Temporary Buffs -OR- Incarnates

[Troo]

Regarding game difficulty

 

If folks are creating builds that are heavily dependent on temporary powers and buffs 100% of the time; is that a bigger impact than Incarnates?

 

Are folks who not leaning on Temps or Incarnates at a big disadvantage?

 

Some temps can eliminate the need for entire powers and/or easily open up slots in tight builds.

 

 

Examples:

Defense Amplifier = 5% Defense, 7.5% Resistance & 4 protection (knock, hold, etc)

Survival Amplifier = 40% Regeneration, 20% Endurance Recovery & some +maxHP

Envenomed Dagger = -250 regen (pve)

Empowerment Stations

 

[Lazarillo]

I use Amplifiers on most of my low-level characters, but the RoI for them isn't really viable at max level, in my experience.  Maybe with the Defense Amplifier, and certain very specific builds, but that's still 20 million Inf down for 8 hours of play, and while that's doable (basically one 30-40 minute run of an Apex/Tin Mage double-header, assuming you convert the merits to cash in a reasonably efficient way), I'd still rather put that into funneling money into new alts.  I think most of the purchasable Temp. Powers are generally pretty similar on that front.  Fun gimmicks, but not viable in ways that are going to drastically modify folks' builds.

 

What I wonder a little bit more about is folks who use the email system to basically carry around 5 additional full Inspiration trays.

[Greycat]

I'd say the tradeoff of having to go back to refresh those buffs (through time and either salvage or inf - they're not *cheap* at high levels) is enough of a balance. And the Envenomed Dagger is - well, kind of a hidden gem, but at the same time, kind of specialized. Not something I'd even consider as part of a build, really.

[Snarky]

On my “solo every contact in the game for everything they offer” I am currently at 39.  Completed all content only doable 1-34 and now knocking out 35-40. 
 

This is a Dark/Invul Brute.  Dark Melee is not the fastest killing powerset in the game. Reliable, but slow.  The thing is a plodding

warhorse.  Especially  painful was the pre Soul Drain and pre Midnight Grasp levels. Slightly better now.  
 

I stopped getting the offense and defense amplifiers after level 10.  Too expensive and rarely useful.  My build survives fine and the offense is nice but not what I need

 

What has been kicking it for me?  P2W temp Hand Grenades, Stun Grenades, Pet summon (not signature, just regular) and jetpacks.  These are doing a significant portion of the workload. Special call out to the Hand Grenade.  We all hate knockback  but this ugly little power is a workhorse.  Specifically great in situations where I need AoE. I got none.  This is ranged AoE.  Now I got some. 

[Redletter]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

On my “solo every contact in the game for everything they offer” I am currently at 39.  Completed all content only doable 1-34 and now knocking out 35-40. 
 

This is a Dark/Invul Brute.  Dark Melee is not the fastest killing powerset in the game. Reliable, but slow.  The thing is a plodding

warhorse.  Especially  painful was the pre Soul Drain and pre Midnight Grasp levels. Slightly better now.  
 

I stopped getting the offense and defense amplifiers after level 10.  Too expensive and rarely useful.  My build survives fine and the offense is nice but not what I need

 

What has been kicking it for me?  P2W temp Hand Grenades, Stun Grenades, Pet summon (not signature, just regular) and jetpacks.  These are doing a significant portion of the workload. Special call out to the Hand Grenade.  We all hate knockback  but this ugly little power is a workhorse.  Specifically great in situations where I need AoE. I got none.  This is ranged AoE.  Now I got some. 

I love the grenade powers, Hand Grenade is lowkey nice as a way to give you a quick, dirty AoE that's also got some KB on the side. It's actually really useful in lots of scenarios. I like to lob one at Nemesis firing squads, since theyre liable to carpet bomb me if I dont. Very useful.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Characters that are built specifically to lean on amplifiers and insps will be at a disadvantage when those items are turned off.

 

Characters that choose to use amps and\or eat huge insps stored in email will perform better than when they don't.

 

Yes, an email system full of huge insps will have more of an impact than incarnate powers right up to the point where the insps run out. It will also have more of an impact than a good build or player skill.

 

While the mez protection from the defense amplifier is a game changer for my squishies, based on the numbers for the rest of the buffs, no I don't think they have as much impact as 6 T4ed incarnate powers. It's not even close.

 

With as easy as it is to make inf in this game, I do find it worth it to keep squishies loaded up with mez protection, when I actually remember that I find it worth it and hit the P2W vendor.

[wjrasmussen]

2 hours ago, Greycat said:

I'd say the tradeoff of having to go back to refresh those buffs (through time and either salvage or inf - they're not *cheap* at high levels) is enough of a balance. And the Envenomed Dagger is - well, kind of a hidden gem, but at the same time, kind of specialized. Not something I'd even consider as part of a build, really.

I use the dagger in special cases (not to be mentioned again).  The defense amplifier is what 5% and a million influence, so not worth it.

 

Plasmic taser is fun for bowling the little guys in big groups.

Hand grenade is good for low level too.

 

[DoctorDitko]

Among its many virtues, Offense Amplifier includes a +15% Recharge Bonus.

The Base Empowerment Station Increase Attack Speed buff is +20%.

Together, that's half a Hasten's worth of speed-up.

Just the thing for characters who can't quite reach a recharge goal.

 

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, DoctorDitko said:

Among its many virtues, Offense Amplifier includes a +15% Recharge Bonus.

The Base Empowerment Station Increase Attack Speed buff is +20%.

Together, that's half a Hasten's worth of speed-up.

Just the thing for characters who can't quite reach a recharge goal.

 

nice to know next time i level a Dom

 

[SeraphimKensai]

I always have envenomed daggers on every toon, along with a kinetic dampener for low level stuff (hello Posi and Synapse), a jetpack, and recovery serum for those oh shit moments where I might not have a cab and need a recovery boost in the mid level ranges running multiple toggles.

 

Otherwise I swear by the Recharge Boost from the Base Empowerment Station, it's really cheap for 20% recharge. I just wish I could stack base buffs to have like 8 hours of play time stacked.

 

Otherwise the most important base buff that people completely forget about is Invis. I mean stealthing missions is already easy with taking a multitude of stealth based powers, superspeed, tossing in a stealth IO to Sprint, but people often times neglect that aspect of the game (hell I keep a stealth IO in my tanks extra Sprint just for when the need arises). But base Invis buff is really cheap, and quite effective for stealthing missions. Once again I wish it was stackable as well.

 

 

Edit...

That all said I always build my characters to be self sufficient without temps or incarnates, they are just icing on the cake.

Edited January 3, 2022 by SeraphimKensai

[JasperStone]

For a few characters I would email a bunch of Inf and max out Amplifiers while still Lvl1.

Once gone they are gone.

I am starting get Envenomed Dagger more often.

 

[Andreah]

If a player opens a lot of packs, they will have plenty of amplifiers to use. You can't sell them, so using them on level 50's is a good way to go.

 

Some inspirations are powerful but may not be cost effective, and can be quirky to use -- like needing to pull them out of emails one at a time.

 

If a player has paid the cost and gone through the effort to make use of temps, empowerments, amplifiers, incarnates, IOs, rare inspirations, and so on, they should not be denied their use.

 

In my opinion, restricting use of these things to create more difficulty is bad design. Design content and systems changes to support the level of difficulty desired. Don't weaken the players. strengthen the content. 

 

If they're unbalanced, then instead of turning them off, they should be fixed. Inspirations, specifically, as a system need some work. They've always been an easy crutch to lean on. Something like them having certain kinds of diminishing effects and cooldowns could work.  

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Andreah

[Andreah]

13 hours ago, Troo said:

If folks are creating builds that are heavily dependent on temporary powers and buffs 100% of the time; is that a bigger impact than Incarnates?

 

Are folks who not leaning on Temps or Incarnates at a big disadvantage?

 

Some temps can eliminate the need for entire powers and/or easily open up slots in tight builds.

 

I don't know anyone who has specifically built around temporary powers; but several who build around incarnates. I do the latter myself -- I'll look ahead to which alpha I intend to use, and then build around having it and the corresponding level shift in 50+ content. I think anyone who doesn't do this will be at a disadvantage, of sorts, in the same content. But is it a serious one? I think generally not. They will still contribute to the team, feel needed (as much as anyone is), and enjoy the game. Most content is easy enough for well built non-incarnate and non-temp users to do just fine.

[A Cat]

6 minutes ago, Andreah said:

Some inspirations are powerful but may not be cost effective, and can be quirky to use -- like needing to pull them out of emails one at a time.

 

This. I basically never use the duals/teams from my packs since it is a pain to scroll through that horrible shared item interface. Personally, I don't like relying on temps or insps outside of purples/breakfrees. Even then, I don't constantly rely on them. They're just there for when shit hits the fan. I don't even get the amplifiers for most of my lowbies, since when I'm in the groove playing them, I don't usually feel like logging out to a richer toon, emailing money, and logging back in. 

[SeraphimKensai]

1 hour ago, Andreah said:

I don't know anyone who has specifically built around temporary powers....

I have a lowbie named Mediocre Man that is a DP/WP Sentinel that relies on the gadgets he gets from Temp Powers, otherwise he's just a guy with a couple pistols.

[Andreah]

11 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I have a lowbie named Mediocre Man that is a DP/WP Sentinel that relies on the gadgets he gets from Temp Powers, otherwise he's just a guy with a couple pistols.

It sounds like you deliberately made the character for the theme, knowing it would limit the character's power; and not to maximize the character using both temps and an powers build optimized around having them.

 

For example, knowing you would get some +recharge and +defense from having amplifiers on 24/7, and therefore deciding to end your conventional build that much short of perma-hasten and that much below the softcap, and then putting the rest of the build's trade space against increased damage.

[Andreah]

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine and I were discussing some of the support powersets and how strong they were on teams. Somewhere along the line I said, if you chose one these as your secondary on a Petless MM, you could level to 50 on teams and no one would notice. He took it as a challenge, and did it with whip (petless demons)/rad. He kept counts of comments he got, and, iirc, he got one or perhaps two, but both were positive. 

 

The game offers us so much over and above our core powersets on SO's, that we should not be surprised that any one thing can seem to be on the margin -- even something as big as your main pet powers. I believe using vs. not using temp powers, or even incarnates, won't make or break most characters in normal content.  However, they might take the sting off an ordinarily very poorly performing theme/challenge character, like a petless mastermind.

[wjrasmussen]

27 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I have a lowbie named Mediocre Man that is a DP/WP Sentinel that relies on the gadgets he gets from Temp Powers, otherwise he's just a guy with a couple pistols.

I have been thinking about building a character around a minimal powerset build that does this.

[arcane]

3 hours ago, Andreah said:

I don't know anyone who has specifically built around temporary powers

*raises hand* I have a small number of characters specifically built around amplifiers. The #1 distinction that shows I have “built around them” is treating 40% defense as the new soft cap. For instance I have two Stalkers that do this. Scrap all the extra work you’d need to do for that extra 5% and convert it to more offensive power. Similar to building around Barrier Core, except your upkeep is every 8 hrs instead of every 2 minutes, so, approximately (1/240)th the chance for error and I can still get Ageless Radial 😉

 

But then ofc the other effects are nothing to sneeze at. +ToHit? Just became able to slot less accuracy and more procs. +Recharge? Let’s not pretend anyone actually thinks +Recharge isn’t impactful. +Mez Protection? See Bill.

Edited January 3, 2022 by arcane

[Yomo Kimyata]

I think that, like some people said, inspirations (especially purples) can be considered to be more powerful than either temps or incarnates.

 

But it is truly no skin off my nose.  I choose to use (or more generally not use) various powers or tools for my own inscrutable reasons.  I do try to challenge myself, but for the most part it's irrelevant to me if your inscrutable decisions are different from mine.  Heck, (and this may be blasphemy), I'd much rather try a pick up MoWhatever TF with a bunch of randoms and fail than plan out meticulously what the optimal path is and succeed in thirty seconds because we took every advantage we could find. 

 

I am a little concerned about the new difficulty levels.  Not because they make things harder (which I'm all for!) but because our user base isn't as robust as it once was, and the "overdiversification" (my quotes) may make it more difficult to find teams to try things, particularly to try things you have never done before.

 

My two inf.

[Fira]

Mostly agree with above post.

 

To add my own 2inf if we're talking about "average usefulness":

 

 - For general purpose play:

 1. Defense Amplifier Mez Prot

 2. Judgement/Lore gg clearing

 3. Inspirations insane buffs in general

 5. Other incarnates

 6. Empowerment Base Buffs have useful buffs to push this further

 7. Amplifiers in general for other aspects

 

- For generically "challenging" situations (assuming these are available)

1. Defense Amplifier especially if needing Mez Prot

2. Lore and/or Inspirations for burst cheesing tough situations

3. Mail for getting more inspirations

4. Problem Solving and Teamplay

5. Absolutely any and everything else

 

That Point 4 is by far the best, and the ONLY one you ACTUALLY need, but it's unfortunately sometimes harder to achieve than clicking buttons at P2W vendor..

[Ukase]

About the only temp I rely on is the Jet Pack so my super speeders can have a quick vertical when they need it. 
I do use envenomed dagger at times, but only a portion of the time. 
I do use the buff amplifiers from p2w for certain content. I used to buy all three, 8 hours at a time until they stopped working in incarnate trials. Still haven't gotten a refund for those..I should visit p2w to see if those can be revoked for a refund since we can't use them in iTrials anymore. And if not, well...it's not like I need the inf, but it is a crappy thing to do. Some folks don't have the pockets I do, but I digress. 

I'll use a summons when I need to against certain AVs. Some AVs I can handle without it. 

As far as incarnates, the only time I use them is before AV fights. They're really not necessary for anything else. Useful, sure. But I have my incarnates set to a key bind, which are generally the numbers on the top of my keyboard, below the function keys. They're not something I use in combat. I use them before combat, and there's not many battles that last more than two minutes. And in those cases, I'll go out of my way to use them. 

All that said, I've made characters who rely solely on drops for slotting. I was going hardcore - if defeated, delete it. But, one was too much fun to delete, so even though it failed that death part of the challenge, I did continue to play it and never once saw the p2w lady. So no temps. And I didn't do incarnates with it - but I also parked it and haven't returned to it, because I need to do a respec on it first. There's no question in my mind that you can play this game without p2w and be just fine. Heck, if you slot SOs, you're be great! They're a bit overpowered for sub level 20 content, in my opinion. 

As far as comparisons go - I fully recognize that folks that rely on p2w for end recovery - those are the folks that are at a disadvantage. If you need end recovery for your character...and I don't...

But..in full disclosure, I've teamed with folks that have just SOs while every one else is fully IO'd. They seem to die more often. But - in my group, I could make the case that the folks that just use SOs are lesser players, with a lower level of knowledge about the game than the folks that are fully IO'd. So, it's tough to say if it's their builds, or their lack of knowledge/skills/ability that is the disadvantage.