Excellent discussion! It just goes to show that there are numerous tradeoffs and options available with the introduction of the Invention System, even with a power like health that could only take one kind of enhancement before.
Thanks for taking the time to write this up!
What a fantastic post. We will all have to remember to break the "3-slots max" habit for powers like Health and Stamina.
Ideally, the tank will die precisely as everyone else starts fighting, allowing aggro to be spread evenly among the blaster. -seebs, "How to Suck at CoH/CoV" Guide
There is no END set, so Stamina will remain a 3 slot wonder.
Edit: But the sets for other locations make make some builds use 1-2 slot Stamina, or might give them just enough push to ingore Stamina altogether (MM's come to mind, since many can ignore it as it is.)
This is a pretty remarkable series, Scrapulous.
Wonderful research Scrapulous. It just goes to prove the point that the Devs were trying to make when ED got put in. There may not have been much diversity added at that point, but now we are truly seeing it.
Lady Thor: Level 50 Invul/War Mace/Pyre Mastery Tanker
Miss Microblast: Level 27 Energy/Energy Blaster
Teresa Thorensen: Level 17 Peacebringer
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This is a pretty remarkable series, Scrapulous.
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Agreed!
Good job. I came to a similar conclusion for Fast Healing the Regen starter power.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
Yep. And why didn't people believe the Devs when they said that ED would diversify things?
Lady Thor: Level 50 Invul/War Mace/Pyre Mastery Tanker
Miss Microblast: Level 27 Energy/Energy Blaster
Teresa Thorensen: Level 17 Peacebringer
Added to favs.
Thanks man, I can't wait to 6 slot Health and scoff at my frinds for not!
Very good read Scarp.
Be safe. 
Nice read. Now, get to work on all the other powers.
;-)
My memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.
"The tip of a shoelace is called an aglet, its true purpose is sinister." The Question
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Yep. And why didn't people believe the Devs when they said that ED would diversify things?
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Not to start that war all over again, but I'd say its a combination of the facts that a) there was an 18 month lag time between adding ED and adding the enhancements that benefited from ED, b) even now, not all powers benefit (Stamina is still 3 and done), c) ED is still misn-named: the 'diversity' here is only due to the Unique IOs offering the ability to slot Health with something other than Heal Enhancers. The fact that people can't put more than 3 SOs of Heal effect into Health is only necessary as a means of curbing the total powerlevel.
But I don't want to exhume old horses now. This is a very nice analysis, Scrapulous. On a minor formatting note, it would be nice if you could summarize the total +Regen and +Recovery of each setup after listing the individual effects. I know you go into that in the text followup, but it makes it a bit harder to compare the slottings at a glance.
Still, that's just a nitpick. Good job!
-D
Darkonne: Pinnacle's (unofficially) mighty Dark Miasma/Radiation Blast enthusiast!
Be sure to check out this mighty Arc:
#161865 - Aeon's Nemesis
Hey Scrap, this information is priceless, honestly. Thanks a lot for taking the time to think this stuff out.
That said, I encourage you (or maybe a Mod) to organize this stuff and post it in the Guides section so we don't lose it! Assuming you do more of them 
Just a quick question. As set bonuses don't work when exemplared which would be better for a lvl 50 exemplared down, the new IOs without set bonuses or 3 slotting with SOs?
-Icy "devils advocate" McFlame
"Reads this post and ponders the intriguing possibliities with his MA/Regen Scrapper".
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Yep. And why didn't people believe the Devs when they said that ED would diversify things?
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Because Inventions did that? 
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
Great post. I personally would find it more useful to compare the recovery rates to 3 slotted Stamina, since that's how pretty much everyone slots it, and it'll go a little further towards telling me if or when I can ditch Stamina altogether. (A Staminaless Ice Tank, dare I dream the impossible dream?)
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Yep. And why didn't people believe the Devs when they said that ED would diversify things?
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Because what they gave us at the time did jack for "Diversity". I would go so far as to say that it reduced diversity in the playerbase's slotting schemes.
Why?
Because they took a few days short of forever (hyperbole, I know but it gets the point across) to implement the OTHER half of the change that included ED. You know... the other half that is typically left on the design room's floor.
But before you clap and applaud, you might want to look in another thread about what happens when you exemplar and you are a set IO user... Castle's response there leads people to believe that Exemplar = No set bonus whether you exemplar down 3 levels or 30 levels. You lose ALL SET BONUSES.
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
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There is no END set, so Stamina will remain a 3 slot wonder.
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Unless you 2-slot it with common IOs for +84.8% endmod, which gives you a total recovery buff of 46.2%. That's not much worse than 48.875% (which is what you get at my artificial ED hard cap with 3 SO slots) - only 5.5% worse, really, and for many people that third marginal slot will have better applications elsewhere in the build.
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Nice read.
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Thanks to everybody who said so - I'm a-blushin'.
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Now, get to work on all the other powers.
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This is actually my plan. There are many more sophisticated thinkers about powers around here, but I think IO sets are sufficiently complex that the information can stand to be popularized with some examples. I also think that it can spark some discussion about the best way to approach things, since I certainly won't think of everything. IO sets give such deep options that it's hard to see every facet of possibility.
Scrap
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Good job. I came to a similar conclusion for Fast Healing the Regen starter power.
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Yes, and this reminds me that I was going to wrap up with a comment about Fast Healing and Health, mainly to the effect that you can't duplicate the best case slotting in both because the three uniques I used are... well, unique. So nine slots between Fast Healing and Health are the most you can efficiently use, unless you're willing to go for pure set bonus stacking in one of them. But if you go for nine slots between them, I strongly recommend putting 4 in one and 5 in the other so that you can get, theoretically, +24% regen buff and +5% recovery buff just from set bonuses (2 Numina's in each power, and 2 Miracle in each power). But putting the two together is a slightly more complicated analysis that I haven't done yet 
Scrap
Nifty write up there.
I'm hoping to go with 4 slots; a variation of Set IO 3.1 with Miracle tacked on for the recovery boost.
Phantom Rose: Ill / Kin / Psi
Soleau: Ice / Icy / Ice / Core: Ice / Fire / Pyre / Wind / Eclipse / Flare / Corona
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Solo Space
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Good job. I came to a similar conclusion for Fast Healing the Regen starter power.
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Yes, and this reminds me that I was going to wrap up with a comment about Fast Healing and Health, mainly to the effect that you can't duplicate the best case slotting in both because the three uniques I used are... well, unique. So nine slots between Fast Healing and Health are the most you can efficiently use, unless you're willing to go for pure set bonus stacking in one of them. But if you go for nine slots between them, I strongly recommend putting 4 in one and 5 in the other so that you can get, theoretically, +24% regen buff and +5% recovery buff just from set bonuses (2 Numina's in each power, and 2 Miracle in each power). But putting the two together is a slightly more complicated analysis that I haven't done yet
Scrap
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It's even harder than that for a Regen. My I9 guide is giving me a headache. All this min-maxing for IOs that's going to take another three years to actually obtain!
(The problem I'm having is that while I would love to slot Health and FH the way you say, you start to run out of slots QUICKLY). Health only gets two slots in my current build. Can't find another.)
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
IO slotting example: Health
Health is an odd duck. It's often seen as a stepping stone to Stamina, and because of this often gets no slots. Tankers sometimes three slot Health because it capitalizes on the one of their inherent traits: high hit point totals. I'd like to look at how the new world of IO affects health slotting.
Basics: Health gives a 40% regeneration buff unenhanced. It also gives sleep resistance, but that's unenhanceable and therefore outside the scope of this discussion.
Assumptions:
1) We're considering a level 50 character using level 50 enhancements.
2) ED has a hard cap at 95.5% for Schedule A. This is emphatically not true, but it's an assumption I'm using to save myself the trouble of calculating tenths of a percent of benefit at the high end of enhancement schedules. It also allows us to illustrate the relative benefit of the seemingly small but unbounded-by-ED set bonuses.
One Slot
Let's look first at the folks who can't or don't want to spare the slots to enhance Health. They have one slot and it's all they're likely to use. I believe that this is the most common Health slotting on Live in i8.
SO slotting:
1 heal SO
heal: +33.3%
This is pretty basic - there are no other options in i8. The regen buff becomes 53.32%.
Common IO slotting:
1 common heal IO
heal: +42.4%
Common IOs are better than SOs. The regen buff grows to 56.96.
Set IO slotting #1, regen:
1 Regenerative Tissue +25% regeneration global IO
heal: +0%
Here's where we start to see the real effects of IOs. Assuming no other regen buff powers and no other set bonuses, the regen buff is now 65%, which is considerably better than the previous two options.
Set IO slotting #2, recovery:
1 Miracle 15% recovery global IO
heal: +0%
This is an alternate approach which eschews regen buffs in favor of recovery (that is, how fast endurance comes back, the same stat that Stamina buffs). The regen buff remains at the unenhanced 40%, but stamina recovery is buffed 15%. That is 3/5 as effective as unslotted Stamina. Another way of looking at it is to look at what each enhancement slot in Stamina does for your recovery boost:
1 even level SO endmod in Stamina: +8.325% recovery
1 even level IO endmod in Stamina: +10.6% recovery
1 Miracle recovery global IO in Health: +15% recovery
For builds that plan to maximize regen buffs with minimum investment, the Miracle +recovery global IO is an excellent approach.
Set IO slotting #3, compromise:
1 Numina's Convalescence +20% regen, +10% recovery global IO
heal: +0%
This third option is an excellent compromise between the two. For builds that can use extra recovery and more health (like, say, a fire/fire tank without Consume), this is a strong option, providing a 60% regen buff and a 10% recovery buff.
Three Slots
Three slots will be the next situation we examine, because it represents the greatest efficient use of slots in Health by i8 standards, so it's probably the next most popular i8 slotting configuration after one slot. This gives us a chance to compare again how i9 impacts i8 builds.
SO slotting:
3 heal SOs
heal: +95.5%
Again, the basic i8 3 slot Health. There aren't other options. The Regen benefit here is 78.2%, which is more than the best single slot option we explored above (65%), but not by much. This tells us that we can probably do some interesting things with IOs in our three slots.
Common IO slotting:
3 common heal IOs
heal: +95.5%
This is identical to SO slotting (78.2% regen buff), but it's worth observing that only two slots with common heal IOs would give 84.8% heal benefit, which results in a total regen buff of 73.92%, which is only 5.5% worse than SO slotting. This could be a nice way to shave a slot off an i8 build for minimal loss in effectiveness.
Set IO slotting #1, regen:
1 Regenerative Tissue +25% regeneration global IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence +20% regen, +10% recovery global IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence heal IO
heal: +42.4%
Set bonus:
regeneration: +12%
This uses the two unique heal set IOs that provide independent (non-set-bonus) +regen, and the third slot takes the heal IO from Numina's Convalescence, giving us our first set bonus, which is the excellent +12% regeneration from Numina's Convalescence. The total regeneration buff here is 113.96%, which is 45.7% more than SO slotting. There is also a 10% recovery buff, (2/5 of unslotted Stamina). This represents a huge improvement over i8 performance.
Incidentally, you could also lose the heal IO slot for a total regen buff of 85%. This frees a slot and still beats 3 SO heals and 3 common IO heals.
Set IO slotting #2, recovery:
1 Miracle 15% recovery global IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence +20% regen, +10% recovery global IO,
1 Miracle heal IO
heal: +42.4%
Set bonus:
recovery: +2.5%
This uses the two unique heal set IOs that provide independent +recovery and the heal IO from the Miracle set. The set bonus here is a respectable +2.5% to recovery. Our recovery buff is 27.5%, 10% better than unslotted Stamina. Our regen buff is not bad, either: 76.96%, almost as good as SO slotting.
Set IO slotting #3, combination:
1 Miracle 15% recovery global IO,
1 Regenerative Tissue +25% regeneration global IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence +20% regen, +10% recovery global IO
heal: +0%
This employs all of the unique Heal set IOs. The total benefit is an 85% regeneration buff (8.7% better than SO slotting) and a 25% recovery buff (equal to unslotted Stamina). This is an interesting middle road, although it's worth noting that it's not far different from the recovery slotting above: about 10% better regen and 10% worse recovery. This is a small example of how set bonuses can start to mitigate otherwise
Six Slots
I'd like to look at what we can do with six slots next. This is illustrative of another often overlooked facet of the invention system: powers which previously only benefited from a few slots can now perform well with more. Our baseline SO slotting will remain 3 slots, because that's the maximum efficient benefit that can be found in i8.
SO slotting:
3 heal SOs
heal: +95.5%
This is our i8 baseline; 78.2% regen buff.
Set IO slotting #1, regen:
1 Miracle 15% recovery global IO,
1 Regenerative Tissue +25% regeneration global IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence +20% regen, +10% recovery global IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence heal IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence end/heal IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence heal/rch IO
heal: +95.4%
Set bonuses:
regeneration: +12%
max health: +1.88%
heal: +6%
This uses four of the Numina's Convalescence set to acquire three set bonuses. The straight regen buff is 135.16%. This is 18.96% better than the best 3 slot scenario, and 72.8% better than SO slotting.
This ignores the effects of the max health set bonus: the way regeneration works, increases in max health increase the regeneration amount. My understanding is that this works not additively (which would result in a 137.04% effective regen boost), but multiplicatively (which results in a 137.7% effective regen boost). But since many characters have health boosting accolades and powers, I've left the effects of the health boost out of my numbers. Suffice to say that it boosts survivability along two axes, not just one, and consider that it is a common and easily stackable set bonus.
The 6% heal bonus may or may not apply to regen. I suspect that it does not, because heal and regen are discrete effects, but I don't know certainly one way or the other. If you have no heal powers or would prefer more recovery, the next slotting option is likely to be better for you.
The endurance and recharge enhancement values from the Numina's end/heal and heal/rch are wasted in Health, and so I haven't counted them.
So the final analysis for this combination gives us a 135.16% pure regen buff, a 25% recovery buff, a 1.88% max health buff, and a 6% heal buff which applies to all heal powers. These bonuses are all passive.
Set IO slotting #2, recovery:
1 Miracle 15% recovery global IO,
1 Miracle heal IO,
1 Regenerative Tissue +25% regeneration global IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence +20% regen, +10% recovery global IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence heal IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence heal/rch OR end/heal IO
OR:
1 Miracle 15% recovery global IO,
1 Miracle heal IO,
1 Miracle heal/end OR heal/rch IO,
1 Regenerative Tissue +25% regeneration global IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence +20% regen, +10% recovery global IO,
1 Numina's Convalescence heal IO,
heal: +95.5%
Set bonuses:
regeneration: +12%
recovery: +2.5%
max health: +1.88%
Here we have split the set bonuses across Numina's Convalescence and Miracle. The second set bonus in each set is identical, so it doesn't matter whether you pick it up by slotting 3 Numinas or 3 Miracles.
This slotting represents a very slightly better regen buff than the last one (because the two single-effect IOs take us to 95.5% enhancement, our hypothetical enhancement cap). The total regen buff here is 135.2%. The recovery buff is 27.5%, and the max heath buff is 1.88%. This slotting seems to be the best 6 slot option for anybody who doesn't have deal powers.
Health is an interesting case; because there is no room for HO slotting, so IOs beat i8 slotting in every case. This is an example of how even the most effective i8 slotting available is inferior to IO slotting.
Scrap