Non-purpled Incarnate vs non-Incarnate purpled toons

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this way -- I've been building for survivability since way back when, and I always have to suppress a snicker when the purpled-out SR scrapper who isn't softcapped faceplants. But there's lots of ways to play and enjoy the game -- I've put my scrapper-y mouth and money behind survival and what I call DPFM, instead of DPS. (That stands for "Damage Per Five Minutes" and it significantly drops when you're laying on the warehouse floor, waiting on a rez or a clear spot to pop a wakie. )

Still, back when we could look around in-game and see "Ultimate This Bonus" and "Ultimate That Bonus" -- and I guess we will again after they fix it -- I sometimes got the impression that I was missing out on something. "Do they know something I don't?"

You did buy a game, with lots of ways to enjoy it.

Easy mode: go out there and beat stuff up. Buy and slot SO's. They're color coded, and I've read here where kids 10 and under figure that part out and have a blast, and it's also more than enough to keep a lot of adults happy, too!

Intermediate modes: Buy and slot set IO's. Learn about all the different advantages you can get from having six slots' worth of stuff in four or five slots. Frankenslot. Learn about set bonuses. Download Mid's Hero Planner and play around with that. Maybe decide you want purple sets, but before you start getting sticker shock and complaining, remember what "ultra rare" means and remember that there's a lot of other people who are trying to outbid you. Read some of the market guides on how to make a billion INF in seven days, and only "working" 30 minutes a day or less. Make a billion. Make five billion. Spend it on cool stuff. Repeat.

Those are only the tip of the "intermediate level iceberg o' fun", but all I can think of regarding the market and IO's just now.

Expert mode: If you think this thread is like algebra, I'll politely suggest you stay out of the Scrapper Forum, or at least be prepared for actual advanced algebra and (at least) intermediate-level calculus! Even this Market Forum often reads like a college-level economics textbook, but there's a lot to be learned from all these forums. And there's a lot of fun that people have at the advanced level, like Crazy Scrapper Tricks™ and soloing task forces, just to name two. And of course, a lot of the fun also comes from the forums, whether it's learning new things, sharing old or new things, debunking other things, or just helping others.

You'll want recharge if you want to run the top tier attack chains

But you'll want defense if you want to run ANY attack chain vs. huge spawns of level 54's, unless you think you can take out that boss by faceplanting on his foot.

There must be a break-even point between defense and DPS somewhere, as evidenced by the select handful of people who have soloed pylons while surrounded by a spawn of high level enemies. [I seem to recall reading where someone did it with TWO spawns feeding their AAO.] That's simply got to take a truckload of defense AND a top-tier attack chain!

On the other hand, I'm not completely convinced that EVERY scrapper powerset combination could do that sort of thing, at least not before the addition of Alpha slots -- and I suspect that with Alpha slotting our Stupid Scrapper Tricks™ are going to become slightly easier. Since I haven't been trying to build a pylon soling machine, I've been content with building tanklike scrappers for defense and being the last one standing after a run of the mill, elevated difficulty PvE fight, even if it takes a while.

...I'm not so sure of this.

Bang for the buck, the Alpha slot is MUCH better than IO sets. Makes the game more casual friendly.

And the Alpha slot effects are quite strong. Yes, the currently released common and rare enhancers don't do a super amount, but there are far better ones on the horizon.

And the Alpha slot is only the first one...of TEN.

So.....excited.....

Skipping it seems a little silly, though. I decided I might as well unlock the slot on the 50s, and then whenever I played them against 50+ content they'd have a chance to get shards and components. It might take a while for some of them, but eventually it'll happen.

Just saying 'I won't bother with the whole system because getting the salvage quickly requires grinding' seems a little like never emptying a character's recipe storage because purples are so rare unless you farm that there's no point in having space for them to drop.

This is easy to discover in game right now. Take a level 1 character to Peregrine Island (or Grandville) and look at the level 50+ enemies. they con purple at +49 through +53. Therefore I will go out on a limb and predict that they will continue to con purple even when they start showing up at level 64 for a potential of +63 levels above the hero/villain viewing them.

The much, much smaller level difference you are talking about will of course, continue to appear purple just like it already does today.

If running one ITF and one Lady Grey and walking away with at a minimum everything you need for a common slot (and I had one character luck out on drops and get enough for an uncommon, after buying Gr'ai matter with vanguard tickets), then sure. Otherwise you're complaining about something that isn't the case.

In one Saturday I got enough shards to slot 4 characters with uncommons and 1 other with two uncommons. Took about 6 hours total.

Since then I got 1 more slotted just running tip missions and random Shadow Shard missions on +1/x3 difficulty setting.

So if you are having to grind to slot characters, I think you need to post your build in the appropriate forum and ask for help, or at the minimum get out and play with a team doing absolutely anything at all.

Specifically, you have to fight lvl 50(or higher) mobs outside of AE arcs.
I think that really limits you to only 2 missions, and 1 taskforce. Everything else in the whole game is either mobs lower than 50 or an AE arc.

Maybe, but that's not the same thing. The level 50+ mobs in PI or GV still have a level label attached. They con purple, but they say their level is 50, or whatever. Will a level shifted mob say it's level 58, or whatever? Maybe. If it doesn't, there won't be any way to differentiate them if we just get con colors.

Instead of "grinding a specific way", I just ran a few level 50 TFs. Didn't really strike me as "not a fun system" because it's what I tend to do now and again on my 50s anyway.

I don't see why there's "no point" in doing something I was likely to do anyway.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Only two missions? I'm obviously missing something. There's a BUNCH of taskforces that you can find that are full of level 50 (or higher spawns), as well as a lot of contacts that Paragon wiki lists as level 40-50 or level 45-50: Abyss, Arbiter Rein, Black Scorpion, Captain Mako, Crimson, Daedalus, Dr. Boyd, Dr. Huxley, Efficiency Expert Pither, Gaussian, General Hammond, Ghost Widow, Harvey Maylor, Lovely Linda, Lt. Col. Flynn, Lt. Volkov, Maria Jenkins, Mender Ramiel, Operative Grillo, Scirocco, Serpent Drummer, Shadow Spider, Tavish Bell, Television, The Dark Watcher (Primal Earth), Unai Kemen, Vernon von Grun and Viridian. Obviously, not all characters can access each contact without side-switching, but that's a lot of potential mission ARCS!

And of course, there's Borea in the RWZ, tip missions, and radio/newspaper missions to do!

Like others here, I unlocked the Alpha slot on a few 50's, have run 3 or 4 ITF's and two Khan TF's since i19, and I've done a lot of just "regular ol' stuff" that has led to a lot of shard drops. (Last night after an ITF, I joined a PUG radio team for about two hours and got 10 shards.)

As a result, I've got two uncommon boosts and two or three common boosts slotted across my unlocked characters so far. And I've managed to keep it from being a grindfest by unlocking the Alpha on a character, playing that one for a while, maybe doing a TF, playing some more, slotting a common and seeing the difference, and just playing some more.

When I did Ramiel's arc three or four times in a day? THAT felt like grinding, so I stopped.

I hoped it was sarcasm, but was secretly worried someone else might take it seriously, so thought I'd point out all the available options.

I assumed it was obvious. Maybe I shouldn't've.