+50 IOs - should I?

[cDc1979]

Hi all. Wondering about the ability to '+5' enhancements.  I see that the boosters are quite expensive. Where will I get the best bang for buck doing this? For example if I have 2 generic recharge rate IOs in hasten - is it worth boosting them? What about boosting damage? Are the gains really minimal? Or maybe money better spent elsewhere. To note my main is a fire/fire tank (already have all IO sets and t4's so looking for what to do next)..... Thanks!! 

[roleki]

If I only have one generic IO in a power, I'll usually +5 that if the resulting effect has any kind of benefit I can point to; as for whether the gains are noticeable or worth it... eh, it depends what you're going for.

 

Just as an example, my 50.4 En/En/Fire blaster has a global recharge of +98.75 and Perma-Hasten which brings that up to 168.75.  I have one generic 50 Recharge IO in Power Boost; before +5, the recharge on that was ~16.9s, and after +5 it's ~16.0 seconds. 

 

Ostensibly, ~1s is not a big gain, but the duration of Power Boost's effect is about 15s, so I am *that* close to perma Power Boost.  As it stands, the 16s recharge works out to about one extra Power Boost every 4.5 minutes, and the way that character is set up, that means an extra 15s of boosted defense, an extra 20s at the ToHit cap, an extra 333 heals from Energize and so on. 

 

So in that instance, it was worth it to ME to go for +5.  If the recharge was only sitting at 30s with a generic IO and +5 would only get me to 26 or something, I wouldn't have bothered.

Edited November 4, 2019 by roleki

[Shred Monkey]

Generally speaking, I boost all IOs and Purples (for all others, I use attuned sets).

 

If influence is in question and you want to know what to boost "first."  I would look at powers where you have 1 or 2 IOs and boost them.  2x+5 IOs is almost the same as 3 lvl 50 IOs due to the ED cap.  Because of this I often plan to only use 1 or 2 slots in many powers.  For example, all the Fitness powers (or they get a proc and 2 other slots).  Hasten is usually 2 slotted.  I often only 2-slot auto powers for their main stat since they don't use endurance, so auto powers I often boost to +5.

 

And yes, they're expensive, but what else are you going to spend money and merits on?

[Mr. Vee]

I've been +5ing all generic IOs, pvps and purples on every build. Because why not. It's the only thing i have to spend my thousands of merits on since I buy all my IOs with cash. 

[Erydanus]

4 hours ago, cDc1979 said:

Hi all. Wondering about the ability to '+5' enhancements.  I see that the boosters are quite expensive. Where will I get the best bang for buck doing this? For example if I have 2 generic recharge rate IOs in hasten - is it worth boosting them? What about boosting damage? Are the gains really minimal? Or maybe money better spent elsewhere. To note my main is a fire/fire tank (already have all IO sets and t4's so looking for what to do next)..... Thanks!! 

I haven't really gotten into using boosters myself, but on paper a good place to make something 50+5 is a place where you drop from 3 slots to 2 slots because level 50 IOs get you close to the enhancement diversification softcap. For example, Stamina. If you're just using 2 generic IOs there (and perhaps a proc) boosting them would yield some return. If my planner is telling me this correctly, +3 to each of them will get you from about 84% to about 93%. I think I would personally be fine with that but YMMV.

[Dahkness]

2 hours ago, roleki said:

If I only have one generic IO in a power, I'll usually +5 that if the resulting effect has any kind of benefit I can point to; as for whether the gains are noticeable or worth it... eh, it depends what you're going for.

 

Just as an example, my 50.4 En/En/Fire blaster has a global recharge of +98.75 and Perma-Hasten which brings that up to 168.75.  I have one generic 50 Recharge IO in Power Boost; before +5, the recharge on that was ~16.9s, and after +5 it's ~16.0 seconds. 

 

Ostensibly, ~1s is not a big gain, but the duration of Power Boost's effect is about 15s, so I am *that* close to perma Power Boost.  As it stands, the 16s recharge works out to about one extra Power Boost every 4.5 minutes, and the way that character is set up, that means an extra 15s of boosted defense, an extra 20s at the ToHit cap, an extra 333 heals from Energize and so on. 

 

So in that instance, it was worth it to ME to go for +5.  If the recharge was only sitting at 30s with a generic IO and +5 would only get me to 26 or something, I wouldn't have bothered.

How do you super charge an enhancement? 

[roleki]

1 hour ago, Hops said:

How do you super charge an enhancement? 

Same process as applying a Catalyst; you acquire a Booster, click into your Enhancement Management screen, click into the power you want to modify, then click the enhancement itself.  It should drop into the 'combination' section of the screen, and if you have a Booster available, that will appear in the upper left corner of the screen.  Click that, then combine, and voila: your enhancement is now 50+1 or whatever it was before.  Note you cannot boost Attuned IOs.