Cognitive Dissonance - Incarnates, AVs, and your future self

I think the new powers and levels are generally a good idea. Nevertheless, I feel some cognitive dissonance trying to fit them into my expectation of what being an incarnate means.

What I suspected to happen was that over time I'd become more like an AV. That usually means more mez resistance, more hit points, more debuff resistance, higher resistance, higher con level, more devastating attacks.

Alternately, I got the impression that the Mender Ramiel arc was supposed to hint at our future potential. In that arc, I never got the sense that I had any of these new incarnate abilities (except maybe Alpha). I had no new attacks, no new debuffs, no new pets. Rather, I appeared to con higher, had buffed stats, etc., like an AV. I get that the future self is really pretty unrealistic and would be unbalancing and boring. Still, that was an indication of what you could look like one day, and I was kind of thinking steady progression in that direction (e.g., 10 incarnate levels, 1 for each slot, etc).

Instead, with 5 levels of incarnate content revealed, it seems like we get:
a) up to 1 level shift that occurs in the normal world (at certain levels) and some enhancement bonuses for certain attributes
b) an added (pb)aoe attack, which could be comparable to other AV attacks
c) proc debuffs on most attacks, which are interesting, but not really comparable to AV attacks
d) some praetorian pets that never existed among any characters in the known universe previously
e) large radius aoe buffs with rapid half life decay, not really comparable to AV powers

How do we go from these first 5 levels of incarnate content to the next 5 and will we become something like AVs in the process? Or, for squishy ATs, are we supposed to remain squishy incarnates, unlike every non-incarnate AV in the game?

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Well, imagine a group of 40 characters, all at Tier 4 level Incarnate slotting in 5 slots, attacking what we currently know as The Hamidon Raid. Even without the Incarnate Level Shifts, how sad do you think the Hami will be after that group just wipes the ground with his face?? Don't you think that the buff and debuffs in those powers make most characters deal out damage and survive damage that only AVs were previously able to do?

A lot of these things you list DO give you AV-equivalent powers (debuff procs = extra damage/defense/etc., large AOE buffs = extra defense/damage/healing/etc., new pets = extra damage/buffs/etc.).

For example, a team of 8 on the STF going into the 4th mission:
Without Incarnate - careful planning in taking out GW and the other 3 LR lackeys, keep the tank loaded with CM, then attacking LR, gotta take out the towers one at a time, keep LR occupied...
With 5x VR Incarnate - I think it might be akin to a lazy stroll in the park, drop a judgement here, spam a Destiny there, waltz into the 4 sublieuts (GW et al) like nothing happened, activate the Clarion and drop 8 Jugements on them simul - ASH. 2 people on each tower with pets, with the tank, or maybe a few more pets, keeping LR busy, done in 5 minutes.

I could be wrong, but it will be a slightly different paradigm, I think.

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Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued

"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque

Prepare yourself -- you will never match the level of power you exhibited in Mender Ramiel's first mission. The powers you were granted (such as Limitless Radial Freeem) were never intended to be previews of actual Incarnate powers and you will never be able to curbstomp a map full of AVs. Although IIRC one of them did actually grant your damage powers an additional damage proc similar to the Interface slot.

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"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...