Attack slotting strategy while levelling?

As you are levelling up, what's the best strategy for where to put slots:

a) Slot lower damage attacks first (ie, six slot Jab before putting any into KO Blow) iirc, this seems to increase DPS

b) Slot higher damage attacks first (ie, six slot KO Blow before putting any slots into Jab) iirc, this seems to increase DPA

or

c) Even them all out (ie, make sure all attacks have three slots before putting a fourth in any attack)

I'm mainly looking for the best strategy for someone who tends to focus on IO sets and set bonuses (bonii?). I typically start IO'ing out at around level 27 and tend to use level 30 sets.

I generally do not IO out until around level 47 or so. Because of that, I take a mixture of option C and a little of my own personal style.

If you aren't PL-ing through the game, as you play you'll come to find several deficiencies in the way the character plays. In general, you'll want to slot to deal with those deficiencies before you deal with anything else. If you have no deficiencies, then you slot to generally increase the power of your attacks.

I just go by what I think needs more support at the time, like say I'm missing a lot with an attack so I'll add a slot for accuracy or if I feel I'm sucking wind too fast I'll slot for an endredux or if I want something up faster then recharge, etc. And I'll tend to lean slots onto powers I feel are key, like if I find I -really- need that self heal up and doing it's money's worth or something like Frozen Rain where I want it up as often as possible

I usually try to make sure that attacks that recharge the fastest get decent values for EndRed and Acc before I worry about anything else. I also tend to favor slotting AoEs over ST attacks since there's usually more bang for the buck, especially with the 5 Going Rogue procs all my toons start with.

I always start by slotting acc, then end redux starting with offensive powers until I feel comfortable with the set. Then I start to look at what makes the set special and slot that, for instance if you have a debuffer then start to slot those. Around level 22 I make kind of an evaluation of how I want the build to be for SOs and use the second build for that if it's different. I will SO life until level 40ish. Then start with a respec and IO the char accordingly for a final build (which I've usually mapped out waaaay before then).

Because you're not hitting diminishing returns, the math is pretty harsh. Every bonus is based on a percentage, so you basically want to use every slot you get on the very strongest and slowest attack you have available and slot it for recharge and damage.

On slower sets, I'm a fan of slotting damage auras to finish things off that I beat down to <5%

Depends a bit on what I'm planning to do, really. I use level 30 common IOs as soon as they become available, but I do use lower level set IOs or uniques that will also be in my final build, such as Eradications, Steadfasts, Miracle and Numina uniques, etc., which I will slot as soon as I can. Attacks usually get 4 to 5 slots because that is well enough to frankenslot them to have decent stats while still having slots to spare for other things.

If I'm going to use Kinetic Combats in the build, all single target attacks will get 5 slots: the 4 pieces of KC that give enhancement values plus a triple from a random set that gives me acc and dam, end or rech. If I'm going to use a high level set or one that requires 6 slots to give the bonus I want (Mako, Touch of Death, etc.), the attack usually gets four slots that will be filled with four triples.

I follow the same philosophy with all my slotting while leveling. If I can't slot the set that I have planned for my final build, whether it is due to level or slot constraints, I'll just give the power fewer slots and frankenslot to get the best out of it. At lower levels it seems having two attacks well slotted gives me better returns than having 3.75% more Defense and only one well slotted attack.

I've done it nearly every way you can imagine though I tend to most often use option "c" combined with dropping a few specific special IO's into the mix such as kb prot IO's, Miracle, Numina's, Kismet and/or Steadfast.

For my favored characters or special "projects" I'll also often have my Field Crafter main pump out lower level commons usually at level 15 and again for level 25 (after that if they continue to be favorites I'll start looking at set IO's and a firm(er) build plan in Mids ... again often using my main to craft and email the IO's (or grab/email them from stockpiled IO's in the case of certain sets I tend to use often such as LotG). Usually the current project/favorite also starts to earn A-merits and use them in addition. Same for my Field Crafter she's constantly working on A-merits and/or reward merits etc. to use on alts.

Doomguide

Keeping in mind that I primarily solo, only grouping to run TF's and the occasional low level trial, my enhancement strategy used to be the following

1) <L22 - slot DO's and lower level SO's purchased from Mr. Yin in faultline until I hit 22 - the exception is that I have a crafter character who can make L15 accuracy IO's which are far better than DO's at all levels you can slot them. The exact mix of enhancement type would depend on the AT and origin, since the origin dictates what type of SO's you can buy from Mr. Yin. I generally go mutant/natural for damage SO's or magic for Accuracy. I usually slotted up my attacks first, going for 4-5 slots each with the goal of having my primary attacks 5 slotted as soon as possible which prepped them for step 2

2) Starting at 22 I try to frankenslot all my attacks with cheap set IO's, going for enhancment value and ignoring set bonuses. 2 x Acc/Dam, 1x Dam/End, 1 x Dam/Rech and some kind of triple in the last slot (acc/dam/end, acc/dam/rech or dam/end rech) would generally give me 40-56% acc, 90% damage, 20-36% end reduction and recharge in all attacks. I would put SO's in everything else at this point with a few other powers frankenslotted with cheap set IO's as well like controls - there are a ton of easy to get IO's for controls that don't give set bonuses but can optimize your enhancment slotting

3) At level 27 I replace all my SO's with common IO's and at 28+ I start replacing the frankenslotted sets with sets that give me the global bonuses I want. I don't rush this, slotting stuff up as my bids on the market get filled. This gives me time to assemble sets I want for a reasonable price.

4) At L47 (and sometimes before) I will respec into a final build where I can capitalize on the fact that I can reduce overall slots in some powers by putting 1-2 L50 IO's in place of what used to take 3-4 slots. Recently I started using enhancement boosters to push stuff up to 50+5 in some cases becuase I have a bunch of those I picked up when I bought some super packs.

The most recent change to this pattern is that I don't always frankenslot my attacks fully at L22. The L25 set IO's that used to be easy to get your hands on and relatively cheap (25k per IO) are a little more expensive but more importantly, a lot harder to get. So fewer folks are selling them on the market that there is very low supply. So on some toons I have been mixing multi-aspect IO's and SO's or even going all SO's until L27-28. I also have a lot of stuff in base storage - old enhancements pulled from characters I have decided not to play any more, stuff I got as drops while leveling but couldn't use on that character, etc.

For enhancement goals the first goal should be to make sure you have enough accuracy to HIT things reliably - that means you really want to be at 90% to hit or higher against whatever level mobs you prefer to fight. Then I slot up enough end reductiuon so I don't burn through my end to fast and recharge so that the attacks/powers are up often enough - then I shoe in damage, control, whatever.

When I start a character I slot evenly at first, aiming for Acc, Dam, Dam, Dam on most powers. However if a power is slow to recharge or endurance heavy I'll give it an extra slot, borrowing from the 1st level power. When new attacks come available, I'll give them preferential treatment to catch them up.