Endurance Drain Should Do Something

[srmalloy]

On 4/21/2024 at 7:37 AM, Uun said:

You can absolutely do this now to non-AVs. My Elec blast sentinel easily drains foes to zero and keeps them there. They are unable to attack and just run around not knowing what to do.

I have the same experience with my Elec/Elec sentinel; I was taking her around one of the office buildings in Kallisti Wharf during the last Halloween event, and getting the odd EB popping out of a door wasn't any more difficult than the other mobs -- they went to zero end just as readily, it just took longer to bring them down. And she's been able to take some GMs to zero End -- Babbage and Adamastor are the best examples; she can get a Kronos to zero End, but they're usually close enough to going down by then it's not much different -- so the concept is viable, it just requires a different approach to building out a character.

[nihilii]

The I27p3 endurance drain nerfs were massive and unwarranted.

It was sold with a damage bonus for elec blast, but TBH the damage boost is minor and every other end drainer that isn't elec blast just plain lost utility.
 

On 4/20/2024 at 7:38 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

If endurance drain immediately led to AV/GM incapacitation, then people would build for that.

 

It was possible before with a lot of work, which made it suboptimal but a fun alternate path. It's not possible at all anymore no matter how many sappers you have on your team, you can have 8 characters spamming -END and -RECOVERY and you will still get hefty damage output from the AV.

 

This is disappointing, no other debuff has been nerfed to this extent. Take a team with 8 characters dedicated to tohitdebuffs, or damage debuffs, or slow debuffs, anything that is massively resisted by purple patch + triangles + resistances; when you stack several dedicated characters to this purpose, you will see some effect, there is a point to adding more.

However, endurance drain remains shafted due to the recovery floor being extremely generous for AVs. The only advantage you get is getting to drain the 800 initial points faster, but unless your AV has toggles that's almost useless.

I think the absence of sapping as a popular build before i27p3 is enough evidence the previous situation was not a problem.

Edited April 22 by nihilii

[Uun]

42 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Sadly heroes don't get anything like that level of sap - even the best build end-drainging enddrainiest sappy* build is utterly meh in comparison

Not true. The stats on their powers aren't that impressive, they just don't do anything else. There are any number of player powers that drain more endurance (particularly if enhanced).

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=malta_sapper

[Scarlet Shocker]

2 hours ago, Uun said:

Not true. The stats on their powers aren't that impressive, they just don't do anything else. There are any number of player powers that drain more endurance (particularly if enhanced).

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=malta_sapper

 

Well I won't dispute the numbers, but I will challenge the feels. That is definitely not how it feels to me, and I think that is certainly an important factor

[Riverdusk]

6 hours ago, Uun said:

Not true. The stats on their powers aren't that impressive, they just don't do anything else. There are any number of player powers that drain more endurance (particularly if enhanced).

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=malta_sapper

 

Never understood the big sapper fear myself.  They were already nerfed to where no more than 1 can appear in any single group so they aren't really a big deal anymore.  If you have energy defense they almost always miss.  Most resistance armor sets have built in endurance drain resistance.  My controllers just hold or even more fun, confuse them.  Even most corruptors, defenders, or blasters have some kind of stun or hold and you only need the one.  On my MM's one of my pets usually gets hit, not me,  so that's no big deal. 

 

There are a lot of easy ways to deal with them really.  I think people just remember the rare times they do get thwacked with it and that memory sticks. 😄

 

When it comes to drainers, I actually usually have more issues with freakshow super stunners since their drain is auto hit.  Especially if melee, as then sometimes it is not so easy getting away in time.

[WumpusRat]

8 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

Sappers are great because they are one of the few things that can make even the toughest hero weep like a child.

 

Sadly heroes don't get anything like that level of sap - even the best build end-drainging enddrainiest sappy* build is utterly meh in comparison

 

My elec/elec defender begs to differ.

Short Circuit slotted with Power Transfer followed up by Ball Lightning pretty much flatlines every enemy blue bar in the vicinity. And between the minor end drains on all the other attacks, they don't come back unless they manage to run away for 20-30 seconds. Once I added the preemptive radial interface to boost her end drain even further, it just got seriously unfair for the mobs she goes up against. She's even drained some AVs down to flatline within 10-15 seconds.

 

8 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

The issue is not that end drain is poor overall, is that as a player your actual contribution to the game is at best less than fuck all** in any given situation. As a player End Drain is a waste of time and the only reason you would take something like electric powers is becuse a) you're new and don't understand how the game works (ie Scarlet Shocker) or b) you choose something to be thematic and end up running to 50 with a heart full of disappoint***

 

Pretty well every other power with a secondary effect performs better than end drain which is pretty poor if you think about it.

 

It depends on your expectation, honestly. On a large team that's steamrolling everything, yeah, end drain is pretty useless. Stuff dies before it can really make a difference, except on the occasional AV or GM. Though draining GMs down to zero end IS pretty fun. But then again, the secondary effects for a LOT of blast sets can be seen as kind of minimally useful on a team that's crushing everything. -Def from radiation or seismic? Eh, everyone's got 95% to hit anyway. -rech from psionic or ice? Stuff dies before their powers cycle anyway. Dot from fire? Yeah, the extra damage is nice, assuming the mobs survive long enough for the dot ticks. Etc.

 

Where end drain really shines is solo, duo, or in a small group. Then draining enemies' end becomes really impactful, at least in my experience. I haven't been disappointed with any of my electric characters at 50. I have an elec/elec defender, an elec/bio sentinel, and an elec/elec blaster. All of them do really well. The "shocked" effect is a nice chunk of bonus damage that hits pretty much everything you shoot at, and you get end back in the process.

 

8 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

I don't think anyone would expect somebody to go through a map on an electric blaster or controller and drain all mobs of their powers, but there should be some effect of end drain to give the set some actual feels and to have a reason to play those powers.

 

A practical solution would be to "stack" end drain as some other powers have effects - so each time you hit a  mob with a power you gain a stack of drain and once you've hit so many points of drain you can hit your foe with it. Their resistance would be dependent on their level; minion, lt, boss, AV etc and to be effective against an AV you'd need to maybe hit it with a high number of points and a very damaging power.

 

The thing is, you can slot your powers to increase the end drain. I know not many people want to, because "moar damage is bettah!", but some sets (like Power Transfer and Synapse's Shock) have plenty of +damage set pieces as well as +end modification. Certain powers are obviously more effective at draining than others (Short Circuit and Thunderous Blast are monsters when it comes to draining endurance). Course, if you go with the "2 hamis and the rest procs" slotting setup, then yeah, the end drain isn't going to be as significant. But it's definitely possible to turn an electric character (especially a defender or corruptor) into an endurance-shredding monster that makes Sappers green with envy.

 

I think "stacking charges of end drain and then it finally drains the mob" would be less effective than it is right now. As it stands now, you can fire off one power and drain a chunk of end from mobs, rather than the game having to keep track of all your stacks on every mob. Not only that, but electric blast sets already have a stacking effect on yourself with static, leading to the "shocked" bonus damage/end restoration effect. 

 

I guess it depends on what you want out of end drain. Do you want it to be majorly impactful on a big team? Well, then you might have to actually look at all the other secondary effects and go over them, as well, as most of them are so-so at best on a team that's steamrolling stuff. If it's meant to be "effective for four-star stuff", then that's such a niche application that it doesn't feel necessary to adjust multiple powersets' effects just for that one situation. 

 

Solo, duo, or a small team, end drain can be hugely impactful. I'd worry about making it TOO effective, if you're trying to scale it up so that it's really impactful for a full team as well.

[Player-1]

Hello all,

 

When the powers team revamped Electrical Blast, endurance drain became a hot button issue. The concept of "shocked" came about as a way to address the core issue with the mechanic being that it is incredibly binary: either it does nothing, or it for all intents and purposes locks down the target forever. This is why certain enemy ranks were altered to have a new endurance floor that allows for some power use, but if they are kept drained it would still reduce their attack rate significantly. 

 

"Shocked" allowed for a scaling effect where there was some benefit even if you did not fully drain a target, but it is not applicable for all instances of endurance drain either thematically or mechanically. This is something we are still looking into as it would have game-wide implications.

[Shred Monkey]

4 hours ago, Player-1 said:

Hello all,

 

When the powers team revamped Electrical Blast, endurance drain became a hot button issue. The concept of "shocked" came about as a way to address the core issue with the mechanic being that it is incredibly binary: either it does nothing, or it for all intents and purposes locks down the target forever. This is why certain enemy ranks were altered to have a new endurance floor that allows for some power use, but if they are kept drained it would still reduce their attack rate significantly. 

 

"Shocked" allowed for a scaling effect where there was some benefit even if you did not fully drain a target, but it is not applicable for all instances of endurance drain either thematically or mechanically. This is something we are still looking into as it would have game-wide implications.

 

Just make sure you put "SHOCKED" in big letters when you do it, so people can feel happy about what they've done.  

 

(btw, I'd go with "EXHAUSTED" myself, but whatever it is, make it visible)

 

 

[Snarky]

18 minutes ago, Krimson said:

After the Electric Blast rework is when my Elec/Kin Corruptor was suddenly able to solo Giant Monsters. No complaints. 

could you please revise and resubmit in the form of a grievance?  Thank you.

[Krimson]

Just now, Snarky said:

could you please revise and resubmit in the form of a grievance?  Thank you.

My grievance is that they had to cheese GMs to ignore Incarnate abilities to try and stop me. I can still solo a few. 

[temnix]

On 4/20/2024 at 7:21 PM, Troo said:

Could it be compelling to add a second path to defeating an enemy rather than just chipping away at the red bar?

 

I have proposed this before myself, along with a drastic reduction in enemies' Endurance total so that draining them to surrender would become a viable way to victory... right now they die or kill you before they empty out... But this kind of big change isn't going to happen, I think. I have seen no interest either from Homecoming or from players in seriously changing the game. Either they are afraid to ruin it, or they are afraid of NCSoft, but most likely they are just. Not. Interested. And that is why I myself have scant interest left. What am I, stupid to click the same five buttons to level 50 and then repeat?