Boulder Dude

Dave Posted a a bit about Stamina and the Dev’s take on it. Someone took offence at Dave’s use of hyperbole and so it goes.

But…

It did get me thinking about Stamina/Travel Powers/the Fitness Pool and character builds. Now the person that objected to Dave’s take on the subject and accused him of cookie cutter builds, which I found to be amusing. I remember back in the day back before ED and how there was only ONE WAY to build X type of AT. Being the iconoclast that I am, I built all of my toons very diversified (Stop laughing Dave…) trying to take advantage of slotting that I thought would be good. I spent hours swapping things back and forth on the Character Builders to find a good balance and slotting to get what I wanted.

Then ED came in to effect and cries of ohnoesyounerfedmytoonihateyouforever!!!11!1 were everywhere, and I MAYBE had to swap around a slot or two on a couple of toons and I was good to go. The one constant was Stamina. A couple of toons were six slotted on Stamina, no big, I could move those slots elsewhere.

Stamina:

Puck is the Queen of End suckage and MOST (Off the top of my head all but one or two) all of her Grav/FF powers are three Slotted for EndRedux AND she is three slotted Stamina. When on a full team going up against 16+ mobs she is down to ¼ power and resting whenever it comes up again. I have been known to have most of her tray filled with blues.

Zazi: I went a different route with her and decided to go for quick kill over being able to go toe to toe for a big battle. She is four slotted in Stamina and only her defences (where allowed) are slotted with EndRedux.

Zot: For whatever reason Claws/Ninjitsu takes almost no End…really. Standard EndRedux on the Defences and only one slotted in Stamina. If a battle goes on where she is out of End I am most likely screwed in other ways as well so it is not likely to matter.

The only Toon without Stamina is the Warshade and that is because they get fun powers to take care of that problem.

Basically running all of my toons builds through a builder it became very clear very quickly that there was no way to make a toon without Stamina and be able to….say run all of your defences and fight (in the case of the Dark/Dark Scrapper it is impossible to run all of your defences UNTIL you are one or two slotted in Stamina). Most every toon’s first slot is filled with an EndRedux (unless not possible) with the goal of being able to regain End at a rate of 2+ while not fighting…and all toggles (if there are toggles) up.

Travel Powers:

Quality of Life really.

I have only known two toons without a travel power (a third one went for a long time without one simple because he relied on his partner to tag him the Kin power) and both were for RP purposes.

Two.

Ever.

And there was much bitching about how slow their toons were…from the players of the toons without the Travel Powers not anyone else. Everyone else just dealt with it and waited (really it gave everyone time to empty their pockets…and get to the door before they got there).

Now there was a lot of debate as to Healers always needing to be TP’ers for Recall Friend or Flyers with Recall Friend, but that was about it.

Now I have tried flying (end hog and not very fast…best power to have in the Shadow Shard), Super Speed (fast but vertically limiting and completely useless in the Shadow Shard), Super Jump (best balance of speed, and vertical and useless in the Shadow Shard), and Teleport (another nicely balanced power second best in the Shadow Shard). After much playing around with the Travel Powers I have builds and combo’s that I like to have.

Super Speed: MUST have one or more of the following – Hurdle, Sprint slotted for Jump, or Combat Jump (or in the case of Zot, all three – Long Jump Kitty!).

Teleport: For comfort TP’ing (now because things like leaves are targets) I take Hover so that I can hover and gain End…or pin point my targeting without fear of falling.

Super Jump: As I said, for me this is my favourite travel power.

Any more it tends to be TP or SJ and only the Warshade flies.

Power pools:

Fitness: Every toon except the Warshade has this Pool simply because it is the best pool in the game. You can make a case for all of the powers, though with the exception of Zot (who hass all four of the powers) I take Speed, Health and Stamina.

Puck has the one that gives you the ACC/Dam bonus and Vengence.

Zazi has Stealth.

And really that is it. Some may take Hover or Combat Jump, but unless they take the travel power, they do not have anything in any of the other Pool Powers. Now, I have found it interesting that a “typical” Storm Knight build includes the Healing Pool.

So am I going to demand that the Fitness Pool be Free? No, but I do realize that for me to have a good toon that is not frustrating to me or a liability to a team I will have to plan on taking it and having Stamina by the time the toon hit’s level 30.

UPDATE:

Leadership and Concealment...those where the other two Power Pools that I could not think of, Thank you Dave. So yes, Concealment has some good stuff (though Dark Defense has way too big of a bite aura for it to be useful). But it did add a nice bit of defense for Zazi's Katana/Katana build...and every little bit helps (same for Combat Jump).

Leadership is just generally good for someone (or several someones since it stacks) in the group to have. It use one that I picked up early for Puck and ande the joke that she was a Combat Accessory (Holds, Bubbles, and Buffs oh my. :) ). Mostly I have seen it on Controllers and Defenders, and once on a Tank (his thinking was if if he made it easier for the scrappers to do their jobs...etc).