What are these and when did they get added to CoH/V?!

The skittles-vending nurses/combat medics have shamed me into using more insps (I'm still not using them as often as I ought to, but it's a process). I try and slip out of the hospital without her noticing, but it's always, "So Gate, need somemore insps to replace the ones you used in the fight that sent you here? Oh, tray full? Interesting." Then she makes notes on her little clipboard...

-Gate

My name is Spectreblade, and I am an inspiration hoarder.

(Hi, Spectreblade!)

Now that that's out of the way, I also have a standard inspiration arrangement. I first got the idea of having a standard supply from my days participating in Virtue's long-since defunct "Fight Night at the Golden Giza" arena PvP matches. (The house rule regarding inspirations was that small ones were allowed, but no medium, large, or special ones). Being for PvP, it had a little of everything.

Column 1; 4 Respites
Column 2; 2 Lucks and 2 Sturdies
Column 3; 4 Break Frees
Column 4; 2 Insights and 2 Enrages
Column 5; 4 Catch a Breaths

I've still kept that standard arrangement to this day, but the problem is, it leaves no room for drops until I can overcome my obsessive tendencies and actually use one (usually a green to save my life or a blue to prevent my toggles from dropping). After I do manage to break the careful arrangement through using one, I tend to be more liberal after that.

But the team I was on last night, along with reading this thread, have given me reason to reconsider my inspiration usage. Last night I was on a melee-heavy team on my main BS/DA Scrapper running Praetorian AV missions, and we came to Diabolique. Between our relative lack of debuffing and Diabolique's constant phasing, it was tough getting damage through. So one of my teammates switches characters to a Rad/Rad Defender. After that we started making faster progress.

But then when Diabolique's health got low, she started throwing Personal Force Field into the mix, reducing our DPS even further, negating the advantage from the Rad debuffs. At this point her health was barely budging. So, thinking quickly, I fire off my Geas of the Kind Ones accolade (my accolades and temporary powers tend to sit there collecting dust too, but that's a topic for another thread). It helps a little, but it's still not enough. So I'm there thinking "Okay, what do I do now?" Then I notice it. A large Red inspiration and a few small ones. So I went to town and popped them. Diabolique's bubble soon followed, and after a long and grueling battle we emerged victorious.

I can't really say that popping those reds single-handedly won us the fight, but I can say that it was the final nail in her coffin. So once I can pry myself away from the forums to get some actual playing time in tonight, I think I'm going to try using inspirations more often.

Once I have 10 insp slots (forget what level that is) i always try to keep one slot empty.

Small yellows get popped almost immediately. Last night I had 5 small yellows stacked on me just because the little buggers kept on dropping. Blues and greens I may hoard a little.

If I'm playing support, I'll pass my reds to the damage dealers, or purps and oranges to the tank if he/she is having a tough time. Blue to anyone that seems to be sucking wind.

If I'm dead and the person fighting near me looks about to die as well, I'll try and feed them greens or purps or anything that might save them.

Slightly OT, but here goes:

Vet reward idea I had of another row added to your insp tray (so that by L40 it's 5 high and 5 wide), too much?

-Gate

I always have an "ideal" loadout for inspirations, which consists of the entire tray minus one spot which must ALWAYS be open to ensure inspirations keep dropping. If something drops in that slot, it either replaces an item from my ideal loadout if it's a higher tier inspiration, or gets immediately consumed if it's not.

I've almost never died with full inspirations, because I'll always aggressively use my entire tray if things go bad, so that inspirations go BEFORE I go. This often leaves me with an empty tray, but an empty tray can be filled in combat. A dead character takes time to bring back into action.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

There is always, always an open spot for an insp drop for me. Well, one noticable exception - when all the drops have been T3s, those I hoard. Compulsively. I've never thought about it until just this minute, but I must have on the order of 1000 T3 insps in various solo bases across servers/factions. It's the purples and oranges I value most. In actuality, it turns out I end up raiding my base and giving those purple/oranges to tanks on pug STFs that just can't quite deal with LR.

Also, when doing vill patron arcs, I find I consume the t3s when fighting the patron and later, when fighting LR, depending on how capable the toon is.

I too want to join the club that is infuriated when trying to pass on insps, especially to a corpse, and getting the "inventory full message".