Recharge and you!

Being a number cruncher, I am often asked a question that non-numbers crunchers often think is a simple one “How much recharge do I need to perma (power)?” The answer, more often than not, overwhelms them, either as sounding like way too much recharge or I give them more information than they want at that moment. So I wrote a handy little guide for recharge.

I'll open with the TL/DR "Numbers confuse me" versions:

"Zolgar, Math and numbers confuse me. Can you explain recharge simply?"

100% total recharge (base recharge rate): A power recharges in its regular time. (30 seconds takes 30 seconds)

50% total recharge (debuffed): A power recharges in twice its regular time. (30 seconds takes 1 minute)

25% total recharge (debuffed): A power recharges in four times its regular time! (30 seconds takes 2 minutes)

200% total recharge: A power recharges in half its regular time. (30 seconds takes 15 seconds)

300% total recharge: A power recharges in a third its regular time. (30 seconds takes 10 seconds)

400% total recharge: A power recharges in a quarter its regular time. (30 seconds takes 7.5 seconds)

500% total recharge (cap): A power recharges in a fifth its regular time. (30 seconds takes 6 seconds).

 

So it's easy to ballpark and say "I'm sitting at 275% (+175%) total recharge, so this power will recharge in a little more than a third its regular time".

 

"Can I perma (power)?"

If you take the recharge time (in seconds) and divide it by 5, is it lower than the active time? If so, then mechanically it is possible for it to be perma- doing so may require external help though.

If the result is greater than the active time on the other hand? It is absolutely not possible.

The most common power I get asked how to perma is Hasten, so it's what I'll use as an example.

To perma Hasten you need at least 375% recharge, which will put it down recharging /exactly/ the same time it runs out, so really 380-400% is better. Those numbers may seem way too high to some of you, and that's because while completely accurate they are somewhat high, and I'll explain why in just a moment.

It took me a while for a detail on Recharge to click for me, while the game expresses it as percentages, I find it a lot easier to think about it in decimal format: 100% = 1.0, or +70% (from Hasten) is +0.7. This may still not make sense though, it will, fret not!

The first thing you need to understand when I say that you need 375% recharge to perma Hasten is that this includes the base recharge of 100% or 1.0. What's the 1.0 mean though?!

Every second a power is recharging is worth 1.0 seconds. Now, we add Hasten for +0.7, bringing us to every second a power recharges being worth 1.7 seconds. See where I'm going with this? In order to perma Hasten, you need every second it's recharging to be worth 3.75 seconds (or more, preferably).

So, we start our build, throwing all the purple sets we can get, all the Luck of the Gambler procs, etc. Even then though, it seems that the target of +2.05 recharge seems.. out there, and it is. We don't need all that recharge to be global!

Recharge totals also include any recharge in the power. So, if assume 2-slotted Hasten with level 50 IOs we get 83.32% recharge in Hasten, bringing our total recharge (while Hasten is active) to 2.53, now it's seeming more reasonable, at now looking for another +122% recharge which we can get from global bonuses or furthering the slotting of Hasten.

Such as by adding a 3rd slot with another 50 IO, bringing our recharge in Hasten to +99.08%, or adding another 16% recharge! Yes, that's an entire slot for only 16% recharge, Worth it? In some builds, certainly. There's also enhancement boosters though. If we drop Hasten back to 2 slots, but change those enhancers to 50+5s, we get a total recharge of +95.9%. “But Zolgar, what if I 3 slot with 50+5s?” Well, due to the rules of diminishing returns, the benefit gets completely hosed. If you slot it with 3 50+5 IOs you're going to get +103.85%. I mean, that sounds pretty good, +8% more recharge! Let's see what that really means though.

That means that every second Hasten is recharging is worth 0.08 seconds more. We're going to do some recharge time comparisons here, without assuming any bonuses other than Hasten itself.

Hasten has a 450 second recharge time normally, and a 120 second run time. So, we know we're not going to be perma yet, which means as I do the math I need to count the first 120 seconds as .7 seconds more than the remainder.

2 50 IOs: 120 seconds at *2.5332 remainder at *1.8332. Total recharge time: 199 seconds

2 50+5s: 120 seconds at *2.659 and the remainder at *1.959. Total recharge time: 186 seconds

3 50s: 120 seconds at *2.6909 and remainder at *1.9909. Total recharge time: 183 seconds

3 50+5s: 120 second at *2.7385 and remainder at *20385. Total recharge time: 179 seconds

As you can see each does have a notable decrease in recharge time, though one that will become smaller and smaller as you increase your global recharge times (or if you toss in Agility or Spiritual Alpha). At a global bonus of +50%, the difference between 2 50s and 3 50+5s drops to 12 seconds, but more notable the difference between 2 and 3 50+5s drops to 4 seconds.

Is it worth that 3rd slot? Well, if you're going to put the 3rd slot in you may as well go all the way and +5 it, but I /personally/ don't see the 3rd slot worth it for the benefit it offers, unless I'm rolling in slots. Your mileage may vary, I just provide the numbers.

So, the next time you want to know how much recharge you need to perma something, it's as simple as this:

recharge time/duration(in seconds)-1.

Ex: Domination. Recharges in 200 seconds, duration is 90 seconds. 200/90=2.222-1=1.222 Or, you need +123% global recharge to hit Permadom (has to be global since you can't slot Domination)

It's also worth noting that the maximum total recharge is 500% (where every second is worth 5). This does mean if recharge/5 is greater than the duration of the power, permaing it is impossible, period.

If you want to get really confused.. Read the second post! ;)

Now, let's assume you want to calculate recharges based off of inconsistent numbers.

This can get convoluted. When I calculated the numbers I used to show the difference in Hasten's recharge time I popped open a spreadsheet and did the following:

Base+.7=A

A*120=B

450-B=C

C/base=D

D+120=total recharge time.

Which isn't terrible with only one modifier source/time.. but something else could get thrown through a loop!

Like, imagine you're a Regen scrapper with Ageless destiny and Spiritual Alpha and you want to see what kind of uptime your Instant Healing is going to have!

So for the purpose of this example, these are what we assume you have:

Spiritual Core Paragon Alpha.

Ageless Core Epiphany

80% global recharge (from any sources other than Hasten and Destiny)

2 50+5 Recharge IOs in both Hasten and Instant Healing.

Hasten on auto fire

So IH has 128.15% recharge in it.

+150% global (perma Hasten/global bonuses)

=+278.15% or 3.7815

This alone gives us a 171.8 second recharge time on Instant Healing, vs. it's duration of 90 seconds.

Now things get wonky! Ageless Destiny GO!

For 10 seconds you have +70% recharge

For 30 seconds you have +30%

For 60 seconds you have +20%

For 120 seconds you have +10%

On to the maths:

Since we know Hasten is perma, base=3.7815

(base+.7)*10=A

(base+.3)*20+A=B

(base+.2)*30+B=C

(base+.1)*60+C=D

D < 650 so we click Ageless again.

(base+.7)*10+D=E

(base+.3)*20+E=F

(base+.2)*30+F=G

G > 650 so we tweak the seconds on the last step until we get close.

(base+.2)*12+F=653

So then to calculate the approximate time recharging (I say approximate due to the fact that you're not activating IH and Ageless at the /exact/ same time, and Ageless has to be reupped which makes a small window) 10+20+30+60+10+20+12 seconds, or 162. Yes, Ageless only cuts around 10 seconds off the recharge time of IH if you're sitting right at perma Haste.

What if you want to calculate Ageless and non-perma +recharge power? Like Chronos from Temporal Manipulation? What if we want to add the chance for +recharge proc in to the equation? I'm going to be completely honest here:

The more powers you add in that rely on the human element, the harder the recharge time becomes to even remotely accurately pin down.

You could attempt to take the power and calculate out it's recharge time over the course of Ageless, and add its recharge bonus at specific intervals, which would likely lead to the creation of a second-tick spreadsheet for comparatively minimal benefit. I just did one with the (impossible) combo of Chronos and Instant Healing, just to play with it.. Assuming you clicked Chronos as soon as it was available every time, it'd shave about 5 seconds off of recharge noted above-

This leads to approximately every 30 seconds you add 10 'ticks' of .3 extra recharge to the equation. Which might look something like this:

(base+1)*10=A

(base+.3)*20+A=B

(base+.5)*10+B=C

(base+.2)*20+C=D

(base+.4)*10+D=E

(base+.1)*20+E=F

(base+.4)*10+F=G

(base+.1)*20+G=H

It would be similar with the chance for +recharge proc, which is supposed to go off about twice a minute, and adds +100% recharge for 4 seconds. So every 30 seconds you'd add 4 seconds of an extra 1.0. So it would be 4 seconds of +2, 6 seconds of +1, 20 seconds of +.3, 4 seconds of +1.5 etc..

The problem is these numbers are assuming a mechanical trigger, clicking everything perfectly only caring for recharge.

When you're actually playing, you're attacking, moving, using inspirations, using other buffs, talking to team mates, talking to contacts, clicking glowies, etc. Numbers that rely on too many player clicks become less and less reliable the more of them there are.

Massages head...very interesting...lol

Tldr; Divide the recharge time by the duration.

Hasten recharges in 7.5 minutes and lasts 2 minutes.

7.5/2 = 3.75

So you need 375% recharge for perma Hasten.

375

-100 base

-100 from enhancements slotted in Hasten

-70 from Hasten itself

105 needed from other sources

Tldr; Divide the recharge time by the duration.

 

Hasten recharges in 7.5 minutes and lasts 2 minutes.

 

7.5/2 = 3.75

 

So you need 375% recharge for perma Hasten.

 

375

-100 base

-100 from enhancements slotted in Hasten

-70 from Hasten itself

105 needed from other sources

Yes, but the whole point of this is when I tell people they need 375% recharge to perma hasten they sit there and go "... uh..." and many people have a hard time grasping the 100% base. >.>

Math is not for everyone ...

To complicate this discussion a bit farther, suppose you slot an Agility Core in your alpha incarnate slot.  How much global recharge would you need for permahasten then?

To complicate this discussion a bit farther, suppose you slot an Agility Core in your alpha incarnate slot.  How much global recharge would you need for permahasten then?

It's relatively straight forward. Assuming a Tier 4 ability then you have a 33% recharge bonus of which 2/3rds ignored ED and 1/3 doesn't. Assuming that you're already at the ED limit for slotting then the non-ED portion will only be 15% effective. So we have: 33*(2/3) + 33*(1/3)*0.15 = 23.65%

So an Agility Core Alpha Slot is equivalent to 23.65% global recharge for an ED capped power.

That's about what I thought, and is very good news for people like myself wanting to perma-hasten again.  Thx!

And then there’s the other school of thought which is drop Hasten completely if you have a build that doesn’t require a permanent recharge; so Blasters listen up. Using the right sets with recharge can easily grant you Hasten level recharge without Hasten. This frees up one power and 2 slots. 99% of my characters use this method.