IO enhance and set help please
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-02-18 05:35 in The Market and Inventions
Quote:
There is no "right set for a scrapper". A /fire scrapper will use different sets to a /SR. What you need to think about is "What do I want to improve" and for some sets that will be obvious, others have alternatives. A /SR will primarily want positional defence bonuses to get to the 45% soft cap for melee/ranged/AoE defence. A /fire might want recharge, +HP, or defence and would need to choose between focussing on positional or typed defence. |
Originally Posted by HavocX10
I left the game 3 years in after playing from release. The Issue that brought WW, crafting, salvage etc. had just been introduced. I was already tired and burned out, SG disbanding, didn't care to have to learn all the stuff in that respect and left the game shortly thereafter. Returned recently about 6 months ago and loving the game again. But, I am no longer a seasoned well informed vet and while I would like to settle for just playing old school and outfitting my toons with SO's and being satisfied with that, I now realize I can't be satisfied with that
 . I have searched the Player Guides and forums and have learned a lot about the market. I could just take what I have learned and always have plenty of bucks with current non-IO enhancements on all toons but again, I really need to take the plunge and get some of the good stuff. At this point I do not see my goal being to the point I have invested the amount of time to get toons all "purped" out. But, what I am having trouble with is deciding on which IO's to get for which toon, which sets are recommended for which toons etc. I see the builds people post in the forums using Mids but the abbreviations are confusing. I have found some guides that list the Bronze, Silver and Gold choices and the A,B,C & D choices but damned if I can fully understand what it all means. The choices are somewhat overwhelming. Perhaps what I would like to find is too simplistic or maybe I just have not found it yet. What I am hoping to find is a guide for say a scrapper, troller, defender etc. that lists the suggested IO's and IO sets so I can then go the market and start setting up and planning on what to look for and how much money I will need to make the purchases over the course of the toon's develoment. I just cannot tell what I am looking at from the optimum builds people post listing the slots and ehnancemnts using Mids. I am also confused on IO's in general. I know if you buy one, it stays current for the life of the toon meaning it never turns red or has to be replaced. So is that to say if I have the bucks and fully outfit my Lvl 10 toon with Lvl 10 IO's for all powers I have at that point, those Lvl 10 IO's will be just as effective at Lvl 50 as an identical Lvl 30 IO? Please resist the urge to flame and point out that all of this info is somewhere on the forums . I have spent considerable time searching, reviewing, reading, clicking links that no longer work and so on. I have like I said, found a ton of info, just not what I am indicating above. Thanks in advance for any assistance! |
As to the level thing, a level 10 IO will be as effective as a level 10 IO when you're level 50, ie not very good, a small fraction as good as a level 50 IO, it just doesn't go red so always provides its bonus.
There's a break even point where IOs are as good as SOs around level 35 (depending on your +- on the SOs, the IOs don't vary).
What I do is outfit my toons with lvl 15 IOs (I have a toon with field crafter, an accolade earned by crafting a LOT of stuff, to do this cheaply), use those till I get SOs at 22, then look at set IOs at 32 or 37. Many people slot 30 or 35 IOs when they can, and then slot their sets at 50, that's just personal preference.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
If you don't have mids get it. Messing with it will help you learn the sets and try many slotting options which will help you come to a decision. Is there a specific character your wanting to IO first? That would make it easier to give advice and get the ball rolling on you learning the sets.
There's a lot of stuff in the system.
TL;DR is probably "Start here for frankenslotting, and learn market/invention basics for cheap while improving your character's performance."
Some answers in reverse order:
Quote:
It's just as effective AS WHEN YOU GOT IT. Higher level IO's work better. For generics: Level 15s are about equal to a green DO. Level 25's are about equal to a yellow SO. Level 35's are about equal to a green SO. Level 50's are about 42%. I can't find the generic table on Paragonwiki but for most things these numbers are right for bonus by level. | I am also confused on IO's in general. I know if you buy one, it stays current for the life of the toon meaning it never turns red or has to be replaced. So is that to say if I have the bucks and fully outfit my Lvl 10 toon with Lvl 10 IO's for all powers I have at that point, those Lvl 10 IO's will be just as effective at Lvl 50 as an identical Lvl 30 IO? |
Quote:
| Perhaps what I would like to find is too simplistic or maybe I just have not found it yet. What I am hoping to find is a guide for say a scrapper, troller, defender etc. that lists the suggested IO's and IO sets so I can then go the market and start setting up and planning on what to look for and how much money I will need to make the purchases over the course of the toon's develoment. I just cannot tell what I am looking at from the optimum builds people post listing the slots and ehnancemnts using Mids. |
1. Generic IO's. Good while levelling up, similar in price to SO's (not TOO much more expensive), never go bad, work like SO's.
2. Frankenslotting. I wrote a guide when IO's were fairly new. The formatting is broken and the link goes here but it's still OK. It's not a great guide- if I had it to redo I'd tweak some things- but it was pretty good for the time.
I haven't updated it because Cap'n Canadian's Guide is better, clearer and more detailed. I did build a miniguide (see sig.)
Frankenslotting is kind of a lot of work- I recommend picking two powers at a time and trying to get the IO's and salvage for them, then when you finish a power slotting all the IO's at once. But it's cheap; around as expensive as buying prebuilt IO's. A frankenslotted character will do everything faster, more accurately and for less endurance than the same character on SO's.
The third level- and I use this loosely, because there are levels and levels in this- is set bonuses. You have to be careful here for a number of reasons.
1) It is very possible to gimp yourself in WHAT THE POWER ACTUALLY DOES to get set bonuses. It's a temptation. It's a trap.
2) It's also very possible to find out that most of a set is fairly cheap, but key parts go for 100 million. Or that ALL of a set is expensive.
3) Set bonuses don't carry down well when you exemplar. If you have [for instance] level 50 IO's you lose the set bonuses below level 47.
4) It's hard to find good IO's at any level below 50 (people are stupid and various fixes to the market have allowed people to exercise this stupidity.)
Quote:
| I have found some guides that list the Bronze, Silver and Gold choices and the A,B,C & D choices but damned if I can fully understand what it all means. The choices are somewhat overwhelming. |
Pool B drops from mission completion. Silver rolls are Pool B plus some rare Pool A, I think.
Pool C&D (or "Rare Recipes") used to drop from completing a task force or respec trial. They were combined and you get them for merits now. Gold rolls are "Rare Recipe" I believe.
Purple/Ultra-Rare recipes are pool A, that only drop at level 50 (so only drop from enemies level 47 or higher), exceeeeeedingly infrequently.
Merits are "fractional recipes" that you get from completing story arcs, either as you go or from Ouroboros ("flashbacks" you can do after level 25), or from doing task forces. Longer TFs give you more merits. That's based on the average time. Some people can do some TFs very, very fast. So if you do a task force and it takes you six hours and you get 12 merits... someone has a shortcut. 20 merits gets you a random rolled recipe, and you can buy a specific recipe for 200 or 240 merits. The specific recipe is almost never worth it, in my opinion; there are a few recipes that you can sell for a godzillion inf and buy what you need, but even there you will USUALLY do as well or better with the random rolls. Random rolls are random! Much of Pool C is unloved and oversupplied.
Tickets are Architect system. They're "Abstracted rewards" that you can turn into salvage, or random rolls, or whatever you need or want. I like to save a couple hundred tickets in case the price of some common salvage gets stupid (which usually lasts five minutes, but I get impatient.) So you don't HAVE to pay half a million inf for that Circuit Board. You can take about six rolls on the "25-40 tech" table and make your own.
Wall of Text crits for 1420 points of damage!
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Thanks for the responses, some good advice and links for further info to ponder and study. I will start playing around with Mids to put together a game plan for my toons. As far as which toon am I trying to convert to IO's, well, lol, all of em, on 4 servers. So I guess the research per AT and power set per AT will need to be continued for individual builds posted in those forums. In the mean time I think I will continue to build wealth and keep my below 40 toons current with SO's and then start putting big bucks towards conversion to IO's and/or sets at that stage. That may be contrary to those in the know but frankly, after I get my toons into their 30's and have the money to keep SO slotting current, I can run +2 missions, or +3 on my tanks, scrappers and brutes without too much difficulty, depending on the opponent of course.
I do have 1 more question, that I think was addressed indirectly by Fulmens:
"4) It's hard to find good IO's at any level below 50 (people are stupid and various fixes to the market have allowed people to exercise this stupidity.)"
I was doing some research last night at WW seeing what I could expect to pay on that particular toon to purchase Lvl 25 IO's. I am not dense but damn if I could get any IO's to show up no matter how I filtered the search. I found a ton of recipes and salvage and common everyday DO's and SO's but no pre-made IO enhancements. Can somebocy offer some input on what I am doing wrong, or is it as Fulmens indicated, nobody is crafting low level IO's to sale, you just have to buy the recipes and salvage and craft them your self?
1) It's usually a LOT cheaper to craft your own. I don't even see the difference between buying a recipe+ingredients and buying a premade IO any more, as a difficulty thing. I just see it as five minutes work to save 2 million inf (for a typical set IO).
2) Under filtering, there's a "for sale and bidding" field. Shift that to "All" to see recipes and IO's that nobody's dealing in. That's probably it.
Example and Other Example of what I mean.
Peripheral point: Level 25 or 30 generics ARE worth it, probably. If you leave a bid up for 24 hours on a crafted item you may well catch startling bargains, although the "last 5" is full of people paying way too much. This is because of generic IO memorization which saves you 50% to 75% of the price to craft, depending on cost of recipe. So if you're just running SO's, you might consider running generic IO's - SO's that you buy once and never need to replace. Everyone's got their own plan for upgrading and IO usage, varying from "use 10's, then 20's, then 25's, then frankenslot at 30, then expensive sets starting at 40" for the most intense people to "buy generics at 25, never touch them till 50" relaxed people.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Quote:
Are you talking about the common/generic IOs? They're listed under the subcategory of "Other". | but no pre-made IO enhancements |
Note: common IO recipes are also under the big list of costume recipes that's also included in the "Other" subcategory.
Teams are the number one killer of soloists.
Quote:
I think it's laziness rather than stupidity. Generating enough low level recipes to support a market requires people to play in a way that they don't necessarily enjoy.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
4) It's hard to find good IO's at any level below 50 (people are stupid and various fixes to the market have allowed people to exercise this stupidity.)
|
Plenty of people (like me) would much rather play their level 50s or level a new character than play a perma-35 character. Consequently the supply of mid level recipes is low enough that buying them requires a lot of work.
I may have oversimplified because the OP said he has enough on his plate. Pool C vs Pool A, merits vs. insta-drops, massive exemplaring, Buy It Nao syndrome, all these things are stuff that doesn't need to be discussed in Inventions 102.
... Wait. I am going to discuss Buy It Nao.
If you see a piece of common salvage with 14 for sale and 2000 bids and the Last Five are 100,000 inf or more: Put a bid down for some much lower price (I like 5908, or 22908, but that's my signature) and do the Next Thing. Which may be more bids on more salvage, or may be crafting the things you CAN craft. It may be going back to beating people up.
If you have so much money that you won't miss a spare 100,000 inf, by all means buy it NAO. Otherwise, your offer to buy will probably fill in 5 minutes. Or 20 minutes. If it doesn't fill overnight, you may need to up the bid from five thousand to twenty thousand.
People who don't plan ahead and can't wait pay more than people who do plan ahead and can wait. That's the secret of the market.
I can't tell you how many times I've bid a reasonable amount on something, thrown money at the problem, forgotten to cancel my old bid and come back from crafting to find that I now have a spare Circuit Board or Steel. Bought at a reasonable price in the time it took me to go from Wents to the crafting table and back.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Quote:
A simple solution would be to allow the creation of random rolled recipes at a level to order rather than automatically kicking them to the max level for the rolling character.|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
I think it's laziness rather than stupidity. Generating enough low level recipes to support a market requires people to play in a way that they don't necessarily enjoy.
|
I typically save merits for specific and high priority purposes over the first part of a character's career. Most of what's bought with merits are procs and the like, and these are usually bought at the lowest level they can be gotten at; for most of them there's no advantage to having them higher level. My high level characters with odd lots of merits greater than 20 do random roll them and claim their Trap of the Hunters and Decimations. I would usually prefer to have the resulting recipes be much lower than 50 or whatever they end up as. I typically roll in the 30-34 tier. But most of them get kicked to 50, when I'd rather have something a character could equip sooner.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
Quote:
No argument from me, this has been suggested quite a bit but the devs seem to prefer the current system.|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
A simple solution would be to allow the creation of random rolled recipes at a level to order rather than automatically kicking them to the max level for the rolling character.
|
Oh well.
Quote:
I save salvage and slot common IOs that I craft myself starting at level 12. I use common IOs till I get level 25s in most things. Level 25 IOs are almost as good as even-con IOs, and a character would not be gimped if you played with them all the way to 50. From level 27 onward I start slotting IO sets that I keep for the rest of the character's life. |
Originally Posted by HavocX10
I was doing some research last night at WW seeing what I could expect to pay on that particular toon to purchase Lvl 25 IO's. I am not dense but damn if I could get any IO's to show up no matter how I filtered the search. I found a ton of recipes and salvage and common everyday DO's and SO's but no pre-made IO enhancements. Can somebocy offer some input on what I am doing wrong, or is it as Fulmens indicated, nobody is crafting low level IO's to sale, you just have to buy the recipes and salvage and craft them your self?
|
That means for powers that I got from level 1-32 or 35 I have IO sets between level 30 and 39. Later powers get IOs at the level the powers are obtained at.
This means I get most of the IO set bonuses when I exemp down to level 35 or so. Level 30-35 is where IO bonuses are better than even-con SOs. If you slot IOs at these levels it's cheaper than buying SOs every five levels (if you ignore the cost of recipes and salvage).
Doing it this way you never HAVE to update enhancements in any power after you hit level 22. Your enhancements will never go red in the middle of a mission and you'll never have buy anything on the market in a hurry.
Because of ED, you're not really missing much if you slot level 30s as opposed to level 50s. For example, a ranged attack power six-slotted with level 35 Thunderstrikes gets 59.64% Acc, 98.58% Dmg, 59.64% recharge and 59.64% end red. At level 50 you get 68.9% Acc, 101.47%, 68.9% recharge and 68.9% end red. The extra 9% Acc bonus is essentially worthless, considering that the Thunderstrike set bonus itself gives you 7%. Thus, the only real advantage to slotting level 50s is the extra 9% recharge and end red on the powers. In a power that takes 6 seconds to recharge, you have a net gain of .21 seconds -- a duration barely distinguishable to human reaction times.
The question is then: is it worth minuscule increases in recharge and endurance reduction to slot level 50 sets, which cost half a million to craft. Plus, if you wait till 50 you'll wind up having to buy dozens of recipes and hundreds of pieces of salvage at once. Your impatience will get the better of you and you'll wind up paying much more than if you just took your time. Also, your character will be much more responsive and end-efficient when you slot those sets in the 30s, making it more survivable and more fun to play. And when you exemp down to the 30s you'll get all those bonuses.
I start placing bids for things I know I'll need several levels ahead of time. The real key to getting what you want is to make reasonable bids and have patience. If you make a lot of low-ball bids you can often get lucky, but you might not. If you bid near the low end but still reasonably high you'll beat out the flippers who depend on people underpricing and overbidding to make their profits. You may need to adjust your bids over time if you're not getting what you want. Let them sit for a day and readjust as needed. Often someone will put something up at a nearby level and you can get that instead.
You can also get a lot of good recipes by doing AE missions for tickets starting at level 30 or so, then do the Bronze reward roll for the tickets. Many of those you can use yourself or sell on the market for millions.
This strategy works best for someone who plays several characters and is in no hurry to get to 50.
Quote:
It's not laziness at all, as you correctly point out in your second paragraph. The system has an inherent bias toward the production of level 50 recipes.
|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
I think it's laziness rather than stupidity. Generating enough low level recipes to support a market requires people to play in a way that they don't necessarily enjoy.
Plenty of people (like me) would much rather play their level 50s or level a new character than play a perma-35 character. Consequently the supply of mid level recipes is low enough that buying them requires a lot of work. |
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
Quote:
That's still laziness. I could theoretically IO my character using level 35 IOs if I was willing to put in the time and effort (either by waiting on market bids, having a level 35 farmer or just farming a lot of merits and doing direct buys) but because the system and market have a bias towards level 50 recipes I take the path of least resistance and use level 50s.
|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
It's not laziness at all, as you correctly point out in your second paragraph. The system has an inherent bias toward the production of level 50 recipes.
|
I left the game 3 years in after playing from release. The Issue that brought WW, crafting, salvage etc. had just been introduced. I was already tired and burned out, SG disbanding, didn't care to have to learn all the stuff in that respect and left the game shortly thereafter. Returned recently about 6 months ago and loving the game again. But, I am no longer a seasoned well informed vet and while I would like to settle for just playing old school and outfitting my toons with SO's and being satisfied with that, I now realize I can't be satisfied with that
.
. I have spent considerable time searching, reviewing, reading, clicking links that no longer work and so on. I have like I said, found a ton of info, just not what I am indicating above. Thanks in advance for any assistance!
I have searched the Player Guides and forums and have learned a lot about the market. I could just take what I have learned and always have plenty of bucks with current non-IO enhancements on all toons but again, I really need to take the plunge and get some of the good stuff. At this point I do not see my goal being to the point I have invested the amount of time to get toons all "purped" out. But, what I am having trouble with is deciding on which IO's to get for which toon, which sets are recommended for which toons etc. I see the builds people post in the forums using Mids but the abbreviations are confusing. I have found some guides that list the Bronze, Silver and Gold choices and the A,B,C & D choices but damned if I can fully understand what it all means. The choices are somewhat overwhelming.
Perhaps what I would like to find is too simplistic or maybe I just have not found it yet. What I am hoping to find is a guide for say a scrapper, troller, defender etc. that lists the suggested IO's and IO sets so I can then go the market and start setting up and planning on what to look for and how much money I will need to make the purchases over the course of the toon's develoment. I just cannot tell what I am looking at from the optimum builds people post listing the slots and ehnancemnts using Mids.
I am also confused on IO's in general. I know if you buy one, it stays current for the life of the toon meaning it never turns red or has to be replaced. So is that to say if I have the bucks and fully outfit my Lvl 10 toon with Lvl 10 IO's for all powers I have at that point, those Lvl 10 IO's will be just as effective at Lvl 50 as an identical Lvl 30 IO?
Please resist the urge to flame and point out that all of this info is somewhere on the forums