A Chat About Alphas

From LSK: was wondering because you said you was having end problems from toggles. So u keep SS on at all times? that might be where you are loseing end, plus the leadership pool is pretty expensive when it comes to end cost."

Well, there is cost, and there is cost. I'd prefer to get more defense from Maneuvers, which benefits the whole team, than spend 3 billion on a proc. (Egalitarian of me? Self-sacrificing? Or just that darned stingy? Your call! )

SS on during missions has several practical advantages, but it's also a QoL thing, I'm not too proud to admit it. I just plain LIKE it. That's also a lot of what Cardiac is, too. When I don't have to closely monitor the blue bar like I do on some toons, I can concentrate on just doing my job tanking, and ultimately, just have a whole lot more fun.
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Good luck building all your Alphas, Jagged! We'll be expecting a post next week when you get the 4th tier on that fourth alpha, ok?

Well apparently I am the same as most I saw. On my SD/SS Tanker I took Cardiac as well. With my free respec when stamina became inherent I went for added defenses so he has combat Jumping and both maneuvers and assault from the leadership pool.. at any given time I can have as many as 7 toggles running and my end is fine plus the 20% increase in resistance is nice.

well I took cardiac for the endurance discount because a tank that runs 5 or more toggles and runs out of endurance sucks. I find now that i only get low on endurance when i get sapped or when ive been fighting for a while, or when i just go all out and hit all my attacks as soon as they come up, but i got ageless just for those reasons. if you are a endurance heavy tank or have endurance problems already id say go cardiac, if you dont have those problems id say go musculature.

Sadly, the truth that most people try to avoid is that the smart choice for Alpha depends a lot on your build.. I've always been of the "if you run out of end you need better slotting" school of thought, so to me Cardiac is pretty worthless.. If you build with different priorities, your incarnate needs/wants will be completely different.

yeah probably that is true except for all my powers were slotted for end reduction and i tried to even things out as good as i could and still needed endurance help after i picked up tough and weave. now i feel the build is fine the way it is, i have to watch my endurance but pretty much only when rage and hasten drop at the same time. I built to try to balance out endurance, damage, defense, resistance and recharge all at the same time and it works for me. but it all depends on how you slot your character out, I feel i got a good balance going now.

On my Ice/Ice/Soul tank I primarily run Cardiac because of DN and having lots of global recharge. It is also beneficial while tanking single targets because of the lack of returns from EA. When I was using this tank to farm I'll swap out to Spiritual to spam AoEs and have near perma-Hasten.

I also crafted a T3 Nerve for the more defense on iTrials but after getting the hang of them and making sure to always have saturated EA, I haven't used it since. Even more so since getting all 3 level shifts.

My first choices are Spiritual and Musculature. Spiritual works well for every AT, so it's my default. Musculature works best on ATs with high base damage, though I also use it on my Rad/Rad Defender.

If the build's endurance is REALLY bad or it would strongly benefit from additional resists, then I like Cardiac. Resist-based Tankers are one of the ATs that benefit most from Cardiac, so it isn't a bad choice for them.

I think I have a pure meatshield Stone/Fire build that uses Nerve, but it's the only one and I only used Nerve to get to incarnate softcap. Haven't put the build in place though; not sure if I'd bother. The benefits of Nerve are pretty weak overall, even on Defense sets.

My issue with Nerve is that attacks are already pretty heavily slotted for Accuracy and usually people will slot pretty well for defense so for me it has a lower rate of return.

Musculature is worth it if you have a tank that pumps out a lot of damage on needs to do a lot of damage to survive longer which is why it was the choice for my Fire tank.

Spiritual in more cases for me is not a consideration because I usually slot for recharge enough. I did use this on my Electric Armor tank to get to Perma Haster and Perma Energize.

Cardiac simply is for me the best all around choice. You almost never max out stats for end reduction. Everything you do burns end.. run a toggle.. launch an attack.. etc etc.. I am pretty good at managing end and using IO to help that along but Cardiac just takes it to the next level. I can reduce the end on everything I do at once.. Thats just to huge to ignore in most cases.

AoE Fire attacks that you are slotting with obliteration to get the defense bonus but that end has very very little end redux.. No Problem.. Cardiac

SS tank dropping end from that Rage crash.. No Problem... Cardiac

Your Dark Armor running 8-10 toggles.. Cardiac slaps your toggle in the face...

I was also going to say HeroStats. And there is this post I read a couple of weeks ago that pointed out a possible bug with Gauntlet. Since I have seen times when I have a 95% to hit and missed 4 times in a row, I am guessing this is more than a possible bug.