Incarnate Abilities Buyer's Guide

Player Guide Notice

This article is a Player Guide. The Homecoming Wiki takes no responsibility for the content within.

Questions and concerns should be posed to the authors of the article using the article's talk page.

Intent

This is meant as an overview of Incarnate System 'economics' (although trading components across players is blocked) for players new to the end game to begin forming a plan of how they want to proceed. It is not exhaustive; nor does it try to do the job of the Wiki describing Incarnate Powers, power choices, or what 2/3rds of Enhancement Diversity really means; all of that is better explained elsewhere.

This is a bit more simplistic... the very act of buying Incarnate Abilities themselves through Component Crafting.

Caveats

This is written for Homecoming: City of Heroes Issue 27, which has the following differences from the Live Incarnate System.

Click to Read

• Alpha Slot unlocking is no longer required. Incarnate XP starts accruing the moment you turn Level 50. (Trapdoor can still be fought by heading to Ouroboros and doing the Mender Ramiel arc, but it isn't required any longer.)
• Incarnate Shards, while still issued, have been de-emphasized in favor of Incarnate Threads.
  • Shards still drop, but only apply to Alpha Slot abilities and purchasing Incarnate salvage to craft Alpha Slot Powers only.
  • Astral Merits are present in Incarnate Trials as rewards, as well as SSA Arcs as a once a week reward.
  • Notice of the Well is still offered for WST rewards. Apart from being one of three pieces of salvage to craft a T3 Alpha power, it can also be rolled over into 40 Incarnate Threads, and is the only way to make Favor of The Well (32 Shards + 2 Notice of The Well tokens) to craft a T4 Alpha power (or also to convert to 100 Threads: see Convert > Incarnate Shard > Upgrade).
  • All slots have recipes that use Incarnate Thread components, including Alpha, which has alternate Incarnate Thread recipes beneath the Incarnate Shard recipes in the same listings.
  • It is also possible to convert Incarnate Shards to Threads, but involves spending 1,000,000 INF per day to make 10 Shards into 10 Threads, or wasting Shards at a ratio of 2:1 (10 Shards can make 5 Threads, any time, fee-free.)
• Incarnate XP still needs to be collected to unlock slots, which now occurs with normal gameplay for a Level 50 character. Physical and Psychic Incarnate XP unlocks the first five slots, Alpha, Interface, Destiny, Judgement and Lore. Advanced Psychic Incarnate XP then begins to accrue to unlock Hybrid, which always unlocks last. XP Boosting, Patrol XP and server events are ignored: Incarnate XP awards separately from regular XP.
• Incarnate Trials are still available, but are no longer the only way to progress characters through Incarnate XP/development.
  • Any Level 50 eligible content drops Incarnate Shards and Threads.
  • The Veteran Levels system awards Incarnate Threads, Empyrean Merits, and other tokens for gameplay past Level 50 for 99 "Veteran Levels" worth of progress. At Level 100, the rewards stop and players need to seek other avenues for Incarnate progress.
  • Hamidon Raids now award 4 Empyrean Merits once per 16 hours on completion.
• Empyrean Merits are the primary reward currency for Incarnate Recipes past Tier 1 and Tier 2.
  • Tier 3 powers require one piece of Rare Incarnate Thread made salvage, costing 8 Empyrean Merits.
  • Tier 4 powers require one piece of Very Rare Incarnate Thread made salvage, costing 30 Empyrean Merits.
• The Entire Incarnate Salvage system (with one key exception below) is character-bound. Salvage, shards, threads, and tokens such as Notice/Favor of the Well are bound to a character, cannot be traded, and cannot be emailed to others or yourself.
  • EXCEPTION: If a character finishes their Incarnate progress and has excess Empyrean Merits, 50 at a time can be converted to a Transcendent Merit at any Merit Vendor and emailed to a character on the same account to use instead.

With all of that in mind, here's an explanation of how the Incarnate Powers "tech trees" work in-game.

How Most Recipes Work

Every Incarnate Slot Power Recipe has three components. As the power advances, the last ingredient increases in Rarity, with the highest power slot (Tier IV) requiring the "highest cost".

Every Incarnate Crafting Recipe (Regardless of Shards or Threads Used)

Tier I	Tier II	Tier III	Tier IV
Three Common Incarnate Salvage Pieces	Two Common Incarnate Salvage Pieces AND One Uncommon Incarnate Salvage Piece (Yellow)	Two Common Incarnate Salvage Pieces AND One Rare Incarnate Salvage Piece (Orange)	Two Common Incarnate Salvage Pieces AND One Very Rare Incarnate Salvage Piece (Purple)

Two take-aways from this:

1. You will ALWAYS NEED Common Salvage. Getting common drops can be disappointing, but each one saves components by either holding on to them for later recipes, or sidegrading them where it makes sense.
2. Only ONE Incarnate Salvage Piece is needed of the increased rarity for any power: you'll never need more than one Rare or one Very Rare to unlock the same power. (Got a Thaumic Resonator? You have a single Tier IV power slot unlocked with two common salvage components to go along with it.)

If you are new to the Incarnate System, it may help to take notes or map out a plan at first, as it is a lot of information to track.

Incarnate Abilities: Convert Window Notes

The Incarnate system is designed to push players to make costly mistakes, such as purchasing a T1 power when a T4 is already slotted. Doesn't harm a build, but it wastes resources.

Keep in mind the following:

Incarnate Shards and Incarnate Shard Salvage ONLY applies for the Alpha Slot.

Once Alpha Tier IV is unlocked, remaining Astral Merits and Incarnate Shards are best used for Thread Conversion. (Thread Components can unlock any power slot; Thread Recipes are further down the list on Alpha Slot powers. Scrolling down will reveal them.)

Salvage Types CANNOT be mixed.

Incarnate Shards CANNOT be used for Incarnate Thread Recipes and vice versa. This also applies to salvage made with shards, those pieces cannot be used in a Threads recipe or with Thread-made components. (And again, vice versa.)

Once Salvage has been crafted, sidegrade or breakdown are available, but always at a loss or cost.

It is important to craft only what you need to complete a recipe. (You may elect to do this for awarded Incarnate Salvage that you no longer need, i.e.: after completing Alpha Slot Tier IV, then earning an Essence of The Incarnate after a task force only to have broken it down to a shard to eventually become threads later.) This is more important around Tier III/Tier IV crafting where unused salvage has no benefit.

There's nothing stopping you from crafting Incarnate Powers anywhere.

Whereas doing a Respec in a Instanced map is usually a bad idea, Incarnate Salvage, slots and powers are all player-bound and cannot add/remove items in a Superbase Map. However, there is a cool-down period for the following cases:

• You just entered combat, so a 10 minute timer will count down after you are free of fighting to slot/reslot powers. (You can craft while this cooldown is being counted, but empty slots cannot be allocated during that time.)
• The power you tried to unslot is in the middle of an activation cooldown itself (i.e.: can't unslot a Judgement power after using it.) Let it reset back to being ready to fire again before switching it out.
• Crafting more than one Incarnate ability in rapid succession. (Same as an Auction House cooldown or claiming Character Items in Email too rapidly, essentially.)

The Hard(er) Way

Costs are NOT Cumulative except when mentioned at the end: each Tier power is required to be crafted to reach the next higher one, but salvage and currencies start from 0 each time.

Regardless of which recipe you choose to purchase (Power or Recipe Components), the costs per tier is always the same.

Tier 1

To Craft:
Three specific pieces of Common Incarnate Shard OR Incarnate Thread Salvage.

Cost:
Alpha Slot: 12 shards total for one Tier 1 power choice.
Other Slots including Alpha: 60 Threads total for one Tier 1 power choice.

Tier 2

To Craft:
Two specific pieces of Common Incarnate Shard OR Incarnate Thread Salvage (this will recur for the remaining Tiers as well),
AND
One specific piece of Uncommon Incarnate Shard OR Incarnate Thread Salvage for a total of three items.

Cost:
Alpha Slot: 20 Shards for one Tier 2 Power Choice.
Other Slots including Alpha: 100 Threads for one Tier 2 Power Choice.

Tier 3

Tier 3 powers are when Level Shifts (Alpha Slots) and Incarnate Shifts (Lore/Destiny Slots) start to apply, and it shows. Alpha and other slots diverge broadly here:

Alpha Slot Only
Two Pieces of Common Incarnate Shard Salvage, plus a Notice of The Well:

• If crafted, a Notice costs 12,500,000 INF, 40 Incarnate Shards, and requires crafting one each of the following Uncommon Salvage (each component also costing 8 shards each + 1 Common Salvage Piece at 4 shards resulting in 12 shards for each single item and altogether 48 shards for all four bought at once):
  • Drop of the Well
  • Incarnate Infused Nictus
  • Infinite Tessellation
  • Vanguard DNA Metamatrix
• Plus: 2 Common Shard Salvage Components for the Incarnate Recipe itself apart from the above. (8 Shards.)
• Or, what most players do: earn one for free at Level 50 by completing a Weekly Strike Target.

Other Slots including Alpha
Thread Recipes start to get harder, too, as well:
Two specific pieces of Incarnate Thread Salvage,
AND
One specific piece of Rare Incarnate Thread Salvage, made with:

• 25 million Influence
• 100 Incarnate Threads
• And one each of the Uncommon Incarnate Thread Salvage Items (at 60 Threads per piece at 240 Threads for all four at once:)
  • Cytolitic Infusion
  • Dimensional Pocket
  • Gluon Pocket
  • Worn Spellbook

Totals:
Alpha Slot: Crafted -- 12.5 mil INF, 56 Shards... or Earned Notice -- 8 Shards and 1 Notice of The Well.
Other Slots including Alpha: 25 mil INF, 340 Threads.

Tier 4

Whatever your feelings on Demon Lore Pets may be, this character is ready for Tier 4.

For Tier 4, there's two pieces of bad news.

1. You cannot progress to Tier 4 on any Slot without repeating the prior crafting path from Tier 1 through Tier 3 all over again, this time crafting the other half of the tree.

So Going Back Through Tier 1-3 a 2nd Time:
88 Shards on top of the prior Tier 1-3 crafting
OR
440 Threads and 25 Million INF on top of the prior Tier 1-3 crafting.

2. This is where the simplicity of methods inverts itself: the Alpha Recipe is the simpler one to understand than any Threads Recipe:

Alpha Slot Only
Two pieces of Common Incarnate Shard Salvage plus a Favor of the Well:

• 32 Incarnate Shards
• 2 Notice of The Wells

Favor of the Wells CANNOT be earned in-game, they must be crafted.

Other Slots Including Alpha
Like the Tier III counterpart above, another layer of complexity:
Two pieces of Common Incarnate Thread Salvage,
AND
One Very Rare Incarnate Salvage Component.

Each Very Rare Threads Salvage Component requires:

• 100 million INF
• One each of the Rare Thread Component Salvage items:
  • Ancient Texts
  • Exotic Isotope
  • Semi-Conscious Energy
  • Superconductive Membrane

Cumulative Totals

Incarnate Shards (Alpha Slot Only) Tier Level Shards Spent INF/Tokens Spent Tier I x2 24 Shards Tier II x2 40 Shards Tier III x2 (Crafting) 96 Shards 25 mil INF Tier IV 242 Shards 25 mil INF Total (Crafting) 498 Shards 50 mil INF Using NOTW x3 -386 Shards -50 mil INF Adjusted Total 112 Shards 0 INF

Incarnate Threads (Any Slot) Tier Level Threads Spent INF Spent Tier I x2 120 Threads Tier II x2 200 Threads Tier III x2 560 Threads 50 mil INF Tier IV 1,000 Threads 200 mil INF Total 1,880 Threads 250 mil INF Both tables ignore power choices: especially Tier II and higher, there are enough recipes listed for any valid combination of powers assuming Tier III left and right side choices are honored.

Looking at the totals above, one may think why they would bother with threads at all with such high totals, except for one detail: the drop rate for Incarnate Threads is considerably higher than Incarnate Shards. In the same time a player might be close to 20 Threads, they may see one shard appear in their inventory if they're lucky.

A Better Way...

Salvage Tables

There are a few places for Incarnate Salvage Tables, or Incarnate Salvage as a reward drop:

• Incarnate Arcs and Task Forces which offer Incarnate Salvage as a reward drop. Details in Incarnate Component.
• Incarnate Trials, which offer a full range of reward drops:
  • All Trials will offer drops of Common or Uncommon Salvage at the very least for any player who stays from start to finish (or if the Trial is completed; failed trials do not get reward tables.). For Behavioral Adjustment Facility and Lambda Sector Trial, only the first two tables are available to players.
  • Trials apart from Behavioral Adjustment Facility and Lambda Sector Trial have a higher chance to drop Rare and Very Rare tables in addition to Common or Uncommon Salvage.
  • Underground Trial completion is longer than the rest, therefore the Common/Uncommon Reward Table does not apply, guaranteeing a Rare or Very Rare reward table at the end.
• Completing any of the six arcs of the Dark Astoria zone (a.k.a.: the Death Incarnate expansion, arcs from "The Burden of The Past" through "The Choice of Hope - Part 2") has a chance for a Incarnate Salvage table of any variety.
  • Except Max. Repeating his missions (Chapter 3) gives nothing.
  • That's why The Choice of Hope is split into 2 parts. Each one has the same End of Arc Reward, so you still have six shots at a possible Rare Table.
  • If you find Heather Townsend's arc (The Burden of The Past) easier to speed run, you can do that. Unlike Task Forces diminishing returns does not affect Mission Arcs.

Salvage gained this way skips past crafting requirements dramatically, allowing players to complete Incarnate Crafting faster. The downside is this is placing trust in a Random-Number Generator and can take some time to have enough luck to receive the right piece.

Use Empyrean Merits

Empyrean Merits can speed up Tier 3 and Tier 4 Salvage Crafting with a simpler cost:

• 8 Empyrean Merits to craft one Rare Incarnate Thread Salvage item.
• 32 Empyrean Merits to craft one Very Rare Incarnate Thread Salvage item.

Empyrean Merits only work on Incarnate Thread recipes and cannot be traded or used to craft Notice of The Well/Favor of The Well tokens. (Although both tokens can be converted directly into Threads.) Another gentle reminder that types of salvage (Shard-based vs. Threads-based) cannot mix in a single recipe: be sure to carefully pick an Alpha Slot recipe of Thread Salvage and stick to it.

Adjusted Thread/Merits Overview

Knowing how hard it is to craft (or earn a drop of) Tier 4 Incarnate Salvage, this should be a sigh of relief.

Tier 1

To Craft:
Three specific pieces of Common Incarnate Thread Salvage.

Cost:
60 Threads total for one Tier 1 power choice.

Tier 2

To Craft:
Two specific pieces of Common Incarnate Thread Salvage,
AND
One specific piece of Uncommon Incarnate Thread Salvage for a total of three items.

Cost:
100 Threads for one Tier 2 Power Choice.

Tier 3

To Craft:
Two specific pieces of Common Incarnate Thread Salvage,
AND
8 Empyrean Merits to purchase a Rare Incarnate Thread Salvage component.

Cost:
40 Threads and 8 Empyrean Merits.

Tier 4

To Craft:
Two specific pieces of Common Incarnate Thread Salvage,
AND
30 Empyrean Merits to purchase a Very Rare Incarnate Thread Salvage component.

Cost:
40 Threads and 32 Empyrean Merits.

Cumulative Total

Empyrean Merits + Threads

Tier Level	Emp. Merits	Threads Used
Tier 1 x2		120 Threads
Tier 2 x2		200 Threads
Tier 3 x2	16 Emp.Mts.	80 Threads
Tier 4	32 Emp.Mts.	40 Threads
Total	48 Emp.Mts.	440 Threads

With 48 Empyrean Merits per Incarnate Slot used only on Tier III/IV X 6 Slots = 288 Total Empyrean Merits out of 400 in the Veteran Levels program. The remaining 112 left could become:

• 2,240 Threads (along with the 960 the first 11 Veteran Levels offers up) could be used on Tier I and II development.
• 2 Transcendent Merits (50 Empyrean Merits Each) to send to a new toon on the same account to kickstart their endgame once they reach Level 50.
• Or they could be simply banked. (Incarnate Salvage capacity limits are about 10,000 per item. If you have 10,000 Empyrean Merits, rolling them over to Transcendent Merits is necessary at that point.)

Mitigating Mistakes

Take advantage of Sidegrades.

This feature allows you to 'reroll' a salvage piece to a different one in the same level in case of a mistake made. This can be faster than waiting to earn/re-create missing salvage. Losing threads is less of a setback than losing merits, or waiting even longer to use the salvage for a different power/path.

Breakdowns on the other hand should be a last-resort.

If the salvage made can be used elsewhere in your Incarnate Slot plan, waiting to spend it is always better than breaking it down to component threads/shards at a loss.

Breaking down Incarnate Shard salvage when your Alpha Slot is finished is acceptable when you have no plans to unlock other Alpha Slot abilities. The same applies to Thread Salvage when you're waiting on your last Tier III and IV components to arrive.

There is no Undo.

Other than those two methods, salvage cannot ever be brought back to pre-crafting components. And any Incarnate Powers crafted are permanent (unless the power is consumed in Tier-to-Tier progress.)

Resist the urge to use Empyrean Merits for extra Threads.

It is strongly advised not to use Empyrean Merits to breakdown into Threads from the Veteran Levels rewards for the following reasons:

• Spending EMs on Tier III (Rare) and Tier IV (Very Rare) Incarnate Components is far cheaper than using Threads.
• Threads used for Tier III/IV salvage requires lots of steps and is wasteful vs. waiting for content that rewards EMs and only using them (within reason, you'll still need two common components per recipe.)
• Shards can be broken down into Threads (1:1 for 1,000,000 INF every 24 hours, 10 each. Or 2:1 for free anytime, or 10 Shards to 5 Threads each.) Unneeded Incarnate Shard salvage can be broken down into Shards for the same conversion as well.
• Astral Merits can be converted to 4 Threads per merit as well.
• Want a more frequent chance at Rare and Very Rare Tables instead of iTrials? DA Arcs all offer Incarnate Salvage random drops with each run, and can be done at anytime.

There should be enough Empyrean Merits in Veteran Levels 1-100 to attain Tier 4 in all six slots at least ONCE, with some left over in case of mistakes. The remainder have more value as Transcendent Merit use for other characters on your account if you do not wish to unlock any more Incarnate powers (for example; multiple builds with different Incarnate abilities for each build).

Conclusion

• Empyrean Merits work best on Tier III/IV Salvage purchases. They don't burn a hole in a pocket; save them. It's far easier to earn threads than Empyrean Merits.
• Doing missions for Reward Tables can also speed up progress, especially less common iTrials. (Lambda and BAF are easier to run than TPN, Underground, DD and Magi, but they reward less components and salvage as a result.)
• Caveat emptor. Follow a plan, and double check the salvage and the recipe on occasion to ensure it is needed. Waiting is easier than making a mistake.
• Respecs do not affect Incarnate Ability choices. (By design: for players happy with Level 1-50 play and IO/SO builds, the entire Incarnate/iTrial system is still able to be ignored. With subscription fees gone from City of Heroes, however, there's little reason for doing so for most players.)
• Players should study the Incarnate Slot Abilities. They should ask questions concerning abilities so there's less of a chance of buyer's remorse. Key difference across the 'tech tree'? The difference between Core and Radial powers of each choice, which lets players fine-tune their upgrades to a degree.
• Threads and Shards can work if nothing else is available, but the higher the Tier gets, the harder the crafting work becomes.