30 to 40% reduction (I forget exactly how much) when you reach top level. Which is better? |
On the other hand, few IO sets (even the purples I have slotted) get close to ED on endurance so, at least for now, Cardiac reduces end on all of my powers and for most has the full 33% effect. Recharge wouldn't do much for my toggles (which are generally always up) so it only affects a portion of my powers and those tend to be heavily slotted for recharge already so it only affects them partially.
Now, when we get rare and very rare alphas the calculus will change and will definitely get another look.
Plus, one of the great things about alpha slots is I can get both and play with them to see which works better in practice instead of just in theory.
Zaphod's just this guy, you know.
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If you're willing to take Mu Mastery, your point may be valid, though even PS, with top-tier Spiritual (not yet available), you're only shaving off like 4 seconds, if you already have very high recharge. W/Cardiac, and the Mu PPP, I can bring up PS every 38.2s, which w/the end redux of Cardiac is *more* than enough end recovery.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Responding to myself. Did some checking and it turns out I was wrong on how to calculate Recharge for Conserve Power. The power I'd recommend instead is Power Sink. That one will cost you a single target attack, but you can replace it with another pet if you want instead.
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Even at the hard recharge cap, PS is 30s, and I know I can blow through my end bar in far less time than that w/o Cardiac (on my Kin, w/a 9s recharge on Transference, if I miss 1 cycle, sometimes I'm in trouble). While I can certainly blow through my end bar currently w/the common Cardiac Boost, it takes a while (more than 38s at least), and just using a blue pill here and there (and Hibernate, since I'm Ice Mastery) makes it almost a non issue now. W/Cardiac Core Paragon, I'm thinking it'll be a non issue, period, which no levels of recharge could ever do.
Of course, if you're sticking to APPs (and I plan on this), I don't think there's an epic +recovery tool that recharges fast enough to make the additional +recharge better than simple +endredux for a */Storm. For other secondaries like Kin, Rad or Cold, absolutely +recharge though.
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
Does anyone know if musculature is buffing pet damage?
It is supposed to, and I'm pretty sure people have said that it actually is.
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Wouldn't that be a bit primary-dependent? /Kin doesn't have any excitingly long-recharge powers. /Rad is pretty short on them too. For my Fire/Kin I expect to do recharge, because I've got long-recharge powers I'd like to give a boost. But if things shake out the way I expect for my (admittedly rather low level atm) Ele/Rad, I can't imagine anything I'd want more than the damage boost. (The ability to go even further towards being the drainiest thing that ever drained anyone wouldn't hurt either.)
| Of course, if you're sticking to APPs (and I plan on this), I don't think there's an epic +recovery tool that recharges fast enough to make the additional +recharge better than simple +endredux for a */Storm. For other secondaries like Kin, Rad or Cold, absolutely +recharge though. |
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Rad's got AM & EMP, maybe Mutation or Fallout if you take those. AM's not too hard to perma by yourself, but EMP's recharge is huge and can use the extra, beyond ED boost. If you don't IO heavily (or IO for other than +recharge), perma-AM is far, far easier w/Spiritual. Then there are pool powers like Hasten & IW which are popular among controllers.|
Originally Posted by Morganite
Wouldn't that be a bit primary-dependent? /Kin doesn't have any excitingly long-recharge powers. /Rad is pretty short on them too. For my Fire/Kin I expect to do recharge, because I've got long-recharge powers I'd like to give a boost. But if things shake out the way I expect for my (admittedly rather low level atm) Ele/Rad, I can't imagine anything I'd want more than the damage boost. (The ability to go even further towards being the drainiest thing that ever drained anyone wouldn't hurt either.)
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The damage boost is based off of your base, and you're already going to be at +95% w/normal slotting and adding your own boosts (AM). So adding another 11% boost of the base (1/3 of 33% after ED) is like adding less than 5%. At the Paragon Core lvl, you'll be adding another 30% (2/3 of 45% after ED) to base, which translates to maybe 12~13% overall damage, basically a DO's worth. I dunno about you, but I'll take perma-Hasten & maybe perma-IW over that. Oh, and if you're a Kin, Musculature is nearly completely useless.
Of course you're not ED capping your damage powers (say, your ST hold), then Musculature would add a bigger boost, but if you're not boosting the damage to begin with, it's likely not a huge damaging power anyway, so the base will be small to begin with, which makes the actual impact of the Musculature boost minimal. There are exceptions--powers like Char & Fire Cages do very good damage, but you'll often want to slot them w/non-damage sets, and Musculature will get very good returns out of those.
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
Hi all, I have two questions on alpha slots:
1) What's everyone been using for alpha slots for controllers?
2) Do you know how to get to 3rd and 4th tier of Alpha slots? Or is that going to be in the next release?
Thanks in advance!