How do I choose my Alpha Boost?

tl;dr: I figured most builds would try to boost what they were already built for, but that doesn't seem to be the case in practice. Am I missing something?

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When I first read about the Alpha Slot and it's various Boosts, my first thought was that nearly all my 50s would want the Spiritual Boost, with my few damage dealers going Musculature to eek out even higher orange numbers. I was certain that Spiritual would be the favorite of the player base for the same reasons that recharge set bonuses are so coveted. I understand Spiritual is NOT a global recharge boost, but both cause Hasten to come up quicker than without them (for example). Similarly, I could see the Nerve-Radial path being popular for defense-based builds.

While I realize the majority of the currently available boosts are still impacted by ED, part of them are not and every little bit helps. Furthermore, very few of my level 50s need any help with Accuracy or Endurance management. By the time they are at that point, they can go through full attack chains repeatedly with all needed toggles running and not run out of endurance or miss much more that 5% of the time.

However, turns out I may have been wrong. In my recent play experience, Cardiac is by far the most popular with Nerve as popular as the others. Most advice threads on the boards about specific builds seem to recommend the same. Is my anecdotal experience incorrect or am I missing something? I get that most people aren't ED capped on End Rdx or Acc so it will provide the best numeric boost, but if you're not running out or not missing, why does it matter? Are folks removing EndRdx/Acc enhancements once they obtain the boost? I could see doing that except for the fact that the Boost does not work exemplared under 45.

I'm just looking for some other viewpoints before I start Alpha slotting. For example, I'll probably start with my recharge intensive Warshade, and I was planning on Spiritual because Eclipse coming up a few seconds faster is far more valuable to me than it costing 1/3 less endurance when I just got Stamina for free and can refill it almost any time in battle with Stygian Circle.

Thanks!

Just as a suggestion, you can use your third build (unlocked when you unlock the Alpha Slot) to build around your Incarnate abilities.

I don't think people have quite grasped that you can swap out the Alpha Boosts. So you could have:

Build 1 that gets the most help from the Spiritual Boosts.
Build 2 that gets the most help from the Nerve Boosts.
Build 3 that gets the most help from the Cardiac Boosts.

Or have one of those builds as a "generic" build and swap out boosts as needed.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

You are basically correct, Cardiac and Nerve are the ones that are less critical to a build however there are reasons to use both of them.

In the case of Cardiac it comes down to toggles. With Inherent Fitness I've added Fighting and/or Leadership toggles to several characters. In some cases this means I have a character running 6 toggles (fighting, leadership and epic shield) all of which have a base drain of 0.325 or 0.39 end/sec. I can manage without the Cardiac boost but it requires careful endurance management (such as turning off tough or going a bit slower than I could). The Cardiac boost allows me to go flat out all the time with all toggles running and not have to worry about endurance. So it is increasing my power, just in a round-about way.

As for Nerve, I don't think it's that useful on an IO'd build (since most IO builds pick up a decent amount of +accuracy by accident) but for a SO'd build doing the new TFs it is an excellent choice. Assuming only a single accuracy SO in the power a character needs 32% To Hit buff or defense debuff to get a 95% change to hit +4s which means you're relying on the rest of the team providing some. Taking the Nerve boost means with a single SO + Nerve you only need an extra 18% (or just over half). And this completely neglects the fact that several of the enemies there have quite strong defense buffs. So while I wouldn't recommend the Nerve boost for normal play in the new TFs it's a good choice, especially for an SO'd build.

I would think it would vary depending on the character. I know it has for me and I only have 3 level 50's only one of which has managed to craft a Boost.

My Dark/Dark tanker definitely got the Cardiac because the endurance was still an issue sometimes (she was slotted to assume my /rad teammate was always available which isn't necessarily true at 50th level) and of course the secondary is resist which gave me a very nice boost to my resistances. I'm very happy with the way she's turned out with the boost.

My MA/Regen is working toward getting the Spiritual because the recharge/heal would be a great match. It would help all the click-powers Regen has come up more often and be more effective when used.

My DB/SR scrapper is going musculature for the little extra damage as she is near-perfect as-is already.

Though on most of my alts I have gone with Cardiac since I've found that end reduction was what I would get the most benefit out of since anything that takes damage is already ED capped. Though I am going Recharge on my /regen since I don't have any end problems at all (even before inherent stamina)

The 2nd/3rd build is certainly an option.

my son/son is definitely thinking about dropping her single target resist shields to just two slots once I get the end/resist uncommon. Then the toggle will drop another damres. Thats 5 slots freed up for other powers.

It would make sense to do this on a brand new build, as then the other remains available for exemping.

Most of my 50s are gonna get the Cardiac Boost because I am a big dumb who never slots for endurance reduction. On the ones that I already slotted with that they went from kinda anemic to never running out of endurance, so that's my go-to choice for now.

Does anyone know if anyone has compiled a Guide to Alpha Slotting yet?

Aside from running the introductory arc and starting to collect shards and components, I haven't played with the system at all. My main questions are:

1) If I create a boost, I need to slot it into a specific power using an existing slot, correct? We don't actually get a new "Alpha" slot that we can add to a power do we?

2) If we do get a new slot, when does it appear?

3) If we have to use existing slots, can I create more than one boost (i.e. one of the Cardiac type and one of the Spiritual type) and slot both/all of them at the same time?

The new Alpha Slot is a stand alone slot available through the Incarnate selection at the top of the powers window. Double click on the Alpha slot after you create a boost and all the available boosts will show on the right window. Double click the one you want to put in.

Only one boost can be used at a time but they can be swapped.

You get the new slot when you complete the Mender Ramiel arc

The way I look at it - probably 99% of all powers benefit from endurance reduction. A little bit less than that would benefit from recharge, and maybe half would benefit from accuracy or a damage boost. So I look to cardiac first, and weigh the pluses and minuses. Also, for my kin troller - hold and accuracy boost is a huge win!

On paper I was expecting the order or preference for the general public to be:

Spiritual
Musculature
Cardiac
Nerve trailing in the last with almost no users

My reasoning being, recharge is a super-popular thing. People can get perma-Hasten easier and get long recharge powers going more. After that, people tend to worry over DPS and want to get some good damage for soloing. I didn't figure many people would take Cardiac since, like me, they'd already have end under control by 50.

Since then though I've noticed that Cardiac is far more popular than I would have thought. And Musculature isn't as common as I was thinking it would be. I myself have 7 toons doing incarnate. Five of them use Spiritual, with one doing Musculature and one doing Cardiac. The Cardiac is a Dom with tons of high-end powers like Rain of Fire and Carrion Creepers, but I also took Cardiac for the range and RES boosts.

It seems as though the actual order in practice is:

Spiritual
Cardiac
Musculature and Nerve (they seem to be about as common)

Quote:

Originally Posted by mousedroid Last questions for now - if I can create more than one boost, but only slot one, where do the others go? Into my enhancement tray? Can boosts be stored like other enhancements in base storage? I'm guessing the answer to that last one is no.

They have their own storage space and won't interfere with storage of other things like enhancements. Don't worry about not having room.

Quote:

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

Someone already mentioned it here, but you can swap out boosts. Cardiac was my first, and primary, boost for my main build on my Fire/Ice blaster. I have uncommons for each alpha, though (not that it matters much, my pri/sec don't benefit as much as some others from the subsidiary bonuses in the alphas).

I figured I was already at Acc and Dam caps with IOs. I could use Recharge, but in a way that wouldn't always be noticeable. I don't rely on long recharge powers, save Hasten. Plus, with IOs, my recharge is pretty high. After animations, my attack chains are recharged with minor exceptions (spamming my double holds, for example).

Cardiac, though, provided me with immediate, noticeable benefits. I have IOs with end reduction in them, but nothing extravagant like Dam/Acc. Before I would have to manage my end, maybe pop a blue pill, maybe slow down, maybe leave a toggle or two off for a minute. It wasn't much, but it did require some management. With Cardiac, I'm a toggle blaster with no noticeable net effect on my end. I like that.

Some builds would get Spiritual before other alphas, but of the few 50s I intend to roll with, Cardiac Common will still likely be the 1st thing I'll earn on them.

Not that I think Nerve is good or anything, but the +4s you fight tons of in the new TF you only have a 39% hit rate against base. So accuracy might help some. There's also those low accuracy powers like AoE holds where it could come in handy.

Of course, odds are someone on the team has Tactics.

Quote:

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

My two current Incarnates went Cardiac for the end reduction and range boost. Then again they're both VEATs (Crab and Widow) who've dipped into the leadership pool and were already softcapped (the Widow averaging 60%) before going Incarnate. Heavy usage of ranged AoE and leadership toggles made Cardiac the clear choice for those two. Especially considering at least 40% in accuracy set bonuses and most attacks ED capped for damage in addition to double Assault.

My KM/DA Scrapper may eventually go Nerve.

I chose Cardiac on my blaster because the second tier enhances range, and being IO slotted, basically none of my powers have any enhancement for range, so it's quite helpful.

If other people are thinking like me, it could explain why Cardiac is popular.