Alfa slot. Slow moving...

[DaemonWithin]

The rate of shard drops is very slow, when compared to threads.   My judgement, and destiny are at tier3 and hybrid tier2.  While my Alfa slot is still lagging at tier1.  Is there somthing I'm missing?  Is there a mission or some other way to get some Alfa salvage? 

Edited December 9, 2019 by DaemonWithin

[siolfir]

To answer the questions:

 

What you are missing:

1. You can make alpha slot incarnate powers using salvage obtained through threads - the recipes for them are below the recipes that use shard-based salvage.
2. Several Task Forces offer specific shard-based Incarnate salvage in place of merits for completing them; off the top of my head: Barracuda/Khan, LRSF/MLTF, ITF, LGTF
3. Running the WTF gives you a Notice of the Well; you can break this down.

Usually, I use shards and shard-based salvage to make my second tier 3 alpha and combine it with the first one, built with thread-based salvage, to make the tier 4.

 

[Machariel]

Nope, shards are just a lot less common for some reason, but you can make alpha slot stuff with threads just as well (gotta scroll down in the "create" window to see the other recipes) 🙂

[EmmySky]

1 hour ago, siolfir said:

Running the WTF gives you a Notice of the Well; you can break this down.

 

Before I realized this refered to the Weekly Task Force I thought, every day is WTF on my toons!  😁

Edited December 9, 2019 by EmmySky

[Coyote]

It's good that there is no task force called the Winter Task Force, or we might have the sentence "WTF, the WTF is the WTF", and it would like totally make sense, you know?

[Shred Monkey]

The problem here is you're still using shards to build your alpha.  I've never made an incarnate component with shards.  I use Threads and Emp merits for my Alpha (scroll down and you'll see the alternate recipe options I'm talking about).  If you want to argue with me that that's not the best way to do it, please go read the OP of this thread.

 

 

[Greeno34]

I've never used shards for anything. Seriously. I've only ever used threads and thread-based components. Thus, my alpha is always the first thing built and taken to t3.

 

Now some argue that you might as well use the shards for your alpha since they can't be used for anything else, to which I say: "ain't nobody got time for that".

[roleki]

YMMV, but I get waaaaay more shards/threads soloing than I do on teams.  If you're sufficiently death-proof, you might want to dip into a 0/8 AE farm and just whomp bums until you have a plethora.  

[oxmox]

30 minutes ago, Greeno34 said:

I've never used shards for anything. Seriously. I've only ever used threads and thread-based components. Thus, my alpha is always the first thing built and taken to t3.

 

Now some argue that you might as well use the shards for your alpha since they can't be used for anything else, to which I say: "ain't nobody got time for that".

I mean you're going to get some shard drops if you ever do content outside of DA / iTrials, so you may as well make use of the few you do have. Shards convert 1:1 to threads (which costs money) but the same tier salvage for each needs fewer shards. 4 shards gets you one common component but only 1/5 of a common if you convert to threads. I still recommend using mostly threads since you get them so much faster, but you're only slowing the process down by ignoring shards 100%.

[Call Me Awesome]

Shards and that entire Shard based tree are relics of the original Incarnate implementation.  When the other Incarnate powers were introduced for some reason the Dev's introduced an entirely new system for creating them.  Having two completely separate systems of Incarnate salvage is pointless and confusing.  All Shard related drops should be converted to Thread drops and Shards should be removed from the game.

 

Threads are a relatively abundant resource that can be used to create ANY Incarnate power.  Using Shards it will take a minimum of 4 weeks as I recall to craft a T4 Alpha... you needed to run the Weekly TF to get the salvage for a T3 and you needed two T3's to combine with a salvage piece made from two WTF drops... thus you had to run 4 Weekly TF's for the salvage needed to craft a T4 Alpha.  Oh, and the Shard salvage from the WTF only dropped the first time you ran the WTF, try again next week for the second piece.

[Lost Ninja]

4 hours ago, Call Me Awesome said:

Shards and that entire Shard based tree are relics of the original Incarnate implementation.  When the other Incarnate powers were introduced for some reason the Dev's introduced an entirely new system for creating them.  Having two completely separate systems of Incarnate salvage is pointless and confusing.  All Shard related drops should be converted to Thread drops and Shards should be removed from the game.

 

Threads are a relatively abundant resource that can be used to create ANY Incarnate power.  Using Shards it will take a minimum of 4 weeks as I recall to craft a T4 Alpha... you needed to run the Weekly TF to get the salvage for a T3 and you needed two T3's to combine with a salvage piece made from two WTF drops... thus you had to run 4 Weekly TF's for the salvage needed to craft a T4 Alpha.  Oh, and the Shard salvage from the WTF only dropped the first time you ran the WTF, try again next week for the second piece.

It was IIRC to make sure that people not paying to play didn't get drops they couldn't use. Shards and Shard Salvage could drop for freemium players while threads et al only dropped for premium players. When the game went into the infamous private version  and then HC the change as made to make both resources drop everywhere removed that limitation..

 

Use Shards to make the 2nd T1, T2 & T3 (for the T4). Totally not worth using it for anything else.

[Extor Prime]

Just use threads and merits. If you get lucky to get enough shards for an alpha component by all means go for it, but don't bank on it. Unless you are building multiple alphas, savings from using the shards are fairly negligible.

[Purrfekshawn]

On 12/10/2019 at 1:09 AM, siolfir said:

 

Running the <bleep!> gives you a Notice of the Well; you can break this down.

 

It's actually called "WST" (Weekly Strike Target), not what you pronounced above. 👹

[Call Me Awesome]

14 hours ago, Purrfekshawn said:

It's actually called "WST" (Weekly Strike Target), not what you pronounced above. 👹

Always was referred to as Weekly Task Force by all I knew which abbreviates to WTF.