Trying to figure out Rage (or maybe SS overall) changes
When rages crashes it takes 25% of your end with it, which can hurt. On a willpower brute, inhernet stamina, and quick recovery should help out some. In the event those aren't quite enough, double check your endurance reduction in KO Blow, and foot stomp (those are HUGE end eaters) and if you have taunt, use that during the -dmg debuff. It costs 0 endurance, and you can put a psionic damage proc in it, so you can still deal some damage (and its free)
Outside of that, slotting performance shifter +end procs into both quick recovery and stamina might help out, as they return about 10% of your endurance everytime they proc, and they have a 20% chance of procing (so in 2 passives, your bound to get atlest 1 of them to proc around the time rage crashes on you)
Also, keep an eye on what powers your using during the -dmg part. I used to use sands of mu and nemesis staff (as those did full damage) but the extra endurance cost of those powers really hurt my end more then they benefited my damage.
To my knowledge nothing about Rage has changed since like i10 or somthing when they made it so its no longer an only effect self (i dont remember when they changed it but is was a long time ago). And ive almost never have that much trouble the the -25 end crash. Not even on my /SD or /SR and WAY not on my /fire or /WP. I dont really know what you are doing wrong that makes your WP have trouble with end. But do what Arbegla said, thats all really really good advice.
Also, you dont actually need any set bonuses to get Rage perma. With 3 SOs and hasten that has 3 SOs you would always be perma because of the "left over" rech from hasten even when its down.
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You don't even need Hasten. With 3 SOs, it's up before the crash wears off.
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Perhaps you should check your overall slotting- as an earlier poster indicated, /WP brutes with Quick Recovery and stamina should not really have endurance issues. Even when you pair it with SS, it shouldn't. Make sure you have either enough global recharge or enough recharge in Rage itself to make it perma. It isn't really hard.
If you are having issues with just forgetting to click the power before it recharges, maybe you should put it on auto. At least with that, you won't have to worry about not refreshing it.
Also- think about the options out there for reducing endurance usage and boosting recovery. Energy mastery is open with a couple of useful powers. Also, maybe going for the Incarnate branch that grants -endurance cost to powers. On my ss/sd, I find this to be pretty much invaluable and notable.
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The reason why I posted is because this didn't used to be an issue, and now it is. At one point in time Scrapper Jack would just go and go and go and go, and the rage crash just meant that for 10 seconds his damage would suck, and his end would go down a bit, but it would never seriously affect him. Now it is, and I wondered if it was a change in rage specifically, or ss/ in general.
Doesn't look like it is, based on comments, so I'm gonna look at some other stuff now. Thanks all.
Scrapper Jack (SJ/WP Brute), Sky Commando (WP/SJ Tanker), Curveball (Rad/DP Defender), and a bunch more.
I noticed the same thing curve, and I've got lots of SS level 50's, though I'm not aware of any recent changes to the rage crash. The bottom line is, rage will hit you with a nasty -25 end loss when it crashes, and it can't really be mitigated like power end use can with slotting - when rage crashes you lose 25 end. Add a hasten crash hitting at about the same time, and it feels worse. Spamming a fast recharging footstomp too? Feels even worse. Picked up some aoe's in the epic/patron powers? More end pain.
The only way you can really deal with it is to slot your powers for as much end reduction as you can, and skip hasten if you can. My SS toons LOVE the alpha slot because of the end reduction boost - it makes a HUGE difference for my SS toons. My SS/WP brute can now spam a fast recharging footstomp and mu aoes at will and never have any end issues, unless I run into some kind of end drainers.
Again, the bottom line is SS is an end hungry set, and in a different way from other sets. It hits you with a -25 end shot every time rage crashes, and the faster rage crashes, the more often you're going to get hit with it. And unlike other sets, the hit comes all at once, so if you're low on end when it hits, or comes in conjunction with another crash like hasten or an end drain attack, you could end up toggle dropped, which is almost certain death if you're a typical brute who likes to hang out in the middle of a fight surrounded by enemies. And again, unlike other sets where the end usage can be mitigated a lot over time by slotting attacks for end reduction, the end loss from the rage crash can not be directly mitigated by slotting.
I still love SS as a set, mostly for thematic reasons and the booming feel, but imo, the rage crash is excessive for a power that simply allows SS to do damage on par with competing sets. The ten seconds of impotence every crash is enough of a penalty for the power, when the only benefit of the power is an admittedly great to hit bonus that allows you a bit more flexibility in power slotting - because again, even with the more flexible power slotting, SS is still only doing damage on par with competing sets, yet is still saddled with a nasty and unique endurance issue and an extremely annoying dmg dealing penalty whenever rage crashes. And that's ingoring the ridiculous overkill of a defense penalty, which is luckily removed when rage is stacked.
SS just works so well with Elec Armor. If it wasn't for the -Dmg crash I would be playing an SS/Elec Brute right now instead of just working on a build in Mids.
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I know there are half a billion posts about Rage. And I know they changed the recharge times so that you need set bonus enhancements to get the recharge rate down to below 2 minutes. That's not the part I'm confused about.
What I'm confused about is harder to explain, because it's just a perceived change and I don't have any data to back it up. But in essence: Rage is mostly a liability to my SS/WP brute these days... not because of the rage crash, but because the end drain KILLS me.
Rage used to never be an issue for my WP Brute... when Rage dropped I would get hit more often, and my damage would be reduced to 1's and 3's for 10 seconds, but I would still be able to use foot stomp and KO blow to keep my foes at bay until my damage came back. Now when Rage drops my end winds up going through the floor, then my toggles drop, then I wind up in trouble.
Has something changed over the last few issues in the SS set? I wondered if I was attributing it to Rage, but that maybe the end cost of SS as a whole was bumped up, and it just hurts more when you lose 1/4 of your bar.
Scrapper Jack (SJ/WP Brute), Sky Commando (WP/SJ Tanker), Curveball (Rad/DP Defender), and a bunch more.