Strike Pack!

Greetings comma salutations comma

I wanted to take a moment to reintroduce Tim “Black Scorpion” Sweeney and ask him to give some more details on the upcoming Strike Pack release in early February. Black Scorpion has been working closely with Positron on the Incarnate System over the last year as well as leading up some of the other features you will be seeing in Issue 20, but in particular he is responsible for the features of the Strike Pack. Now if only he’d fix the hydraulics system in that power armor, these carpets don’t clean themselves!

Hello to everyone! Black Scorpion here to make a little announcement.

In early February we are launching an update to Issue 19 called the Strike Pack. The Strike Pack introduces the Weekly Strike Target and the Rare and Very Rare tiers of the Incarnate Alpha Slot.

Weekly Strike Target: Every week, we will announce one Task Force and one Strike Force (or instead one Co-Op Task Force) that will give increased rewards for that week. The first time a character completes the Weekly Strike Target in the week, they receive double merits and a bunch of additional XP. Even if you “go rogue” and do the other side’s Weekly Strike Target as well, you’ll only get that reward for your first in a given week. After running it once, your character can earn progress toward some brand new badges for helping others by running it as many times as you like. Of course, you can run the WST on as many characters as you have the inclination for and get the increased rewards on each. The Weekly Strike Target will change every Tuesday morning.

But wait, I hear you say, how does this get us more Incarnate power? Black Scorpion hears your pleas.

Alpha Slot Upper Tiers: With the Strike Pack, you will be able to expand the Alpha Slot to the Rare and Very Rare tiers. Running the Weekly Strike Target on an Incarnate-enabled character adds to your once-a-week bonus a “Notice of the Well” reward, which is a necessary component to craft the Rare tier abilities of the Incarnate Alpha Slot. Save them up, add a few Shards, and your “Notice of the Well” can be upgraded to a “Favor of the Well” which is necessary for crafting the Very Rare abilities in the Alpha Slot. Of course, once Issue 20 launches, you will be able to build these abilities with stuff found while completing Incarnate Trials as well.

In addition to their tree-specific benefits, when you slot a Rare or Very Rare Alpha Slot power, a level shift will be applied to your character. Your level 50 character will fight with the same strength as if they were level 51; your actual level will not change, and the level shift only applies when you have a Rare or Very Rare power in the Alpha Slot and it is active. Characteristics which take level differences into account like damage and control duration will be affected, but basic stats like hit points and movement speed are unchanged. This should come in handy on tackling challenging content like the Tin Mage and Apex TFs (or any other high-level content), but you will find it is of tremendous value in improving your effectiveness in the Incarnate Trials launching with Issue 20!

More detailed information will be released in the coming weeks.

Your bud in the Incarnate-powered armor,

Black Scorpion

Heres my soul for february, do with it as you wish . . . . . . .


This is very good in my humble opinion

Edit: Think the question people will want answered for clarification though is the following:

In i19.5 we can only craft the rare/very rare alpha levels by doing the taskforce of the week and getting that reward correct? However once i20 hits we can craft them as normal via new/current tfs that will be available once i20 hits?

SQUEEEEEEE!

nerdgasm!

ahem, cool.

This is not likely to endear the "I prefer soloing"/"no time or inclination to run TFs" crowd. I'm just sayin'.

I guess my concern with the Strike Pack idea is that a significant number of players are going to run the chosen TaskForce as soon as they can and won't be receptive to running it again.

If Quaterfield becomes TF of the week...

I will quietly cry.

Badgers are going to be all over this for the next month by the way

Very cool stuff. Good way to get some TFs more exposure. It may help illustrate problems with certain TFs too if everyone is "encouraged" to play them that week. I hope the Devs will be responsive to any concerns for those TFs that crop up due to the increased traffic.

I'm concerned on the solo aspect not being present but I'm assuming that'll be introduced in i20.

All in all, looks good. Nice additions!

This is clearly one of those instances that if you give people a stack of money, they will complain that the bills are not new and in sequential order, or they are in said condition and order and they would prefer older non sequential bills.

You people will complain about anything.

So, I'm looking at either having to run Incarnate Trials in I20 to build my Rares, or run weekly strike forces to build my Rares.

Incarnate system just became like every other end game system, solo unfriendly. Thought Posi said this *was not* going to be how our end game system worked.