Better to start slotting for IO set bonuses now, or later?

I'm a level 30 SS/Inv Brute. I wanna know if I can start slotting for specific set bonuses now, or should I wait until I'm level 50. I know that the main enhancement buff won't be as strong as when I hit level 50 and start slotting level 50 IOs (I think the difference is 3%), but I wanna know if I'll softcap just as quickly with 35 IOs as I would with 50 IOs. I wanna know because I wanna start working on my build now rather than later, but I don't wanna sacrifice any percentages.

I don't see why not. From what I understand... level 30 IOs give you the same amount as a level 50 SO, so I really doubt you'll lose all that much to begin with.

If you're still not sure, however... I think Mids lets you pick the level of enhancements to slot... so you can slot the IO sets and SOs and compare numbers pretty easily.

*edit* My only real problem with slotting IO sets outside of the 47-50 range is the extra cost when you want to upgrade those later. But if you can afford it, I say go for it.

How do I change the levels in Mid's? That will help me a lot. Thanks.

I always start slotting Io set bonus early, especially around 30's if its for survival.

With you being Invul then some of the main set bonus you will want for survival cap at 35 and 30 anyway (kinetic combat, eradication, steadfast)

I really like having my toons slotted up around 32, if at 50 I really decide that I like this toon then I will usually respec and replace lower level Io's if I want to and store the lower IO's in my base for my next toon.

This also works for changing up some builds, my current /energy brute is using alot of kinetic combats early on to softcap S/l. My level 50 build lets me shift around quite a bit to replace those Kinetic combats with recharge sets and still be softcapped.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wrecks How do I change the levels in Mid's? That will help me a lot. Thanks.

When you are selecting a IO, hover your mouse over the IO, then you can type in whatever level you want, if its too high a range for that IO it will default to the max level. Then click on that IO and it will set it at that level

I have more than one build that I put together to mal down. They use a lot of lvl 25 and 27 IOs. You give up a little, but in return, you get to keep bonuses down to lower levels.

I often start slotting sets in the mid-25's or so. Due to the rate of scaling for I/Os, you'll often end up at or close to the ED cap even with the mid-level ones. To help visualize, here are the enhancement numbers for a single-aspect IO at the different levels:

15 - 19.2
20 - 25.6
25 - 32.0
30 - 34.8
35 - 36.7
40 - 38.6
45 - 40.5
50 - 42.4

If you consider level 30 to be roughly the half-way point for I/Os, you gain ~15% going from 15 - 30, but only ~8% from 30 - 50.

I say make your leveling life easier (assuming you're not the type that races to 50 via AE farms) by slotting sets at 25+. Once you get to 50 you can easily replace one or two in each set to reach ED values if you're not already there.

Edit: To clarify, these numbers are for schedule A enhancements, but the ratios are the same for all of them I believe. The numbers were taken from Paragonwiki.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Enhancement

In my experience the slightly higher values you can get by slotting level 50ish IOs just don't make that much of a difference compared to the advantage of being able to exemplar down to 30 and retain virtually all of your set bonuses. There are some exceptions: obviously you use level 50 common IOs, and if you're frankenslotting a power you might as well use 50s anyway since there are no bonuses to lose. In general though every good set has a minimum level of at most 30 and the convenience of being essentially full strength for most content you'd exemplar for is too good to pass up. This is truer than ever with the signature story arcs.

The extra trays actually increase the size of the enhancement window rather than making the enhancements smaller so you don't have to worry about that. They're freaking expensive but the QoL improvement they provide is so ginormous I personally had to go for it. You've clearly got my number, Paragon Studios.

If you don't mind all the running back and forth between Wentsworth and your base's workbench, then go for it. I'd highly reccomend it, actually. Science Origins can be fine too but in the end are really expensive, so you may as well just get the Set bonus IOs.