Question for the Great scrapers of the forums

I've never bothered with any IOing till 50(ish),
There are 2 significant exceptions though;
- The Steadfast Unique
- The Kismet Unique
Neither is overly expensive, and can even be gotten from AE bronze rolls (Not sure on that last though, its a while since I AEed)

The end result is that IOing only helps, its not enough by itself, and a long list of IO bonuses shouldnt impress anyone.

(and heck, a Kat/SR is already a very strong set)

lol @ toons without IOs are crippled. I did a mayhem solo at +2/x3 with a 27 elec/regen lolstalker (I love stalkers, but I'm calling this one 'lol' because at this level /regen feels much weaker than my em/nin and dm/ea felt in the same levels, I'm still on the fence on non-defensive sets for Stalkers in pve - unlike my others, on the regen I never placate+AS a foe in the middle of a group because of the constant interruption due to no defenses, I just use chain induction since T. Strike is not well slotted yet... But I didn't want to roll another scrapper, I'm leveling three already plus a PB with little time to play lately).

I faced TONS of longbow (I'll never do a mayhem at this setting again, because of the risk of failing, I just forgot to change my diff when I got it and I need the badges and arsons for accos because I'll pvp with this one) starting with 9 minutes (entered the mission, computer restarted lol - when I ran the game again I had lost 6 minutes).

I also soloed that Ouro Peacebringer dude's TF at +2/x2 on a SO'ed DB/Elec, died once (wish I had done that TF earlier, I never cared about story in the game but that one is so cool! The merit reward seems too low tho, just my impression).

I certainly agree that frankenslotting at say, 30, is much better and that's what I intend to do with my Spines/Fire because I'll lock her at 33 (no interest in leveling her further, Spines ST damage sucks, I'll just use her for dark astoria and TFs on teams and use merits/tickets to get lvl 33 recipes for the sirens call dudes), but saying SO'ed toons are crippled is ridiculous.

Here's my comments: first of all, scrapers are my single best AT. My scrapper (broadsword/shield) managed to do just about any story arc at +2x1 diff, without any IO sets (I had mostly lvl 30-ish generic IOs all the way up to 50). So yes, scrappers can do just about anything PvE if they play smart and enhance right. That being said, invest in IO sets. I found a build that cost only about 500-700mil, which seemed like alot at the time. But after I ran a few high lvl TFs and spent the merits on lvl 50 gold recipe rolls and sold the recipes from that, I got the cash relatively fast. The character was pretty sweet before, but this build ALMOST softcapped his defense, and got him near-perma hasten, and now he breezes clean through anything at +3x5, or +2x6. One more tip: if you decide to IO it up, do it on your secondary build. that way you can go back to yuor current build if you run out of cash half way through, or decide you dont like the results.

Oh, and one more thing: to all you peeps saying that toons with just SOs are cripple, I ask you: how do you think people got to lvl 50 before the invention system even existed? You do realize that IOs havent been around forever, right?

I always get a toon to 50 on SOs only before I start looking at sets. Exceptions are getting numina and miracle procs, and steadfast on some. Most of the time after the late 30s, early 40s, i get extremely bored, tranfer influence to my main, delete, make a new toon, and repeat a lot of times.

Kat/Sr should be super cheap to softcap as you won't have to worry about melee bonuses with DA, one application should do it. Red Fortune sets are almost free, and have good ranged bonuses.

Steadfast proc, last i bought one, was like 4-6 million, which is a steal if u ask me. Miracle and numina procs are also awesome, but expensive as hell. I like to random roll when my toon hits 50 with the merits he has when that happens, usually around 200 or so. I know you could buy one miracle for a lil more than that, but I like gamblin and the excitement of maybe getting more than just the one recipe.

I think what IOs really add to the game is end game content. Not direct content, but something to do with your toon after you hit 50. Not like back in the day when people would give noobs 50 million just because once you hit 50 there wasn't anything else to do with influence, aside from costume changes...and changing difficulty...and giving to new players...and that was about it. Now once you hit 50 you just pimp your dude out.

I do like one player mentioned and spend most of my money on my main, ma/sr, and the rest have SOs, one has almost all reg IOs, a couple have a few sets and procs here and there, but most just kinda sell stuff as they get it on their ride up the levels and hope I have interest in them when they hit 50 and i don't just roll another toon.

Rome wasn't built in a day. If you just had infinite influence and pimped your dude out over night, what would you do then, make another, play him with nothing to do with any merits or drops you get? Its a journey not a destination man.