Young_Tutor

I haven't had time to do much teaming over the past week. My playtime has been in fits and bursts, mostly solo, in the morning over coffee or a little bit after work. Played a fair amount Saturday, but no new TFs on my Time/Electric.

What *did* I do? I ran the Signature Story Arc a few times to snag some hero merits, ditto with running tip missions to earn more hero merits. I used the O-zone to access the Echo of Galaxy Park for those badges. I joined up with a GM team that never got off the ground, but ended up going to Striga Island to earn the Silver Bullet and Slayer defeat badges. And I earned the Recieved the Atlas Medallion accolade (+5% endurance)! I recommend joining your servers global badge channel, it makes it easier to find cool stuff going on. I also ran a few AE missions to snag some tickets (not farms, its a time/electric defender). I am now level 25.

I continued my market strategy of "earn recipe memorization badges 25-30, craft and sell good ones for profit". At this point the ones I memorized weren't the ones that sold well, so I'm basically just doing it to get the extra salvage slots. I have all of them in that range but the jump, fly, run, range one. For the non-valuable ones, I'll put one up in the AH and if there are no bids, just delete it. For many of them, I just bought the recipes from the crafting table because I could use my AH slots for more valuable things. I worked on one badge at a time, to keep from clogging up my inventory. I continued to craft and sell common IOs with a decent level of demand. I had to take some some common IOs and relist them in order to get them to sell . . . I should have done it earlier, even though I lost a bit of my posting cost, I more than made it back by actually *getting them to sell* and being able to put more common IOs up on the market.

I had a conversation with a friend about my project, and his comment was basically "but you know so much about the market, that's not realistic for someone who doesn't know anything about what to do". And I guess on some level he has a point . . . even after buying and crafting my IOs (see below) I'm up to about 80 million now, which might seem outlandish for someone who *wasn't* familar with the market.

But that's the whole point of the project, to provide a case study for folks who might not yet know the ins and outs of the market or IOs, but are willing to learn a bit more. I'm not using bleeding edge farming or marketing strategies, but rather solid, middle of the road ones that don't involve esoteric knowledge. At least, that's what I'm *trying* to do.

I'm still lightly frankenslotted (not a whole lot of slots to spread around yet). My attacks are more heavily slotted since I'm soloing a lot. I've got my two single target attacks and ball lightning (TAOE) 5 slotted, with 30% ACC, 77% DAM, 48% RECH, and 62% End Reduction in the single targets and 35% ACC, 96% DAM, 41% RECh, and 16% End Red in the TAOE. My PBAOE is just 2-slotted at this point, with an ACC IO and a multistrike Dam/End/Red. I have a couple more Multistrike to put in, but am waiting till I have the slots to keep the acc up. My hold is frankenslotted with 3 acc/hold/rech for 48.7% to all. And my heal and +def powers have 2 Heal/Rech or Def/Rech for +40% to each. Pretty much all of the set IOs were purchased for under 55k, and many of them set me back only 10K.

I have grabbed a couple of sets, too. I have my debuff toggle 4 slotted with Dark Watcher's Despair (crafted at level 25 to avoid expensive salvage) and in my TAOE I have 4 Positron's Blast. Some of those recipes were cheap (10K) others I reached for (Posi triple, I'm looking at you). I have some outstanding bids on the Posi proc recipes that range in the low millions. I only have 3 of the Posi slotted because I'm concerned about keeping the overall enhancement value high, but when I have a 6th slot to dedicate to it, dudes is getting wrecked! With my hero merits, I bought crafted and slotted a Miracle +recovery and a LOTG +7.5% recharge. I also bought a Kismet +accuracy recipe for 500k and crafted it. I haven't yet slotted the Kismet or the LOTG.

Looking ahead, I want to get the Numina's +regen/+recovery proc ASAP to sort out my End woes, and do some bronze recipe rolls with my AE tickets once I hit 30. Less soloing and more teaming will be great, and it will be nice to get extra slots to spread around! Thanks for reading.

Housekeeping: I haven't played much this week, just maybe a mission or two in the evening. I've tried to log in in the morning to check WWs before work over coffee. Things have slowed down since the weekend.

I moved many of my slots from selling common IOs to placing bids for set recipes for frankenslotting. This cut down on my crafted IO turnover, and the with the weekend shopping spree over, my river of incoming influence has dwindled to a trickle. That's okay for my purposes, I've got more than enough inf for the time being. Not a lot of recipes out there for frankenslotting; I've got several for around 11k and I'm patching in the rest with common IOs or SOs.

Tips: I ran several tips missions, haven't done the morality arc yet! I also got an alignment merit from the SSA. I will be using AMs to get expensive IOs (I splurged on the performance shifter proc with my first AM, because endurance was bugging me. I think it probably would have been smarter to save up for the Miracle +recovery, but it will all work out).

A couple of things I forgot in the first post: grabbed an O-portal and did the Spelunker badge mission, I also grabbed all the explo and history plaques for AP, KR, Skyway, and Steel and did the Midnighter's arc.

I hope to have more playing time over the weekend and more interesting things to update!

For Issue 21, I rolled a Time/Electric Defender. I wanted to see how hard it was to get some wealth and a nice build playing as if I were someone who 1.) didn't have an extensive knowledge of the market or IOs and 2.) was willing to read threads on the Market Forum with the intent of gaining more knowledge about how to make a better-than-SO-build without too much trouble or effort. My intent is to be a slacker version of the Zero to Awesome thread. No pictures because I am lame.

To start, I saved my big inspiration from the tutorial. After doing the first couple of missions, I sold it at WWs for 100,000 influence. I then placed bids of 11 inf for common and uncommon salvage that had a lot for sale and zero bids. I collected the ones that filled instantly, and ran over to a vendor to sell them for profit. Then I went out and fought crime, occasionally stopping by the market to grab my loot and put up fresh bids.

[Why this works: many people can't be bothered to run to vendor their stuff, and just sell everything on the market to make room for better stuff. There are badges for selling lots of things. I was basically a cockroach, cleaning up the things that got dropped on the floor.]

When I finished for the first night, I had worked my way up to Twinshot's arc. I didn't run the Death From Below Trial (only played a little bit). Before I logged, I set up bids for unwanted level 50 rare recipes of 1111 inf.

The next night when I logged on I had a ton of rare recipes filled. I vendored them, placed new bids, and ran Twinshot's first arc. I did some newspaper missions in KR and did the bank mission to get the free travel power. Then I ran Death From Below. When I was done, I vendored the bids that came in and placed new ones on common IO recipes that sold for well below vendor price. I took a look at level 15 common recipes to see if there were any I could use that I had salvage for, and bought what was on the market and the rest from the crafting table. Then I logged.

Next session I collected by goodies, put out bids for more common IO recipes, did Twinshots second arc, and sold the harvest as it came in. Here's where I changed my formula a bit. There are badges for memorizing common IO recipes. The badge for memorizing level 45-50 recipes gives you a bonus recipe storage slot, and the badge for memorizing level 25-30 recipes gives you 2 bonus salvage storage slots. Plus, when a recipe is memorized you can craft it without a recipe and at a discount to crafting cost!

The previous two nights I had been making money by skimming through common salvage and IO recipes to see what was cheap. I could also see what *wasn't* cheap. Paragonwiki has a page with the crafting badges and the number you need to craft in order to earn them here http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Invention_Badges . My goal was to take my 4-5 million nest egg and memorize some useful recipes (ACC, RECH, DAM, END RED, etc). I did them one badge at a time, placing bids for an appropriate number of recipes and salvage and waiting for it to fill. Then I listed the IOs priced to sell *slightly* below crafting cost. While I was waiting for bids to come in and for inventory to clear, I did Twinshot's third arc and ran a Positron TF.

To be honest, this worked really really well for me, I was surprised at how lucrative it was. For memorized recipes that use inexpensive salvage, the profit margin is pretty high. I varied between buying stuff to memorize new recipes, and padding my bankroll selling IOs I had already memorized. I'd do a couple of missions, then drop by the market to see what sold, get what came in, and put new stuff up. It isn't the stuff that Ebil Marketeers bother with, but by the end of the weekend my bank was up to 30 million.

I dinged 20, started running missions in First Ward, and put in some lowball bids for IO set recipes with the intent of Frankenslotting. I'll update this when I hit 22 and get my initial frankenslotted build together.

IOs are a different story. You don't need them, you can be fine without them, and unless you want to spend a lot of money to buy crafted IOs they require you to use the crafting system (and likely also use the market to get recipes and salvage). If this is *not* something that you enjoy, you can stick to SOs and do fine.

But if you don't mind rolling up your sleeves and learning a bit about the system, you can do some neat stuff even without shooting for the top dollar items. Others have mentioned "frankenslotting" and I'll give you one of my favorite examples of what you can do. The Focused Smite melee set tops out at level 40 and has an Acc/Dam/Rech and an Acc/End/Rech recipe in it. The salvage could cost more than the recipes, the recipes can be had cheap (right now there are many for sale with no bids, I got one for 11k and another for 1k and reposted them for 1 inf). Each one gives +19.3% to all aspects. So if you craft those two you can replace one ACC SO and one Rech SO and get an extra bit of Dam and End for free! If you already had 3 DAM slotted, you are over the ED cap in Dam, so you can replace one of your DAM with a DAM/RECH or a DAM/END IO (again, look for something cheap). At this point your power now has a bit more than 7 slots of power in 6 slots. Frankenslotting can be a very cheap way to get extra power out of your characters (it works *great* for controllers using multiple acc/hold/recharge IOs).

If you want to kick it up a notch, take a look at the Crushing Impact set. Crushing Impact tops out at level 50 and its more expensive than Focused Smite, but put that aside for the moment. It has 3 triple recipes, ACC/DAM/RECH, ACC/DAM/END, and DAM/END/RECH. If you replaced an ACC, a DAM, and a RECH with those 3 IOs, you'd get 1 ACC, 1.5 DAM, 1 END, and 1 RECH . . . 4.5 slots of power in 3 slots! Not bad, and you'd get a set bonus to health (you also get a set bonus to immoblize resist, but that's not really something to write home about). You can put in two of the other IOs to get the +7% global accuracy bonus and the +5% global recharge, and still have one slot left over to make sure that damage was capped. You can stack up to 5 of the same value/type bonus.

Okay, so how to make the price work for you? The price of Crushing Impact recipes fluctuates over the course of a week or so. Some people pay the "BUY IT NAO" price. If you put up several bids over a range of levels (say 41-49) of 100-200k or so, you'll get likely get several in a week. Craft them all, use what you need, and put the rest on the market with a sell price of a million or so. You'll come out ahead. Level 40 recipes use more expensive salvage, level 50s cost twice as much influence to craft. With a bit of effort and patience, you can get a set of Crushing Impacts for maybe 2 million tops.

Again, if that's not something you wish to explore, you can be perfectly okay with just SOs. The IO system isn't totally straightforward, there is a learning curve. But it isn't rocket science and it doesn't require a ton of brainpower or influence to make it work and have a pretty significant impact on your character. You don't need a bunch of purples or the most expensive recipes/IOs to enjoy the benefits.

I'm late to the party too, but I wanted to give you some advice and amplify things that other people already mentioned. As everyone has said, yes you *can* do nearly everything with SOs but until you have the Alpha slot unlocked (which you do) you can't participate in Tin Mage or Apex TFs and until you have something equiped in the Alpha slot you'll be -4 to mobs on those TFs (which are level 54, so you'll be -8 with nothing equiped). On the other hand, when you have a Tier 3 Alpha equiped, you'll have a level shift . . . you'll be 50+1 against everything, over and beyond the other benefits of the Alpha Slot Ability.

This is the one of the most direct and straightforward things you can do to improve a character at 50. To get a Tier 3 Alpha, you basically just need to run certain TFs . . . ITF, Kahn, STF, LGTF, Cathedral of Pain, or Hamidon and RWZ Mothership Raids (MSRs don't give components directly but do give lots of Vanguard Merits which can be exchanged in the Vanguard Base for an Incarnate Component; Hami Raids give a choice of 4 incarnate shards which can be combined into your choice of component). The Tier 1 Alpha needs just 3 components, so figure out which one you want (and folks would be happy to discuss which one would be best for a particular character) do a couple of TFs, and you are rocking and rolling! While doing the TFs, you'll also get shards to drop (which can be combined to make components if you don't feel like/can't/aren't willing to re-run TFs). At some point you'll need to do the Weekly TF to get a Notice of the Well which is required for the Tier 3. If you do each of those TFs once + a WTF you'll have most of what you need, you might need to re-run one or two.

I must admit, that's not the most *straightforward* system. There are a lot of moving parts, its cumbersome, sure. But it isn't particularly *difficult*. And for the most part, TFs are pretty casual friendly. You can do them all on SOs. And you don't have to do very many of them to get your Alpha slot equipped (even to Tier 3).

To get your other Incarnate Slots unlocked (and equipped) you'll need to run Incarnate Trials. Currently there are 4 of them in the game. Two of the (Lore and Destiny) will give Incarnate Level Shifts, similar to the level shift you get from alpha, but Incarnate Level Shifts are only active when doing Incarnate content. You'll get incarnate experience (which unlocks the slots) and also the various rewards needed to craft incarnate abilities for each slot.

If you don't want to be all grindy, once you have your Tier 3 alpha you can pretty much go ahead and run any of the incarnate trials. You don't need to have anything unlocked or equipped. You get Astral Merits and Empyrean Merits as well as Incarnate Threads and a random Incarnate component at the conclusion of each trial. You can convert Astral and Empyrean Merits to Threads, which you can convert to components of your choice. I don't know if running all 4 trials will unlock all the slots and give you enough stuff to craft tier 3s in Lore and Destiny (for incarnate level shifts), but it will get you darn near close and if you don't plan on running those trials again it really won't matter if you don't have incarnate level shifts. If you did each trial twice, I imagine you'd unlock all the slots and have enough components (converting your merits to threads and threads to components) to create several incarnate abilities. Some of it depends on luck with the random component drops of course.

Unless you are obsessing over min-maxing or want to run a lot of incarnate content, there is no reason to *worry* about Incarnate slots beyond getting a Tier 3 alpha and getting whatever you can get via running the 4 current trials twice. And while I'll agree with you that all the different components, shards, etc are confusing and not super-intuitive, they aren't hard to get and don't require a ton of grinding the same content over and over again.

1.) If you would like to have multiple IOed out characters, you owe it to yourself to check out the market forum. There are a lot of strategies that involve putting in bids and waiting for them to get filled. Since you have multiple characters that you are playing every now and again, this could be a good way to keep your influence topped off.

2.) You can get a huge amount of bang for buck just by Frankenslotting or using cheap sets. Will the set bonuses be "the best"? No. But they'll be pretty darn good. Crushing Impact, Thunderstrike, Multi-Strike, etc they all have good enhancement value *and* adequate set bonuses. You can generally save a ton of money by avoiding level 50 set IOs and picking whatever is cheapest from 41-49. The difference in enhancement value is not that significant.

3.) You can get some of the expensive IOs by doing tip missions for alignment merits.

This is more a forum to *post* guides rather than ask for tips. I haven't seen a guide specifically about purple recipes, but here's a link to ParagonWiki's page listing the different purple recipes:

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Category:Sets_for_level_50

And here's one for the PVP recipes:

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Category:PvP_Sets

These recipes/IOs tend to be *extremely* expensive. If you are currently using common IOs and are not a multibillionare, I would recommend you first consider cheaper options such as frankenslotting, using the more useful uncommon sets, getting the very useful single IOs like Miracle +recovery or LOTG+7.5% recharge, etc.

Thinking about it some more, Dark and Rad have several advantages especially considering your exemping goal is to be a "mentor" type to fellow SG members. Both have a really solid toolkit of versitile powers available when exemped down to 15 (level 20 for a secondary). I'm not going to discuss post level 20 powers as they would not be available if the set was taken as a secondary while exemped down to the lowest level TFs.

1.) Heals. Dark has a beefy pbaoe heal that requires a to-hit check, Rad has an adequate pbaoe heal. Both require you to stand near whoever you heal. At higher levels when people are more developed, direct healing might not be a big deal, but on lower level teams its nice to have.

2.) -res, -dam, and -regen. Both Dark and Rad can debuff resistance, damage, and regeneration. This is particularly useful against AVs (which are featured on many TFs and Trials). Many folks don't use their -regen debuffs, which is *insane*. Spam Lingering Radiation, Twilight Grasp, and Howling Twilight against AVs! Rad's -res power is a toggle, Darks is a patch.

3.) -to-hit. Both Rad and Dark have accuracy debuff powers. Both have toggles that debuff acc, and Dark has that as a secondary effect of some of its other powers. This helps keep your teammates from getting hit.

4.) Defense: Rad doesn't have any native way to boost team defense. Dark has Shadow's Fall which gives +DEF to all, and additional resistance to energy, psionic, and dark. Plus Stealth. Its nice.

5.) Recovery/Recharge: Dark doesn't do anything for you here. Rad has Accellerated Metabolism, which gives +recovery and +recharge, as well as +damage and +movement speed.

6.) Soft control: Rad has Lingering Radiation, a slow. Dark has an AOE slow, an AOE disorient, *and* a cone fear.

7.) Rez: both sets have a rez.

I'm a big fan of Rad, but I think unless you are trying to chase a ton of recharge Dark just gives you more opportunity to "mother hen" lowbies. You've got ways of debuffing damage and to-hit that aren't dependent on toggles, and you have also have better soft control. You can stack some small but meaningful defense and resistance (slot for defense though) and get a *group* stealth power for free.

Some things I would keep in mind for this project:

1.) What's my budget? Is the sky the limit, or are you trying to get biggest bang for buck?

2.) How low do I want to go? The lowest level TF is Positron, you'll be exemped to level 15 (which means you'll have access to powers at level +5 [20] and set bonuses +3 [18].

3.) How far *up* do I want to extend my build? This is kind of a weird concept, but if you have a build that you will *only* use for exemping then power picks above your max target level will be used only for set bonuses.

While exemplared, powers that are greyed out *still give set bonuses* if you are within 3 levels of the IOs in that set. So if you took Vengence at level 49 and put in a level 25 LOTG+recharge, you'd have that 7.5% bonus down to level 22. Or if you took a PPP pet power and put in 4 level 18 Call To Arms, you'd have the set bonuses on Positron.

4.) Do I want to chase set bonuses, max the enhancement value of each power, or some combination of the two?

The way exemplaring affects enhancements can be tricky, and you want to make sure you understand how each piece fits together. Some IOs act like set bonuses (LOTG +7.5% recharge) where you don't need access to the power but the level of the IO is important; others act like procs (Miracle +recovery) and the level doesn't matter so long as the power its in is active.

Putting it altogether, Rad has a couple of advantages going for it that others haven't mentioned. To start, you've got 2 holds post-20 (on a corruptor, Choking Cloud at 28 and EMP at 38). You could use those as places to mule level 18 Basilisk's Gaze 4-slotted (and you could use the cheapest ones you could find since the powers wouldn't matter) for very nice bonuses. Fallout is another power that many people find situational, but it can take a bunch of different sets! The accurate to-hit debuff and accurate def debuff sets have some nice bonuses @ level 18.

Dark doesn't offer as many options for chasing lower level set bonuses, but still has some good ones. It has 1 hold, a stun, a fear, a pet, and lots of to-hit debuff powers. Depending on your playstyle, it might be a little more well rounded than Rad, particularly when it comes to having a lot of different tools in the toolbox. If you were looking to get +recharge set bonuses, Rad probably has the nod because you get a hand from AM; Dark has shadows fall for extra stealth.

With Fire, I'd expect the gameplan to be abusing ROF and Fireball. There aren't a lot of secondary effects or control in fire, its a straight damage set. The only things to consider would be that there aren't many ranged or TAOE sets with good bonuses under level 20. Some other sets might give you more options for chasing set bonuses (ice has 2 holds and also has a rain power, etc).

There are a lot of ways to think about exemping!

For trials, couple of observations first:

Choosing an AT or powersets *only* with trials in mind is kind of limited. Trials are only one part of the game. And in general, the hard part about trials is knowing how they work. Unless someone is going for a badge, most folks are terribly fussy about who gets drug along on a trial. Its not like you have to be optimized to make a contribution, be invited, have fun, etc. The best way to be a great raid character is to learn to play your character and get the most out of your powers, understand the game, etc. A cookie-cutter build of "the best" isn't likely to translate into awesome raid performance.

That said, if its all the same to you and you're interested in what sorts of things are nice in trials, here's my $0.02.

My general sense is that Masterminds and Stalkers are sometimes the weak sisters on trials. Not trying to bag on them, I'm sure there are folks who love them on trials. And on certain trials, the pets/control powers of controllers and dominators are not always useful (but of course are much more useful/noticible in non-trial activities).

Blasters = more damage, which is always not bad (well, except in the phase of the Keyes Trial where you aren't supposed to attack the AV at all :-) ). But they are pretty squishy, so risk/reward.

Debuffers/Buffers: corruptors and defenders combine buff/debuff support sets with ranged damage. On large teams, the impact of well used debuffs can far outstrip the extra damage brought by an extra blaster. Some sets have -regeneration, which is nice to use on AVs. Dark and Rad have very well-rounded sets of buff/debuff and I find both fun sets to play. Many people enjoy traps (I find it okay personally). Other sets have their fans. From a min/max perspective as far as ranged damage sets, Sonic and Fire are nice, Ice has some extra control, I enjoy Dark Blast. Ideally you'd get a set with some nice AOEs and a control or two, maybe a good secondary effect.

Melee: I'll second that you want a resistance based defense set with a self heal. Electricity has high energy resists, and you see a lot of energy damage in trials. I'd also recommend a non-smashing/leathal attack set (S/L tends to be resisted more than other damage types).

If you are looking for a duo, I'd go either 1 melee/1 buff/debuff or 2 buff/debuff. If you wanted to go 2 melee, don't feel like you *have* to have a debuffer, but as a debuffer I've *never* felt unwanted or unappreciated on teams who know what's up. If you rolled up a Brute and a debuff/buff Defender, you've got the nucleus of a fantastic team and can basically invite whoever and shift roles based on whatever you have. Tank, scrap, heal, blast, etc.

My main is a Rad/Dark. Its a fun combo, not as other have said not a ton of synergy but two very strong sets.

For Rad, the core powers are Accelerate Metabolism, Rad Infection, Enervating Field, Lingering Rad, and Radiant Aura. Mutation is a nice rez if you want one, some folks love choking cloud (it needs a lot of slots to shine), I *love* EMP. EF needs 2 END if you plan on running it a lot, RI is good out of the box but is worth slotting up when you get the chance. LR put in an ACC and a RECH and call it a day (it debuffs regeneration, so be sure to spam it during AV fights). RA is not the biggest heal in the game, but it ain't nothing to sneeze at. EMP also debuffs regeneration, so if you can manage to control the recovery debuff, its worth using against AVs (I use power boosted conserve power from my APP before EMPing to keep my toggles up). I like the idea of Fallout, but in practice it ends up being a wasted spot for me.

Dark Blast is a pretty solid set. It does to-hit debuff as a secondary effect, which isn't the worst thing in the world. It has 2 pretty decent cone powers, Tenebrous Tentecles and Night Fall. TT is also an immobilize, and screams for some frankenslotting (throw a couple of cheap level 25 acc/imm/rech IOs in there). I like gloom as a second single-target attack. I never used Dark Pit as a go-to power, but it would be a good way to get the drop on painful LTs or minions that can mez the crap out of you before you get all your debuffs in place (plus you can put the Stupify IO set in for some sweet bonuses). I find Torrent situationally useful, Life Drain really isn't needed with RA, not a fan of snipes, and Blackstar just wasn't as fun for me as EMP.

I'd start out with something like this:

Level 1: Radiant Aura
Level 1: Dark Blast
Level 2: Gloom
Level 4: Rad Infection
Level 6: Travel Pick (or just get a Jetpack Temp power and take AM)
Level 8: Accelerate Metabolism
Level 10: Enervating Field
Level 12: Lingering Rad
Level 14: Travel Pick (or maybe Hasten etc if you are going Jetpack route)
Level 16: Tenebrous Tentecles
Level 18: Free Slot (maybe Dark Pit, or whatever strikes your fancy)
Level 20: Night Fall

Even with AM, those toggles will take a lot out of you till you get SOs. Put a couple of slots in Stamina, and don't be afraid to frankenslot a bit of end reduction into stuff you spam a lot (ie replace a Damage SO and a Recharge SO with two different cheap level 25 or higher DAM/END/RECH IOs). EF *needs* 2 End Reduction.

Developing it further, Rad/Dark *loves* some good recharge. You can get Perma-Hasten and Perma-AM (or close enough) if you want it. The extra recharge lets you skimp on slotting LR (as does any +ACC you get) and helps tighten up your attack chain (at permahasten level, you can pretty much spam gloom/DB on single targets or TT/NF on groups without a gap). A little extra +def doesn't hurt, given you already have a substantial amount of To-Hit debuffs.

In teams, you have so many tools you probably won't be able to "set up" everything before you are onto the next group. If things are really flying, I'll just use LR, NF, and TT and not even bother with the toggles. If the fights are a little slower, I'll throw out EF first, and then maybe RI if I'm having to heal. AV fights RI, EF, LR and then I'll cycle through my attacks (while keeping an eye on anyone I need to spot heal) reapply LR, and use EMP as often as I can without dropping toggles (having some inspirations handy helps).

Solo, play it by ear. You've got a lot of tools to keep yourself safe, and a heal in case things really get out of hand. With both EF and RI running, you effectively gain a level on your foes. You've got LR to slow things down. Dark Pit can preemptively take care of mezzers. AM keeps you running faster, lasting longer, and hitting harder. Its pretty fun.

If you are looking for something more basic, here's my rule of thumb for slotting:

1.) You start getting severely diminishing returns when you have 3 SOs slotted (~95%). So don't plan on slotting more than 3 of any one SO in a power.

2.) You'll therefore probably have 3 DAM SOs in your attacks. You'll probably want at least 1 ACC in there, maybe 2 if you are fighting higher level mobs. Long-recharging powers could benefit from some RECH SOs, END heavy ones END reduction.

3.) For armor toggles, this probably means that 1 END/3 DEF/DAM Reduction would be sufficient (depending on what you are getting out of the toggle, you could probably get by on much less . . . I wouldn't 4-slot combat jumping, for example).

4.) There's a pretty big shift around level 22 when you get access to SOs. Before SOs, I usually don't bother to slot damage in attacks, instead emphasizing acc, recharge, or end reduction.

5.) I tend to put the most slots in powers I use a lot. Some powers work fine with just one or two slots.

6.) Other folks have mentioned "frankenslotting" and I am a big fan of it, especially for when you are leveling up. Its slightly more complex than just using SOs, and to do it cheaply involves learning a few of the ins and outs of the market and crafting.

7.) And, as a last note slotting out your character can be expensive. A little time intelligently poking around the market forum can give you some easy tips on how to build a small bankroll so you don't have to worry about expenses.

1.) A "build" refers to the powers you have chosen and the slots you have assigned to those powers. A "respec" is when you make changes to a build.

2.) Each character can have up to 3 different builds (the second is available at level 10, the third at level 50 after running Mender Ramiel's arc).

3.) Sounds like what you want is to switch costumes more than switching builds.

4.) You have to talk with a trainer in order to switch builds.

5.) Deleting a character and redoing it altogether (perhaps as a different AT or with different powersets) is called "rerolling".

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Multiple_Builds

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Power_Respecification

A couple of things I'd look at doing (and bear in mind I have minimal experience with DP):

1.) Look at switching some slots around. If you mainly solo, do you really need 3 slots in Deflection Shield and Insulation Shield? You have as many slots in Supressive Fire (minor damage disorient) as you do in Dual Weild (your main single target attack at this level). If you are having problems with endurance, Stamina should be 3-slotted. The enhancements you slot will have a big imact, too . . . if endurance is a problem, an END reduction in an attack would help out (at the expense of whatever else you'd have in there though. Tradeoffs).

2.) Right now if you are using level 20 DOs you are getting 15% out of each enhancement (well, not for DEF, but for ACC, DAM, etc). When you slot level 25 SOs at level 22, you'll get 38% out of each enhancement. That's a pretty big jump in power. Gutting it out will solve *some* of your problems.

3.) But you don't have to wait, really. You can use a technique called "frankenslotting" to get greater-than-+3 SO-level power *right now*. Here's how: use set IOs for their enhancement value, not their set bonuses. For example, I'm guessing in Dispersion Bubble you might have 1 END and 2 DEF slotted right now? So 1 END level 20 DO is giving you 15% and 1 DEF level 20 DO is giving you 9%? A single level 24 DEF/END IO will give you +11% DEF and +19% END. If you use 2 level 24 DEF/END IOs from 2 different sets you won't get any set bonuses, but you'll get pretty much the same enhancement value as from using +3 SOs in the same amount of slots . . . and they will never expire or degrade in value.

Or take your TAOE powers. I'm guessing you have at least 1 ACC, 1 DAM, and maybe some other things in there? If you replace 1 ACC and 1 DAM with 1 ACC/DAM/END and 1 ACC/DAM, you'll have about 35% ACC and DAM (basically +2 SO level) with a whopping dollop of 15% END thrown in for free! Let's say your other two slots were a DAM and a RECH. Slot 2 DAM/RECH and you are at +3 SO level. You can do even *more* tricks with powers that take ranged sets; especially at level 25, many triple IOs are available, giving +16%/+16%/+16%. Replacing 1 dam and 1 rech with 2 DAM/END/RECH IOs is a great way to deal with endurance problems. Since your attacks could benefit from extra ACC, DAM, END, and RECH, using triples can effectively allow you to 7 or 8 slot your powers. You can get in some extra END reduction without skimping on damage, accuracy, recharge.

The key to frankenslotting is to do it on the cheap. Place patient bids for recipes and salvage, and craft them yourself. Don't go for expensive IOs, you aren't looking for set bonuses, just value for money. Don't be in a rush, Rome wasn't built in a day. It does take a bit of up-front INF to use this strategy, but the IOs never expire.

3.) Consider using tip missions to earn Alignment Merits which you can use to purchase expensive IO recipes. Three of the top of my head that would help out your situation would be the Kismet +acc (actually +to-hit, which is better) the Performance Shifter chance for +End, and the Miracle +rec unique.

4.) The Recieved the Atlas Medallion accolade badge will give you +5 end. You can earn it at your level, but you might need some help for the warwolves and vampires.

Just a couple of ideas, let me know if you have any questions about them!

For all around fun and effectiveness, I'd go Dark or Rad for your primary. Both sets solo well and also are very useful on teams. They are well-rounded, you have a heal but also have a variety of buffs/debuffs and soft control. A lot of their powers are pretty darn good straight out of the box, they just get *better* when well-slotted.

As far as the Acc/Dam in GD, you could use any acc/dam. A level 40 ruin would probably be cheap if you bought the recipe and crafted it yourself, its only slightly worse than a level 50 acc/dam.

If you get a stealth IO and put it in sprint (will take either the run stealth or leaping stealth) and combine that with steamy mist, that would pretty much get you full invisibility. Superspeed + steamy mist would work also.

As far as caps &etc, your enemies always have a 5% chance to hit you and you always have a 5% chance to miss your enemies. So beyond a certain point, more defense or more accuracy is wasted (unless you are debuffed, the enemies are much higher, etc). For defense, 45% is considered the softcap. It can be hard to get to 45% to everything, so many non-def based characters will pick one type or position and get to 45% against that (ie 45% vs ranged, 45% vs S/L, etc). Another concept would be to shoot for 32.5% in a couple of different areas, that way with a single small purple inspiration, you'd be at the softcap. And of course, even a relatively small amount of +def is useful to someone like a controller, who hopefully won't be taking large amounts of aggro. Steamy Mist gives you some +def, you could suppliment it with the steadfast protection +3% def . . . nowhere near the softcap, but would give you a bit more breathing room. Even if you aren't going for the softcap, if you can easily pick up some +def without giving up something major, its nice.

As far as numbers for +regen, in order to be permanent, hasten needs 275% recharge. Hasten itself gives 70% recharge, and 3 SOs will add about 95%, so that brings you to 165% . . . 110% short. You can easily fit 3 or so LOTG +rech in your build (affording them might be another story) and its 7.5% bonus can be stacked up to 5x. You can also get 5 *more* 7.5% bonuses from other sets, so a max of 10 +7.5%. You can get up to 5 6.25% bonuses, and you have *several* different powers that can give you this bonus. I'd take a look at stupefy in stuns . . . 6 slotted it gives you ranged defense, recharge, health, recovery, and a stun bonus. Eyeballing your build, with a few minor tweaks to slotting you could get about +70% easy, and you could hit 110% if you reworked it to slot 5 LOTG +rech and 5 7.5% sets, or invested in purples.

The 65 million INF question is "do you need perma-hasten?" And the answer might well be "no". Will a few seconds downtime make a huge difference? The more *other* big, slow recharging powers you have, the more you want to get towards 110%. You definately want as much recharge as you can get without making significant tradeoffs (ie, throw a LOTG +rech in hover) but depending on how you play, +80% might be close enough to what you need.

Big picture you want to think about your key powers and what you bring to teams, how you enjoy playing, major weaknesses etc . . . and come up with something that maximizes your strengths while shoring up your weaknesses. A lot of it depends on how you want to play.

So essentially you are looking to build a character that will perform well while exemped down to level 15.

1.) You'll have access to all powers obtained through level 20.
2.) You'll have access to all set bonuses for IOs level 18 or lower (LOTG +rech and other globals act as set bonuses) even if you *don't* have access to that power.
3.) You'll have access to most procs (including Numina +regn/rec, etc) if you can use the power even if the IO itself is level 50.
4.) Enhancement values for your powers will tend to degrade from what they are at your natural level according to a formula (enhancements that give 10% or less are not affected at your level).
5.) Purple and PVP IO set bonuses are not affected by exemplaring.

This would be how I'd go about juicing things up:

1.) Powers available *after* level 20 get slotted with level 18 sets (or purples, if you have access to them). So Spectral Terror gets Unspeakable Terror 5-slotted, Phantasm gets Call to Arms 4 slotted with 18s. You'll get those set bonuses, even though you don't get the power. Ditto with Choking Cloud and EMP, those both get 4 slotted with level 18 Basilisk's Gaze.

2.) Make sure you have procs like Performance Shifter in Stamina, Numina and Miracle in Health, Stealth IO, Kismit +ACC, etc. Doesn't matter if those are level 50. They'll work as long as you have that power while exemplared. They're procs.

3.) Anti-Knockback IOs, Steadfast +Def . . . they'll work in greyed out powers, but only if you have them at level 18 or lower. There are no level 18 LOTGs, so that's out. You probably don't need both invisible powers and might want to swap out one or both of them for superspeed.

4.) Powers *under* level 20 . . . I'd consider frankenslotting using IOs to take advantage of no degradation under 10% . . . level 17 quads, level 15 triples, level 12 doubles. I haven't played around with that enough to know exactly how much enhancement degradation you are avoiding, but you could experiement.

5.) I'd also strongly look at getting proctastic in attacks, since procs work at any level. Again, details matter, but at those levels I usually slot more for acc and rech rather than damage. Something to consider.

1.) Go to the market forums and learn how it works and figure out a couple of basic strategies for using it to increase your INF. There is a learning curve, but if you put a small amount of time and effort into it you will have more INF than you know what to do with. The basic truth of the market in COX is that *patience* is the most valuable commodity. The next big truth is that level 50s have *great* earning potential. You already have a level 50, so really all you need is patience :-)

If money is no object, skip ahead; I'm assuming you don't already have an infinite amount of cash to blow. I am assuming that you will either buy the recipes yourself on the market, or generate them via ticket rolls, AM rolls, merit rolls, etc. Buying crafted IOs is for *suckers* unless you get them below crafting costs.

2.) I'm assuming you have *no* IOs right now. If so, you'll get your biggest bang-for-buck by "frankenslotting" (using set IOs for their enhancement value, not their set bonuses, especially slotting 2 of the same kind of IO from 2 different sets). Budget Tip: level 49 set IOs are way cheaper to craft than level 50 set IOs. Let me give you an example. Say you have a hold power slotted 2 acc, 2 hold, and 2 rech. If you slot 2 level 50 (49 if you can get them cheap) acc/hold/rech IOs, you get more than 3 slots of SO power out of 2 slots. Amazing! . . .but it gets better! You have 4 slots left, and more tricks to play. You can drop down to some of the level 30 IO sets for more acc/hold/rech, you can switch to hold/rech or acc/hold and look for some dam/end/rech or acc/dam/end triples, etc.

What you are looking to do is especially take powers that accept more than one type of set IO and benefit from more than one type of enhancement value. With thoughtfulness you can cheaply *9* slot a power. We aren't talking about hard-to get recipes, use cheap ones for this stage of the game. Biggest bang for the buck. For some powers (ie confuse, etc) skip directly to step 3.

2.) Next up (IMO) are the useful single IOs . . . miracle +recovery, steadfast protection +def, numina +regen/rec, LOTG +rech, Kismit +ACC, etc. These recipes can be gotten via ticket rolls or running tip missions for AMs. Many of them are not affected at all by level, so a level 21 is the same (or better) than a level 50.

3.) Useful but not horribly expensive sets are next. Dominators want +recharge, and there are some good sleep, confuse, disorient sets that give a great bonus to +recharge. Remember the rule of 5; you can only get 5 6.25% bonuses. The LOTG +7.5% recharge counts as its *own* bonus, so you can get 5 LOTG + 5 other 7.5% recharge bonuses. There are a *lot* of +6.25% recharge sets, so bear than in mind.

That ought to keep you busy for a while.

Parallel to IOs, you can get some good stuff from the incarnate system, which means trials and TFs. I would start out by picking the low-hanging fruit with frankenslotting and IOs, but I wouldn't suggest you simply park yourself at WWs or the University . . . you can run TFs with SOs no problem! To participate in the Incarnate System, you need to run Mender Rameil's arc (he's in Oroboros). ITF and LGTF are pretty easy and common TFs. Each week there is a weekly TF that gives you bonus rewards, so that's a good call too.

If you have a 3rd tier Alpha Incarnate slot, that gives you a level shift . . . you are effectively a level 51 character. This is very, very good. It is a big deal. It should be one of your higher priorities.

There are also Accolade powers, which require you collecting certain badges. These can be very useful, particularly those that grant +HP and +End. I highly recommend you to investigate these and seek them out.

You can sneak onto an incarnate trial as a level 50 with SOs, and depending on how awesome your team is, they may or may not notice. The BAF is probably the easiest one to blend into the crowd because its so big. If you are frankenslotted and maybe have some of the "big" IOs and/or a couple of useful sets, and are level shifted, you are perfectly fine for trials.

I also want to amplify Mayor's suggestion to look at some of the high quality single IOs. Most of them are not affected by level, so there is no reason (other than not having them) you shouldn't slot them as soon as possible. And they are easier to get than you might think! The performance shifter chance for +end proc costs *one* alignment merit which you can earn by doing tip missions. The Miracle +rec unique costs 2 AMs. Both are easily available in the early 20s. His other suggestions (Numina +reg/rec, Steadfast Protection +def, Kismet +acc[to-hit]) are spot on.

Of course, the other classic "big" IO to look at is the LOTG +recharge. There is a def component to it, so even though it is not huge, there is a difference between a level 25 and a level 50. Of course, the +recharge bonus will not work while exemped below 47 if you use a 50, whereas the 25 will work down to level 22. Depends on how often you like to exemp I guess. 5 LOTG +recharge will give you an extra 37.5% recharge in all powers, and is not affected by ED. The LOTG +recharge is pricy, but 2 AMs will get you one so with a touch of persistance you can get them without much of a hassle.

In terms of priority, if recovery is a concern, I'd go performance shifter, miracle, numina (in that order). That with a touch of frankenslotting for extra endurance ought to cover that. You have most of your attacks slotted for 2 ACC, so next I'd go with the Kismet +ACC (actually to-hit) so that it would cover you if you wanted to sneak out a bit of ACC to sneak in a touch more END. Next I'd grab Steadfast Protection +def (it will go a long way complimenting Shield's defenses). If you bought the IOs on the market, that would set you back big time, but by running tip missions for AMs and/or running AE missions for tickets and rolling bronze 30-34 at level 27, you'll either generate those recipes on your own or be able to sell *other* valuable recipes to have enough INF to buy what you need.

[Bronze 30-34 isn't the "best" table for income; most folks like 10-14 or 35-39 because they have the fewest "junk" recipes. But at level 27, you can actually use many of the "junk" recipes to frankenslot.]

Looking back at your shield slotting, a couple of other "frankenslot" suggestions: some of the DEF and RES sets have really nice 2 and 3 slot bonuses. For example, Serendipity has +DEF, +DEF/END for a +4%regen bonus; thrown in another random def/end and a generic DEF (or spring for a set DEF and get another 2 slot bonus).

One thing you might want to try to get some more bang for your buck while leveling is "frankenslotting" some of your attacks. Instead of using SOs or generic IOs, use set IOs . . . cheap ones . . . but basically ignore the set bonuses and only focus on their enhancement value. At level 25, a triple IO gives you 16%/16%/16% so 2 ACC/DAM/RECH IOs give you 32% to all . . . the same as a +0 SO (but it never expires *and* you get 32% to 3 things instead of 32% to 2 things). A level 25 dual IO gives +20% to both attributes, so 2 level 25 acc/dam IOs give you 40% ACC and 40% DAM . . . better than a +3 SO (and of course it never expires).

Here's an example: you have Gash slotted with 2 ACC, 2 DAM, and 1 END. If you took out 1 ACC, 1, DAM, and the END and slotted (all level 25s or higher) 1 ACC/DAM/RECH, 1 ACC/END/RECH (from focused smith), and 1 DAM/END/RECH (from smashing haymaker), you'd have in those same three slots 1 ACC, 1 DAM, 1 END, *and* 1.5 RECH . . . 4.5 slots worth of enhancement for only 3 slots. You have 2 more slots, so you could crank a bit more power out of them . . . maybe fill out the attack with some dual IOs (there are more triple IOs out there, but they can be expensive).

Or, take any of your defensive shields. Replace an END and a DEF with 2 level 25 END/DEF IOs, and you can enjoy greater than +3 SO value out of those slots *forever* (or until you feel like putting even better IOs in).

Another thing I would suggest is looking at Multistrike set. It is cheap, gives you the ballpark figure of what you have slotted in your PBAOEs, and has some decent bonuses (+1.88% def to both AOE and Melee). At level 25, Multistrike will give you roughly 1.5 ACC, 2.5 DAM, 2 END, and 1 REC.

The trick with this strategy is to get the IOs *cheap* . . . and that means buying recipes and crafting them yourself, and getting the recipes and salvage at a decent price. You can do this if you *plan ahead*. The prices for recipes and salvage can fluctuate greatly, and by putting up lowball bids (10k-50k) and waiting, you can get great bargains. If you are leveling, place a bunch of bids for level 25 set recipes and salvage and then keep playing as usual. You can even increase your chances by spreading the bids out over a few levels (25-28) it won't really change things too much.

Another thing you can do is to run AE missions and then trade in the tickets for random recipes or salvage. You can get some nice stuff from bronze rolls, and a lot of the "junk" recipes are common, unused common melee and pbaoe recipes . . . precisely what you want! :-) When you are level 27, you can roll on the 30-34 table which would give you a chance for thunderstrike, doctored wounds, and CRUSHING IMPACT recipes (plus a bunch of rares). Crushing Impacts is a pretty sweet set for being common. It retails for a lot, but there are two neat things about it. One is that the set bonuses are more than decent . . . +acc, +rech, +hp. The other is that it has an acc/dam/rech, an acc/dam/end, and an dam/end/rech . . . those would be great for frankenslotting too (if they weren't so dang expensive).

To clarify, all you have to do in order to get access to the stalker patron powers is dip over to redside . . . you don't have to *stay* there. Tip missions to vig, head redside for 2 days to get full villian, do patron arc, 2 days to get rogue status, then you are back in Paragon City on the side of good. If this is an alt, you might want to wait for the badges, but other than that you won't even have to spend a week redside to pick it up.

Probably the *biggest* thing that will help your MA/Regen is a hefty chunk of +rech. Everything else is just gravy. MOG, Weave and Combat Jumping (seriously, if you are wondering what to do with extra power spots weave and CJ are great just as LOTG mule spots, never mind the defense) give you 3 spaces to stick LOTG +Rech and you can *easily* max out 5 +5% bonuses (you might want to dip into Crushing Impact to achieve this, depending on how many slots you want to sink into your healing powers). That gets you to just under +50% rech . . . certainly not perma-hasten or perma-dull pain, but they'll both have a *lot* less downtime. Being able to keep dull pain up at will is awesome, you can use it as a heal, or as a HP boost to take an alpha. And of course the extra +recharge is great for reconstruction, instant healing, and MOG too.

The thing of it is, the advice above isn't an end-game build so much as a "be dramatically better *right now* without breaking the bank build". If you buy the recipes, these are fairly cheap IOs except for the special ones (which you could easily get via tip missions and alignment merits). Frankenslotting your attacks will let you get more power out of your attacks with fewer slots, and the recharge makes you more awesome. I wouldn't stress about the +def . . . pick up the low-hanging fruit, use it to take the edge off. You need some places to slot LOTG +recharge, so why not go weave + CJ, and if you have em, might as well use em :-) The steadfast protection IO is just gravy.

Here's my quick version of what I'd do with your guy. With Regeneration, the main thing you want is +recharge. Your clickie powers will be up sooner, you can use them more often, etc.

1.) I'd "frankenslot" what I could at a cheap price. Ignore set bonuses and use set IOs solely for their enhancement value. Place lowish bids on recipes and salvage, and be willing to wait a couple of days for them to fill. At level 25 and higher, set IOs are giving more total enhancement value than +3 SOs (assuming you can benefit from everything that it enhances). So you don't have to be *extremely* fussy about levels. Get what's cheap (consider salvage costs, too though). You'll never *have* to upgrade so you can be patient getting the rest of your build in place.

With melee powers, I'd look at Focus Smite acc/end/rech, acc/dam/rech and Smashing Haymaker dam/end/rech. That gives you 37% acc, end, and dam, as well as 56% recharge in just 3 slots if you use level 35s.

Its a bit harder to do with health powers, since 1.) some of them you only want to enhance for 1-2 aspects and 2.) health IOs tend to be pricer in the first place. If you can find some cheap heal/end or heal/rech recipes in your level range, awesome. And for your PBAOE there aren't a ton of cheap options (basically multistrike and cleaving blow).

2.) Long-term for your healing powers you probably are looking to 5 slot them with Doctored Wounds for the +5% recharge bonus. You can only get 5 of each level bonus, so if you also are looking at Crushing Impact, don't go crazy as you can't have 6 different +5% recharge bonuses (you can have 5 +5% and [for example] 5+7.5%, however). So I'd go ahead and (as my funds permitted) set up some long-term bids on doctored wounds recipes. I'd spread out my bids across a couple of different levels, and make my bids *low*. Will it take a while for them to fill? Sure. That's okay, Rome wasn't built in a week. Better to take 1 million and spread it out in 5 different bids and wait, maybe it gets filled, maybe not. If you spend it all at once, you are still going to have to wait for the whole set unless you are rich. You can always cancel a bid that doesn't pan out at no cost to you.

3.) Next I'd look at some of the single IOs that act as procs or give set bonuses. They tend to be very expensive, but you can also get them via running tip missions and earning Alignment Merits. One of the cheapest and most useful is the Performance Shifter chance for +end proc, it costs just one AM. Other useful ones are the Numina +recovery/regen, the Miracle +recovery, and the Regenerative Tissue +regen. To a large degree those play to your strengths, you might feel adding extra recovery and regen is overkill and might not be a priority.

Other ones that compliment strengths are the Kismet +to-hit, the travel power +Stealth (I like putting a leaping +stealth IO in sprint), or the LOTG +recharge IO. If you were on the fence about Weave, get off it. In fact, you probably want to think strongly about combat jumping too, as a place to stick an LOTG +rech. I wouldn't go so far as to say take manuevers, but if you were *really* stuck for a power choice it wouldn't be the worst one. And of course, if you have a bit of defence anyway, the steadfast protection +def IO is a nice little boost to what you have going on already. Running around with a small purple inspiration at all times isn't game-changing, but its nice and it will stack with team buffs.

One thing to consider . . . Scrappers who turn to the evil side can get Stalker patron powers. Shadow Meld is a +def clickie. Just saying.