dave_p

Having played through BAF w/my Fire/Rad, Ill/Kin & Ice/Storm, yeah, not having an AoE immob is killer for that phase. My Fire & Ice freeze minions at their spawn points and let others worry about the lts (I do passing damage to them but don't chase). On my Ill/Kin, I try to position Phanty to blow back the minions to the doors w/his ET, but that never works out. I spam my FS'ed Fireball as much as it's up, but that's about it. I'm almost tempted to just play a weaker Kin defender for that period, giving the whole league SB to chase mobs down. And Interface gives Ill the least benefits w/o fast AoE attacks w/which to get off procs.

Then again, come the AV fights, he totally kicks butt again, so I'm not too down on the situation.

Some early observations post I20. The overall DPS of teams, and especially leagues, have gone up like crazy, not unexpectedly. The circuit around the Lambda base now takes less than 2 min to complete. On Tuesday (when no one had any I20 slots), it was taking over 5, maybe closer to 10. Giant ambush spawns, multiple ambush/add spawns that usually meant team wipes are being melted away. And not everyone has their Judgment slots filled yet, certainly not w/the ultimate T4s.

I've only opened up Judgment (T3) on my Fire/Rad controller, and I'm noticing that I don't even have time to fire off EF before hitting my nuke, cuz things die too fast. Better off just leading w/the nuke. Interface is adding a lot to damage too, since I'm going w/the dam proc tree. I've run my Fire/Ice blaster through both trials a bit, and I still feel him contributing to damage w/o Judgment, but hard to gauge how much. He's the only guy I've stolen aggro from the tanks on the AV fights though, getting sequestered a few times. I think that was just bad tanking though. Steady flow of damage is very nice for the prison break part of BAF.

Not sure yet what everything will mean for blasters going forward. What I'm seeing more than anything, that many of us predicted on this thread, is the blurring of lines bet. ATs. No one really cares what you're bringing to each trial any more. Everyone does damage. Everyone buffs/debuffs. Tanks, and brutes to lesser extent, seem to be still kinda favored as bags of HP & taunters. It'll be more interesting to see how the various I20 incarnated ATs function outside of the new trials & leagues though.

You can't have some ppl look at the cutscene and some in game, interacting with mobs and whatnot. You'd need a system for everyone to choose, and then you'd have all sorts of bitterness ("No! I wanna see boobies!" vs "Screw you, I'm developing Mastrophobia!"). At least the BAF cutscene is at the beginning--I just use those first 2-3 min of everyone joining, zoning in & cut scene to stretch my legs, take a bio break, etc. Lambda is worse, w/it being in the middle (well, towards the end).

Seriously, I totally agree in concept. I'm sick to hell of the cut scenes in the game. They're nice once or twice, but man, how more many times do I have to watch "I Am Incarnate!" again? Or that long Bond Villain Speech by Dr Aeon?

Signed. I started a Judgment & Blasters thread over on the blaster boards that discusses blasters as a whole after everyone has access to Judgment nukes. Removing the total crash would be a good solution, though it does nothing (as a net positive) for Arch, AR & DP.

And I agree w/those who think total crashes for nukes was outdated even before Judgment.

Tl;dr, IXP comes in too slow relative to other rewards, and once you open the slots, it's useless. IXP is far outpaced by thread, merit & component gains. Why have IXP at all? Let us open slots w/threads (and increase thread drops to compensate). Note, this is NOT a rant on how IXP comes in too slow, period (see the bold part above), or that other rewards come in too fast, but that their ratio is borked.

I ran trials pretty much non stop over the weekend and opened up T3s in Judgment & Interface on 1 toon, and made nice progresses w/other toons, but haven't opened anything else yet. So what's my problem? I never got to play w/T1 or T2 powers. I mean I could have, but didn't really feel the need, because as soon as I had enough IXP to open up one of the two slots, I had more than enough components to craft straight to the T3 (and in fact I mistakenly crafted a T1 I didn't want, so even wasted 60 threads there). I'm about 60%/85% done for Lore/Destiny too, and I'm sure that as soon as I open those up, I'll have more than I'll need for T3s of those as well.

Is this how the devs want us to progress on our Incarnates? Nothing, nothing, nothing, BIG power boost! Wouldn't it make more sense to, you know, fairly quickly get our T1s, which would then make the trials a bit smoother as we work our way to T2s, etc? Remember our Alpha slots? You could solo, or get a bit of help, and open the Alpha slot in well under an hour, but you'd only get 1 shard. A decent amount of work went into slotting that w/the T1 alpha, and a bit more for the T2. An artificial wait for I19.5 for the T3 & 4s, but still, it was a nice progression of our initial Incarnate abilities.

As it stands, the only way I can see getting enough IXP and not having enough components for a T3 is to constantly fail the trials, and merely kill enough mobs to get IXP, but not complete any objectives which will get you Astral merits (4 threads per!), and have horrible luck w/thread drops. Or if you just refuse to break apart your Astrals, cuz their only use atm is for more threads. If you hoard all your merits, you too can start w/a mere T1 or likely T2 when you open your slots.

Otherwise I'm thinking about 3-4 unsuccessful Lambda runs will open your Interface slot. Of course, you only need 60 threads to fill your T1, so you might still immediately do that, even w/o a single successful run depending on how many A-merits you've picked up. Interface is trickier--you can't kill that many mobs in the first phase, and you start getting your Astral merits awfully fast. The best tactic might be to let the prisoners escape, failing the trial at that stage. This strat might necessitate a good 8-10 failed BAFs, which unfortunately will still net you enough thread & A-merits to get to T1 easily. In fact, I think it may be impossible to open your Judgment slot w/o having enough material for at least a T1. Is this what the devs had in mind, that we'd fail a lot in the beginning letting us build up our IXP first?

Lore & Destiny have it worse w/higher IXP needs to open. I've landed a couple of very rares already, so I may even have a T4 ready when mine open up. Yes, you can buy IXP. Why? You'll open your slots quickly enough, and then IXP is irrelevant--why waste the threads that you'll use to, well, craft your T3 when said slots open? Remember, I'm not saying IXP rates are too slow, only that they're slow compared to thread/component/merit gain. And for Posi's sake, I'm not advocating slowing our thread/component/merit gains, though that's an obvious solution.

My solution? Get rid of IXP. Too big a change, I know, so won't happen, but either accelerate the gains, lower the threshold for slots opening, or let us buy them w/our now useless Alpha components (hey, what about all these Notices I'm racking up w/WSTs?), V-merits, hell reward merits even. At the very least, let us share our IXP pools so that we're not "wasting" IXP earning potential doing one trial and not the other.

I ran about 30 successful trials over the weekend, about a 2:1 BAF to Lambda ratio, and it looked to me like an even split bet. common, uncommon & rares w/just a few peeks at the very rare (2). Actually, maybe the rare table is a bit more scarce as well--I'm sitting on a lot of unused uncommons atm which I'll likely break into threads (8-10, iirc).

I started out trying to plan out which components to take too, but considering how many trees are out there, I'm basically taking one of each, other than for very rares and commons. Very rares, cuz I've only gotten 2 so it's easy enough to plan which T4 I want, and commons which are ironically "rare" enough that I can see which slot I'm crafting next to pick.

After Alpha, shards are next to completely useless. The conversion rate is a joke.

Lets say a diligent player can get around 10 shards a day. That (forget the inf cost atm) comes out the 10 threads a day. 1 successful BAF will net you likely 4-5 threads... and 4-5 Astral Merits. Each of those break apart for 4 threads, so basically a single 30 min run will get you 16-25 threads. And that's not even counting your 1/day (well 2 if you run both trials) E-merits that break for 20 threads a pop, and the reward table at the end which will invariably lead to a surplus of uncommons that again break apart for threads. Basically, for an hour a day, I can easily get 100+ threads.

Use your shards for Alpha slots, and save the rest for hopes that they'll be used again (I'm thinking for Omega--complete & baseless speculation tho). Don't convert them to threads. If you need that last 3-4 threads to craft a slot, do just part of any trial and you'll get that in less than 10min.

I19 wasn't grindy at all. I got 3 toons at T4, 8 at T3 and more at T1 or 2, because we had so many ways to get shards & Alpha components. For I20, there's practically only 2 ways to earn threads and I20 components. Opening your base Judgment & Interface slots may not be so bad, but when I consider the amount of work I'll have to do to get 10+ alts their T4s in all 4 new slots... Yeah, I know, months & months of work, and I don't mind that really, but only 2 trials for those months... just ain't gonna happen. I'm hoping I21 will have more ways to earn incarnate rewards.

(Yes, I know you can convert shards to threads; the rate is pathetic. That's why I said practically above.)

Back on point, for Interface, at least, I'm definitely going Reactive w/my controllers. Extra (and significant!) DoT w/my fast recharging AoE immobs that I spam anyway for containment & proc damage? Yes please. Oh yeah, they give -res too.

Lore & Judgment are easy for me too. Ionic or Pyro for Judgment (Ionic hits more targets, Pyro does more damage, but since I can't CC 40 mobs anyway, prolly Pyro here). Seers for Lore for free Fort and plus they're kinda hawt.

Destiny's the tricky one. First, I gotta think Barrier will be the overwhelmingly popular one, and since it's AoE buffing, it'd pay to pick something else. Ageless might be a bit of a no brainer since it kinda combines Cardiac & Spiritual (the only 2 I pick for my controllers... or anyone else for that matter), so it'll fill whichever hole you didn't address at Alpha. But then I only took IW w/my Fire/Rad so the rest might do better w/Clarion and have better mez prot. Or I can take it w/my Fire/Rad too, cycle w/IW & have complete & perma mez prot (IW is more or less perma, but w/animation times and plain forgetting, it's functionally not). Rebirth would be nice for my /Storm & /Cold who don't have self heals. And then of course Barrier for the +def/+res, and really, who doesn't want those?

Currently, my fav duo is my SS/SD brute and my friend's Son/Kin corr. Max dam FS + SC, infinite end, high rech, heals & debuffs. Kinda ridiculous.

I certainly expect there will be more options to get threads and non-Alpha incarnate drops in i21. If there are none, I'll consider that an epic fail.

I19 & 19.5 were great. Not only was Alpha introduced, they gave us the WST system and a fairly diverse way of earning (still grinding to some) your way to the top. Numerous TFs, MSR raids (150 v-merits = 1 G'rai matter = 1 shard), every 50+ mob dropping shards, WSTs dropping Notices, etc. You might get sick of a specific WST TF, but you only had to wait a week for a new one, or just run another ITF, KTF, LG, STF/LRSF, or CoP, or just sweep 50+ mobs and you were working towards your incarnate goal.

W/I20, the only realistic way of progressing towards your non-Alpha goals are to run 2 trials. Yes, you can convert shards to threads, but at a ridiculous exchange rate which makes most Alpha rewards practically useless once you've hit T4 (unless you're going for multiple trees). I'm sure we're going to get very good at both new trials, and we'll be able to fly through both and get our rewards in decent order, but I know I'll be bored out of my mind within a month.

During I19, I got 3 toons their T4 Alphas, another 9 T3, all sitting close to T4 and a few more sitting at T1~2. I was able to do that by alternating toons bet. WTSs and the various high end TFs, so I never got too bored. Running the same 2 trials over and over again for all my 50s, and for 4 different slots now, are going to really test my tolerance for grinding. And it's pretty high, esp for high rewards, but I'm predicting I'll be off doing something else by May and waiting on the sidelines for I21, or just working on my lowbies w/WST bonus XP.

I'm not really bitter or complaining about I20, mind you. I was expecting NCSoft to release each Incarnate slot 1 at a time over a period of 2 years or so, so really we got bonus goodies anyway, so waiting another few months to get the progression curves smoothed out doesn't bother me all that much. Plus I18 & 19 (and 19.5) were absolute home runs as far as I'm concerned, so I don't mind a sac bunt for I20. I will be keeping a critical eye out for I21.

Ran the Lamda last night w/no intention of succeeding, but knowing I'd be working towards my goals. Only 8 showed up, we cleared the outside including all turrets, went in and most of us had no idea what to do next. Very few grenades, etc were got, so we were flattened by Marauder. Multiple times. Still, we carried on til the timer ran out, eventually acid-mortaring all the doors at least. Failed the trial, but I got 32% XP towards my Interface slot and learned some good lessons for my next attempt. It'll only get easier.

I was thinking of taking WS on one of my melee toons once they go through the PPP arcs. How exactly does it work? Is it like Tornado, i.e. a mobile pseudopet that does dam/stun/fear? How's the KU work? Actual KU or KB like 'Nado? How often do the various procs fire, just every 10s or faster depending on the proc (e.g. hold procs in Volcanic Gasses will fire every 6s since it summons another pseudopet every 6 sec vs damage procs that just fires every 10s)? Thanks.

Tundara's back! But dissing Frost! I'm suddenly very sad.

I'll check w/my WP/SS tanker in Mids' w/already capped S/L def, whose Alpha slot I just happened to unlock this past week and has yet to decide himself which tree to take.

Nerve will actually give me capped E/N; from 41.6->45%. That's actually significant. Being SS, w/Rage, +acc is wasted. S/L goes over cap, but that's nice for Incarnate level stuff anyway, and to have a buffer for debuffs.

Cardiac boosts my S/L from 70.1->76.9%, also significant. Gives me an extra 4% of psi resists too. The rest are insignificant unless I pop SoW, in which case Card gives m about 3% more for the exotics. WP doesn't really need the end, but if I'm spamming FS all day, I do occasionally need a blue pill, esp w/Rage crashes.

Spiritual gives me about 50 more HPs, and 76.6->85.8 HP/Sec regen w/1 in range of RTTC. However, if it's fully saturated at 10 mobs (not exactly rare for a tank), the regen goes from 127->144 HP/Sec. Plus faster FS, more Rage to stack, etc.

Musc will give me bigger Judgment nukes come I20. Otherwise, very meh.

So I initially thought Spiritual was a no brainer for WP, much like w/Regen (who needs recharge for survival as well), but it looks like either Cardiac or Nerve are valid choices. My current direction for my WP tank is capping his HPs, for which Spiritual is best, and those regen #s will just go up as my base HPs rise. So, I'm still going Spiritual, but you can make good arguments for any direction.

Here's the problem w/"just turn up the difficulty +1" arguments. On a mixed team of level shifted & non, say running end game TFs, it's not fair for the non-level shifted toons to have to run +1s just so some of your attacks don't do KB. If I'm doing a speed ITF, I have exactly zero motivation to run it at +1, certainly if I'm not already level-shifted. Most teams I've run in the last month are of this sort--doing end game content, esp if they're the WST, with a mixed bag of level shifted & not (or hell, not even 50s yet). They're not all speed-oriented teams, but almost all of them run at +0.

Does applying a +1 to mobs make the game noticably harder for twinked out 50s, esp w/incarnates mixed in? No, not really, but it does slow down the kill rates just a tad, and again, why is it fair to ask non-shifted toons to spend even an extra 10 min to complete a TF because some of your powers are now doing KB? More likely, they'll just ask you do not use those powers, which now is unfair to those toons whose prime powers may no longer work optimally.

Solo, this may be a non-issue, though there are some who I'm sure would rather blast through armies of blue conning mobs for max drops or whatever.