Incarnate Shards?

OK, so I dusted off one of my 50s this weekend, and IO'd him out the wazzoo, so he's ready to roll - I had actually forgotten how much fun Dark / Dark tanking was!

But now I am ready to look into getting him into the Incarnate system, but have no idea how to get started. The basic posting doesn't really cover the "how-to" part, and the paragonwiki is good, but is focused on the end result, not the getting there part.

So... how does one get started on this route? Particularly if you don't have the time to run a lot of TFs - I think I have done maybe ten TFs in my five years here.

Do Mender Ramiel's missions. He's in Ouroboros. You can find out everything else you need to know by talking to him after you're done with the missions and have unlocked your Alpha slot.

After you've completed the Mender Ramiel arc in Ouroboros (http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Mender_Ramiel), you will unlock the Alpha slot.

After that, any L50 you defeat has a chance of dropping a shard. That means you could just run 50 missions and get shards. Of course, the chance to drop increases with the NPC class (so the chance is pets < minions < LTs < bosses < ...).

My experience running TFs is that you get between 3-15 shard drops, with the average probably around 7. Plus some TFs (Barracuda/Kahn, Lord Recluse/Statesman, Lady Grey, Imperious) give you components as a reward, which is like a bonus 4 shards if you need that component. You can also get one component with 150 Vanguard merits, so you'd have to unlock the Vanguard arc and then fight Rikti.

If you don't have time to do TFs, you might wanna try to keep on the lookout for Mothership Raids in the RWZ. The time commitment is about an hour, but it's easier to come late or leave early without dooming the process, unlike a TF. I was getting around 8 shards per MSR and did those exclusively except I did some TFs on the weekends.

Hopefully that helps. Also browse through the questions here, I'm pretty sure you'll see many of the same types of questions asked and might have some good discussions in those threads that won't be repeated here.

To expand on that a little bit. Mender Ramiel is the holder of the mission-arc that unlocks your initial Incarnate slot (known as the alpha slot) [fyi it's the only slot available at the moment].

Once you've run the full arc and unlocked your Incarnate potential, you will be able to start gaining Incarnate Shards and Components.

Incarnate Shards can be used to craft Components and Components can be used to craft the actual "Incarnate IOs" that you'll be putting into your alpha slot.

The top-end Task/Strike Forces (LordRecluseSF, StatesmanTF, ImperiousTF, LadyGreyTF, etc) grant a Component as the end reward of the TF. In addition, you will be gathering Incarnate Shards during the TF as drops.

You can also get Incarnate Shards as normal drops from any mob that is level 50 or higher, although at a greatly reduced rate (it's higher than the purple receipe drop rate, but less than the normal rare drop rate).

So, if you want to get slotted up with your initial Incarnate ability quickly, you can run TFs.
If you don't want to run TFs (I don't), you can still get there just from doing normal stuff; it will just take longer.

[fyi 4 incarnate shards can be used to craft any common level component, with higher requirements for the uncommon and rare components. It takes 3 common components to craft the Common-level Incarnate IOs, with again more for the uncommon and higher IOs]

Currently, only the Common and Uncommon IOs are available - the rare and very rare IOs will be opened to us eventually.

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So, short answer after the long winded one:
1) Run the Mender Ramiel arc
2) Do TFs or just play normally from that point on
3) [eventually] Craft the Incarnate IO(s) you want to use

And to expand a little more... ;D

I'm a good test case for going from full stop ignorance about the Incarnate System to having my Alpha Slot slotted with my first Uncommon boost, so my experience might be useful.

First, do what they (previous posters) said.

1. Go to Oroboros and run Mender Ramiel's arc. Check out the boards for clues about completing the missions, a couple of them are a bizatch if you try to solo it. I managed with 1 person's help for Trapdoor and actually solo'd Capt Holtz and Honoree with pets but it was pretty brutal. I helped someone else with that one and with just me and one other (third) team mate it wasn't that big a deal.

2. Now you have an Alpha Slot! Where the heck is it and what do you do with it??? Also hopefully you got some Shard drops in the arc missions to let you know what the goodies are that you will be seeking.

The Incarnate drops have their own tab under Salvage, and the Alpha Slot itself can be accessed by opening your Powers screen from your tray. There's new little bit of text at the top edge of the Powers screen which, if clicked on, will bring up the Incarnate window where you both craft and slot the boosts. This was the single most elusive piece of info for me. I have no problem with accepting that it might be because I'm one taco short of a combo plate but seriously, the Paragon Wiki article doesn't explain this, the official CoH articles don't explain this. I found this part out from Zombie Man's wonderful Guide.

The Guide really helps a LOT to fill in any gaps in the other sources. Yay, Zombie Man! The reason I am now godlike on my one 50!

3. As far as what you will need to do to get the Shards and Components you need for your boosts, here was my yesterday: I started with just the Shards you get from Mender Ramiel's arc. I asked around on broadcast and the server channel (Liberty) if anyone was doing ITFs and got on one. What the leader described as a normal run gave me several Shards and the Component you get from that TF. You can't get that component from that TF again for another 18 hours. (I hadn't paid attention to that part, it's in the articles, so I ran another ITF during the course of the day, but it was fine, I got shards from the second run, just not the component.)

After that I ended up on a team that did the Winter Lord event mission, (which was actually easier than I remembered from last year for some reason) and got shards there. Then I decided to hang out in the Rikti War Zone for a while and got on a Lady Grey Task Force, same thing, "normal" run, more shards and a component from that one. I had heard there was a regular Mothership Raid on Sunday night on Liberty so I hung around for that (after doing the second ITF). The zone was so full that when I left a mission I ended up in RWZ2 and couldn't get into the first instance, it was locked out. After hanging out in the Vanguard hq in Atlas a while I finally got into the first RWZ, where the raid was already underway. Nice folks answered my call for a team and TP'd me to the ship (where I promptly DC'd - doh!). After the fastest re-log in history, I ended up rezzing on the ship! I got teamed up again and participated in the remainder of the raid, getting some more shards and some Vanguard merits.

After that I spent some time trying to figure out what kind of boosts I could make, and what I wanted. I made the Common Spiritual and slotted it (again yay Zombie Man's Guide for even finding the crafting and slotting screen).

Then someone was talking on chat about doing Tin Mage TF. I knew from reading the I19 notes that like Apex, you couldn't even really do that TF without having an Alpha Slot, slotted, but I now had that so I joined up.

More shards. After that, with the shards from that run plus the Gr'ai Matter component I purchased using the Vanguard merits (some from the raid, some I already had), I was able to upgrade my common boost to the uncommon Spiritual Radial one.

So in one Sunday, I basically got all the materials needed to slot up to my first uncommon boost. The only thing I had starting out the day was that I'd done Mender Ramiel's arc previously.

TLDR; perhaps, but sometimes it helps me if I have a real world anecdotal. Mine's a good case because I'm about as average joe player as there is.

Hope it helps!

~

Any chance the link to that guide is on the Closed Beta forums or something? When I try to go to it, I get refused access due to insufficient permissions. Odd that.

I love Zombie Man's other guides, and would love to give that a read. My search ability on the forums didn't turn up anything by him on the topic though.

Everything that was in my guide is now Wikified:

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Alpha_Slot

See also:

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Incarnate_System

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Alpha_Slot_Abilities

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Incarnate_Component