Ignoring that zero in the title...

In the wake of the new enhancements that have come to the fray with this system, the City of Paragon has been bathed in a flurry of sleep inducing numbers. Be it through copious amounts of caffeine or pure enthusiasm I have tried to stick through those numbers to see what it all really meant for me. Really, it didn’t seem that bad after a while (of course, given I have a very boring job), but let’s just cut through the numbers and see what we have got in the name of having fun.

IOs AND HOW WE GET THEM

The types of IOs are tied to 4 different ‘pools’,

Pool A comes from killing bad/good guys, and most IOs are their (and costumes too) about 80% of the time it will common, 20% uncommon (costumes are here) and about 2% a rare one. Tougher bad guys offer more chance of dropping a recipe, with AVs always dropping one.

Pool B drops happen when a door mission completes, and 10% of the time drop a recipe.

Pool C is awarded at the end of a TF.

Pool D is awarded at the end of a trial.

The vast majority of IOs are in pool A, with only about 30 currently recorded across all the other pools. So we should see quite a few just by kicking around.

As said the costumes are in that Pool A drop, sadly so is lots of stuff and therein lies the time sink, the salvage from most accounts isn’t that hard to find for them, just that uncommon recipe.

WHAT THE GIZMOS DO.

Common IOs

These look much the same as our normal enhancers, however they don’t go out level (go red) and provide a fixed bonus depending on what level they are. At level 18 they are the same quality as DOs and at level 38 they are the same quality as SOs, at their highest level they are actually better then the highest level SO you can get and anything post 38 is better then the highest SO you can buy from Ghost Falcon. When I say common, I do mean common.  In about an hour I had 10 of these things and most of the salvage needed to build them.

Their level is dependent on the bad guy you killed to get it. Common recipes in 5 level increments can also be found on the invention table itself.

For one's higher level characters they will be pretty handy, and in the growing stages a nice way to avoid replacing SOs every five levels.

SET IOs (ones with names like “Statesman’s Jock Strap”)

These will be un-commons, Rares and all the other pool drops, and are marginally better in effect then common ones (reaching SO quality at level 27). They also come in the form of multiple boosts for instance Acc/Power in the same enhancer (at slightly less of a boost but still very viable) and can have a number of special effects.

Some of the more interesting ones might add a chance for additional damage (about 20% chance of kicking in 50 or so extra damage at level 50 per attack) or give you knockback protection. They look fun, but are harder to get, and the salvage tends to be a bit rarer. Still Knockback protection without Acrobatics or some Psionic protection in Granite form will be worth keeping an eye out for if you’re interested.

The other advantage is as you slot different types of Set IOs into the same power your character gets global bonuses to all kinds of things. Including recovery increase, bonus hit points or bonus defense. Alone, they aren’t much stick, but they stack with each other so say, five attacks all slotted with this stuff, you can actually end up with some damn fine bonuses.

It’s too many numbers to go over exactly, but if you’re interested: 

ParagonWiki on Invention Sets

That’s got some pretty good summaries.

And if after all that you want some to know what salvage builds which doo-hickey try: 

Red Tomax's Guide to City of Heroes.  Click on the cookbook.

Ok, so there were some numbers in there. And if it all seemed too brief or un-clear hopefully the links help. If I can help my global is @Azazel005.

Take it easy Paragon.

~Josh