On Sapping: -recovery powers

[Ringo]

By my count, players have access to 6 powers that apply -recovery to their foes:

 

Thermal Radiation:  Heat Loss

Poison:  Poison Trap

Psionic Assault: Drain Psyche

Mental Manipulation: Drain Psyche

Electric Blast:  Short Circuit

Electric Blast: Thunderous Blast

 

Everything else in the player arsenal only drains endurance.  Am I missing any?

 

Out of these, Heat Loss is the only one that is strictly Single Target and also Unehancable for endurance modification.

 

Given that if you are looking for a playstyle that annihilates enemy blue bars and -recovery is the only way to keep those blue bars empty, which ATs and powersets would you want to achieve this with?

[Psyonico]

I believe Electric Control is considered the king of sapping, it may not grant any -recovery, but you can get some serious AoE -endurance out of it.  Pair it with /Poison or /Psi Assault and you can get enemies drained quickly and keep them there.

 

That being said, in my experience, sapping isn't all that great in terms of damage mitigation.

[Grimm2]

Sentinels Elec Blast is very good at sapping. Target caps end up preventing you from zeroing the entire spawn at once, but you have: 

 

Thunderous blast around every 25 seconds. 

Charge up, the build up clone, enhances end drain for its duration. 

Short Circuit, for extra aoe -recovery

Sparky, while dumb, will hit the AV or boss once they're alone. 

 

Musculature Radial enhances both end mod and damage, making you better at both your jobs. 

 

Mine is /EA, but I don't need Power Sink to sap. It's a really fun ride, and Elec/ is no slouch in damage. 

[Uun]

You're missing Electrical Affinity/Shock, Galvanic Sentinel and Defibrillate (Discharge instead of Galvanic Sentinel on MMs).

 

The -recovery in Poison Trap and Drain Psyche is pretty useless on its own, as neither has any meaningful amount of end drain. You would need to combine them with Elec blast or control.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

I always felt this mechanic worked best in pvp. 

but I am wrong about a great many things

[Panache]

I’ve tried a bunch of sapping builds and my favorite is Elec/Energy Sent

Edited December 15, 2023 by Panache

[roleki]

You know, despite my dropping enemy endurance for years, I don't think I've ever had one simply stop attacking because it had no endurance left.  Does endurance even matter to badfolk?

[Frozen Burn]

12 minutes ago, roleki said:

You know, despite my dropping enemy endurance for years, I don't think I've ever had one simply stop attacking because it had no endurance left.  Does endurance even matter to badfolk?

 

Yes, it does.  I've seen mobs hit with -recov and had their end drained - they can't attack at all, so they just try run around trying to get away until they have enough juice to throw an attack.  It's a form of soft control.  

 

And even if you can't get -recovery on them, you can drain their end low enough so they only use their low level, least damaging attack.  

[Bionic_Flea]

2 hours ago, Uun said:

You're missing Electrical Affinity/Shock, Galvanic Sentinel and Defibrillate (Discharge instead of Galvanic Sentinel on MMs).

Uun beat me to it. 

 

Everyone also gets access to Preemptive Interface, which can do -recovery.

 

It's funny I ran into this, I was just theory-crafting an Elec/Elec/Mu Controller.

[Panache]

1 hour ago, roleki said:

You know, despite my dropping enemy endurance for years, I don't think I've ever had one simply stop attacking because it had no endurance left.  Does endurance even matter to badfolk?

 

Yes. There's a post halfway down this thread that does a good job of explaining End drain/recovery and mobs.

 

 

Also here's a little chart of -Recovery powers (where Defender is an AT option, I used those values). Forgive my spelling errors, typing with a cast is hard.

EDIT: bah, missed Galvanic Sentinel and Discharge.

Drain Psyche really is wild.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Panache

[Uun]

1 hour ago, roleki said:

You know, despite my dropping enemy endurance for years, I don't think I've ever had one simply stop attacking because it had no endurance left.  Does endurance even matter to badfolk?

My Elec/Bio sentinel does exactly that. I zero out their blue bar and recovery and they simply cannot attack. I also do it on my Thugs/Elec mastermind, although not as easily (and I have to set the pets to aggressive or they won't attack the incapacitated mobs).

[Panache]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

 

Pretty much every power in the electrical set drains end.

 

Yes, many powers drain end, but this is about -Recovery.

[carroto]

6 hours ago, Panache said:

Also here's a little chart of -Recovery powers

 

The numbers for Elec Blast are not accurate.  Those are the numbers for the bonus -recovery based on the Shocked mechanic.  Thunderous Blast does -125% for 20s on a Defender.  Short Circuit does -125% for 10s.

[JJDrakken]

Sapping Enemies of the non Player type is nearly useless. Many of the Mobs(maybe not the newer stuff they've put in).

 

Only need 1 Stam or even just 0 stam to use powers.  Sure you'll slow down some of their attacks.  But many of them are based on the 0 or 1 rule. Less they've overhauled all that from live. Which maybe they have, but I haven't noticed it.  I still see them doing attacks without a blue bar.

 

Blue bar was mostly there as another thing for a Player Arsenal for powers to use off of originally. 

[biostem]

Maybe -end/-rec powers need some sort of sliding-scale mechanism, kind of like what elec blast got - only maybe giving a chance of applying a debuff or something instead of extra damage...

[UltraAlt]

7 hours ago, Panache said:

 

Yes, many powers drain end, but this is about -Recovery.

 

Sorry about that @Ringo

I was either too tired or too distracted or both.

Edited December 16, 2023 by UltraAlt

[Panache]

4 hours ago, carroto said:

 

The numbers for Elec Blast are not accurate.  Those are the numbers for the bonus -recovery based on the Shocked mechanic.  Thunderous Blast does -125% for 20s on a Defender.  Short Circuit does -125% for 10s.

ooh, good catch

[Riverdusk]

You know the best thing about endurance draining that I discovered by leveling up an electric/energy sentinel?  That paragon protectors without endurance can't MOG.   Mezzing also works, but that I found harder to do if you have several of them at once.  I never had such an easy time fighting what often otherwise is a really annoying mob to fight.

 

Anyway, electric blast on a sent is top tier regardless so the endurance drain is just a nice bonus.

[SwitchFade]

Kin/elec defender.

 

Not only can it hit defense caps, perma hasten with ease, hit damage caps, never run out of end, not need travel powers... it turns your team into a wrecking ball.

 

On top of that it saps incredibly.

 

Fake nems, crey PPs, Malta, carnies, freak tanks, tsoo sorcs, anything that has a toggle... They all just stand there staring at you.

Edited December 16, 2023 by SwitchFade

[Doomguide2005]

Yes t

On 12/15/2023 at 10:54 PM, SwitchFade said:

Kin/elec defender.

 

Not only can it hit defense caps, perma hasten with ease, hit damage caps, never run out of end, not need travel powers... it turns your team into a wrecking ball.

 

On top of that it saps incredibly.

 

Fake nems, crey PPs, Malta, carnies, freak tanks, tsoo sorcs, anything that has a toggle... They all just stand there staring at you.

This.

I'll add that a lot of but they attack with 'no end' isn't what's really happening.  There's a bunch of other things at work overall but part of it is as soon as a server tic of end comes in they'll often use it.  Hence why both drain and recovery are really need to get floored.  But they also changed a bunch of things the same time they introduced the shock mechanic.  Try as I might I've yet to see AVs sapped below what looks to be 15 end (out of 800).  

[Panache]

19 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Yes t

This.

I'll add that a lot of but they attack with 'no end' isn't what's really happening.  There's a bunch of other things at work overall but part of it is as soon as a server tic of end comes in they'll often use it.  Hence why both drain and recovery are really need to get floored.  But they also changed a bunch of things the same time they introduced the shock mechanic.  Try as I might I've yet to see AVs sapped below what looks to be 15 end (out of 800).  

 

AVs are hard as hell but I do enjoy racing GM teams; can they get the health bar to 0 before I get the end bar there? It's usually pretty close.

[Doomguide2005]

57 minutes ago, Panache said:

 

AVs are hard as hell but I do enjoy racing GM teams; can they get the health bar to 0 before I get the end bar there? It's usually pretty close.

Altitis has struck too often but I was working on seeing if the Tempest -end proc would work a bit like damage procs where the damage isn't limited by the damage cap.  Hoping the -end can bypass whatever limit is keeping their endurance at 15 no matter how a PBU Short Circuit saps end and puts a huge -recovery on the AV.

[Panache]

2 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Altitis has struck too often but I was working on seeing if the Tempest -end proc would work a bit like damage procs where the damage isn't limited by the damage cap.  Hoping the -end can bypass whatever limit is keeping their endurance at 15 no matter how a PBU Short Circuit saps end and puts a huge -recovery on the AV.

 

Have you messed around with Trick Arrow as a sapper at all? There's some funky stuff in there.

[Doomguide2005]

13 minutes ago, Panache said:

 

Have you messed around with Trick Arrow as a sapper at all? There's some funky stuff in there.

Never tried it.  The above is an Empathy/Elec.  All that recharge on a Empath going into Short Circuit and the other blasts i can end up stacking SC on itself while under PBU/PB and probably Clarion (iirc).  Biggest issue there is minimal defense which likely makes it probablematic to pull it off and surviving.   Though RegenAura certainly helps.  The original was on Live.  Still working on the HC remake.

 

PS:  It wouldn't surprise me if it's more potent at sapping than at first glance TA might appear though

Edited December 18, 2023 by Doomguide2005

[Panache]

Yeah the survivability part is pretty key; my preferred sapper is an Elec/Energy/Elec Sent for that reason (Sentinel Chain Fences is hilarious).