Advice for Trait Choice (max power, max health, pow regen, health regen)

[Cambi]

I am really agonizing over a character trait choice and thought maybe you all could help. I am at the one where you can pick between:* +2.5% max health* +2.5% max power* +5.0 in-combat health regen* +5.0 in-combat power regenI should note that I solo a lot with this swashie, though I occasionally duo with my wife. I imagine in the distant future I'll group more for big dungeons/raids/etc.The reason I am agonizing over the choice is because I don't really know which one will really make the most noticeable difference/improvement.<div></div>

[Luk]

for soloing, go with max health, if a fight lasts long enough to run your power down, you are dead anyway

[Zygwen]

Always pick in combat power regen. <div></div>

[Greyson1]

In combat power regain has my vote.  I find my self hurting for power ALOT.

[T]

Does that stack with the Flowing Thought items?

[SageGaspar]

<div></div>99% of fights (assuming you start with full power) you're going to get more from max power than max regen. To put it in perspective, I think every point of FT is, what, one point of power every six seconds? So that regen, which counts as FT5 (and yes, stacks with other FT gear) would be something like 50 points of power per minute. The realistic picture for scouts is that unless you're in looooong battles, chain pulling, etc, FT isn't going to do enough to make a difference.I respeced into max health because I so rarely have power issues these days. Once you get power poison up and running you'll be sitting pretty.The bottom line with any of these, though, is that in 99% of situations none of them are going to make a difference (except health regen, where that number moves up to 100%). Even if you are chain pulling, the extra power per minute is low.The T7 power poison, as an example, with 100% haste procs approximately every six seconds, the same length as a tic of power regen. This would be FT 204. So you could see where five or ten points of FT doesn't really mean all that much.<div></div><p>Message Edited by SageGaspar on <span class=date_text>04-28-2006</span> <span class=time_text>12:11 PM</span>

[Zygwen]

<blockquote><hr>Tel wrote:<div></div>Does that stack with the Flowing Thought items?<hr></blockquote>It stacks with Flowing Thought up to your max in combat power regen. When I solo I usualy pull when I'm over 80% health and over 50% power so that my in combat power regen is always in effect. The reason for in combat power regen is to reduce your downtime and to make you last longer on long fights. Sure if you always though single encounters at a time, never had adds and waited for full health full power before pulling In combat power regen would have very little effect during the fight, however you would reach full health and full power sooner so you would still be more efficient. All four choices help but IMO In combat power regen provides more bang for your buck. <div></div>

[Cambi]

<div></div>These power regen poisons and such, when are they available? My swashie is only lvl 24, and it seems like the only poisons available are various combinations of dmg + DoT and some mitigation debuffs.Here were my thoughts on the choices:1) Max Health: Since I solo a lot, this would help with those occasional high con enemies (3-4 lvls higher) where near the end of the fight its basically who gets the last hit. But when I crunch the numbers, it doesn't turn out to be much hp. My swashie has about 1100 hp right now at lvl 24, so +2.5% only adds 27 hp (and I worry that it might only add to BASE hp, in which case it adds even less). I can't imagine any fight where 27 more hp would have helped.2) Max Power: Again, my swashie has about 800 power or so (last I checked). +2.5% to the max is only 20 power. That doesn't seem like much. So that makes me think the regens are more valuable - especially since they'll help with my downtime.1) Health Regen: how much is +5.0 health regen? How noticeable is the effect of this?2) Power Regen: How long do I have to wait until I have things like power regen poisons and such? Is it about the same time as when I can use lifetap poisons? When can I start finding other means of improving my power regen?It seems like the regens are going to be more helpful to me, but I'm not sure which one will really help more.Thanks for the feedback!<div></div><p>Message Edited by Cambios on <span class=date_text>04-28-2006</span> <span class=time_text>04:05 PM</span>

[Geero]

<DIV>I think I took max health...  Kinda forgot since I never payed attention to it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Any of those are good, but if I respec(which I will soon) I agree with most on power regen.  Its easier to find healer to duo/group with then finding bard/enchanter.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For your health regen poison, first time I've seen them is with KoS at t7(level60).  I believe SOE is going to rework all the poison with new crafting update, but don't know when that is.</DIV><p>Message Edited by Geero on <span class=date_text>04-28-2006</span> <span class=time_text>01:24 PM</span>

[SageGaspar]

<div><blockquote><hr>Cambios wrote:<div></div>These power regen poisons and such, when are they available? My swashie is only lvl 24, and it seems like the only poisons available are various combinations of dmg + DoT and some mitigation debuffs.Here were my thoughts on the choices:1) Max Health: Since I solo a lot, this would help with those occasional high con enemies (3-4 lvls higher) where near the end of the fight its basically who gets the last hit. But when I crunch the numbers, it doesn't turn out to be much hp. My swashie has about 1100 hp right now at lvl 24, so +2.5% only adds 27 hp (and I worry that it might only add to BASE hp, in which case it adds even less). I can't imagine any fight where 27 more hp would have helped.2) Max Power: Again, my swashie has about 800 power or so (last I checked). +2.5% to the max is only 20 power. That doesn't seem like much. So that makes me think the regens are more valuable - especially since they'll help with my downtime.1) Health Regen: how much is +5.0 health regen? How noticeable is the effect of this?2) Power Regen: How long do I have to wait until I have things like power regen poisons and such? Is it about the same time as when I can use lifetap poisons? When can I start finding other means of improving my power regen?It seems like the regens are going to be more helpful to me, but I'm not sure which one will really help more.Thanks for the feedback!<div></div><p>Message Edited by Cambios on <span class="date_text">04-28-2006</span> <span class="time_text">04:05 PM</span></p><hr></blockquote>Health regen is not very exciting.Power regen gives you one point of power per six seconds per point of regen. This is better at the beginning, but at the stage I'm at now, my lowest power attack is like 55 power. The FT5 you get from taking the regen trait means you're going to recover enough power to use that attack every 11 tics, or 66 seconds. So once every over-a-minute I get the power to use one attack.You can figure out the break even point on FT and the percent trait. Let's say the percent trait gives you 100 extra power, over the duration of a fight it'd take 100/5 = 20 tics to get up to there, or 120 seconds, which is two minutes. Unless the fight takes you more than two minutes you'd be better off, assuming you started with a full power pool. It changes if you don't start the fight with full power, but still, you can imagine how 60 power per minute from FT5 isn't too exciting once your power pool starts hitting numbers like 3500.Max health, you're right, isn't all that great. None of these traits really are. But if you're thinking about raiding, you're going to hit max level and have your array of damage poisons and power poisons and such. You won't lose a terrible amount of DPS from not having the power regen trait, but there are times when the extra -- I think you choose it twice, so 6% to max health can make the difference between dying to an AE and living through it.Either way, you really can't go too far wrong. Max health isn't going to save your bacon too often, FT isn't going to really improve your efficiency by all that much, nor will a bigger power pool. Certainly not health regen.</div>