Elec Armor Charged Shield IOs and enhancements

[WindDemon21]

This power says it provides 10 max endurance, like superior conditioning for example, and it does not even say that it ignores enhancements, yet not only can you not slot end mod sets into it, but you can't even slot it with end mod enhancements. Please fix this!

[drbuzzard]

Yeah, I wouldn't mind that. It would also be nice to toss in the performance shifter +end proc. 

 

You know, I've never tried to couple this power with agility to see if the alpha slot would enhance it. 

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, drbuzzard said:

You know, I've never tried to couple this power with agility to see if the alpha slot would enhance it. 

 

It doesn't.

 

[drbuzzard]

That's pretty weird as it's not mentioned to be immune to enhancement in the power. Odd. Thanks for checking. 

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, drbuzzard said:

That's pretty weird as it's not mentioned to be immune to enhancement in the power. Odd. Thanks for checking. 

 

Alphas only boost attributes for allowed enhancement categories in a power.  Charged Shield isn't flagged for EndMod enhancements.  It's the same situation with Mind Link/Link Minds.  They can use Recharge Reduction from set IOs, but since they're not flagged to accept standard Recharge Reduction enhancements, as in TOs/DOs/SOs/IOs, neither Agility nor Spiritual adds X% Recharge Reduction to those slotted Recharge Reduction set IOs.

[twozerofoxtrot]

Well.

Certainly not with that attitude!

[drbuzzard]

10 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Alphas only boost attributes for allowed enhancement categories in a power.  Charged Shield isn't flagged for EndMod enhancements.  It's the same situation with Mind Link/Link Minds.  They can use Recharge Reduction from set IOs, but since they're not flagged to accept standard Recharge Reduction enhancements, as in TOs/DOs/SOs/IOs, neither Agility nor Spiritual adds X% Recharge Reduction to those slotted Recharge Reduction set IOs.

 

OK, this I don't understand really, particularly the Mind Link business. I've used the IO trick, but I don't really see why it even exists. Heck I tried to use the same trick on victory rush, but it doesn't cooperate with it. I guess the mechanic for alpha is it's basically jamming in another enhancement, and that gets stopped. I don't know that I'll ever get the logic behind a lot of the decisions in how the game was made. 

[WindDemon21]

1 hour ago, drbuzzard said:

 

OK, this I don't understand really, particularly the Mind Link business. I've used the IO trick, but I don't really see why it even exists. Heck I tried to use the same trick on victory rush, but it doesn't cooperate with it. I guess the mechanic for alpha is it's basically jamming in another enhancement, and that gets stopped. I don't know that I'll ever get the logic behind a lot of the decisions in how the game was made. 

Well the DUMB part of that is it not taking rech enhancements in the first place, which it 100% should.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

OK, this I don't understand really, particularly the Mind Link business. I've used the IO trick, but I don't really see why it even exists. Heck I tried to use the same trick on victory rush, but it doesn't cooperate with it.

 

Mind Link/Link Minds isn't flagged to ignore Recharge Reduction, it's simply not flagged to accept Recharge Reduction enhancements.  Set IOs work because they're not categorized as Recharge Reduction enhancements, they're categorized according to the set to which they belong (Defense, in this case).  HOs with Recharge Reduction are categorized as Recharge Reduction enhancements, so the power sees that and disregards the Recharge Reduction boost.

 

As to why, probably time.  Time was the most crucial factor in everything Cryptic and Paragon did, and it would've taken a lot of time to go through every power in the game, or every IO in every set, and add flags for acceptance/rejection of specific boosts in order to fine tune everything.  They didn't have that time, so they accepted that some moderately exploitive workarounds, like using set IOs to reduce the recharge time of Mind Link/Link Minds, would exist.  As long as they weren't game-breaking, they weren't important enough to spend the time on them.

 

Victory Rush has a different restriction, it's actually flagged with "Strengths Disallowed: RechargeTime".  It doesn't matter what you slot in it, it doesn't matter how much global +Recharge you have, that power's recharge time can't be changed by any means.  Even Slows don't alter it.

 

3 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

I guess the mechanic for alpha is it's basically jamming in another enhancement, and that gets stopped.

 

Basically, yes, Alphas are essentially just a multi-aspect enhancement "jammed" into every applicable power.  Applicable is the key word.  They only work on the aspects of powers which can be enhanced, and specifically enhanced by what they enhance.  Charged Shield doesn't allow EndMod enhancements to be slotted, so neither Agility nor Musculature can boost the enhancement value.  It's not blocked, there is no flag or special restriction that says, "Don't boost this", it's just that the power can't be enhanced for EndMod, so an Alpha EndMod boost isn't applicable.