Luminara

I like Croatoa. It's a really nice break from the monotony of Hellions, Outcast, Freakshow, Family, Council, Circle of GODDAMN GHOSTS NOT DYING WHEN I SHOOT THEM AND FLYING OFF AND DISAPPEARING... *cough* As I was saying, levels 25 and 30 are always something I look forward to because I can go to Croatoa and pick up some relaxing story arcs. Croatoa's well designed, the missions are, if not entirely entertaining, at least consistent within the framework of the narrative devised for the zone and with each other, the story arcs flow well and the zone critter chatter has some amusing moments. But there's one mission which so egregiously violates every principle of good design that I can't help but to despise it. I kept the image quality low for various reasons (forum breakage, Verizon's deprioritization being comparable to a denial of service attack, etc.). But it really doesn't need to be high quality for our purposes. One look and you know which mission it is. There are so many things wrong with this one. It begins as a triple hostage rescue and escort. Escorts are bad mission design in general. Yes, they occasionally serve a purpose, such as escorting someone to an interactive object, but the escort itself is unnecessary, and ultimately, both pointless and a waste of the player's time. For those who rely on stealth, like stalkers or widows, escorts can even be detrimental to their ability to participate in and experience content. The whole idea of escorts is a design flaw. Anything you can do with escorts, you can do without, faster, easier and less annoyingly. Once those hostages are rescued, escorting them to the objective presents it's own obstacle. I can't imagine how or why, but the developers apparently failed to notice that there's no opening in the fence surrounding the objective. The gate is on the other side of the mission barrier wall. So you have to escort the NPCs to a fence, and pray that the pathing AI doesn't shit itself when it gets to that point, running around in circles instead of jumping over the fence (it happens). Then you have to pray, again, that the NPCs won't jump onto the fence, rather than over it, because it's one of those fences which doesn't have a properly defined geometry, so you (or the unlucky NPC) just slide until it finally kicks you off... or you get stuck and have to use /stuck (which NPCs can't do). But, hey, they don't usually turn into shish-kebabs, so this part of the mission isn't as bad as it could be. It's still a rotten design, another one of those things which never should be used in any game, enhanced by atrocious pathing and a monumentally huge oversight in the layout of the map, but it's not the end of the world. It's tolerable. If the mission ended at this point, it would be memorable only in the sense that it represented the end of the arc, and be little more than a barely remembered example of bad design in a long list of missions with design problems. Oh, no, though, it doesn't end there. It becomes so much worse that it's almost impossible to figure out how or why the team in charge at this point could have conceived of something so incredibly bad that the very existence of it is offensive. You see that timer in the compass? Yeah. We're playing a fast-paced action-oriented game... and we're locked into a 15 minute wait. 15 minutes of being stuck in this mission. There's no way to end the timer early, short of the destruction of the objective, and even if you allow the objective to be destroyed, it takes nearly the entire 15 minutes. That's just a huge dick move. A bigger dick move than large outdoor maps with clear all objectives. And it actually gets worse. The initiation of the timer begins a series of waves of enemies... but you have to defeat a wave before the next one spawns. And they don't spawn rapidly, it's a laconic, lackadaisical series of waves. You can make a Thanksgiving turkey dinner between these waves. It's like the development team got together and asked how to create a torture device. This isn't a mission, it's Hell in video game format. It wouldn't be nearly as bad if defeating a set number of waves ended the timer and completed the mission. It would at least be interesting if the waves came at set (preferably short) intervals, regardless of the status of previous waves. It wouldn't be such a pain in the genitalia if the developers hadn't done everything in their power to guarantee that you were not setting foot out of that mission for the full duration of the timer, and you were absolutely not going to be entertained in any way, either. But they did, and this is what we ended up with. The really sad fact is, this mission is so poorly designed that the best ways to complete it are to auto-complete it, or to take a character with any decent amount of +Defense, +Resistance, +Regeneration or -ToHit, or even an uninterruptible self heal, stand in the path of the first wave and Alt-Tab out for 15 minutes. The mission was designed in such a way that not playing is the best approach. That is... just fucking pathetic. I know we like to have it easy here, but this is just too much. I hated this mission every time I played it on the original servers, I've reached the point of loathing it's very existence now. This glaring insult to gaming should never have gone live in this state, much less remained completely untouched in the years afterward. Here we are, fifteen years later, with the fetid corpse of this failed abortion still polluting the entirety of Croatoa. There are always uninspiring missions, boring missions, even tedious or frustrating missions, but this is one of a kind in Co*. This mission is a complete break from good design, in every way possible. It can't even be failed quickly, unlike some of those "Protect X while X runs headlong into slavering hordes of NPCs who can kill with a single attack" missions, or "Prevent X from escaping but be aware that X spawns in a random location and starts running for the door as soon as you enter the mission". It's a failure in every sense of the word and in every possible way. As much as I dislike surprise AVs/EBs, bosses which don't scale down to lieutenants and other mistakes and oversights in mission design, this mission makes all of the other design flaws seem like perfectly wonderful choices by comparison, because at least with other bad missions, we can ask for help to speed them up, we can scale down the difficulty if the critters are obnoxiously strong, we can do something to finish the mission and move on. With this one, we're just stuck. Waiting. Endlessly. Even with a full team, there's no challenge or enjoyment to be had. It's just shit. I don't expect every mission to be a festival of laughter, or a well written drama, or have great design. There are enough good ones to skip most of the noticeably bad ones, and enough mediocre ones to skate through the majority of the game without feeling cramped. No-one bats 1.000, and I never expected Cryptic or Paragon to do so, either. But they just gave up on this one, threw everything that went into every well-designed mission into the trash and shoveled a steaming load of crap right on the game in this case. So if you're reading this, and you happen to be a game developer, here's your example of how NOT to make a mission/quest/whatever. Learn from others' mistakes. Don't make unnecessary escorts a requirement, don't fuck up your map and risk forcing players to abandon and restart missions, and don't ever leave players stuck with a timer that can't be ended early, especially in a mission with lazy, slow waves of critters which pose about as much threat as a mayfly, unless you're encouraging your players to not play your game (why make the game at all, if that's the case?). We now return you to your regularly scheduled Saturday.

😁

I'd take the Mook-in-a-cement-bucket animation and move it over to every rescue mission in the game, replacing the bucket with ropes. No more cowering, no more standing there clapping, just that one animation so we could all laugh as the hostage hops away from the action when combat begins. Except Fusionette. She can be tangled up in yarn instead.

He's going to take one look at the kids, say, "Chocolate Nips or Cheese Nips?", and Halloween will be cancelled. Forever. MARK MY WORDS. ... I can throw 50,000,000 in the pot if my safety, and that of my nips, is guaranteed. >.>

I didn't say it didn't function in the same manner. I pointed out that the numbers were reversed from D&D. Semantics? Yes. But if you're going to skim a post and respond to the opening line(s) instead of reading the content, you're not really asking for any other kind of response. I suppose I could say, "Read the post." instead. No, better yet, I'll include the relevant section right here. Can we move it along, now? I know I'm starting to sound like a monumental prick, so it's probably best if we just stop and find something else to talk about.

The D20 standard. I apologize for not being more precise.

I'm aware of how the hit check mechanic functions. It was one of the things I covered in my guides on the original forums. My post wasn't a request to have the nature of hit rolls explained, but to point out how poor they are at creating or enforcing balance, regardless of which balance is in question. Also, we miss on 20 in this game, when our hit checks are 95.01-100, not on 1. The hit check mechanic is numerically reversed from the tabletop standard.

A petless mastermind slotted with SOs can face-roll through the game without a backup plan. Critters are going to be defeated, regardless of missed hit checks, and debt is such a meaningless penalty that it's become nothing more than another badge to acquire (when debt is even applied). Having a mechanic enforcing an arbitrarily assigned failure rate doesn't change any of that, or lead to sudden shifts in the flow of the battle which put the player on the defensive, it just makes us wait for the queued power to finish animating so we can queue up another power and hope we're not forced to sit through another long animation with no reward for the time we're investing.

I'm going to have to check the "Disagree" box and circle "Emphatic". It's a mechanic that makes sense and is practical in tabletop games, where a human mind can create tension, drama or comedy to make a failed hit check worthwhile in some manner. In a video game, as a control and balance mechanic, it's bad. It might be better if it were, in some way, similar to tabletop implementation, creating unusual and interesting situations, but the version we have is contrary to good game design. It discourages the use of powers with longer animations and/or recharge times, it's not evenly applied to all powers (because some powers can't be reasonably believed to miss, like AoEs with persistent effects) and it punishes players more than it helps them. It doesn't even really improve balance or developer control over power design, it merely gives a false sense of security when creating powers or trying to balance effects. If we had a better implementation of missed hit checks, if we actually had some kind of fumble mechanic, it would be less inappropriate for a video game. If, for example, failing the hit roll meant a second roll was made, and an effect determined from a table (10% damage dealt due to a glancing blow, nearby enemy hit instead, complete reversal resulting in the damage/effect affecting the player character, etc.), it wouldn't be such an objectionable mechanic. But missing with an attack, followed by a forced hit by the streak breaker, and having the next attack miss again? That's not dramatic or comedic, and the only tension it creates is that resulting from annoyance. Missing when one is using mixed single-target and AoE attacks is even worse because it can lead to a series of misses (AoEs aren't affected by the streak breaker), and it's not merely annoying, it's completely ludicrous and beyond maddening. Missing would even be tolerable if it were only applicable to foes with Defense buffs or ToHit debuffs. It would be acceptable if it had some additional impact beyond simply causing us to grit our teeth and press the next key in our attack chain. It wouldn't be nearly as frustrating if it, at least, allowed the overwhelming additional Accuracy many of us are sporting to scale that 5% down to 3%. or 2.5%, or it scaled hit chance with animation and recharge times so using those powers with slow animations and recharge times didn't feel like a waste. There are numerous ways to balance attacks without any of them involving a 5% chance to miss, or a streaky streak breaker, or players beating their heads on their keyboards in frustration. Slapping a 5% guarantee miss rate on the majority of powers, though, is unimaginative, and, I'm sorry to say this because I have boundless respect for what Cryptic accomplished when they designed the engine (really, a lot of what they created for the game is just mind blowing when you consider it, things like gravity, momentum and friction mechanics which mimic real world physics), lazy. If I had my way, I'd rip the hit check mechanic out and rebuild it from the ground up so there was no guarantee of failure, only a guarantee of something occurring, for good or ill. And with that, I've got to get back to missing with Blazing Arrow, then Fistful of Arrows, then Stunning Shot (this, with a set designed to be "more accurate" than any other set, is so unbalanced, it makes the Leaning Tower of Pisa look straight), so I can finish this mission and sweep up the hair I've pulled out.

That was neither what I said, nor what I implied. I said include some animations from Staff Fighting, pull other animations from the Cimerorans. The animations from Guarded Spin and Innocuous Strikes could be comparatively easily modified to use one hand, and would fit the concept well. Other animations, such as holding and throwing the spear, as well as the basic combat stance, already exist and can be imported from within the game (the Cimerorans). I'm not suggesting Staff Fighting with a reskin. I never was.

People throughout the entirety of human history have used spears with shields. Using a spear with a shield allowed Rome to build one of the most successful empires, ever. Using a spear in conjunction with a shield allowed a handful of Spartans to hold off an entire army of Persians. The Egyptians, the Mayans, military units all over the world used spears and shields, from the dawn of civilization, to conquer and defend, and were remarkably effective. If it worked for several tens of thousands of years in real life, it can work in a video game focused on superheroes. If we have a twirly attack or two, no-one's going to complain about realism because we might give ourselves a rap on the noggin if we tried to replicate the attacks in reality. You can thrust, lunge, sweep, vault and spin, and throw the spear. There's six of nine powers in the set, without limiting motion. In a superhero video game, I think we can dispense with the argument that there have to be realistic limitations on the remainder, or even on the six already possible.

He used dual shields in Infinity War.

Use some of the staff animations, pull some animations from the Cimerorans, BAM! Spear Fighting. I'd do unwholesome things for a spear.

A non-hypothetical way. Meaning, you're asking me to look into the future and tell you what's going to happen. I can't do that. But I can, and will, use examples of boogiemen from the past. Tanker and scrapper tier 9 powers. The recharge times on those used to be so short they were easily made permanent. Tankers and scrappers didn't need to team. Teaming began to be seriously affected, so for the sake of balance, those tier 9 powers were changed to have 1000s recharge times. The balance, in this situation, was in countering player-created homogeny and ensuring that all roles were valid, rather than only two roles being valid and the others being window dressing. Aggro caps. Prior to the implementation of aggro caps, it was possible for tankers and scrappers to herd an entire map to one location, then wait for someone with AoEs to burn them down. All of them, potentially a few hundred foes, with 1-3 AoEs. The balance affected here was two-fold - first, the rate of XP gain was so far out of proportion that it made any other activity pointless, thus affecting both teaming and content experience; and second, single-target powers were beginning to be regarded as utterly useless, because AoEs were capable of defeating entire maps of critters at once. Creating aggro caps for powers allowed the developers to exert a tighter control over the rate of XP gain (at that time, considered a means of ensuring player retention), give players a reason to team up and play through the content rather than avoid it in favor of one map or zone, and ensure that single-target powers had utility. AoE control power recharge times. There was a period when players referred to this game as City of Statues, because AoE status effects were so heavily used. And due to that, there was little need for tankers or defenders. Why bother with either of those archetypes when controllers could ensure that nothing was capable of moving, much less fighting back? Consequently, AoE controls were given much longer recharge times and much shorter durations. The same balance problem that had been addressed by changing tanker and scrapper tier 9 powers had to be addressed again when controllers became the supreme beings. Dumpster herding. Enhancement Diversification. Global Defense Nerf. Purple Patch. Purple Triangles of Doom. Co* is rife with examples of the boogieman rearing his head, and having to be shot in the face with a bazooka, sometimes double-tapped with an '88 just to keep him at bay. Over and over again, we've found oversights, loopholes, bugs, and exploited them to such a degree that the game itself was suffering. There are a lot of different mechanics which affect balance in Co*, and each of them has been abused in some way over the years. And different types of balance were affected in different ways, at different times. Each time, it had to be fixed, for the good of the game and the greater satisfaction of the majority of players. None of the changes, the nerfs, were fun or leave us with fond memories, but they were all necessary. They all restored balance in some way. They made teaming viable by reducing player-created homogeny and ensuring that all archetypes served a function. They ensured that we were all gaining XP at roughly the same rate, dependent on our own preferences and abilities. They kept the game from becoming completely pointless due to an absence of content or developer-created challenge. I can't tell you what the boogieman will look like when he reappears. I can't tell you when he'll reappear. I'm just a person, like you, with one way to move through time, by putting one foot in front of the other and soldiering on. But I can tell you that the history of this game alone has shown, conclusively, that we will do everything in our power to break any and every rule, to throw balance into such utter and complete disarray that it will seem like a lost cause. We're swimming in examples of balance issues and redresses. It's in our nature to invite the boogieman in, offer him a cup of coffee and bear claw and suggest that he make himself comfortable and stay for a while. And we will do it again, some day. The HC team will overlook something, or introduce a bug, or create a new power which leverages a previously unknown bug or under-used mechanic, and we'll go hog wild with it. It is inevitable. I can't say that he'll show his face tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. I can't say that it'll be this year, or next, or within the decade. What I can say is, we've seen him too many times to believe he's gone forever. History has taught us to expect him to pop in from time to time. The question should not be whether or not balance matters, or whether or not nerfs are necessary, but whether or not we've learned from the past. If you want to know what the future holds, use hindsight, not foresight.

Hey, now, I just made an innocent comment expressing my appreciation for a particularly nice phrasing, and next thing I know, I've got Johnny Carson asking if my bad nipple does any celebrity impersonations and Walter Cronkite trying to get an exclusive interview. I'm the victim here! 😇

Okay, thanks. Today I learned that attuning also allows sets to retain bonuses the way purples and PvP IOs do. Awesome. It's a good day when I learn something. 🙂

I've never seen anyone, in my entire life, so fascinated with his own nipples. Look at him! He can't take his eyes off of his nipples! He's deliberately not blinking so he doesn't miss a moment of nipple action! @Jimmy, we need to talk about your nipple problem. Stop by my office before you leave.

Attuned set IOs which cap at any level below 50 still show the enhancement value at whatever level you're currently at, but it's a bug. Attuning the enhancement hasn't allowed it to level beyond it's cap, it's just the game engine being slightly too stupid to realize that the enhancement is capped at X. The maximum enhancement value will actually be whatever it would be at it's level cap. So, for set IOs capped at 30, even if it's displaying level 50 enhanced value, it's actually only providing level 30 value. And here's some general information (and my personal rules for slotting) for anyone who's still curious... Attuning is excellent for leveling, and exemplaring, and attuned sub-50 cap IOs are useful enough to warrant having them for a long time in a build. But you'll benefit from replacing them at some point, unless the specific set bonuses they're providing are necessary for a build and can't be replaced easily (or at all) by using other sets. Once you're at 50, you can keep your level 50 attuned set IOs, or replace them with identical but unattuned IOs and boost them if you prefer. I keep my attuned set IOs at 50 because I don't like the possibility of exemplaring down and losing set bonuses. I lose some value from the IOs themselves if I do exemp, but keeping the set bonuses is usually worth that trade-off because set bonuses are global, not power-specific. For frankenslotted IOs, I boost those, +5. There's no set bonus to lose, and I frankenslotted them because I wanted maximum efficiency, so kicking them a little higher is a good move for me. If a set caps before the level at which I acquire a power, I boost. Meaning, if I take a power at 44, but the set I'm slotting caps at 30, I'll boost the IOs to 30+5. I'm going to lose the set bonuses when I lose the power anyway, so I might as well get the most I can out of them. I prefer to slot purples in powers I take later in the game, since the set bonuses are always on, even when exemplared. PvP set bonuses behave the same way, but when I use PvP sets, rather than specific uniques, I tend to slot them in lower level powers, basically treating them like a normal IO set so I'm benefiting from more than just the bonuses. ATOs and Winter IOs, I put wherever they make the most sense. For me, that's typically lower level powers because I can start using them at level 10. It's an easy way to get some good bonuses early in the game without sacrificing anything. For Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Global Recharge, I always attune those if they're in defense toggles I'm using. The extra Defense provided by the LotG is very worthwhile, especially if I'm frankenslotting my defensive powers to save slots. The Steadfast Resistance global is another good candidate for attuning and keeping attuned if it's in a Resistance power you actually use. It's Resistance/+3% Defense (All), and a lot of people forget the Resistance part of that. You can shave a slot off of a Res power that way. Most of the other uniques don't need to be attuned or boosted, and that includes procs. Exceptions are uniques which also provide an enhancement value, like Recharge Reduction or Endurance Reduction. I'll usually attune those, if they aren't attuned by default (ATOs and Winter IOs are attuned by default. when you use a catalyst on them, you're turning them into the Superior versions). If you'll never exemp, swap out all of your attuned IOs with unattuned and start slapping the boosters on. But look at your build and consider running it through a few variations in Mids' first. 50+5 IOs are pretty powerful, and you'll end up with a lot of wasted potential if you're just boosting willy nilly. I've found that taking a close look at a build, with the intention of moving slots around and changing which sets I'm using to pile up specific bonuses, can have a significant impact. I'm now on my 17th variation of my Archery/Energy Aura sentinel's build, counting the leveling build, the level 28 respec build, the level 38 respec build and the two aborted Archery/Ninjitsu builds, and I'm only now feeling that it's "right". Also, some IOs have a lower level requirement when attuned. Not many, but some very good ones. They don't show up in Mids' as having a different level requirement, but in-game, they do. That opens up some options when slotting sets and uniques.

Homogeny is unavoidable, and it's not caused by developers, it's caused by players. People want to succeed, to excel in games, and it's not typically easy or fun to succeed or excel when your choice of class or set within a class is fifth rate. Sure, you can be the best fifth rate <whatever>, but excelling at not being particularly useful, or not being particularly good at killing foes, or not being particularly good at keeping a team alive, isn't really much of an achievement. As a result of that, players create homogeny when they gravitate to the classes/sets which are seen as "the best". Look at the popular selections players here make in archetype and sets within archetype. Blasters are a good example. More than 21% of the blasters being played as of March are Fire/*. There are, in fact, as many Fire/* blasters as there are of the 5 least popular primaries combined. Why? Does Fire/ offer increased survivability over what's available in other blaster primaries? No. Is it because Fire/ has special mechanics which make offer additional team support? No. Do we have an incredibly high proportion of players who fantasize about being Johnny Storm or Firestorm? Very unlikely, because if that were the case, /Fire would be as popular as Fire/, and it's actually less popular than /Energy. It's because the secondary effect of Fire/ is "MOAR DAMAGES PLZKTHXLOL". Fire/ is "the best" in the minds of players who select it, because it fulfills the purpose of the archetype most completely, doing damage and nothing but damage. Side note - this is not a call to nerf Fire/* blasters. This is an observation, nothing more. Nor is it a commentary on the mentality or intelligence of people who play Fire/* blasters. Observation, not attack. Unknot your knickers. And that's player-created homogeny. 1 in 5 blasters are Fire/*. There are 13 blaster primaries, with a wide variety of secondary effects, and this one primary comprises 21% of all of the players playing blasters. That's homogeny. The natural inclination people have to focus on "the best" has caused the lack of diversity that those same players claim to fear if classes/sets are homogenized. They say, "Don't change this stuff, it'll just be everyone playing the same thing with different colors and sounds", then they go play the same thing with the same colors and sounds (though we are lucky enough to have different colors here). The development teams didn't do that, that's the players' fault. They homogenized themselves. And it highlights an important point - even when people say they don't want homogeny, they pursue it, create it, and subsequently, enforce it by threatening to quit if their homogeny is upset. The very same people insisting that homogeny is bad for a game are homogenizing the game when they're all playing the same class/set. Diversity is good. We don't have homogeny complaints in Co* because we have an incredible costume creator, the ability to change the look (and even animations of some) of our powers, and enough archetypes and sets within the archetypes to allow us to create our own diversity. And the game supports diversity by having a comprehensive array of difficulty settings, so people can opt for less than "the best" and still feel good about what they're playing. Teaming also allows less than optimal builds and play styles to work well, because they're working in concert with other builds and play styles, and the whole is something greater than the individual parts. We have a good game, and it can tolerate a great deal of homogeny. Other games aren't so fortunate. They have fewer options for classes, fewer options within classes, and a stricter approach to how teaming works and what player roles are. When player-created homogeny rears it's head in those games, the developers have to deal with it because that homogeny actually hurts the game significantly. If no-one's playing support, if no-one's tanking, no-one can experience the content. If players aren't experiencing the content, they're not going to keep paying subscription fees or buying gacha boxes. Player-created homogeny has to be countered, even if it means nerfs or developer-created homogeny to equalize classes and abilities, or the game dies. The only other option is to reinforce the homogeny, which means flipping the bird to the majority of players and praying that those remaining don't grow bored, or worse, irate because the game's too homogenous.

That is correct. For sets with a minimum level, going more than 3 levels below that turns off the bonuses. Attuning just allows your IOs to level in concert with you, not to bypass the level restrictions.

All drops work that way, with the exception being when you're in a level range during which drops can be rolled from different tables. For example, at level 22, your drops might come from recipes which have a level range of 10-30, or you might get drops from the recipes in the 20-40 range, and you can even begin getting recipes for the 25-50 range. A drop will always be at your level, with that exception. If you get a 25-50 drop when you're 22, it will always be level 25, never higher. Critters below your level can drop recipes which are normal for their (the critters') level range, but if the drop is within your level range, it can be at your level rather than at the critters' level. To get recipes or enhancements above your level, use the market. To get enhancements which are always at your level (up to the enhancement's normal maximum level), use attuned enhancements. 25-50. Sometimes. It depends on the set bonus and what the character in question needs. IOs have no expiration. They don't lose effectiveness like TOs, DOs, SOs or HOs if you level higher than their native level. There are two easy ways to bypass having low level IOs that you don't want to replace. Either attune them so they level with you, or focus on IOs around level 30, where they're comparable to SOs in value. You can use level 30 IOs from level 27 onward, and you won't have to replace them unless or until you want to, they'll be as effective as SOs in all of your powers even at level 50 (slightly more effective, in fact, due to set bonuses or frankenslotting (frankenslotting is using IOs from different sets to achieve specifically targeted stat improvements in powers without set bonuses.))

And spotted dick! 🤣 Yes, I'm incredibly juvenile. I'm refraining from posting half a page of spotted dick jokes because I'm also incredibly mature. 😛

All of the purple sets use the same enhancement design outline. Primary Effect Primary Effect/Recharge Accuracy/Primary Effect/Recharge Accuracy/Recharge Primary Effect/Endurance Reduction Proc None of them are really good for toggles, from an endurance management perspective, unless you only slot 5 of the set and use the sixth slot for more endurance reduction. You can push Damage, Hold Duration, Sleep, whatever, and Recharge back up to the red line if you +5 the Primary/Recharge IO. You can do the same to the Primary/Endurance (more applicable in your case) for slightly better endurance reduction (41% instead of 33%). Boosting the others doesn't really pay off much. The single effect enhancement can then be dropped in favor of a different IO, or the power left at 5 slots if you're only pursuing the recharge bonus.

It is known as blood sausage in different places. British "chips", Americans "fries", same thing, different regions.