Dumb IO question

I have played for a few years but have just started getting into IOs and sets and I have a question:


For players that IO out their character at lower levels like the 30s, do you just stick with those IOs until 50 or do you refresh them at certain points? It seems like a lot of expense of you do so I didn't even start playing around with IOs until I had level 50 characters.

I don't change mine if they are 25 or higher. The exceptions are certain uniques that don't matter on level, some procs, and to replace with purples or HO's. I just don't see enough performance difference to matter or care about uber maxing.

Common IOs I replace every 10 levels after I first slot them. (E.g. Level 10s would be replaced with level 20, then level 30, while level 15s would be replaced with 25 then 35.) I usually stop replacing at 35 or 40, as the gains after that are trivial.

Set IOs I start slotting ~35, and never replace them. They're perfectly good enough, and slotting lower level IOs keeps the set bonuses when exempted down. A few specific set IOs I slot at lower levels, like KB protection or Stealth.

For Common/Generic IOs, since I have the Inf, I start using them at level 15. If you're short on Inf, I'd definitely suggest that you start making the level 25s to use once you get to level 22. Replace any lower level Common IOs with level 25s. The level 25 Common IOs are almost SO values. If you plan ahead, you can prepurchase the necessary recipes and salvage required. If you have a Base, you can store them until needed too. After level 25, I would suggest that you then just make the appropriate level IOs as you level up. Thus you may have a range of IOs in use on your character by level 50.

As for Set IOs, I like to slot mid-30s pieces for all powers that I've picked up by the mid-30s. After that, I'll make and slot level appropriate Set IO pieces. Note: I'm building with set bonuses in mind, so I take the level of the Set IO piece into account for exemplaring effects. If you are just mix-and-matching pieces from different Sets without regard to set bonuses (aka "frankenslotting"), then it doesn't matter what the level is of the Set IO piece. Slot what you have or the highest you can get a hold of cheaply.

Just want to make explicit something that a couple of other posters have mentioned implicitly; for common IOs, once you hit the ED cut-off for an enhancement value (it'll show up as red in Mid's) there's no real benefit to slotting higher level IOs. So if you're going to put 3 slots of a particular type (3 damage, for instance) in a power, using anything higher than level 30s is usually a waste of influence. But if you are using just one or two slots, going up to level 50 will at least provide some benefit.

For set IOs, there are significant benefits to using lower level IOs. For one thing, as others have mentioned, the IO level determines whether you keep the set bonus when exemping. Also, there are a number of extremely desirable bonuses in sets that cap out at 30 or 40. If you really need/want a bonus in a lower level set, IMO it's much better to just keep that set and the bonus than trade it in for a higher level set with a less desirable bonus.

I pretty much just use SOs for the majority of my characters, I have about 5 that I use generic IO's on and even then I didn't brother until around level 40 and I only really have 3 characters that I've ever brother with IO sets and only one has purples.

Most of my characters go into the high 30's before I even look at filling any slot apart from just slotting what drops along the way. I played one my characters that I haven’t use for quite a while last night and got a bit of a shock when I realise he didn't have a single enchantment (of any type) at level 20. Obviously, I must not had any problems when I was levelling him.

I have to agree with most of the comments above.

I use SO's until I can slot level 35 enhancements. Then I craft set IO's and keep them forever, adding additional IO's as I level. I find the planning and crafting a bit time-consuming so I only want to do it once per toon.

As you can tell, everyone does it differently. . .

For most characters I tend to frankenslot around either 27 or 32 [frankenslot = bunch of different sets with no particularly good "set bonuses", so you're getting the advantages of higher bonuses in each power for cheap]. Then I'll sometimes replace them with better sets in the 40-50 range, depending on how much I like the character and how much the character needs them. I have only built three or so even remotely high end characters (one was a stalker who soloed Countess Crey as an AV at level 42), so my answers may not be your answers.

There are cases where I do a temporary "IO-out" at a lower level. For instance if I've got a character who's an end hog, doesn't do enough damage, or is otherwise frustrating at level 16 or 17, I may buy a bunch of generic IO's (level 20 IO's are considerably better than DO's) and maybe even set IO's to improve performance. I did that on a dark/energy tank that I soloed a lot, and I did that on a Fire/Mental blaster because three AOEs is a dramatic amount of endurance.

Incidentally, if you're short on money there are a lot of ways to make a lot of money fast. One is to do 10 Tips [there's a 5-a-day limit] plus your Alignment mission, take your hero/villain merit, and buy one of several 1-merit recipes which sell for close to 100 million inf. Last I looked Kinetic Combat: Dam/End and Dam/Rech were in that price range. If you're willing to craft, you can often add 10-20 million inf to that. Be sure to check prices before you convert, and remember to lowball your sales price. I am an Ebil Marketeer and I approve this message, etc.

I'm a bit stingy with regards to crafting IOs and then destroying them later by dropping higher-level one in. I run with normal SOs until level 27 (when lvl 30 Enhancers can be slotted) and then start dropping in common IOs. If something nifty drops early I'll craft it and drop it in or if I REALLY need something (like -KB on a Fire/Dark character) I'll buy one in the AH. Then I ride the lvl 30 IOs all the way to 47 and then start crafting my lvl 50 stuff.

I want to thank everyone for their responses, it has been very helpful. I don't play around with Mids so I didn't realize the differences between level 35 and 50 were small enough that leaving level 35s would be acceptable. Any further responses are also appreciated.

I like to start making IO at level 22 since I can use level 25 items by then.
I find ultimately I can craft some level 25 for not that much more than buying Single Origins that will be worthless in 5 levels. I usually don't have the time for make all of the 25 I can use. Sometime a shortage of some parts on the AH make it cost prohibitive so I wait for a lower bid on the AH to return in a couple of days. This delay usually is enough that I'm at the next level and buying say 30 level items, etc.

I don't replace any IO made at that is >=25 until I'm 50.