New to IOs/Incarnate, couple of quick questions.

Hey COH forums. After a few years of durdling on this game off and on, I decided to pick up VIP and start doing the real endgame stuff.

FWIW, my character is Spines/Fire.

For incarnate slots, are there preferred abilities for each slot for scrappers or is it preference? Do you still do Musculature in Alpha even if you don't have defense debuffs/immobilization abilities to benefit from it? What do I want in other slots?

For IO sets, do I just want to grab all the melee damage sets? Mix of melee damage, PBAOE, and defense? Are there any sets with bonuses/stats I don't want to miss? Are there any caps I really need to hit? For this assume my budget is fairly low.

Thanks.

For IOs on a Spines/Fire, I would focus on defense and recharge.

The general rule I follow, which is usually a good plan is this: If your build has typed defense in it already or has no defense at all, slot for typed defense. Your build would fall into this category. If your build has positional defense in it already, slot for positional defense. There are exceptions to that one, but they don't apply to your build. A good exception would be any secondary paired with Katana or Broadsword, they can go either way, and you usually get more mileage out of slotting those builds for positional defense if you have none to begin with.

Priority wise, I consider recharge and defense about equally important for a Spines/Fire. You want your AoEs, Fiery Embrace, and your heal recharging as quickly as possible. And you want to have as few attacks landing as possible.

I would prioritize Smashing and Lethal defense slightly over Energy and Negative defense. I wouldn't worry about Fire and Cold defense at all, because you'll be capped to Fire resistance, and the vast majority of Cold attacks have a Smashing or Lethal component that your S/L defense will apply to.

Sets to look at:

Kinetic Combat for S/L defense, it's a melee damage set. Eradication for E/N defense, it's a PBAoE set.

There are 2 schools of thought on Eradication, mostly revolving around whether it is better to 3 slot it with 3 Cleaving Blow or 4 slot it with 2 Multistrike. I would 3 slot it with 3 Cleaving Blow in Spine Burst and maybe Ripper, and I would 4 slot it with 2 MultiStrike in Quills (because Quills is an expensive toggle and Eradication has very little in terms of End reduction). 4 slotting Eradication gives you the largest Max HP bonus found outside a purple set, that's why I like doing that. You also have a few powers in your secondary that take PBAoE sets. I would 4 slot Eradication in Blazing Aura with 2 Multistrike and do the 3 and 3 in Burn.

For Impale, I would go with 3 Thunderstrike for the E/N bonus, and 3 Devastation for the 12% regen and 2.25% Max HP.

Throw Spines is a no-brainer. Either Positron's Blast or Ragnarok (if you can afford it) They give the exact same bonuses, Ragnarok just has larger amounts.

For Fire Shield and Plasma Shield, 4 Reactive Armor would be the way to go. I would take Temperature Protection for the Fire resistance capping and the slow resistance and slot Steadfast Protection Res/Def in teh default slot. I frequently add a second slot to Temp. Protection so I can put a Steadfast KB protection in the second slot (which will give you a recovery bonus combined with the Res/Def)

You'll need a couple more KB protection IOs. You can slot a Steadfast in each of your armors, or you can put a Karma and a Blessing of the Zephyr in Combat Jumping, your choice.

I highly recommend the Fighting pool if you don't already have it. The extra S/L resitance in Tough will be handy, and Weave's defense is invaluable if you're building for more defense.

APP wise, I'd go with Blaze Mastery here, both for thematic reasons andbecause you can slot useful sets in the powers in it. Now, which power I open the pool wit hdepends on my slotting needs. You're probably in good shape on E/N defense at this point, so I would consider taking Ring of Fire and slotting 4 Enfeebled Operation in it for the S/L defense bonus. Alternately, you can slot 3 Thunderstrike and 2 Basilisk's Gaze in Char for the E/N defense bonus.

Fire Blast can get 3 TStrike and 3 Devastaton, or 5 Decimation (I'd lean toward Decimation here, you won't have a great deal of recharge if you've followed my plan to this point). Fireball should be 5 Posi's Blast or Ragnarok if you didn't use it in Thow Spines.

Hope that helps give you an idea what to shoot for. None of that is set in stone, so if you feel you need to slot for more recharge than defense, go for it. I would not expect to get your defense much higher than 35%. I would shoot for 32.5% to all 4 types, so you can soft-cap with a single small purple. As an added bonus, that will give you room for more recharge bonuses.

Download Mids' Hero Designer if you don't already have it. It will let you plan out your build and share it on the forums for critiquing and advice.

You can find it here: http://www.cohtitan.com/

It's right on the first page, so it should be easy to find.