It took me about 4-6 hours of soloing, plus 150 Vanguard Merits, to get enough shards to slot a Spiritual enhancement for my Grav/Storm/Mu controller.
It took substantially longer than that to get an uncommon, but I did so with only one task force in the process.
The best way to get Shards, mind you, is to beat up a whole lot of bosses. For the chances of the drop and the difficulty of beating them, they'll most likely provide the best return for your time, unless you're of a build that has great difficulty with bosses.
Being KM/SD, I'm betting you don't have any real difficulty with bosses.
(All that said, I'm hoping to collect all the Alpha boosts on this Controller eventually, which will mean finding time to run more TFs....and since I want the badges for quite a few of these TFs, I've got yet another reason to do them 
)
If you have 150 Vanguard Merits you can buy the Gr'ai Matter shard from a Vanguard crafting table.
Then you need 1 more common shard to get to 8 so you can either do the common Cardiac or Common Spiritual boosts. (4 to Ancient Nictus and 4 to Hero 1 or 4 to Essence of the Incarnate)
Or you can run TFs to get the uncommon shards.
But you will need at least one more common shard to actually craft a common boost.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
Most of my characters who have the alpha slot filled got there with a single late game TF, ITF, Khan or Lady Grey, sometimes with the V Merits for a Grai Matter.
One of them, got 6 shards from the TF (plus the component) and didn't have enough for a Grai matter. (he is one shard shy of what he wants counting the one for the Ramiel Arc.)
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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If you solo it's pretty hard but if you run TFs it's very easy. The new Apex and Tin Mage TFs are pretty bad from the point of view of getting shards (in terms of shards/time) compared to the older level 50 TFs (which tend to involve killing more enemies plus give the option of a component at the end).|
Originally Posted by Fusion_7
So now, I have to wonder how hard it actually might be to get enough Shards to craft something for your Alpha Slot?
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In general one or two of the older TFs will give you enough for your basic boost. ITF is probably the best, the large number of bosses and elite bosses means you tend to get quite a few shards and the component it offers is the Ancient Nictus Fragment which is used by three of the four basic boosts. It's not uncommon to get 8 shards on the ITF which combined with the component would get you a boost in one run although if you are unlucky running a second TF will usually do it. LGTF is also quite good if you fight through it rather than speeding although it takes longer (I got 16 shards on one but that was VERY lucky).
Here's the full list of TFs/Raids and what component they offer (note that the component is instead of merits):
Kahn or Barracuda: Dimensional Keystone
ITF: Ancient Nictus Fragment
LGTF: Hero 1 DNA Sample
STF or LRSF: Essence of the Incarnate
Cathedral of Pain Trial: Penumbra of Rularuu
Hamidon Raid : 4 Shards (which could ten be converted to a single component of your choice)
In addition you can convert 150 Vanguard Merits (from a Mothership Raid or just randomly fighting Rikti) into a G'Rai Matter component.
On the subject of Apex and Tin Mage TFs, yes if you don't have a boost slotted you are debuffed 4 levels which essentially means you are fighting against +8s. This makes any powers other than ally buffs essentially useless (they are at 5% effectiveness) and gives you the toughness of a wet paper towel.
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You mean "common component" not "uncommon shards"
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Originally Posted by SwellGuy
If you have 150 Vanguard Merits you can buy the Gr'ai Matter shard from a Vanguard crafting table.
Then you need 1 more common shard to get to 8 so you can either do the common Cardiac or Common Spiritual boosts. (4 to Ancient Nictus and 4 to Hero 1 or 4 to Essence of the Incarnate) Or you can run TFs to get the uncommon shards. But you will need at least one more common shard to actually craft a common boost. |
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Originally Posted by SwellGuy
If you have 150 Vanguard Merits you can buy the Gr'ai Matter shard from a Vanguard crafting table.
Then you need 1 more common shard to get to 8 so you can either do the common Cardiac or Common Spiritual boosts. (4 to Ancient Nictus and 4 to Hero 1 or 4 to Essence of the Incarnate) Or you can run TFs to get the uncommon shards. But you will need at least one more common shard to actually craft a common boost. |
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Originally Posted by Rajani Isa
You mean "common component" not "uncommon shards"
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I presume the suggestion to run TFs is because it takes 8 shards to make an uncommon component, so I suppose those could be termed "uncommon shards".
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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The way I read it the poster was referring to things such as Gr'ai Matter and the Ancient Nictus fragments - the bits you get from TF (-type stuff in the Gr'ai Matter's instance) runs as a chose-able reward.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
He was responding to the OP stating that they had 7 shards already.
I presume the suggestion to run TFs is because it takes 8 shards to make an uncommon component, so I suppose those could be termed "uncommon shards". |
To me I read the post as trying to help get a common boost ASAP with the person having 7 shards at the moment.
Orc&Pie No.53230 There is an orc, and somehow, he got a pie. And you are hungry.
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You're all right. What I was really trying to find was the minimum number of Shards to make my first boost which I guess has to be Common before you can make the Uncommon? Last night I ran another TF with my fire/fire Scrapper and was told that I would need 12 Shards in order to build my first Common Boost, 4 for each segment, 3 segments total. I got 8 last night when we ran the Apex TF. Let me tell you guys it was brutal "without" not having any boost slotted in my Alpha Slot. I died a lot but just wanted to run it to get the shard drops. At level 50, not too concerned about accruing any debt. |
Originally Posted by Rajani Isa
The way I read it the poster was referring to things such as Gr'ai Matter and the Ancient Nictus fragments - the bits you get from TF (-type stuff in the Gr'ai Matter's instance) runs as a chose-able reward.
To me I read the post as trying to help get a common boost ASAP with the person having 7 shards at the moment. |
I ran two Hami raids Monday night. I got 2 shard drops + the 4 shard reward on the first raid, and 3 shard drops (+53 merits) on the second raid. I had 4 shards when I started, not even sure where I got three of those, I haven't run any TFs on Mouse lately, I might have even received those during the monster hunt, but anyway combined that was 13 shards, so I was able to craft whatever common I wanted. ^_^ All for a couple of hours work at most.
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
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Well technically the minimum number of shards to get your first boost is 0. The 1st tier boost requires 3 incarnate components. A component can be crafted from 4 shards or you can run a particular TF in order to get it. In general it's easiest tot get the boost by doing a mix of the two, run a TF that awards one of the components you need and use shards to craft the other two.|
Originally Posted by Fusion_7
You're all right. What I was really trying to find was the minimum number of Shards to make my first boost which I guess has to be Common before you can make the Uncommon? Last night I ran another TF with my fire/fire Scrapper and was told that I would need 12 Shards in order to build my first Common Boost, 4 for each segment, 3 segments total. I got 8 last night when we ran the Apex TF. Let me tell you guys it was brutal "without" not having any boost slotted in my Alpha Slot. I died a lot but just wanted to run it to get the shard drops. At level 50, not too concerned about accruing any debt.
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Now the Uncommon Boost requires a Common Boost, 2 Common Components and 1 Uncommon Component. Each Uncommon Component requires 1 Common Component and 8 Shards. So in total making an Uncommon boost from scratch requires 6 Common Components and 8 Shards.
For example the Musculature Boost requires three components: Essence of the Incarnate, Hero 1 DNA Sample and Dimensional Keystone. I could craft these from 12 shards or I could run the STF/LRSF, the LGTF and the Khan TF/Barracuda SF to get the three components needed without spending any shards at all.
To make a long story short, if you're running Tin Mage/Apex without a boost in order to get shards to make your boost you are doing it in a very inefficient and pointless manner. Running one of the other level 50 TFs and doing a kill-most run will generally net you more shards and a common component as well as avoiding making you a dead weight on your team.
Unless you don't have access to TF teams, or don't like to attend TFs, you should focus on them as your means of access to common components. If you can do this, you should save your shards for crafting uncommon components.
There is one common component I regularly create from shards, and that's the Penumbra of Rularuu. No one I know of on Justice runs (successful) Cathedrals of Pain, so it's easier for me to gather the four shards for that one component.
By the time I did all the stuff I wanted with my "go to" characters after I19, be that badge collecting, earning various merit types and/or money to fund respec IOs, etc., all had 35-50 shards after creating their uncommon. In the case of the character with 35 shards, that included crafting two uncommon alpha boosts.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
A note about shards, in case you didn't know (and I didn't see it mentioned here) is shards drop differently than other bits of "loot".
Traditionally (for salvage, recipes, etc) when an NPC is defeated, the system goes through a check list of "will a invention salvage drop? Y/N; Will a recipe drop? Y/N" - then decide who gets what does drop.
Shards, on the other hand, are rolled for for each player - so it's not "Will a shard drop" but "Will a shard drop for Player 1? Will one drop for Player 2?" etc. So from one kill it's possible for everyone on a team to get a shard. So larger teams do tend to have more shard drops quicker since they move faster through more enemies.
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Now I'm really confused. I've been running at least 1 tf a day for the last week, either Kahn of ITF. Ok so I'm getting these Shards, and I'm going for the Nerve boost. When I look at that part of Incarnate screen, it seems like I've gotta fill up a whole lot of slots, I'm not looking at it now, but it seems to be more than six or so.
So far I've had enough components to fill up 2 of those slots, and I'm thinking that I need to run a lot more TF's and get a whole bunch more shards, but some have posted here that you can fill your Alpha slot with the shards from 1, maybe 2 TF's.
What am I missing here?
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The thing to remember is that although there are 4 common boosts and 8 uncommon boosts available you can only slot one at a time. As such most people are only aiming to make 1 or 2 Uncommon Boosts based on what they need. When people say they can fill it in a few TF runs they mean that they can make a single Common Boost in that time (which is all that's required for the Apex/Tin Mage).|
Originally Posted by SkyRocker
What am I missing here?
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Assuming you wanted to make all 8 Uncommon Boosts you would need a total of 240 shards (although you can of course substitute components for shards) which would indeed take quite a bit longer; probably between 20-30 TFs assuming you selected TFs that can reward components you needed and got moderately lucky with drops.
I hope that answers your question
.EDIT: Also are you taking the component reward from the TFs or just the shards? The common Nerve Boost requires a, Dimensional Keystone, an Essence of the Incarnate and an Ancient Nictus Fragment. If you run a Khan and an ITF and slect the component reward that gives you two of the three components you need so you'd only have to craft the Essence of the Incarnate from shards (and you should have 4 after doing both TFs). For the Uncommon it depends on which way you're going but a similar situation applies. The Nerve Core in particular requires a Dimensional Keystone, a Hero 1 DNA Sample and an Incarnate Infused Nictus. The Incarnate Infused Nictus is crafted from an Ancient Nictus Fragment plus 8 shards so if you do a second ITf and a second Khan you'll get two of the base components again. You'd then need 12 shards (4 for the Hero 1 DNA Sample and 8 to upgrade the Ancient Nictus Fragment) which you'd have a good chance of having but if not you could do either a LGTF to get a Hero 1 DNA Sample or just run another ITF for more shards.
That sounds like an oops on terms.
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Originally Posted by Fusion_7
Last night, I got a tell asking if i was Alpha Slotted. I replied "yes" with my level 50 KM/SD Scrapper. I then got an invite for the Tin Mage Mark II TF which I never ran before. It was a pretty fun TF but I did end up getting killed a couple of times while most everyone else stayed alive. Then today, I just happened to read more on the Incarnate System and Alpha Slotting. Based on what paragonwiki states: "The Alpha Slot gives characters who unlock it an additional enhancement to all their powers. It also allows characters to participate in the Apex Task Force and the Tin Mage Mark II Task Force. Characters participating in these task forces without a boost slotted in their Alpha Slot have a four-level "debuff" applied that greatly diminishes their power."
Now here's the kicker. When I got that tell saying if I was Alpha Slotted, I said yes because I thought the sender meant I could get Shards if one is Alpha Slotted. I did run a TF on a toon last week and they were not Alpha Slotted so thus, no wonderful Shard drops came my way. Now back to my KM/SD Scrapper toon, I had my toon with an available Alpha Slot but not actually slotted with a boost so thus, it appears I was gimped on that Tin Mage TF based on what it says in diminishing one's power if they are not slotted. Needless to say, I did get some Shard drops on that TF which brought my total Shard count to 7. After the TF I immediately combined my Shards to give me,....well nothing yet since I only had 7 total Shards to work with. So now, I have to wonder how hard it actually might be to get enough Shards to craft something for your Alpha Slot? I pulled this info on Shards and drop rates from paragonwiki. I guess now, I really have an excuse to start playing some more of my level 50's and get the cob webs off them...heh..heh. |
H: Blaster 50, Defender 50, Tank 50, Scrapper 50, Controller 50, PB 50, WS 50
V: Brute 50, Corruptor 50, MM 50, Dominator 50, Stalker 50, AW 50, AS 50
Top 4: Controller, Brute, Scrapper, Corruptor
Bottom 4: (Peacebringer) way below everything else, Mastermind, Dominator, Blaster
CoH in WQHD
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Pretty much. Tin Mage and Apex are actually poor choices for shard drops anyway since enemies are at +4 and therefore you get fewer kills/minute which means fewer changes for a shard to drop.
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Originally Posted by Fusion_7
So I guess the most efficient way to get Shard drops would be to do TF's not necessarily the Apex or Tin Mage TF's because as you know by my posts above, I was gimped by not being slotted with a boost on those specific TF's. I will eventually figure this one out and get it right.
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Last night, I got a tell asking if i was Alpha Slotted. I replied "yes" with my level 50 KM/SD Scrapper. I then got an invite for the Tin Mage Mark II TF which I never ran before. It was a pretty fun TF but I did end up getting killed a couple of times while most everyone else stayed alive. Then today, I just happened to read more on the Incarnate System and Alpha Slotting. Based on what paragonwiki states: "The Alpha Slot gives characters who unlock it an additional enhancement to all their powers. It also allows characters to participate in the Apex Task Force and the Tin Mage Mark II Task Force. Characters participating in these task forces without a boost slotted in their Alpha Slot have a four-level "debuff" applied that greatly diminishes their power."
Now here's the kicker. When I got that tell saying if I was Alpha Slotted, I said yes because I thought the sender meant I could get Shards if one is Alpha Slotted. I did run a TF on a toon last week and they were not Alpha Slotted so thus, no wonderful Shard drops came my way. Now back to my KM/SD Scrapper toon, I had my toon with an available Alpha Slot but not actually slotted with a boost so thus, it appears I was gimped on that Tin Mage TF based on what it says in diminishing one's power if they are not slotted. Needless to say, I did get some Shard drops on that TF which brought my total Shard count to 7. After the TF I immediately combined my Shards to give me,....well nothing yet since I only had 7 total Shards to work with. So now, I have to wonder how hard it actually might be to get enough Shards to craft something for your Alpha Slot? I pulled this info on Shards and drop rates from paragonwiki. I guess now, I really have an excuse to start playing some more of my level 50's and get the cob webs off them...heh..heh.