Alpha slot tier 4 question....

...Now forgive my ignorance, but this has been troubling me for a while and before I waste 10,000 shards I dont have crafting this stuff, I am going to ask:

To craft the alpha slot tier 4, am I correct in seeing that I have to RECRAFT all of the prior tiers one more time, to get it? I've already crafted that stuff, but it says I don't have it, evidently that first craft does not count.

As hard as shards are to get for me, this seems like massive fail to me - so I'm hoping I'm wrong. I have extremely poor luck re shard drops and if that is how it is, I may shelve the idea of ever hitting the Alpha tier 4.

You are correct. Getting the Tier 4 requires you to have 2 tier 3 abilities (they can be any T3 ability, scroll down the lsit to find the appropriate recipe for you) plus a frew other components.

The general idea is that the T3 is the "standard" ability and the T4 is the stretch ability for those who want a longer term goal. If you do the math the T3 abiltiy provides about 75% of the effectivenss of the T4 ability but for 25% of the cost.

You can also craft Alphas with iTrial rewards now. Look at the recipe tables, might have to scroll down or resize your incarnate window if you don't see the other recipes for Alphas.

Small clarification:

You have to have any two out of the four T3 in a tree (not two of the same, nor any two from different trees). Each combination has it's own recipe, which you can find by scrolling, plus there's a recipe for using Threads and other components from the Trials, as the others have said.

You also need to have 4 Notices. Two for both T3s, plus another two to craft the Favor you need for the T4. If you've got more than that from running WSTs, you can convert them to shards and get 4-6, I believe. When I made my T4, I had two extra Notices, converted one and got 5 shards, which was exactly the amount left I needed to craft. If you're really anti-Trial, which sounds to be the case based on you saying you need a million shards and how long it takes you to get them, I'd still say it's very worth it to at least run the WSTs just for the Notices. One a week saves you a ton of Shard hunting and a lot of inf.

I am not at all anti-trial, just wary of using things I might need for slots such as Lore, which drop in trials - when shards drop elsewhere.

The i20 stuff takes a lot of threads, which is fine since threads drop quickly and you can also make them from other things. Everyone but my Tank is hurting for shards though.

So when did they change the AlphaTier2 components to require a common from the thread components?( Biomorphic Goo) So now i cant just get threads and just get my Alpha tier3 and 4, i have to do BAF/Lambda too ?

More like they made it that you "Have too" do incarnate missions now. I was happy just getting Shards and just working on my Alpha, because i am so burned out on BAF/Lambda,but now i have to do them even for the Alpha slot. because we can go from shards to threads but not the other way around.