There's an official dev stance regarding Stamina now as well, on the heels of Posi's post about his TF.

Pasted:

I agree that it's not 'necessary' I have 3 Staminaless characters, myself. granted, one of them isn't yet high enough level to even have Stamina, but given her current endurance usage, I don't forsee needing it.

However, given that it is not necessary, in general, I do think that if this is the official stance, some sets need to be looked at. Dark Armor, and the like. There are certain characters that undeniably burn a LOT more end than others, and in some cases it can be almost crippling and definitley un-fun without Stamina....

I have a suspicion that the devs expect people to slot things like costly shields with end reducers first, and add resistance enhancements later. It just seems the kind of backward thinking the devs have used on many occasions (like having the combat engine be hard-coded to report an attack to an enemy as soon as you activate the power, not when the animation of the attack finishes).

On my elec/elec brute, I have 3 shields and basically (at level 14) I have to pick one. Just ONE. I can't actually fight with all 3 up. I have 3 attacks in my primary and all of them have an end reducer in a slot I'd rather have be damage. That could really use some rebalancing.

On the other hand, my dark/archery character can lay down tar patch and spam 5 attacks in an endless cycle and his stamina bar DOES NOT MOVE. Now, if he were getting Frenzy for that....!

I totally agree with that. There's quite a few builds that are very much unfun without Stamina (or very patient teammates) to back their play. Either give them a way within the concept to regain end, or lower the end cost...something.

Wow. I saw the thread on the OB about how Stamina is so necessary it should be an innate and just rolled my eyes. It's a nice power. I like it, it lets me run more things at once and lets me spam attacks. There are other options, though. There are 3 buffs that come out of defender buffing powersets that boost endurance recovery. There's also such a thing as pacing your attacks - for instance, as a controller I can easily hold a couple targets at once. That doesn't mean I have to fire off every attack I have simultaneously once that happens.

I think some ATs do lend themselves to a more frenetic playstyle - such as brutes. I do think some powersets are extremely draining to play before you can slot them with SOs (I'm thinking of my brute and my warshade here).

I'll almost always take Stamina right at 20 just because I like the convenience - some people always take Hasten as soon as they can. Some people take both; some neither. It's just playstyle choices!

folks are unlikely to invite you back onto teams

That bit is true, unfortunately. I've been kicked and seen others kicked from teams because they don't have the crucial abilities in their powerset that the team leader deems necessary for them to call themselves whatever they might be playing at the moment.

Stuff like this makes me wonder if people are even having fun playing the game anymore, or if it's all about efficiency and racking up yet another level 50 in as little time as possible.

I recall topping out my first few characters to 50 without having the "required" powers of Hasten or Stamina, so it's a load of bollocks to me when I see people whining about it. If I'm having a hard time, I now have the option of reducing my difficulty level, sure I won't advance as much, but defeating enemies soundly is much more "fun" to me than getting my butt handed to me repeatedly just because I feel I have to level up faster than average.

The game is definitely easier with it than without, but you can play perfectly well from levels 1 to 50 with or without it. People have done so.

That's some gospel right there, but I'm betting it caused a collective groan from the majority of the board-posting populace.

That's some gospel right there, but I'm betting it caused a collective groan from the majority of the board-posting populace.

Which is why we all come here. ;)

If the "crucial abilities" are a tank's shield toggles, for instance, uh, maybe. If it's hasten and/or stamina? I'd quit. I don't like to play with asshats. ;)

've been kicked and seen others kicked from teams because they don't have the crucial abilities in their powerset that the team leader deems necessary for them to call themselves whatever they might be playing at the moment.

Speed boost, I'm a-looking at *you*. Start a convo about the necessity of Speed Boost on those forums, and watch the fun. Really. :(

I met a person on Freedom (invited one of my stray characters into a supergroup after playing, and, sure, why not? I don't want to mess with the base myself anyway) and found that they have their first fifty and is at 30 again with their second... and has been playing for less than three months.

How can they POSSIBLY enjoy the content?

I avoid Stamina on every toon that can even come close to getting away with it, as a matter of principle. Lots of builds really can do just fine without it. But I have taken Stamina on one toon so far (AR/Dev Blaster), and will soon be taking it on another (Dark/Dark Scrapper).

I've actually had teammates encourage me to take it, most recently on the scrapper who's about to cave in. I know my build isn't really their business, but this does make me worry about keeping up with a team. And the huffing and puffing between fights has gotten old for my toggle-heavy scrapper. Maybe once he's got more slots to work with, Dark Consumption won't be so darn slow to come back.

I play on Heroic anyway, just because I like the pace better. Finish a mission in a reasonable time, move on. My play sessions are often truncated by RL, and playing on Heroic helps me be able to fit more in. So I'm sure some of my perspective on Endurance comes from that.

On the one hand, I can see where the 'must have Stamina' camp are coming from- in part it's experience. Most of us do run with Stamina 3-slotted and can't imagine what it would be like without it. It's akin to several other things that have been proclaimed ultimate doom- the downscaling of defensive powers, the maximizing of targets hit by a power, and ED.

Every time the idea just boggled people's minds. It seemed like the whole world was tipping over on its ear. Scrappers that might not be able to solo AVs? Tankers that can't herd the entire map's spawns into one corner like clowns in a Yugo? Blasters that can't cap damage without buffs? The arguments start about what you 'should' be able to do in a superhero game. I remember the steady stream of people arguing they wanted to play a Tanker so that they could emulate Superman or the Hulk versus common thugs- they were in CoH to casually smash aside everything without any concern about losing.

But after hearing how Force Fields were now useless because they had such a minimal defensive boost, I'm still seeing FF as a viable set that works. After people declared that ED meant never setting your rep above Heroic because you couldn't handle it... I'm still seeing Invincible teams. After the general declaration that Tankers were now useless because Taunt had a maximum target limit, so the squishies would now be overwhelmed with the hordes of un-aggro'd evil, there's threads about how Tankers are breaking the game for everyone else.

So what would happen then, if Stamina disappeared? Let's assume that they just summarily removed the Fitness pool from the game. Gone, entirely. Well, first there'd be yelling- and then there'd be respecs, and there'd be new guides explaining how to slot endurance reductions for best effect. Some powers would fall out of favor and maybe get changed a bit (Arctic Air, for one) but ultimately we'd all adapt and carry on.

Wow, that was a vivid mental image.

Now that controllers have been 'nerfed to have no damage' I'm still perfectly capable of soloing a generic mission on Invincible. I did a safeguard against Malta to test that. It took a little longer to finish them off since I swapped out the fire pool to try primal for a bit, but it wasn't really a change in capabilities. At most, it added 20% more time to what it would have been with Fire Blast and Fire Ball on my side.

I try to avoid Fitness, but I can't think of any cases, off hand, where I have managed it without the toon having some workaround in their powersets. For my kindefs, for instance, I have Transference (and "Vigilance") but, more importantly, I have a team of folks who don't need any blue insps they get. I have a very end-heavy buff chain (since I include Grant Invisibility), but I don't have to hold back, because of those workarounds. He is a pita to play, however... if I am in the right mood I can really enjoy it, but even then he tires me out.

One of my nrg/nrg builds skipped Fitness as an experiment. If I avoided the multi-target attacks, it was very manageable, but the other versions (where I would lay in with Torrent and Explosive Blast) were more fun to play. They were obviously more effective, too, in a dps sense.

I don't worry about people inviting me back to teams, since that is based on so many more things than just how much dps you are doing, or how many blues they have to hand me, or whatever. The fact that end problems are as boring as hell is a bigger factor. Still, I can't see them making Stamina an inherent, so I dunno why they are even bothering discussing it.

Anyway, to say I could play my dark/dark scrapper or my fire/fire blaster "perfectly well from levels 1 to 50" without Stamina just makes me wonder how they are defining those terms. There is no question that I could play them to 50 (just as I could play a The Man build or a Forever Young or something like that) without Stamina, of course, but is the possibility of doing it really the same thing as "perfectly well"?

I have a ton of characters without Fitness, most notably the (now lvl 46) invuln/ss tanker you've played with. Do you think that was extremely detrimental to our team? (And I'm only responding to you, SC, because you've played with her so I thought I'd ask ;))

I get around it the same way you described, though, and always have. I carry blues, I trade the dmg and accuracy drops to the damage-dealers and breakfrees to the squishies for their blues, and I slot endurance reducers. I haven't had to adjust my work-arounds for AVs, which myself, mangagirl's scrapper and our friend's rad/rad have been trioing on unyeilding (my tank's normal setting). I run all her primary shields and often Tough without toooo much trouble. Do I look forward to lvl 47 where I can slot all the ribos and cytos my 50's been hoarding for her? Yes, I certainly do! Would I make it to 50 without them just like I have always intended to get there without Stamina... yes ;)

Ironically, of all my non-Stamina builds the only one that's ever been publicly questioned was my Illusion Controller. And that was most bizarre since it was at a Hami Raid. What's it matter there, anyway? :P

Stamina is OMG SO NECESSARY THEY SHOULD JUST GIVE IT TO US FREE. Why, yes, this is in fact the case. The original concept of the game was to be a superhero game. When I see in a superhero comic book that Batman or Captain America are left gasping and need to pause and catch their breath after fighting three minions, I will accept the Endurance mechanic.

This is the concept justification. There is also the social justification: after level 20, no one has much tolerance for a character that needs to pause and rest after every spawn.

It's the same way with travel powers, which "aren't necessary" in some abstract sense. But just about every superhero has one, either innately or with a vehicle. And socially, it's expected that you will get this at level 14.

Endurance rate recovery should be increased across the board to give everyone three slotted Stamina inherently. And travel powers should be inherent, and picked when you create a character. ED and the defense nerfs have resulted in cookie cutter characters that spend most of their building times grinding towards powers that make them ultimately playable. These changes are necessary for the health of the game, in that they would make concept characters much more viable than they are now; and currently, the concept of the game is better than its execution.

I call the same bullshit on you that I called on the post I quoted up there. I've seen that idea posited on the boards, and I've seen it shot down there too. I'm sure the other guys in this post can do it far better than I can, but I will say this: my toons without Stamina are just as much superheroes as the ones with. I don't need workarounds for game mechanics to make me feel like a hero, and if you do I think you need to rethink the definition of a hero.

<.< I /especially/ feel that way after /being/ a real-life hero. Powers don't define the superhero; motvation and action does.

I used to think Stamina was pretty necessary for a toon's build. It's certainly easy to see why, considering the cost of click powers and toggles. Especially when you get a toon that's got three toggles or more running regularly along with a regular attack chain.

But then I did some reading and experimenting. Why should Stamina be necessary all the time? Oh sure, it makes things easier in a lot of cases. And yeah, on some sets you're definately better off having it just for pure efficiency sake. But I took the time to think about a few things and tried different builds that didn't rely on Stamina. And they work!

I currently have six toons without Stamina. Possibly I will respec another one out of it in five levels. They're still great fun to play and honestly don't need Stamina to fuction amazingly. My Dark/Elec Brute, for example, runs low on endurance all the time. But he never runs out, cause as soon a I finish off one mob set and jump into another, Dark Consumption or Power Sink is ready to go, and oh look, Conserve Power is also recharged. Boom.

People who get stuck into any mindset of "You MUST have X power and Y power" or "You MUST slot X power with y# of g and r# of d or you are TEH GIMPY" are unfortunately many in number, and quite difficult to get them to consider other possibilites.

Dark/Elec seems like it could be fun. How much does Siphon Life help with the "I have no heal and I must scream" problem that Elec Armor has?

Actually, I agree, for the most part. Stamina might not be necessary, in the water/food/air way, but in game terms, I can think of very few characters that are not massively improved with Stamina, and all of them have some way to recover endurance on their own or they throw down buffs before the fight begins and have toggles on but do little in the way of during-fight buffing/damage/control. There are exceptions, of course, but they are fairly few.

I think Stamina should be an inherent, or, to be more accurate, endurance recovery should be recalculated so that everyone has the equivalent of three SO-slotted Stamina. Sets that get some sort of +end buff can ber reworked slightly. For the ones that give an endurance boost while draining enemy endurance, the enemy drain can be shifted so that more is drained from enemies. For the ones that only give an endurance boost or cut endurance costs, add an additional effect to it, possibly only a minor one, like end drain resistance.

The truth is that the vast majority of players who have first-hand experience with what Stamina can do will choose to buy it, at the cost of 3 powers and 2 slots, in the same way that most players will take a travel power on each character, albeit not so much now with the safeguard/mayhem travel powers. For those of us with veteran respecs, there's the nice option of taking the safeguard travel powers and a bunch of useful powers from our sets (instead of Hurdle/Swift, Health and the two travel power picks) until 20 or 22, then respeccing into the post-Stamina build. but the fact that we can actually split a build into a post-Stamina and pre-Stamina one? That says a lot, given that it's supposed to be just a pool power.

Sure, it's possible to slot a bunch of end reducers (and I mean a lot) and go that way. But if the option is between 6-12+ slots spent on endurance reducers (1-2 in the most end-heavy powers), or three power picks and 2 extra slots, it's pretty much no contest, for all but the most power-intensive/slot-easy builds.

I had a different thought. What if Swift and Hurdle each gave a tiny bit of +recovery, perhaps a quarter each of what Stamina gives, and then bump Stamina down to 75% of its effectiveness? That would allow for a much more measured approach to end management: if you need a little extra end, grab one or both of the precursor powers and don't slot them. If you need a moderate amount, grab one of the precursor powers and Stamina, then slot them, or alternately, grab Hurdle/Swift/Stamina and don't slot. If you're a total end hog and happy about it, grab all three and slot them up.

I think all the powers in the fitness pool are really valuable, and I can't agree with the assumption that selecting stamina has the cost of 3 other powers.

I'm not completely against the idea of the Fitness Power Pool being given. However, I wonder if it couldn't be EARNED instead of just given away.

Let me explain.

I wonder if it's at all possible to have some sort of bar for heroes/villains for how far they run/travel, maybe? Kind of like Grand Theft Auto where you could sprint futher as you ran more? That could be exploited pretty easily, though, I bet. We'd have heroes doing laps around Atlas until they get Swift. Or jumping contests until they get Hurdle.

What about making use of the plaque badges? You show that you've been all over the city and get rewarded first with Swift, then with Hurdle, then Health and Stamina?

It's meeting halfway with both the devs and the people shouting "OMG it should be free!" You earn it and it still leaves you room for other powers.

Taxibots would become even MORE loved.

Although I use Stamina and think it's a nice power that needs some tweaking to make it more of an 'optional to the majority of players' sort of thing, my agreement with many of the opinions in that thread parts ways when people start talking about downtime.

I guess it's because I'm in an SG that doesn't mind stopping for a few seconds for rest. Sometimes the end drain comes in faster than the blue pills can drop for you (Malta, I'm looking at you.), and thus you call a halt over TS. Not a problem for anyone I usually run with.

30 seconds - not long enough for me to lose my groove.

Unfortunately, there's an entire AT that's based on getting and staying in the groove, ie, Brutes. In fact, the reason they didn't make Regen a Brute secondary was to keep it from being "too easy" to keep moving. Of course, it took all of three seconds for folks to come up with a set of optimal builds to keep moving with.

Well, that'll larn me to use a bit of hyperbole. I guess it's hyperbole, at least -- all I know is that, with *most* of my stable of alts, by the time I'm getting to 20, I'm dying for that sweeeeet Stamina.

Clearly there are some builds that are more doable without it, but without getting into a "minmaxxer" debate, I suspect that the vast majority of toons that could have Stamina (i.e., are SL 20+) do have it. It might be interesting to do a random survey at Pocket D or the Talos train station or Ghost Falcon and see. That tells me that while it's not *necessary* it provides a big QoL bump for most people.

(I also agree with the previous poster that the Fitness pool is hardly a waste -- I often end up planning on at least three, often all four, of its powers. It's just a "waste" vs. getting something that's really *cool*, power-wise.)

That all said, and thanks for saying that I'm "usually somewhat interesting" (I need to add that to my blog's credit list), I don't believe I actually joined into the chorus of "Everyone should have Stamina automatically for free." One can argue from actual comics that signature heroes don't have to stop, wheezing, after taking down a half-dozen Hydra mooks at each corridor intersection, but I'd be perfectly happy with a middle ground of a bit higher End recovery than what we currently have -- maybe increasing with level and capping out at 20, at which point one could take Stamina if one so chose.

I admit I got hyperbolic with what I wrote in the OP, but I'm so tired, as I've said before, of the eternal debate over whether Stamina is /needed/. Someone a while ago had a great post on the forums about the definition of 'necessary', and something about your post and the way it was phrased just touched me off. :(

Stamina is happyshiny, and so's health. Using three slots to get them all is so worth it. Same as you have to use two slots to get glorious travel powers. Always a price.

I really want to get into this discussion. I considered it on the boards, even. But it's such a heated debate, and people are generally so set in their ways, that it's useless even discussing it. (IMHO). But, in the spirit of uselessness, I'll make a couple of points:

Bubbleyumm, FF/Psy/Psy defender, does not have fitness. I wanted too many other power pools to waste a pool (and three powers, yes I think it's a "waste") on stamina. So she doesn't have it. Her toggles all have end reducers. Back before ED, I'd be mad. Now? Not so much. As long as I'm DEFENDING, I'm ok on end. As soon as I try to start blastering, at all, my end dies. Toggles drop. No more defending. So I abstain from blastering whenever possible. She's a defender, afterall.

White Sapphire, ice/ice/elec blaster, has stamina. She does sometimes run out of end. I'm sure I could rebuild her with end redux and get along without stamina, but I wouldn't want to try. I'd just quit playing her. She was my first ever character, and it's been very hard to balance her build in a way that I like playing. (Thank you Liz for making WS playable for me again.)

So I can see that, yes, for some characters, stamina makes a character more playable, more tolerable. No stamina means that particular powerset is just too costly. But anyone who says that "anyone without stamina automatically sucks" is just retarded. Even if they have downtime between every fight.. so? "downtime" meaning all of 30 seconds to a minute? Are they THAT impatient that they're going to kick an otherwise valuable player off a team? Then I don't want to team with them! :P

So much word, Bubble. :)

I think the problem is even after ED the styles for power selection and slotting are still shades of pre-ED.

The one thing I notice is that hasten is rarely mentioned in the 100+ posts. Hasten + Stamina is usually the recipe for running around willy-nilly. I'm hedging a guess to say that those who want free stamina run hasten. (This is just a guess.) I have toons that I have dropped stamina in a respec after realizing they're not very end heavy.

On one character I purposefully dropped hasten and tossed recharge enhs to make up for the lack of hasten. Sometimes I run out of powers since they cycle slower, but do I miss hasten? Every once and a while, but the trade off is that I am not thinking, "Ok, is NOW a good time to fire off the ol' fire mittens?"

The great thing about not having hasten is the end crash at the end of hasten's cycle. Having a consistent (if not slower) attack chain is better than waiting for the end crash from hasten. Sure you can just pop a blue mid-battle but some have died just trying to hit the blue pez to get it into the queue, let alone to even get it fired off. One of my SGmates enjoys running what we call "Noisy-scrapper-dark armor" and ends up resting with end redux enhs and stamina. Often times it is his lack of resting and the non-firing end insps that pretty much kill him.

In the end I don't think stamina is necessary, and the devs don't think so either, usually the Atlas Medallion is the easiest and the first accolade heroes get, think of that as a freebie. =P

Good points.

The Stamina debate (and the dev position on it) has been around since I joined the game in I2, at least on the boards. I've made my opinions known so many times that I'm pretty burned out by all of it (actually, have been since about I5), since I know that it'll all come back again within a couple of weeks (on the boards), and I'll have to repeat myself again (and again and again).

Whatever happens to Stamina, I will cope. (I survived having an I2 Regen.) Would I like Stamina as an inherent? Sure. It won't stop me from taking Swift and Health, since I love those two powers as well, but Inherent Stamina would certainly be nice. Also, would I like toggle Instant Healing back? Sure.

Should I get those two? Ah, well, that's up to the devs, and things are not likely to change in the near future, so I cope. It's just not that big of a deal to me, compared to various other issues which will garner much greater support/opposition from me. (See: Grandville Lag.)

And because I forgot to mention it, a final parting shot:

This is like the "healer" debate, or the "Defender blasts" debate, or the "Blaster melee" debate, or the "PvP badges" debate, or the "calling characters toons" debate. It's never, ever going to get resolved, it will keep happening, and I am, in all honesty, sick unto death of it.

I'm not even sure whether they deserve the name "debate". Standing on opposite sides loudly repeating one's positions and opinions isn't a debate, it's a flaming row.

Just because there were a couple of posts commenting on how "the Stamina debate" is something they are tired of, etc...

I really enjoyed this thread we had here. Unlike the way these things usually proceed on the official boards, it was interesting and informative and didn't end up in a dark place. (despite a2k's dastardly attempts to troll it by mentioning that controversial kinetics "buff"! :) ) There is no right answer or anything like that, I know, but I liked reading what you all had to say on it (even when the poster's preferred playstyle was very different from my own).

Thanks, all!

I've never taken the Health pool on any of my toons and so this entire discussion is terribly amusing to me, in an outside-looking-in sort of way.

Neither have I, actually. *scratches head* Oh, wait. I lied. I used my freespec with i8 and I took Swift because I use SJ and trying to follow around my super-speeding better half on mission maps is a pain in the ass.

First character I got high enough for Stamina was Angela Altena, my now-50 Ice/Ice/Cold blaster. I was wholly unaware that the Fitness Pool even existed nor did I realize the OMG MUST HAVE!-ness of the pool. My boyfriend pointed it out to me, and I did end up taking Stamina, at level 22. Did I really notice a big difference? Sorta, as I did take Hasten really early. But was it painful? Not really. I have since then respecced her to have Stamina at 20.

Then there's my Dark/Archery Defender. I considered going without Stamina on her, as I was expecting to be on teams for the most part, but then soloing (as I generally do while waiting for team invite tells) would be painfully slow. So I got it anyway. But I'm considering going back on that now; I'm mostly on 6-8 man teams and my end bar barely moves, even with Shadow Fall, Darkest Night, Combat Jumping, and Acrobatics running. Of course, I slotted SF with 2 end reduxes and DN/Acro with 3.

But honestly? If they yanked the Fitness Pool, I wouldn't mind it. It'd make fitting in all the powers I want easier and make the teens less of a grind. (I generally tend to do Pre-Travel at 12, Travel at 14, Hurdle at 16, Health at 18, and Stamina at 20.) But I will say this, though: City of Heroes would turn into City of Sucktastic Defenders and Regen Scrappers for a while. Sucktastic Defenders, as in, those who take a single power in the primary and all the blasts because what they really want is to play a blaster with Stamina. (Vigilance on a big team is more than enough.) And then we'd have all the Regen Scrappers . . . as Regen has QR.

If the devs up and decided to remove Stamina from the game, I'd just respec and keep on playing. I might delete/reroll a few characters, but I'd definitely keep on playing. But that's my opinion, and I can fully understand if you're inclined to disagree.

bleh... I think the people who want it as an inherent are wrong, but it boggles my mind if the devs are seriously thinking of pulling it altogether. It just seems like another major change to address some problem I was never even aware existed. In this case they get bonus points for managing to hit my playstyle where it hurts again. Forget the resting between battles bit... it is not rare for me to tap out on a number of my toons during battle, and that is with a 3-slotted Stamina.

Would I keep on playing? I guess. I wouldn't like it if they only gave us one costume slot, but I guess I would still play. So, if that is their only criteria, then they may as well keep making it less fun for me until I quit... that can be their signal that it is just the right amount of fun.