First Kheld in six years

tl;dr - I have a Warshade who is awesome in teams, but less awesome solo. I want advice to improve my solo awesomeness.

I've been playing on and off since launch, and with my rather severe alt-itis I have never gotten to level 50. So now that Kheldians (oh, and the Soldiers of Arachnos) are available after level 20, I finally got around to rolling one.

After reading Dechs Kaison's wonderful write up of the life of a Warshade, I decided to make my first Kheldian a Warshade.

Needless to say, I am very impressed with the play style (yes, I'm a tri-former). This is quite possibly the first character (of hundreds) I've created that's actually lived up to the hype I've heard about it.

Anyway, I just reached level 26 last night and I'm starting to look at IOs for the near future. I plan to frankenslot for enhancement values to make the most of my scant few slots and later (probably late 30s) start slotting sets. I recently used a respec to put those first 4 slots to better use and used a slotting tip I read in one of the threads in this forum, so my Nova attacks are well taken care of and my Dwarf attacks are just over halfway slotted. My human powers still need slots (except Hasten--that's all set), but the ones I have work really well out of the box (except Unchain Essence, that needs more slots). For how I use them, anyway.

This brings me to my first question: What bonuses should I focus on? I can get pretty good +regeneration and decent +recovery with the next step up from frankenslotting (two-slotting sets), but with Stygian Circle, those are more or less unnecessary. +Damage and +toHit are...less than useful because I can often very nearly damage cap myself with both mires going, and I don't have accuracy problems (most of the time) for the very same reason. +Recharge seems like a good idea, as does +defense. Can I get any significant amount of defense from IOs to make it worth the investment? These two are only limited in that I can't put enough slots into enough powers to get enough of the 5- and 6-deep set bonuses, where +Recharge and +Defense usually hide, for it to make a significant impact.

Speaking of set bonuses; my second question: I've read a lot about some powers and IO bonuses not transferring to forms. What are the rules about which IOs/Set Bonuses transfer? Do sets in passives transfer (i.e. Absorption, Stamina, etc.)? Do IOs in powers transfer (i.e. Steadfast Protection: Resist/3% Defense, Luck of the Gambler: 7.5% Recharge, etc.)? Does the power type (Auto, Click, Toggle) make a difference, or the bonus type (IO global bonus, set bonus, proc)?

Primarily, I'm wanting something that will boost my performance when solo because I already feel pretty awesome in a team. In a team I never have endurance issues, never get near death, but when I play solo or with my SG (grand total of three people, myself included) I don't feel quite as awesome. Nova form works well (but is squishy), but in Dwarf form I find myself having endurance problems (each of my attacks is already 1-SO slotted for endurance reduction, any more and I compromise damage output) and the lack of an actual AoE attack (even though the mire is good for that, it isn't yet slotted for damage) means I have to focus on squashing my foes into dust one at a time.

I don't have access to Mid's at the moment and I'm not looking for a build, but a couple of tips and/or a general area on which to focus would be good. I rely on the forms for the majority of my play and pop into Human form just long enough to fire off Hasten, Sunless Mire, and if I need it, Stygian Circle before going back to one of the forms. For this reason I don't have Fitness. (Which reminds me: I notice that two-slotting either form with EndMods brings the form's natural +Recovery to about 25%, equal to base Stamina. Is it worth it to do so?)

So, Kheldian gurus, what are your suggestions?

Wow, lots of excellent advice.

All good advice here. Nothing at all I dissagree with.

I am at 180% global recharge with 3 slotted hasten (hasten is exactly perma) and I wouldnt trade a single percent of that for anything.

The performance shifter proc is well worth the investment for dwarf form.

Gravitic Emmination first then Unchain Essence for power picks, I would'nt skip either as what most people complain about with the "real" WS nuke is it doesnt quite kill everything. Mire + Unchain + Quasar = all dead with no exceptions aside from EB's and AV's.

If well built you can also add a fair amount of +damage +acc +recovery and +regen to your build while maintaining an insane amount of +recharge. My advice?

Go nutz on your shade, you will not regret the money you spend.

This may be a *really* stupid question, so brace yourselves. I never really caught onto the whole "IO" thing fully.

How do you "look for" set bonuses that give certain things? I mean, you can't just type in "+recharge" at the Consignment House and buy everything up. Are there certain sets that are well known to give +recharge? When does it not become expedient to go for a set bonus? (2 piece? 4 piece? 8 piece?) How does one go about doing this without completely ruining what they actually want to slot the POWER for? ("I want to slot this power for 2 acc, 2 dam, 1 rech, but if I sacrifice the 2 damage for these weird hybrid IO's I can get another 1.6% off my global recharge....")

P.S.: Is this going to cost a fortune? I don't have much influence. Around 3 mil currently.

This whole system is really confusing and frustrating. Seems to defeat the whole purpose of enhancing if all you're going for is set bonuses. Can someone explain plox?

Tongz,

Here is a list of enhancement sets and their bonuses.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Inventio...hancement_Sets

These are a few build planners.

http://www.cohplanner.com/


Those are the tools that will help you plan your character, and yes, it will cost a bit more than three million. Check the market forum for easy ways to earn your millions.

It doesn't defeat the purpose of enhancing because in getting the set bonuses, you end up with more than 6 SO's worth of enhancement in a power, sometimes in 5 or less slots, plus all the bonuses. They are expensive in proportion to their benefit, that much is true.

Separate reply to the OP to address his points.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllYourBase I was already planning on putting as much Recharge as I can, how much is "good enough"?

Recharge suffers from diminishing returns, simply because of formula involved. Each percent of recharge adds a little less than the percent before it.

That said, 110% global recharge will make three slotted hasten permanent. In my mind, any more than that is a waste. Eclipse can be permanent with less though, which is the real goal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllYourBase Really? It makes that much difference? Do you need one in Nova too, or just Dwarf?

The Performance Shifter proc grants 10 endurance with a chance every ten seconds in a toggle, which works out to be .2 endurance per second on average. One level 50 end mod IO enhancement in Nova or Dwarf form only gives you .1 endurance per second.

I also just tested this: With a performance shifter proc in both forms, you can repeatedly switch back to fill your blue bar. Every time you switch you get the chance for the proc to go off.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllYourBase Oh. I kind of...took Unchain Essence at 26. Oops. It sounded better in the description. For a mini-"nuke" the actual damage was kind of "meh" out of the box. I think human form Detonation would have been better. I'll get Gravitic at 28 and devote 29 and 31 to it.

Human form Detonation is a waste to a TriFormShade. Unchain is great, but Gravitic is useful much more often. You can stack the stuns on top of each other.

Gravitic into a corner -> Mire -> Gravity Well a minion to kill it -> Unchain essence. The boss is now stunned (likely) and everything is almost dead.

I'm Pretty much in the same boat as the OP so figure I would just add on instead of starting a new thread.

Is there a list or a way with mids to know which powers will be available in each form. I recall that some powers are grayed out when you change forms. I just am trying to figure out which.

Mids allows me to slot for Dark Dwarf but everything is highlighted for slotting. It would be nice to know which other powers beyond Dark Dwarf I can use while in that form.

Also to the poster who asked about set bonuses.. In mids under the window tab on top there is a option called Set bonus finder. I usually click ALL when looking for a particular bonus instead of a certain value.

Mids doesn't really show you, no.

Basically, click-powers (like hasten) carry over into the form until their duration runs out. All toggles drop and all powers outside the forms aren't available.

The only things really available are the form and the form powers.

I would say what bonuses you chase are down to play style. Recharge is obviously a favorite and HP is very good too. Personally, I've never been disciplined enough to keep dropping forms to reapply eclipse the moment it's available, but that's down to my lazy play style. Because of this, I found ranged defense to be very effective and also provided a reasonable recharge rate.

Not sure how I would recommend making a shade more awesome solo. I personally found my shade very awesome and probably the easiest toon I've had to solo.

One thing I did do was fully slot my Nova blasts and Dwarf attacks as early as possible and as a priority over most other powers. Nova blasts are great for procs too as they recharge very quick and this can add quite a surprising amount of damage/utility.

Get +Endurance in Dwarf form asap too, Nova can wait as it's pretty endurance friendly and kills things very fast anyway. Dwarf I found a struggle through the 30's as you need to use it more, but the endurance drain is a killer. So slot for endurance as much as possible, even if only temporary.

Like you I found Unchained Essence very meh. In the end I gave up on it. I found that I could do just as much damage in Nova form. I've been quite amazed at the improvements to Nova blasts.

Do the Shade story arcs. These are quick and easy and give some nice merit rewards, which you can easily exchange for rare salvage or useful IO recipes.