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Professor Crackpot

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Conserve Power Vs. Power Sink

I finally made an electric armor brute, and while I was looking over the powers, I noticed Conserve Power (which I heard gives you an endurance boost) and Power Sink (Which drains the endurance of nearby foes and adds to your endurance). I was thinking that I may not need Conserve Power if I get Power Sink and just slot it up with Endurance Recoveries. Any ideas on this issue?

08/28/06 23:41

D-Beam

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RE: Conserve Power Vs. Power Sink

i agree but the power sink is not a auto power so you dont have to click it but power sink i saw in action it is so anyonying! (for my enemies) they freakin; use it on my drones and gives it to himself!!!! so yea go with power sink gives lots of endur. and its not auto, i find auto powers are boring and a wast lvl but i wont say anything about that. auto powers saved my life

good luck man and pick what i told you!!

P.S power sink also takes away endur. but you'll gain them back cuz the affect of it, but! it takes a while to re-charge and you will lose way to many endur. fighting

08/29/06 01:10

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RE: Conserve Power Vs. Power Sink

Conserve Power isn't an auto power. Conserver Power cuts the endurance costs of your powers by half. The effects last a good while. I use it when I have almost no endurance. You actually can regenerate your whole bar of endurance in a fight because your barely using your endurance. I spam all my powers no matter how bad or good they are when I use C.P..

Power Sink is useful to almost completely drain your enemies' END if you 3 slot it with END modification enhancements. Like D-Beam said, go with Power Sink it's useful to keep enemies using their big hitters.

Have fun being a brute sapper, they're great in PvP.

08/29/06 02:57

Regulator

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RE: Conserve Power Vs. Power Sink

Lol, that was my post above and I meant using power sink will keep enemies from using their big hitters

08/29/06 03:00

Phedre_D

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RE: Conserve Power Vs. Power Sink

I haven't used either power, so I can't really comment much. I just wanted to greet Professor Crackpot and Regulator to GameAmp. Always great to see new faces. I hope/know you will find all you ever wanted to know about COV and world domination right here at GameAmp. Looking forward to see more of you two. And also join the gameamp.com global channel in-game to find all of us there.

08/29/06 05:39

Regulator

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RE: Conserve Power Vs. Power Sink

Thanks Phedre, I've actually been using Gameamp for a long time, just never bothered to make an account.

***THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED***

08/29/06 07:44

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RE: Conserve Power Vs. Power Sink

There are some distinct differences between Conserve Power and Power Sink which altogether shouldn't make it too hard to decide with which one to go, if only one.

Some of the following may seem obvious or even completely pointless and / or useless but anything can be a consideration depending on your playing style etc, so I'll try to be as complete as possible.

Type of power:
First of all, Power Sink is a Point Blank AoE attack meaning it'll require enemies and is thus only useful during a battle.
Also the fact that it's considered an attack will mean that it has the same consequences as any other attack; for instance, using it will negate Stealth's stealth aspect - obvious but considerable.

Conserve Power on the other hand is a self endurance discount click power.
You activate it and that's it.
It will grant you an endurance discount of approximately (not exactly if I recall correctly but I forgot that detail) 50% to all endurance consumption - be it for activating attack powers, a constant drain, event-triggered consumption or whatever else - for the next 90 seconds.

The emphasis on 'discount' is there for a reason, it brings us to the next substantial difference...

Effect:
Power Sink - contrarily to Conserve Power - is a recovery power.
Whereas Conserve Power is used to lose endurance more slowly (often slowly enough to for natural recovery to get the upper hand resulting in an overall progressive increase of your endurance) Power Sink actually recovers endurance, by instant recovery.
In result Conserve Power may need to be triggered before your endurance falls low.

As mentioned above, in many cases Conserve Power will result in your overall current endurance increasing but in some builds and / or situations (read: if you suck endurance like a vacuum cleaner) it may still go down, in that case it's best activated precautionary in order to make your endurance last longer rather than using it as a panic button.
Out of Power Sink however you can get the exact same benefit whatever your endurance is when you trigger it, provided that it doesn't max out your endurance either way which could ofcourse always limit it's benefit if used too soon.
Also I should mention that using it late in a battle may have a lesser benefit because there might be less enemies left alive around you but since that isn't directly related to each other I can explain little more about that - just keep it in mind.

Last but not least regarding this difference an indication of the details:
Conserve Power - as mentioned above - about halves all your endurance expenses for a duration of 90 seconds.
As for Power Sink, here's what the official I7 Prima Guide says:

QUOTE

EFFECTS: Restore 25 Endurance per target; drains 40% of total Endurance versus critters only; drains 10 Endurance versus players only; 30% chance for 100% Endurance recovery decrease for 4 seconds.

From what I understand this means the following:

Your gain and their loss are independant of each other.
You gain 25 Endurance (Power Sink can be enhanced with Endurance Modifications) for each foe in range (which - on a sidenote - is a 10 ft. radius) as the power activates.
NPC enemies will lose 40% of their maximum Endurance, other players (if they're an enemy ofcourse) 10 Endurance.
For each foe affected there's a 30% chance that his or her Endurance recovery will be reduced by 100%.

In regard to that last conclusion: this (referring to '... his or her Endurance recovery will be reduced by 100%.') does not neccessarily mean that recovery will be negated in the sense of it's non-exeistance.
This is because under normal circumstances the game doesn't always consider your Endurance recovery to be 100%, it can be more.
Consider for instance that someone has Stamina, a far from uncommon auto power from the Fitness pool.
Stamina, by default (thus not considering possible enhancements) adds 25% to the base Endurance recovery of 100% effectively raising your Endurance recovery to 125% permanently.
A '100% Endurance recovery decrease' actually means that 100% is substracted from the above mentioned 125% Endurance recovery in this case meaning that the person in question would still be left with a 25% Endurance recovery.
In short: the percentages are relative to any character's base recovery.

Recharge:
Last but not least there's the recharge times which also make for a big difference in how these powers are generally used.
The default recharge times are as follows:
- Conserve Power: 600 seconds.
- Power Sink: 60 seconds.
When 3-slotted by a 50 with 50++ recharge reduction SOs that will result in these recharge times:
- Conserve Power: 295 seconds.
- Power Sink: 29.5 seconds.

My conclusion regarding the recharge times would be that Power Sink is generally best to have if your build is a constant heavy Endurance drain, but I would prefer Conserve Power to overcome exceptions.
For instance, I could imagine someone Power Sink whenever possible during a battle to compensate for the constant overall decrease in Endurance caused by the battle.

Conserve Power I would think is more useful if your build can potentially (when using certain specific powers that are very dependant on your situation and hence, you don't always use) consume a lot of Endurance but only does occasionally.
Besides that Conserve Power is ofcourse a better choice for support and ranged ATs but the fact that you have to get personal with groups of mobs shouldn't be a problem for a Brute.

Hope that helps, there's nothing more I can come up with off-hand but that should be enough to get a decent train of thought going to come to the appropriate decision. :-)

08/29/06 08:56

Julia Heartilly

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RE: Conserve Power Vs. Power Sink

Oops, that was me.

I knew I forgot something... I forgot to renew my session. >_<

08/29/06 08:58

Electro

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RE: Conserve Power Vs. Power Sink

I have a level 26 Elec/Elec Brute, so I havethe choice coming up soon whether to take Conserve Power. So far, I have really not had an endurance problem. I took Stamina, and have no end-reducers in my attacks, and rarely run low on endurance, even against Elite Bosses. I really see no need for to take Conserve Power. I do plan on taking Power Sink, though, for those rare occasions when low endurance becomes a problem. I like the idea that 1) it is another attack, and 2) it will be up and ready much more often than Conserve Power so it will be there when I need it.

08/29/06 09:36

Professor Crackpot

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RE: Conserve Power Vs. Power Sink

Thanks everyone. Now I'm sure on what to take...(Power Sink)

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08/29/06 18:15

Sigpaos

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RE: Conserve Power Vs. Power Sink

I started out using just Conserve Power on my brute and was happy as a clam fighting non-stop and worry-free, but later replaced it with Power Sink after reading other posts about endurance drain builds.

The awesome thing about Power Sink is that 3 slotted with End Mod enhancements, it will drain 60% endurance, even from Elite Bosses. Also, if you have at least 2 foes nearby, you can completely fill your endurance bar from empty.

I mention this because I think Power Sink is the better power, but only if you also have the Electric Melee powerset. With Electric Melee attacks slotted for -End Mod as well, you can completely drain a target in 3 attacks, leaving them standing there helpless while you beat them silly.

Without the Electric Melee set, Power Sink really accomplishes nothing against a boss. Bosses with half their endurance remaining can still throw out their heavy attacks. Conserve Power would make the same fight go much smoother as you would not have to worry about running out of endurance every 30 seconds.

My suggestion is go with Conserve Power if you have some melee powerset other than Electric. If you are using Electric Melee though, be sure to slot each attack for End Mod and have fun playing punching bag with your foes :)

Vargn 60 Hunter
Sigpaos 60 Rogue

09/02/06 01:03

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