RayOfHope

Thank you! I've gotten to 50 with a few more toons and am a lil more flush on cash so I'm gonna be replacing the white IOs with some sets here in the near future. Although I must confess my MMO pattern of - get to max level, outfit and park the toon, and then go level more alts - continues unabashed here lol

I appreciate you! Here's what I went with as a cheap-o 50 starter build, and it seems to be working out. I'm gonna take a hard look at your suggestions and tweak things around once my alt-itis doesn't demand so much of my time (ha!). I'm actually deleting my 2nd emp/dark Defender and exploring some different options since a pure "healer" build seems to be lacking ... something. She was my OG that I had transferred to Excelsior, only to realize I already had an Emp/Dark here lol. So she's been parked.

My BM/Nat MM is currently 44 and leveling with her has been a lot of fun. Perhaps not as hardy as my Demo/Pain MM but soloing is easy enough and she does great as DPS/support in groups. Sort of has a Druid vibe? I'm really enjoying it. EA is great in mob packs that allow you to do CC while your pets tear through the mobs. Not great on bosses but very efficient on Minions and Lieutenants. Highly recommend.

Appreciate it! I just wanted to look at some builds and couldn't find any when I searched here. I'll end up building my own anyway, just needed an idea of where to begin really.

Okay are those the crafted Invention enhancements you can buy at auction? I generally switch to those at level 22 (start with 25) and then upgrade them along the way. So those are still considered IOs, just non-set IOs? Got it. And SO is just the stuff you buy out at the store/vendor, right? I've gotten away from them because constantly upgrading those gets expensive, and I'm an alt-o-holic lol.

First of all I appreciate your response and you've given me some food for thought. I'm still completely lost when it comes to IOs because I can't get my head around the maths. You're saying that at 50 it makes more sense to buy lvl 30 IO sets than lvl 50 SOs? Could you point me toward a guide that helps break the concept of it down for a non min/maxer to get my tiny brain around? What is a "common" IO? Where in the AH or in the world do I find these things? I only ever see the purple/orange/yellow stuff when I look at the auction so off to Youtube I go I guess ...

Could someone post an Empath/Dark build for me please? Looking for bread-and-butter middle-of-the road build that's not gonna break the bank. Looking at Doctored Wounds maybe for Healing Aura/Heal Other and the rest are probably going to be S/O unless there's better options available for my budget. This is for a fresh 50. For Dark I use mostly Dark Blast, Gloom, Dark Pit and Tenebrous Tentacles during task forces and such. Also want Teleport/ATT as well as Stealth and Hover/Fly. Anything else is entirely up for grabs. This is for a support toon ONLY (TFs, missions and such). I last played this combo on Legacy and am completely lost on Homecoming with it. I'm ready to respec and have about 24M in the bank. Willing to hear any and all suggestions.