Alpha Slotting: What's best for which toon?

I see a lot of posts that say things like "I'd like to see the numbers on that..." or, "Well, here are the numbers for..." Confession? I stop reading right there. If mathematics is a language, then I'm completely illiterate. I also do not understand techie-speak at all. Nada. I am sure this whole Alpha Slotting business makes total sense to almost everyone. Just looking at terms like "33% pre-ED", probably 99.9% of everyone on the forums not only understands what this means, but gets in on an intrinsic level. I, however, do not. I know what 33% means. I even know what ED means. In practical terms? Not a freaking clue.

I know people who have end. issues, who have filled their Alpha Slot with Cardiac Boost, and almost wept for joy seeing their end bar stay blue. So, seeing a lack in my own toon, I slot my tank with Musculature, because, well, heck, what tank doesn't want to do more damage? I notice no difference. When I mention this to people, I can almost hear the stifled laughter through my monitor, and after a long pause, hear in response: "er, well, yes. You wouldn't. It's still a tank, you see...."

Somehow, I just know this all makes sense to many people (And they can just quit laughing, darn it!). To me, it sounds like rules which change on alternate Tuesdays unless you are wearing socks that don't match. There really must be a way to understand this in terms your average English major can understand.

When slotting the Alpha, do you play to your toons' strengths, or to their weakness? In terms of the tank, do I want more defense? Will that give me more bang for my buck? Or is it possible can I get more strength, not some piddly amount, because it's a percent of your basic blah, blah, I don't understand this part? Or, would I want to go counter-intuitive and get something like Spiritual, because all my defenses do need to recharge...?

See, I am at a loss.

For a lot of support toons, or anybody who wants perma/ anything, the Spiritual Boost is a no-brainer. Yeah, even for me (HEY, I HEARD THAT!) For melee toons and even some blasters, it all gets hazy. What should a Shield Defense tank or scrapper get? How about a Willpower one? My blaster got the Cardiac Core Boost for the 20% range. I think 20% range increase equals about a foot and a half - I really can't see much of a difference, not like having a Boost Range power. So what should I have gotten? So much confusion, so many slots!

Any help from the bilingual among us would be deeply appreciated. Oh, and I should mention that for myself, any glaring problem issues have been resolved by level 50, so no corrective action is needed. Just the whole "bigger and better" thing, and if Teh Uber can be achieved, well that would be even better! Thanks for reading, and to the two people who didn't laugh at my tank, I thank you especially.

I'll address one part of this: the 20% range increase.

40 foot range + 20%: 8 feet more range. 60 foot range + 20%: 12 feet more range... it may not sound like a lot, but if you're watching, it's noticeable.

But where this REALLY comes in handy is on CONE attacks. Because not only is the RANGE extended, but the AREA at the base of the cone (the part far away from you) is also extended...

For most cones, the 40 foot LONG cone is 40 feet wide at the end. But extending it 20% means that your now 48 foot long cone is 48 feet WIDE at the end. 60 becomes 72! THAT is a HUGE difference - makes it much easier to 'line up' cones.

As for your comments about math, that's too bad - Math is Power. You'd do well to dive in and learn more about math, but I understand if you're not wired that way... actually, that's a lie. I loves me mah math.

Here is link to the alpha slot trees:

http://goingrogue.na.cityofheroes.co...lpha-slot.html

I await the more sophisticated replies with interest, but at the simple straightforward level, isn't it simply a question of which attributes you want more of for a given character?

OK to answer you basic question you must first understand a little about Enhancement Diversification (ED).

I will try not to get to mathy so take this as basics and not meant to be exact numbers.

Basically it is a cap on how much of each enhancement you can have in a power. For Accuracy, Damage, Recharge Reduction, Endurance Reduction that cap is basically 100% or equivalent to doubling/reducing by half depending on which you are talking about. For things like Defense and Resistance the basic cap is around 50%.

Now Alpha slots are in effect global enhancements so every power that has the enhancement type will be boosted subject to the limits of Enhancement Diversification (except for the portion that is exempted that is).

How much an Alpha provides to a toon depends on two things. The number being enhanced and how much you have already enhanced it. If every attack you have is slotted to the ED max (around 100%) adding the Musculature alpha will have little effect for you as you are already at the cap so you only get the benefit of the little portion that is exempt (1/3 for uncommon so 11% of the 33%). Also if you are on a lower damage toon like a tanker then the benefit for enhancing damage is not as good since the number you are enhancing is lower.

So what is best? Well you need to decide that based on the toon and where you are going with it. If you want a check list I would say this

1) how many powers do you have that are affected by the alpha's enhancements? The more you have the more you get from it.

2) how much have you already enhanced what the alpha has in the affected powers? The closer to ED you are already the less benefit you get (right now anyways).

3) how big are the base numbers for what the alpha is enhancing? The bigger the base the bigger the bonus.

4) how much of a problem do you have in the given area on that toon? If you have problems with endurance, accuracy, recharge, or damage then adding the alpha for that will solve or at least alleviate the problem (again depending on the ED cap and size of the base).

Keep these things in mind:

The next two levels of Alpha have greater portions that are exempt from ED so while you might not get much now there is greater reward to come.

The next two levels of Alpha have additional types of enhancement bonuses that may benefit you also.

NCSoft gave you a 3rd build that can be used to make an Alpha build to take full advantage of the Alpha and free up slots to put into other powers if you are inclined to take advantage of this.

Here's another way to look at it. Think rule of 3.

If you already have 3 enchancments of a given type in most of the powers that can use it, then the Alpha of that type will do nothing for you, at least until you get into rares.

Since damaging powers usually get 3 reds, this mean Musculature is not likely to do much for you unless you purposely only put 2 reds into attacks in order to get more use out of it. If you use IO's then you're pretty much maxed out for the IO'd attacks already.

That's why Cardiac usually makes such a big difference. Nearly every power can take blues and there are likely to be a great many of them without 3 blues, so that will always make a difference. Ditto on the other two.

I use Cardiac.. A LOT..

Why.. because it tend to give me the most bang for my buck across the board reducing end cost on EVERY SINGLE POWER...

I have used Spiritual Twice to push one character to perma status and on another to Increase both the recharge and the heal aspect of a power. I will also look at it for at least two other characters.

I have used Musculature once for a Dominator who had some powers that due to slotting we coming up a little short on the damage side. I have a planned build for several others to utilize Musculature because the End Drain is coming down the line.

Yeah, I'm going to have to go with "depends on the situation"

Case 1 - claws/sr scrapper
While it may be trivial for some on these boards to softcap the defense to all three vectors, I was over it on melee, close on range, and AoE was hovering around 39%. I picked up combat jumping (thank-you inerrant fitness), and moved a few sets around. This got me closer to softcapping all three, but AoE was still under.

So I went with Nerve. I switched out a couple acc/dam IOs for dam/end from the same set, the hold benefits Char from my APP... and when very rares are available, this hovering scrapper will get a speed increase from the radial paragon. The defense portion (what gets by ED), puts me above 45% on all three vectors, and provides a healthy buffer against defDebuff.

Not sure anything else would do too much anyway; I don't have endurance issues (range and resistance are even more useless). Claws already has quick recharge times, and hasten makes it even less an issue (heal and disorient are not needed). Musculature is the only other tempting ability.

Case 2 - elec/devices blaster
I went with Musculature. While all my attacks were pushing heavily against the enhancement diversification wall before, the extra 11% is not to be scoffed at. Especially if you consider my tendency to place large mine piles to take out tricky EBs while solo. That 11% is the equivalent of at least 2.5 extra mines on the pile.
("There is no 'overkill.' there is only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload.'")

The defense debuff aids melt armor a bit; and whenever we get into the rares - immobilize will improve web grenade. And then there is the End Mod in the musculature radials. Elec blast, without Short Circuit, does not drain that much endurance. But if you enhance the end mod portion, even 33%, the effect starts to become noticeable.

Case 3 - Arachnos Soldier, AoE Crab spec.
Spiritual.
There was no other choice. The 5 AoE attack chain was a bit slow, I wanted the spider pets and omega maneuver to have less down time. Additionally, Serum (heal, +max HP) is more effective, and ready more often (I also placed the numina's unique in here, so having that ready more often helps with endurance issues.)

Case 4 - Broadsword/elec scrapper
I haven't started this one's incarnate path yet, but I'm thinking Cardiac; alleviate some endurance issues and boost survivability a smidgen. Spiritual is tempting, but I fear with my play style that will only lead to more endurance problems.

Default: I go for +recharge, there are very few toons that can't use more recharge.

I presume your attacks are already slotted up to the ED cap. You will notice the musculature boost far more when you get the rare/very rare as a higher proportion of the boost ignores ED.

The only toon I slotted with cardiac is my dark armor/stone melee tank, 2 of the heaviest end using sets in the game (and it's wonderful).

One thing that hasn't been said, directly, is this.

Having a tank with musculature alpha, you now have an option to go back to each individual power and see what its "problem" really is.

Does the attack still miss too much? Replace some damage with accuracy. Your alpha slotting will bring that damage right back up again, but now you're more accurate.

Do you wish another power would recharge a bit more? Use less end? Stun longer? You now have the ability to tweak your powers by removing the damage and adding what is missing, knowing your alpha slotting is recovering the damage you're taking away.