Alpha Incarnate: Shards or Thread?
By
Agent White,
Posted on: 2012-02-11 15:54 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
The actual super quickest way to get Alpha stuff, I found, was to hop on a speed TPN. Now, this is coming from someone who 1) isn't a huge fan of trials and 2) had never run TPN before.
I walked out with 84 threads, a component, and merits (I forget how many) T'be fair the leader was very well organised, and was constantly making peeps knew what to do, where to go and who to punch, so even though I'd never run it before I knew exactly what to do. I can't guarantee that for other runs.
But that was enough to get me from tier 1 to tier 3 in pretty much that and one other run of...BAF, I think? But yeah, lots of progress, which was nice.
Shards seem to drop way less frequently, to the point I've just given up on them. Threads may not be numerically much different, but they feel like a much faster method, which is kinda what counts to me.
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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.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Originally Posted by Tyger
Not anymore. They removed the cost for the 10:5 conversion rate.
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Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master
looking at it in game right now, the 10-5 conversion does not cost anything, it used to cost inf awhile ago but it doesnt anymore
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Main Hero: Mazey - level 50 + 1 fire/fire/fire blaster.
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The 10:5 shard:thread doesn't cost anything because you're only getting half the value, the 10:10 costs 1mil and has a cooldown because you're getting more out of it.
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Originally Posted by Mazey
Interesting. Anyone know when that happened?
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Think it was i19 or i19.5. Same time they reduced the other upscale costs for rare and very rare bits.
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Originally Posted by Mazey
Interesting. Anyone know when that happened?
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Tyger (50), Mutation-Controller Mind/FF - oldest Mind/FF on Union
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Originally Posted by Dispari
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Right. And you'll also be able to get Empyreans.|
Originally Posted by Agent White
You'll be able to get Astral Merits from Dark Astoria.
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Like the SSA, a reward table appears at the end of DA arcs. You get a choice of three options, each obtainable daily.
The first is a roll on the salvage table (common/uncommon/rare/very rare of your choice), a randomly selected empyrean or astral merit (I'm assuming the chance of astral is much higher than empyrean but I don't know the relative odds), or 10 threads.
These reward rates are orders of magnitude less than what you can get in iTrials. But you don't have to put up with iTrials.
If you run non-incarnate content with any regularity, you'll wind up with lots of shards. Doing an ITF can get you half a dozen. And doing the WST will get you a notice. Only a few of my characters have hit 50 since iTrials came out, so I don't have any set pattern for how I get my Alphas now. I've done it both ways. Basically, I'll use whatever's on hand that will get me there the fastest.
If you don't like iTrials, though, the WST and shards are your best bet. Grinding threads in DA seems like it'll be slower than shards and especially notices. With shards you're guaranteed to get a rare Notice at least once a week. With threads you only have a small chance once a day -- it could happen on day one, or it may take a month of Sundays.
However, if you don't like teaming in general, and don't ever do WSTs, Notices aren't an option, and DA rewards will be your best bet. And it will be a long hard slog.
Well they're still tweaking the reward rate in DA, for instance the repeatable missions being offered currently reward 2 threads on a 20 hour cool down (and 1 thread thereafter) but they're considering a reward table into it like the arcs (Though not necessarily the same rewards).
And it still beats the 'nothing' that's in place now. Non-Alpha Non-Trail incarnate progress is largely week to week (SSA rewards), or converting shards to threads which is just -glacial, so it'll be welcome to hang out in DA and get dailies when trials aren't going.
Also! Shards drop frequently during Hamidon raids, plus Hami himself is worth 4 shards, quite handy if your server runs frequent raids
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2011-06-28 patch notes|
Originally Posted by Mazey
Interesting. Anyone know when that happened?
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As someone who grew sick of the trials very rapidly and only used them to Incarnate up a single main on each account I can understand your ponderings.
First though something to consider. The simple fact is after alpha was added, during the time when that was the only incarnate slot, many including myself ended up stockpiling huge amounts of shards. This I belieave was not anticipated by the devs initially who assumed most would be busy with numerous alts.
So when the next incarnate abilities where added, to try to bring back some balance between the shard hoarders and the altaholics they added the threads to put us all back on a more even footing.
Even with that attempt I had so many shards saved I was instantly able to convert them even using the 10 to 5 conversion( yea I wasnt willing to wait) and was instantly up to tier 4 in the 2nd and 3rd inc powers and feeling very confident when entering the I trials for the first time.
BAF was easy from day one, I recall maybe 2 failed runs in all my times, niether was even close to the first one, and I was honestly amazed when i witnessed a failure, but then relized many didnt even have 50+1 yet. That first shift makes a huge difference especially when more lack it then not.
Lammy I think only those who are to team orientated struggle on because its the one I enjoy the most because of the multiple moments I can find things to do solo that will still contribute to the over all success.
The newer ones dont even attract me enough to run them past the initial check it out obligatory run to see the new content. Mainly because they just dont fit with my characters to much and I dont need to run them to incarnate up. joy of our vast content imo I get to pick what I want to play.
Now with all that rambling whats my point?
Well with shards and threads i feel alpha has great variation in how you want to contruct it. If you enjoy running the TFs that give the alpha mats then Id go with that option.
I tend to mix it up. Tier one alpha takes what like 12 shards total, thats nothing. tier 2 however if you dont run the TFs for the mats is alot easier to fill out with threads, however I go back to shard based for tier 3 and above as notices of the wells are a reliable certainty to aquire and will get you to 3 and 4 alpha in a month of casual play doing each wst and converting extra shards to threads.