Alpha slots, purp prices and other I19 speculation

I think one of the most popular Alpha slot tree is going to be Spiritual, which gives you at its peak a 45% rech bonus, 30% of which can exceed ED caps. This is going to make hitting perma-Hasten (AM, IW, PA, whatever) a lot easier for 50s. I wonder if this will cause a decrease in demand for purples? Similarly for LotG +7.5s.

Another branch gives you +def, about 12.6% at the peak that can exceed ED caps. If ppl find that branch attractive, we may see some lowering demand for the popular (and expensive) +def sets as well, like Kin Combat.

There's also a branch that gives you +end redux, which should be popular for I19 w/the free Fitness pool that will inevitably lead to more toggles run, not to mention fewer slots for... well, end redux. Because of this, I don't think there'll be much impact on the Miracle & Numina uniques.

+Acc, +Dam, +Status effects are all pretty meh, but I think the three bonuses listed above will have the heaviest impacts on the market as far as demand goes. +Dam resist will be popular too, but I don't see that affecting IO demand in any significant way.

{+Acc, +Dam, +Status effects are all pretty meh}

My 50 tanks are already soft-capped, like probably most of the people going after the incarnate stuff (I am projecting this, anyway).... But my tanks are going to be all over anything that gives them more damage!

I don't farm per se, but I do bump my foe size up to /x8, so I can get more drops. If I, who abhors the drudgery of farming, reacts to the prospect of doing more damage with great enthusiasm, imagine how the legions of farming tanks are going to react?

I shouldn't say meh. They're just not as sexy as +rech or +def. Esp not for marketeering purposes--you just don't see IOs in demand for the +dam aspects. The +6 to hit Kismet IO is very affordable compared to other expensive uniques.

Well the thing to keep in mind there is that the effect of the Alpha Slot enhancement verus Set bonuses on a build is not identical for all types.

Assuming we convert the non-ED bonuses from each type into Tiny set bonuses as a value scale (just considering the non-ED bonuses).
Damage: 30 set bonuses
Defense: ~7.2 set bonuses (assuming it grants 3% to either all positions or all non-psionic types)
Recharge: 12 set bonuses

Defense and Recharge are popular set bonuses because it's easy to build them up into something worth having. Damage bonuses are much lower scale which makes them harder to build up to significant levels. For a character who is already getting sufficient Defense ro Recharge through set bonuses a Damage bonus looks very tempting.

My dark armor characters are already begging to be played with the endred/resist...

I think the recharge will be most popular because as it has been said many times, you can pop reds, purples, or blues to fix those holes; but there isn't a recharge insperation.


I don't think the alpha slot or the increase in lv 50 players will make much of a change in the market price of purples, if anything it may just slow their inflation.

What you have to remember is that incarnate abilities do NOT exemp down. So someone who relies on Incarnate abilities instead of Purples or low-level sets will find their playstyle hugely hampered if they go to do a lower-level TF or flashback or do anything else that puts them under level 50.

However, let's look at the math. One of the incarnate rares offers like +30% recharge, right? That's equivalent to FIFTEEN purples (the +10% recharge bonus is often the 5th bonus, multiplied by three sets...). If it's significantly easier to achieve the "Rare" incarnate shard than it is to get fifteen purples*, they MAY fall out of favor, and therefore go down in price.

*: Yes, it's "easy" to make 2 billion inf in a few days several times over and just buy the stuff you want. However, it's not like a majority of the playerbase possesses that amount of market savvy or interest in doing so.

Overall, i think people will still grab purples AND plop the incarnate abilities on top, so i don't think we'll see much fluctuation.

purples will be going down in price whether demand drops or not, just because everyone and their mother will be playing their 50's to the bone grinding for Incarnate stuff. That's gonna generate a lot of purple supply.

My one guess this time centers around low level Regen Tissue + Regens. I didn't buy a lot of them but enough at a low enough cost I should be ok.

I have a lot of builds with their eyes on the Cardiac lines. I do plenty of damage, and have plenty of mitigation, but I have characters who cannot sustain my maximum pace indefinitely. I fully expect Cardiac to change that completely. I have an excellent sample of what it will really do in practice - Secondary Mutation: Pain Tolerance offers a 30% endurance discount for 20 minutes. My most end hungry characters function essentially without endurance bounds under the effect of that power, and even my most aggressively end reduction slotted characters would net at least 30% reduction from the Rare version of this incarnate ability.

I expect the week between the i19 release and the date of the second free respec to be a "respec frenzy" that will spike demand.

One other thing I thought of is that we might see a drop in the supply of Pool C/D recipes. Assuming it works like the GR beta top level TFs will give you a choice of merits or an Incarnate component which could lead to a decrease in the number of merits being generated.

Because the alpha slot is the new thing, and it involves playing level 50 characters, I anticipate the demand and supply for purples will both go up. But because the alpha slot requires making hard choices about what to improve, and purples give good numbers all around (except for end reduction), and they don't go away when you exemp, I imagine that purples will continue to increase in price.

Mostly because people will be playing their 50s a whole lot more. And they'll want to improve them. And that will mean more players wanting purples.