Dispari

Real easy.

Melees have self-defense.

You're up against a powerful level 54 AV, two sets of infinitely spawning level 54 enemies (with debuffs), and a patch that kills you instantly. It's a hectic fight, with stuff going on constantly. There are enemies everywhere, damage everywhere. People have to keep moving, and aren't all going the same way. There's damage coming in from all sides. You aren't always near the buffer and healer. You aren't always in range to get Mind Link or RA. Maybe the rezzer died.

Melees can go punch some people when BM isn't accessible and thin out the herd. They can kill a few of the bosses stabbing the Blaster. Melees don't have to hug the buffer. They don't have to run away from sword ambushes. They don't get one-shotted by BM or her friends.

Melees don't need babysitting.

You know that leads to the dark side.

This is pretty much all that happens to me that causes me to die. I stay in there doing just one extra melee attack before the patch... just one more... then I do a backward leap to get out of the way... landing right in another patch. Splat.

It's a lot easier to avoid on ranged characters. But even on melees I've gotten used to zooming way out and watching where I'm going (funny that's a "new tactic" I'm trying out).

I renew manually, I don't see what the issue is. Unless you let your account lapse and stay inactive for a whole day you wouldn't have a gap in your paid time.

In fact you could even make your next payment a day or two early so that's not even an issue. Which is what I did.

You're perfectly capable of doing the things required to obtain Incarnate. It's only your own fault that you don't "feel like it," yet still want the rewards anyway.

Gimmicks are not always bad things. A gimmick can be something good, or it can be something bad. It just means it works differently and has its own way of doing things. Recluse's fight in the STF is a gimmick. Hamidon's battle mechanics are a gimmick. The villainside Reichsman fight is gimmicky. For better or worse, good or bad, hard or easy, these are all gimmicks.

It may not be hard for you, but hard may not have even been the goal. Just "different." Some people find different interesting. I think it's a fun fight since it makes me pay attention rather than just executing my attack chain over and over. On some chars like MMs and my Dom, the battlefield even has so much going on I can barely keep up at times. That's far more interesting than most of the game.

No. If you do the high end task forces, and the raids, and get components and things, then you're still getting the majority of the incarnate system. You aren't entitled to BAF rewards for free or low effort, but it will go a little slower than you since you aren't getting all the stuff you need for it.

If however you refuse to do all the incarnate content. All the task forces. All the trials. And plot out getting things entirely with shards you got soloing newspaper missions. Then yes, your sense of entitlement in regards to incarnate rewards is too great.

It's exactly how it works now. If you get alpha with entirely components it can go really fast. But let's say you don't feel like doing a CoP or a Reichsman TF (which is a pretty reasonable expectation). You toss a few shards at those components and move on. You can skip some of the things you aren't that fond of.

Now, if you refuse to do any task forces, get any components, participate in any of the WST, then your shards-only route for alpha is 488 shards. I have no sympathy for people saying that's too many. Nor do I have any for people saying 1600 is too many for Judgement et al. There are plenty of options available to you. If you opt to take none of them, and only grind shards, you made your bed with that one.

That's great and all, but it's still akin to saying you don't like PvP but still having the expectation that you deserve to have all the PvP badges, temp powers, and rewards without ever stepping into a PvP zone even once.

You're free to not enjoy that new content, but to also have the expectation that you still deserve all the rewards of the incarnate system without actually participating in the majority of it?