New to 50

So, i'm new to 50 with an elec/fire dom. Love it. However, now that i'm 50, I'm not really sure what to do. I see alot of task forces and stuff in the channels, but what do I need to do first? Get my I/o's built and slotted? incarnates stuff? which I know nothing about yet. task forces? I guess, I'm just curious as to what I should do now that I've gotten to cap and don't knwo where to start.

I'd IO mine first. Then do whatever you want to do in the game. Badge hunt, do TFs, sit in atlas doing CC's, kill GMs, sit in WW/BM flipping, Incarnate stuffs... The possibilities are endless. Roll an alt?

Honestly it's up to you. Some people like to simply shelve their 50s and start a new character so that is always an option.

If you want to keep playing your 50 there are a few things you can do to keep increasing their power:
1. IOs
2. Incarnate
3. Accolades

In general I'd recommend working on all three as you wish to. I would, at the very list, run Mender Ramiel's Arc to unlock the Alpha slot so that you can make incarnate progress (through acquiring Incarnate Shards) while doing other content.

If you intend to play a character for a long time it's worth getting the useful accolade powers (for a Dom the only one that isn't useful is the Immobilizer Ray).

Now the other issue is IOs versus Incarnates. My advice is to work on the one that you find more enjoyable. Try the BAF and Lambda Trials, if you like them keep running to work on your incarnate abilities. If you find you prefer the smaller TFs or soloing then you can do that and earn inf/merits towards IOs while also making some progress on an alpha slot ability.

1.) Go to the market forums and learn how it works and figure out a couple of basic strategies for using it to increase your INF. There is a learning curve, but if you put a small amount of time and effort into it you will have more INF than you know what to do with. The basic truth of the market in COX is that *patience* is the most valuable commodity. The next big truth is that level 50s have *great* earning potential. You already have a level 50, so really all you need is patience :-)

If money is no object, skip ahead; I'm assuming you don't already have an infinite amount of cash to blow. I am assuming that you will either buy the recipes yourself on the market, or generate them via ticket rolls, AM rolls, merit rolls, etc. Buying crafted IOs is for *suckers* unless you get them below crafting costs.

2.) I'm assuming you have *no* IOs right now. If so, you'll get your biggest bang-for-buck by "frankenslotting" (using set IOs for their enhancement value, not their set bonuses, especially slotting 2 of the same kind of IO from 2 different sets). Budget Tip: level 49 set IOs are way cheaper to craft than level 50 set IOs. Let me give you an example. Say you have a hold power slotted 2 acc, 2 hold, and 2 rech. If you slot 2 level 50 (49 if you can get them cheap) acc/hold/rech IOs, you get more than 3 slots of SO power out of 2 slots. Amazing! . . .but it gets better! You have 4 slots left, and more tricks to play. You can drop down to some of the level 30 IO sets for more acc/hold/rech, you can switch to hold/rech or acc/hold and look for some dam/end/rech or acc/dam/end triples, etc.

What you are looking to do is especially take powers that accept more than one type of set IO and benefit from more than one type of enhancement value. With thoughtfulness you can cheaply *9* slot a power. We aren't talking about hard-to get recipes, use cheap ones for this stage of the game. Biggest bang for the buck. For some powers (ie confuse, etc) skip directly to step 3.

2.) Next up (IMO) are the useful single IOs . . . miracle +recovery, steadfast protection +def, numina +regen/rec, LOTG +rech, Kismit +ACC, etc. These recipes can be gotten via ticket rolls or running tip missions for AMs. Many of them are not affected at all by level, so a level 21 is the same (or better) than a level 50.

3.) Useful but not horribly expensive sets are next. Dominators want +recharge, and there are some good sleep, confuse, disorient sets that give a great bonus to +recharge. Remember the rule of 5; you can only get 5 6.25% bonuses. The LOTG +7.5% recharge counts as its *own* bonus, so you can get 5 LOTG + 5 other 7.5% recharge bonuses. There are a *lot* of +6.25% recharge sets, so bear than in mind.

That ought to keep you busy for a while.

Parallel to IOs, you can get some good stuff from the incarnate system, which means trials and TFs. I would start out by picking the low-hanging fruit with frankenslotting and IOs, but I wouldn't suggest you simply park yourself at WWs or the University . . . you can run TFs with SOs no problem! To participate in the Incarnate System, you need to run Mender Rameil's arc (he's in Oroboros). ITF and LGTF are pretty easy and common TFs. Each week there is a weekly TF that gives you bonus rewards, so that's a good call too.

If you have a 3rd tier Alpha Incarnate slot, that gives you a level shift . . . you are effectively a level 51 character. This is very, very good. It is a big deal. It should be one of your higher priorities.

There are also Accolade powers, which require you collecting certain badges. These can be very useful, particularly those that grant +HP and +End. I highly recommend you to investigate these and seek them out.

You can sneak onto an incarnate trial as a level 50 with SOs, and depending on how awesome your team is, they may or may not notice. The BAF is probably the easiest one to blend into the crowd because its so big. If you are frankenslotted and maybe have some of the "big" IOs and/or a couple of useful sets, and are level shifted, you are perfectly fine for trials.

I recommend starting with the Alpha Slot mission in Oroboros to unlock your first Incarnate slot. That way you'll get free extra drops from every enemy you defeat.

After that, everyone else has already given good advice.

hmmmmm, does the OP have permadom? Yes, I would definitely get the mender Ramiel arc finished up first.

If it were me I would run a trial one night, run 5 hero alignment merit mishes on another, mix it up, exemp down, maybe check out alignment missions at lower levels you may have missed. Variety will keep it from being a grind.