Enhancement Set Bonuses

Parent Articles: Invention Origin Enhancements → Enhancement Sets

Overview

Set bonuses are earned from slotting more than one distinct Enhancement from the same set into the same power. Set bonuses apply to the character at all times, regardless of the power into which the set is slotted however exemplaring to far below the level of the Enhancement may cause set bonuses to stop functioning.

Bonuses, Restrictions, and ED

Set Bonuses are constant percent benefits, unaffected by the level of the enhancement. Set Bonuses are lost when a character exemplars more than three levels below the level of the Enhancement. An Enhancement's level affects the strength of its basic enhancement bonus.

Invention Origin Enhancements have a fixed level that is determined at the time the Enhancement is created. Attuned enhancements change their level based on the current Combat Level of the character and the minimum and maximum allowed level of the Enhancement.

Each Enhancement Set consists of three to six different Enhancement versions. Multiples of the same set and version Enhancement cannot be slotted into one power, although they can be spread across multiple powers. Multiple distinct partial sets can also be slotted into one power, and will all give partial set benefits.

Enhancement Diversification does not apply to special benefits or set bonuses. Hence, they are often used to get around the limitation of ED, and in some cases can provide greater percent improvement than the old pre-ED slotting.

The Law of Fives

While a character can slot the same (full or partial) set multiple times in different powers, he cannot benefit from more than five copies of each named set bonus of the exact same attribute and amount. This is a stronger restriction than simply being limiting to five copies of each set. It means that if two different sets give the same size bonus to the same thing, the character can't get more than 5x that bonus even if he uses a mix of sets.

Example: The Kinetic Combat set can give +1.5% Max Health and +3.3% Immobilization Resistance. The Mako's Bite set can give +1.5% Max Health and +2.75% Immobilization Resistance. If a character slots four partial sets of both, he will receive the full total of 24.2% Immobilization Resistance but only +7.5% Max Health because he cannot get more than five Max Health bonuses of exactly +1.5%.

Castle further elaborated on the rule of five in I13 Closed Beta saying that the exclusion of more than five of the same bonuses is based on the name of the bonus and not its value. For example, a character can benefit from up to five global benefits of Luck of the Gambler: Defense/Increased Recharge Speed, which gives a global +7.5% bonus to Recharge Rate, as well as up to five set bonuses of +7.5% Recharge. That's because the first bonus is named "Luck of the Gambler: Recharge Speed" while the second is "Huge Recharge Bonus". One can find the names of the bonuses listed in the Combat Attributes window.

Set Bonuses and Exemplaring

When a character exemplars down to a lower level access to set bonuses (and Global IOs that function as set bonuses) is based on the level of the Enhancement and not the power they are slotted in. Exemplaring more than three levels below the level of the Enhancements renders the set bonuses non-functional. However as long as the character does not exemplar more than three levels below the level of the Enhancement the set bonuses are retained even if the power they are slotted in is unavailable.

Very Rare IOs and PvP IOs are exempt from this rule, the set bonuses function regardless of what level the character is exemplared to. Attuned Enhancements change their level based on the character's current Combat Level so the set bonuses will only shut off if the character exemplars more than three levels below the minimum level allowed for the Enhancement.

Defense Bonuses

With the exception of Psionic Defense set bonuses, all Defense set bonuses boost three different defenses, one positional defense and two typed defenses. The combination of defenses is always the same as shown in the table below. Either the positional defense or both of the typed defenses will be the primary bonus and have a magnitude of 1.25% x the Bonus Multiplier given in the next section. The other defense(s) will be the secondary bonus and will have a magnitude of 0.625% x the Bonus Multiplier.

Combination	Positional	Typed 1	Typed 2
1	Melee	Smashing	Lethal
2	Ranged	Energy	Negative Energy
3	AoE	Fire	Cold

When considering these defense bonuses and the Law of Fives (explained in a previous section), it is very important to remember that the Law of Fives is based on the bonus name and not the bonus amount. The names for defense bonuses take one of these two forms:

<Size> Increased <Positional>/<Typed 1>/<Typed 2> Def Bonus

• if the Positional defense bonus is the larger one

<Size> Increased <Typed 1>/<Typed 2>/<Positional> Def Bonus

• if the Typed defense bonuses are the larger ones

This means that it is possible for two sets to give the same bonus to a particular defense type without impacting the Law of Fives. The simple rule of thumb is to always use the higher defense bonus when considering Law of Fives violations.

Example: Blood Mandate has amongst its set bonuses both a "Small Increased Fire/Cold/AoE Def Bonus" and a "Huge Increased AoE/Fire/Cold Def Bonus". Both of these provide 1.88% to Fire and Cold defense; however, since they have different names, they are separately subject to the Law of Fives, and a character can slot this set up to five times and get both copies of the 1.88% bonus up to five times each (assuming no other sets with the same bonuses).

<Size>	<Positional>	<Typed 1>	<Typed 2>	full bonus indentifier
Huge	AoE	Fire	Cold	Huge Increased AoE/Fire/Cold Def Bonus
<Size>	<Typed 1>	<Typed 2>	<Positional>	full bonus indentifier
Small	Fire	Cold	AoE	Small Increased Fire/Cold/AoE Def Bonus

Set Bonus Values

Each bonus has a power level. Generally, the higher level sets give bigger bonuses. The bonuses in the tables on the Enhancement Sets page are color coded to show what level they belong to. Generally, the colors are selected to follow the Con System that regular players should be well familiar with. Bonus strength is in relation to Level One (base) bonuses.

Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Color	Green	Blue	Black	Orange	Red	Med Purple	Purple
Bonus Multiplier	x1 (base)	x1.5	x2	x2.5	x3	x3.5	x4
Combat Attribute Descriptor	Tiny	Small	Moderate	Large	Huge	Gargantuan	Ultimate

All of the currently existing Purple and Superior Archetype Enhancements set bonuses are level 7. Level 6 bonuses are currently only used on Archetype Enhancement sets.

Base Values

Below are the Level One base values for the set bonuses. Multiply this value by the level multiplier (see above) to get the actual bonus value.

Defense bonuses (except for Psionic Defense) always boost three defense values, one positional and two typed. One of the bonuses (either the position bonus or both of the typed bonuses) only gets half of the usual enhancement.

Knockback protection is only available in Small Bonuses and Global IOs so the base value is assuming that it follow the standard schedule which may turn out not to be the case.

Bonus Type	Base Strength
Accuracy	(special)
Damage	1.00%
Endurance	0.90%
Health	0.75%
Recharge Time	2.50%
Recovery	1.00%
Regeneration	4.00%
Movement Speed	3.00%
Range	(special)
Endurance Discount	(special)
Improved Heal	2.00%
Improved Knockback	2.00%
Improved Slow	1.00%
Conf Dur	1.00%
Fear Dur	1.10%
Hold Dur	1.00%
Immob Dur	2.00%
Sleep Dur	2.00%
Stun Dur	1.00%

Bonus Type	Base Strength
Melee Def Smash/Lethal Def	1.25% 0.625%
AoE Def Fire/Cold Def	1.25% 0.625%
Ranged Def Pos/Neg Def	1.25% 0.625%
Smash/Lethal Def Melee Def	1.25% 0.625%
Fire/Cold Def AoE Def	1.25% 0.625%
Pos/Neg Def Ranged Def	1.25% 0.625%
Psi Def	1.25%
Smash/Lethal Res	1.5%
Fire/Cold Res	1.5%
Pos/Neg Res	1.5%
Toxic/Psi Res	1.3%
Mez Res	2.50%
Knockback Protection	(special)
Slow Res	(special)
Chance for Repel Protection	(special)

Accuracy, Range, Endurance Discount, Knockback Protection, Slow Res, and Chance for Repel Protection set bonuses follow unique schedules:

Level	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Color	Green	Blue	Black	Orange	Red	Med Purple	Purple
Accuracy	3%	5%	7%	9%	11%	13%	15%
Range	5%			7.5%			10%
Endurance Discount			2.5%	3%	3.75%
Knockback Protection		Mag 3	Mag 4
Slow Res				10%			15%
Chance for Repel Protection				7.5%	10%

See Also

• Law of Fives at help.ncsoft.com