Incarnate Slots and Character Concepts

So, with all of these fancy new Incarnate powers, how do you tie them into your character's concepts?

As for me, my main, Spectreblade, is a Broadsword/Dark Armor/Darkness Mastery Scrapper who draws his power from the possessed suit of medieval armor he wears in battle, and I mostly been thinking of the Incarnate slots as the power of the Well amplifying the armor's existing abilities.

Alpha: Cardiac
I went with Cardiac for my Alpha slot for mechanical reasons, since neither Broadsword nor Dark Armor are very friendly to my blue bar. Concept-wise, there really isn't much more to it than allowing the soul of the armor to manifest itself more efficiently.

Judgement: Void
This one is the only one of the four new slots I've unlocked so far. And my choice for this one is more conceptual. Spectreblade already has several powers from Dark Armor and especially Darkness Mastery that channel the armor's spectral energy into offense, and the Void tree adds yet another to his arsenal.

Interface: Gravitic
This slot is one I have yet to actually unlock, but Gravitic is looking like the frontrunner to fill this slot. As a Scrapper the slows from the Core branch of the tree will help me to keep foes in melee range (not to mention within Death Shroud/Cloak of Fear/Oppressive Gloom range). For concept, I'll imagine the slows as pretty much what it says on the tin; as the armor's energy sapping my foes' speed.

Destiny: Barrier
Spectreblade's Dark Armor resistance toggles are the soul of the armor using its power to form a barrier against damage, and the Barrier tree will be that spirit extending its protection to my allies as well as myself. Even the ally Rez at the higher Radial tiers can be explained as basically an ally-version of Soul Transfer.

Lore: Seer
Now this one will be the hardest to justify as an extension of the armor's power. So instead of tying it into my existing concept, I'll just say that I saved some Seers from Mother Mayhem's influence, who have become allies. It is in a knight's nature to save damsels in distress, after all.

So, how will the rest of you tie your incarnate abilites to your character's concept?

I don't need to justify Alpha any more than I need to justify my IOs.

Judgement I'm either taking something that matches one of my powersets, or if nothing does I'll probably take Pyronic and pass it off as an incendiary grenade of some kind or Ionic for techy characters.

Interface bugs me because it can't be colored. How is my dark melee setting people on fire again? And why is the intense graphic necessary?

Destiny I'm not sure about yet. Again, why the intensive graphics?

I'm not taking Lore until we get some pets I actually like, so I have no need to justify it.

I'll use my main (and I've been in a few leagues with ya to boot!) Elite Dreadnaught, a Dual Blades/Electric Armor/Mu Mastery brute. She is a misplaced demon from another dimension. In her home, she was a priestess to her goddess Alroaxt, the Chaos Warlord. Having only attained the third highest rank in her military, she agreed to a dangerous mission of stopping her enemies from making interdimensional allies in order to go up the military ladder. She went into the portal and when she arrived on Primal Earth, the vastly different magics of the dimensions had her sapped of almost the entirety of her strength. With time she was able to resist Earth's ley lines effects on her. Her Electric Armor is just chaos magic used to protect her. Mu Mastery is played as offensive chaos magic.

Alpha: Cardiac

This isn't an incarnate ability for her, this is just her getting fit due to the constant battles that she seeks out.

Judgement: Ion

She channels a Chaos Blast and directs it at her enemies. This was the last spell she had learned in her dimension before being given a one-way ticket to Earth.

Interface: Reactive

She has finally learned the art of weaving magic into her weapons. This chaos enchantment tears through all protective barriers while the chaos armor she surrounds herself with magically causes unexpected results in the form of flames.

Destiny: Ageless

Alroaxt looks down upon those who stop battling. The only reason to not continue fighting is death. This chaotic refresher sends her and everyone around her into a frenzy, ignoring debilitating effects (debuff resistance) and granting celerity (+recharge). Despite Elite Dreadnaught having a t4 Alpha and Power Sink, she sometimes still runs out of endurance. The full endurance bar refill helps fight this problem. She is also at the soft cap for S/L, the debuff resistance helps fight cascading defense failure.

Lore: Seers

In order to help spread chaos across all battlefields, she has learned some illusion magic from the humans she has derided since she arrived. She uses the reflection of defeated enemies in an attempt to confuse her opponents. This is her first foray into human magics and she has not mastered the spell.

Some of my characters

Let's see. Kinetics/Regeneration Scrapper.

Helena, a Mu descendant and regenerate who's more in touch with her past than most, would pick...

Alpha/IOs: Spiritual/Recharge-Healing-Defense: Mechanically and conceptually, naturally. Having grown up in Praetoria, she knew relatively little about Mu- and her covert operations didn't bring them up an awful lot considering her tech-preference. Of course, embedded deep in Arachnos, she found herself doing work with Scirocco and eventually came into contact with the Mu Treasury in one of his missions... level up to 51 on contact with some of the artifacts!

Interface: Diamagnetic : Her unique regenerative powers exponentially increased with her contact with Cole and the Shards she touched. (They're a sort of healing fire that works insistently to keep her body in a special state of homeostasis.) They extend from her body a short ways, intertwining with her kinetic blows to sap at the body of their victim and close out some of their regenerative abilities. The flames, since the introduction of her MoG power, have always had a habit of solidifying to deflect and devour blows. Now the ones prickling her enemies deflect and distort some of their blows before they even get to their intended target! (-tohit)

Judgement: Ion: ... Mu energy! Going Pyro and coloring it green seemed to lend a liiiiittle too much power to her regenerative powers, so, instead, her contact with the Well and the leftover tinglies from the Mu Spirit City has allowed her to access some of her heritage!

Destiny: Rebirth: As it can leak out of her body to harm and sap, it can leak out of her body to heal and restore- with special direction. Same as Diamagnetic, just in the good sorta' way.

Lore: Clockwork: She's Praetorian. But she's a solo worker, so Seers- a natural dislike- and Warwork- AI like an intelligent being, and something she's also grown to dislike- are out. Same with IDF. So now she has Clockwork. Yay. They need more Lore pets.

Hmm the only character I'm taking Incarnate actually follows the old Incarnate method, in that it is power given by a God or in this case, Gods, However she's also recieving boosts from her 'father', a Mad scientist (hey just because he's a villain and she's a hero doesn't mean they can't have a normal father/daughter relationship) to help her out.

Alpha: Musculture
The Musculture (45% damage boost) represents the blessing of Hercules (or Heracles, whichever), boosting her already impressive strength to new heights as well as giving her a boost to one of her weakness, alcohol intolerance, she can now actually drink normally and not get hammered off of one bottle of beer.

Judgment: Ion
The Judgement of Zeus, now while Statesman is a pure Incarnate of Zeus, she was gifted her own golden lightning with which to smite her foes, after all she is going to be going up against another Incarnate of Zeus (Emperor Cole).

Lore: Warworks
Her mad scientist father captures and reprograms robots to answer to her beck and call in times of trouble. Simples.

Interface: Reactive -res/fire DoT
Blessing of Hephaestus, master of the forge, smith of the gods, imbueing her fists with the fires of the godly forge able to melt any metal.

Destiny: Barrier
Her father is a Bots/Forcefield so it makes sense he'd gift her some of his own tech.

I have right around four characters I consider my most important, and sadly... Only one of them makes sense to have a Judgement power.

Alpha doesn't need to be justified. It's more of what you already have.

I'm only familiar with Judgement powers, so I'll stick to them.

Starting with the one "important" character who makes sense, Grimwall will be taking the Pyronic Judgement, and this requires no explanation. She was a Fire/Fire/Flame blaster turned Fire/Fire/Pyre Scrapper. She is a creature born of fire, bred to fight and conquer, who came into her own personal sentience and chose instead a life of protecting the innocent. Her powers consist entirely of commanding and summoning fire, so a Pyronic judgement power makes sense.

Beyond that, we have:

Samuel Tow: His powers are superhuman reflexes bordering on precognition and implying super-fast movements, a sword that can cut anything, and a pair of fancy handguns. The latter of the three doesn't apply to City of Heroes, obviously, but this still leaves us with a Super Reflexes + Katana fighter who relies primarily on his speed and precision. None of the Judgement powers make sense for him.

Ezikiel Bane: His powers consist entirely of control over rocks and other crystalline structures, including the ability to transmute any material into "generic rock," including the air around him. His skills revolve around rocky armours, earthquakes and tremors, superior strength, sand and floating rocks. An Earth Judgement power does not exist.

Lynda "Crash" McGuier: She is a hyper-advanced indestructible super-strong cyborg from the future who was engineered to be the perfect replica of a human being, created to preserve the life of its creator's mortally wounded daughter. Her powers revolve around speed of movement, strength of strike and toughness of body, revolving around a series of implausible machines used to enable that. Crash does not use elements or energies directly, and no Physical Judgement exists for her.

Those are the characters I "love" the most or for whom I've written large stories.

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.

Not sure I understand the justifications of the Lore slot. These aren't actual seers/warworks/ect that comes out to help our characters -- they're essences we're drawing from the Well.

It has nothing to do with a character concept at all, since any past history would be updated by becoming an Incarnate. These are powers granted outside our original concepts.

For Techbot Alpha, my Bots/Traps main;

Alpha: Musculature. Shard crystals use in lasers for an even more potent kick, upgraded weapons systems using even higher calibre and all that military jargon. TL;DR? More dakka. Lots more dakka.

Judgement: Ion. While I didn't get what I hoped for, in that none of the Judgement powers could be passed off as an Orbital Barrage (), plot for Alpha ended up with him having a merger with his moon-orbit railcannon platform, Reason.
So now he can actually throw pure bolts of energy. All that kit had to go somewhere.

Interface: Reactive. -Res is always good, and works well for high powered lasers slicing through whatever armour people have. Oh, and plasma burns. They hurt too.

Lore: Warworks. Or, rather, hard-light constructs that look like and attack like Warworks robots, doing some quite considerable damage. More after effects from the Reason-merger.

Destiny: Barrier. Because you cna never have too much def and res, especially on an MM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.