Sgt_Hobo

Thanks for the help everybody. I think I'm going to try making my way to fifty on some basic IO's, and when I get enough inf I'll start jumping into the enhancement sets and what not.

One more question, though. What's a good way to get influence? I hear about people "farming" missions, but I never know exactly what they're talking about. Do they just re-run missions that have large, easy mobs in them? I have a level 36 ar/dev blaster, so I'm just trying to find a good income.

So, I'm kind of a noob when it comes to IO's and enhancement sets. I left right as inventions were coming out, and am just now returning. I have been trying to learn as much about them as possible, though, and at this point I feel like I'm at a comfortable level of understanding their mechanics.

However, I'm really not sure when I should start investing in IO's with my characters. At what level should I start getting involved? Late 20's? Mid 30's? I know they can be really expensive.

Also, what level IO's should I buy? Is it necessary to buy all level 50, or will between 30 and 50 be fine? I'm not really a min/max person, but I don't want to have a build that is noticeably lacking because my enhancements should be a higher level.

If anyone could help me out here that'd be great.

Thanks!

It's looking like it mostly boils down to just preferences. I guess it's hard for me to understand that if you want to min/max, then you should probably go for AoE. But I do agree with a lot of the points raised that it is just a play style.

And Jibikao, I completely agree with what you said about stalkers. They're what got me into thinking about this the most. There's no denying that they're meant for single target killing, and I just never understood what a stalker could do in a team that a scrapper or blaster couldn't do either.

The more I play this game, the more I feel like it focuses mostly, if not entirely, on AOE centered characters. It seems to me that it's far more rewarding to invest in a character that can wipe out huge groups all at once than a character with more of a single target focus. Almost everything I read on these boards seems agree with me. Heck, it might have even been the place where I got the idea from.

I'm really not trying to bash single target powersets or archetypes, but at the moment I just don't see why anyone would chose a build such as Dark Melee instead of fire or electric melee. Yes, dark melee does offer more control which helps with survivability, but if staying alive isn't a concern, would there be any other reason to chose dark melee over fire or electric?

It just seems that it's much more rewarding to have AOE characters. You can tear through huge groups in very short amounts of time, as opposed to killing targets one by one.
And yes, there are EB's and AV's that appear, but do they show up enough to really make having a single target build worth it?

Look at the FOTM of the month builds too. They're almost all AOE heavy. Fire/Dark Corruptors, electric/shield scrappers, ill/rad controllers, Robots masterminds. They all have huge amounts of AOE, group-destroying powers.

Maybe I'm missing something here (I assume I am), but every time I roll a character, I feel like I should make sure I have good AOE abilities before I go any further. If I don't I feel like it won't take me very far.

So, can anyone tell me what the advantages are to single target builds?