MajorTractor

Right now you can get everything you need for Tier 4 alpha from old non-incarnate content (except I guess the entry missions, but those are easily soloable on most characters and are hardly new except story wise). You need 3 NotW so 3 weekly TF's and you can pick and choose when so your could in theory get all 3 from TFs that basically launched with the game (Numina's, Posi's, etc.)

So my question is (not trying to be snarky here or whatever), is there something coming in I20 that only unlocks from new content that I'm out of the loop about? Because as it stands now you can get all your Alpha slot fun without ever running "New Incarnate content" such as Tin Mage and Apex. It will be a massive time sink and I wouldn't care to try, but if you hate the new content that much, the "other way" is there.

Also, I can understand not liking the new TF's. I don't really enjoy my new found Incarnate awesomeness fighting 54 Praetorian Clockwork and dodging hundreds of unresist/ingnore defense instadeath blue patches. Atleast it is not another stand in one place and spam attacks at AV until it dies kinda thing.

I agree its not a great analogy. But I still say it about priorities. Casual gamer ....blah blah blah.... families and jobs ... blah blah. You can't really expect have the same benefits from playing the game 1-2 hours a week as someone who plays 20+. Thats not rational or at all fair to the person putting in the time.

I have a job and a family too. Who doesn't?

Also I'm not seeing the huge disparity between lvl shifted toons and reg old 50's. The disparity between SO'd 50's and a well IO'd build is much greater IMO.

Okay pulled it up in mids and it almost looks like the endurance would be unplayable bad. Between rage and hasten crashing and the lack of end red in the attacks I can only imagine your guy huffing and puffing for blues constantly.

Is this your live build? Maybe with a cardiac alpha? Idk maybe its not as bad as I'm making it out. As I said in my previous post, end problems on my characters is a huge pet peeve of mine and I usually build accordingly.

I'm kinda anal about it, but from not having mids pulled up I think that build would be a huge endurance hog.

There is Ultra Mode, and then there is Ultra Mode with stuff turned up. Even really crazy gaming rigs will get choppy with all the Ultra Mode settings up.

edit: I also traded my ATI 5850 for a pair of Nvidia's because of a lot of driver issues the ATI's are having right now, for which I never could find a fix.

DOOM DOOM DOOM!!!!!!

Come on guys...Really...

The only part of Alpha that seems in anyway grindy to me is the Tier 4 stuff. Tier 1 I can usually get in 2 task forces (pick the right task forces for the components you need and by the time you have your 2 tf's done you should have your 4 shards to craft the last component you need) and Tier 2 isn't much harder. Tier 3 you need the NotW and some easy compontents.

I have 20 lvl 50's all but 5 are unlocked (they were retired already) 3 have Tier 4 and almost all of the rest are Tier 3.

You don't really need the Tier 4 the benefit over Tier 3 is mostly negligible. Tier 3 is pretty easy. Get your Tier 3 and then just play the game and you'll get there eventually.

Make some friends run the TF's you need, and stop "grinding for shards." Your doing it wrong....


P.S. If your a soloer....yeah it kinda sucks. I'm sorry, but your boxing yourself in and sometimes its going to make the game harder for you.

The ITF is notoriously bad on squishies. Even on non-squishies for that matter.

My VG has a ITF strategy we call "stick and move" which basically means if your not kiting your gonna die. The -def can add up real quick and then a few crits come in to put you facedown.

I don't know if it's my imagination, but it seems to me that poping a wakie on the Battle Madien fight seems to auto spawn a blue circle on you for insta death if you don't have a breakfree aswell.

When I get home from work I'll have to play on mids and do a soft cap S/L build and see what I can come up with. My Fire/Rad corr has soft cap S/L (well not quite but close enough) and its mega awesome.

I made his build for Fight Clubbing Brutes in Arena before DR in PvP and all the changes that KINDA ruined PvP for Melee back in I14 or whenever it was.

IDK.... I'll need to really convince myself that the new build would be better.....If it aint broke don't fix it.....

Not just mids numbers my mids is my exact live verson and the numbers match

and recharge is pretty good but thats basically only thanks to FF proc in footstomp and 5 lotg 7.5's and my alpha. Footstomp is about 5-6 seconds depending on how many mobs around me for the FF proc

I agree that the 200 is prob a fluctuation because mids shows the 160 number.

My numbers are including my ultra rare spiritual alpha and I am way past ED on all my regen and healing powers because of it (rttc is 130% after ED). My brute also has 2700+ hitpoints that skew the numbers up more.

Plus i'm not soft capped so S/L. I'm about a small/medium purple from soft cap on ranged and meele though.

This character has basically retired my stoner because he feels just as tough (if not more) without all the granite slows and stuff.

Whatever you guys can believe me or not.

I don't have mids in front of me to put it in and look, but both sets of upper numbers look really small to me. With full RttC my brute bounces between 165hp/sec and 200 hp/sec. I guess try it again and watch your power stats to make sure you have the cap on the RttC.

Knock out Blow on my SS/fire Brute running ~cap fury, rage, and firey embrace is pretty awesome. I don't have numbers on me but it will one-shot the glowie boxes on AE farms most of the time.

I don't have MIDs infront of me right not but I believe that the -tohit is so small that you don't get much benefit from enhancing it. I have 3 numinas and 3 miracles (heal, heal/end, and heal/rech for both) and I'm beating pretty hard on ED for the heal so I can get the most out of my ultra rare spiritual alpha.

RttC is your biggest source of +regen on your willpower so you do want the most out of it, but with my alpha I probably need to play around see if i can move slots around and make improvements.

Edit: Mine is a Brute so i was less concerned with the Taunt, but Stryker is right that the taunt part is rather weak and on a tank might be worth enhancing.

Yes

You can get hasten lvls of recharge by purples but then you lose out on a lot of nice set bonuses like +def. Your dom might be perma w/o hasten but mine is perma and has near soft cap defenses.

You can make a nice toon w/o hasten but USUALLY it will be better with it.

/Fire brutes dying on LGTF are doing it wrong. I did several of them last week with my SS/Fire brute and only had to use my heal when fighting Hami. I also cleared the last mission solo after the team had left for shards. /Fire is only weak before IO investment, but so is /SD and we all know how that turns out.

I've never seen the point in burning purple sets and pvp IO's on Stoners.

Its so easy to make yourself nearly immortal with cheap IO's and save that money for a character will get more benefit from it.

Also I'd drop all the other armors you can completely besides Granite...because do you really exempt a stoner past 38?

I'd suggest you build for Hit points and then plan to repec into a Defense build later. Building up your hitpoints allows you to much better take advantage of the regen from willpower and not waste your time with regen set bonuses. Willpower really benefits from almost any IO investment and is a great toon to build up overtime as you play it.

I didn't go the S/L def route on mine. I built for rech, ranged def, and some meele def. Most of your -def comes from ranged (ITF being the biggest exception) and most of the stuff in meele range dies very very quickly.

The only time I notice a difference in survivability between my /FA and /SD brute is on ITF's and other defense debuff heavy mobs. Took my SS/FA on a LGTF last night and with less than 2% psi resist I never faceplanted or even came close. Dead mobs do no dmg

2770 Total Hitpoints, 96 hp/s with one in rttc, 5 sec footstomp, and a ~small purple from softcap for ranged and meele....but i spent billions (I can't wait for my Very Rare Spiritual, more recharge and healing FTW!)