City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Incarnate and Soloing?

Adeon Hawkwood

By Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-06-22 13:45 in Player Questions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Texas Justice View Post
If a player has run any of the side missions (in the original run through or later in Ouro) and later only runs the final mission in Ouro, they still have the helpers as if they had run the side missions again.
Wow, that I did not know. The 2nd time I ran Max's arc (on the same character) I considered not doing all the side missions but decided to do them anyway because I was worried the final boss fight might be too difficult to solo without the helpers. Next time on that character I may skip them.

Quote:
If they were to give the reward table only for running all of the arcs, there isn't an easy mechanism to track that it was done that way on each run in Ouro.
Yeah, I figured there might be a problem somehow tying the reward mechanism to specific mission completion and I knew they wouldn't want to give a premium reward for running just one mission (just didn't realize the tracking was completely borked). Besides, the side missions are supposed to have their own reward (the helpers). Also, even if you run all 4 missions, it's still the shortest arc in Dark Astoria. So I'm not going to complain about no reward table for that one.

 

Posted

Long time reader, first time poster! just wanted to put down some of my thoughts on the solo incarnate path and this seemed a fitting place.

My first character hit level 50 in March and since then I've run through at least one arc most days, usually following it up with one of the repeatable missions for 10 threads. In that time I've managed to get Alpha, Destiny, Lore and Interface to Tier 3 and Judgement to Tier 2 while I'm trying to build to get some Tier 4's. That seems like a pretty distant dream at the moment though when the last week has seen nothing but common drops and I've only had two rare components drop ever.

I don't mind the idea that the solo path is slower than doing iTrials, but to my mind it seems to take far too long in comparison to what you can achieve in trials. Now I can play trials if I have to (and did so in order to unlock hybrid, which I couldn't get any other way), but I played solo the vast majority of the time all the way to level 50 and wish that my preferred playstyle was better supported in the incarnate system.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ironblade View Post
Actually, six.
1) Heather
2) Mu-whatever
3) Praetor Duncan
4) Sister Solaris
5) Dream Doctor
6) Dream Doctor AGAIN - he has TWO arcs and each gives a reward table.
That's right. I forgot about the two Dream Doctor arcs. But the game treats it as one long arc, with a false Finale in the middle. You can't just take the second Dream Doctor arc on its own, you have to run all six missions.

So that means, when running them through Orobouros, your choices are either run both arcs in the same day (and so not be able to choose the same reward twice) or to wait the 20 hours between arcs (and not be able to run any other missions at all on that character).

So I just tend to think of it as one arc, and still use Emperor's Sword as filler.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Iron_Emerald
I don't mind the idea that the solo path is slower than doing iTrials, but to my mind it seems to take far too long in comparison to what you can achieve in trials. Now I can play trials if I have to (and did so in order to unlock hybrid, which I couldn't get any other way), but I played solo the vast majority of the time all the way to level 50 and wish that my preferred playstyle was better supported in the incarnate system.
I do agree with this. You could probably triple the rate of rewards (and/or remove the 20-hour timer in the reward table) and it'd still be slower than running iTrials. (And the inability to unlock Hybrid outside of the Magi trial is another issue in and of itself)

 

Posted

Hi

Just wanted to say thanks to all you guys for posting such great and precise information. Very much appreciated. Any more info is allways welcome, so please carry on!

 

Posted

As pointed out, Max's arc *never* gives a reward table. As also pointed out,
you do get the followers if you've run the side missions at least once.

Thereafter, if you're just looking for credit for the weekly Empys, you can just
run Max's last mission and skip the others in his arc (unless you enjoy running
them, of course).

That said, the Dream Doctor arc gives out two reward tables, so that sort of makes up
for the table you don't get in Max's arc.


In regard to the Op's question, you can unlock the key slots and get T2's in each
in fairly short order by doing things daily. Depending on your toon, you can run
Heather's full arc in 10-15 mins. Do that 3X, and you get a component, 10 threads,
and either an Empryean, or a pair of Astrals. Add another 10 mins for the repeatable
Daily, and you have another 10 threads for roughly an hour's effort.

As also mentioned, you can get an Astral and 10 threads from the weekly SSA's,
and if you're shy a few threads, you can convert Astrals for 4 threads each.

Also, while running DA content, you'll usually have a few more threads drop,
and in normal content, you can get Shards which you can also convert to threads
as well.

It adds up pretty quickly, and T1's and T2's use nothing but Common and Uncommon
components, so getting that far is easily doable in "reasonable" time, solo.

T3's & T4's? Not so much - at least, not for me.

While I've gotten Empryeans fairly regularly (loosely ~1:5 arcs or so, off the top
of my head), I've yet to get a rare or very rare component - RNG hates me

For T3's (which need a rare), and T4's which need 2 rares (from the 2 T3's) and a
very rare, I personally find that running the iTrials is the most cost effective
approach (despite my general... ok, serious dislike, for teaming).

The T3's for Alpha, Lore & Destiny all provide Level Shifts (Alpha is *real*, the other
two only apply for iContent).

I cannot stress how much those Shifts *matter*. If you're gonna bother with
iStuff at all, you definitely want to set those 3 T3's as a goal - they'll make a
huge difference for any other content you do.

While I solo or duo 90+% of the time, for the T3's, if you care about toon performance,
a Trial or two regularly will pay huge dividends fairly quickly. T4's, you can completely
do without (imo), but they are nice if you do want them. (Only 2 of my toons,
bothered with T4's - all my other iGuys stopped at T3).

You *can* solo for T3's & T4's as well, but the time it will take will be a LOT longer
than it takes getting T2's solo. I'm not convinced you'd reliably get T4's in less than
several *months*, if not longer, solo.

Of course, if RNG is your friend - you may have better luck with that than me,
but I'd still be looking for a rare or very rare today, were it not for augmenting
the many solo runs with some iTrials along the way... YMMV.


Regards,
4

I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.

 

Posted

Two more things I've picked up:

- The Weekly Task Force/Strike Force offers an automatic drop of a Notice of the Well Incarnate Component the first time you complete it that week. This can be helpful in getting up to Tier 3 or Tier 4 Alpha (tier 4 because Notices of the Well can be combined to form a Favor of the Well), but Notices and Favors of the Well are part of the shard-based recipes and aren't that helpful with the thread-based recipes of the other slots. (Though ParagonWiki has it that it's now possible to break a Favor of the Well into 100 threads, so there's that.)

- If the RNG really seems to hate you, you can upgrade combinations of Common/Uncommon components to get Rares -- for instance, one of my Incarnates recently took 100 threads, plus one each of the Uncommon thread-based components and upgraded to the specific Rare component she needed to build her Tier 3 Alpha. YMMV, but I figured it was worth it for the level shift.

Good hunting!

--
Pauper

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pauper View Post
- The Weekly Task Force/Strike Force offers an automatic drop of a Notice of the Well Incarnate Component the first time you complete it that week. This can be helpful in getting up to Tier 3 or Tier 4 Alpha (tier 4 because Notices of the Well can be combined to form a Favor of the Well), but Notices and Favors of the Well are part of the shard-based recipes and aren't that helpful with the thread-based recipes of the other slots. (Though ParagonWiki has it that it's now possible to break a Favor of the Well into 100 threads, so there's that.)
A useful tip here is that you can convert Astral Merits into Incarnate Shards at the Astral Merit vendor (at a 1:1 ratio). This is surprisingly useful for getting new characters their Alpha slot since instead of running Task Forces for shards and components you can simply run iTrials use the Astral Merits to get Shards and use the threads and components to make a start on other slots while racking up iXP. Generally on a new character I'll build his T3 Alpha Slot like this:

T1: Convert 11 Astrals to Shards + 1 Shard from Ramiel's arc (sometimes I'll just use regular thread based commons but if I'm burning Astral merits anyway this is slightly cheaper).
T2: Use 2 Commons and 1 Uncommon from iTrial rewards (this is cheaper than converting Astrals)
T3: Notice of the Well + 8 Astrals to Shards (sometimes a bit less if I got some shards or a component while running the WST).

This generally takes 4-5 trials which puts me a good bit of the way towards unlocking Judgement and Interface.

For the Tier 4 Alpha generally run more WSTs to get the extra Notices but I still tend to burn Astral's for the Shards needed to upgrade them to a Favor. Unless I get really lucky rares and very rares are gating me so the guaranteed Rare drop from the WST makes that my preferred method.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pauper View Post
- If the RNG really seems to hate you, you can upgrade combinations of Common/Uncommon components to get Rares

Personally I think that this is the expensive way to do it. Remeber, you can pick Merits for your mish rewards in DA. You have a chance to get either Astrals, or Empys. And Taskmaster Gabriel in DA gives 2 Empys for completing a full set of DA missions.

After you get all the common components you need, you should stop selecting Component from the reward table and switch to Merits. That way you can start building up the Empys and Astrals you need for incarnate abilities above the first Tier.

 

Posted

I'm like the OP and rarely get to do incarnate content with a team because of the time I am able to log on. I should also say that with my first 50 I solo'd most of the content with only one native attack, so it absolutely can be done with any character.

Pardon me if some of this has been mentioned already - I'll confess to not reading every single post above.

Astrals and Emps can be converted to threads, but more importantly are delivered by e-mail to your account. My first 50 has T3 in everything, and T4 in everything I care to have a T4 in, so he's pretty much set. However, I still run the Heather flashback arc each day I can and get the incarnate merits, then mail the threads to my newest incarnate. My first incarnate can run the Heather arc in under 15 minutes easily.

Each day, my newest incarnate can get a component, 20 threads (flashback and repeatable), and 8-16 more threads via astrals or emps. Add to that another 8-16 threads e-mailed from my first incarnate, and you can churn through stuff pretty fast if you have the time.

Also, you can get an alpha unlock e-mailed to you with astrals, as well, saving you from even needing to run the mender ramiel arc, if you want to, on your second and subsequent incarnates.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by gameboy1234 View Post
Personally I think that this is the expensive way to do it. Remeber, you can pick Merits for your mish rewards in DA. You have a chance to get either Astrals, or Empys. And Taskmaster Gabriel in DA gives 2 Empys for completing a full set of DA missions.

After you get all the common components you need, you should stop selecting Component from the reward table and switch to Merits. That way you can start building up the Empys and Astrals you need for incarnate abilities above the first Tier.
Why would you stop picking components? You do realize that you can pick each reward once every 20 hours right? So every 20 hours you can get a component and incarnate merits and threads and reward meritsx4... there's no reason to skip anything.

At the very least you should run two arcs a day for components and merits and hit the repeatable once a day for 10 threads since its fast

Jem - Ill/Rad Controller Lv 50+3 Nic - Mind/Psi Dominator Lv 50+3 Lady Liberation - Invuln/SS Tanker Lv 50+1 Invicitx - Demon/Pain Mastermind Lv 50+1 Celeste - Emp/Arch Defender Lv 50+1 Nightsilver - DB/WP Scrapper Lv 34 Dusk Howl - StJ/Regen Brute Lv 32 Kyriani - Time/Energy Defender Lv 41Psifire - FF/Psi Defender Lv 50
Star Lighter - LB/LA Peacebringer Lv 30

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric Nelson View Post
Just to be clear for anyone who may not know (I'm sure Ironblade knows, just clarifying), you can get rares and very rares as well, but they are, of course, rarer and very rarer.

I've gotten rare and VR tables on a few arcs here and there, but obviously the common and uncommon tables appear far more often. I find myself soloing Heather Townshend's arc twice daily on toons I'm working on Incarnate stuff in between iTrial runs (once for the salvage reward, and once for the Astrals/Empyrean reward).
The RNG hates me.. I've never seen anything other than common on the DA arcs. I wonder if I'm meeting the minimum activity rate metric or what-have-you... Oh, wait, that was the iTrials (where I see rares and VRs a lot more often). So, perhaps when it's only me in the mission, I'm sandbagging and letting others do all the work.... But while teamed, I pull my own weight...

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Cheeseman View Post
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.
Several things I think in this bear comment on.

1) As you say, you are on Freedom. iTrials are not as easily come by on some servers. I play a lot of Justice, which very often ranks just behind the big 2... And yet iTrials get really tough to find or recruit for at about 10PM my time. And by midnight, forget about it.

2) That said, I can get great progress done via the iTrials if I don't wait that late, and I don't even need to head anywhere. I just hop in the queue, and start running DA arcs, or SSAs, or tips, and after not too long, I'm suddenly in an iTrial. If the team was fun, I'll stick with them if they run another, if not, I'll excuse myself, hop back in the queue, and go back to something else for a while till the next iTrial launches.. I think a lot of people forget that you can use the queue and be running missions now. No need to tread water for 10-15 while recruiting happens. You can make DA arc progress while ya wait.

3) I still say a smart build, good IOing, and smart play trump incarnate powers. If you hate iTrials, don't do iTrials. Yes, they are a more efficient way to get incarnate powers than solo, but don't feel that it's that critical to get them that much faster. IOing out fully and carefully and that will bring a bigger increase in performance. There really is no NEED to do stuff you hate to get *any* rewards, but certainly not incarante rewards... So I disagree with the cheesehead. Er, cheeseguy... Capt Cheesy? There is NO way that it is 'worth the effort' to spend your playtime doing something you hate, as a hobby you do for fun..

The one exception might be the one ITrial that guarantees a rare/VR might be worth a tough out.. But not if you truly hate it. Really, if it's not just 'annoying' but truely hated, skip it and do the solo thing.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pauper View Post
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.

--
Pauper
Of course, this is good reason to run some x8 (or whatever you can handle, just don't up the level, but don't lower it, either) tips or radios as well as DA content. Save the threads for slot unlocks or component crafting, and use the shards for the alpha.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Iron_Emerald View Post
Long time reader, first time poster! just wanted to put down some of my thoughts on the solo incarnate path and this seemed a fitting place.

My first character hit level 50 in March and since then I've run through at least one arc most days, usually following it up with one of the repeatable missions for 10 threads. In that time I've managed to get Alpha, Destiny, Lore and Interface to Tier 3 and Judgement to Tier 2 while I'm trying to build to get some Tier 4's. That seems like a pretty distant dream at the moment though when the last week has seen nothing but common drops and I've only had two rare components drop ever.

I don't mind the idea that the solo path is slower than doing iTrials, but to my mind it seems to take far too long in comparison to what you can achieve in trials. Now I can play trials if I have to (and did so in order to unlock hybrid, which I couldn't get any other way), but I played solo the vast majority of the time all the way to level 50 and wish that my preferred playstyle was better supported in the incarnate system.

Welcome to the forums. Er, welcome to posting in the forums...

And yes, that sounds like my experience from some of my alts that are more solo types. I agree, the solo path seems too long. I am fine with it being longer, even much longer, but it still feels a bit too long. And that there is NO solo path at all for Hybrid is bothersome. Even when Judgement/Interface/Lore/Destiny came out, there was a solo option, even if it was stupid long. You could collect shards and convert them. I'd never want to do that, but it was an option. And you had 2 trials to choose from, at least, if it was only one of the 2 that you hated. Now, to get hybrid, you can't even convert shards or threads that I know of. And I KNOW that there is only one trial option. I'm a bit less than thrilled that the treatment of solo players seems to go from almost fair, to bloody unfair. Never hits completely fair, in my mind, and even if it comes close, it swings away after a short while.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Madadh View Post
Several things I think in this bear comment on.

1) As you say, you are on Freedom. iTrials are not as easily come by on some servers. I play a lot of Justice, which very often ranks just behind the big 2... And yet iTrials get really tough to find or recruit for at about 10PM my time. And by midnight, forget about it.

2) That said, I can get great progress done via the iTrials if I don't wait that late, and I don't even need to head anywhere. I just hop in the queue, and start running DA arcs, or SSAs, or tips, and after not too long, I'm suddenly in an iTrial. If the team was fun, I'll stick with them if they run another, if not, I'll excuse myself, hop back in the queue, and go back to something else for a while till the next iTrial launches.. I think a lot of people forget that you can use the queue and be running missions now. No need to tread water for 10-15 while recruiting happens. You can make DA arc progress while ya wait.

3) I still say a smart build, good IOing, and smart play trump incarnate powers. If you hate iTrials, don't do iTrials. Yes, they are a more efficient way to get incarnate powers than solo, but don't feel that it's that critical to get them that much faster. IOing out fully and carefully and that will bring a bigger increase in performance. There really is no NEED to do stuff you hate to get *any* rewards, but certainly not incarante rewards... So I disagree with the cheesehead. Er, cheeseguy... Capt Cheesy? There is NO way that it is 'worth the effort' to spend your playtime doing something you hate, as a hobby you do for fun..

The one exception might be the one ITrial that guarantees a rare/VR might be worth a tough out.. But not if you truly hate it. Really, if it's not just 'annoying' but truely hated, skip it and do the solo thing.
Obviously, nothing in the game is worth doing anything you absolutely loath. I just kind of assumed that nobody feels that strongly about content in a computer game, and that "hate" was merely hyperbolic language for "consider not the most fun aspect of the game." I consider repeating trivial story arcs daily for very little reward to be fairly wasteful of my time, not to mention boring. I don't particularly enjoy repeating iTrials either, but since they provide many times the reward for less time spent, the sacrifice is worth it to me. There really isn't any activity in CoH I genuinely dislike, just a range from "Fun" to "Meh".

I honestly just don't understand the mindset of somebody who absolutely never teams, either. I solo the vast majority of the time, but I also like to jump on a team for exp, to run TFs, and to do trials, on occasion. There's really only so much you can do by yourself in an MMO--they are designed to be shared social experiences. I do not mean to imply that there is anything wrong with such a preference, everybody has the right to enjoy the game as they wish and I would never judge anyone for that. It's just a very foreign concept to me. Therefore, my previous comments originated from a different perspective than some in this thread.