The No Numbers Guide to I9 for the Casual Player
By
beowulfe,
Posted on: 2007-05-10 09:10 in Player Guides
Thanks for this, what a great guide! 
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Thank you! Thank you! Very nicely done! We really needed a "big picture" guide to IO's with some basic strategy on how to effectively use them.
Before any of the numbers make sense, this guide lets me see the "forest" rather than just the "trees."
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Really nice guide!
It is critical that you pay attention at this time.
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you can make tiny bits of pocket change by buying common salvage cheap and selling it to NPC's.
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I agree, nice overview of the system for those who are alergic to math 
I've seen too many people turned away because they get into a guide with a bunch of numbers and come away thinking the system is more complicated than it really has to be.
Yeah, nice guide. I mostly get I9 and IOs, but the level by level guide about when I should start to care about IOs was new to me (mostly because I've been focusing on tricking out my 50). But yeah, the first time I saw a "build" like this one, it was really overwhelming. In fact looking at that thing still makes my brain hurt. Good job.
Excellent guide!
The problem I'm having right now is that, even as a casual player, there are simply not enough crafter-grinders out there to support only buying enhancements from the shops. Seems they tend to just delete them or something, because I regularly see bids 5-6x more than what's actually available, which is too bad.
Good guide.
A few things I've noticed.
Common IO recipes are bought at NPC stores for 25% of the buy cost at the inventing table.
Uncommon IO recipes are priced at 100 inf per level of the recipe at a store.
Rare IO recipes are priced at 200 inf per level.
Haven't been lucky enough for either a costume or temp power recipe to check out the store prices.
The three levels of IOs you can get during the tutorial.
Level 10 IOs are roughly a -3 DO in strength.
Level 15 IOs are roughly a +3 DO.
Level 25 IOs are roughly a -1 SO.
Level 30 IOs are roughly a +1 SO.
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Though I like crunching numbers myself, I must say this is an excellent guide. Adding it to my sig!
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The problem I'm having right now is that, even as a casual player, there are simply not enough crafter-grinders out there to support only buying enhancements from the shops. Seems they tend to just delete them or something, because I regularly see bids 5-6x more than what's actually available, which is too bad.
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What levels are you looking at? I've had very little trouble shopping at level 25 or 45. The difference between a level 25 and a level 30 IO doesn't bother me. Same thing with the difference between 45 and 50. Buying level 30 and level 50 IO's seems much harder. Last night I found a shortage of pre-crafted IO's, so I bought recipes instead. I was getting the level 25 recipe for 500-1000 inf, and the required salvage was about the same. For some things I had to go up to 5k or 10k, but it was still a good value.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
Guide....Awesome...
Man, thanks for this guide, it has helped me tremendously.
PP: Was doing L15 shopping; if it picks up at 25, I guess running DOs for some of my slots isn't too bad.
Stuff like Damage and Endurance Reduction salvage I can manage to collect and make okay; it's the Accuracy and Defense (100k for a Luck Charm? no thanks -.-) that kills me.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Some of the "common" salvage is insanely expensive right now. It really is common, though. If you are fighting magic enemies, then you'll probably get a few Luck Charms eventually. Of course, at level 15 you can always just buy a few DO's and upgrade them later. You can try buying regular DO's at the Consignment House, but I haven't had much luck with that.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
Very nice guide.
You get it. (Not that you needed me to validate that. 
)
There's nothing wrong with lower tier set IO/IO recipes.
Many of them are quite cheap...particularly the "off-level" ones.
However, there seem to be less of them as compared to the ~ level 50 set IO/IO recipes, which makes sense.
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Bravo! Well done.
Alternatively, I sell my salvage and make at least 100-200K by the time I hit level 12. I can easily lvl 15 DOs myself at that point.
Still, awesome guide that should calm some of my real-life friends about the market.
Not a bad guide - the only thing I'd want to see in it were specific mentions of which (un)common salvage goes for millions and which go for chump change. That would skyrocket this guide in usefulness, imo. But really, it's not bad as is. ^^
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Uncommon: There are some uncommon salvage items which are so unpopular that you shouldn't bother selling them at the Consignment House. An NPC store will give you 1000 influence for any uncommon piece of invention salvage. Usually, though, you can sell them at the CH for ten times that, and a few are worth much much more.
Rare: Again we see the division between popular and unpopular pieces, but the NPC stores will only give you 5000 influence for rare salvage and you can always make more than that on the open market.
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Overall an excellent guide, but I've never seen these two bits to be true. All I have ever seen is pretty much the opposite: A couple rare and uncommon salvages sell for reasonable amounts, the rest sell for 500-1000 inf and no higher. Rares rarely go high enough above the 5000 to the store to make it worth taking a sell/buy slot and some inf to post.
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I've never seen these two bits to be true.
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Right now on the Black Market:
Chronal Skips and Rikti Alloys: ~800,000
Deific Weapons: 1,500,00
Empowered Sigils: 750,000
Soul Trapped Gem: 550,000
Pangean Soil: ~3,500,000
Prophecies: ~2,500,000
Diamonds and Magical Conspiracies: 1,000,000
Essence of the Furies: ~2,000,000
Hamidon Goo: ~3,000,000
I expect that things are worse hero-side, where inf is more abundant (driving prices higher) and where magical salvage is less abundant (driving demand higher).
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I've never seen these two bits to be true.
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Right now on the Black Market:
Chronal Skips and Rikti Alloys: ~800,000
Deific Weapons: 1,500,00
Empowered Sigils: 750,000
Soul Trapped Gem: 550,000
Pangean Soil: ~3,500,000
Prophecies: ~2,500,000
Diamonds and Magical Conspiracies: 1,000,000
Essence of the Furies: ~2,000,000
Hamidon Goo: ~3,000,000
I expect that things are worse hero-side, where inf is more abundant (driving prices higher) and where magical salvage is less abundant (driving demand higher).
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That is only a list of the most expensive. I didn't say none were worth selling, I said that most aren't.
I have rares that the last 5 sold values are 3,000 3,000 5,500 2,500 and 3,000. That is not worth selling. Most of the rares I have fall into a pattern like that, not the huge values in your list there. Most of the uncommons I have are even worse.
Edit: After seeing Mortimer's numbers compared to yours, I'll amend it: About half the rares aren't worth selling at WW. However, I still stand by only a couple uncommons are worth it at all.
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I've never seen these two bits to be true.
[/ QUOTE ]
Right now on the Black Market:
Chronal Skips and Rikti Alloys: ~800,000
Deific Weapons: 1,500,00
Empowered Sigils: 750,000
Soul Trapped Gem: 550,000
Pangean Soil: ~3,500,000
Prophecies: ~2,500,000
Diamonds and Magical Conspiracies: 1,000,000
Essence of the Furies: ~2,000,000
Hamidon Goo: ~3,000,000
I expect that things are worse hero-side, where inf is more abundant (driving prices higher) and where magical salvage is less abundant (driving demand higher).
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Look through the list, about half are selling for at or below merchant prices. Alien Blood Sample, Complex Chemical Formula, Enriched Plutonium, Heads Up Display, Holographic Memory, Mutant Genome, Page from the Malleus Mundi, Photonic Weapon, Plasma Capacitor, Source Code. All selling for 3500-5000, tending towards the low end of that range.
Prices seem a little higher V-side, but the general trend is about the same.
In a quick search through the list I couldn't find any uncommon that sold more than 1000 reliably, and most were sub-500. It's easier to merchant any uncommons than it is to auction them.
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Overall an excellent guide, but I've never seen these two bits to be true.
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I did, a week ago when I was writing the guide. That part of it is getting outdated pretty quickly, though. 
When I was writing it, I went through the list and couldn't find a single piece of rare salvage that sold for less than 5,000 inf. Few, if any, were under 10,000 inf. Uncommon salvage was similar but with smaller numbers. Times change.
(Which is the main reason why I'm not planning to make a list of what is hot and what is not when selling on the market. Boresights were huge for the first few days, and aren't worth anything now. Arcane stuff is a good bet now, but it depends on specifics, and I don't count on them to stay still long enough for me to write them down. I think it would be great if someone else made a market watching guide. I have something along those lines in a very rough draft, but I think others could do a better job of it than I).
A big piece that is missing from this guide is some suggestions on how to pick out what IO sets to go for. I wanted to put something about that in there, but I'm glad I didn't. I've learned a lot in the last couple of weeks, and I'd probably be embarassed now by whatever I had written then.
I'll probably let things settle down some more and then revise this guide. One thing I'm thinking about now is dividing IO acquisition into three stages.
1. Switch from using DO's/SO's to using common IO's, starting at level 22. This isn't as cheap today as it was last week, but is still a worthy goal.
2. Use set IO's which benefit 2 or more aspects of a power at once to increase your overall level of enhancement. For example, slotting two DAM/ACC enahancements gives you more damage and more accuracy than slotting one DAM and one ACC. At this stage, ignore set bonuses.
3. Building sets. The final step would be to look at sets and set bonuses and work to really optimize your build. You could start sooner, but getting the best recipes and the rarest salvage is so hard that I think casual players would be better off not worrying about it until later in their character's life. Getting a full set of Scirocco's Dervish, for example, is vastly harder and more expensive than getting a full set of Multi-Strike. The actual benefit from the enhancements is almost identical. The big difference is in the set bonuses.
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Exactly what I needed Peter. Kudos!
Are there any "reverse" recipe guides out there? By that I mean are there any guides, which state in what recipes given items are used.
I just came into some Pangean Soil. In trying to find what its used in, so far Ive only found Aegis: Resistance. Backwards searching is not very efficient, and a reverse guide might be useful in deciding if you want to keep or sell a given item.
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PeterPeter's No Numbers Guide to I9 for the Casual Player
This whole inventions thing got you down? You're getting salvage and you don't know what to do with it? You're afraid of being ripped off at the market, or of gimping yourself in ways you can't even understand? Relax. I've got your back.
I've put together a simple level by level guide to help you get the most out of this new issue with the least amount of work, or even comprehension. And best of all? No numbers. Well, maybe one or two, but absolutely no decimal points or percentage signs. I promise!
Obviously, this guide isn't intended for the hardcore powergaming number crunchers. It's for us casual types, who only play a couple of times a week, if that, and usually not for long chunks of time. Here's a simple test. Take a look at this page. If your eyes glazed over, than this is the guide for you.
First, the good news: Issue 9 doesn't hurt. Ok, maybe a bit of a migraine the first time you see the user interface for the Consignment House, but this issue really doesn't hurt casual players. It helps us. Sure, it helps powergamers even more. They have more and better ways to be more leet than us, but we're used to that, right? We're not the ones who were already soloing giant monsters with one powerset tied behind our backs. The important thing is that Issue 9 gives us tools to help us be stronger and better heroes (or villains) than ever before, with less grind and grief. (Except for the migraine from your first trip to the new market, but that will fade with time.)
Second, the better news: Issue 9 actually gives us, the casual players, an advantage over the hardcore 24x7 powergamers. We've learned patience, and for possibly the first time ever in a computer game, patience pays. While some other players are bouncing up and down in their seats salivating at the prospect of getting a shiny new piece of salvage, and paying through the nose for it, you and I will be putting in modest bids and then logging off. A few days later, or maybe next week, whenever we get some free time, we'll log back in, check the market, and the new shiny will drop into our pocket. No fuss, no muss, and no outrageous prices. Well, maybe some outrageous prices, but we'll try to keep them to a minimum.
In short, this is a guide to getting 90% of the value out of I9, and only doing 10% of the work. Doh! Percent signs! Sorry, it won't happen again!
Here we go, a level by level guide of how to approach the brave new world of CoX:
Levels 1-4
Just play like usual. You won't be getting any invention salvage or recipes yet. See? So far it's easier than you thought! Personally, I wouldn't bother with any enhancements until you hit level 12.
Levels 5-11
Salvage will start dropping around level 5, and recipes at 10. Don't sweat it. Just let that stuff pile up until you are ready for your first trip to Wentworths. When you feel prepared, take a couple of aspirin, head to Atlas Park, find that WW symbol on the map, and then read the Selling section down below. (For villains, you'll be wanting the Black Market truck in Mercy Isle.)
Level 12
This is a big level for you! It's time to go to the university and learn about inventing! You could go earlier, but why bother? There's no rush. Besides, at level 12 you can slot the free IO the school will give you. Try to read all those chunks of text the teachers throw at you, and keep your eyes open for the little jokes and pop culture references the devs like to throw in.
Ok, now that you've learned all about inventing, it's time to do some shopping. Ordinarily, at level 12, you would be trying to fill up your power slots with those pricey DO enhancements. Instead, thanks to I9, you'll be wanting pricey IO enhancements. Why? First of all, they're just as good. Don't believe me? Just take another look at that chart I linked above. See? Hmm, well, maybe you should just take my word for it. Anyhow, those level 15 IO's are going to be just as strong when you reach level 17 as they are now. A level 15 DO would need to be replaced with a level 20 DO. The level 15 IO's don't need to be replaced ever (but we will, eventually, because we want to be more super).
Head to the CH (Consignment House). Start shopping. Don't look for recipes. Look for enhancements. Crafted enhancements. Narrow it down to level fifteen ones in the "other" category. See them? They are just like the one you got for free from the university. The market is constantly changing, but as of this writing you should be able to buy all of the most basic crafted enhancements at level fifteen for less than you would spend on DO's.
Now, if you need some of the odder sets, you may need to go with the recipes. Luckily, people sell these pretty cheap too. The salvage you need to craft a level fifteen ehancement? Again, cheap. Mostly. And if it isn't, either wait for the salvage to drop into your hands during regular gameplay, or give up and buy a DO for that one. Once you have a bunch of level 15 IO's, you're all set until level 22.
[Even as I'm writing this, the market is fluctuating. Some pre-crafted level 15 IO's are going for 250 inf. Others for 10,000 inf. Crazy times. I hate to do this, but maybe a few numbers will actually help, until things settle down. A level 15 DO costs roughly 1,000 to 2,000 influence, depending on what you are enhancing. Replacing it at level 20 will cost another 1500 to 2500. So an IO is probably worth at least 3000 inf, maybe more. If you can buy one pre-crafted for that amount, and you can afford it, go for it. If you are buying a recipe, check the prices on the ingredients before you commit. Some are cheap, some are outlandishly expensive. If you can only put IO's in some places, then I would suggest putting them in your least important powers. That way you can just leave them there. Your most important powers are where you'll be upgrading to SO's or level 25 IO's as soon as possible.]
Levels 13-21
If you do manage to get all kitted out with IO's, then you can relax. They'll never turn red on you. Just sit back and watch the money roll in while you wait for level 22. Sell everything you get for now, with one exception: recipes and salvage for enhancements that give global bonuses or perform procs. Huh? Whazzat? I'm so glad you asked. The IO's we have now are the common type. As you play, you will be getting recipes for both common and set IO enhancements. We'll worry about sets and set enhancements later. But it isn't too early to learn about procs and global enhancements. The low levels can be the best time to get these special kind of enhancements.
While higher level stuff is usually better than lower level stuff, these global enhancements and procs are a big exception. They give a special bonus which is not dependent on level. For example, there is an enhancement in the Steadfast Protection set which can be slotted in any damage resistance power. It doesn't provide damage resistance, or help with endurance, or anything else that affects the power it's slotted in. What it does is give you knockback protection. The amount of knockback protection you get has nothing to do with the level of the enhancement and nothing to do with your level. You should always slot a special enhancement like this at the lowest level you can. It will be cheaper that way, plus it's more likely to be available when you exemplar down.
If you put one of these global bonus enhancements into a passive power, it will be available all the time. If you put it into a toggle, it will be available whenever the toggle is on. If you put it in a click power, like an attack, then it will be available for 120 seconds after each click. There are global enhancements which grant stealth, extra regeneration or endurance recovery, resistance to psionic damage, increased run speed, and a few other things as well.
There are also procs, or procedures. Instead of changing one of your attributes, these enhancements perform an action, like doing extra damage or a build-up or a self-heal. These procs are triggered whenever the power they are slotted in is activated, and they go off about 20% of the time. For example, one of the enhancements in the Call of the Sandman set is a proc which gives you a 20% chance of a self heal every time you use the power. Pretty cool, huh?
For a list of them, head to ParagonWiki and look around for the little globe symbol, or the symbol that looks kind of like a six sided die with a plus sign on the side. While you're there, feel free to browse around. There will be a quiz when you get to level 22.
Level 22
Remember all those great IO's you bought way back when you were level 12? They're still working just fine, huh? Nothing turned red, nothing lost power. You could keep those puppies slotted until you hit level 50. But we can do better, and now is the time. At level 22 you can slot a level 25 IO, and the level 25 IO's are pretty much just as powerful as an SO. Close enough. So take all that money you saved from not buying DO's at level 17 and go shopping again. Remember to look first for already crafted enhancements, and then go looking for recipes. Everything will be a little more expensive now, but guess what? You'll never need to upgrade any of these enhancements ever again.
Of course, you will, just because you want to. Because you want to be more super. And because, after looking over that list of IO sets at Paragon Wiki, you found some things you really want. Good. Once you get those perfectly adequate level 25 IO's slotted all over the place, ask yourself this question: what is my favorite power? Pick one or two and then go looking through that list of enhancement sets again. Find something you like. Now, try to get it. This is the little side-game you'll be playing for the next 28 levels. If you start to get discouraged, just remember: your level 25 IO's are just as good as SO's, pretty much, and they'll never expire. You're doing fine. The fancy enhancement sets are just extra nice. You don't need them to be super.
Levels 23-46
Whenever you get some fancy set enhancement slotted, pick out another one to aim for. Try to use recipes from around your own level. Recipes at your level require the salvage which is dropped by enemies of your level. That makes it easier, but you can always buy what you need at the CH if you have the influence. Whenever you get a chance, look into upgrading your level 25 IO's to something better. A level 30 IO is actually better than an SO, and a level 35 IO is even better than that.
Levels 47-50
Now you're in the end zone. I think you will find it much cheaper and easier to stay with level 45 enhancements than level 50, and the difference in effectiveness is tiny. Let those hardcore powergamers outbid each other for level 50-53 enhancement recipes at insane prices. We'll settle for the level 45's at a tiny fraction of the price and get almost the same benefit.
Appendix A: Wentworths
The simplest way to figure out Wentworths is to talk to the NPC standing in the middle of the room, read all of that, and then just play around with the interface until you get the hang of it. The sooner you do this, the less you will have to lose if you screw up, so don't put it off until you are level 30 and then accidentally spend every penny you have buying the wrong thing for the wrong price.
Selling Salvage
Common: Common salvage tends to fall into two categories. Stuff everyone wants, and stuff no one wants. Look up the salvage you want to sell. If there are 150 for sale and no bidders and the last five sale prices are 10 influence, then just sell that salvage to an NPC store. They'll give you 250 influence for it. In fact, you can make tiny bits of pocket change by buying common salvage cheap and selling it to NPC's. For common salvage it's probably not worth the effort, but for a level 45 common IO recipe, the same principle applies, and the profit margin is potentially much larger. Anyhow, the second category of common salvage is the stuff everyone wants. This can sell for thousands, even tens of thousands. If you find one of these in your inventory, I recommend selling it. List it for 250. It will probably sell very quickly for much more than that, but if it doesn't you have lost anything much, really.
Uncommon: There are some uncommon salvage items which are so unpopular that you shouldn't bother selling them at the Consignment House. An NPC store will give you 1000 influence for any uncommon piece of invention salvage. Usually, though, you can sell them at the CH for ten times that, and a few are worth much much more.
Rare: Again we see the division between popular and unpopular pieces, but the NPC stores will only give you 5000 influence for rare salvage and you can always make more than that on the open market.
Selling Recipes
Common: There doesn't appear to be any market for common IO recipes. Just sell them to NPC's. You get a few thousand influence, more at higher levels.
Set enhancements: There's just no way to know what one of these is worth unless you look it up. NPC's don't pay particularly well for these, so you might as well try to sell them at the CH. Some are in enormous demand, others none at all. If there is no market for your recipe, then you might want to turn to the NPC's and get a few thousand quickly and easily.
Costume and Temp powers: These tend to sell very very well. Keep them if you want them, or sell them for a huge profit.
Buying Salvage
Common salvage is either so cheap that you can buy it easily, or so expensive that you're better off just playing until it falls into your lap. After all, it is common. The uncommon and rare salvage is just plain hard to get, but eventually, if you keep playing, you will either get enough influence to buy it or else it will drop for you, as long as you are fighting the right enemies in the right level range (and you can learn that either on the forums, or the paragonwiki, or just by clicking the info about the guys you are fighting).
Buying Recipes
You can buy recipes at the crafting table for common IO's, but they are almost certainly cheaper to buy from other players. Set recipes are generally expensive, so either save up and buy them from players or else keep arresting bad guys until you get what you want. For casual players, it may be impossible to get some recipes, since they only drop from completing task forces or trials. That's the wonderful thing about the auctions. You can buy anything there, even stuff that you could never earn on your own due to schedule limitations or other real world issues. Of course, some of those things will be expensive. As of this writing, some of them are insanely expensive. I can only hope that prices will drop over time, after the hardcore players are all kitted out. They have the time to sink into the game, but we have the patience, right?
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