Eiko-chan

Every enemy of level 50 or higher has a chance to drop a Thread, but the chance is related to their tier, so Lieutenants have a higher drop rate than Minions, and Bosses have an even higher drop rate than Lieutenants.

Well, I apologise for insulting you. It was not my intention, nor was I passive-aggressively fishing for Superiority Points™ or whatever other nefarious purpose you think my message was attempting. I am neuro-divergent - probably have ASD though I have never been formally diagnosed and likely never will be at my age - and my words tend to mean exactly what they say on the page, without hidden agendas behind them. I appreciate the long-form explanation of what precisely frustrates you about the system. I agree that equipping the abilities is pretty obtuse, and that's probably not the greatest tab to be the first one to come up, either. The pop-up upon levelling to 10 that introduces you to the Invention system is a relatively new thing, and Mender Ramiel popping up at level 50 is basically the same thing. I'm not sure how that could be better done, except maybe to more explicitly make the message you get upon levelling to 50 say he's there to explain Incarnates? But as far as the top-down versus bottom-up issue, that's not going to be a universal problem. The Incarnate trees are trees, and trees grow from the roots up, not from the leaves down. Flipping the overlay would likely confuse just as many people as are currently confused by the existing layout. Though maybe Ramiel could be modified to say something about it, at least.

Honestly? No. Not even a little bit. All the information is in a single window, easily accessible from any level by clicking on the 'Incarnate Abilities' button on the Powers tab. Ramiel has a run-down at the end of his arc, but you don't really need it. The Create tab shows the abilities and lists the ingredients. The Convert tab has the ingredients and shows their costs. I'm legitimately baffled by what people aren't grasping about the system. What's so hard to understand? This is more-or-less how the Invention System works. Do people not know how to craft Inventions either?

Try an Electric Armor/Energy Melee Tanker. 1. Like all Tankers, you'll have near immunity to crowd control - throw in Tactics to cover your Confusion issues and possibly a Blessing of the Zephyr KB in your travel power if you jump a lot, since Electric Armor's KB protection is in Grounded, requiring you to be on the ground. 2. You will be effectively immune to Sappers - maxed out End Drain/Recovery handles that, and if you do somehow manage to fall low on endurance anyway, Power Sink is there to top you up. 3. Energy Melee is pretty high damage. You might not be able to solo every AV (I can't get through Honoree, for instance, but Captain Holtz was soloable even as an AV in the Ramiel arc), but you'll have a solid attack chain that should allow any partner you have to make up the difference. 4. Tankers aren't Masterminds, so... solved! 😁 5. If you slot your IOs right to max out your resistances, very little is going to be able to hurt you - I'm sitting on a toon with capped (90%) S/L/F/C/E resist, with Neg and Psi in the 60s. Toxic is only 22 but there's very little that does pure Toxic damage. And since Electric Armor comes with Energize, you'll have a self-heal for when your resistances and regeneration aren't sufficient. (I've been letting Ramiel's Honoree punch at me the entire time I've been writing this post and my health bar hasn't moved, so that's some solid durability.) I've attached the Mids build I tested for this if you want to have a try at it. It isn't cheap - both ATOs and four of the Winter Event sets are in here - but you can probably skip the Winter sets if you can get the fire/cold resistance you need from somewhere else. I just used them so I could also cap Recharge/Slow resistance so you'd have an unstoppable machine. Does It All.mbd

Not to say the system is by any means easy to understand, but this statement is just false. I have never looked at a guide, a wiki, or used any resource outside the game to glean my understanding of the incarnate system. The information is there. It requires understanding how to parse the powers of the game, and I do not deny that I actually have a very high degreee of system mastery for this game, but I fail to see what you need from outside the game to actually get around to having all your slots filled with Tier 4 powers. I certainly managed it somehow. Now, my choices might be sub-par, but I play solo partially so I don't have to deal with those conversations. I'm here to have fun doing stuff, not to run the fastest, tightest four star content.

Powers -> Incarnate Abilities The window that pops up has Equip, Create, and Convert tabs. Equip lets you put abilities you have created into slots you have unlocked. There is a cooldown on changing a slot. It's not terribly long - like five minutes. Create lets you make abilities out of Incarnate components - which are created out of Threads, Shards, or Merits in the Convert tab. You can look up what parts you need for the ability you want in the Create tab. Shards can only be used on Alpha slot abilities. Threads and Merits can be used for any ability. My one piece of advice would be to use Threads for Common and Uncommon components and make Rare and Very Rare components fromEmpyrean Merits (you get a batch every 3 Veteran levels, plus as reward for completion of Incarnate content.)

Their core argument is actually "they keep letting known terrorists and mass murderers join their ranks just because they have super powers." Though in Lady Grey's defence, I am, in fact, just as good at slaughtering bio-engineered, extra-dimensional humans as I am at slaughtering the regular ones. 😇

It does not make a difference. This happens when you are running the arc in-world at the proper level too.

AFAIK, the panda has been there as long as the kitten has.

There is nothing I hate more than the "pivot to video". Which was a lie, by the way. People didn't want to watch videos instead of reading things. People love reading things. There needs to be more reading and less videos.

That sure seemed to me to be what you were saying. How am I supposed to know that the words you wrote were not the meaning you meant to convey? 😕

"Player generated"? So something that developers used to do is now on their customers to do?

Yes. Because when we were young, our games came with little pretty booklets and manuals for us to read to learn how to play and experience the game. Now, games do not come with manuals, printed or digital, and thus the instructions on how to play and experience the game need to be baked into the game instead.

Dual Wield and Empty Clips both do Knockback; if Pistols got that too, that would be the set's flavour. Slight historical correction, however: Thugs is the parent set; Dual Pistols was added to the game to alleviate the plague of petless Thug MMs that were people that just wanted to dual-wield pistols.