Why do so many people slot an entire set of IO's?

Other MMOs such as EQ2 let you do this too, and boy do people like to b**ch about what other people do with their characters. I hope CoH is different. I thought the aspect behind this game was to build your own super hero/villain the way you want it, but if I have to do things a specific way that someone else says is best, that defeats the whole purpose. If this means at level 50 when i finally reach it, people wont team or raid with me because of what enhancements i have, i'm best off soloing or only teaming with my close friends who got me this game. ;p

People like to b**ch, it's human nature, but very very few people will actually not accept you for a team because of your enhancements. I don't think I've ever been on a team where I've even seen someone comment on someone else's enhancements.

It may be just me, but I've found the best thing to do with people who want to insist you build your character their way is to tell them to get bent.

LEGION OF VALOR - Be a part of the Legend!

In some other games you need the perfect build, apparently. In this game extreme IO'd builds are only required for self-imposed challenge tasks, and even then you have quite a bit of leeway to build to suit your personal tastes and playstyle.

For every one person who actually cares what IOs you have, there will be a hundred who don't, and another hundred who would rather have your "gimp" character than someone running a multi-billion inf build they copied from the forums, farmed up and don't know how to play very well but use to lord their uberness over everyone else.

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"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

/agree

I go back a lil farther than that to EQ1, and then it was considered rude to "inspect" the gear of others without asking first. Back then, it would have been considered the height of rudeness to not only inspect others without asking but then to ridicule them on their gear as well. But then again, that *was* back in the day when rudeness was rare and was also considered anti-social, unlike today where rudeness is the "raison d'être" for some people.

I was confused by the OP's first sentence as well, since obviously all IO sets need to be fully slotted to give the "full" benefits they offer. Perhaps this could have been reworded as "you don't usually need to slot the entire set to get all the worthwhile benefits."

Your friend is not alone, I also slot IO sets purely for the sake of collecting them. For me, it's a game within a game. While I won't deliberately gimp a power with an IO set, and obviously I prefer sets that confer a tangible in-game benefit, I have slotted IO sets that don't much improve my character simply for the sake of slotting the set. Generally I prefer to collect the whole set just for the satisfaction of completion, although in some cases where the cost vs benefit is just too ridiculous, I have settled for incomplete sets.

Honestly, I think the reason it was taboo in EQ had more to do with the spam ("Soandso is inspecting you") than courtesy. If you walked into a heavily populated area (GFay, East Commons, North Freeport on some servers) wearing something that even LOOKED like a popular/high end item (Executioner's Axe, Rubicite anything, Lustrous Russet anything, Short Sword of the Ykesha, etc), your chat box would fill with spam ("Soandso is inspecting you", "Suchandsuch is inspecting you", "Tomdickandharry is inspecting you"). And I remember several occurrences where people were turned down for teams (and ridiculed) for camps like AoF in Cazic Thule (when there was often a line to get into a group doing AoF room) and some of the better camps in Lower Guk (Frenzied Ghoul, Lord/AM, etc). There were even some cases of mistaken identity with regard to gear.

"Dude, I think the tank is wearing banded."
"No way!"
"Hey tank, is that a banded BP?"
"No, it's Brigandine."
"Can you put it in the trade window?" (because there was no linking back then)
"Sure."

While you're right that courtesy was more apparent then than it appears to be now, I don't think the reasons behind that are as similar as you seem to. Back then, if your rep went bad, you had one choice: reroll. Considering the time and effort it took to level back then, that was NOT what most people wanted to do. So people were courteous because they HAD to be or their day to day gameplay would be affected. That doesn't exist anymore (and hasn't for almost a decade. Kunark started the process of stripping that away from EQ1. The so-called "Kunark Express" meant rerolling wasn't quite so bad anymore).

On topic, people go for all six of a set for the reasons Memphis Bill stated. I do it myself because there are set bonuses in the sixth slot that I value higher than people at large.

While it is none of my business what people do, this isn't really true.

Erad, KC, Aegis..etc. But, yeah, usually, just not "all."

Actually I really like the KC proc in fast attacks that don't already do KD/KB, it adds significant mitigation, it also makes the set a lot cheaper, I slot 4 KCs without the triple in stone fist and boxing on my dark/stone tank.

+Health and +Damage aren't good?

Of course they are, and when I'm slotting something like LotGs I only slot 4 of them.

The point was some sets you have to slot all 6 to get the bonus you need.

zomg!!11 *xplodesed*

That's a lot of -KB to go with that tasty +recharge. That actually probably makes you feel pretty tough.

I can't speak for everyone, but since you used Armageddon as an example of the 6th slot, I'll elaborate a little as to why I'll be slotting for the 5% toxic resistance in that set (and Hecatomb as well) in a planned build for my DB/Regen Stalker. I'm not one to put purple sets on every single character, and definately try my best not to 6-slot powers when un-necessary... but in the case of my /regen, I'll be slotting 2 full purple sets, Armageddon and Hecatomb, for the global recharge and toxic resistance bonuses in them. I plan to put as much global recharge (without completely breaking the bank) as I can possibly fit in so all my powers are up as often as possible... and since healing damage is almost the only mitigation that /regen has, I'll be building the small amounts of resistance it has to make it better. That being Smash/Lethal and Toxic resistance.

Toxic damage, while not the most common in the game, wreaks total havoc on a /regen... and makes appearances in some very common enemy groups, namely Snakes, Arachnos toxic tarantulas, Vahzilok, Devouring Earth Spores/Fungoids and Arachnoids. Being a villain, Snakes are prominent in the lower levels and Arachnos is prominent through all levels 1-50. Toxic Tarantulas begin showing up around the same time Snakes stop being a problem. Arachnoids and snakes are also prominent in a few high level arcs. /regen has a small bit of toxic damage resistance built-in with Resilience and Reconstruction, and toxic damage, IMO, is most lethal to a /regen toon.

In my Mids build as it stands now (i'm still tweaking a bit) Resilience gives me 11.3% resistance to toxic, and using Reconstruction adds another 23.6% for 60 seconds and recharges every 18... and I've built up another 20.5% toxic resistance through set bonuses for a total of 55.5% resistance to toxic damage. What that's going to do is help me survive when all my regeneration is floored at 0% and I only have heals and MoG to rely on. Enemies that don't deal toxic damage are easily survivable, but things get pretty rough when regeneration is on the floor and you can't do anything about it.

I surely could have gone for defense with set bonuses, but that isn't really something I wanted on this toon, and it doesn't make sense to me for this particular AT/powerset combo anyway. IMO resistance will work much better because I'll take less damage and be able to heal that damage back easier. with resistance I should be able to prevent myself from being 1-shotted and have the ability to recover from a near fatal blow in short order, whereas with defense I could likely get 1-shotted during a bad streak. Furthermore, I think having high defense on a regen toon pretty much negates the point of regen and slows your reaction time when you get into trouble. If I wanted to stand there and dodge every hit I would have rolled an SR toon or something. I don't like all my toons to play the same, and while I may build some with defense in mind, like my blapper... I don't want every single toon to be softcapped because I find that boring.

Getting toxic resistance built up was my secondary goal to +recharge, but I've also got 29% S/L, 12.5% F/C and 25% Psionic resistance between set bonuses, Tough and Resilience. Not HUGE numbers, but they serve their purpose nearly equal to a brute or scrappers shields when paired with the capabilities of /Regen, and I've still got all the defense I need from MoG and Shadow Meld, which can be used in the order of Shadow Meld>MoG>Shadow Meld for a good 40 seconds of softcapped defense if needed.

I'm not saying this is "the best" build, and some may not agree with my reasoning for building on resistance over defense set bonuses, but it's something that made sense to me and I wanted to try out. The alt is currently lvl 39 and I've only recently started collecting her IO sets to slot, but even the base build with common IOs is doing better than expected, So I'm pretty certain that once sets are in place it'll be much tougher... and then there's always the incarnate system to look forward to.

I do love that set. Have two on my MA/Fire scrapper. I enjoy finishing off enemies by using Crane Kick to put them in a new zip code.

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@Starflier