Inspirations - their cost:effect ratio is inspirational!

Hey folks,

How awesome are inspirations? I mean, really - they're so good. Obvious, I know, but as a 1-month player who first levelled a Robo/FF MM to 50 (read: very, very rarely need to use any, even on your pets), it was astonishing for me to learn on my SS/FA farming brute how damn good inspirations are.

Well, of course I knew that when farming I'd need to use them, so I was prepared for that part. What I wasn't prepared for was how influential they'd be when fighting EBs. Like many */FA farmers before me, I had to do one of the patron arcs to unlock Mu mastery. This meant dealing with multiple EBs. For some reason I hadn't realised before this point how good a full case of inspirations could be for dealing with an EB, so my first few attempts (at Silver Mantis in Scirocco's arc) ended with me in the hospital after inflicting minimal damage.

And then, the brainwave hit - what if I invested (the very low amount of 1k inf) in a full case of small inspirations? Could they do the trick? After all, I'd already seen how as little as 3 purples could significantly reduce damage in a +4 fire farm. So I filled up my briefcase and went back to take on the Mantis.

It was just amazing. Don't get me wrong folks - I'm not claiming to be the first to have used inspirations to clear difficult objectives. To do so would be just plain stupid. But have you ever had one of those ideas that you felt could be really good, then you put it into practice, and you were validated? It's a great feeling. You know you're onto something good. This was one of those moments. Following on from this, 6 other EBs fell shortly afterwards (2 more in that arc, and then the 4 in the incarnate arc).

Let's think about this for a moment - for those 7 EBs, I bought a full case of inspirations for each (to be technically accurate, for the 2 EBs in the Honoree mission, I did use two - but I used the first batch in a suicide run, killing all the portals and the Rikti, before succumbing to the EBs. I then used the second case to kill both EBs in quick succession). That cost me 7k inf in total. For 7k inf, I was able to clear 6 missions, which would have rewarded me somewhere in the vicinity of ~300-400k xp+inf, as well as, more importantly, access to the epic power pools and the alpha incarnate slot. That right there is profit.

I don't know why I felt so compelled to make this "gush @ inspiration" topic. It was just such a significant thing to learn for me. It feels like such an important lesson to learn as I continue to play the game - and I know that in the tutorials they pretty much say "yeah, these will help you fight" - but they don't say "yeah, in some cases these can prove the difference between not being able to complete a mission and being able to complete it easily". And to think that if I ever get really desperate, I can more or less take double the amount of inspirations by hitting the Black Market (or spending some time in AE on one of my 50's fighting bosses) and taking a full case of large insps instead... it's an amazing prospect.

Well anyway, that's all from me for now. Happy gaming everyone!

Jax

Glad to see you've figured out what they are for.

I can't even tell you how many times I've tried to pass a Wakie to a dead teammate only to get the message "Cannot give to X, not enough room in inventory."

I just want to tell them that if they had actually USED some of those inspirations sitting in their tray, they might not be dead.

"What do you need to make a wakie?"

"A purple or a green."

Facepalm.

glad you are digging the Inspir system... one of the only MMOs I'm aware of that offers something so useful for everyone to use and freely abuse.

It's a shame some players still consider using them cheating. The whole concept of them, I love... think of all the heroes who dig deep to that one thing(or multiple things) to give them that little umphf to take down the baddie. Well done devs... I love my little tray of "go get'ems".

I dislike inspirations and consumables in general. The only reason I use them in this game is that they automatically restock themselves in a convenient bar. If I had to purposefully seek them out and place them in a useable spot I would ignore them completely.

I tend to be kind of OCD about my inspiration trays. I try to keep them organized, even in the heat of battle. My generic tray is a column each of greens, blues, purples/oranges, awakens/break frees, and reds/yellows; of course, it varies a lot based on a character's strengths or weaknesses, but if I get something I already have a stack of, I tend to burn it right away.

I also will always trade up a small for a medium or a medium for a large, using the smaller one as soon as possible. Because of this I end up with characters whose trays are entirely filled with large inspirations... but I always keep room for more, and whenever things are looking bleak, I start emptying the tray as quickly as I can.

Most of the time I've seen a player with a full try fall over, the damage was spiked so much there was no time to click them anyway. Especially on incarnate trials, where massive damage spikes can blindside players from any unseen angle at any time.

I frequently end up not using inspirations on my Mastermind. I've taken to chugging the small inspirations as soon as I see them, and then dropping the medium and large ones in my SG base between missions. The inspiration bins are starting to get full... I'm gonna have to start cutting out the medium ones, soon >.>

The lolhonor code of not using inspirations is more common in zone pvp where really cool tough guys with 3 self heals 5 escape powers question your ability when you destroy them using a single respite.

I dont bother pursuing t2 and t3 myself. too much effort when you can go to a inpiration vendor and grab a full tray for 1000 inf.