The official Dev stance on Stamina — “No, it’s not necessary for anyone.”
Um … right.
Stamina is a problem power. The game is NOT balanced around a character having Stamina. It is also balanced around characters playing on Heroic. Chances are good that any character of any AT with mediocre or better slotting can solo and team successfully on Heroic without *needing* Stamina.
That doesn’t mean they don’t want Stamina. Endurance is, essentially, a fixed value. You have 100 End (for most characters) and each power uses some of that each time it is activated or cycled. If you add up all your toggles costs and can figure out the endurance cost of your ‘attack chain’ you can figure out exactly what your burn rate is.
Recovery offsets the ‘burn rate’ and, when combined with the size of the Endurance Pool and Burn Rate values, you can determine exactly how long you can stand and fight. Being able to Stand and fight longer is desirable — not only can you advance faster, but you can potentially take on tougher targets as well.
Stamina is the only Power available to all characters which increases the duration a character can battle (endurance-wise.) It’s easy to see why it is such a popular power. It is *not* required though, in the same way that a travel power is not required. 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.
People have also gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel. That doesn’t make it pleasant, or even possible, for everyone to do so “perfectly well.”
Actually, that’s not quite true. If you rest between every encounter and horde blue Inspirations and slot the bejebus out of your powers with EndRed and avoid AVs (on Heroic), yes, you can probably get by okay without Stamina, regardless of your AT and powerset. It just won’t be easy, or pleasant, or effective, and folks are unlikely to invite you back onto teams. So, yes, in that “same way” it’s like travel powers — not required, but damned inconvenient to be without them or a substitute.
Frankly, the Endurance thing needs to be reexamined, if the Devs want to really assert that folks don’t need to have Stamina in their build. Ninety-five percent of the toons I know spend their 12-20 levels mostly getting their travel powers and Stamina. Arguing that neither is “necessary” seems goofy.
Okay, no. I don’t buy your arguments. Stamina is a pool power. It is not necessary. Not even with your hyper-blown ‘logic’ that elsewise you have to horde blue candy, keep an empath with Recovery aura on a chain, whatever. No. You don’t have to do any of those things. Anymore than you have to take a travel power. And lacking either of those things is not going to keep you off any team but a bad one — any team that determines it’s membership based on what pool powers a toon has is a lousy team.
Simply putting that aside, myself and many others operate just fine at higher levels without Stamina, so claiming you can’t possibly be effective without it is just bunk. Come over to the city_of_heroes community and say that; you will be educated.
Better yet, get off your cookie-cutter builds and actually try to experiment in the game.
Oookay … I seem to have hit a sensitive note.
1. Being a “pool power” has nothing to do with whether Stamina is necessary or not. And “necessary” here is a quality of life thing, not a “the game won’t boot up” or “you’ll die immediately” thing. It can be done. I just don’t think it can be done as easily.
2. “Lacking either of those things [Stamina, Travel] is not going to keep you off any team but a bad one” — except that if you’re constantly requiring downtime to rest between each encounter, and constantly leaving everyone tapping their toes waiting at the mission door, it is going to be a bit annoying. Yes, for friends, I’d do it (and have), but as a pick-up character, I’d be irked as a team mate and embarrassed as the character in question.
(Travel power is now somewhat less of an issue, given the number of temp powers now covering that. Which is a good thing, though I’d personally rather not depend on that for any length of time.)
3. Can you build a successful, effective toon that has no Stamina (or parallel End-enhancing power)? I’m sure you can. It’s easier to build (and, I suspect, play) one who does. I think it’s so much easier that there’s a reason why so many people do it — not just to create “cookie-cutter” builds (jeez, thanks for that) but because it works.
4. Let me couch it another way, perhaps — everything is a trade-off or compromise. My perception of the costs of lacking Stamina (or something like it), or a Travel power, based on the toons I’ve pushed that back with, as well as how I’ve felt with toons in my teens, makes me think the costs exceed the benefits freeing up of slots for other powers. Your mileage may (and clearly does) vary, but most folks seem to agree with me. That doesn’t mean you have to do things like everyone else (and power to you for doing something different), but I think you’d have a hard time convincing most players that Stamina isn’t, for most toons, essential (a better word, perhaps, than “necessary”).
That the devs don’t see it that way indicates a significant disconnect, to my mind.
Discussion of this going on over here …
What I posted in reply over on the LJ:
——————
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.
Castle notes:
Hyperbole? Hyperbol you
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…
Garsh, Dave, who knew so many people were hanging on every word you said? 😉
All of my characters were in desperate need of Stamina, with the exception of my Spines Scrapper. If you’ve seen my builds, you know I’m not a Min/Maxer (if I even understand the term correctly). I’m one of those people that tries to do everything, slotting 4-6 different types of Enhancements everywhere but Health and Stamina.
So I’m with Dave, but you have to take into account that I don’t know the “right way” to build a character.
There is no “right way.” There are ways that are better or worse for particular playstyles and temperments. But, really, there is no right, or best, build for any given AT, or even any given powerset. It’s all trade-offs.
Put another way, there’s no right furniture. One can argue that some furniture is overpriced, or shoddy, or even ugly, and some fit certain rooms, or certain uses, better (subjectively) than others — but but there’s no “right way” to furnish a room.
I commend folks to BD’s post on this (linked from the Trackback above).
All of my toons but on have Stamina, and the one that doesn’t is a MA/Regen that has the power inherently. It may not be as neccesary as air, but its damn close. Ill never understand those who profess to want to do without it or a travel power. Bless em, but I want to fight for more than a mob at a time, and not take 5 minutes to get from place to place.