Incarnate - Damage or Recharge?

So I keep having this debate with people. Assuming you aren't taking the incarnate to fill in a hole in your build, what's better for a Blaster in your opinion: damage or recharge?

Recharge means your AoEs are up faster, and so are BU and Aim. But damage means you just plain do more damage. Which do you think would be better in the long run?

No wrong answers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Mostly I am thinking Damage.

Most of my blasters dont have an issue with recharge or end.

The way I'm looking at Incarnate slotting right now (until we can get to the higher levels where ED doesn't affect it as much) is "what do I need more of in each power" or "what frees up the most slots on a particular build"?

I could go either way on a blaster ... all my powers (for the most part) have near ED-capped damage. If I slotted the damage Incarnate buff then I could free up a slot in all my attack powers (unless I've got sets in them, but that's another story). As it stands right now, a damage buff (even uncommon) won't give me that much more of a punch in my attacks. However, it might free up slotting to where I can round out my character better. The same goes for recharge.

I'm going recharge because both multi-strike and Positron's Blast are so deficient in it. but, once i20 comes out and we get more ED resistant incarnates i'm thinking damage.

I went for musculture. It lets me 4-slot my ranged attacks with Devastation, giving me room for a proc or two. I have more than enough recharge anyway.

I'm actually leaning towards Endurance Reduction just because it fills the holes in my fire/fire/force build while solo which are survivability and blue bar. Also it's the only one with a Paragon with 3 usable effects.

I'm gonna make a damage and endurance and see how each one works.

I'm thinking about +def, since most of my blasters live near the range softcap, and while the alpha +def won't help w/the globals, it will help a bit w/CJ, Weave, Maneuvers, etc... in a very, very small way, I know. I figure my blasters already do enough damage (never enough, I know), and I don't have any recharge or end issues as it is, but adding a bit more survivability might help them more than adding a few points of damage. TBH though, I'm least excited about alpha-slotting my blasters out of all my ATs.

With the exception of combos without Aim and Buildup, Incarnate damage contributes next to nothing to your damage output.

Base:               1.00
Enh:          .90
Defiance:     .50
Aim up 40%:   .15
Build up 40%: .40
             ____
Total dmg    2.55

Incarnate     .10

 

I'd go Recharge.

The only powers likely to be ED-capped for Recharge are Aim and Build Up (maybe the odd one like Drain Psyche), so you'll be getting a sizeable increase in recharge speed for AoE's, Tier 3's etc.

Damage, like Another_Fan points out, will be a very minimal increase on top of ED capping. Are there any commonly fought enemies where a 4% increase means one less attack to finish them off? I doubt it.

If you're planning to pull slots out of powers to lean on the Incarnate boost, then damage would be more viable, since it frees more slots.
As a heavy set IO user, I wouldnt be doing that. (And Recharge becomes even better if youve used Positrons Blast in your AoEs, with its rather weak 22% Recharge boost)

I'm admittedly up in the air trying to choose an alpha boost myself, but if you're planning on building the slot all the way up then that would probably factor into your decision as well. So that's either a 45% or a 33% boost, 2/3rds of which would ignore ED.

At a glance that seems to be somewhere around the boost of a small or medium red insp. Still not the most fantastic thing ever, but more than just a 4% bump to damage at least.

It's kind of hard to figure how much Aim and Build Up really help though. If you have enough recharge to alternate between them every fight and adding a Spiritual Incarnate boost doesn't bump you up to being able to use both every fight then you really haven't gained much... you'll still be using Aim to start one fight and Build Up the next because hitting them before your initial AoEs is a lot more efficient than hitting them every time they're up even if you're down to two enemies and having them wear off before you open up on the next spawn.

Obviously there are situations where you do want to use them as often as possible, like AVs, but in general you need to boost their recharge by quite a bit to actually end up using them more often, at least on a decent recharge build. Lower recharge builds, on the other hand, might well benefit from Spiritual to get Aim and Build Up to the "one or the other available each spawn" stage.

Recharge Alpha slot.

I already have Hasten almost perma, and I have my AoE and ST chains. Damage is the best option for me. I build for more damage as it is, and I have +33.5% with set bonuses and assault. The best Musculature boost coming soon will give me about that same amount.

I'm going damage. I was excited about 33% and almost started drooling when I saw the end result could be 45%.

Thats what I looked at. The end results of increased damage for me outweigh everything else. Plus my Elec/Elec will also benefit from End Mod as well.. SWEET !!!!!

I'm going Damage, but it's for ulterior motives. The third tier Alpha Slot also includes Endurance Modification, which affects Stamina, all of my Endurance Drain powers, and all of my -Recovery Debuff powers. For E^3, that's pretty much every power I use.

Recharge would be perfectly reasonable, too.

For the record... I do not use sets. Just Standard IOs and starting to work on my new Frankenslotted build...

I've been debating with myself and flip flopping about this the past week, hahaha.
In the mean time, I've accrued enough shards and components to go two routes, if I want to...

With just the Common Boost, I'd benefit from Recharge (and even Accuracy) more than the damage. And it'd be cool to notice the effects with the Common Boosts right off the bat (As Recharge or Accuracy might do)... Although I do have a few powers that would immediately benefit from the Damage... my Lightning Field only has a single End Red slotted and that's it (no damage).

However, as we move up in the Alpha Boosts... Not only might I notice the damage a bit more, but the End Mod will apply to practically all my powers as an E3 Blaster.
So...
Yeah...
I have decided to go for Musculature in the long haul...
But grab Recharge for the Common Boost, as well, for some immediate effect.
Then see how the Uncommon and later Musculatures play out for me.

Umm... at least, I think...



Having my holds come up a bit quicker is not a bad thing at all...

Any attack worth using is already enhanced > 90% for damage
Most attacks aren't enhanced > 70% for end or rech

Right now Spiritual or Cardiac are the clear winners unless you are removing damage enhancements from your powers. In the long run, with 45% and 2/3 bypass, maybe damage would be viable... but the other two will probably still be better.

Pretty much all of them have their place depending on your build. Musculature is perhaps unusually penalized by the decision not to include Rare and Very Rare Alpha boosts in I-19, but after I-20, it will become far more attractive.

Assuming you're at the ED cap for damage enhancement, the Very Rare's +45% damage turns into a 30 + (15 * 0.15) = 32.25% bonus to every single power. Obviously the net benefit will be less than that once you factor in Defiance and Aim and Build Up and regular slotting, but it's still more than you get from a small Red inspiration, up full-time. Defiance needs time to ramp up and Aim/BU can be unwieldy to use in the most efficient manner (for instance, if activating Aim makes you use something like Blaze a second slower, then your DPS can suffer).

Musculature is best on high-damage-mod ATs. Blasters have the highest damage mod.

Cardiac is also deceptively useful; even on endurance-efficient builds the boost to range can be a real advantage for any powerset with a short-range cone attack (which is basically all of them). And even endurance-efficient builds can be reworked such that they use a lot of end-hungry powers, or save slots by skimping on end reduction. My Fire Blaster runs Tough + APP shield + Weave + CJ + Hover + Acrobatics + Sprint (for the IO stealth) without batting an eyelash. Do I need to run all of those toggles full-time? Absolutely not, but it's a nice qualitative benefit that I no longer have to micromanage them when I have Cardiac slotted.

If I had to make a rough guesstimate as to which Alpha boost is most useful to most IO Blaster builds, it'd likely be the Spiritual Alpha, but that's probably true for a lot of ATs. The nice thing about I-19's sneak-peak approach to Incarnate content is that you have plenty of time to earn multiple Alpha boosts and try them all out for size. I'll probably be swapping between Cardiac and Spiritual most of the time, but I'll also give Musculature a spin for giggles.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build