Why is Vigor Alpha so bad?

Seriously, what were they thinking when they designed it.

As a Heal focused Alpha, it would be targeted primarily at Empathy, Pain Domination, and Regeneration toons.

These sets have many important powers on long recharges that DO NOT HEAL (Moment of Glory, Recovery Aura, Painbringer, etc) that benifit from Recharge focused builds and Recharge from Alphas, but get nothing from Vigor Alpha except some Regen in the case of Instant Healing, Adrenaline Boost, and Painbringer.

Two of these powersets also have a huge Recovery advantage, one being Quick Recovery, the other being Recovery Aura. The Vigor Alpha gives Endurance Discount, an INSULTINGLY USELESS bonus for a Regeneration Scrapper or Empathy Defender, but possibly useful on a Pain Domination character because they run an extra toggle in addition to not getting a +Recovery power.

So, if you have a toon and you went Spiritual, you get: substantially reduced cooldowns on all your self/ally heals and buffs, AND all those heals are stronger. If you go Vigor, your build drops in recharge and thus efficiency globally, but your heals will be slightly stronger and you won't have Endurance problems... if you had a good build you probably didn't have Endurance problems anyways.

Let's examine them in more detail...


Spiritual Core Paragon
45% Recharge
33% Heal
33% Stun Duration

Here we have an Alpha that boosts Recharge, which is definitely one of the most important things in all characters' builds, making this more widely useful right away. This was the only Alpha that increased heals, meaning many existing Regeneration and Empathy powerset users already have this. Stun Duration I haven't talked about as it is not as widely useful, but a few melee sets have Stuns that will see some use out of this, also any Empathy Controllers will enjoy the boost to their AoE Stuns, and a lot of Blasting sets have a single target Stun. If you went Spiritual on a /Pain MasterMind, all the pet powers with Stuns will have gotten some buff as well.


Vigor Core Paragon
45% Heal
33% Endurance Reduction
33% Accuracy

Woo look my Heal is bigger than yours... but not by much, and it recharges slower so overall Healing over time efficiency is LOWER with Vigor than it was with Spiritual. Let's see what we got... hmm some Endurance Reduction. Well I guess now you can run Tough/Weave/Maneuvers/Assault/Tactics and every other toggle you can think to add in and not run out of Endurance, so that's something. Finally we have Accuracy, which is pretty pointless in PvE. Good builds generally have no problems hitting most of the enemies in this game, with only a small number such as Rikti Drones having any real Defense to worry about. While this might be of use on a PvP build where missing is much more frequent and you fight players that use powers like Barrier and Shadow Meld, I still think that Accuracy is one of the least useful things an Alpha can provide.


As a final note I'd like to call notice to Vigor's Radial side. The Radial branch of each Alpha can really vary in use from "OMG THIS IS EVERYTHING I COULD EVER WANT" (Intuition Radial on a /Radiation Controller) to mostly or totally useless based on the powersets in question. The Vigor Radial branch will cut the Healing bonus from 45% to 33% (same as Spiritual) but add 33% Confuse, Sleep, and Fear Duration.

Let's think about this for a sec, now that Vigor Radial gives the same Heal% as Spiritual Core. You can give a select few Mez powers 33% longer duration... or stick with Spiritual and give ALL YOUR MEZ POWERS, AND ALL YOUR OTHER POWERS 33% shorter cooldowns. The only Controller set that can really use Vigor Radial without taking other pools to get all those Mezs is Mind Control. MIND CONTROL IS KNOWN FOR ITS HIGH ACCURACY AND ATTACK TYPE-LESS ATTACKS, so right away the Accuracy component of Vigor is wasted.

Would having an AoE Hold, AoE Sleep, AoE Confuse, and AoE Fear (and all other powers in the build) up 33% be more useful in this game than just increasing the durations of the AoE Sleep, AoE Confuse, and AoE Fear powers? I'm gonna have to say yes, Spiritual wins again.


Sorry Vigor Alpha, I don't see any good uses for you.

If I'd have to pick a toon best suited to Vigor Core it would be a PvP Corruptor with Pain Domination. And there is no build best suited for Vigor Radial because it is a poorly designed Alpha. But maybe if you had a Plant/Empathy Controller and took the Presence Pool for Invoke Panic, you could make some arguments about how Vigor Radial is right for you.

I could see it being useful on my willpower tank that has too many toggles.

Part of the reason I went for WP on my current tanker is because of Vigor.

Also, Vigor makes Rebirth 45% better.

Im currently working on getting Vigor for my FM/SD scrapper for the +hp and end reduction. It will also boost rebirth which i am also working on and the heals of whichever support lore i decide to get next.

Already have T4 Musc and Spiritual, Cim core, Pyronic core, Reactive radial and Ageless +recov (core or radial?) This leaves me with no heal but i cant run without ageless or end reduction. I thought vigor might give more benefits than cardiac.

Willpower is one I didn't think of, but that raises an interesting point. Willpower is a set that you could argue for focusing on the Heal Alphas, Defense Alphas, or even the Resist Alphas. Since it gives you just enough or everything there are so many potential ways to try and build it, but yeah Vigor is probably better for an entirely toggle and passive set like Willpower than it could ever be for Regeneration.

Tastes and colors...

I find Vigor so good...

What do we do now ?

I think with the presence of spiritual in the mix, the fact that a set isn't great for regeneration should yield the same sympathy that I give yacht owners who whine about docking fees.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

vigor is also insanely nice on sets like dark blast, which is both a heavy end user and requires a to-hit check on a heal.
i run it as an alternate on my dark/poison for when i don't want to carry blues and i'm facing against something that can potentially force me into a prolonged fight. generally i run intuition and reactive though... that just shreds almost anything in a matter of seconds.

I'm very happy with Vigor on my DA/ tank. Due to slotting a bunch of Kinetic Combats and otherwise not having a source of significant to-hit, the Accuracy is a huge boon. The heal bonus is helpful for Dark Regen especially when it's down to just one target that you really need a big heal for and Endurance is always welcome for DA. For my purposes, this is the best alpha for this particular character and I'm thrilled it was added.

Really I have much less problem with Vigor being kind of meh (but it is Cardiac with +Heal instead of +Resistance) than I do with the non damaging Interface procs being so inferior to the damaging ones. Buff those to make it not so much of a no brainer to choose Reactive over them (or one of the other DoTs if you're running trials to make sure you don't overlap the 5 application cap).

Hmmm...now it might not be a popular choice for all builds, but as mentioned Willpower I can see making use of it.

I know my DB/WP Scrapper didn't have any need for more +RCH, or at least, the +RCH provided by Spiritual wasn't enough to make a difference in the attack chain (BF-Attack Vitals). Maybe if I had Hasten in the build to stack with the Alpha I would of had enough for the best Attack Chain for DB. But, I don't think so.

Now on a Scrapper one might just go Musculature for the added damage, as I didn't find the +HEAL (of Spiritual) to be of much difference survival wise, but at 45% maybe that would make a difference.

Didn't need the ENDRED either, but more +HEAL, and even more ENDRED to really laugh any sappers off (which my DB/WP usually did anyways, but there were a couple of "WOW" moments, especially in AE missions).

And well, +ACC is universal. Did I need it? Not with Tactics, Kismet and the 90+ ACC I was pushing, but hey, a lot more useful than the +Stun.

Now, for a Scrapper I might think the MUsculature still, but for those Tankers/Brutes who don't make out as well with the +DMG, well... Not to mention more HP to make more use out of the +HEAL.

Not to mention, it sounds like you're thinking from an IO'ed out Incarnate perspective.

I've seen a couple of incarnates with no set bonuses at all. This Alpha just upped their ACC and upped their ENDRED. Stuff very likely useful to a SO's build.

From Beta Patch Notes:

I think its just another choice type deal. I don't see it as bad that another provides slightly different boosts that fit a smaller segment of the population ie. the willpower/dark ppl perhaps.

I wish they would have allowed players to custom tailor the alphas. Maybe have us create a series of alphas with the bonuses we want and then combine them all into one custom alpha with focuses that specifically benefit the build. I love muscular alpha on my melee toons, but usually have zero use for the immob and defense debuff bonuses. I would however -love- a 45% damage, 33% rech and end redux alpha.

Dark Armor LOVES Vigor. I see it as Cardiac vs Vigor, not Spiritual vs Vigor, but that is just me.

I went Cardiac on my Dark Armor Scrapper because Dark Regeneration usually heals me for several times over the Scrapper HP Cap, making the Heal value of the power much less important. I do really love the solid all around Resists in Cardiac though.

As already stated - Dark Armor.

Cloak of Fear has a crappy +Acc out of the box, and even slotted up right falls pretty short. If you're building for +Def with sets like ToD or Kinetic Combats, you'll be needing some +Acc to make sure those connect and Vigor handles that, along with CoF....and it helps with the toggles...and it helps with Dark Regen when you don't have enough foes in range to easily cap/refill the green bar.

I'm also using Dark Melee as my primary - so the bonus of getting more oomph from Siphon Life rocks.

IMO - Agility = EA or Ice Armors .... Vigor = Dark Armor ....To each their own, though.

It works good on my DM/DA brute.

I could see it as being useful on a WS. I know on mine I have Eclipse 5-slotted with Impervious Skin and no ACC* so the ACC would be appreciated. Also generally short-slotted my forms, so END/ACC good there (PLUS the heal on Black Dwarf Drain).




* Yeah, I know. But it squeezes 5% recharge in there, and I kind of experimented with 5x the 7.5% status resist + Acrobatics + 3x 3.3% hold resist from Devastation. What can I say, I don't really like having to switch to Dwarf for status resist.

My WP tank jumped at the chance to take vigor.

LOL this isnt thread worthy. Different incarnate powers exist to give options. Im one who favors Spiritual on most of my toons. Those who use something else usually have little interest in healing or recharge boosts at all.

I really just dont get these number cruncher threads that have no real meaning and certainly dont offer any useful advice.

ANYONE can look at a given incarnate power and see what it offers and think him do I have more recharge powers or toggles, will recharge help me enough or not for it to be a major component of my incarnate boosts? There are many toggle heavy sets with powers that boosts heals, like in will power for example, who enjoy a boosts to thier healing and dont have any need at all for more recharge compared to some other effects.

Its great to have some aspects like Heal be shared between mutliple incarnate alphas because when it comes down to it all have health, so all can benefit at least minimally from a health incarnate boost.

Plenty of builds now days live without hasten thanks to IO set bonuses, I cant imagine any of those builds crave any more recharge from another source, but might well enjoy some more healing boosts.