GavinRuneblade

As the others like to say the game throws money at you and you need to duck to avoid getting hit by it (I think that was Goat actually).

I just sell my drops and do a little crafting and I make about $150m per week myself so your experiences line up perfectly with mine.

I consider it this way (prices checked in game this morning):

Basilisk Quad: 110m crafted, 70m recipe
Gladiator Quad: 100m crafted, 50m recipe

Basilisk Triple: 40m crafted, 40m recipe
Gladiator triple: 45m crafted, 35m recipe

Looks like the other pieces of basilisk have come down, some of the recipes are under 5m right now, though the crafted are all going for 15m+ (recharge/hold is 25-30m). Meanwhile the off pieces of Gladiator are up since I bought mine, running in the 20s and 30s each for the recipe, and 30s to 50s each crafted.

Assuming you want the quad and triple of both, that's looking like:
180m Basilisk's Gaze for 4 pieces crafted
290m Gladiator for 5 pieces crafted (240m for 4, but you probably want the Recharge bonus)

Overall, that would be 30% more for the PvP set except that you need 1 more piece pushing it quite a bit up. So 1 week of hero/villain merits to get a full set of basilisk, or 2 weeks to get 5 gladiators.

Still, not too shabby. Especially considering for the Glad you are looking at level 50 bonuses, and on the Basilisk level 30. The Glad exemplars lower than the Basilisk also.
Set Bonuses:
Basilisk: 1.25% ranged def, 2% recovery, 7.5% rech
Gladiator:
2.25% max Endurance, 2.5% damage, 7.5% recharge, 2.5% hold bonus

So in the end it also matters what you are building for. If you need that ranged defense Basilisk is going to be your set of choice. All I was going for is that if you are looking at Basilisk anyway, don't automatically rule out the PvP set assuming it is out of your price range. This one and the PBAoE are priced far below their companions (I bought 5 of the Dam/End/Rech PBAoE recipes for 2 million each) and offer some very nice benefits for their price. I'm not sure why they're cheaper, but I'm stocking up on them anyway.

The link posted above has all the information but it is confusing. People have explained how the set bonuses work, I'll explain the scaling.

Short version:
The game drops your enhancement's bonuses to try and mimick the values someone of that level would have on store-bought enhancements. So below level 25 the penalties get very steep as the game tries to steer you into DO and TO levels of bonus.

Long version:
If you have 90% damage slotted into an attack, when you exemplar down below 32, it will be reduced. There is a table at the link that explains how much. But as an example, if you ran a Positron taskforce at level 15 it would be 35%. This is calculated by taking your level 50 and comparing to the .391 listed in the table for level 15.

But this process is messy and not so simple. There are two key things that help your numbers stay up when you exemp down. #1 DE is applied AFTER the exemplar hit, not before. So if you have overslotted for something, your exemped value will be a bit higher. #2 really small bonuses, never get reduced. So if you have a Nucleus Hami-O in an attack giving 33%/33%, and you drop to level 25, it only gives 24%/24%. But if you slotted the Mako Quad, it is exactly the same, giving 18%x4 at 50 and at 25, because the value of the bonus counts as "small".

To take advantage of this second rule the guideline is:
Level 50 Quads are immune to exemping down to level 21
Level 43 Triples are immune to exemping down to level 21
Level 24 Duals are immune to exemping down to level 21

Under level 21 you have to have an original bonus of 10% or less at which point you are better off overslotting than trying to stack small bonuses.

What it means to you:
In your case, nothing you don't do it often enough to build for it. But It means that you should expect some critical powers to be gimped.

All of your click-based Mez protection, even with three level 50 recharges slotted are unable to provide 100% uptime lower than about level 25. This means you might want to use the base enhancement station as well.

You'll need to customize your attack chains because they won't have the recharge you are used to, and because the damage may be confusing. Since individual IOs will degrade differently (ie if you have a dual or a triple or a quad, the % bonus might or might not be reduced depending on how low you exemp) so sets like Touch of Death and Obliteration will degrade differently, it's not that both ahve 95% and are both reduced to .39, since Oblit has a quad and the touch of death triples are lower than level 43, not all pieces of the set get degraded at all levels of exemping. So your powers will behave oddly, one that is middle of the road at level 50 might be your big hitter at 22.

Hope that helped and wasn't just long-winded BS. =)

/bug it in game.

I'll just chime in, my fire/fire/fire is still growing, but #1 in Arbegla's build, don't let the PvP hold set turn you off, it is surprisingly affordable. I've got two full sets in storage waiting for me.

Also, as he used in his build, adding the aoulboudn allegiance proc to your imps really makes a difference. I have it on my Fire/Psi and on my Fire/Kin controller and with and without I definitely noticed the damage output shift. Plus, I summon them enough that when it triggers on me, it's good times =)

That's true, but I'm thinking that there is probably someone out there who already has a level 50. But your point is solid. I know I move IOs between characters from time to time.

I'd add another category, or expand on #2. That is the people who don't understand the difference in price between Kinetic combat and Smashing Haymaker, or between Obliteration and Multistrike does not equate to a similar difference in performance. People with money pay huge amounts for a small gain. Too many people start to move from SOs to IOs and think they need the best, not realizing what an enormous difference getting the low-end sets will make.

And if you are on a Mac, like me, Mids doesn't exist so we have to learn to read the builds on the forum.