Keeping up with the Joneses

A couple of nights ago, I congratulated a relatively new player (6 month vet) on her very first level 50. While she started a number of different alts, her Rad/Rad defender was the one she fell in love with and played almost exclusively for the last couple of months.

Up to that point, she had done most of the hero side TFs but had yet to try the three of the more popular end game TFs: the Statesman TF, the Imperius TF and the Lady Grey TF. She was eager to try them out, since they represented completely new and unexplored content for her.

Upon reaching 50, some of the comments she made were rather interesting (paraphrasing): "Yay, level 50 at last. Now all I need start farming so I can afford all those IOs." You see, she was under the impression that you had to have IOs to even attempt the end game TFs, and that her mostly SO build would be inadequate.

I tried to tell her otherwise, but she commented that she had seen other Rad defenders and they seem to heal faster, take less damage and have their key debuffs up faster. She remained convinced that a TF team leader would take one look at her character info, see the karma -knockback IO as her only set bonus and kick her off the team. Understand that the player in question also played World of Warcraft for a couple of years and apparently such gear discrimination is a lot more common in that game.

I even told her I'd be happy to start up any TF she wanted, invite good and friendly players and would gladly take her Rad defender. She demurred stating that she'd feel terrible if she "dragged down" the team, and that she'd only join once she was convinced that she could pull her own weight.

So today, she contacted me and asked me how to farm with her new level 50 and asked me for tips on how to leverage the market to get influence quickly. She told me that she had started an electric/shield scrapper, not because she enjoyed playing scrappers, but because they were good farmers. Somehow, this left me a little sad.

Agreed, very sad.

Maybe she likes farming and twinking. It's nothing to be sad about. At least she isn't badging.

Jer

While I doubt it makes any difference, you can let her know that I started doing the "big" TF's with a largely SO/Generic IO Rad/Rad and no one said a peep. I came from Everquest which has raids full of number crunching and clockwork tactics and the idea of going on a CoX TF intimidated me for a long while. Then I started going on them and realized that CoX TFs were about as casual as the rest of the game.

Parroting the others, if she wants to trick out her defender for the fun of it then that's cool. If she thinks she has to, that's kind of a shame.

I've yet to run STF or LGTF (I spend most of my time in the lower levels thanks to ever worsening alt-itis, and no, I don't want to be cured) but I ran an ITF with my Scrapper when her only IO set bonus was, as I recall, a moderate debt reduction bonus.

I'm sure there are teams out there that will only accept IO build characters, but I've yet to encounter them.

Alternative strategies:

a) Post in the appropriate board and ask for a budget IO'd build. 90% performance for 10% of the price is pretty common, and there's no way she'll feel inadequate with a well designed but still budget (and, thus, easily achievable) build.

b) Inventions Forum, ask about "frankenslotting vs. pure sets", she'll surely get good answers of how VERY effective frankenslotting can be compared to standard SOs, and how it's pretty good even when comparing to budget IO builds.

Oh, and when she gets to level 35 and beyond, she WILL like Elec/Shield scrappers, they're little fluffy balls of explosive doomy doom <3 "Farming" with mine is incredibly fun simply because at +3/x8, the world is your farm, you can do anything and still rack in the inf.

What server is this on, btw?

EDIT: I forgot! Oddly appropriately, my SO/Common IO built Broadsword/Regen scrapper has the MoSTF badge. Just for her information She has exactly three set bonuses, 3 minor regens. She was level 50 by issue 4, and I've never bothered re-building her.

Very sad.

I have at least 4 level 50s that are only slotted with SOs and maybe a couple HOs and they never have problems getting on any TF or PuG.

Besides, anyone that wouldn't take them on their team is someone I wouldn't want to play with anyway.

Makes me sad.

pass this along.

My 50 rad/rad has next to no sets (a few HOs) and is still heavily requested on endgame TFs.

More so than any character (my son/son def runs him close.)

People wait until level 50 to slot IOs? I rarely see anyone redside without any set bonuses past the 30s.

I don't think my level 50 Kinetics defender even has all of her slots filled...

...Yet some how I keep getting invites to the ITF.

I don't see what the fuss is about. I recently teamed up to do a few level 45 BNY runs at +2 on my level 23 bots/traps with a mix of common IOs, DOs, and a couple of TOs that expired over the course of the run, and I didn't have any trouble (or at least, no more than the rest of the team).

Just led a Lvl 50 AE run with the above toon, we did just grand. Was it down to the IO's? I doubt it, but several people were commenting about their lack of IO's. We slaughtered +3's and I garnered 5 million Inf in the process. Mixed and matched, no IO's, fully-slotted, whatever your preference, if you're having fun, you're doing it right.

My Rad/Dark has run every lv50 TF (plus the Eden and Abandoned Sewers trials), as well as some lower ones. The only set IOs I have on that character are:
Moonbeam, heavily frankenslotted for effectively 3 Dam/2 Rech/2 IntRdx/1 EndRdx
Teleport, frankenslotted for effectively 3 Rng/2 EndRdx
Stamina: 2 Endmod, PS: +End
Lingering Radiation: Smashing proc

Net set bonuses?
+5% movement speed
+1.5% recovery
+12% regeneration

The character has also led several Doctor Quaterfield TFs with fairly quick completion times (not earth-shattering, but it was less-than-mind-numbingly-dull). Admittedly, the slots without set IOs use common IOs, but you can outfit a character in common IOs with a couple of missions at level 50 (more if you don't want to be patient at the market, but it still doesn't require grinding).

And I'm extremely far from dragging the team down. Normally, I'm leading the charge (and not dying, by the way). Some battle tactics I've come to enjoy:

• Activate Power Build Up. Activate Teleport, aiming for the middle of the next spawn. Queue EM Pulse during the Teleport animation. All minions and lieutenants, and 50% of bosses are held for ~1 minute. Zero personal risk.
• Skip Radiant Aura. Teammate dies. Recall Friend corpse into melee. Vengeance, Fallout, Mutation.*
• (Radiation Infection sharply reducing foe's tohit) + (Moonbeam slotted for interrupt reduction) = (Safe and effective Moonbeam during battle)

I like IOing my characters to push the envelope of what I can do with them, not because I feel it is necessary to play the game.

I have a few, like my BS/DA scrapper, that are night and day with and without IOs, but for the most part they were just mild performance increases.

The other day I tanked an ITF with my DM/SR brute who only has 3 complete sets of anything: Thunderstrike, Touch of Death, and Scirocco's Dervish. If you remember your set bonuses you'll see that he has those to get to softcap. He has almost no other IOs at all.

I died exactly 3 times, twice due to the number generator deciding to screw me, and once to the autohit nictus. At no point did I think "I need more IOs to do this", though I DID think "Man, some more end recovery would be nice".

I would NEVER refuse a teammate based on their IO status. I would, however, refuse certain teammates based on power selection. As an example, I wouldn't take a tank without his mez protection on an STF, or a controller who uses nothing but pool powers to fight, stuff like that. I won't kick someone because they like Whirlwind (It IS a fun power )

If you can, Fury, direct your friend to this thread so she can read for herself that all that stuff isn't necessary.