Sovera

Good point. I thought it about the DDR only after having posted. Even if Stone's DDR is not the bestest it still nullifies part of the incoming debuffs.

In practical terms the short range is mostly cosmetic. If solo then the mobs are all over us the moment we initiate and if in a team we can park our butt still well out of melee range and pepper the mobs from mid range. Now the target caps really need to go as Sentinels depend on their nuke and AoEs to quickly clean and they hit half the spawn instead.

Brawl is just a filler for very early levels so no slots there. Pool powers: the only 'good ones' can be boiled down to: 1- Travel power of your choice. First thing to pick. I like Flying and I'm permanently using Hover but pick whatever. I suggest Super Jump if you don't don't like Fly and always have Combat Jumping turned on to do small jumps for mobility while only using Super Jump for long distances. Remember to turn off your travel power of choice while in combat since it consumes endurance, but Hover/Combat Jumping should be left always on as it costs near zero endurance and gives a small 2% defense boost that adds up (both defense uniques give 3% so it's 6%, then another 2% from Combat Jumping or Hover makes it go to 8%, then Maneuvers for another 2% and it's 10%. Bio Armor's Environmental Modification gives 11.2% native defense and with three slots it becomes 17.8%. With those 10% stacked up from above you're now at 27.8%. You want 45% so it's already half way there). 2 - Hasten from Super Speed. Big 70% recharge boost while it is on. Triple recharge in it. You can save a travel power by just picking Super Speed next. While Super Speed doesn't do vertical well you can also pick Combat Jumping to go with it (and have that 2% defense) or buy a 5k jetpack from the START vendor and activate it for those moments. 3 - Maneuvers from Leadership. It's a small 2-3% defense boost but it adds up. 4 - Fighting. Punch/Kick are just forced picks and not meant to be used. The real picks are Tough which increases smash and lethal resistances and then Weave that increases all defenses. There are a lot of other pools but quantity does not mean quality. Attacks from pools will always be worse than your primary attacks as a design choice so the four I suggested are pretty much the usual all builds go for unless aiming for something niche. It's worth noting that you could take Sorcery and use Mystic Flight as your travel power and then pick the Rune of Protection for a one minute defensive boost but due to its downtime its not something you can rely on other than a panic button.

The (near) immortal build is purpose handpicked for being cheap and start early, and it has starter leveling builds. I really recommend starting with this as by level 13 it lives to its namesake and you can play at 0x6. Now, there are no fast and easy answers regarding the Spines/Bio. To improve you will need money. Start selling those Merits as you earn them, keep the difficulty low, keep doing missions from contacts to the end for said merits that come at the last mission. To improve on your survivability you will want to always keep your inspirations stocked up and though the base teleporter costs 1 million it's pretty useful in that aspect since you can use it every 10 minutes and hit a base between missions to replenish on Lucks and healths. Every other inspiration is not as useful as having just purples and greens. Keep one purple up all the time, use a second one if you feel that you're in trouble. They cost 50 inf so there's no point in saving them. The rest costs some money. You will want both defense uniques for a nice boost (the same the (near) immortal build uses. They are a staple on nearly every build), three defense slots allocated to both Hardened Carapace and Environmental Modification. Don't bother with Inexhaustible just yet Once you get Adaptation you have three to choose from. Stick to Offensive for more damage since the faster you defeat mobs the less time they have to hurt you back. Get DNA Siphon and Ablative as soon as you can and slot three heal and three recharge right away. For attacks stick to one accuracy and three damage. Add one endurance reduction and one recharge when you have the free slots. Slotting with SOs (the vendor gear) or generic IOs is so simple it does not actually require builds. Don't place more than three of one kind (accuracy, damage, resistance, etc), put defense in defense slots, put resistance in resistance slots, one accuracy and three damage in attacks, etc. It's very straight forward. The trouble is when we enter actual IOs because of all the bonuses involved. One thing that will help you is simply to team. CoH thrives on teaming unlike other MMOs where you're supposed to be solo until max level. You can start teaming at level 1 and that will improve your XP, your survival, etc, because there will be buffs and people to share agro. Soloing is fine (I solo all the time) but without at least some gear and a solid base you will feel squishy and slow which might turn you off the game. Since all gear is account bound this slow start is a... well, pretty much a one time thing. You can pass the money and the expensive gear to another alt so it doesn't have to start with nothing. Speaking of part of your squishyness would be mitigated if you had Amplifiers but now it's too late as they grow more expensive with each level. Never forget to pick them up at level 1 since you will get 8 hours of strong buffs for a meager 23k.

You need the Mids program to load those builds. It is essential so grab it. Check the newbie guide in my signature that has and other things you might find of use.

Well, Staff isn't very good. If you're aiming for farming then there are better choices. Heck, unless you're really sold on Staff I'd say try a Claws/Fire for unethical brutality that works in and out of farms. It all depends on what you'd like to do. Farming is pretty specialized as it focuses solely on fire defense and fire resistance. There have also been change to farming so mobs are more dangerous and it means using specialized farm maps instead of picking random ones. If you're focused on that then I'd say to look over the Guides section of the forums and find the Farm Fresh thread and the most recent posts as the original ones are probably outdated by now. Also, take a look at the newbie guide in my signature for making money and other tips.

After trying it a few times I feel like Dual Blades is a pylon baby. Works great if the enemy is not moving and we can hit it for a few minutes with a -res in both attacks. I put my vote on the Stone Armor. I had a thread somewhere about the 'new' Stone Armor Brutes where I tested several sets and, at the time, Rad Melee was the winner. But Irradiated Ground got 'fixed' and the rest of the set did not get a tune-up despite IG being a linchpin, so... Might need testing to see how well it still behaves. My Claws/Fire Armor Brute was one of my best characters for just playing the game if not hitting pylons. Spin and Burn together were pretty potent and it broke my Yin record at the time with 39 minutes. But the Rad/Stone Armor did it in 40 minutes having a much easier time since everything just slid off its back. Granted, been a while. Fire Melee is the new hotness and even if Tankers get the best version (IMO) with a second PbAoE we can't discount Cremate and it's OP 100% chance to knock-up that allows to control the flow of combat for things like PPs and Freak Tanks, and even the new transforming Council bosses. Seriously, it rocks. But, dat second PbaoE also rocks... Unfortunately Brutes get the 'worst' version of Fire Melee just because the devs decided Brutes who pick Fire Melee don't need AoE until level 22 (Scrappers get their first AoE at 18, Tankers at level 6), for reasons. I'm sure good reasons? Baffling. But if you will team for the initial stretch it's fine and then at Synapse onwards you get to join the grown-ups with AoE and everyfink. I did the Fire/Fire pairing on my Tanker and it was brutal with THREE PbAoEs which is insane, but not on the Brute (I mean, I had it before the Fire Melee tune-up but not since). The only thing holding me back is that lack of initial AoE since the devs expected us to level without AoE and then we get two in the span of a handful of levels. Terrible flow. But with the new Fire Melee being pretty good, with the Brutes not getting a second PbAoE so their AoE is halved, it seems like Fire/Fire would fix that. A second PbAoE in Burn, a strong ST power in Cremate that allows to skip the icky Incinerate. Sounds good.

Some small things: - Shockwave does a knockback. You want to mitigate it and not exacerbate it with another knockback proc in there. - Follow-up is an attack. It needs to land in order to give the accuracy and damage boost to your other attacks. - You had Vengeance toggled on which gave a skewed idea of the build's numbers. - DNA Siphon is your primary endurance recovery tool though it also heals. But for heals you have Ablative, and for endurance you only have DNA Siphon. - Focus is one of Claws better attacks. - Eviscerate is a pretty slow attack that is not strictly necessary as Follow-up, Slash, Focus, repeat, is all you should need for single-target damage. - Assault is pretty bad. If you really want it you can take it but we're talking a 5% damage boost in reality. - Toggling Offensive Adaptation lowers your defenses in 7% so it needs to be accounted for. So, here's what I'd use. I ignored raising S/L defenses since you're a Tanker who will have 90% S/L resistances anyway (raising S/L defenses would be more important on a Scrapper I feel). The build ends with 79%, but don't turn your nose up since a second ATO stack slotted in Follow-up (it stacks up to three times though three is unreliable and two is more of the norm) will increase that in 6.7% pushing those 79% into 85%. You will want Barrier as your Destiny (pick the 120 second version) and even when most of the decaying defense/resistances it gives has run its course it will still give a permanent 5% to defenses and resistances. E/N resistances are the weak spot of the build and even pushing for it it's still only at 49%. You will be relying on your E/N defenses which are softcapped and which will protect you. Until they don't when you face enemies who debuff defense AND do E/N attacks. Then you need to rely on Ablative and Shockwave. Speaking of Shockwave it is your trump card in challenging Bio's relative squishyness regarding debuffs. It can feed itself with the Force Feedback proc and it will keep on putting enemies on their back with the current slotting so you get a lot of breathing room for your regeneration to kick in. Just keep Follow-up, Slash, Shockwave, Spin, repeat for AoE situations. The Force Feedbacks procs in Focus and Shockwave will help your defensive clickies to return faster which is needed as Bio relies on those to survive. The slotting in Swipe, Boxing and Brawl are the last thing to worry about and are just there to consolidate the weaknesses some more. With them your recharge debuff resistance is at 90%. Speaking of debuff resistance I took Focused Accuracy. Partly for the easy 3% E/N resistances, partly because it makes you night immune to having your accuracy debuffed. You can keep it toggled off and only put it up if fighting against Circle of Thorns, Banished Pantheon, Tsoo, etc, any faction that can neuter your ability to hit. Other sets can rely on Build-up with Gaussian to explode their accuracy and bull through the accuracy debuffs but Claws relies on hitting first with Follow-up and it can't hit if debuffed. The empty slot in Follow-up is for the Gaussian proc. I did not slot it in because it would skew the numbers in the build. It will have a low chance to go off but it's a nice 5 second damage boost when it does. DNA Siphon is your heavy duty click. At some point you'll find you're not using Ablative Carapace because DNA SIphon is simply doing everything. Keep in mind it gives health and endurance against live enemies and gives regeneration and recovery against defeated enemies. The regen and the recovery is more helpful, but since it heals for each enemy in range it also doubles as a heal. So if you start the fight and find your HP dipping mid-ways then use it and it will get both health and endurance as well as regeneration and recovery from the mix of defeated and live enemies. What it sucks for is 1 VS 1 because with just one enemy in range it doesn't get enough to draw upon. It's still a tiny heal good for roughly 25% with one enemy but it's not going to help with your endurance as it will only pay for its usage. Those are the times you turn off Focused Accuracy, but eventually you'll get incarnates and the accolades and have a respectful 4.16 EPS not accounting the four endurance procs that Mids does not show. Cerastus - Tanker (Bio Armor - Claws).mbd

Not working. Could you drop the file instead?

Bio is a bit squishy at the start since it is an armor set that gives up protection for damage. Spines is a bit... weak these days. It's old and needs a tune up from the devs. So we can start by saying you seem to be low level as Hollow/King's Row would put you under level 20. But your problem seems to come from not knowing how to slot. I'm going to say to take a look at the newbie guide in my signature to get you started making currency (it's easy, it involves playing the game and throwing stuff at the Auction House), then grab the Mids program so that you can do and read the builds posted on the forums. I know you made a Scrapper and might prefer to just beat things without having expectations from you as you learn the game, but consider a Tanker. Unlike other games there are no demands on knowing routes, defensive cooldown juggling, team composition and being forced to lead. Over City of Heroes it's a lot more chill. You will do less damage than a Scrapper, of course, but also be more durable. The (near) immortal build in my signature is a good beginner friendly build and I can even spot you the money to buy the two initial uniques the build requires. But back to the Spines/Bio do grab Mids so you can read the builds we will post to help you. Gambare gambare, LongHalloween!

Welp, the Bio/Fire was going fine until Manticore. Then I started dying. Then I wised up to be careful about being confused. Then kept dying anyway. So I went more carefully, got ready to flee when needed. Then got hard countered by a spawn with four +2 bosses, two of which were debuffers and they hard walled me with four deaths in a row, return from hospital, get killed, etc. I could have gobbled inspirations to pass them, but, heh. I went to look at why the Stone/Fire Melee had breezed through Manticore and the only thing I saw was the softcapped defense to psi... Well, softcapped defense to everything I guess. I had 38% defense to energy and once debuffed Ablative was of no help. Bio lives up to the idea of being pretty strong offensive and against generic enemies but folding against debuffs. A bit like Willpower I guess. It did make me feel like a Scrapper. Or at least a Brute. Very strong trip up to 45 and Manticore at least.

Been leveling it and it is being a beast. At level 6 I bumped the difficulty to 0x6 which was a bit ambitious but I play Tankers for that fast bump in difficulty. Posi 1 was touch and go. Stone Armor breezed through because it's thing is being nearly all passive, but having to rely on cooldowns at a level where we don't have slots, or IOs we can equip in them, plus the stat squish, was touch and go, but nothing a few sprinkled purples did not fix. One death to a Luminous (I swear these guys carry Vhaz on their backs). Posi 2 was already easier with DNA Siphon and breezed through. One death to the CoT EB spawn where stacked Earthquakes and immobilizes got through my Cc toggles (I mean, I even know I need one breakfree for that specific encounter but bulled through anyway). Teamed for Synapse, nothing to report, was easy. AoE is now brutal with both PbAoEs + damage aura + Adaptation + Evolving Armor's -res. Entered Yin's TF at level 28 and respeced out of Scorch to pick Incinerate, then started grinding the first mission to get Greater Fire Sword. Was timing how long it took to get the police station opened. First missions it took 12-13 minutes but once having GFS and six slotted it went down to 10 minutes which is the norm. Absolutely slot starved but aimed for attacks first, four slots in Ablative, and only the native slot in DNA Siphon. And, yet, it was DNA Siphon carrying me for the whole trip. Reach a group, start unloading on a boss as the rest of the mobs wake up and rush in. Once surrounded pop BU, then GFS, then both PbAoEs. By then part of my HP is down and if there is a Super Stunner it's had its first death and debuffed me. DNA Siphon. Continue moping. Was nice defeating Freak Tanks before they could heal but only when I could focus on them instead of using AoEs, but even when they healed it didn't feel bad. I had I think, only two wolves from the Council since I focused them down at 20% and barring a miss or misstiming they'd be on the ground before transforming. Clamour was one of the easiest I had even with half slotted defenses. One single small purple and burninating the poor thing while alternating DNA Siphon and Ablative. Was still touch and go on the final ambush and I did use inspirations as they dropped since my blue bar couldn't keep up with DNA Siphon still with only its native slot despite being the most important clickie as it both heals and recoups endurance. Ended at 49 minutes on the dot so a new record (old records were 40 minutes but lots of changes and haven't tested the old builds that had those times). Previous best was 54 minutes I believe with the Stone/Fire Melee. For those worried about the looks I can safely say that at around Yin level the passive defenses and DNA Siphon I barely had to touch Ablative. Perhaps 2-3 times in the whole TF and pretty sure if I had more slots in DNA Siphon I could have passed a bit more. But DNA Siphon is a clickie that relies on quantity, and, mostly, on defeated bodies. Alive mobs are great to heal but just one or two alive ones and DNA Siphon barely is worth clicking on since it will neither heal nor give enough endurance to pay for itself (unslotted as it still is). So Ablative had the initial slots I could spare as it has no gimmick to rely on. I pondered if it was worth proc bombing DNA Siphon and I can see the upsides. But it only does the damage of one of my PbAoEs and those already recharge in 5-6 seconds. I could see it in a build that lacked AoE though, but DNA Siphon being a linchpin I think I'll keep it properly slotted. On the other hand that power is a feast or famine poster child. If we are surrounded then extra slots are overkill, but if we are not surrounded then they are needed. That's why it was still with just its native one slot by the end of Clamour. The Synapse's Shock slotting may be a tad too simplistic though it has good bonuses. Looking at Mids even slotted for endurance it only gives 10 endurance back (with a chance of failure) with one enemy in range. That makes it useless as it only pays for itself in 1 VS 1 scenarios. Corpses are where it shines so basically it's great for regular gameplay but not for soloing AVs. Recovery must be well in hand for 1 VS 1 scenarios since DNA Siphon will not be of (much) help. Even a Theft of Essence would only add another 10 points. Hmm.. Perhaps frankenslotting for both heal and endurance and then also add a Theft of Essence for good measure. I'll ponder it. In the meanwhile this is the non-examplar friendly version I'm building towards: Tanker (Bio Armor - Fiery Melee - Non Exemplaring).mbd

Ok...?

And...?

I think Bio/Fire would fit. Fire Melee (and being a Tanker with the inherent) with two PbAoEs already takes care of the AoE. What are the usual woes of a Tanker? Whittling down bosses. Bio is great for ST damage between +damage and -res, and then we cheekily sneak another -res into Fire Sword. I usually poopoo on -res attacks but Fire Sword already has two procs and good stats so might as well add a third one that helps more than adding a smash or slash damage proc. The real speedbumps are the AVs anyway. After the post above I tinkered one up. I decided to ignore my usual attempts at raising S/L defense since this is a Tanker who has capped S/L resistances (with a second ATO proc and Barrier) and focused on E/N and the usual. Despite the Offensive Adaptation penalty it still ends with capped S/L as mentioned and a decent 50% E/N, plus 6.7% for a second ATO stack, plus 5% from Barrier, for a decent 62%... and if a third ATO proc happens to happen (unreliable though) then 69% (nice). I could have added the Theft of Essence to DNA Siphon which is smarter, but, I wanted the E/N more. Regardless there is over 2 EPS (I say over because Focused Accuracy is still with the old values which have been halved, so it should not be 0.42 as FA shows in Mids) plus four different endurance procs. Plus a decent-ish 55 HP regen a second, plus almost 1900 shield up every 30 seconds. Should be fine. This is the exemplaring version where we can roam the exemplaring spectrum from Posi 1 to the ITF, but the non exemplaring version only replaces Scorch for Incinerate with Inexhaustible taking Scorch's place. From Posi 1 to Synapse the non exemplaring version has a grand total of one ST attack, but for Yin and up it has the full rotation. Tanker (Bio Armor - Fiery Melee - Exemplaring).mbd

Bio is perfectly tailored for the current meta. Ablative is up at every spawn (under 30 seconds recharge) and soaks half the HP of the Tanker, and then DNA Siphon ALSO is up at every spawn healing, boosting regen, recovering endurance and recovery itself. After those two the mobs need to debuff defense in order to have a chance since between the damage boost, the -res, and BU + Gaussian most things are going to be limping. In fact, I haven't done a Bio Tanker yet in all my years. Time to do a Bio/Fire!

Try to adapt my build to what you want with the powers and then I can tweak it. To remove slots press Shift and click on the slot.

No math here, but Siphon Life is the second hitter and the regular rotation of MG, Smite, SL, Smite, MG makes it so if it goes off in SL it should hit Smite and MG. And in an AoE situation we'd usually be in a loop of SL, ToF, SM without gaps and always draining life.

I should revise the builds and incorporate the changes that crept up over the years. Also, Claws has been completely dethroned and Fire Melee took the place as no frills, no gimmicks, raw power.

I have that in my signature, it's called the Turtle. It doesn't have laser eyes but I'm sure it can be fit in.

You don't need Blistering Cold and Avalanche when your S/L defense is already at 56%. Without those it'll be at 48% still well within the 45% softcap. Dark Consumption is an endurance recovery power, not an attack. You'll have gaps without a third attack. Midnight Grasp recharges in 4.2 seconds, Siphon life is 2.1 second animation, now you have 2.1 seconds twiddling your thumbs. Best slot Smite and do MG, Smite, Siphon Life, Smite, repeat. Psionic is only at 40%, but you give it no slots? With two slots more it goes to 46%. S/L resistances are still low but you're not slotting Tough. The Superior Critical Strikes 50% proc is super important and needs to go somewhere where you will use it whether it is single target or AoE damage. I suggest placing it in Siphon Life since The duration of the 50% proc lasts long enough to loop back to Midnight Grasp and get a crit. But Midnight Grasp is also a good place for it. But, for AoE, you can do Siphon Life, Touch of Fear, Shadow Maul on repeat and still be draining life. So Siphon Life is a power you can use for both ST and AoE. Earth's Embrace is usually slotted with heals, but, Scrappers have a tiny HP pool so just take as is and get the accolades and you'll be hardcapped for HP. You've got the (almost) best Stone Armor version thanks to Geode. Geode is your endurance recovery AND your heal bundled into one power and it's up once a minute, so, honestly, you don't even need Dark Consumption and you certainly don't need Harmonic Mind. I replaced it for Focused Accuracy for extra accuracy (Soul Drain needs accuracy, and then if it misses your other attacks are then missing accuracy too) as well as for accuracy debuffing mobs, and then Physical Perfection with a Performance Shifter proc in it just for the luls. Seriously, Stone Armor has a small endurance problem but with this combo you're sweating endurance between Geode and Dark Consumption. Because of this I took one of the endurance uniques from health and added it as a damage proc in Touch of Fear. This is built as a Tanker which is what I usually play. Scrappers usually build for taking snipe attacks or extra AoEs instead of Focused Accuracy, but at least you got one build to go with until someone more Scrapper savvy chimes in. S noir - Scrapper (Dark Melee - Stone Armor).mbd

I would accept the suggestion of current buffing stays as is, but using an orange salvage would make the buff last 8 hours. Heck, I use amplifiers in the low levels where they matter the most. I'd gladly add a few orange salvage for 8 hours of extra buffs to further help in the low levels, not that a lot of it even matters except in spreadsheets. Recovery? We have the Serums and an amplifier. Resistance? Does it even matter except in a spreadsheet? Recharge? Actually helpful, again especially in the low levels where everything is lacking and we were dubbed City of Cooldowns for a reason. Knockdown? Again, the amplifiers are handling that and we even have IOs. I barely even remember these exist because who wants the hassle of traveling to a base for such minor numbers. But an 8 hour buff for a lowbie would be perfect for the initial slog. Also, the number of self-important drivel that can be found in these threads is baffling. 'I don't want it so it should not be put in'. A hearty lol to that. It's a suggestion forum. If the devs think it's a good suggestion it will go in. If the devs do not think it is a good suggestion then it does not go in. 'I don't want it so it should not be put in', lol.

Holy necro thread. Leveling is quick so easy enough to level something else. Fire, Storm and Elec are the champions. Storm not due to its damage but the defensiveness angle.

Incarnates are a bit complicated but not unduly so. I would almost say more about being counter-intuitive than complicated. The moment you reach 50 you automatically start building veteran XP to gain veteran levels. Once you start gaining veteran levels you get incarnate crafting materials. Now this is where the counter-intuitiveness starts creeping in: There are TWO types of 'recipes' which you can find here: But you go to Create, and, lets say, start with Alpha. Alpha is the most important anyway. Alpha has the 'fix' to whatever your build has. Guzzling endurance? Go Cardiac. Slow recharge? Go Spiritual. More damage? Go Musculature. Playing a Controller and doing lots of CC? Go Intuition. As a rule the two big ones are Musculature and Cardiac but there are niche uses for others such as Agility for a little bit more of recharge, defense, endurance, etc. Musculature is not super useful for a Brute due to Fury diluting its damage boosting but you don't really need need anything since your endurance is taken care of, your recharge is decent, etc. All incarnates will be the same with a left and a right side, and the left or the right side will give slightly different results under the same theme. Musculature's right side is And the left side is: They are about the same. Now these bonuses run afoul of Enhancement Diversification so the '45%' is more like, 15% in actual practice, but it's still 15%. Because of this the damage difference between the '45%' version and the 33% version is minor, something like 3-4% (if I recall correctly) which usually has me picking the 33% version as more rounded version. I may not care much about the extra run speed, or defense debuffs, or immobilization duration, but that endurance modification buff is another 0.20-ish per second. So, explanation out of the way, how does this work? First one, right at the bottom: Both recipes are the same thing, but they use different incarnate materials. The top one, with the Essence of Incarnates, is the 'shards' and actually rarer on Homecoming so you can safely ignore it (this is basic advice for newbies but once you grasp more of the game you can save some materials by using these recipes, but that's for later). The second recipe with the Biomorphic Goo is called the 'threads' recipes and is the type you will always be wanting because it is the one that Homecoming is geared towards. Pretty much everything is geared towards the threads between getting them from drops once we're 50, getting them from veteran level-ups, getting them as rewards from Tinpex or doing Dark Astoria rewards, etc. So, looking at it, you need Now lets say you're level 50, got a few veteran levels, so you have some basic materials. You go to Convert: Incarnate thread. And then you check what you need. A Biomorphic Goo? Right there under Common: Once you bought all you need return to Create and craft it. Then go to Equip and equip it. Now, part of the clunkyness is that to craft the second tier we need to craft the first tier, AGAIN. So to create we need to craft the first one first since it is part of the needed crafting materials. Eventually to craft the very last one you need to craft them all! Which means crafting the first to craft the second to craft the third, then craft the first to craft the second to craft the other third, and finally with both those thirds you can craft the fourth! *pantpantpant* Now you don't need (or have to, or are even expected to) only use threads to craft what you need. Every few levels (it's deterministic and not RNG) you get better crafting materials, and doing certain content gives Empyrian Merits. These are the ones you should be using to buy everything rare and very rare: It seems complicated on the surface but it's simpler once getting past the initial phase. Now, tips: - Try and do a Tinpex every day once at 50. Either keep an eye on LFG or form one once comfortable with it. Tinpex is actually two extremely short TFs that take about 15 minutes each and give a choice of rewards at the end. Always pick the Incarnate Materials reward. It's RNG, but you can luck out and get a Very Rare and save a ton of materials, but even just a common saves 20 threads. Also, each of those TFs gives an enormous 40 merits so you come out of it half an hour in total with 80 merits and two incarnate rewards to help building your materials, AND enough merits to sell and buy one purple IO a day. - Level ups at 50 also give incarnate materials and it will be common to see people running the Imperious TF (colloquially called ITF) because that TF is a well of XP with a metric ton of enemies. - As a fresh level 50 try to do a Tinpex before crafting anything. Hey, maybe you'll get the materials needed for the T1 without having to spend a lot of threads. - Whatever flavour of Alpha you pick make it your first priority to reach one of the third options (colloquially just called T3 since third row). Reaching your T3 in any of the alphas gives a +1 level shift. Now all enemies are -1, so if fighting +4... they are now +3. This is a HUGE power boost both in defense and offense so it has first priority. This level shift is only for level 45+ so if exemplaring lower than 45 it goes away. Keep in mind Incarnates can and should be tailored for your build and playstyle. But this what I usually pick as a bog standard as incarnates go: - Musculature for my Alpha and pick the 33% version to have a damage boost and faster replenishing blue bar. - Barrier (120 seconds version) as my Destiny since it is a massive panic button if I am about to die. It gives a HUGE amount of defenses and resistances for the first 10 seconds, and then that amount slowly decays over a period of 120 seconds. At bare minimum it will always give a permanent 5% resistances and defenses. I say permanent because the recharge is ALSO 120 seconds. - Degenerative 75% damage DoT as my Interface. Degenerative lowers the maximum HP of enemies. This has little effect on normal enemies but once fighting Giant Monsters or Arch Villains their regeneration is tied to their HP so less HP means less regenerated per second. It makes a big difference in soloing them. The choice of 75% to do damage is trying to milk it so it at least does SOMETHING to normal enemies but it's not much. - For Hybrid I usually pick Assault and chance for increased damage since I'm always all out on damage (once again, picking the right one for you and your build matters). This one lasts two minutes and then has a two minutes cooldown so it's fire and forget and don't fuss about it. - For Lore I usually pick either Banished Pantheon or Longbow. Lore summons one/two mobs to help you. But, 7 minutes cooldown (not a typo) and the mobs are squishy so they get evaporated quick. BUT, they help a LOT in killing archvillains.... if they don't get vaporized. There are tricks about keeping control of the AV and trying to not have it face the summons so they don't get hit. Honestly it's the least important incarnate for me. - Ion from Judgement with the chance to do additional damage. It's a nuke. Blaster envy? You're a Blaster now. Once every two minutes at least. Again it's not the most important incarnate for me and one of the last to pick.

A Fortunata?