Still can't get started on Incarnate stuff.

[Zombra]

EDIT: FOR ANYONE STRUGGLING OUT THERE, THERE ARE ONLY TWO THINGS I WISH WERE MADE CLEAR BY THE GAME.

I could have figured out the rest myself very easily if it only told me these two things.

 

These aren't real spoilers but I'll put them in a spoiler tag just in case:

 

Spoiler

1) Among the dozens of contacts available at level 50, there is an Ouroboros guy named Mender Ramiel.  Nothing directs you to him and he probably won't even appear on your contact list.  Go find him in the Ouroboros courtyard, talk to him, and do his mission line.  (Almost) everything will be explained from there.

 

2) When teaching you crafting, what Ramiel doesn't tell you is that the crafting trees start at the bottom.  If you start at the top, all you will see are recipes with ingredients you literally cannot access (yet).  I looked at 10 different trees but since I always started with the nonsense recipes at the top, I concluded I was missing a step.  I was not - the layout is just dumb.

 

That's it.  If you are like me, this will be all you need to get going and you can figure out the rest on your own.

Thank you to everyone who helped me in this thread.

 

-----------

Original post:

 

I really don't like spoilers and walkthroughs, but it seems like the Incarnate system is obtuse to the point where there's no other choice.

 

My original Discord posts: Is there ANY in-game explanation of the Incarnate system? I keep expecting there to be an introduction like with the invention system, but no, everyone's just saying "Whassap Incarnate bro"  I did see I got a bunch of contacts at 50 but the first couple were like "So now that you're an Incarnate we need your help" and I was like uhhhhhhh okay? 

 

A helpful user directed me to Mender Ramiel's mission line, which I had completely missed in the glut of a million level 50 contacts.  Ramiel never even appeared on my contact list until I sought him out.

 

So I did all those missions, which was great and explained about what Incarnates are.  It even showed me where the Incarnate Abilities menu is and told me to use the Create tab to make some abilities.  This was all fine.

 

My new problem is that the ingredients to make abilities are all things I've never heard of.  Like, absolutely none of these things exist as far as I'm aware.  Before I even get started I need to find something called a Favor of the Well, and an Essence of the Incarnate, and best of all a "Musculature Total Radial Revamp".  You know, just normal crimefighting loot.  And Mender Ramiel never mentioned any of these things, and did not give the slightest hint of how to obtain these things or what they even are.  He said, in essence, "Welp, that's it, Incarnate bro! Now get ya to crafting!"

 

I have hundreds of Incarnate Threads and I guess I can use the Convert tab to make some things, but I don't need Gluon Compounds or Meditation Techniques to create Incarnate abilities.  In fact these things have no apparent use at all.

 

Imagine being a crimefighter and getting out of bed in the morning thinking, "Hmm, I sure could go for an Cognitive Partial Radial Conversion right now.  I guess I'll go fight some Tsoo and see if one drops out of their pockets."

 

So .... am I supposed to be able to find what to do next?  Like, go do every mission and task force in the game until I stumble across something?  Is there a signpost I missed somewhere?  Or is it intended that I go read a guide because the game itself never tells me?  Again, it's weird that Ramiel seemed to think I had everything I needed.  I feel like I missed a step and it's confusing.

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

Edited June 13 by Zombra
To help newbs checking out the thread with the same questions

[pawstruck]

Would you consider asking for help in-game "spoilers?" (If yes, this forum post would be an odd choice 😁)

 

I may be wrong, but I felt like the point of the crazy incarnate loot was imitating the other MMO's which, when you are at max level, have you questing for materials you hadn't heard of till endgame.

 

....I also found incarnates off-putting in complexity, but I finally but the bullet and just asked people. It's part of the MMORPG experience. Lol

[Zombra]

6 minutes ago, pawstruck said:

Would you consider asking for help in-game "spoilers?" (If yes, this forum post would be an odd choice 😁)

 

I agree 😄

 

I'm 100% asking for spoilers, at least enough to get me going.  It's true I hate spoilers but I hate brick walls even more, and the game has given me a brick wall with zero info on how to get past it (while at the same time acting like I should already know all about it).

 

As for asking in-game ... ehhh I feel like I'm more likely to get a "helpful" person who just throws a bunch of ingredients at me instead of gently guiding me towards how I'm supposed to get them myself.  Forums seem like the best way to get a nuanced answer.

 

 

Edited June 5 by Zombra

[The Chairman]

I don't recall if/where it is explicitly stated in game, but the endgame TFs/Trials (i.e. Dr. Khan/Barracuda, Imperious, Ms. Liberty/Lord Recluse, and Cathedral of Pain) offer Incarnate components (Alpha slot) in their reward tables once you hit 50. You can also purchase one with Vanguard Merits in the Vanguard Base.

 

Additionally, once you unlock your Alpha slot, Prometheus will talk to you. He's the big blue guy in Ouroboros. He explains a lot of Incarnate lore as well as giving direction regarding the Incarnate Trials. These Trials are where you can earn Incarnate components for all your slots.

 

The Dark Astoria story arcs are a soloist path to getting Incarnate components as well.

 

Edited to add: Completing the Weekly TF/SF at 50 also earns you a Notice of the Well. This is used to craft your T3 Alpha. Two of them crafts the Favor of the Well for your T4.

Edited June 5 by The Chairman

[Triumphant]

Just wait until you've figure it out enough to get to T3 lvl incarnate powers.  THEN, you have to figure out how to go up the ladder twice in the same set to get your T4's.  Took me forever to figure that out and there's no clear instructions on how to do it.

 

I love this game, but the way incarnates were implemented was, frankly, utterly confusing.  It's reasonable that it's hard to get the powers.  That's the whole point of end game content.  The over-complexity of the system itself is poor game design, though- if I may be so blunt as to say so.

 

Anyway, just stick with it and keep asking for help.  You'll unravel this knot, eventually.  Or like myself, you'll grow frustrated with it, give up on it, come back and try again a few months later, grow frustrated again, come back again a few more months after that, get frustrated again, rinse and repeat a half dozen times until you finally manage to figure it out.

 

Have fun. 😄

[mcdoogss]

This is a fairly comprehensive guide to incarnates for HC that is still mostly useful and relevant: 

the incarnate system is very obtuse, that guide has some historical context for why its so confusing, arcane, and seems only partially finished (spoiler: because it is!).  
 

tldr as i understand things, back on live incarnates were cooked up as a premium endgame content option to keep people playing.  This was very close to the end of coh’s run, and in typical fashion was released half baked but the game shut down before the dev team could go through their typical iterative improvement cycles. So we have a bit of half baked post 50 content and mechanics

 

 

Edited June 5 by mcdoogss

[ZemX]

I would second just reading that guide post.  And I wouldn't view Incarnate System mechanics as "spoilers".  This stuff wasn't meant to be organically figured out.  You're not skipping the solving of some puzzle here.   It's all very arbitrary and overly complex.  There's no in-game path leading you through this, so you're not missing anything reading the guide.

[SeraphimKensai]

Talk to Member Ramiel in Ouros?

[Black Talon]

Zombra, have to chime in with your sentiments here the big one-ten.  The whole "Incarnate" issue - while I acknowledge and celebrate the spirit of innovation and attempt to give this game an achievement level past 50 - has been a non-starter on my part.  I'm perfectly happy with my crew of 50s, fully outfitted with IOs - and yes, it did take a while, but I did finally get around to doing that (a billion or so bucks later - ugh) - running around and giving the Forces of Evil a sharp swat upside the back of the head.  I keep thinking that, maybe, one day, I'll get around to giving the Incarnate thing a try - and perhaps it will be as rewarding as getting all those purple and red IO sets were, I will accede to that possibility - but for right now...it's an academic point.  The various Incarnate rewards sit in each character's tray, quiescent and docile, with the ongoing question hanging around them, "When you gonna use us...?"

[arcane]

Good on the OP for wanting to figure this out.

 

Just a couple weeks ago my discord mate went to pug the rest of a Tinpex team, asked for shifted level 50’s, and immediately the first person that responds is not +1 even though they were over veteran level 70. We tried to explain to them that they should look into their incarnates and they gave us some bullshit about how they know what they’re doing. Ultimately they were kicked and we went back to LFG. Talk about irritating.

[Zombra]

@everyone (too many to name): Thanks for all the support and good advice!  I feel way less stupid now and appreciate the resources to get me to the next steps!

[Ravenplume]

Train up to 50 then beat on things until Alpha unlocks.  Then you can spend shards to get your T1 for that.  They will drop like any other loot.  Nothing special that needs done to otherwise unlock incarnates.

[Doomguide2005]

1 hour ago, Ravenplume said:

Train up to 50 then beat on things until Alpha unlocks.  Then you can spend shards to get your T1 for that.  They will drop like any other loot.  Nothing special that needs done to otherwise unlock incarnates.

This ^

And you can replace 'Shards' with 'Threads'.  It is very confusing.  I've had to relearn everything I knew from Live (and I am probably still rediscovering things).  Partly that's because there are multiple routes to doing it, which isn't indicated anywhere.  Took me a while, for example, to realize my first character (not rich, not a farmer, no sugar daddy etc.) could instead of trying to accumulate 100,000,000 inf plus salvage for the t4 she wanted (or the t3's she already made) she could use Empyreal merits to purchase the Living Relic (or whatever very rare salvage I needed) by using the Empyreals she had plenty of by then.  And you're already ahead of me there.  You've read the Guide which would have saved me some of my hard-earned influence.

 

PS:  While Dark Astoria can be used by soloists it is not a requirement and teams doing those mission arcs, including repeatable content, are or can be formed as well.

Edited June 5 by Doomguide2005

[Zombra]

6 hours ago, Ravenplume said:

Train up to 50 then beat on things until Alpha unlocks.  Then you can spend shards to get your T1 for that.  They will drop like any other loot.  Nothing special that needs done to otherwise unlock incarnates.

 

Huh?  Is there like a special store somewhere?

[Ignatz the Insane]

7 minutes ago, Zombra said:

 

Huh?  Is there like a special store somewhere?

 

Everything you need for Incarnates come from drops, rewards, or leveling.  So best advice, as above, is play your 50 a bunch.  

 

[biostem]

Think of it like this;  There are 5 "tiers" of Incarnate components;  Base materials, (threads and shards), then tiers 1-4 which are used for actually crafting the Incarnate abilities.  You will always need some amount of tier 1 components no matter what level of Incarnate ability you are trying to create.  Beyond that, the higher tiers will also require a component of their equivalent level/tier.  In order to get to the highest rank/tier, you need to combine two rank 3 Incarnate abilities within the same base Incarnate ability, (so two t3 musculatures to make a t4, etc).

 

You basically convert those base materials into all other Incarnate components.  Some, though, can be particularly expensive if you don't then make use of another currency, namely "Empyrean Merits" - Those can be used to directly create T3 or T4 components.  You often get a big chunk of threads or Empyrean merits whenever you level past 50.

Edited June 6 by biostem

[Eiko-chan]

20 minutes ago, Zombra said:

Huh?  Is there like a special store somewhere?

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.)

[biostem]

2 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

There is a cooldown on changing a slot

Just keep in mind that being in combat, or even being on a team with someone else who is in combat, (even if they are a good distance or zones away), can sometimes mess with this process and prevent slotting or changing abilities.

[InvaderStych]

I know this won't help in understanding the Incarnate system, and it's plethora of salvage and what-not, but since that's already been covered nicely in the thread (really, the linked guide does help) here is something that at least makes accessing the menu more convenient.

 

Both of these commands will put a button in your tray that will open the Incarnate powers menu. The first one is just the command to open the menu, the second comes with a swanky emote.

 

Enter either string into in-game chat to get the button.

 

/macro_image "Incarnate_Trial_MarkOfLeadership" "Incarnate" "toggle incarnate"

 

/macro_image "Incarnate_Trial_MarkOfLeadership" "Incarnate" "toggle incarnate$$em calculate"

 

It is a small thing, but fewer clicks than the other methods of opening the window. Useful for checking out the available powers and the salvage needed to craft them. Also useful for toons that have multiples for a given slot to switch between depending on conditions.

 

If you want some specific advice on which iPowers for a specific toon, head on down to the archetypes section and knowledgeable residents will have loads of suggestions.

 

Hope that's useful. 🍻

[Greycat]

11 hours ago, mcdoogss said:

tldr as i understand things, back on live incarnates were cooked up as a premium endgame content option to keep people playing.

 

 

 

... You may mean "paying" there, given most of the system was locked behind having a sub. >.>

[Ravenplume]

I thought the game had gone free to play, with no more subscriptions some time before the incarnate system came out, and then that was an additional purchase.  Or did that come out as part of Going Rogue?  Can't recall.

[Player2]

2 hours ago, Ravenplume said:

I thought the game had gone free to play, with no more subscriptions some time before the incarnate system came out, and then that was an additional purchase.  Or did that come out as part of Going Rogue?  Can't recall.

Not no more subscriptions.  Again, as Greycat says, it was to encourage subscriptions.  You could absolutely play free and that drew people to the game so that the subscribers had more options to team with.

[Greycat]

http://www.cityofheroes.ca/about_freedom/freedom_faq.html

 

You can still see some of this, at least, and some of what was restricted to paid subs.

 

Going Rogue was still on the old sub model, introduced side switching, etc. well before Freedom. (Still remember some debates over "So, they have Infamy... so how are the markets going to work? They'll be three now? And they'll have to have the grey alignments running stuff between them?" which was just overly complicated and a bit annoying - and helped lead to the merging of the markets. )

[Digirium]

No, there is not enough information in the game to learn all about incarnate powers.

 

Read the HC wiki to start with. It describes the powers. Look at the incarnate window and start to figure out stuff. Choose an alpha power to build, build it using shards if you have enough or dip in to threads. You also have Empyrean Merits and Astral Merits you can covert to threads, more Empyrean Merits (from Astral Merits see Luna in Ouroboros or Echo Plaza - this is a popular option) and then in to incarnate components.

 

Another way to get incarnate components (the ones that build from threads) is run that Dark Astoria mission from Ouroboros pillar and flame. Or run the Apex and Tin Mage task forces in RWZ. Or join a BAF or an iTrial. When you reach 50 practically anything you do has a chance for shards and threads to drop.

 

Finally, you will make mistakes with incarnate power choices -- learn from those mistakes ("why did I even pick that?").

 

I wish there was a way to breakdown power mistakes to threads or components but there isn't a way.

 

 

Edited June 6 by Digirium

[Uun]

Talk to Prometheus in Ouroboros. He explains the story behind all the Incarnate Trials.