You can slot it at 50. The set is more effective if it goes up to 50, but you can slot any IO set if you are already past it. You could slot a level 20 set or whatever if the bonuses were good enough to you.
And indeed, many people don't slot IO sets valued at level 50, even of IO sets that do go that high. Level 30 is considered the magic number for IO slotting, since at that level the values of the IOs themselves are roughly equivalent to SOs.
The reason for this is that you keep the bonuses IO sets provide only when you're exemplared to no more than 3 levels below the value of the IOs. That is to say, if you had level 50 IO sets slotted, you'd keep the bonuses only when you were exemped to level 47 or better. (You'd still have the value of the IOs themselves, of course, subject to whatever adjustment their values took from exemping.)
If you slot the IOs at a value of level 30, you'll have those bonuses if you're exemped all the way down to level 27. It's considered a good compromise between power effectiveness and set bonus effectiveness. Indeed, in some ways it's better, because those set bonuses don't degrade from exemplaring the way the face value of enhancements do. If you have five +9% Accuracy bonuses, that's 45% at level 50 or at level 27.
If you're not planning on much exemplaring, you might want to stick with level 50 for max effectiveness there. (They're also a bit cheaper, since level 30s are in high demand.) But if you stack a bunch of level 30s, you could have a kick-**** character across almost half the game's level range.
+0 SO - 33.3%
Lvl 40 single aspect IO - 38.6% ~ +3 SO
Lvl 50 single aspect IO - 42.4%
So yes you do loose 3.8% but the set bonus aspect doesn't disappear unless you are below Lvl 37 instead of Lvl 47 (standard Purple disclaimer). So bad news/good news.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
I recommend trying out MIDS (www.cohplanner.com) when looking at IOs and characters. It takes the guess work out, and you can better see benefits of different IOs and Benefits of sets/frankenslotting.
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
I have been playing for a couple of years now but just started messing with IO sets on my 50s. Here is a question I am unsure about:
Let's say there is a set with a max level of 40 but it has set bonuses I want. Can I create those enhancements and use them on my 50 or would I have had to do it back when I was level 40?
Thanks.