At a fork in the road and don't know which way to turn

[Diantane]

My Spines/Fire Farming Vet Brute just started his Incarnates and maxed out everything on the equip page. Now I'm looking to raise Agility, but there many choices. One way is recharge and the other defense which I believe would be the correct choice for me, but as you go up each power has two to three recipes. What's the difference or best way to go? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Luminara]

Ignore the T2 and T3 stuff, focus on T4.  Decide whether you want the T4 which offers extra movement speed at the expense of some Endurance Modification, or full Endurance Modification and no movement bonus.  That's the only difference between T4s in Agility, the Defense buff and Recharge Reduction buff are identical.  If your travel/combat movement is sufficient for your needs, go for the one without the movement buff.  If you need to move a little faster, take the T4 with the movement buff.

 

As for why you don't need to concern yourself with the T2 and T3 options, it's because you'll be replacing the T2 with the T3, and the T3 with T4.  They're temporary, and you'll be moving past them rapidly.

[Outrider_01]

Is your brute over 45% soft cap before agility?  Because that is a waste of an incarnate unless you really needed it for defense buff, you don't need the endurance modification bonus as you can get Destiny Ageless Core, which grants high recharge and endurance recovery; the Total Core at T4 is pretty much 120 duration with 120 recharge on it and the effect weakens over time yet it ends exactly when the power recharge.

 

Alpha : Musculature will push the damage over the ED cap by a small bit, better option unless you need that +Def.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Outrider_01

[Mopery]

"When you come to the fork in the road, take it!" -Yogi Barra

[Diantane]

Thanks for getting back to me over the holidays. Sorry I didn't reply sooner, but I've been busy with friends and family as well.

 

My fire resistance is capped at 90% of course, but don't have any defense at all. Not sure if I need it. I guess everyone has a different opinion. Some say that Agility is better because of the +20% defense and others say damage is better. Then you say to stay away from Tiers one, two and three. To tell you the truth I have no idea what you're talking about 🙂 

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 minutes ago, Diantane said:

My fire resistance is capped at 90% of course, but don't have any defense at all. Not sure if I need it. I guess everyone has a different opinion. Some say that Agility is better because of the +20% defense and others say damage is better. Then you say to stay away from Tiers one, two and three. To tell you the truth I have no idea what you're talking about 🙂 

 

For proper fire farming, you want 90% damage resistance to fire and 45% defense to fire. My claws/fire brute is fine on the damres side but needs to eat a medium luck to be at the defense softcap.

 

This is why I bind F1 to combine all medium insps into medium lucks.

 

You also want to be at the damage cap which is impossible without inspirations. This is why I bind F2 to combine all medium insps to medium rages and F3 to do the same for small insps.

 

You can also have the bind eat said insp when you combine.

 

Folks aren't saying stay away from the T1-T3 incarnate powers, just that they don't matter because when you create a T2, it eats the T1, T3 eats T2 and T4 needs 2 T3s and eats them both.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Luminara]

1 minute ago, Diantane said:

To tell you the truth I have no idea what you're talking about

 

Incarnate enhancements have to be crafted in tiers.  You have to make the first, the Tier 1 enhancement, before you can make the second, the Tier 2 enhancement, because the T2 uses the T1 as part of the material components required for crafting.  The T3 uses the T2, and the T4 uses two T3s.  So crafting below T4 is really just a stepping stone to get to T4.  You do need to make the earlier tiers, but you don't need to worry about which of the T3 to craft, because in reality, you have to craft two of them anyway (in order to make that T4).  Now, those two T3 can come from separate sides of the tree, they don't have to be from the same side, so you can craft any two T3s in that tree (not the same one twice) and you'll be fine.

 

The only other restriction is that they all have to come from the same tree.  If you're crafting a T3 Agility enhancement, you can't use a T2 Spiritual or Musculature enhancement to reach T3 in Agility.  If you change your mind and decide to use Musculature, to make an example, you can't do it with any of the Agility enhancements you've already crafted, you have to start over at T1 in the Musculature tree.

 

Think of each tier in the trees as upgrades to the previous tier.  T2 is the upgrade of T1, T3 is the upgrade of T2, T4 is the upgrade of T3.

 

Craft two T1s.

 

Craft two T2s using those T1s and the other required components.

 

Craft two T3s using those T2s and the other required components.

 

Craft a T4 using the two T3s and other required components.

 

Boom, done, move on to the next Incarnate ability you want to work on, repeat the process.

[Omega Force]

TLDR: At the Agility fork you want to go left if you still need more endurance, and right if you don't.

 

As you may know, Alpha Incarnate effectively adds a slot to every eligible power.  If a power can take recharge enhancements, Agility T4 will increase that power's recharge by 33%.  If it can take defense enhancements, Agility T4 will increase that power's defense bonus by 20%.  So it would buff Weave from 8% to 9.6%.  A typical goal is to increase your total defense to 45%, the non-incarnate soft cap.

 

Agility Core, or the left fork, will buff your endurance modification (Stamina, Consume), recharge, and defense.  Agility Radial, or right fork, will buff those as well as run, jump, and flight speeds (Sprint, Hurdle, Super Jump, etc.), at the cost of only buffing endurance mod by 33, rather than 45.  If you don't have endurance issues, I'd recommend Radial.

 

There are so many recipies because you can build the higher tiers from any combination.  For instance, you can combine Agility's T3 Left Left and T3 Left Right, or T3 LR and RL to make the T4.  Also, you can ultimately build every single incarnate power and swap them out, although it's expensive.  So you could eventually have both Agility T4s, a Spiritual T4, Musculature, etc.

[Frozen Burn]

On 1/1/2022 at 5:46 PM, Diantane said:

Thanks for getting back to me over the holidays. Sorry I didn't reply sooner, but I've been busy with friends and family as well.

 

My fire resistance is capped at 90% of course, but don't have any defense at all. Not sure if I need it. I guess everyone has a different opinion. Some say that Agility is better because of the +20% defense and others say damage is better. Then you say to stay away from Tiers one, two and three. To tell you the truth I have no idea what you're talking about 🙂 

 

Your Alpha Incarnate ability is like adding an extra IO slot of whatever the buff is into your powers that CAN ACCEPT that buff... so if you do not have a power that grants defense, you will not get that bonus.  And the 20% Defense bonus is 20% to the POWER, not 20% to you overall... big difference.

[Without_Pause]

On my budget build, I went Spiritual Core, but my def isn't capped, so I do use a purple on occasion. I would likely go Agility Core if/when I want to go all out. Musculature is essentially there if you can cap Fire Def and want to do AFK farming. Interface is Reactive Core Flawless. Destiny is Ageless Core. Judgement is Ion Total Core. Hybrid is Assault Core. Lore can be rather open ended. I prefer the Radial side since one of the pets are untouchable. If they aren't, they will likely die rather quickly depending on things. I'm currently working on Carnie since the support offers +15% Damage and a heal. I would use Shards for the Alpha, and Threads for everything else. Shards are only used for Alpha. 

 

 

 

[SeraphimKensai]

Hopefully I'm not too late to save the day...

But I would advise against Agility in a Spines/Fire Armor Brute. The reason for that is...it boosts your enhanced value of your existing powers (not IO bonuses), so you don't really get much bang for your buck in raising your fire defense (which is the only defense that matters if your fire farming, being on a Spines/Fire I assume that's the case).

 

That said I would chase your fire defense with Combat Jumping, Maneuvers, and Weave. Then use IO's (Steadfast/PvP Resistance procs give a combined 6%), aegis resistance IOs are fairly inexpensive, and winter sets are on sale at the moment. Aim for 45% in mids, but if you can't afford that right off the bat, you can get it as high as you can and use amplifiers, and purple inspirations, lower your difficulty to where you can handle as you make influence and drops to finish your toon.

 

Incarnates I would go for...

Alpha - Musculature Core

Interface - Degenerative or Reactive

Destiny - Ageless Core however you can use Barrier for more defense until you get your IOs finished, if you have Ageless you don't need Consume.

Lore - Banished Pantheon Radial

Hybrid - Assault Core, however you can use Support for more defense until you get your IOs finished.