It used to be that you could fill all six slots with damage enhancements and do some screaming damage. Then came the dreaded ED and the wailing and gnashing of teeth. After that point, any more than three SOs were pointless because you'd only get about 5% bonus for each additional SO of the same type.

Me personally, I liked ED because it forced me to actually get more creative with my slotting, but don't tell anyone...

After that, all guides that had six-slot recommendations had to change to accommodate a maximum of three of any kind of enhancement. Well, now it's happening again, only worse. Because IOs are so variable by level and with all their bonuses and such, it's become almost impossible to recommend specific slotting for powers.

So take for example the days before IOs where I would recommend a slotting like this:

Slotting Recommendation

This is for a nifty Dark Blast power called "Life Drain" that's both a ranged attack AND a self heal. If it misses, you get no heal which is why I have 2 accuracy first, some heal, some more damage, and then 2 recharge (so it will come back faster in case you miss or just in case you need more life soon).

Now I'll do this:

Recommended # of Slots and Enhancement Priority

	( 6 Slots ) As both a strong attack and a heal, if you take this power, max it out! 70%   Accuracy (70% Minimum) Default: 75% With max 100% enhancement: 150% When dealing with a heal that requires an accuracy check, you don't want it to ever miss. Make sure to slot this REALLY high. 90%   Recharge (90% Minimum) Default: 15 sec With max 100% enhancement: 7.5 sec Either as an attack or a heal, you want this to come back as fast as possible. Give it max recharge. 40%   Heal (40% Minimum) Default: 10% With max 100% enhancement: 20% If you use this more as a heal, slot this as high as you can. Otherwise, give the enhancement to damage. Either way, prioritize recharge. 40%   Damage (40% Minimum) Default: 36 points With max 100% enhancement: 72 points If you use this an attack, slot this as high as you can, but remember to give priority to recharge. 0%   Endurance Reduction (0% Minimum) Default: 12 end With max 100% enhancement: 6 end If you give LD enough slots to afford some endurance reduction, go for it, but this won't be your priority. 0%   Range (0% Minimum) Default: 60 Feet With max 60% enhancement: 96 Feet It's got really good range already. Granted it's not as long as Dark Blast and Gloom, but you'll most often use this at closer range anyway either because you're in a melee battle or close to a tank or scrapper who is. 0%   To Hit Debuff (0% Minimum) Default: -9% With max 60% enhancement: -14.4% If you manage to buff everything else and can't think of anything else to do, there's always accuracy debuff. Help The enhanceable properties of this power are listed in order of importance. Hover the mouse over each for detailed information and a description.

How to Read My Slotting Recommendations

Now that you have a bunch of IOs with combo enhancements, how could I possibly represent a recommended slotting? I toyed with a few ideas, but eventually came up with the idea you see here.

The first thing you'll see is my recommended number of slots (in this case six). By hovering the mouse over it, you can see an explanation of why I think this particular power needs or deserves that number of slots.

Next, I'll list all aspects of the power you can enhance in descending order of priority. You can hover over each enhanceable attribute to see why I recommend that priority and that particular percentage of boost.

So the end result is that when you get a chance to enhance this power and you're calculating the percentages that your enhancements would give you (no matter what type they are), you would give the highest weight to recharge, but the highest priority to accuracy. In plain English, recharge is the value you want to buff the MOST, but only AFTER you have enough accuracy.

Jordan's Guide to Invention Origin Enhancements

1. Invention Origin Enhancing
2. Why Generic IOs Kick Butt
3. Why Set IOs Kick Even More Butt
4. How IOs Affect CoH/V Guides