I have a problem with inspirations.

My problem is I never use them.

Well, that's not entirely true. I make a conscious effort to burn through the small and useless ones. I'll even delete some because I don't want to waste time activating a bunch of insights. I can't stand having an inspiration tray full of garbage. That garbage prevents me from getting the really useful huge inspirations. I hoard huge inspirations. My standard setup is two full columns of huge purple inspirations, one full column of huge greens, and a "rez column" (wakey, break free, blue and green, all huge, of course). Characters without mez protection have a column of break frees, characters without have huge reds. That leaves one column which I keep routinely empty for collecting more huge inspirations.

Despite the inventory, I still never use them.

I can't.

There's this nagging voice in the back of my head. Every time my mouse goes to the tray, I hear it. "But what if you really need them later?"

Take this situation for an example. I'm playing my AR/EM/Munitions blaster on a team with no aggro control, no hard control, and no (de)buffs to speak of. It's just me, two scrappers and two other blasters with the difficulty set way too high. Right after the scrappers jump in, I boost range+build up full auto into the group and hit some of the second group behind it.

At that very instant in time, I can see my fate. It's glaring at me, reflected in the eyes of the aggro cap's worth of enemies turning their heads to me. At that very fleeting moment, I know I'm doomed unless I do something. I could pop one of my huge purple inspirations and continue like nothing was wrong.

But no. I decide to ride it out. What if the scrappers generate enough aggro? What if we kill them fast enough anyway? Then I'll have wasted that huge, valuable inspiration for nothing. No, I can handle this.

Buckshot the group back. Beanbag the peskiest LT. Power Push that boss. Ignite near my feet to keep them off me. None of it matters. My health is crashing fast and nothing I do can save me. Nothing, except of course, inspirations. I still have time. I could gobble a huge green and a pair of purples and turn this into a trivial encounter.

But no. Now we're talking three huge inspirations to save myself, and no situation is so dire to warrant that kind of excess. Besides, things are starting to look better. Except now there's an ambush. Or a patrol. Or someone else aggro'd a third group.

Or all three.

Now the fecal matter has hit the fan in copious amounts. One blaster and I are already eating dirt; the other one's hanging on for dear life. Scrapper health is even dwindling. But there's a still a chance. Build up and full auto are ready to roll. This is what I have the rez column for. All I need to do is swallow one column of inspirations for a no downtime revival, throwing out that built up full auto to mow down our remaining opposition and prevent the inevitable teamwipe. I could even add a purple or two to make sure I survive.

But no. Do you realize how long it took me to collect that perfect rez column? That's four inspirations we're talking about, and the huge wakey alone is super rare, likely made from combining three other huge inspirations. That's like wasting seven inspirations. No way. Instead, I look at my tray to find that in all the excitement, I have two insights that were dropped into my empty column.

"Anyone got a small yellow?"

But they tell you to use them often as you will get more often.

They tell you this.

Listen to them...

Oh, I know that, too. I have hundreds of them stored in my SG bins (only tier 3 class) and still hesitate to use them.

I try not to play the hoarder's game, myself, because I like to pretend this is not a resource-driven game to begin with. I find it makes the game a lot easier on the nerves. Of course, if you DO turn it into a resource-driven game by spending a lot of effort collecting large inspirations, I can definitely see how it would suck.

Me, I play with bosses turned off, which means I never get large inspirations. At all. Medium Inspirations drop frequently enough to stock up easily, so them I don't find worth hoarding. When they're needed, they're needed. It's what they're there for. In fact, every time I go through my whole inspirations tray and I STILL die, that's not a defeat I regret. I did my best. It's when I die with plenty of inspirations to spare that I feel like I screwed up big time.

And then there's the other side of this. I spend most of my time with barely one or two slots open for incoming inspirations. Just about everything that drops under those conditions is worthless, because the collection is almost complete. When I get through a tough fight that costs me everything I had, this turns things around. Every drop is valuable, because my inventory is EMPTY. Then I get to watch it steadily fill up again as I combine the things that never had enough room to build up and refill my stock. There's a certain level of satisfaction in that

Word to the wise: Inspirations are worthless to HAVE. They are only valuable to USE. You could have an infinite amount of the best the game has to offer, and they will do a fat lot of good to you if you don't use them. That's always useful to remember.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

this is just silly.


they drop like crazy, burn 'em up.


when I'm farming I constantly hit F1 and F2 to burn inspirations as they come in (deleting awakens). When I run missions I burn a couple before every spawn. I keep one row of whatever is most useful for that particular character in reserve (break frees for my blaster, blues for my brute, etc etc), but burn the rest. That's what they're there for.


If you REALLY REALLY REALLY panic about not having WHAT YOU NEED, throw up some bids on ten stacks of giant reds and/or yellows at around 15k, they should fill overnight. You can convert them to whatever you 'need' and carry a row around in your hip pocket for emergencies (or if you're poor, you can turn them into purples and sell the result for 500k+ each =P).

I used to be like you Kaison, holding onto my inspirations jealously, coveting the ones others had.

Occasionally I have a few in my tray now. They show up I eat them. They are like Pez. One is never enough.

Designate a column as the "eating" column. Try to keep that column empty.

*EDIT*
If anything, I eat too many inspirations.

I to used to be like that. I had a fixed array of inspirations I would collect and save to use in emergencies (or on EBs). Now I pretty much use them as they drop. I keep two wakies and two break frees on most characters (melee characters with mez protection generally skil the BFs) generally level 2 since I can get those easily but level 1s or 3s if I have them.

Other than that I pretty much burn them all. Level 1s I use immediately unless my tray is pretty empty. Level 2s I'll generally save until I can combine three into a damage inspiration (or to refill my stock of wakies and BFs) although if it's a green or purple I might use it directly if I need to. Level 3s I generally use by the end of the mission at a decent moment although I'll save purples for a few missions if I need to fight a tough EB soon.

I have binds or macros on all of my characters to instantly combine various types into types that I want more of.

For instance, I have a radiation emission character, with choking cloud, WITHOUT stamina: I have binds/macros to turn everything except wakies and breakfrees into blues, all levels. This is the only way I can function with this character, and she even has been tweaked for +end and +recov (I have recently added the I17 temp power "Recovery Serum" to her list of must-haves).

On my brutes, I have binds/macros to turn everything into reds. Unless they are defense-based (which is few), then they have binds/macros to turn everything into purples.

Most of the rest of my characters have binds/macros to turn things either into yellows or purples, depending. Some of them have binds/macros for both yellows and purples. A few (mostly blasters ) have binds to turn things into greens.

Then, when I have leftovers, I'll either use them or leave them there until there's three of them to combine.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Decide what inspirations are best for your character. In my case, my Blaster uses reds the most, to build damage up and destroy things quickly. My controller uses purples, to boost its defense while it goes into the thick of the fight where its squishy HP can only go that far. Both characters also use Break Frees, so I don't want to lose those.

Then, make files similar to those:

archer1.txt
i "insp_combine Insight Enrage$$insp_combine Catch_a_Breath Enrage$$insp_combine Luck Enrage$$insp_combine Respite Enrage$$insp_combine Sturdy Enrage$$bindloadfile c:\games\archer2.txt"

archer2.txt
i "insp_combine Keen_Insight Focused_Rage$$insp_combine Take_a_Breather Focused_Rage$$insp_combine Good_Luck Focused_Rage$$insp_combine Dramatic_Improvement Focused_Rage$$insp_combine Rugged Focused_Rage$$bindloadfile c:\games\archer3.txt"

archer3.txt
i "insp_combine Uncanny_Insight Phenomenal_Luck$$insp_combine Second_Wind Phenomenal_Luck$$insp_combine Righteous_Rage Phenomenal_Luck$$insp_combine Resurgence Phenomenal_Luck$$insp_combine Robust Phenomenal_Luck$$bindloadfile c:\games\archer1.txt"

Now while playing, hit "i" repeatedly. Your tray will quickly fill with your preferred kind of inspiration. Use it, abuse it. Enjoy huge damage or defense permanently.

I think of inspirations as a slight edge in a tight situ. Waiting till you really need one may be too late, use 'em b4 you get desperate.

I hoard Insps too. At one point, I had 7 Insp storage bins in each of my 2 hero-side bases with about 80% tier3 sized Insps. My 3 villain-side bases had 5-6 storage bins each, but that's only because I don't play villain side much. I finally had to sell off 3 each of my hero-side storage bins earlier this year to make room for other storage.

As to personal use, I don't mind using them when necessary. My problem though, is that there seems to always be a 1-3 seconds delay between me clicking on the Insp to it taking affect. I'd be dead by then and, of course, typically immediately after the Insp does finally activates. It has gotten to the point where I have no confidence in trying to use an Insp in an emergency. Instead of wasting time repeatedly clicking the Insp, I could be making another attack or concentrating on getting away. So now, my Insps load outs are geared more towards pre-fight prep for the final boss or measured used during a prolonged AV beat down.

You know you can buy inspirations right. :P

I don't hoard, per say, but I do try to keep my tray 'kinda full' with a few open slots for drops. There's inevitably those missions were nothing seems to drop and your tray just shrivles but that's kinda fun...it's tough but you just gotta cope or organize resources with your team.

But inspirations are a game. Play with it.

The game I usually play is 'inspiration tetris' where I never delete inspiration, only use them. I'm allowed to combine stuff into other stuff I want but I can't just delete stuff or even just burn em randomly. They gotta be used in battle. It can get tough so I have to hoard the stuff I need and try to keep open slots for combining stuff I don't.

I just eat 'em up like candy. I'll eat one or combine when the rack fills up just to make room for the "next one". "Pez" is a good name for insps.

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!

Sounds like you have the Megalixir Problem, except that the items in question are common.


I love Inspirations. It is like a potion mini-game added on top of my regular combat. Somewhat in order, this thought process is usually going on while I am Scrapping things to bits and pieces:

1. Use Damage Inspirations immediately.
2. Use Accuracy Inspirations immediately.
3. Make one column of Healing Inspirations. Replace smaller Inspirations with bigger ones.
4. Make one column of Defense Inspirations. Replace smaller Inspirations with bigger ones.
5. Make one column of Endurance Inspirations. Replace smaller Inspirations with bigger ones.
6. Make one column of Resistance Inspirations. Replace smaller Inspirations with bigger ones.
7. Make two Awaken Inspirations, then one Break Free on top in the last column. Replace smaller Inspirations with bigger ones.
8. Use the last spot as an instant use slot. Awakens get deleted immediately.

You're not alone, Dechs, I tend to do the same thing. It's probably one reason I'm much better at playing melee in this game rather than squishies - I have more time between "nah, I've got this" and "ohcrapohcrapohcrap." I have two reasons for this:

1) Just like you, I don't want to get stuck in a situation where I need them and don't have any. I just hate burning inspirations on trivial encounters only to run smack dab into something I needed them for, but don't have any left. (I still think this is remnants from the I2 days where you'd fight +1 bosses in solo missions with 90% base tohit... and I was playing an Ice Tank. I needed damn near a full tray to beat the boss, and it seemed like this happened every mission.)

2) The other part of me recognizes that inspirations could save me / make the fight trivially easy, but if I always lean on them, I'll become a sloppy player. So I try not to OD on them so I learn to play that character better.


Oddly enough, I'm much better about using inspirations at lower levels when my tray is smaller. Lower level characters can benefit from a lot of the inspirations that drop. It also helps keep their speed up to earn more insps. It's higher level characters that I start to become conservative with them.


Side note: Someone take Smurphy to rehab, because... damn...

I used to hoard for that inevitable boss fight... when I finally broke myself of that to eat them as fast as I got them, I started doing seriously better on some of my characters when soloing (particularly damage-oriented ones.) These days, I just try to keep a handful of purples and a green or two on hand in case things go south. Running around with moderate boosts to damn near everything makes a big difference, especially if you stop every few spawns to combine things into what you need. Who needs IOs to soft-cap when defense-to-all buffs rain from the heavens?