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Introducing Genome: a Might / Giant Growth build
Archived Post
Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
Updated for 'On Alert' release
Videos on YouTube:
Genome vs 5-man Hard Powerhouse
Genome vs Black Fang Alert
I get a lot of questions in-game about how I'm doing the whole giant-growth hero. So here's the basic formula to work with. This is a pretty simple build, but it's very effective. It's also a heck of a lot of fun.
The C-store gives you one way to grow for 720 points. Just but the super-magnifier there to grow large out of combat. As soon as you enter combat though, you shrink to normal again. That's a bit of a letdown.
You need to take 2 key powers to get big in combat. The main one is Miniaturization Drive, which becomes available atl level 17. You need to get the 2 point advantage Reciprocating Gizmo. You should also get Enrage and take the 0 point advantage of Giant Growth. Using both together can make your hero impressively large. But we can tweak things a bit so that you are truly titanic in size.
The key thing is that Mini Drive's growth doesn't last all that long, so you need super INT to reduce the recharge time on your growth powers. You also can add recharge reduction bonuses from gear. This actually gives you decent bonuses with Recip Gizmo and Enrage, so it's not all cosmetic. You will need to watch your Rage meter, but this build makes it exceedingly easy to keep your Rage maxed out. At lower levels you'll need help from your melee attacks. But eventually you can keep perma-8-stack Enrage.
You can maximize the double-stack of Mini Drive by taking Nanobot Swarm from Gadgeteering. But the real fun comes from the Revitalize specialization from the Intelligence spec tree. Revitalize recharges powers when you use your energy builder. So you can easily double-stack Mini drive with this combo, and occasionally triple stack Mini-Drive. That makes your hero really huge.
The rest of your gear and specializations are dedicated to raw defense and offense bonuses. The goal is to get as high in defense as possible, since Aggressor doesnt have a lot of damage reduction. Vindicator is required to max this out. Guardian also helps a lot. By maximizing this I am able to get a standing bonus of over +40% offense and +50% defense just from gear. And with Locus and Tenacious, that bonus climbs higher in combat.
For attacks, Havok Stomp has the best AoE of any Might attack and a very good tap effect. Used together with Mighty Leap (to get into melee range), you are an AoE machine. You can build Enrage very rapidly in a pack of enemies with a fully-charged Stomp. Havok Stomp is inconsistent, but you can get 2-3 Rage stacks in a big group. But in the long run you'll have perma-Rage anyhow. At that point you should find that Havok Stomp makes for a better tap power. You get a 50% chance to knock-up all targets, which keeps everything in range while building up Aggressor. One or two taps is all it takes to clear a spawn. And the footstomp animation looks awesome with giant-growth. Give your hero a happy look in the costume editor, and laugh like the Jolly Green Giant while you step on your enemies.
The other main attack you want is Demolish. This is your main single-target power. It debuffs damage resist for you while dealing a heck of a lot of direct damage. Running Aggressor and Enrage, a charged up Demolish will one-shot anything of villain status or lower. It's a better PvE damage dealer than Haymaker, because Demolish has a faster animation time plus the significant DR debuff. Demolish also looks a lot better than Haymaker on a giant-growth build.
You also want to take Unleased Rage when it's available. It does great damage and you will reduce the recharge time dramatically with this build.
Aggressor is another huge boost that you should always take to rank 3. This will give you over a 22% passive bonus at all times, plus a stacking bonus of up to 15% for every time you knock an enemy. This build will maximize the knockback bonus very easily.
With all the recharge time bonuses in this build, plus super CON, the only heal you need is Resurgence. Activate Masterful Dodge and Intensity whenever they are available and use Resurgence when needed. The recharge bonuses will cycle all those powers very rapidly.
That's it. This build takes a little getting used to, but it's effective and a lot of fun. I guarantee if you haven't tried out a growth build yet that you'll have a lot of fun with this.
Special note!: Theres a graphics bug that can happen if you get too large in a small area. Your character will become invisible and can't interact with anything. If that happens, change your costume. I use a keybind which resets my costume back to its default. You'll go back to normal without having to log out.
PowerHouse (Link to this build)
Name: Genome
Archetype: Freeform
Super Stats:
Level 6: Super Intelligence (Primary)
Level 10: Super Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Super Strength (Secondary)
Talents:
Level 1: Superhuman
Level 6: Mighty
Level 9: Brilliant
Level 12: Enduring
Level 15: Physical Conditioning
Level 18: Body and Mind
Level 21: Healthy Mind
Powers:
Level 1: Clobber
Level 1: Unstoppable (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 6: Mighty Leap (Nailed to the Ground)
Level 8: Demolish (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Enrage (Giant Growth)
Level 14: Havoc Stomp (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 17: Miniaturization Drive (Rank 2, Reciprocating Gizmo)
Level 20: Molecular Self-Assembly
Level 23: Resurgence
Level 26: Aggressor (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 29: Intensity (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 32: Unleashed Rage (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Nanobot Swarm (Rank 2, Rejuvinating Injectors)
Level 38: Masterful Dodge
Travel Powers:
Level 6: Superjump (Rebounding Resilience)
Level 35: Teleportation
Specializations:
Intelligence:
* Battle of Wits 3
* Tactician 2
* Tinkering 2
* Revitalize 3.
* Intelligence Mastery
Vindicator:
* Aggressive Stance 2
* Initiative 2
* The Rush of Battle 3
* Modified Gear 2
* Mass Destruction 1
Guardian:
* Fortified Gear 3
* Locus 2
* Tenacious 2
* The Best Defense 3
Videos on YouTube:
Genome vs 5-man Hard Powerhouse
Genome vs Black Fang Alert
I get a lot of questions in-game about how I'm doing the whole giant-growth hero. So here's the basic formula to work with. This is a pretty simple build, but it's very effective. It's also a heck of a lot of fun.
The C-store gives you one way to grow for 720 points. Just but the super-magnifier there to grow large out of combat. As soon as you enter combat though, you shrink to normal again. That's a bit of a letdown.
You need to take 2 key powers to get big in combat. The main one is Miniaturization Drive, which becomes available atl level 17. You need to get the 2 point advantage Reciprocating Gizmo. You should also get Enrage and take the 0 point advantage of Giant Growth. Using both together can make your hero impressively large. But we can tweak things a bit so that you are truly titanic in size.
The key thing is that Mini Drive's growth doesn't last all that long, so you need super INT to reduce the recharge time on your growth powers. You also can add recharge reduction bonuses from gear. This actually gives you decent bonuses with Recip Gizmo and Enrage, so it's not all cosmetic. You will need to watch your Rage meter, but this build makes it exceedingly easy to keep your Rage maxed out. At lower levels you'll need help from your melee attacks. But eventually you can keep perma-8-stack Enrage.
You can maximize the double-stack of Mini Drive by taking Nanobot Swarm from Gadgeteering. But the real fun comes from the Revitalize specialization from the Intelligence spec tree. Revitalize recharges powers when you use your energy builder. So you can easily double-stack Mini drive with this combo, and occasionally triple stack Mini-Drive. That makes your hero really huge.
The rest of your gear and specializations are dedicated to raw defense and offense bonuses. The goal is to get as high in defense as possible, since Aggressor doesnt have a lot of damage reduction. Vindicator is required to max this out. Guardian also helps a lot. By maximizing this I am able to get a standing bonus of over +40% offense and +50% defense just from gear. And with Locus and Tenacious, that bonus climbs higher in combat.
For attacks, Havok Stomp has the best AoE of any Might attack and a very good tap effect. Used together with Mighty Leap (to get into melee range), you are an AoE machine. You can build Enrage very rapidly in a pack of enemies with a fully-charged Stomp. Havok Stomp is inconsistent, but you can get 2-3 Rage stacks in a big group. But in the long run you'll have perma-Rage anyhow. At that point you should find that Havok Stomp makes for a better tap power. You get a 50% chance to knock-up all targets, which keeps everything in range while building up Aggressor. One or two taps is all it takes to clear a spawn. And the footstomp animation looks awesome with giant-growth. Give your hero a happy look in the costume editor, and laugh like the Jolly Green Giant while you step on your enemies.
The other main attack you want is Demolish. This is your main single-target power. It debuffs damage resist for you while dealing a heck of a lot of direct damage. Running Aggressor and Enrage, a charged up Demolish will one-shot anything of villain status or lower. It's a better PvE damage dealer than Haymaker, because Demolish has a faster animation time plus the significant DR debuff. Demolish also looks a lot better than Haymaker on a giant-growth build.
You also want to take Unleased Rage when it's available. It does great damage and you will reduce the recharge time dramatically with this build.
Aggressor is another huge boost that you should always take to rank 3. This will give you over a 22% passive bonus at all times, plus a stacking bonus of up to 15% for every time you knock an enemy. This build will maximize the knockback bonus very easily.
With all the recharge time bonuses in this build, plus super CON, the only heal you need is Resurgence. Activate Masterful Dodge and Intensity whenever they are available and use Resurgence when needed. The recharge bonuses will cycle all those powers very rapidly.
That's it. This build takes a little getting used to, but it's effective and a lot of fun. I guarantee if you haven't tried out a growth build yet that you'll have a lot of fun with this.
Special note!: Theres a graphics bug that can happen if you get too large in a small area. Your character will become invisible and can't interact with anything. If that happens, change your costume. I use a keybind which resets my costume back to its default. You'll go back to normal without having to log out.
PowerHouse (Link to this build)
Name: Genome
Archetype: Freeform
Super Stats:
Level 6: Super Intelligence (Primary)
Level 10: Super Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Super Strength (Secondary)
Talents:
Level 1: Superhuman
Level 6: Mighty
Level 9: Brilliant
Level 12: Enduring
Level 15: Physical Conditioning
Level 18: Body and Mind
Level 21: Healthy Mind
Powers:
Level 1: Clobber
Level 1: Unstoppable (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 6: Mighty Leap (Nailed to the Ground)
Level 8: Demolish (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Enrage (Giant Growth)
Level 14: Havoc Stomp (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 17: Miniaturization Drive (Rank 2, Reciprocating Gizmo)
Level 20: Molecular Self-Assembly
Level 23: Resurgence
Level 26: Aggressor (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 29: Intensity (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 32: Unleashed Rage (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 35: Nanobot Swarm (Rank 2, Rejuvinating Injectors)
Level 38: Masterful Dodge
Travel Powers:
Level 6: Superjump (Rebounding Resilience)
Level 35: Teleportation
Specializations:
Intelligence:
* Battle of Wits 3
* Tactician 2
* Tinkering 2
* Revitalize 3.
* Intelligence Mastery
Vindicator:
* Aggressive Stance 2
* Initiative 2
* The Rush of Battle 3
* Modified Gear 2
* Mass Destruction 1
Guardian:
* Fortified Gear 3
* Locus 2
* Tenacious 2
* The Best Defense 3
Post edited by Archived Post on
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Here's the finished conceptual Genome. This is a fully functional build that's currently breezing through the Serpent Lantern on Very Hard mode. This is my best attempt to show a hero that steals strength and power from enemies through physical contact. Nanobot Swarm is used to double Miniaturization Drive's size bonus every 90 seconds or so, for mostly cosmetic reasons. Devour Essence is also a cool attack that's there for concept reasons. Swap it out for your own build if you want. Not that this build needs any help, it's pretty ridiculous as-is.
Watch Genome vs Viper-X on Very Hard (sorry about sound issues for the first few seconds)
Watch Genome vs Freon on Very Hard (Massive size around 0:50 timeframe)
Build by championBuilder 0.4.1
Download this Build here.
Genome: Level 40 Champion
Superstats:
Level 5: Super Constitution
Level 13: Super Intelligence
Powers:
Level 1: Clobber
Level 1: Mighty Leap -- Crippling Challenge, Nailed to the Ground
Level 5: Roomsweeper -- Rank 3, Rank 2
Level 5: Superjump -- Rank 2
Level 8: Defiance -- Rank 2
Level 11: Enrage -- Rank 2
Level 14: Havoc Stomp -- Rank 3, Rank 2
Level 17: Miniaturization Drive -- Reciprocating Gizmo
Level 20: Aggressor -- Rank 3, Rank 2
Level 23: Resurgence -- Evanescent Emergence, Rank 2
Level 26: Demolish -- Rank 3, Rank 2
Level 29: Retaliation -- Rank 3, Rank 2
Level 32: Imbue
Level 35: Nanobot Swarm
Level 35: Teleport
Level 38: Devour Essence
Talents:
Level 1: Superhuman
Level 6: Physical Conditioning
Level 9: Body And Mind
Level 12: Healthy Mind
Level 15: Shrug It Off
Level 18: Diplomatic
Level 21: Discipline Training
I'll post a 5-man hard danger room run before the Celtics game tonight.
I am in the process of doing exactly this, but I did not know about the bestial roar goodness. Since I'm only level 14 right now, I can easily put it in there. I did not think it would be super effective in combat, but I've been rolling over everything so far. The only difference in my build is that I took Roomsweeper at level 1 and I've got Enrage in it already, but no Mighty Leap as of yet.
Quick question, how high do you have to get INT in order to keep Mini-drive up all the time?
Thanks again!
Sample video using Unstoppable here:
http://www.wegame.com/watch/genome-powerhouse/
How much STR did you stack through gear?
I've always wondered how much incremental points of STR above the 70 STR melee-dmg-bonus cap actually impact the +Dmg from Rage. Nobody seems to know.
The question is, if you are using Rage, should you stack STR instead of Con as an SS.
I'm curious what other gear you have for END/REC? Do you find in Aggressor you don't need extra energy building from Force Shield / Sheathe?
Can you post the costume pic so we can mess around with it on our own (share the .jpg or whatever from your costume folder)? Or tell us the options??
The one thing you miss w/o haymaker is the +dmg against knock-resistant targets .... Demolish + slight charge Haymaker + Haymaker taps is fun fun fun.
Plus if you can stand the honeycomb, Laser Shield / Laser Knight is great for might builds running aggressor (Retaliation looks cooler but the defense on melee attacks from LK is pretty sweet).
My experience is that it's not worth worryingabout maximizing your Enrage with superstat STR. You can get over 100 STR very easily through items and talents, and that's plenty for Enrage damage. I had over 130 STR last I checked. That's purely level-up gear from mission rewards and drops. I think I have about 70 points of END as well. REC isnt a big deal so I doubt I have any more than 20 points or so.
You definitely don't need Force Sheath with this build. Might has cheap energy costs and INT drives that down even further. Energy is not an issue.
I recently started a character with the concept of him growing nice and BIG. I figured most of it out myself (yay me!) but there were definitely a few pointers here that I had missed.
I didn't even know Mini drive could actually make you bigger! Thought it just made stuff smaller
Thanks again
Damn...giant growth in this game is f***ing sweet looking.
http://www.champions-online.com/character_profiles/1715899
Glad you like the costume. It's an Integrated Shoulders chest with spandex. I'll have to check on the face. It took me a while to figure out where the half-mask was hidden.
I'd be surprised Haymaker has anything going for it over Demolish, even with the bonus damage from knockback. Demolish gives you a 10% DR debuff plus another 0-13% DR debuff from Below the Belt. And you seem to get the benefit of the DR debuff before damage is tabulated, so Demolish boost its own initial damage. I'll run a few tests on this and see which is better.
I thought Haymaker did a lot more damage than Demolish...
It's a really cool power and the damage resist is graet. But I actually found that I really don't like Laser Knight that much on my melee heros. I used it for a while on Tactition, from levels 25-35 or so. But eventually I switched to Block instead of Energy Shield to increase my melee damage. I didn't see any real difference in survivability. The defense is cool, but in the end I'd rather just max out my melee damage.
It depends on what you mean by a lot more damage. Haymaker can deal more raw damage due to it's longer recharge and animation times. That doesnt necessarily mean it's a good DPS power, though. Haymaker is probably worse than Demolish in that way, since Demolish debuffs defense. Going up against a boss-type enemy in PvE, I'd much rather use Demolish. The only reason I'd take Haymaker for PvE is for Nullifying Punch. Killing heals against big targets can be better than defense debuff.
What are the damage numbers?
Longer recharge?...do you mean longer charge?
What are the animation times for both powers...both tap and charge? If you know.
You're right, I meant longer charge-up time. I don't remember the exact numbers but Haymaker is a slower attack overall than Demolish. I'll run a test tonight.
Anyway, I think the issue with Haymaker is that the taps do a ton of dmg once you slightly charge one (for like a 10th of second) to give the target kb-resistance. So charged Demolish + slight-charge Haymaker + Haymaker taps is great on hard targets.
Keep in mind that haymaker gets bonus damage on KB immune targets. This is generally why haymaker does the most damage, however it is the most costly as well. I personally find myself using haymaker less and less as other powers such as uppercut do good damage, build up unstoppable stacks, and cost next to nothing.
Even the extra knockback bonus damage doesnt make Haymaker worth it. Players think that Haymaker deals the most damage because that's the common perception. That doesnt mean they are correct.
A fully charged Haymaker takes you 2.33 seconds (0.5 act, 1.83 charge)
A fully charged Demolish takes you 2 s (0.67 act, 1.33 charge)
I just tested hitting the KB-immune blocks in the training dummy range. Balanced stance, nothing else active.
Got R2 Haymaker up to 2247 damage. That's 964 DPS
Got R2 Demolish up to 2085 damage. That's 1042.5 DPS
Ok, maybe someone thinks that's unfair because you take Haymaker to rank 3. Lets look at both powers at R3:
Got R3 Haymaker up to 2678 damage. That's 1149 DPS
Got R3 Demolish up to 2300 damage. That's 1150 DPS.
So I dont see how Haymaker is a better damage dealer than Demolish, even against KB-immune targets.
On the training dummys its even more in favor of Demolish:
Got R3 Haymaker up to 2372 damage. That's 1018 DPS
Got R3 Demolish up to 2239 damage. That's 1119.5 DPS
You can take Haymaker if you really like the knockback or animation. But its not a great DPS power unless you exploit its high top-end damage with something like Imbue. Otherwise you're better off with Demolish, which is just a superior attack overall.
Interestingly I've just realized that there's really no point for me to have Below the Belt slotted for this build. I'll be switching that over to R3.
Temporary KB resistance doesnt seem to trigger any bonus damage from Haymaker. I just tested this in the PH using Havok Stomp to generate knock-resistance.
There's very little reason to bother with Haymaker IMO.
For some reason, Havok Stomp doesn't seem to confer the anti-KB as far as I can tell ....
Try a very-slightly-charged Haymaker (like 1/6 of charge bar) followed by Haymaker taps (not charged).
So if you have any idea (rule of thumb) it would be much appreciated!
Thanks in advanced!
Rank 3 Haymaker only that much more than Rank 3 Demolish?
Something seems off. Haymaker has always been the clear damage dealer. That 2372 and 2239 damage comparison seems off to me.
That 133 damage difference just seems wrong. There is no way that Demolish should be that close in comparison.
Demolish deals less raw damage, but it has a free damage resist debuff of 8-12%. And Demolish's debuff affects itself on the first hit. So you can't compare the raw damage of both powers in the text descriptions. You have to give Demolish's damage at least an 8% boost to start comparing. And that gets higher as you rank it up.
I don't know if Haymaker was ever actually the clear damage dealer. I wouldnt be surprised if it never really was. Most players look at the top-end damage and that's it. Haymaker hits harder and puts up bigger numbers, which is where most players stop analyzing. Big numbers also get more attention in PvP no matter how long the chargeup time is. But DPS is a much better assessment of how much damage your dealing. And it's a lot easier in this game to use powers with short charge times.
Feel free to comare the powers yourself. Or just use Haymaker if you like it. The difference isn't that huge and some players probably like the animation.
It's Pulsewave. Plushwave is the headliner for a new line of child-safe Champions toys. Available at Amazon.com for only $9.99.
With your work on PA and various builds, you should get an AF modeled after yourself. You're not the only one.
Might.
championBuilder is almost, but not quite, unusable at the moment due to the recent patch. Of course, it's open source, so if I really cared I could rectify that myself. Color me lazy...:cool:
Problem is, I SS'ed strength a long time ago, toon is 82 strength now at level 23 with items, and I need to choose a power and would rather not retcon. I can pick up intelligence items pretty easy, about as easy as strength, so do I really need to superstat INT? Does it have to be the SS INT to get the long lasting size, or do I just need high INT by items? Right now I have:
SS: Strength
SS: Con
Travel: Superjump
Defiance
Rage
Resurgence
Roomsweeper
Beat Down
Clobber
Thunderclap
MIghty Leap
Talents:
Bodybuilder, Physical conditioning, boundless reserves, investigator, relentless, amazing stamina
I try to stay with concept over designer toons. Thank you (all) for your input. I am listening.
At level 23 you can respec all the way back to ground zero. Even if it costs you all your resources it's not a big deal. You want to fix things at low levels when you still can. At high levels it becomes much, much more expensive.
That much said, you probably don't need to superstat INT. I made Genome on the premise that super INT was the best way to recycle Mini Drive as often as possible. It's been available all the time since lvl 20 or so and sometimes it double-stacks, making Genome frikin huge. It also recycles Enrage and reduces all energy costs. The consensus is that INT doesnt scale linearly, so taking some through items wont give you a large benefit. I've always either superstatted INT or avoided it completely. Pantagruel probably has the specific formula somewhere on how INT affects recharge time.
I can test things out with ss END and STR, and slotted INT. I'm sure it will work too, but it wont give you double-stack Mini Drive. Your build looks fine as-is, although I would personally get rid of Beatdown as soon as possible. As you level up that should become less and less useful compared to stronger attacks.
That may maximize how Haymaker works, but you're still better off just using Demolish.
So I borrowed some of Pulsewaves analysis for use on Mean Joe Marine. Character gets freaking huge and generally stomps the guts out of everything in range. Only problem is seeing the battle field and targeting because he wont fit in the cameras view. Also when transformed it is hard to pick up drops or mine for crafting components. Also beware of targeting when triggering Miniatureization Device. I accidentally shrank someone instead of refreshing me.
Pulsewave, hats off to you.
Glad you enjoyed the build. When I do big retcons nowadays I just copy over to the Test server. You keep the same resources, so if you can afford it on Test, you can afford it on Live. And you'll know what's left over.
It sounds like you might be picking up drops by clicking the landscape. I bind the 'action' key to 'F' and just spam that during fight. You can pick things up while still attacking that way.
No it won't. Don't assure me anything until you test it out. You shouldn't commit opinions as fact when it's clear that you haven't taken the time to bother testing things. For what its worth, I just tested it and Demolish out-damages Haymaker when both are tapped.
Like I said before, Haymaker should only be used to exploit its higher top end damage with other power combos, for the knockback/control, or for the Nullifying Punch advantage. Or if you just love the animation and don't care about being slightly sub-optimal. The ONE advantage that Haymaker has in tapped form is that it costs less endurance. When charged up that's no longer the case.
Can you post your test, Pulse?
Tapped haymaker R3 (including slight-charge 1st tap to confer KB resist)
vs.
Tapped Demolish R3?
Curious at the spread.
Your test would be different than Cervando's. He didnt specify apply KB resist.
I tested against lvl 40 training dummies to see which attack would put a dummy down faster. It was within one second either way. Demolish was doing more damage and killing dummies faster which is all I really cared about. It did cost more endurance to use, so an energy gimped build may have more problems than with tapped Haymaker. That's kind of a silly problem anyhow though, because charged attacks are much more efficient energy usage.
Instead of Defiance, the defensive passive.
Personally i like having both an offensive and a defensive, seems a shame to waste the fantastic ability we have to switch builds, especially when you take into account that you can have different gear complimenting each passive and store it in the bank, it still gets swapped into your item slots when you switch builds, no need to carry it around.
So you can have a build in protector/guardian with a defensive passive and stick loads of con or presence in the gear but have gear with other stats on it whilst you're rolling with the offensive passive, pretty slick.
I'm with you in taking both an offensive and a defensive passive. I actually have Unstoppable where I listed Retaliation before. That slipped by because Champion Builder is out of date. I updated the build to show Unstoppable as an option for either Defiance or Retaliation. I took both passives, but you could easily choose either one and take Retaliation for some extra defense.
An option for people if they find the build a bit too "clicky" or would prefer to get another power, is that you do not need Howl from supernatural to keep Enrage stacks up. With SS Int ranking Enrage to 3 will reduce the cooldown below 25s allowing you to stack it. The trade off is 4 advantage points or a power, for me it is worth it as I'm trying to stay mostly in the Might Framework to mess around with Unleashed Rage.
Thanks Delemon. At high levels (225ish) with super INT and super CON you dont even need to rank up Enrage to make it perma. You'll have about a 31s Enrage duration (from CON) and it will recharge in about 30s (from INT). So if you don't like Howl its pretty easy to ditch. But on the way up to lvl 40, Howl does make things way easier for you.
If you can fit in Spirit Reverb, you can get a pretty nice Endurance bump every time you kill an enemy that's feared by Howl, fwiw.