What is Frankenslotting?

I am a returning old timer. I see the term Frankenslotting, and understand it has something to do with crafted enhancements, but cannot find out what exactly it means.

What is Frankenslotting?

An explanation or link would be appropriated.

http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Frankenslot

Mixing and matching IOs/SOs/HOs from different sets in the same power.

Welcome back.

Basically it's "Building a monster out of spare parts." The example I always use is 5-slotting a ranged damage power:
Level 35 Thunderstrike Acc/Dam/Rech, Dam/End/Rech
Level 35 Ruin Acc/Dam/Rech
Level 35 Maelstrom's Fury Acc/Dam/Rech
Level 35 Damage IO

This gives you (level 35 IO's are about equal to +1 SO's)
One SO of accuracy
Three SO's of damage
One SO of endurance reduction
Two SO's of recharge reduction

Total: "Seven slots" in five slots.

I haven't checked recently, but you used to be able to buy all five recipes, the salvage, and craft them for well under a million inf. You could slot them at level 32, and use those same IO's until you got bored. (You can buy whatever's cheap and available, whether that's level 32, level 36, level 34, whatever.)

My miniguides thread (in sig) has an example of frankenslotting a Claws/Dark Armor scrapper.

Don't give up completely on Frankenslotting for bonuses.

Just off the top of my head, for example, it's well worth slotting 4 Numina's and 2 Performance Shifters into Drain Psyche.

To provide another point, the reason this works is because multi-aspect IOs provide more total bonus than an SO, even though the bonus is split between two or more types. For example, a level 30 generic damage IO provides 34.8% enhancement, roughly the same as a +1 SO. A level 30 acc/dam provides 21.8% accuracy and damage, for a total of 43.6% total enhancement value - one and one quarter SOs. A level 30 acc/dam/rech IO provides 17.4% to each, for a total of 52.2% - one and one half SOs.

So, if you can slot out a power with nothing but double and triple aspect IOs, you will get much more total enhancement percentages than if you simply slot out with SOs/generic IOs.

I personally do almost nothing *but* frankenslotting. I haven't ever slotted out a character with nothing but SOs the entire time I've played this game. Frankenslotting is just flat-out superior in every way - it's even cheap if you make sure to look around for the sets no one else wants. I can get the equivalent of 2 acc, 3 dam, 2.5 rech, 1.5 end in an attack power this way - a total of 9 SOs worth in 6 slots, and that's with level 30ish IOs that will never expire. Or, I can get almost 2 acc, 3 dam, and a bit more than 1 end and recharge in 5 slots, if I don't have as many slots to throw around.

I would definitely agree with the Frankenslotting advocates, and possibly take
it a step or two further.

Nearly all of my toons start this process at L22 and look for L25 set IO's. Why?

1> At that level, you're looking for SO's anyway. Sets will definitely out-perform
SO's hands-down. An L25 double (say, Acc/Dam) gives a 20% benefit to each
attribute. So, skipping bonuses for a moment, say you put a L25 Bruising Blow
(Acc/Dmg) IO in, and you also put in an L25 Pounding Slugfest (Acc/Dmg).
Your accuracy and damage for that 2-slotted melee power is 40% / 40% which is
better than the ~38.3 % you could get for a +3 Acc SO and a +3 Dmg SO in the
same number of slots. I can live with that.

2> They're much cheaper to buy at this level than higher level sets.
Crafting costs are much cheaper too. Folks who wait til their 30's or 40's
to slot set IO's pay a LOT more.

3> Once done - you're done. Slot 'em and Forget 'em - they'll perform that
well for the entire career of your toon, no management required. What's
more, you'll have that level of performance as soon as possible, and it will
be consistent along the way (unlike SO's which "oscillate" as you level).

4> Bonuses. In point 1, we ignored them, but we needn't. What if, in slots
3 and 4, we add a Bruising Blow (Dmg/End) and a Pounding Slugfest (Dmg/End)?
Well, you now have pre-Ed numbers of 40% Acc, 80% Dmg and 40% EndRdx,
in just 4 slots, and you got better than a +3 SO endurance reducer, essentially
at no extra charge. Additionally, you also get a 1% End recovery bonus (from
Bruising Blow), and an 8% Regen bonus (from Pounding Slugfest) that are always
available even if you exemplar down to L22... The *only* way to do that with
high level IO's, is through very expensive PvP-IOs and/or Purples... Folks
who exemplar a lot for tfs and the like should take note of this fact... Players,
who have endurance issues can make excellent use of this approach as well.
Triples and Quads (IO's with 3 and 4 attributes) can provide even more flexibility
to tweak your powers for the characteristics you want.

5> Free up slots. We can see that adding 1 more slot to our example power
would allow us to effectively max it's core attributes (say, an L25 Bonesnap (Acc/Dmg))
to get us to 60% Acc 100% Dmg and 40% ERdx (pre ED). That's as good
with the old 2 Acc/3 Dmg SO slotting, and we get Erdx and set bonuses for free
in the same space. We don't really need that 6th slot there, so it can be put to
use in another power. Players with Kheldians - take note.

Of course, you could use that 6th slot in the power and add a perk, like a
Chance for Damage, or Chance for Hold proc in there if you like or something
else - maybe a Recharge IO perhaps.


The drawbacks? There are three.

First, many players simply believe that high-level IO's are "better", so they wait
a long time before looking at sets. Over the long run, I believe they pay more,
and have more performance inconsistency in their toons over that time as
a result. Frankenslotting (esp. early) mitigates that.

Second, sets are more expensive than SO's, and initially, require some effort
(gathering components, crafting, etc.). This usually means that players need
to increase their income-earning potential earlier than they may be used to, and
often-times players are reluctant about that. The good news is, like Frankenslotting
itself, it's pretty easy to learn to do with a little bit of time and effort.

Third, there is a substantially smaller supply of mid-level IO's, due to
several factors, including the first point above, along with key game changes
(like AE and merits). Some of us are working on trying to improve that supply
issue. However, it is good advice for folks to plan ahead and bid early for these IOs
while a toon is still in the teen levels. That will give real good chances for being
able to get them by the time you reach the levels where you can use them.

Sorry for the length of this post, but imho, Frankenslotting is well worth the
time and effort it takes, when it comes to improving my toons. YMMV.


Regards,
4

Thanks for the info.

It looks like I should take some time and check what I can do.

My advice is to pick two powers at a time to improve, of different types (one ranged, one melee, or whatever.)

Why?

1) It's a manageable number of different recipes to look at and learn.

2) It's a manageable number of things to bid on. (You can bid on three or four levels of a recipe to get it faster/cheaper, and if you get extras you can usually resell them at a profit. Let 'em sit for a week. )

3) You're not trying to get, for instance, four Ruin triples at the same time.

4) You can hold ten IO's in your tray. That's ROUGHLY what two powers take. So you don't have to juggle a lot of IO's at once, and you don't have to run around with a power that's half IOs and half SO's- sometimes you end up short on damage or short on accuracy or have some other crucial problem when you do that.

I was going to say "Sorry we backed up the dump truck of information" but... I'm not really. Too much is better than not enough. My mini-guides also have info on using the market, if you're from the pre-market days. Do not stress about things costing a million inf. I can kick 10 million over to you if there's a problem with starting money, and you can SELL as well as BUY things at those prices.

Oh, one more thing. It's very good to plan this sort of thing out in advance using something like mid's, because it lets you start placing bids early. Sometimes there won't always be an existing stock of your desired IO at the correct level, so placing bids early and then letting them wait gives you a much better chance of actually having the IO by the time you get to your target level.

However, there is one thing to watch out for when planning, which is that it's not going to be obvious in mid's whether an IO is going to be expensive or not. Eventually, you'll just learn that, but initially, you may plan out a slotting for a power, hop over to WWs, and break your jaw on the floor upon seeing the 'last 5' sale prices for one of your IO recipes (or the salvage, for that matter).

To avoid this, consult the wiki page on IO sets and look at the icons next to each set piece. You will want to build your frankenslotting mostly out of pool A uncommons (yellow crosshair icon) and pool Bs (blue and light grey shield). You may also be able to use the occasional pool A rare (orange crosshair icon), but they're likely to be much more expensive. Avoid any pool C/D recipes (dark grey bar icon with gold I), PvP recipes (round hero/villain symbol), purple recipes (purple crosshair icon) or special availability recipes (pink !), as these will be prohibitively expensive and/or unavailable in almost all cases. As well, look at the set bonuses below the table with the icons and find which sets have lots of desirable bonuses (accuracy, lots of HP, regeneration, defense, and especially recharge) and try not to use those - even if they have pool A uncommons or pool Bs, they're likely to be expensive anyway simply due to demand.

Also, check the salvage in mids (there's a button in the upper right corner that toggles between showing set bonuses and showing salvage requirements when mousing over an IO), and see how expensive they are on the market before you go off buying the recipes. Most rare salvage (orange color) will be relatively expensive, but it varies wildly for common (white) and uncommon (yellow) salvage.

It's aliiiive!!!

That is all.

What is Frankenslotting?

It is awesome.