Frankenslotting - when to start?

I'm back to the game after ten months away, and this Frankenslotting idea people have come up with in the interim is very interesting.

However, I'm slightly curious about when it becomes feasible to start. I've gone and looked at the prices for 10th level IOs or Recipies+Salvage, and employed a nautical expression; and then looked at 35th, where the benefit curve flattens out, and the prices are astronomical there.

I'm happy to do no-brainer influence raising at Wentworth's but not spend all day doing arbitrage, and I can pass down some influence from higher level toons, so anyone I create can count on about two million plus income from drops. Given that, when's a practical time to start looking at Frankenslotting sets? What am I missing that's cheap?

The second question is that it seems to me, with Frankenslotted IOs, there's rarely going to be any point in six-slotting a power in the long run - almost no power has so many things it wants to do very well as to demand six slots. However, I'm conceptually opposed to builds that assume a respec; I like my build to be one that makes sense all the way from 1-50. Is this practical? Can I start Frankenslotting at the point I'd otherwise have enough slots to six-slot key powers and to get real benefit from doing so?

Astronomical? What are you trying to buy?

There's loads of cheap ones about, I spent between 10 and 100k on about 10 of them last night Frankenslotting my MM (Pet Damage, ToHit Debuff and Heal ones for the most part with Common IOs shoring up the stats).

They were all level 35-42ish.

As for the slots and respec issue, can't really help. I always respec at 27 and 32 just to recycle the SOs and I tend to rejig the slots to reflect the fact they're about to be IOd at 32.

What AT are you and what sets are you looking at?

Well, the AT question is easy; all non-epic, blueside; stalker/brute/MM, redside. And while I'll have a modest preference for picking up the 2x and 3x set bonuses, I'll go with pieces from any set, concentrating on an economical way to get the most benefit on the core bonuses.

It sounds like, from what you're saying, that I just need to check the prices on absolutely everything, and see what useful Salvage drops I get.

As a sweeping generalisation the things that are the best for Frankenslotting are those with mostly useless set bonuses. They'll also be the cheapest generally, although if they've got a good PROC or Unique in the set they tend to be more expensive as well.

Obviously some things like Acc/Dam or Dam/Recharge are also going to be in higher demand, but try looking at different levels of them too (fairly quick to do) as you'd be amazed how much they can flucuate over 2 or 3 levels for no apparent reason.

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Obviously some things like Acc/Dam or Dam/Recharge are also going to be in higher demand, but try looking at different levels of them too (fairly quick to do) as you'd be amazed how much they can flucuate over 2 or 3 levels for no apparent reason.

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Thats good advice, dont be scared to drop 2 or 3 levels, the % difference in value is small, but the difference in cost can be big.

Also dont forget to look for ready mades not just the recipes, they are sometimes cheaper.

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Also dont forget to look for ready mades not just the recipes, they are sometimes cheaper.

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Curiously, my perception was the opposite - ready mades (at least in good stuff like Acc/Dam) are consistently expensive, but recipies look like they might be more feasible if I have good luck with Salvage.

I'm still wondering at what level you expect it to be feasible to even start collecting set IOs?

Level 35s onwards generally. Level 35+ enhancements that is, although I'll go as low as 30, especially for ones enhancing 3 things,

I start at level 32 by buying a full set of standard io's, because level 35 io's are the lowest (percentage wise) that i am going to want to leave in for good.

If im going to bother with sets on a char i start about 40, a lot of chars i just use io's on, but thats just me.