I give up... What about Inventions?

You have everybody else answering everything else so i'll just answer the one i find most important

Here's what I did to re-learn (as I've been away awhile) what I wanted to slot into what.

You hover over your powers and see what power can accept what sets. Say, your first tier power takes: End Mod, Ranged, or Sleep.

Then, you go to the Market and open up the crafted enhancements section. See what sets are available for each of those that can be slotted into your powers. Generally, there's a "winner" in each category for me.

I'll take into account: how much a full set costs, how it'll enhance my powers (Acc, Recharge, and Damage are generally my big onces....END Red comes along for the ride....at least on my blaster and stalker.)

It'll take awhile to learn, but you will come up with a theoretical build (on paper, that's how I do it.) My blaster and stalker doesn't worry about Defense....it's how you want to build your character.



Advanced steps once you learn more:



Find the basic rules of IO sets: stacking 5 (or is it 6?) of identical set bonuses is the max....so if you get +3% damage 8 times, the last few won't count.

Also, another rule: one of each specific IO can be slotted in a power once. So, Numina's: heal...it can't be slotted twice in that same power...but it can in a new power.

Another big help: some sets lack a stat you want. I've done something like this in the past: I slot 5 of a set in one power and it brings my stats to 65% damage, 94% acc, 94% recharge, 50% end reduction. The 6th IO in that set wouldn't bring up the stat I want, so I find an IO from another set that can be slotted in there.....and it enhances only damage for 40%.....boom, that's my 6th slot. I still get the 5th set bonus plus I didn't sacrifice my slotted stats.

I even have one power where I slotted 3 of one set for the enhancement bonus and then 2 of another for that bonus.

Build how you want...that's how I do it. My blaster is a beast and my stalker is getting wicked



Mr. True Shot.

I just had a look at the market. You were right ... Performance Shifter is the pricey one. Touch of Death has become less expensive than it once was. EDIT: also, most of Gaussian is cheap, but the Rech/End one is 40 million or more itself. Still ... see below.

Anyway, Looking at the market, I am guessing 127 million (or 167 million, bear with me) for the cost to buy the SET RECIPES on the market, plus 25 million to craft them all, plus, assuming you have to pay 3 million per rare salvage and some incidental salvage costs, another 100 million in rare salvage. Though I padded that last value.

Worst case scenario: 292 million.

Now, if you have been saving your rare salvage, or if you make a list and start collecting it as you play casually (store it in your vault) then you can automatically knock the price down to 192 million. There is a 40 million cost (or so) for the Recharge/End component of the GAUSSIAN set. I know you hate grinding, but earning 2 hero merits AT YOUR LEISURE over a month or so will let you buy it FREE. The other five are reasonable otherwise.

So, by delaying and being all casual and just doing your fun stuff with only a tiny bit of saving rare salvage and doing the occasional Hero Alignment mission over the course of a month or so, you could knock the price down to 152 million.

Can you afford 152 million?

Anyway, here are the approximate costs I saw on the market. All assume some patience on bidding (say, wait for 1 day, maybe 2, for the bid to come through, at most):

Touch of Death FULL SET 10 million X 3 sets = 30 million.
Mako's Bite FULL set = 10 million.
Crushing Impact FIVE ITEMS = 500k (half a million).
Scirocco's Dervice FIVE ITEMS = 13 million.
Gaussian: 5 million total for the first 5 of the items, 40 million alone for the 6th item (rech/end).
Performance Shifter: FULL SET = 50 million.
Red Fortune = 3 million x 3 sets = 9 million.
Purchase of 25 pre-crafted ENHANCEMENTS of level 50 IOs = about 10 million (400k ea).
CRAFTING COSTS of the other RECIPES above = 25 million.
Rare salvage (25 items, at a guess) at 3 million a pop plus some uncommon/generics: 100 million.

But as I said, with a lot of care and patience, over the course of a month (playing and just finding rare salvage, placing long term bids, and maybe doing a total of 30 tip missions to "reinforce" my Hero status and then earn 2 merits), you could knock this down to 150 million, easy.

I bet if you were really careful, you could knock it down to 100 million if you were VERY patient.

Anyway, that shows you what you'd have to do to acquire it all with the build I proposed.

Now, if you would only allow Tough and Weave, we could knock that down to 30 million plus 6 nights of hero tips (5 missions a night). But I wont go there.

Lewis

I don't bother with set bonuses or frankenslotting with most characters.

I use level 25 regular IO's as they are the best bang for the buck and once slotted will not need to be replaced like SO's.

But the world of set bonuses and frankeslotting can be overwhelming but also fun depending on your point of view.

What I'll say is that you just have to dive in and make mistakes and learn from them.

I think I really started with IOs when I read a thread about how easy it was to softcap typed defense (smashing/lethal specifically) on an Invulnerable tank, and how tough it made them. That sounded really cool, so I took what I could from the thread and immediately applied it to my katana/regen scrapper. This, unfortunately, was a less than ideal approach, not the least because Divine Avalanache (the katana parry) really grants melee defense (actually melee & lethal per paragonwiki). All I know is that every application is about 15% melee defense, and I can manage to stack it 3 times as long as I keep firing it... but these are things I didn't understand back then.

So my friend tried to help me with a positional defense build instead. I used that for a while, tried to improve on it, but it's nearly impossible to softcap all defenses on a regen and it's playing against the set's strengths -- regen has essentially 4 heals, and really benefits from lots of recharge. Some defense doesn't hurt, of course. ^_^ But I haven't really gone back recently and tried to work defense into my katana/regen scrapper's build... instead I just went all-out for massive recharge, which was, at least, the popular way to build regen scrappers at the time.

Along the way I had to figure out how to make more money than I had. I'd been making money on the market up to that point by crafting generic IOs and selling them, and this gave me over 100 million on a few characters, which seemed pretty good at the time. But when I got into IOs, I had to ramp up my knowledge of how to market and make money at it. These days, there are a lot of other options, and I buy a lot of things with alignment merits for example. But mostly I market for my cash, although I have farm-capable toons, and I do run a lot of tip missions and SSAs and Ouro arcs just for merit rewards.

Even after I'd been at it for a couple of years, I discovered new tricks and things I hadn't previously been aware of, and when I look at my older builds I still wonder why I did things that way. There's a lot to know, you don't absorb it all overnight.

Without MIDS I would be totally lost. Learning how to use that was a big part of learning how to properly IO my characters.

Also, I think it's entirely possible to just run story arcs that you like and eventually be able to afford a build that way, but only if you play the same character a lot. Being an altoholic kind of goes against being able to pile up merits through regular game play.

I've avoided IO's for the most part up til now. Just frankenslotting here and there.

Like Sam though, I've recently started to feel 'behind the times' with SO only builds.

I'm slowly teaching myself how to IO a character. I get bored easily, ploding through the lists though, so I'm attempting to do this without crunching any numbers or even using Mids. I know a few basics but for the most part I'm 'winging it'

The way I do it, I look to fully set a specific power each level. Focusing on only one power makes it easier for me. Starting at level 35.

Once I decide which power is getting a set I look at the recipes for that type and pick the one with the best bonuses. Mainly I look for anything with Recharge or Acc global bonuses as they usually end up having impressive AoE defense for all 6.

I then spend a ton more than I have to, buying already crafted enhancments, to fill all slots. Occasionally I'll leave a bid up overnight but most always I overbid to 'buy it nao' and get r done. I can't stand the metagame of collecting salvage and running to a crafting table etc. So I'm willing to spend millions more than I have to for the convenience factor. Besides, not IOing all these years while using the market to sell has me sitting on quite a bit so Inf isn't an issue.

Thankfully, because if it was, and I had to go through the extra steps of gathering salvage etc, I just wouldn't bother.

So my advice to Sam would be; Don't worry about any 'Right' way to do it.
Once you start slotting sets and seeing the increased performance, you'll get better at it by default. Same way you got better at knowing how to use SO's so long ago.

QR: You've had a lot of response and I've not been able to read (m)any of them so apologies if I repeat -

You can get what you need from Merits, A Merits, to a lesser extent Tickets (generally better for salvage IMO) and drops when just playing the game. Playing at higher difficulty tends to improve the quality of drops in my experience but that's not a guarantee.

Also the Auction House - that's probably where you'll get most of what you want - use the previous methods to get the stuff you really need.

If I can give two pieces of advice they would be: Don't stress about it, and don't be afraid to make a mess of things. As you've already admitted Inventions are not absolutes and if you want to partly build a character or frankenslot, then those are perfectly ok options. I also have a number of characters that make liberal use of Hami-Os, SOs, and Sets. Whatever works for you is the important thing - and unless you plan on sharing your build for public critique, who cares what you do?

Some general rules I apply when using IO sets - these are guides I break them whenever I feel the need, but may be of use to you

• Slot for whatever you think will work for your character. Don't worry about caps, soft caps, dutch caps, cricket caps or any other form of head gear unless it's important to you. If you want a high defence uber build, fine but they are not necessary for most of the game unless you're trying to solo the real tough stuff.
• I generally slot lvl 40 IO sets, because I often exemplar down and IOs stop working three levels below their stated level and so if you slot 50s, you may find some content you like where the bonuses don't work. Level 40 IOs are just about the same as 50SOs to you'll notice no significant difference in performance at 50 and still have some extra bonuses.
• Slot to patch your weak areas rather than to build on your strengths. You've gotten to 50 (I've never made a full IO build before 50, I'm guessing you'll be doing the same) and know what you're good at. Fix your build rather than make yourself Godlike. If Endurance use if a problem you can cover that very simply with a few good end mod sets for example.
• The popular sets can cost a fortune, but if you choose the unpopular sets, you'll still get a usable bonus and spend a lot less than many who are only marginally better.
• Try getting to grips with Mids. It may take you a while but it is almost certainly one of the best player developed tools out there and it will help you design your builds. It took me a long time to get into it, but my own experience it's now rather fun to make variant builds and fine tune.
• You don't need to take your character "off line" when you do this. It's fine to do it piecemeal - much of it will depend on your own patience. If only partially slotted you can still play is the point. The converse of that is to focus on one primary character - but be aware of what your others may need - if you get a good drop that your toon cannot use, make sure you don't sell it before checking out if others can
• Base Storage is really useful
• Have fun and go at your own pace.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Sam,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow Oh, I'm going to use this, believe me. Just not immediately. I need a break from the game, but not a long one. A few days, or however long it takes me to get through Assassin's Creed: Still More Faffing About. I might even be back to Jun to try out that build that was suggested, or just look at prices and such. At least I have a bit more of a general idea of what I'm looking for.

I realize that you cant stomach it right now, but if you could, the best approach to taking a short break would be to place bids now.

See, you don't have to play the market, or buy low and sell high, or watch for trends, or any of that soul-crushing nonsense. I hate it too. All you really have to do is get PAST the people you don't want to buy from (the ones who charge a lot) and get TO the ones who sell things for less. And the only way to get past those people is TIME.

If you went in right now to the auction house, opened Recipes, opened Melee Damage, opened Touch of Death, and selected Acc/Dam on the left pane, you'd see them show up on the right pane. Click the level 40 recipe on the right pane. At this very moment, the last 5 sales, which all happened today, are 3,000; 3,000; 3,000; 55,555; and 900,000 (not in that order). So you could put out a bid for three of them at 100,000 each. This time tomorrow, you'd probably have them.

For the Acc/Dam/End level 40 touch of death, the last 5 sold today with prices ranging from 2,255,555 to 3,000,000. So you could put out a bid for three of them at 2,333,333 million each.

For the level 50 Touch of Death chance for NE damage, the last 5 sold today. Most were selling from 4 to 5 million, but one went for only 500k. So, you could put out 3 bids for 2 million each and hope to get a bit lucky. Especially since you are planning to wait 3-5 days while playing Assassin's creed. Because these things move. Someone will sell one low, probably, at some point.

Touch of Death Damage/End had 2 of them sell in the 3 million range, and the other 3 sold for just over 100k. I dont know if the cheap 3 are a guy snagging them up or whether the 3 million person is impatient. Put out 3 bids for a million each.

Touch of Death dam/end/rech sold at least 5 times today, each for about 500k. All 5 are the same price, so maybe someone was snatching them up. Still, put out three bids for 750k each and see what happens over time.

Touch of Death damage/rech sold 5 today. One for 1000 (nice score for someone), and a few for 100k and one for 500k. Put out 3 bids at 333k each.

Now, this process should have taken about 10 minutes, and you are out about 19.5 million influence. Well, if the bids don't come through, you arent out anything. But come back again in 5 days. I will bet most of them will have been acquired by then.

As for the rare salvage (and the alchemical gold, which is uncommon but pricey), you will need, FOR EACH SET: 1 alchemical gold, 1 deific weapon, 1 holographic memory, 2 soul-trapped gems, 1 conspiratorial evidence, and 1 military cybernetic. Competitive prices show that it will cost 10.5 million. Since you want 3 sets, that would be another 31.5 million.

HOWEVER, you could just low ball it, place bids at 75% of the typical price, and over 5 days you could get lucky and only spend 25 million or so.

OR if you are like me, you've saved every rare salvage you get on every character (other than the sub level 20 rare salvage, which is cheap). I almost never have to buy rare salvage once one of my characters hits level 50. Even if I have to go digging around in my base and in my vaults and my character inventories (including their individual auction house slots used as storage) I usually find what I need. So for me the cost would be near to zero on salvage.

So yeah. Commit the 45-50 million (or 20 million if you already have most of the salvage) even if it is a bit stressful, and then go have 5 days of Assassin's Creed fun. Come back, and see what you've got. You will probably have all or most of it.

And again, this isnt PLAYING the market. This is just patiently waiting on the guys you ACTUALLY want to trade with to become available to you. And the gateway to that is merely time.

I have a friend that when he hits level 30 or so, he looks at his level 50 build, places VERY lowball bids out at around half what everything goes for. He places the bids for his whole character. Only recipes, not usually salvage. It might take him 1-2 hours. He usually makes the bids from a different character than the one he is playing. Then he doesnt even look at the bids until he gets to level 47. Meanwhile, he plays the character blissfully, saving all rare salvage. When he hits level 47 and checks his bids, which could be 1-4 months later, he will find that the majority of it is his. The cost was low in price, singular in effort (2 hours), and LONG in time, but the time was the cost. But that was mitigated by the fact that he wasnt thinking about it. He was out playing his character.

Anyway, something to think about. Or not think about. Whatever you need.

Lewis

The best way to start with IOs is to just use a set to slot a power that you want to improve, and forget everything else.

For example, if you have a set of five level 50 Crushing Impact IOs, you'll have 69% accuracy, 98% damage, 48% endurance discount and 48% recharge. If you six-slot a power with even-con SOs to similar effect, you'll have 33% accuracy, 95% damage, 33% recharge and 33% endurance reduction.

Yes, for one slot less you can get more than twice the bonus on some aspects of a power by using IOs.

Many people don't want to skimp on accuracy and can't afford to six-slot all their powers, so when using SOs they sacrifice either endurance reduction, recharge or both. So most SO-based powers will compare even less favorably to ones using IOs.

On top of that, the Crushing Impact set increases your hit points, accuracy and overall recharge rate. But you can just ignore that for now.

There's nothing complex or mysterious about this. IO sets are just plain better than SOs. If you don't want to worry about the complexities of soft capping your build or maxing out recharge for perma-dom, don't worry about it. Just use IOs to make each power better.

As far as getting recipes like Crushing Impact, if you really hate the market you can just buy them outright from merit vendors for 50 merits apiece. If you've been doing arcs solo you'll probably have a ton of reward merits and nothing to spend them on.

If you spend an afternoon running missions you'll generally get all the common salvage you need, and if you don't have the uncommons you need, you can buy them outright at AE for 80 tickets apiece.

Once you go through this simple process a few times, the mystery of IOs will go away. Using the market isn't that onerous, if you have patience. And a lot of the good sets, like Crushing Impact, are pretty cheap now because the most ardent players have moved on to more abstruse builds.

People go through all sorts of contortions to stretch that last bit of defense out of a build, taking powers they never use and slotting them with sets that really don't make sense just to get the bonuses. I'm not sure the devs had that in mind when they designed IO sets; they basically wanted to undo some of the damage that ED had done, and to add more subtleties to the system to make it more interesting and provide the crafting option that other games have.

I started playing with Mids and came up with a build very similar to Unicycle Peon, but I think his is slightly better. And his explanations were all spot on. So other than to endorse his posts, I have nothing to add, except this: I am also willing to contribute IOs/Recipes/Cash to the project.

I'll need Sam's global name to mail them.

One dumb question. Why go with Scirocco's Dervish instead of Eradications?
Sure, Erad gives lower overall enhancement than Dervish, but the set bonuses are nearly double for both AoE and Ranged.

Additionally, for Focused Accuracy, while 2 EndReds are nice, wouldn't two Cytoskeleton Hami-Os be almost as good for EndRedux while providing more +ToHit?

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Sam, I see your comments about wanting to avoid "playing the market" to, but you can still use it and not play the "market game." Just figure out what you want to purchase, put in a reasonable (to you) bid, and pick it up whenever it fills. You don't have to be on the market creeping up your bids, you don't have to research price vs level, or any of that.

I craft recipes that I can't use when they drop on me and sell them, no matter how much or little profit they might make. I don't try to mess with the bids, I don't flip, I don't do anything but sell what I don't want, and buy what I can slot right then. I make decent Inf, but I'm not a billionaire on every character.

The market is a useful tool. Treat it like a tool, and not a game, and it should appeal to your sensibilities just fine.