A Very Stupid IO Invention Question

Grasping concepts are important; I havent grasped this one yet....Im even going to have trouble wording this question.

When comparing bonuses of straight SO's vs. IO set bonuses, I always feel Im losing something by going with the IO sets.

This example is generic, but here goes. Lets say I have a blaster attack 6 slotted, with 3 ACC's and 3 Damage SO's (and the damage SO's give approx 36% bonus each....thats 108% bonus). And then I decide to get rid of that for an IO set that has a "increase damage of all your powers by 5%"....and lets say this set has a few damage bonuses of 26%...arent you losing a major amount of damage bonus?

Or...does the global increase to all powers that an IO set gives, is that applied to a different baseline of damage?..is it refering to the same value that the SO bonus is refering too?

I hope I made this question clear enough to answer. In essence, I understand that getting a "1.65% resitance to cold" might be desirebale, but at the cost of a major damage potential? Im trying to understand why IO sets are such a great thing.

Somebody set me straight, and thanks in advance!

The thing you're not taking into account here is set bonuses and IO stacking. You never want to use just one IO set. You need to be thinking about hitting the "rule of 5" cap. Often the benefits you gain from stacking multiple IO sets can more than offset what you lose on any individual power by swapping its enhancements for IOs.

Some IO combinations (I don't have the time to look them up right now) offer you a buff to damage, accuracy, or recharge rate. Say that some set offers a 7% buff to damage. If you slot five of those, then that's the equivalent of an extra SO in damage enhancement--damage enhancement that doesn't trip Enhancement Diversification, by the way--applied across all of your powers. Same for accuracy, recharge rate, etc.

What you need to do is plan your build with Mids, put in the enhancement sets, and see what the totals are. You might be surprised how effective some of these changes can be. Also, consider slotting IO sets at level 30, so that you keep all those set bonuses when you exemp all the way down to level 27. Just a thought.

For most people, more than one Accuracy SO isn't useful. Many of the damage sets offer (especially the 5 and 6 IO sets) close to 99% damage when added up. Also, with enhancements there is the "ED" softcap which for any attribute is hit by three SOs (three +3 damage give more like 96% vs 108%). The setbonus are normal global buffs, and so are after the ED cap.

The wiki (under Limits, as I recall, has a good explanation of how damage is figured with enhancements and buffs)

Also, you need to keep in mind how ED ends up affecting enhancements. 3 * 33.3% = 100%, but ED is taking a lot off of that, leaving you with only about 94% enhancement anyways. Meanwhile, while chasing a set bonus, you might get 4 enhancements that only have 25.4% damage bonus in them. That ends up being slightly over 100% as well, and gets knocked down by about the same percentage, leaving you with equivalent damage, just spread over 4 enhancements.


Also, you need to keep in mind the other enhancements you're getting (I don't know many people that slot 3 Acc and 3 Damage, but let's go with that). If you're using 3 Acc and 3 Damage, you're getting zero EndRed or RechRed. If you slot IO sets, not only are you getting roughly equivalent slotting for Damage and Acc, but you're also going to get some EndRed and RechRed in there as well. And that on top of whatever set bonuses you're going with.


Now, let's factor in a set bonus of 2% damage. That's for ALL of your powers that do damage. So if you slot 5 powers with that set, each power that you have is doing 10% more damage, on top of your slotting.

If I understand your question you are first asking if you loose out in total enhancement values by using Invention sets vs. single origin enhancements. Second you are saying are the set bonuses worth it.

To the first question. Not really. Usually you can do what you need to do with invention sets in fewer slots then similar single origin slotting. It depends on the invention set but if you mix and match the pieces differently you can achieve good enhancement values with 4-6 slots rather then taking a full 6 slots every time.

Now if you are slotting just accuracy and damage as in your example then no you can't achieve that with a single invention set. However, you can use fanken slotting (using pieces from different sets in a single power) and still save slots:

6 Slots - 3 acc and 3 damage = 94.93 to acc and dam
4 Slots - 4 acc/dam IO set pieces (Ruin, Decimation, Devastation, Thunderstrike) = 95.19 to acc and dam

Now when slotting attacks you also want recharge and endurance. Most attack sets in of themselves give a good well rounded slotting and max out damage or come close enough to it.

To the second question. Yes set bonuses are well worth it. Especially those that give defenses, global recharge, regeneration, extra HP, recovery, and damage. Also some of the PROCs in invention sets are very nice. The Numina +Regneration/+Recovery and the Miracle +Recovery PROCs in Health will eliminate most endurance woes as an example.

Thank you all for the VERY useful replies! This does clear it up for me a good bit.

To be clear on something...you can use most IO stes more than once on the same toon? I know there are "unique" ones that says you cant....

And thats where the rule of 5 comes in? You cant have more than 5 bonuses on a single aspect?

IO's give considerably more enhancement than SO's, even before taking set bonuses into consideration. It's important to remember that Inventions do not scale like Training/Dual/Single origins relative to your level, as the inventions increase in level, so does their bonus, rather than provide a static number that degrades as you level past it. At lvl 30 or 35, single aspect IOs start surpassing SO's in enhancement value.

At lvl 30 - the previously mentioned Thunderstrike set gives a total of 117.9% enhancement to damage before Enhancement Diversification. As well as 56.6 to Accuracy, Endurance, AND Recharge... A level 50 Thunderstrike set improves these numbers to 143.1% and 68.9%, resectively!

And if we ignore set bonuses altogether, if we cobble togeather 5 lvl 30 Acc/Dam IOs from different sets, we've already surpassed your current SO slotting with only 5 slots (assuming even level SO's - but with ED, it brings it all closer to the same value anyway, hovering around 95-100%), leaving you one free slot to use with ANYTHING else. If we use lvl 50 Acc/Dam IOs, we could achieve the same slotting with only 4 enhancements (A little trickier, as there are fewer Ranged Damage sets that go up to 50), leaving you room for 2 extra slots to reduce endurance, recharge, or enhance a secondary effect.

Another way to look at it is the totals...
3 damage and 3 accuracy SOs (even level) = 6x33.3% = +199.8% total enhancement value
lvl 30 Thunderstrike set = 3(enhancements)*3(aspects)*17.4% + 3*2*21.8% = 156.6% + 130.8% = 287.4% T.E.V
lvl 50 thunderstrike set = 3*3*21.2% + 3*2*26.5% = 190.8% + 159% = 349.8% T.E.V

Sure, on occasion if you are chasing certain set bonuses, you may have to concede that one or two aspects of your power may not be enhanced quite as much as you'd like (three accuracy SO's is overkill in the first place. you generally don't need more than one, and if anything is debuffing you to the point that a third becomes necessary, that's where you use insps instead.) but you can generally keep important values where you need them. For damage sets you'd have to TRY to not get a total of around +100% after ED, seriously, almost everything includes at least some damage.

Hey, that's a smart question to ask.

Hmm. I never really was aware of the difference between Accuracy mods and ToHit mods. I guess I always thought they were essentially the same thing. Apparently they aren't.

So as a Street Justice brute, what are my available sources of +ToHit other than Tactics from the Leadership pool? Or, put another way, what are the favored set IOs to slot on a melee toon that grant +ToHit rather than Accuracy?