What Incarnate Powers should I take?

So I often hear 'What Alpha/Judgement/Destiny should I take for (insert build here)?' and the answer usually is 'It depends'.

Here I'm going to explain some of those dependencies. First thing most people should realize is that you -don't- need a super expensive IO build to be effective, and yes the game can be played on SOs but that gets boring. It's easy enough to gather 1-3 bil over the course of playing a level 50 character you enjoy for a couple months and fine tuning them into a powerful force on teams, the trick is finding out just how to do that.

Alpha Slots

There are 4 Alpha slots: Spiritual (Rech) Cardiac (EndRedux) Nerve (Acc) and Musculature (Dam). The Tier 4 of these ignores 2/3s of ED reduction, so essential if you get the 45% (Which most of the time you will be doing) you get an untouched 30% Shoved through ED on top of slotting in your power.

Spiritual: This is usually taken by someone trying to make something Perma with a really narrow margin of +Rech. Colds trying for Perma-Heatloss, Illusionists for Perma-Phantom Army, even Melee Builds just focused on getting tight attack chains. Usually you'll take this when you can manage your endurance with a click (Like Power Sink, Dark Consumption, Conserve Power) because generally this alpha makes your endurance consumption skyrocket. Big bonus: It has a +Heal component in it, making it super powerful for sets like Empathy, Fiery Aura, Regeneration, even Time. -Does not affect Domination-

Cardiac: This is a default Alpha for many builds because of its ability to just fix any endurance problems. There are builds in the game that given the chance to operate at peak efficacy with no endurance issues, are just plain stupidly powerful. Common builds that cant run without it include many /Shields Builds, SS/Fire Brutes, and debuff heavy and aggressive Corrupters like Fire/Rad, and Dominators as well. Has a bonus of +Res and +Range, a very nice general Alpha. If you can't maintain your endurance with this, something is really wrong.

Nerve: Accuracy Alpha. With IOs, I dont see any point to this Alpha. You just...never need to be able to consistently hit +8s anytime in the game, I've never used it and there aren't any serious builds that can use it.

Musculature: This IO is a bit less common than Spiritual or Cardiac, but is hyper useful none-the-less. An extra 30% Damage in your attacks is nothing to scoff at, especially since Damage and Recharge are almost interchangeable for DPS chains. Very powerful for certain builds (Illusionists) and for solo DPS numbers. Rule of thumb: Brutes usually benefit more from Spiritual, Scrappers from Musculature.

Coming soon...Destiny!

Thanks for laying that out. I came back to the game recently and was a little confused when I went after Grey Axiom's Alpha (Ill/Red controller). I went Spiritual, and now,with my other set bonuses,I'm just a few seconds away from Perma-PA.

Nerve also grants a bonus to Defense.....yes?

Nerve does grant a bonus to Defense, but there's never a time that the bonus it gives outweighs anything else you can get from Alphas. Using Nerve to try and defense cap yourself vs say using Cardiac to remove all your endurance woes or using Spiritual to obtain perma-hasten is just silly for the comparative cost of IOing. I think some of the Defense IOs are expensive (Kin Combat sets can run 200-250 mil a pop, Glads unique is 2bil+) but compared to the cost of getting Recharge or +Rec into your build it's not nearly as bad.