What set bonuses do you chase?

[MonteCarla]

Not all IO set bonuses are created equal. Dishing out some advice in the Defenders forums I realised I have a very set in my ways approach to them, like a mental checklist of what's worth pursuing and what isn't.
What set bonuses do you chase?

These are mine, in order of how much I follow them:

 

Recharge - almost always. This will typically stack up to 2 or 3 extra SO's worth, or more. 90%+ of my characters do this.
Defence - usually positional, but typed for the right armor sets. 66%+ of my characters have done this?
Resistance - definitely a build goal for the right armor sets - on Tanks, Brutes and Epic ATs with the higher caps. 
Accuracy - usually get a single SO's worth at least by accident. I've occasionally not accumulated this, shrugged and moved on.
Run Speed - did this once, and got noticeably high unsuppressed run speed. Quite fun to do as a one-off. (This was before the Thrust unique IO)
Fly Speed/Jump Speed - never done
Slow Resistance - did this on my main Dominator once to help preserve perma-Dom, as per forum advice.
KB Protection - I used to use uniques instead, now use START vendor buffs
Recovery - accidentally get this, but don't think it makes a big difference due to low numbers
Range - never more than two Bombardment sets in cone-heavy sets. Is there an extreme teleporter case here?
Max End - never deliberately chased, except for one character who had 125+ Energy with accolades, and I just wanted the number to go up 🙂
Max HP - never chased, but I believe people do?
Damage - never chased, but I believe people do?
Regen - never chased this. The healing procs seem more effective (Panacea in Health, Power Transfer in Stamina)
Healing - never chased this.
Mez effects eg +Confuse - never chased
Mez Resistance - never bothered

 

Does anyone have any good cases that differ from this pattern - eg chasing +Damage or +Health, or making a super-ranged expert?

Edited 19 hours ago by MonteCarla

[Maelwys]

I probably put a bit more emphasis onto +Accuracy and +MaxHP, but otherwise the list looks very familiar.

 

Adding more global enhancement allows you to take local enhancement aspect slotting out of the individual powers, freeing up room for Procs or even just freeing up entire enhancement slots so that they can be moved elsewhere. But you can quicky reach a point where the tradeoffs outweigh the gains. And after a certain point, most builds stop benefitting from global accuracy (eg whenever you're hitting 95% hit chance vs +3 foes) and many builds benefit only very slightly from additional global recharge (eg whenever your attack chain is seamless). 

 

I'll almost always chase Global Recharge, Global Accuracy, Damage Resistance (on the sets that get some natively I like to hit at least one Hardcap) and Defense (not always to the softcap, 20% and 32.5% make good breakpoints due to purple inspirations and team buffs and are far more achievable).

I'll often chase a little +recovery too, as the vast majority of my builds aim for at least +2 Endurance per second after toggle costs are deducted, unless I'm planning to run Ageless (and/or be a Permadom).

MaxHP is never a central focus, but I'll always include an Unbreakable Guard global and the passive accolades and if there's a minor slotting choice between a smidge of extra MaxHP and something else I'll usually take the +MaxHP. Then at the end of the build I'll normally try to get past the next big round number (1200, 1600, etc) otherwise my OCD nags at me. I hate capping out at something like 1195, and I've been known to redesign entire builds because of it.

 

Some of my builds will chase Recharge Debuff resistance. Typically that's mainly on powersets that rely on clickybuffs (like Regeneration, before the recent changes).

 

Chasing +damage (set bonus, not Procs) is usually only something I do after all the other aspects of my build are covered and I'm having to decide between very minor "superfluous" set bonuses. And certain ATs (like Scrappers) gain more proportional benefit than others (like Brutes).

 

 

[MonteCarla]

Yeah, +Damage is the one that's intriguing me right now.
I'm sure I've seen people on the Blaster forums say they slot for it. It would make most sense on a Blaster or Stalker, or Scrapper.

 

I've got a KM/Nin/Psy Stalker lined up in my head.

Looking here: https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Category:Sets_with_Damage_bonuses - I could get:

Apocalypse, Coercive Persuasion (Blinding Powder) and Superior Assassin and Superior Stalker's Guile:  +16%

Obliteration, Sting of the Manticore and 3 x Mako's Bite: +15%

5 x 2% bonuses (Red Fortune, Adjusted Targeting): +10%
for a global +41% damage.

 

Hmm. Tier 4 Musculature gives you 2/3 (after ED) of 45%, so another +30%.

 

For comparison, Call to Justice is a +40% damage boost to Stalkers, and I always make sure I get that ASAP.

 

It could be the difference between dropping a Boss with an Assassin Strike and quick follow up, or not. ( And I might be shooting myself in the foot by choosing Kinetic Melee.. 🙂 )

[Clave Dark 5]

I once chased +damage on a Dominator just cuz I wanted to; no matter what choice I was faced with, I always chose "whatever adds to my damage, no thought given to anything else."  Installed a little window thingy to keep track of how much % extra damage I was getting, as much of it was like situational based on Incarnates, etc.  Played that toon up to 50 and more, she was a lot of fun, on teams I was often hitting the cap of 300%. 

 

I've thought about trying the same thing on a "real" damage toon, like a Blaster, but that feels too obvious so I just haven't gotten round to it.

[Auroxis]

For me it's less about chasing specific bonuses. It's more of a priority checklist:

1. Plan out the optimal DPS rotation and AoE opener of your build. This includes epic power picks.
2. Grab all essential powers (DPS rotation, AoE's, mandatory support/armor/cc/pet powers, hasten, at least one def and one res power for unique IO's)
3. Work out how many power picks you have left to add picks of interest (leadership, LotG mules, fold space)
4. Slot out your attack chain and AoE attacks to the maximum slots, assume any of them with recharge of 8s and above will be procced out and any others will be used as set mules.
5. Slot out your other powers, knowing you'll want to chase certain IO sets for recharge and accuracy set bonuses.
6. Start placing "mandatory" IO's. Kismet +Acc, LotG's, Steadfast Protection +Def, Gladiator's Armor +Def (often 3-slot for KB prot), Shield Wall +Res (sometimes 4-slot for e/n res), Reactive Defense +Res (sometimes 2-slot for s/l res)
7. Start placing the purple/ATO sets and other premium stat sets (i.e preventive medicine, cupid's), knowing you want accuracy on your procced-out damage powers to reach 95% against +3's.
8. Think about your res/def caps. If you're using a resistance armor like fiery aura, you want at the bare minimum your s/l res capped. If you're using a def armor, you want softcaps on your defense.
9. Check your hasten uptime and see how far you are from it. If your build has FFB procs, do some simple napkin math to work out how much they'd actually add in practice.
10. Decide on your alpha slot. At this point you'll know if you need Accuracy from it.
11. Think about your endurance sustainability. Usually 2-3 slots in Health and Stamina are enough, but this part varies a lot and often requires field testing. 
12. Think about your recharge debuff resistance. If you've almost no defense and no CC, you need some investment into it. Especially if you plan to tank for your team.
13. Work out your flavor goals. You wanna make a fiery aura tanker with an E/N res cap? You wanna make a dominator with passive permadom? This is where you let your creativity go wild, and where most fun is had.

In the end, your goal should be less about having certain set bonuses, but rather to have the most optimal build for the content you have in mind, and then experiment with fun flavor additions. For regular +4x8 soloing, you want an optimal procced-out attack chain, a reliable AoE opener able to take down minions/lieutenants in about 10s, being able to hit +3's at 95%, having near-perma hasten, and enough mitigation/sustain/cc to deal with the bosses and keep you alive until those minions/lieutenants are dead. For tankers and brutes, you also want to emphasize resistance caps to handle excess packs.
 

Edited 12 hours ago by Auroxis

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, Auroxis said:

For me it's less about chasing specific bonuses. It's more of a priority checklist

100%.

My typical main goal for non-support toons is "optimised attack chain with 95% hit chance vs unbuffed +3 foes" plus "sufficient self-survivability".

Often I won't require a Kismet to get all of my attacks to a 95% Hit Chance; so less than half of my builds take it. Likewise, some of my builds don't require Hasten in order to get a gapless optimised Single Target attack chain so it may not be taken at all; or only taken to get a few AoEs and specific clicky buffs up sooner.
I will say that I always pick my Alpha slot before I slot up my attacks though - Musculature Core's +30% ED-ignoring damage buff is too hard to pass up unless I'm a Brute or a Kinetics (although occasionally I'll go Musculature Radial or Intuition Radial in order to sacrifice a little bit of damage for additional +ToHitDebuff plus +EndMod or +Slow...)
 

 

2 hours ago, MonteCarla said:

Yeah, +Damage is the one that's intriguing me right now.
I'm sure I've seen people on the Blaster forums say they slot for it. It would make most sense on a Blaster or Stalker, or Scrapper.

Honestly Scrapper is the only one I've ever bothered.

Blasters already get plenty of additional +Damage via Defiance stacks plus access to both Aim (with a Gaussian Proc) and Build Up.
Stalkers get lots of extra Build Up activations (with a Gaussian Proc) via their ATOs.
Therefore just like Brutes; on those ATs the effect of any minor +damage buffs tends to get diluted by the sheer amount of regular non-set-bonus damage buffs in play.

Scrappers however have a very high melee Damage Scaling - meaning they get a lot of extra raw damage output from +Damage buffs (that's why using the Assault Core Hybrid with its stacking +damage buff rather than Assault Radial with its "chance for double hit" is always better on a Scrapper unless you're teaming with a Kin) and aside from a few specific powersets (e.g. Claws) they don't get many worthwhile constantly stacking damage buffs to dilute the effect of minor +damage set bonuses. And their Critical Hit schtick stacks with any/all damage buffs just fine.

The real problem is that in order to gain worthwhile global +Damage buffs via set bonuses you're looking at a pretty hefty "opportunity cost" to slot the appropriate IOs that grant you those set bonuses. The Scrapper ATO sets, the Obliteration PBAoE set and the Purple Apocalypse Ranged set are the only ones that spring to mind which grant Global Recharge and +Damage - for about +15% total (plus another +3% per additional set of Obliteration). However all of those require 3-4 set pieces and also require you to end up with some local recharge in the slotted attack (which hurts your proc activation rates; which in turn REDUCES your damage output!). The Mako's Bite and Touch of Death sets both grant a bit of +global +Damage plus some Defense and S/L Resistances; and you can just about get away without taking any local recharge with a Touch of Death set... but they're much less common in min-maxed builds and it's almost always more effective to just use "Acc/Dam HO, Dam IO + 4x damage procs". So often any global +damage buffs from all these sets ends up being a byproduct of intentionally chasing other things like recharge and defence set bonuses. 
There are a few non-damage IO sets that grant global +damage (like the Red Fortune and Shield Wall Defense sets) but other alternative sets (like Unbreakable Defenses and Luck of the Gambler) often have multiple attractive bonuses; so IME unless you're suffering from a glut of spare enhancement slots it's still not worth it.
Personally about the only time I'll consciously opt to grab a global +damage bonus is whenever it involves very minor slotting tweaks (e.g. a 2-piece bonus; like Dampened Spirits -ToHit, Undermined Defenses and Achilles' Heel -Def, Adjusted Targeting +ToHit, and Lockdown +HoldDuration!)
 

Edited 11 hours ago by Maelwys

[Hedgefund2]

I was once on a theme team where everyone had (time or temporal) manipulation.  Most people went with time so I made a /temp blaster.  Knowing I'd have around 5-6 time buffs (and therefore massive +def and +rch buffs) I went outside the box for my blaster and heavily pursued +dmg bonuses.  My MO was to get attacks to ED cap via local slotting, add procs to flavor and pursue +dmg bonuses.  Note - I'm not saying I pursued +Dmg as the A#1 priority but it was a priority.  All that said I ended up with 39% +dmg via IO set bonuses, that's for a blaster that can break up Superior Defiant Barrage into 3 sets of 2 pieces to get 4% (highest bonus amount available) 3 times.  That's not even a basic DMG IO.  It isn't subjected to ED, ofc but it's not transformative like taking your defense from 0 to a number significantly higher than 0 or effectively adding 2 recharge IOs into all your powers (without subjecting to ED).  Arguably this is what set bonuses should be like, something that is "nice" but not necessarily transformative, but I'm not looking for that discussion now.

[tidge]

For me:

 

#1 is +Recharge. I almost always have some long-recharge power that I'd prefer to be available ASAP... plus it smooths out active chains.

#2 is +Accuracy, because I prefer to blame all my misses on RNG

 

After this... it is pretty much +MaxEnd, +Recovery, -EnduranceCost. with Slow Resistance in the mix.

 

For Tankers I'll chase +MaxHP, Recovery (but only to a point, since +Health works better) and KB protection.

 

EDIT: I almost never want +Range from set bonuses. If I am playing ranged characters, the global +Range typically increases the difference in ranges between my various attacks to the point of annoyances... and if I am playing a character with ONLY short range attacks, I get better results by actually slotting for Range.

Edited 10 hours ago by tidge

[skoryy]

I go by priorities myself, depending on the build and its needs.  Perma-Hasten or as close to it as I can get is usually a given on all builds.  After that, it depends.  Low damage scale ATs and holds get loaded up on procs, melee builds will get varying levels of defense and resist, depending.  Chasing recharge usually gives me enough accuracy and endurance, so I've never worried about that.

[Championess]

I'll first look to see the 2-3 powers I want to build in procs for my attack chain.  Then building around those attacks I'll go recharge, +hp, and lastly range/melee defense along with those 6% resists where I can.  The rest of the bonuses you kind of pick up along the way when going for those.

 

There's also a few nuanced bonuses I'll go for like 10-12 kb protection on squishies or -recharge resist for characters that have important longerish recharging clicks.

Edited 5 hours ago by Championess

[Steel]

When building my Sentinels I make sure to frankenslot the ATOs for five times the +range bonus. Along with Intuition Radial that's 70% extra range. Incredibly useful on a Sent.