 The Paragon Wiki Archive documents the state of City of Heroes/Villains as it existed on December 1, 2012.
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User:Heltende/Guide to Energy Absorption
Contents
Introduction to Energy Absorption
EA is one of the best powers in the game, with three distinct extremely useful effects (Enemy Endurance Drain, Self Endurance Recovery, and Self Defense Buff). It is also one of the most complicated powers in the game to slot. If we could use more than 6 slots in a power, I can easily see myself 12 slotting it. This will be a guide to how to slot and use this power to get the most out of it.
Who is this guide is for
This guide is geared towards a level 50 respec, and it doesn't take very much into consideration the price of Enhancements. If you're not already rich, the ideal slotting for this power may take some time to achieve. It's also primarily for the min/maxer. If you want the idiots guide to slotting EA, I'd probably recommend 2 recharge, 2 Defense and 2 End Mod, either SOs or common IOs. It won't maximize the power, but it's certainly a good place to start. It will also be the base effectiveness by which we'll judge slotting alternatives.
Procs, Uniques and Global Enhancements
| Defense |
|---|
| Taunt |
| Endurance Modification |
To the right is a complete list of all the procs, uniques and global enhancements. I wouldn't recommend slotting most if any of these. I've listed them all here for the sake of completeness, but most of them can be ignored. The +speed and the + knockback protection are barely useful at all for an Ice tanker. The + tohit is extremely useful, but should be slotted somewhere out of the way, like Combat Jumping or Weave. Same with + endurance. I've heard it can be useful in Stamina, but it's not a good fir for EA.
The two stuns only have a 10% chance of firing, only have a mag 2, which means they'll only affect minions, and only have an 8 second duration. I would not recommend slotting either of them in EA.
That leaves the damage proc, and Luck of the Gambler. In my opinion, Luck of the Gambler is worth slotting in most cases for two reasons. One is obviously the sweet global recharge bonus, stackable with other Recharge bonuses, which means that Hoarfrost can potentially be made perma, Hibernate is up whenever you need it, and you attack chain can be much more punishing. The other is that it does provide some defense as well, so it's not a completely wasted slot.
The damage proc has a 20% chance of firing whenever you activate it and does about 71.8 damage. Multiple 20% times 71.8 and you get 14.4. Estimating that you're activating EA every 30 seconds, divide 14.4 by 30, and you get .48 damage per second to everyone around you. Not that may seem paltry, but I've personally found it to be quite useful to have the HP of the spawn around you melt away without you having to do anything. If recharge is lowered, the results are improved. It's a matter of taste. If you solo a lot of you just plain like doing damage you might find it worth it, if you prefer to be a "pure" tank, you might not. We'll try builds with both.
Slotting
For slotting, I've separated out Endurance Drain with Endurance Recovered. These two numbers will always be the same, but since they're two different affects, I think it's worth showing both. This is especially true if one can show that Endurance Drain helps lowers DPS, which I hope to do. All percentage points are the ED affected numbers. All numbers are derived from Mids Hero Planner
Base Slotting
As mentioned earlier, our base slotting for comparison purposes will be two level 50 common IOs of Defense, End Mod and Recharge.
| Base Slotting 2xDef IO(50), 2xEnd Mod IO(50), 2x Rech IO (50) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Attribute | % increase | value |
| Defense | ||
| End Drain | ||
| End Recovery | ||
| Recharge | ||
| End Cost | ||
