Incarnate and Soloing?

Hi

I have just come back after a years break, and I am curious about the Incarnate content. I do sometimes group, but I do play odd hours, and tend to enjoy soloing alot too. My question is basically how far can I get along the Incarnate ladder just by soloing?

I have read up on various sites some info, but I also think that alot of the info is outdated, and that some Solo friendly Incarnate stuff has since been released? For example, of all the slots Alpha, lore, etc, how many can be got by soloing? Also at what level can i get each slot too, without having to group or Raid. If anyone can give a brief simple breakdown from the solo perspective, it would be awesome!

Thanks in advance

At the moment you can get everything aside from Hybrid by soloing in Dark Astoria. It's just extremely slow for the most part.

I imagine in the future they'll add in more solo incarnate content that allows you to unlock Hybrid and possibly some of the future slots as well.

To expand a bit, when you run missions in Dark Astoria you earn Incarnate XP that will unlock all slots apart form Hybrid and have a chance to get Incarnate Threads which can be used to make components. Additionally at the end of each arc you get a reward screen that allows you to choose either a random rarity component, a random incarnate merit or ten incarnate threads. There is also a bonus where if you run all of the arcs you get two more Empyrean Merits once per week.

Now for comparison running a single incarnate trial will get you 3-5 Astral Merits, 1 Empyrean Merit and a random rarity component (the number of merits and the rarity of the component are different for different trials). So realistically running a single trial gives about the same reward as running about 3 arcs.

Regarding the alpha slot, specifically, it can be unlocked by running a story arc in Ouroboros. I don't recall the name of the mender that gives out the arc, but he's the one standing a few yards away from the quartermaster. Personally, I make it a point to run that arc immediately upon hitting level 50.

Yes, solo'ing incarnate stuff is very possible. It -is- slower than running trials, but not as bad as people make it out.

First and foremost, unlocking slots. The Alpha slot can be unlocked by running Mender Ramiel's arc, so much more worthwhile than taking the time to unlock it via iXP.

The next 4 slots, Interface, Judgment, Destiny and Lore have to be done via iXP but you don't have to rely solely on the iXP you earn doing missions and killing mobs in Dark Astoria. Incarnate threads can be burned for a hefty chunk of iXP toward unlocking slots. The lower slots, interface/judgment, require about 30 threads each to unlock. The higher slots, lore/destiny, require about 50. Sounds like a lot, but it really isn't so bad.

Mostly because you can earn a minimum of 10 threads per day, not counting drops, from the daily repeatable missions offered through Ephram Sha (heroes) and Maharaj (villains). There's also a weekly 10 threads reward from the Signature Story Arcs, which also give you a 'freebie' pick the very first time you complete them. My typical strategy is to complete the low level range SSAs (Vol 1 episodes 1-4) for alignment merits, then hold off until I'm 50 and have access to incarnate goodies to start grabbing threads from episodes 5-7 and Vol 2 ep 1.

Once you've done all the SSAs once though their rewards are set to a 1 week cooldown timer, but that's -per reward- so you can do any SSAs and earn 10 threads and an astral merit (worth 4 threads) once a week by doing 2 of them (or even the same one twice).

The Dark Astoria arcs similarly have timers on them. The very first time you complete them you can choose any reward as a freebie pick (go for components). But any time you repeat them via Ouroboros, the rewards tables have a cool down timer of 20 hours -per reward-.

Let's just use Heather Townshend's arc, the initial DA arc, as an example. We'll say you complete it the first time, pick rewards, get a common component. Before moving on to the next arc you decide to Ouro it to farm up more rewards. The first time you complete it via oro, you'll again get a choice of every reward. Say you pick component again and get an uncommon. Now you repeat the arc another time, at the reward table you will only have the Merit choice and the 10 threads because the Component choice will be on a 20 hour cooldown. So we pick the merit choice and get either 2 astrals (burn for thread) or 1 emp (save for rare). If we oro the arc 1 more time we'll be able to choose the thread option.

Next day, it'll all reset. But again, that's just re-running Heather's arc, you still haven't gone on to the next arc, which will award a free pick the first time it's completed.

Basically this means that, per day, you can earn 1 component, 2 astrals (which means 8 threads) or 1 emp, and 20 threads (which is enough to craft 1 common). On top of 10 threads and 1 astral (4 threads) per week from the SSAs.

Plus 6 components and 2 emps for completing all the arcs the first time. (and 2 emps for completing them all every time thereafter too)

So just off repeating stuff, if you really put your nose to the grindstone, in one week you can earn:

7 components, 150 threads, between 15 astrals and 7 emps.

So let's do math! Say you start with nothing but the alpha unlocked. What do all these goodies mean? Let's assume every component drop was common, save 1 uncommon (not an unusual spread). So 6 commons, 1 uncommon.

For merits, it seems like the chance for astral to emp chance is about 75 to 25. Just going to use simple round, so out of 7 pulls we'll get Astrals about 5 times and Emps twice. So, 11 astrals (10 from arcs, 1 from SSAs) and 2 emps.

Astrals we burn right away into threads. So 11 x 4. Couple with the 150 we got (10 per day from repeatables, 10 per day from arcs, x 7, plus 10 per week from SSA) that gives us 194 threads. Not bad.

Now let's assume our goal is to initially unlock slots, slot them with a common then move on to the next slot. We've got 6 commons, 1 uncommon and 194 threads to do this with.

Right away that means a common ability for the Alpha slot. That leaves us 3 commons, 1 uncommon, and 194 threads. We could just jump to an uncommon ability if we so chose, which would leave us 1 common component left.

For the purpose of unlocking slots let's assume a vacuum of iXP, we'll do this -purely- with threads. And we will clear the lower tiers first, no unlocking Judgment then skipping straight to lore (but you can do that).

So we'll burn 30 threads to unlock judgment. That's 164 threads left, 3 commons and 1 uncommon. We'll slot it up. 164 threads left, 1 uncommon.

30 threads to burn to unlock interface. 134 threads left, 1 uncommon. Since our initial goal is unlock, slot with a common and move on, we burn 60 threads to create 3 common components and slot interface. That leaves 74 threads left and 1 uncommon.

50 threads burnt and we've unlocked Lore. And that's where we stop because that leaves us just 24 threads and 1 uncommon component, not enough to craft any ability.

But see? 1 week of going at it and you've got 4 out of 5 slots you can unlock solo, 3 slotted with common abilities. Obviously you can make different choices as to what you unlock when and how you spend your threads. For instance we could have stopped after slotting Interface and instead of burning that 50 for lore could have gone back and burn 40 threads instead to craft 2 common components and used our 1 uncommon to craft a T2 Uncommon ability for any one of the 3 slots we've unlocked, leaving us with 34 threads left instead.

And this also doesn't take into account the freebie pick for completing the arcs the first time, nor does it take into account any random threads drops.

So ya, there you go Trials are still way faster but you can do it all solo.

There is also the Belladonna Viatrono (sp?) arc that's been added to the line up along with the DA arcs, but the EBs might be a bit much for unshifted folks.

My own personal experience with soloing incarnate stuff:

I had two characters that had nothing but alpha unlocked and slotted with tier 1 from soloing Mender Ramiel's arc and using shards I got through regular play.

When Dark Astoria came about I took them both there and began to do the story arcs. I advise also getting Gabriel's mission to do all the DA arcs to get your 2 emps. Your first time doing each arc you get to choose from the reward table with no lock out. Meaning if you do all the arcs you can pick the incarnate salvage component each time. After your first time doing the arcs you'll be able to choose one item on the reward table per arc you repeat (incarnate component, threads, incarnate merits, reward merits). Each choice has its own 20 hour lockout so every 20 hours you can choose each reward. Doing more beyond that within the 20 hour period gives you lesser thread and reward merit options.

There's also the repeatable missions that gives 10 threads every 20 hours and 2 threads each time beyond that. These coupled with thread drops just from defeating foes can allow you to continue some advancement even if you're locked out of the other bigger rewards.

One thing I did which made a huge difference is be sure to set myself to +1 on the level difficulty. Just raising the level of mobs by +1 made a huge difference in iXP gain. +2 was about half as big an increase (though significant) but I felt the speed at +1 felt more comfortable.

Both characters were able to unlock all incarnate slots except hybrid and fill each power with at least 2nd tier powers and in some cases where I got lucky with a rare, tier 3 powers. I believe one character is +1 while the other is +2 in level shift though I have not been playing either of them recently since I've been focusing on my main character.

Before i22 my main was already +3 and was tier 3 in everything. With Dark Astoria I got her alpha to tier 4 and have been slowly building the rest of her incarnate stuff to tier 4 as well. Not enjoying trials I avoided them for the most part once I had my powers pre i22, but with i23 I ran enough magisterium to unlock hybrid and then used DA to actually slot the power. Another impact of DA was that I was able to use emps/astrals to get the costume/emote/aura unlocks I had not been able to before since I avoid the trials like the plague. It may be slow going that way but it does happen eventually, especially with Gabriel's 2 emps per week arc.

I far and away prefer DA's advancement (even if its much much slower) to doing trials.

Just a quick note - as of I23 there's a new solo Incarnate arc in Night Ward, too. Belladonna Vetrano (who adds herself to your contact list with a Call link automatically) gives it to you, and you can find it as "The Emperor's Sword" in Oroborous. It's six missions long (technically three, but the second one has four parts) and gives the same reward table as any of the Dark Astoria arcs.

Since the DA arcs only have five parts that grant that reward table (Max's arc has no reward at the end), but Gabriel is on a seven-day timer, you can use it as filler if you dont want to run any of the DA arcs a second time in a week.

Unlike the Dark Astoria arcs, however, its story is not self-contained. Since it's in Night Ward, it's part of the whole Pretorian storyline, and it's set as the second-to-last chapter of that story. It continues from the 30-39 Night Ward arcs (particularly in assuming you already know who Pendragon and Sir Bedwyn are), and some of the the events it sets in motion (including introducing two brand-new last-minute allies for Tyrant) are only concluded in the Magisterium Trial.

Max's arc never gives a reward table.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Honestly, I can't see why anybody would limit themselves to only soloing to acquire incarnate components. Granted, I play on Freedom, but I also play late at night (generally 11pm-5am EST) and I can always find people running Incarnate trials. You don't need to know anybody or have any special networking (I'm pretty much a loner in CoH, never really joining supergroups and soforth), just head to your server's meeting place (Pocket D on Freedom) and send a tell to whoever is recruiting. I've managed to fully incarnate 3 toons that way, with multiple T4's on each, and it's been outrageously easy. Granted, I've been playing MMOs for over a decade and trials in CoH are a cakewalk compared to raiding in games like Everquest, but I really think you're making things far too hard on yourself by avoiding the trials. Even if you hate them, they're so short and so much faster that it's probably worth the effort.

If you are new to the Incarnate content, one thing you should know because it was a gotcha for me until I figured it out.

Each Alpha slot power has two different 'recipes' for its creation. This may seem innocuous at first, but there's a reason for it -- one recipe contains components that are created using Incarnate threads (as noted by a previous poster), while the other recipe contains components that are created using Incarnate shards.

Why is this significant? Because as a player mainly doing solo content, you're going to have much easier access to threads than to shards -- other posters have pointed out how easy it is to get threads in Dark Astoria, but shards don't drop there. You'll have to go to a zone where you can fight even-con mobs, such as the Rikti War Zone, to get Incarnate shards. You can also convert Astral Merits into shards, but on a one-for-one basis rather than on the more generous one-to-four Astral Merit-to-Incarnate thread ratio.

This is not to say that shards and shard-based salvage are useless; just that you shouldn't worry about completing a recipe just because you've managed to get hold of a single shard-based component for it. It will be much easier to go get all the thread-based components, especially if you're soloing, than it will be to grind out the remaining shards.

Note this is only an issue for the Alpha slot -- all other slots use exclusively thread-based components as far as I can tell.

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Pauper