The real difference between Trial and non-Trial Incarnate Advancement

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Sorry that I'm coming into this conversation late. I got about half-way through my first page and then realized I had three more to go and decided I didn't have the time to make it all the way through.

I remember some time ago that someone (Catwhoorg perhaps) started a thread to find out what level 50s earned on average. And I seem to recall that 3 million inf. per hour was about average. If anyone has more current figures, I'd be happy to be corrected, but I have a feeling that the number would be much larger today. And if I also recall correctly, that was just for killing things, not marketing at all.

I don't know if anyone has done the same sort of a study for shards. I see on the first page that Arcana, Liquid, and Uber talked a bit about their personal recollections and averages. I wonder if 10 shards an hour would be a fair estimation. I think that it might be if you run TFs and breakdown the component and /or notice.

Let's assume that it's a realistic number if you run TFs. So you get 10 shards and 3 million inf. for an hour's worth of task force gaming. If you do that, you can convert those 10 shards and 2.5 million inf into 10 threads once a day. You need 60 threads to craft a boost, so that's 6 days and 15 mill. You'll need another 34 threads and 85 million to open the slot (1 thread + 2.5 mill = 3% IXP). So that's another 4 days.

So, 10 hours of play time over 10 days to earn a little under 100 shards and 100 million inf. without ever setting foot in either of the two new trials. Thirty million of that inf should be sitting there just from the kills. Craft and sell the non-crap drops to make up the balance. You might be a little short or you might get lucky, get a purple and be tremendously over.

Am I missing something?

And that was an hour and a half to do two trials.

Still here, even after all this time!

No doubt that doing the trials is a much quicker way to get IXP and components. My point is that getting the slot opened and slotted in less than two weeks, playing one hour a night, without stepping foot into either trial, is a reasonable alternative method.

Yes, what I am talking about still requires teaming. But not large scale raid teaming, just the standard teaming that the game has had since day one.

Now, if you want to do it completely solo, it would probably take 30 to 60 days to get one incarnate power slotted. I still don't find that unreasonable. And if you are shooting for the T4 in every slot . . . well yeah, that's going to take years. But as Arcana pointed out, most of the benefit of these boosts come early. Tier 4 only adds a little bit over tier3.

I would much rather have several characters with T1 or T2 slotted in everything, than dedicating myself to just one character with T4s. I won't even consider getting multiple characters with full sets of T4. THAT would be unreasonable.

Find it interesting that it is rare for the US servers to run the BAF 'MO style' yet on Union it's pretty much the ONLY style run, as in every run follows the 'Fight AVs individually at spawns, 1 team per AV with 1 additional team and 1 member from each of the other teams dealing with reinforcements'.

An interesting divergence in tactics used by the different servers.

Do the US servers tend to use the two 'choke points' either side of the tennis courts for the escaping prisoners or the way it was first done when trying it, 2-3 people to a door to deal with the prisoners?

I've hit 10 shards in one TF once, two days ago running the ITF with my Peacebringer. The previous run with my Scrapper netted two, three counting the converted component at the end. Fortunately three was exactly what I needed to finish his A4. 4-6 is much more typical in my experience.

I've gotten between 3-8 shards on ITFs. 8 has been highest amount, and only once. Typically I'm pretty happy if I get a half dozen.

Generally the runs i've been in on Virtue is 3-4 per door. I advise people not to chase anything coming from their door more than a few steps, but to make sure to kill anything coming towards their door. Generally end up with 0-3 escapees. I've been working my blaster through lately, so I usually set up in the north east, dropping rains on the door, but mostly hanging out in the corner of the paths there with hot feet on.

Can see what leaving, and what's coming. Works out pretty well.

Anyway, back on the subject of "iXP too fast with shards," I'm not sure what makes more sense to me:

A) Unlocking an entire slot in one ITF, then actually crafting and slotting a power to put in that slot in 2 more ITFs

B) Crafting a rare power for a slot without even having the slot 1/3 unlocked yet by doing trials

Fiddling around I'm consistently being able to make at least an uncommon, if not rare, before I even come close to unlocking a slot fully. My Dom crafted a rare Judgement and an uncommon Lore before even unlocking Judgement. She's now 47% into Lore and one more trial or so will get her to rare. I also started working on a common Interface before even doing any Lambdas. I did a failed run and got a lot of iXP, but I already have an uncommon and rare waiting so there's no way I won't have a rare there before even unlocking it, yet again.

Arcanaville commented that doing one ITF and unlocking a slot would be too fast. I'd be inclined to say the iXP system is just arbitrary and it doesn't really make sense no matter which way you approach it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.