Alpha Slot: Bang for Your Buck

[AlwaysAPrice]

Each Alpha provides enhancement to a few or several power qualities. So, what powerset combinations have you played, or thought about, that let you squeeze the most benefit - or more than you expected - out of any particular T4 Alpha? A couple of mine below.

 

For reference:
Agility Core: 45% End Mod, 33% Recharge, 20% Defense
Agility Radial: 33% End Mod, Recharge, and Move Speed, 20% Defense
Cardiac Core: 45% Endurance, 20% Range and Resistance
Cardiac Radial: 33% Endurance, Fear, Sleep, and Absorb, 20% Range and Resistance
Intuition Core: 45% Hold, 33% Defense Debuff, 20% Range
Intuition Radial: 33% Hold, Damage, Slow, and Defense Debuff, 20% Range and ToHit Debuff
Musculature Core: 45% Damage, 33% Immobilize and Defense Debuff
Musculature Radial: 33% Damage, Immobilize, Defense Debuff, End Mod, and Run, 20% ToHit Debuff
Nerve Core: 45% Accuracy, 33% Hold, 20% Defense
Nerve Radial: 33% Accuracy, Hold, Taunt, Confuse, and Fly, 20% Defense
Resilient Core: 33% Resist and Immobilize, 20% ToHit
Resilient Radial: 20% Resist and ToHit, 33% Taunt, Immobilize, Absorb, and Stun
Spiritual Core: 45% Recharge, 33% Stun and Healing
Spiritual Radial: 33% Recharge, Healing, Stun, Slow, and Jump, 20% ToHit
Vigor Core: 45% Healing, 33% Accuracy and Endurance
Vigor Radial: 33% Healing, Accuracy, Endurance, Confuse, Sleep, and Fear

 

Two of my favorite builds make very good use of Musculature Radial: a Rad/Dark/Dark Corruptor and a Dark/Elec/Soul Brute. I trade the extra Damage of Core to instead amp up the secondary effects of both the primary and secondary on both builds. Since the brute uses Soul Tentacles and was recently respecced to use Super Speed, she manages to get some use out of every part of Musc Radial except the def debuff. Dark Obliteration slotted with an Acc -ToHit set plus the alpha lets her blanket the spawns she's fighting in a sizable chunk of -ToHit in addition to what her melee attacks dish out, all while rapidly sapping through a Lightning Field and Power Sink that are both heavily slotted for EndMod so boosted past ED by the Alpha.

 

One of my more niche selections that doesn't make use of everything the alpha has but taps more than I realized when I picked it: I have a kin/nin/soul scrapper where the character used to be a mind/martial dom (RP happened, powers changed), so I went Intuition Radial with the new build just because that was what I used on the original, and it's worked out surprisingly nicely. She's well equipped for ranged fights with Focused Burst holding her Critical Strikes, then Moonbeam and Soul Storm, so she gets utility out of the Range, ToHit Debuff, and Hold elements along with the damage boost to all the rest of her fighting.

 

[Vanden]

Ice Blast can use everything in Intuition Radial except Defense Debuff. Combine it with a debuffing set and you're golden.

[AlwaysAPrice]

Oh, that's definitely just put an ice/rad on my to-do list.

[Uun]

I don't have a count, but I use Musculature Radial or Intuition Radial on any build with debuffs, depending on whether the end mod (Musculature) or hold, slow and range (Intuition) is more valuable. I've got a handful that use Agility or Cardiac, and I recently used Nerve on an Elec/Dark controller for acc, hold, confuse and defense.

[nihilii]

I'm quite fond of Vigor anytime I can get away with it. The combination of high accuracy and high endurance reduction opens up significant build freedom.

 

Best candidates are Brutes, who get less out of Musculature than other ATs so have an easier time making the sacrifice. Ideally with sizeable +regen/heal/+maxHP components to their secondary. Something like /energy (to boost the maxHP in Overload) or /regen (to boost... everything) can get so much out of Vigor.

[Sovera]

I always go Musculature Radial on near everything, even though the actual numbers are lower than on paper thanks to ED (Musculature's 45% damage actually being 15%, which makes the shift to Radial cost less than at first apparent (about 11% damage boost by going Radial instead)). More damage and more endurance recovery is always a thing near all builds can universally enjoy where most of the other alphas are pretty conditional.

 

I've managed to never take Cardiac on any character so far. Either I have the endurance problems licked by 50 or the character is a bust.

 

I've taken Intuition on my Ice Melee characters but missed the lil bit of endurance recovery so shifted back.

 

 

Considering the damage boost is pretty small there is good reason to explore the other alphas though.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Dominators can sometimes end up doing more damage with vigor than with musculature.

Being able to lighten or not even bother with slotting for accuracy and endurance management tends to allow for more procs. Plus, with many dominators living in or near melee they can at times be damage-capped by external buffs even without musculature; at such times vigor will clearly lead to more damage than musculature. Even when not damage-capped, heavier proc slotting can make vigor and musculature very very close in the damage that they can help to generate. 

A lot of players opt for the assault radial hybrid because that allows them to do more damage once they're damage-capped. In a way, facilitating getting more procs into a build by taking a non-damage alpha is kind of like taking assault radial hybrid. Sorta kinda.

Edited April 23 by EnjoyTheJourney

[BrandX]

22 hours ago, Vanden said:

Ice Blast can use everything in Intuition Radial except Defense Debuff. Combine it with a debuffing set and you're golden.

 

Street Justice/WP has Shin Breaker with both -Defense and Slows, Crushing Uppercut with Hold, RttC with -ToHit and just need to grab a range attack in Epic 🙂

[Zect]

elec/ss/mu resilient core tank. The fightingless, procbombing, end draining, double-rage stacking, hardcapped resistances dps machine. Just make sure they all get in footstomp range before dropping the mu immob (almost as much damage as dark oblit and much better rech).

Edited April 25 by Zect

[One IV All]

On 4/24/2024 at 5:23 PM, Zect said:

elec/ss/mu resilient core tank. The fightingless, procbombing, end draining, double-rage stacking, hardcapped resistances dps machine. Just make sure they all get in footstomp range before dropping the mu immob (almost as much damage as dark oblit and much better rech).

Excuse me while I go play around in mid 😂

 

I know everyone is crazy about Rad/SS. Elec/SS/Mu seems like it could stand out/be a bit different. I know a lot of people say Elec Armor is just a worst Rad Armor, in most cases.

[Sovera]

On 4/28/2024 at 8:00 AM, One IV All said:

Excuse me while I go play around in mid 😂

 

I know everyone is crazy about Rad/SS. Elec/SS/Mu seems like it could stand out/be a bit different. I know a lot of people say Elec Armor is just a worst Rad Armor, in most cases.

 

Rad/SS is not played for the sturdiness. It's played for the proc bombing of Radiation Therapy and Ground Zero. Elec has nothing of the sort.

[Zect]

Elec is definitely a worse rad armor. Worse mez prot, much worse sustain, more serious resist hole (the only armor set that still has 0% resist against anything) and the extra resists don't matter as much with the amount of res present in the IO system currently. Note: I don't think it is underpowered in any way; rather, rad armor is overpowered.

 

However, despite not being a meta set, it can nevertheless be built to a high level of performance as an offensively-oriented armor. This is probably not what the set was designed as, but fortuitous circumstances keep it viable in the current meta.

[Maelwys]

Very specific build, but my Bot/Kin/Flame MM makes quite good use out of Agility Core: 45% End Mod, 33% Recharge, 20% Defense
The +Defence buffs their Protector Bot Bubbles (and Maneuvers and the Barrier Destiny and Support Hybrids) and was the main consideration for choosing an alpha - softcapped pets are much happier pets; and hitting that bar on a /Kin takes effort.
The +Recharge brings their Fulcrum Shift, Siphon Power, etc. up sooner and lets me keep Bonfire up permanently. More +Recharge Enhancement slotting typically means less damage (via lower proc activation chances) but MMs don't rely on personal attacks, so the usual downside doesn't apply here.
The +EndMod helps with their Speed Boost, Stamina and Transference. And it's fun to be able to one-shot a Boss's Blue bar from 60ft away.