Is enhancing worth it before 22?

A friend of mine says that slotting any enhancements and building IOs is useless until 22. In fact, he says that doing so will actually disadvantage you, because you are wasting money. He sells every enhancement he gets, and all of the salvage that doesn't go into IOs for damage, accuracy, recharge, endurance reduction.

Personally, I like having my powers do more before I've played for days.

Is it really that bad? Is he just power-gaming, or is there some sense in what he says?

To an extent it depends how quickly you're getting from 1-22, and whether you're soloing it or or teaming. Some folks blaze through those levels so fast it doesn't matter what they've got slotted, so why spend the time/inf. Or if you're exclusively teaming the strengths of your teammates will cover any poorly slotted powers you might have. I think I'd find soloing a bit of a chore if I were doing it without any enhancing once I'm in the teens though.

Certainly pre-IOs a lot of people waited until 22 since - unless you had a high level alt feeding inf down - it'd be a struggle to afford a full set of SOs, so every drop of inf counted. Now though, inf is easier to come by (if you utilise the market to any degree) and personally I don't have any trouble affording at least generic IOs (and/or frankenslotting cheap sets) at 22, so I'll happily kit out before then.

The amount of money spent on TOs and DOs is negligible imho.

I kit mine out with the finest TOs and DOs I have the patience to buy. Though sometimes, I don't get around to doing it.

I don't think it's that much of a loss of money. A net mil or two I think. Idk exactly, but I am sure it's less than 5mil.

And sometimes it's nice to b able to do just a little more than I otherwise would.

In a good team I don't find it worth it at all, since you'll quickly outlevel them. Depending on the team though, I might also just buy accuracy DOs if we don't have defense debuffs.

But I don't really find it a waste of money, either. If you have one high leveled character, the amount you'll spend on DOs throughout your entire career is pocket change compared to what you get per mission.

So basically it comes down to how lazy I am. If I bothered to email money from my main or if I want to take the time to go to the store to buy DOs, stuff like that.

For teaming the main thing I slot prior to DOs is Endurance Reduction or Recharge, whichever makes more sense for the power. After DOs I start slotting semi-normally.

Here's a tip to making enough money to slot your new characters quick and easy.

If you can get to preatoria and you're a resistance member, go to Imperial Underground to the resistance base. There's a market interface down there, and a vendor like... 100 ft away. Bid 1500 or so (or less depending on the bidders/sellers ratio and current going rate) for level 35 common IO recipes. Run over to the vendor and sell them straight back for 7000 a piece. Note: some are worth more than others, but you'll always make a profit doing this.

Also works very easily in Kings Row due to the proximity of vendors to the auction house. Not sure where the best place to do it in the Rogue Isles is, though.

Slotting pre-22 is very effective, especially for recharge and endurance reduction. Accuracy is worth it once you start getting into your teens, as the bonus lowbie accuracy begins to wear off. By level 17 you can slot up with level 20 common IOs for near SO level performance. By 22 you can fill up with level 25 common IOs which are as good as SOs and NEVER wear off. You can keep those all the way to 50 and never have to worry about replacing them.

Lazy method with virtual zero market time:

Mail yourself a million inf.

Level 4, grab email, run to market, put in bids for stacks of 10 acc, dmg, endrdx, rch, and (insert toon's specialty) lvl 15 crafteds, so that you don't even have to figure ahead your slots at 12-ish. Slot the ones you don't use at 13, 15, 17, and/or sell 'em for profit.

The time it takes me to craft a bunch of endredux, damage, and accuracy when I make level 7 is pretty trivial.

The time it saves me by the time I make level 12 is huge. So is the fact that I can keep going with those basic enhancements, because they're IOs and aren't degrading; I'm still getting 11.7% to everything. At 17, it's probably worth redoing with level 20s, and I tend to pick up a handful of 2/3 stat things and frankenslot. It's still cheap, and you know what? Three level 20 acc/dam/rech IOs are better than level 25 acc, dam, and rech SOs are even at level 22. And they don't get worse as you level.

If you don't mind spending an hour here and there messing around with WW/BM, it's pretty much a good use of time. Alternatively, craft stacks of 'em on someone else and leave them in your base enhancement table.

Awesome, guys! Thanks for all the info. I enjoy crafting and marketing, so I'm glad to hear that I'm not shooting myself in the foot, as my friend says.

See you in the city.

Although I would say it's still pointless to buy enhancements before level 12. TOs do crap, whereas DOs (and their level 15 IO equivalents) are at least noticeable.

Seems to me the biggest thing here is whether you primarily team or solo. Also if you have been living in a cave the last couple of years.

If you do not at least slot up Acc, then you are going to be missing, a lot, especially as you rise in level and your base Acc decreases, and most definitely against all the +1s in the missions. Now on a team that’s not a big deal as long as the rest of the team is hitting. Hells, it's even better because you wont be agroing MOBs. Of course this means that your pretty much just leaching off of the team. Solo your going to feel those misses. Your going to be taking more damage, and using more endurance, and if you are going up against +1s your going to be doing a lot of face-planting.

Also as has been mentioned now that we have the market, and global email, there is absolutely no reason not to at least slot Accs, and even Endurance Reductions. I put a couple of 5kinf emails out on my global and pick one up with a lowb at lvl 2. I can make this back 30 fold just by selling the large inspirations I get in the tutorial. I also bop in and out of the AE, to top off my characters levels, and I cash out my tickets at level ten. When you pick up a recipe that will make you 30mil, 5k isn't even a thought.

For me the lvl 20 IOs are well worth their cost, whatever their type.

I suggest your buddy comes out of their cave, and I suggest you slot up with at least Acc. Because whether you care or not if you miss a lot, solo that's up to you, but if you run on teams your teammates are going to start noticing, and then start caring, and in this day and age of The Market and Global Email there is absolutely no reason, unless you are a Newb.

With each of my characters I start slotting training ones at lvl 7 and switch to DO's the second I hit 12. While more often than not I email these new characters starting cash these days I never use to bother untill I was ready to start buying sets. To afford all those T's, DO's and SO's was achievable without having to play the market. It was just a matter of making a point of dropping into Wentworths whenever I filled up on salvage and put it up for sale. This usually generates enough inf to keep you properly enhanced. It also has a nice added benefit of keeping up stocks of salvage for sale.

As an example of cost... I sent an alt i lvld in praetoria 200k inf to play with to kit him out as i pleased... I found around the late teens i needed another 100k to keep him kitted till he hit paragon... in the midst of this buying of TO/DOs I did use recipes i found as drops along with found salvage to make some basic IOs as well so that ate up some of my cash.

so by lvl 21 I spent roughly 300k inf on TOs and DOs... its really a pittance to anyone who isn't leveling their first toon.

I don't generally use IO's before the lvl 25 ones, but DO's are definitly worth it. There is a noticable difference between no enhancements and dual origin enhancements.

Training enhancements don't really do much though.

One tip I would give to people is that while SO's cap out in effectiveness at roughly 3 slots, DO's do not. So sometimes its worth having 4-5 of the same type of enhancement. 1 Acc, 5 Damage. Takes us back to pre-ED times, but for DO's it does work, gets you closer to that 95%

Aside from all the other stuff mentioned...

My high levels tend to have the level 15-20 common IOs for acc, dam, end, etc. memorized, and dump a bunch in the bases. They don't tend to miss the INF, and it helps the lowbies out. Plus, hey, if you're badging or anything, there's a few right there. (I don't really care about that, but for some it is a consideration.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

Yes, absolutely. I don't generally bother with TOs, but I slot DOs on all of my characters. The difference between a character with no DOs and a character with them at level 12+ is definitely noticeable. And the amount of money that a couple sets of DOs costs compared to how much money anyone who uses the market has by that level is pretty negligible. Unless your friend is vendoring literally everything he gets, in which case he probably is very short on money.