1) No. Feeding requires touch and the "at range" upgrade only upgrades Incite Emotion.
That's what I've been leaning towards, even just from a strict reading, but I wanted some input from the boards.
2) Use the Incite roll as the feeding's psychological attack and apply stress and/or consequences from that.
That part is pretty clear just from the text. What I meant was, a flamethrower is going to be inflicting consequences with a 'burned' theme, a knife is going to be inflicting consequences with a 'stabbed' or 'sliced' theme. What sort of theme does a consequence have when the stress is coming
solely from the feeding, and not from the inciting (even though they're both using the same roll)?
2b) Yes.
The (potential) problem that I see with that is that it removes (most of) the incentive to invest in Lasting Emotion, as a +2 to attack (using Incite Emotion for a maneuver) is almost always better than a +2 to damage. Further, not only do you not lose out on damage, then, but you're
also getting a maneuver that you can tag on the next turn, and will almost assuredly be sticky.
In the absence of Potent Emotion (a +4 to damage actually having a meaningful competitive chance against +2 to attack), then, Lasting Emotion seems to be a downgrade in almost all circumstances, with the only possible consistent exception being At Range