Why endurance/recovery over intelligence now?

[LaughingAlex]

Since the CDR nerf, I've been seen saying int was a dump stat.  Why do I say this?  Well, heres my explaination.

Endurance beats the pants off of it for energy management.

Recovery causes you to gain more energy from energy unlocks and energy builders, and also increases your max energy.

Gear with cost reduction will also beat the pants off of int.

There isn't a whole lot to say to this.  Endurance increases your maximum energy by one point(roughly) every point you have in it.  Recovery increases your equilibrium nearly as much, but as a primary it also has a specialization that reduces the recovery you need for max energy increases by half.

Endurance is also the alternative main stat for overdrive.  It also works for ionic revirb for electrical users(if your pure electrical).

Recovery also helps overdrive tremendously, probably more-so than endurance does.

So for damage toons, using concentration and ranged, there really is no reason to touch intelligence anymore.  You'll want ego, of course, but for energy to dish it out, endurance and recovery just out-perform intelligence on the energy front by a large landslide.  Since the CDR nerf also impacted the energy unlock molecular self assembly, any smart player can bet that your only going to be seeing pistol/arc lightning builds anymore.

So where does this leave intelligence?  Where it was in the old days, a dump stat.  Because anything it does, something else does far, far better.

[Lord Nightmare]

"THIS IS NOT PERFORMING AS IT USED TO, MAN THIS IS SO USELESS!"

 

Int was never meant to give such ludicrous amounts of CDR, especially with combined with CDR gear. It IS a jack of all trades stat, but the inherent CDR and Cost Reduction still make it special. What this comes to is either gearing to boost your strengths or gearing to lessen your weaknesses. With INT, you don't have to worry too much about CDR or Cost and can pick the middle ground gear (the one that adds an equal amount to both) and mod it for something else. If you DO want to improve these, then you have both working for you inherently and with gear.

It's only a dump stat if your build or AT says it is. The term comes from 3rd Edition DnD where each class would have a single stat that was completely and utterly useless to them and so it'd get the lowest of the 6 3d6 rolls. In Champions, especially for most FF characters, it'd be the one that factors little into your build. Usually it's either Strength or Ego, depending on if you're ranged or melee but for some it could be Presence. Everyone can benefit from Int, just not enough to boost it to the levels people used to.

[General Idiot]

While I personally think it needed a nerf, I think they went a bit too far. They should've done what they did with crit, and to a lesser extent dodge, a while back where they made it easy to get a little but harder to get a lot.

[Xev]

I never had an int build until recently (I had a few I was toying with but none I liked until now) so I'm lucky, I don't have to miss *that* type of cdr so much.  Everyone has at least some Int so that would be what I miss most about Int cdr.

The CDR I miss, is the gear CDR. It wasn't all that much...just enough for a little tweaking. I don't see why they had to remove it.

So for damage toons, using concentration and ranged, there really is no reason to touch intelligence anymore. 
...
So where does this leave intelligence?  Where it was in the old days, a dump stat.  Because anything it does, something else does far, far better.

The Int nerf was supposed to make Ego more desirable. My best Ego build, the best way I can patch it up is to swap Ego for Int. If they hadn't cheaped out and gipped us out of retcons I might have rerolled and kept playing that build who has full Justice and Vig gear. It would disgust me to pay for a retcon for him so I just don't play him anymore. Nerf working as intended huh..

I don't like dumping points into any energy recovery stat and I always go with the bare minimum of what I decide to go with. On my Unleashed, Rec works good since his energy builder gets him to full pretty fast when Focus or his shield advantage don't do their job. Otherwise I generally try to go End due to more max energy is a good thing.

Thankfully I never realized the joy of MSA until recently - otherwise I would have probly been a lot more into Int builds.

Oh and that cost reduction you like on gear...? Why in the world do you think they won't nerf that... You should know better...

[LaughingAlex]

"THIS IS NOT PERFORMING AS IT USED TO, MAN THIS IS SO USELESS!"

 

Int was never meant to give such ludicrous amounts of CDR, especially with combined with CDR gear. It IS a jack of all trades stat, but the inherent CDR and Cost Reduction still make it special. What this comes to is either gearing to boost your strengths or gearing to lessen your weaknesses. With INT, you don't have to worry too much about CDR or Cost and can pick the middle ground gear (the one that adds an equal amount to both) and mod it for something else. If you DO want to improve these, then you have both working for you inherently and with gear.

It's only a dump stat if your build or AT says it is. The term comes from 3rd Edition DnD where each class would have a single stat that was completely and utterly useless to them and so it'd get the lowest of the 6 3d6 rolls. In Champions, especially for most FF characters, it'd be the one that factors little into your build. Usually it's either Strength or Ego, depending on if you're ranged or melee but for some it could be Presence. Everyone can benefit from Int, just not enough to boost it to the levels people used to.

You obviously never played the game before the gear changes.  No one in there right mind used either of their TWO superstats for intelligence but morons.  It didn't do enough of anything, at all.  CDR was as weak back then as it was nerfed recently.  Thing was even more-so then, there were no attacks at ALL back then that were good if they were cooldown dependant.  Force Sheath + multiple catalysts + Endurance = 8 force cascades back then.

If a stat is far outperformed by other stats that specialize, the specialized stats win.  Jack of all trades, master of none.  What that really means, is "useless at everything it actually does".

When you can triple your effective energy bar with say 200 endurance but only boost it by about 50% with the same amount of intelligence, and the CDR isn't very impressive, then your better off.  When you can triple the speed at which you fill that energy with recovery, once again, your cutting the time spent building energy via the energy unlocks/energy builders, and thus getting more energy out anyways.

It's basic min/maxing.


And yes Xev, I expect them to nerf cost reduction sooner or later again, to.  Note I did say again.  Ahh I remember the fun days when catalyst was good and the game was good.

[Xev]

Hehe the game is still good but that last gear nerf was senseless and it did hurt the game some for me at least.

Don't give up on Int. It's about the only thing that could patch my Fire build together enough to make me want to play it. I don't have any plans to seek out ways to use Int tho, for sure.. It's been TAINTED..

[Lord Nightmare]

You obviously never played the game before the gear changes.  No one in there right mind used either of their TWO superstats for intelligence but morons.  It didn't do enough of anything, at all.  CDR was as weak back then as it was nerfed recently.  Thing was even more-so then, there were no attacks at ALL back then that were good if they were cooldown dependant.  Force Sheath + multiple catalysts + Endurance = 8 force cascades back then.

If a stat is far outperformed by other stats that specialize, the specialized stats win.  Jack of all trades, master of none.  What that really means, is "useless at everything it actually does".

When you can triple your effective energy bar with say 200 endurance but only boost it by about 50% with the same amount of intelligence, and the CDR isn't very impressive, then your better off.  When you can triple the speed at which you fill that energy with recovery, once again, your cutting the time spent building energy via the energy unlocks/energy builders, and thus getting more energy out anyways.

It's basic min/maxing.


And yes Xev, I expect them to nerf cost reduction sooner or later again, to.  Note I did say again.  Ahh I remember the fun days when catalyst was good and the game was good.

I did. And if you honestly think no one used Int for a SS, you are beyond mistaken. It was the main stat for AOPM back before On Alert. And the big copy-paste slotted for people was either Defiance or AoPM.

Also, you mention catalysts. Which weren't added till On Alert. So clearly someone doesn't know what they're talking about.

And to further shoot down your obvious lack of knowledge, Defiance + Enrage + IDF tanks would have Unleashed Rage (Which, in case you forgot, is on a long cooldown) as their spike damage. If you want any more examples, ask anyone in Conquer about builds back then and you'll get a new world of actually correct information.

CDR wasn't as big a thing back then because it was only on the VERY high end gear. The ones that took months upon months to farm from UNITY or had a very low drop rate from APs. It was "weaker" because it was an extra stat on stuff that had AT MOST +40ish to a single stat and +10 to others and a small amount of offense and defense. Didn't matter how little there was, it was something extra.

[LaughingAlex]

Also, you mention catalysts. Which weren't added till On Alert. So clearly someone doesn't know what they're talking about.

You don't know what I am talking about at all, actually.  The item I speak of is the 50% cost reduction to ranged(catalyst, yes, it was called that, and this was science crafting), 50% cost reduction to melee(primal, in mystic crafting) or 50% cost reduction to AoE(atomic in arms).  THOSE WERE PRE ON ALERT MODIFICATIONS YOU ADDED TO THE OLD ITEMS YOU USED TO CRAFT DURING THE PROCESS OF CRAFTING THEM.

These were the whole reason people used to use crafting in CO in the old days before they implemented the disaster that is the modern crafting system.  The "Safeguard catalyst" is merely a nod to the single best modification the game ever had.  Which stacked with THREE offense slots(one primary, TWO secondary back then) could get you 150% total of any of those three cost discounts.  This let you do things like fire off eight cascades or something.  Cryptic changed the mods to be useless as they were changed to the cost reduction we are familiar with today and back then, the numbers were so low as to have nearly no effect as intelligence also had very little effect(stats were far lower back then, so you had to make sure your bang for the buck was higher).

Course, everyone stopped bothering with crafting since that over kill nerf and the newer crafting system was so bad no one but extreme min/maxers who waste time on "awesome but impractical" use it.  Anyone who does these days, I consider them fools or pvpers who should be playing a different game anyways.

[Xev]

I've read some of these stories before. The game sure has taken a beating over the years when it comes to character development.

The closest thing to character development luv I've seen is the rampage rehash and then they nerfed the vehicles people broke down and bought to run them and the Masks of Speed that they won.

[Xev]

Since point for point, like you say, Rec and End give much better energy returns than Int - the only advantage to using Int is for Ranged damage users due to it boosts Concentration and gives cost reduction at the same time.

Oh wait, Ego has cost reduction as a tree choice...

You know what there really is only one reason to use Int anymore and that is if you want to squeeze out what CDR is left in it at the cost of Ego's ranged damage boost. Or, if you want to sacrifice a fair amount of energy return for what CDR is left in Int by using Int instead of Rec or End.

So..

What Int is best at, the only thing it's good for actually, after they hard nerfed its CDR .... is adding CDR.

LOL!

*grumble*


>>>

I brought this up in-game and someone pointed out that AoPM builds can take advantage of Int tree's SS boosting choices as another use for Int.

So now Int has two uses I can see (none I would use) instead of just one dubious & ironically funny one.

[Xev]

Hey here's a use for Int for Ranged dps.

Int secondary to boost Concentration and MSA or Overdrive and give cost discount and a tiny amount of cdr. This is good if you aren't using Ego primary and have an energy hungry build and are willing to give up the innate ranged damage boost that Ego gives.

So, in this case where you don't want an Ego primary but still want to get cost discount and a boost to Concentration in one SS - Int is the way to go.

Ego gives more damage but Int gives cost reduction and helps fuel energy unlocks and offers some small amount of cdr - oh and you can see Freon when he's attacking you..