Alpha Cardic vs Conserve Power + Physical Perfection

[cohRock]

I have an alt with end problems.  He has taken the Epic pool powers Conserve Power and Physical Perfection.  He is 50+ now, and almost ready to slot his Alpha with Cardiac.  What I wonder is after he gets the 33% - 45% end reduction on all powers due to Cardiac, will the two Epic Pool powers still be necessary?  Note he is also slowly buffing up max endurance and recovery via Accolades and sets.

 

The alt is a stone/rad tank.  In his Granite form he will typically have 7 toggles on -- Granite, Rooted, Mudpots, Irradiated Ground, Weave, Tactics, and Assault.  They all have at least one end reduction already (Mudpots has two).  I don't want to respec out of the epic pool powers (replacing with two attacks) unless the endurance load is low enough that he can continuously fight in an extended battle.  When Granite is not on, the situation is even worse.  Its single toggle is replaced by up to four others -- the individual armors for smash/lethal, fire/ice, energy/negative, and psi+perception. 

[FoulVileTerror]

Endurance Cost Reduction / Discount favours builds with high Endurance cost Powers.

Endurance Recovery Rate favours larger Maximum Endurance stacks.

 

Are you using SOs?  Have you got any +Max End IO Set Bonuses in your build?   Any other Endurance Discount Bonuses?

[MunkiLord]

I can't say for sure if slotting Cardiac alone will fix the problem, but it should get you most of the way there if not. If you have one SO worth of end redux in most of your toggles then you'll get almost the full benefit since ED will be a relative non factor. 

 

I don't have Mid's in front of me and I'm not overly familiar with Stone Armor, but if my memory is correct I think with Granite and a few sets you should be able to relatively easily drop Weave? So that could be something to aim for as well. If I'm wrong, someone more smarter please correct me. 

 

All that being said, slot then test your build as is before doing anything. Decent chance that will answer your question. If you're still not sure or your endurance problems are still terrible then posting your build would be helpful. 

 

One final thing I suggest is looking at your attack endurance slotting as well. In most cases attacks use significantly more endurance than toggles.

Edited September 24, 2020 by MunkiLord

[kiramon]

It’s true you shouldn’t need weave with granite. I’d test out on test server tho if I were you to see what feels best for you. 

[DSorrow]

It's impossible to give a definitive answer without seeing your build as we're missing quite a few variables without it. However, if all your powers have one level 50 IO worth of Endurance Reduction in them, getting Cardiac Alpha will roughly double your EndRed enhancement value from 0.42 (=70% base Endurance cost) to 0.85 (=54% base Endurance cost) for a difference of 16% base Endurance cost. Without knowing your Recovery, attack chain and other similar information about Endurance gain, it's impossible to say whether or not the difference in Endurance expenses will make you break even.

 

As an additional note, in my experience attacks and other active abilities usually account for ~2/3 of overall Endurance expenditure, so looking at toggles (or the number of them) often answers just the smaller part of the overall issue.

[Nemu]

You can craft all the incarnate choices and swap them in and out as you please. I'd craft the cardiac alpha and try it and see what happens.

 

My fire/elec blaster runs out of end fairly easily even with the blaster sustain. This is because she has fast animating attacks that recharge fast and that burns end very quickly. Her end issues went away with cardiac and I never needed power sink with cardiac slotted. I'm pretty confident that you can solve your end issues with cardiac. You don't have anywhere near as many attacks as my blaster and none of those attacks you do have animate in 1 second or less.

 

The other method to solve your end issues is to get ageless T4 destiny, the left one. That's what farmers do, and it's a fine choice for a stone tank too for normal content.

 

 

[cohRock]

13 hours ago, FoulVileTerror said:

Endurance Cost Reduction / Discount favours builds with high Endurance cost Powers.

Endurance Recovery Rate favours larger Maximum Endurance stacks.

 

Are you using SOs?  Have you got any +Max End IO Set Bonuses in your build?   Any other Endurance Discount Bonuses?

Currently the tank ("Glowie Me") has the Atlas Medallion, three minor recovery and +maxEndurance buffs via Gift of the Ancients, a 4% recovery bonus via Armegeddon, and he is working toward Portal Jockey.  Besides the current 4 sets, his enhancements are at least level 35 vanilla IOs.  He got Cardiac slotted yesterday, but I haven't really tested out the effect on his sustained endurance stamina.

[cohRock]

11 hours ago, MunkiLord said:

...

I don't have Mid's in front of me and I'm not overly familiar with Stone Armor, but if my memory is correct I think with Granite and a few sets you should be able to relatively easily drop Weave? So that could be something to aim for as well. If I'm wrong, someone more smarter please correct me. 

...

(also @kiramon ) His build originally did not have Weave.  I was remembering my stone tank on Live standing in the shadow shard in Granite armor and Rooted, surrounded by +8 foes and barely getting scratched.  Of course he couldn't do much damage to them either.  That must have been pre-ED though.  On Glowie Me (current stoner) he could do a +4*8 smash/lethal farm (due to the help of the Stone Skin passive resistance being active alongside Granite), but he had to really tone down the level to like +2*6 for Fire or Energy farms.

 

A tanker forum thread suggested adding Weave.  Adding it allowed him to handle +4*8 mobs on both Fire and Energy farms.  Outside of farming, he probably wouldn't need it, but now he is pretty much a universal farmer.  Well except for psi, where is only defense is about 7.5% from Weave and I think 7.5% from Armegeddon.  His Granite form is currently slotted with an endReduc, 3 resist, and 2 defense.  Now that he has Cardiac, he might replace the endReduc with a 3rd defense, though.  Even with Weave, the +4*8 farms get a little hairy if they have wandering mobs and you end up fighting 2 or 3 large groups at once.

Edited September 24, 2020 by cohRock

[cohRock]

4 hours ago, DSorrow said:

It's impossible to give a definitive answer without seeing your build as we're missing quite a few variables without it. However, if all your powers have one level 50 IO worth of Endurance Reduction in them, getting Cardiac Alpha will roughly double your EndRed enhancement value from 0.42 (=70% base Endurance cost) to 0.85 (=54% base Endurance cost) for a difference of 16% base Endurance cost. Without knowing your Recovery, attack chain and other similar information about Endurance gain, it's impossible to say whether or not the difference in Endurance expenses will make you break even.

 

As an additional note, in my experience attacks and other active abilities usually account for ~2/3 of overall Endurance expenditure, so looking at toggles (or the number of them) often answers just the smaller part of the overall issue.

With the addition of level 1 Alpha:Cardiac, here is his current build:

 

Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.7.2.10
https://github.com/Crytilis/mids-reborn-hero-designer

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Glowie Me: Level 50 Natural Tanker
Primary Power Set: Stone Armor
Secondary Power Set: Radiation Melee
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Rock Armor -- GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx(A), GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(13), GifoftheA-Def(13), GifoftheA-Run+(17)
Level 1: Contaminated Strike -- Acc-I(A), Dmg-I(3), DefDeb-I(5)
Level 2: Earth's Embrace -- RechRdx(A), Heal(3), Heal(5), Heal(21)
Level 4: Kick -- Acc(A), Dmg(23), Dmg(40), Dmg(46)
Level 6: Stone Skin -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(7), ResDam-I(7)
Level 8: Rooted -- EndRdx-I(A), Heal-I(9), Heal-I(9), Heal-I(23)
Level 10: Teleport -- EndRdx-I(A), Range-I(31)
Level 12: Brimstone Armor -- EndRdx-I(A), ResDam-I(17), ResDam-I(21), ResDam-I(27)
Level 14: Taunt -- Acc-I(A)
Level 16: Recall Friend -- Range-I(A)
Level 18: Mud Pots -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(19), EndRdx-I(19), Dmg-I(37), Dmg-I(39), Dmg-I(40)
Level 20: Crystal Armor -- GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx(A), GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(25), GifoftheA-Def(25), GifoftheA-Run+(34)
Level 22: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 24: Tactics -- EndRdx-I(A), ToHit-I(43)
Level 26: Minerals -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(27), DefBuff-I(40), DefBuff-I(42)
Level 28: Irradiated Ground -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(29), Dmg-I(29), DefDeb-I(37)
Level 30: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(31), RechRdx-I(31)
Level 32: Granite Armor -- EndRdx-I(A), ResDam-I(33), DefBuff-I(33), ResDam-I(33), DefBuff-I(34), ResDam-I(34)
Level 35: Devastating Blow -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(36), Dmg-I(36), Dmg-I(36), Dmg-I(37)
Level 38: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(39), RechRdx-I(39)
Level 41: Physical Perfection -- EndMod-I(A), Heal-I(42), EndMod-I(42), Heal-I(43), EndMod-I(43), Heal-I(45)
Level 44: Atom Smasher -- Arm-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Arm-Dmg(45), Arm-Dmg/Rchg(45), Arm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(46), Arm-Acc/Rchg(46), Arm-Dam%(48)
Level 47: Boxing -- Acc(A), Dmg(48), Dsrnt(48)
Level 49: Weave -- GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx(A), GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(50), GifoftheA-Def(50), GifoftheA-Run+(50)
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(11), Heal-I(15)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(11), EndMod-I(15)
Level 1: Brawl -- Acc-I(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- IntRdx-I(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
------------

 

If Cardiac and potentially Ageless alleviate the need for Conserve Power and Physical Perfection, I plan to swap them out for Cross Punch, taking full advantage of both a tank's larger area for melee cones as well as maximizing Fighting Synergy.

Edited September 24, 2020 by cohRock

[Omega-202]

You can address a lot of your end issues by investing in the +End procs.  Performance Shifter, Panacea, Miracle, Numinas.  

 

Also, none of your attacks have any end redux.  Is there any reason you haven't put set IOs in most things?  They are much more effective than generic IOs.

[srmalloy]

15 hours ago, cohRock said:

What I wonder is after he gets the 33% - 45% end reduction on all powers due to Cardiac, will the two Epic Pool powers still be necessary? 

Are you ever going to exemp down below 45? Then the answer will likely be 'yes'.

[cohRock]

33 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

You can address a lot of your end issues by investing in the +End procs.  Performance Shifter, Panacea, Miracle, Numinas.  

 

Also, none of your attacks have any end redux.  Is there any reason you haven't put set IOs in most things?  They are much more effective than generic IOs.

He is a fairly new character, and has just started slotting sets in the past week.  Eventually all the attacks and armors will be slotted with various sets, adding native endReduc to each.  With the -65% recharge penalty of Granite armor, he doesn't swing that quickly, even when Hasten is active.  Thank you for suggesting the +End procs.

[cohRock]

10 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

Are you ever going to exemp down below 45? Then the answer will likely be 'yes'.

Probably.  Of course he might also exemp below a level where Physical Perfection becomes inactive.  🙂

[Omega-202]

2 minutes ago, cohRock said:

He is a fairly new character, and has just started slotting sets in the past week.  Eventually all the attacks and armors will be slotted with various sets, adding native endReduc to each.  With the -65% recharge penalty of Granite armor, he doesn't swing that quickly, even when Hasten is active.  Thank you for suggesting the +End procs.

As someone mentioned above, end redux in your attacks goes a long way, so it's quite possible all of your end problems will be addressed by the time you're IOd out.  

 

That's part of the reason I build my characters on Mids and try them at 50 with IOs on the test server before committing to Incarnate choices.  In principle, it helps me feel confident in my first Alpha choice, but in practice, basically every character I have ends up going with Musculature Core or sometimes Radial.  

[kiramon]

3 hours ago, cohRock said:

With the addition of level 1 Alpha:Cardiac, here is his current build:

 

Hero Plan by Mids' Reborn : Hero Designer 2.7.2.10
https://github.com/Crytilis/mids-reborn-hero-designer

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Glowie Me: Level 50 Natural Tanker
Primary Power Set: Stone Armor
Secondary Power Set: Radiation Melee
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Rock Armor -- GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx(A), GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(13), GifoftheA-Def(13), GifoftheA-Run+(17)
Level 1: Contaminated Strike -- Acc-I(A), Dmg-I(3), DefDeb-I(5)
Level 2: Earth's Embrace -- RechRdx(A), Heal(3), Heal(5), Heal(21)
Level 4: Kick -- Acc(A), Dmg(23), Dmg(40), Dmg(46)
Level 6: Stone Skin -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(7), ResDam-I(7)
Level 8: Rooted -- EndRdx-I(A), Heal-I(9), Heal-I(9), Heal-I(23)
Level 10: Teleport -- EndRdx-I(A), Range-I(31)
Level 12: Brimstone Armor -- EndRdx-I(A), ResDam-I(17), ResDam-I(21), ResDam-I(27)
Level 14: Taunt -- Acc-I(A)
Level 16: Recall Friend -- Range-I(A)
Level 18: Mud Pots -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(19), EndRdx-I(19), Dmg-I(37), Dmg-I(39), Dmg-I(40)
Level 20: Crystal Armor -- GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx(A), GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(25), GifoftheA-Def(25), GifoftheA-Run+(34)
Level 22: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 24: Tactics -- EndRdx-I(A), ToHit-I(43)
Level 26: Minerals -- EndRdx-I(A), DefBuff-I(27), DefBuff-I(40), DefBuff-I(42)
Level 28: Irradiated Ground -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(29), Dmg-I(29), DefDeb-I(37)
Level 30: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(31), RechRdx-I(31)
Level 32: Granite Armor -- EndRdx-I(A), ResDam-I(33), DefBuff-I(33), ResDam-I(33), DefBuff-I(34), ResDam-I(34)
Level 35: Devastating Blow -- Acc-I(A), EndRdx-I(36), Dmg-I(36), Dmg-I(36), Dmg-I(37)
Level 38: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(39), RechRdx-I(39)
Level 41: Physical Perfection -- EndMod-I(A), Heal-I(42), EndMod-I(42), Heal-I(43), EndMod-I(43), Heal-I(45)
Level 44: Atom Smasher -- Arm-Dmg/EndRdx(A), Arm-Dmg(45), Arm-Dmg/Rchg(45), Arm-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(46), Arm-Acc/Rchg(46), Arm-Dam%(48)
Level 47: Boxing -- Acc(A), Dmg(48), Dsrnt(48)
Level 49: Weave -- GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx(A), GifoftheA-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(50), GifoftheA-Def(50), GifoftheA-Run+(50)
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal-I(A), Heal-I(11), Heal-I(15)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A), EndMod-I(11), EndMod-I(15)
Level 1: Brawl -- Acc-I(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Rest -- IntRdx-I(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
------------

 

If Cardiac and potentially Ageless alleviate the need for Conserve Power and Physical Perfection, I plan to swap them out for Cross Punch, taking full advantage of both a tank's larger area for melee cones as well as maximizing Fighting Synergy.

Max Ageless alone will cure 90% end problems. 

[Doomguide2005]

One of the first things I'd do is slot those +end and +recovery uniques.  Replace that 3rd endmod in Health with the Perm Shifter +end (nets you more because of ED than a 3rd Endmod IO).  Similarly you can put another Perf Shifter in Physical Perfection as they are not unique IO's

 

Something else I often do when not slotting a power for set bonuses is slot 2 two dual aspect IO's instead of 2 single aspects of the 2 I'm trying to buff.  In your build specifically I'm looking at Tactics.  Use an Adjusted Targetting endred/to hit and a Guassian's endred/to hit rather than 1 each of the generic IO's for endred and to hit.  You'll get slightly better returns on both values for the same number of slots .

 

I'd also look into either Musculature and Agility incarnates as both can help with endmod as well as other values you're probably looking to improve.