Question: Viability of -END in PvE

[JusticeBowler]

I had a Electric/Electric blaster back in the day that was a hoot to play in part because of the animations, but also because I thought dropping the END on mobs would be cool. But in practice, I face planted next to the Tank all the time. It was a spectacular way to fail, but PBAoEs are where the fun is at in that set and that means getting up and personal with the bad guys.

 

However, I seem to remember the mechanics of -END really being better in PvP where you could actually get other players to drop their toggles. I remember bottoming out a mob's END didn't really stop them from attacking or drop theirs. Does anyone have a good understanding of the mechanics of what happens when a mob's END is at or near 0?

[Erydanus]

My recollection is that you can't completely shut down attacking mobs, but you can at least stop them from using high endurance cost abilities; for instance you may be able to prevent a lt from buffing their teammates or shut down a Tsoo sorcerer's hurricane or doing a nova. How useful that is? I'm totally unsure, and I had an electric blaster who I slotted for -end. I remember that character struggling, not owning his opponents.

 

[Mr. Vee]

The only thing I've played that reliably drained enough to be super useful was electric control. The aura drains significantly, especially in concert with the drains in your other controls, and pretty much cripples entire mobs from doing anything too worrisome.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Drain is a viable means of defense. However you generally need some mitigation from other sources to survive long enough to do so.

 

Time/Electric Defender is a good example of this. Time Manipulation keeps you alive long enough for Short Circuit to drain them.

[_NOPE_]

PK himself is an FF/Elec Defender.

 

Short Circuit > Personal Force Field > Short Circuit

 

Then, I could bop them down to nothing with almost no concerns at all.

[Primantis]

IIRC you had to not only sap their Endurance, but apply a -Recovery debuff on them as well. As even a sliver of endurance allowed them to utilize their more potent attacks. So you had to sap em to zero and keep it at zero via -Recovery. Powers such as Short Circuit accomplish this.

[JusticeBowler]

IIRC you had to not only sap their Endurance, but apply a -Recovery debuff on them as well. As even a sliver of endurance allowed them to utilize their more potent attacks. So you had to sap em to zero and keep it at zero via -Recovery. Powers such as Short Circuit accomplish this.

 

This seems to make sense. I get the feeling that a key factor is that -REC. But there's still quite a bit about the underlying mechanic that I wish I understood. For example, if a mob doesn't have the END to pull off a snipe (like a Rikti boss psi-snipe) are they hung up on their attack order or do they just move to an attach they can use? I assume they will just start brawling (or their mob equivalent).

 

Anyway, I've got a E/E scrapper I just rolled up and my friend has a E/fire Controller. We'll slot for -END and see what happens. Fire secondary has some -REC in it as well, so we should be able to setup some reasonable tests.

[Chongda]

The only memory I have of this is my Kin/Elec defender.  And it's exactly as described above relying on -REC

 

Basically, I would use Transference to help drain END, and then keep Short Circuit going to keep the -REC on the AV.

This would work, but it needed constant attention.  It only took one miss for the -REC to stop and they get a few END points and be able to attack.

 

It you can stack some -REC from other sources easier, then it might work with -END powers.  But really, you almost need to dedicate a decent part of you build to it for it to be very effective.

[Panache]

Electric/Cold was a known draining beast; on the old forums, there was a poster named Boomie who would share videos of his controller taking down Giant Monsters.

 

I would imagine an Electric/Therm Controller could likely do many of the same things.

[Generator]

When I was trying to focus on Drain with my Blaster, I'd try to lead off with Short Circuit, then follow right into Power Sink.  With SC having the longer animation time, I felt I had a better chance of getting both laid on if that one went first.

[ceaars]

I hope this information will help.  Think of it as a "mini-guide" to how endurance works (applies to players too, but here I'm talking about mobs).

 

The Basics: How Endurance Comes Back

 

Basically, every three seconds you get a "tick" of 5 endurance back.  Actually, the "tick" is 5% of your endurance, so if you've got accolades or set bonuses (or are not a minion if "you" are an AI controlled mob and a bad guy), it'll be a more than 5 per tick.  But if you have the normal 100 endurance, then it's 5 per tick.

 

Like regeneration and your health, recovery ("regen" for your endurance) does not make each tick restore a larger percentage of your endurance (it's always 5%).  Instead it just makes the ticks happen faster.  Here's one way to calculate it:

 

Take (100 + recovery bonuses - recovery penalties) and divide by 100.  Call that "R."

 

The time between ticks of recovery is now:

 

"Tick Time" = 3 seconds / R.

 

If you get divide by zero, or a negative value, you simply won't get ticks of recovery until the current value of your "Tick Time" goes positive again.

 

Actually, there's a better way to understand it, but it's a bit more involved than the calculation above.  I'll get to that later.

 

However, as an Example:

 

The Stamina power gives you +25% recovery.  Let's pretend you just got it, and you put a level 5 endurance modification TO into it (so only a 9.6% boost).  So your total recovery boost is:

 

25 * 1.096 = +27.4%

 

Therefore,

 

R = 127.4 / 100 = 1.274

 

and,

 

Tick Time = 3 / 1.274 = 2.35 seconds.  So one tick giving you back 5 endurance every 2.35 seconds.

 

So what does the -100% recovery debuff most electrical attacks apply very briefly actually do?

 

Let's answer that with an example (but it's pretty much what you think it'll be: just prerhaps a more involved calculation than you might have expected if you want the exact effect.)

Say a clockwork hits you with a lightning bolt giving you a -100% recovery penalty for 2.00 seconds.  At least for that two seconds your Tick Time would be:

 

R = 27.4 / 100 = 0.274

 

Tick Time = 3 / 0.274 = 10.95 seconds between "ticks" of endurance recovery.  So let's say your endurance "ticked" right as the clockwork bolt hit you.  For 2 seconds you had a "recovery" time of 10.95 seconds between ticks.  So after that two seconds is over you are (2 / 10.95) of the way to your next tick: 0.183.  In other words, you're only 18.3% of the way to your next "tick."  Once the recovery penalty wears off (in 2 seconds) you now have 81.7% of the way through one "tick" to go:

 

(2.35)(0.817) = 1.92 seconds.

 

So you'll get your next "tick" of endurance 1.92 seconds after the recovery debuff wears off... or about 3.92 seconds after you were first hit.  So that -100% recovery debuff was pretty close to delaying your tick by the full 2 seconds it acted.  And that's really the main take away: the -100% recovery debuff will typically "delay" the next tick by something just a bit under (worst case: equal to) it's own duration.  Which is what you'd expect.

 

So How Does All of This Apply To Mobs?

 

Like you, a mob can "queue" it's next desired attack so that it'll go off the moment it is (1) available, and (2) the mob has the endurance to use it.  But contrary to what some players seem to think, the mobs do not cheat when it comes to endurance!  Like you, if their endurance bar is zero, they can't use powers.

 

So why do they seem to get to attack anyway?  Well, the moment they get a tick of endurance recovery their next queued attack will fire (provided the tick gave them back enough endurance to use it).  But since they're computer controlled, if they have endurance, but not enough to use the attack they want to use, there's a good chance they'll instantly switch to an attack they do have that is "cheap" enough for them to use (assuming it has recharged/is available).  So provided they get that tick of recovery, they WILL get to fire off one attack even if you keep hitting them with endurance draining attacks.

 

As some many others here have pointed out, that means the only way to flat out keep them from attacking is to keep -100% recovery on them indefinitely.

 

The good news: almost all electrical attacks have a -100% recovery debuff.  The bad news: it's typically very short (like 0.5 seconds to perhaps 2.0 seconds depending on the power) ... short enough that by the time your next attack has animated there's a decent chance the mob had at least a tiny sliver of time not under the debuff, which is often all it takes to get that "tick" and launch an attack.

 

Also as many of you pointed out, there are some very key powers in the electrical sets that actually have very long -100% recovery debuffs instead of the very short ones typical attacks have.  In the electrical blast set, the three powers with very long recovery debuffs are Short Circuit, Tesla Cage, and Thunderous Blast.  So making sure those are in your attack rotation (if you are a blaster) is the secret to keeping a mob at 0 endurance so that it never gets to attack you.  Tesla Cage is especially useful for this, because if the mob happens to also be held by it when the tick comes back, you'll actually have a chance to use a 'normal' attack or short circuit attack to drain out the recovered endurance before the mob can use it.

 

So If They Only Get One Tick, How Come That Boss Still Hits So Hard?

 

A final potential source of confusion: if mobs don't cheat, and more powerful attacks use more endurance, how come that boss still gets to use very powerful attacks even with a sliver of endurance?  It's because mobs higher ranked than minions actually do have a "cheat" of sorts: they don't actually have 100 endurance.

 

Lieutenants actually have 140 endurance, so each tick gives them 7 endurance back.  Bosses have 200 endurance, so each tick gives 10 endurance back.  In both cases that's going to "open" up costlier (and harder hitting) powers than a minion would have.

 

ArchVillains actually have a pool of 800 endurance, and very strong resistance both endurance drain powers and to the recovery penalties that would "pause" a lesser mob's recovery completely.  Which is why a solo character typically cannot drain out their endurance and keep it pegged at zero as effectively as they can a lesser mob.  I'm not saying it's impossible - but it's much easier with several characters working in concert.

 

The Alternate Way

 

Another way to look at endurance recovery that might make getting how the recovery penalties interact with times where there is no penalty is to give you an alternate (but equivalent) way to look at how recovery works.

 

Instead of thinking of Tick Time as a variable, think of it as a constant, that is always set to, say, 3000 milliseconds.  A mob in this scenario has a 'counter' that starts at 0 and counts up, 1 millisecond at a time.  Whenever it is above 3000, subtract 3000 from it and give the mob a "tick's worth" of endurance.

 

Now you can see recovery bonuses and penalties in a way that might be a little more intuitive: each 1 millisecond of "real" time adds proportionally more (or less) to the counter depending on your recovery.  Specifically, each millisecond that passes adds the current value of "R" to the counter.  When the counter exceeds 3000, reduce it by 3000 and give the mob and endurance tick.

 

So if R = 1.274 (like in our earlier example), each time 1 millisecond of real time passes, 1.274 gets added to the counter.  When the counter exceeds 3000, it is reduced by 3000, and the mob gets the tick.  While "debuffed" by the recovery penalty, R = 0.274, so during the debuff, each 1 millisecond of real time only added 0.274 to the counter, but the debuff itself didn't affect whatever the current value of the counter was when it was applied.

 

I used milliseconds as an example, but it can be whatever you want and the end result is more or less than same.  It could be "half seconds" - in which case the counter would need to hit 6, and every time it did, 6 would be subtracted from the counter and you'd get a tick of endurance.  The value added to the counter would still be the "R" from before, but now you'd think of the counter being updated once every half second instead of each millisecond.

 

Actually, I suppose a very relevant question would be what is the time increment the game itself uses?  I can't remember this one off the top of my head: I very vaguely remember Arcana once stating it was 20 times per second (so 1/20th of a second, and the counter would need to hit 60 for a tick of recovery to occur).  But I could very well be mistaken.  That was a long, long time ago when I last read that.

 

Dropping A Mob's Toggles

 

It turns out mob's don't actually have toggles the way we do.  To save on processing, "toggle" powers owned by mobs are basically "click" powers whose effects are set to be removed should the mob be mezzed or drained of all endurance.  Once you understand that, a couple of odd anomalies in how mob "toggles" seem to work become clearer:

 

1. This is why a mob with "toggles" up drained down to a silver (but not zero) of endurance never sees its toggles drop even when under a recovery debuff (unlike what we often experience): they're not actually toggles, so they're not actually continually draining the mob's endurance the way our versions of those powers do.

 

2. That's also why mobs voluntarily "detoggle" certain powers even though there is no obvious reason they should (e.g. "Why did that sorcerer just randomly shut off hurricane even though he still had plenty of endurance and it was making him virtually impossible for me to hit?" or "Why did you just shut off temporary invulnerability for no good reason, Doc Deliliah?!") - they didn't detoggle at all.  The duration of the "click" power just expired.  So if I dev wants to replicate a mob using a toggle that is "sometimes up" they make it a click with a longer recharge than duration.  If they want it to always be on, and only have to "bring it back" should it get detoggled by a hold or loss of endurance, then give it a very, very long duration and a short recharge time (so it'll be available again the moment the hold wears off).

 

The little "flag" that ends their effect if the originating mob runs out of endurance or is held is meant to further the illusion that they are toggles when they are not (and remember that originally all of our toggles would go down if we were mezzed, not just be suppressed... so the 'detoggling' of a mob's defensive toggles when 'held' is a holdover from when it happened to us too, and all intended to further the illusion the mob versions of the powers were toggles).

 

And that's all probably more than you ever wanted to know about how mob endurance, endurance drain, and -recovery works... hopefully it's helpful.

[Zolgar]

<snip>

 

Wow, nerd!

 

That's actually super cool to know though.

[kelly Rocket]

From what I've seen, Elec control does a much better job than Elec Blast at sapping enemies and having it matter.

 

My suspicion is that this is largely due to Conductive Aura, which continually drains endurance, so even if you're not slapping them with -recovery, you're still stealing away their endurance as they recover it and making it hard for them to use any of their stronger powers against you.

[Coyote]

An Elec/Poison Controller post level 35+ has consistently stong -End and -Recovery. I am able to shut down most AVs by combining Poison Trap, Static Field and Conductive Aura. It can be done earlier in the build with the use of Jolting Chain and Synaptic Overload but Poison Trap really brings most enemy endurance to a halt. For groups I spam Chain Fences.

 

This, or an Electric/Psy Dominator (Drain Psyche is usually used for -Regen, but also has a strong -Recovery debuff that will stack with several sources of -Recovery from Electric Control).

[Trickshooter]

An Elec/Poison Controller post level 35+ has consistently stong -End and -Recovery. I am able to shut down most AVs by combining Poison Trap, Static Field and Conductive Aura. It can be done earlier in the build with the use of Jolting Chain and Synaptic Overload but Poison Trap really brings most enemy endurance to a halt. For groups I spam Chain Fences.

 

This, or an Electric/Psy Dominator (Drain Psyche is usually used for -Regen, but also has a strong -Recovery debuff that will stack with several sources of -Recovery from Electric Control).

 

Drain Psyche's -Recovery is also affected by EndMod enhancements, so potentially 30s of -1000% Recovery if slotted.