Casual Solo Player's Guide From Fresh Level 30, to CR 84

This Guide is intended to help bring Players from a fresh Level 30 to CR 84.
( CR is short for Combat Rating. If you don't know what CR is, skip to below "Why Increase Your CR?" )

This Guide will NOT help you determine what Talents, Powers, etc to choose. There are plenty of Guides for each separate Power Set.

This Guide is intended to help you
- Determine what Solo Missions are easy to complete and yield the Best Rewards.
- What DLCs to purchase to get access to those Missions
- What Equipment to Purchase, What Equipment to get from Solos / Drops, to increase your CR.
- How to Mod the Equipment that you Get to increase your CR quicker and get you to the next "Tier" sooner

Note that if like (most people, I assume) you play less on Weekdays and more on Weekends, and have difficulty getting Groups on Weekdays, this Guide should still help you.

For those increasing the CR of an Alt and want to focus on playing their main character in groups, this might also help you.

Some Players may have a CR of about 50, or maybe even 68 or so, but have difficulty reaching the next Tier. Likewise, reaching CR 70 can be difficult if you don't run in Groups and don't have help.

This Guide will help you, hopefully without getting burned out, just skip ahead to the relevant section below. Likewise, 70 to 84 is difficult if you don't understand modding.

- You don't want / need to be Carried. I.E. you are a Competent Player with your Solo content. As a general approximation, if you got to Level 30 completing all the Solo Instances at the appropriate Level without help, including beating bosses like Bruno Mannheim and the Circe & Aquaman combo, you should be fine.
- you are not always Legendary. While not Legendary, you want to know which DLCs to get so you can get the max Marks / Gear Access to increase your CR to the proper levels. Note that at some points, you will need to be Legendary / or have full Escrow Access to Mod effectively (see below)
- You Don't Play DCUO Full Time. Maybe 1-2 hours a day.
- For whatever reasons, you don't often play Duos / Operations / Alerts etc
This may be due to bad timezone and bad lags that make Easy Fights instant KO.
Or maybe you don't have a Role Specific Gear, hence perform poorly in a group.

Or you just don't want to deal with league drama or the waiting time involved in large group activities. if only because your playtime is limited, or you hate the Chat Interface.

Well, with ALL of the Above constraints, you can STILL get to CR 84. You don't even have to complete most of the Gear.

You unlock more portions of the game as your CR increases. Without an Increase in CR, for example, there's no way you can get to experience certain Alerts / Raids, and visit places like Central City and Gotham Wasteland.

Even if you buy the DLC and/or are Legendary, you won't be able to access the Content (Well, unless Walk-Ins work for you, in which case you don't need this Guide). So CR is pretty important if you intend to just try out what the Game has to Offer.

HOW TO INCREASE MY CR?
To increase your CR, you basically must have Equipment with a higher CR Rating. Note that you must "have" the equipment in your Inventory or Bank, but you need not equip them.

Mods help to increase CR Rating of individual pieces of Equipment, and we will come to that at a later part on how to make the most efficient use of your precious Marks of Triumph and your Exobytes (that are used to create Mods).

SO, WHAT'S MY CR?
You can view it in your Character, under your Stats. Where you can see your Health, Defenses, etc, right at the bottom but above PVP CR, you can find your CR.

If you already have CR of 40+, and have appropriate Rings / Trinket / Face / Weapon etc, you can consider skipping this bit. However, if you lack those pieces, or if you have CR below 55 and have difficulty Soloing, do consider reading the following.

- When you start with only very very few Marks of Triumph (MoT), do NOT get the PVE Gear. Especially NOT the ones that cost 1 Mark of Triumph per Piece. (You can get them much later for your Feat Points though).

This is a General Overview of the Equipment that you will be getting, and Why.
If you want to get a general View of where you stand, if you're already mid-CR levels, this is the topic.
If you just want to know which are the Best Quests / Challenges to do, Skip Ahead to section 3, REWARDING MISSIONS.

ICONIC ARMOR TIERS
If you are not yet familiar with what are T1 to T5 Suits, look at http://dcuniverseonline.wikia.com/wiki/Iconic_Battle_Suits

The following Summary is from the above (less Pictures), showing the following Purchaseable Gear
The CR listed is the CR for every piece of the Armor in the Set.
MoT is short for Marks of Triumph, MoR is short for Marks of Reality.

T1.0 Gear (1 Set from each Wing) : CR 46. No Requirements. Costs 260 MOTs
T2.0 Gear (1 Set from each Wing) : CR 56. Requires CR 43. Costs 1,600 MOTs.
T2.5 Gear (High Voltage/Reverse Set from Central City) : CR 62. Requires CR 53 & Lightning Strikes DLC. Costs 4,200 MoTs (not counting Accessories)
T3.0 Gear* (Sunstone/Kryptonian Set in Meta Wing) : CR 68. Requires CR 53. Costs 20,000 MoTs.
T4.0 Gear* (Aurochs/Stag/Lion/Ram Set in Magic Wing) : CR 78. Requires CR 70. Costs 50,000 MoTs.
T5.0 Gear* (Atlantean/Manta Set in Meta Wing): CR 85. Requires CR 84. Costs 400 MoRs & requires Origin Crisis DLC.
T5.5 Gear (Prideful/Bloodlust Set in Gotham Wastelands Base): CR 91. Requires CR 84. Costs 400 MoRs & requires Sons of Trigon DLC.
T5.9 Gear (Scion of Ion/Disciple of Parallax): CR 95. Requires CR 84. Costs 400 MoRs & requires War of the Light Part I DLC.

* - Tiers that you really don't want/need to Complete before getting to the next Tier

NON-ARMOR SLOTS
With the exception of T2.5 Gear in Central City, most of the above Gear applies strictly to Armor Sets.
This means your Neck, Face, Rings, Weapon, Trinket slots may still be low CR and may pull down your CR.
As you go through below section , do take note of where to get such Items, they make a BIG difference.

Rings and Necks also often drop from Promethium Lockboxes. Try to get your CR up to the next Tier before opening your Lockboxes for the Best Effect. The CR of such orange "Account Bound" Items only apply when you have the item in your Bank or your Inventory.
NOTE: Thanks to Vulmyss, who reminded me that Trinkets, Rings, Necks etc also drop in the Vault :)

THE CR DIVIDE
So, what is this CR Divide?
If you look closely, you notice T2.0 Gear requires CR 43, and T1.0 provides CR 46 Gear. So if you get all T1.0, you "should" be able to get to CR 43.
The same can be said of T3.0 Gear that requires CR 53, and T2.0 provides CR 56 Gear.

However, at T4.0 this changes. T4.0 Gear requires CR 70, but you can only get CR 68 with T3.0 Gear.
Likewise, T5.0 Gear requires CR 84, but you can only get CR 78 with T4.0 Gear.

In other words, the only way you are going to get to CR 70 is to Mod at least some of your T3.0 Gear, so you can purchase T4.0 Gear.
Likewise, you will have to Mod your T4.0 Gear to get to CR 84 so you can purchase T5.0 Gear.

Apart from Mods, you also have the following to help you out.

These are gear that drop from various places, and they will help you increase your CR.
For simplicity, I've only included the Damage Styles that are generally used and reachable by Solo Players

Thanks to the Gear here, you do not need to get that many pieces of the usual Tiers to increase your CR. The downside is that some of this gear is relatively "random", and it may take you a while to get all the pieces you need.

T1.5 Gear
Damage: (Astral Alloy Set) CR 52. Requires CR 40. Drops from the Sub-Avatar in Old Gotham. This set is so good looking and notable that it was actually mentioned in the earlier link.
Damage: (Mayan Set) CR 52. Requires CR 43 to access the Solo Challenge. Drops from Cat Lords & Catwoman in Gotham Warehouse.

NOTE: With this gear, getting to CR 53 is easy.
Don't go crazy modding this Tier though, save the Exobytes for the next part, getting to CR 70. You will need the Exobytes, and be glad you have them. If you really have a lot of Cash on hand and want to mod to CR 53, just go ahead and mod the CR 52 pieces with Type I or Type II Mods.
As a Special Note, try and get the following Items - Catwoman's Facemask, Rings that drop from Penguin in Gotham Subway. They are all CR 52 and will boost your CR, instead of the T1 problem where you might have low CR Face & Rings. You might have already got better CR items from your Promethium Lockboxes though.

T2.5 Gear
Damage: (Kabuki Set) CR 60. Requires CR 53 to access the Solo Challenges. Drops from various Bosses.
Purchaseable: (High Voltage) CR 62. Although it is Purchaseable, this set requires SPECIAL Mention.

NOTE: High Voltage Set costs 4,200 MoTs, less than 1/4 the cost of T3 Gear which is 20,000 MoTs. With this Set of Gear and all the Accessories it comes with, plus Type III Mods, you can hit CR 70 without ever buying a SINGLE piece of T3 Gear. That's right, with this you DON'T NEED a single T3 Gear to get to CR 70.
This saves you LOTS of time grinding for MoTs. You may choose not to go this route if you're short of Cash (in game cash) to purchase Exobytes etc though. Or use synthetic mods.

T3.5 Gear
Heroes: (Dept of Corrections/Biohazard Set) Cr 74. Requires CR 70 to do the Dailies / Challenges from Ace Chemicals & Stryker's Island.
Villains: (Maniacal/Machinist's Set) Cr 74. Requires CR 70 to do the Dailies / Challenges from Divide And Conquer & Stealing from Steel.
Every 5 Dailies gives a Solo Challenge, which upon Completion grants you one of these pieces as a Reward.
You can choose which Role these pieces become, whether Damage or your Specialty.
If you've been stuck only with a Damage Set so far, this is probably the BEST time to get an Armor Set that caters to your Role. Since it doesn't really cost you anything once you have a full Damage Set.

NOTE: CR 74 Gear is very useful. By Modding CR 74 gear with Type I and II mods, and modding T4 (ie CR 78) gear with Type IV mods, as well drops of CR 78 Rings, it is possible to reach CR 84 with only 1-2 pieces of T4 Gear. Which is great, since T4 Gear costs a huge number of MoTs.
The Solo Challenges also occasionally grants CR 70 Weapons and CR 78 Rings.

T4.5 Gear
Various: CR 81. Requires CR 84 to get to the Solo Challenges (from Origin Crisis) and the Dailies from Sons of Trigon. There are Weapons that drop from time to time too.

NOTE: If you get this gear, great. If you don't, don't worry about it. See the next bit.

T5.0 Gear
Various: (Exalted/Corrupted Set) CR 85. Requires CR 84 to get to Gotham Wasteland. You get this Gear by completing the Sons of Trigon Duos and also for taking on Raven's Bounty. It also comes from the Chit of Exaltation from the Raven Box.

NOTE: THIS is the gear you want to get. You don't want T5 gear, THIS gear is the same CR as T5 gear and does NOT cost ANY Marks of Reality. You can equip this gear, mod it up to reach CR 95, then use your accumulated Marks of Reality to get the Prideful/Blood Lust Set.

T5.1 Gear
Various: (Time Traveler Set) CR 87-88. Requires CR 84 to get to Gotham Wasteland. You can get this by doing T5 Raids like Paradox and Nexus.

T5.9 Gear
Various: Scion of Ion, Disciple of Parallax CR 90-110. Requires CR 84 to get to Mogo/Ranx. You get this from a vendor.

DISCLAIMER: Note that this is a macro-overview of Endgame. I am myself CR 101, so any references to dropped Gear after CR 84 are purely from my POV.

This refers to (generally) Solo Missions that have good Rewards (and sometimes Drops) that aid your progression to higher CR. For the $ conscious people, I've also listed the DLCs and the approximate CR that they will be used for.

There will also be mention on what Missions to spend your Replay Badges on.

Promethium Boxes: Hoard them carefully, and start counting the Days. Open those that Expire, but otherwise, try not to open any until you at least hit CR 53. Try your level best NOT to open any while you are below CR 43, as each box will only grant you 1 MoT instead of 5 MoTs.
If you are short on Cash, be sure to sell Styles Auras etc that you don't really really really want. This will help you be able to afford Exobytes later on.

CR 30 to 52 : Old Gotham Missions, in Battle for Earth DLC.
CR 53 to 69 : Central City Gear & some Missions, in Lightning Strikes DLC*
CR 70 to 83 : Ace Chemicals & Stryker's Island / Divide and Conquer & Stealing from Steel Missions. The Missions are in Home Turf DLC.
CR 84 plus : Wrath/Envy/Lust Missions, in Sons of Trigon DLC. Missions in Metropolis Battleground, in War of the Light Part I. Note that T5 Gear (Atlantean Monarch & Manta Set) is from Origin Crisis DLC*

* - optional DLCs. If you're really conservative on Money, you can save the MoTs / MoRs, then go Legendary for a month and purchase all the gear you need.

Best Missions
Old Gotham Dailies. You get 4 Daily missions, of which 3 you can complete on your own, and each mission grants you 5 MoTs. They are very easy in PVP T0 Gear, and you can easily get 15 MoTs every day. Whenever possible, join in the Sub-Avatar hunt too, so that's 15-20 MoTs every day.
You can find the Quest in the Meta Wing of the respective HQs. For those unfamiliar, Old Gotham is actually South Gotham.

Replay Badges
Spend your 18 Replay Badges to reset the Old Gotham Dailies. You won't get a better deal in this Tier. That said, try to save your Replay Badges for later.

To Avoid
By all means, AVOID the T1 Solo Challenges, unless it is for feats etc. Each time you complete 1 of them, you get only 1 MoT, and 2 more if it is the first time you did it that week. If you have spare time, do each one once every week if you really want to. If any CR 34 gear drops, keep them until you get higher CR equipment of the same slot. Unless you get really good at them, avoid the Toyman Missions as well. They only yield 1 MoT and are time-consuming.

Getting to CR 40
- Generally, you get to CR 40 by getting your Chest or Legs (first and second any order), Head, Shoulder, then Hands Waist Feet in any order. If somehow you are still not already CR 40 by then, get your Back item. If you can't remember the sequence, Never Mind : just get the MOST costly CR item FIRST.
- When doing the above, ensure they are all of the same set (pick your favourite out of the 3 you have based on your faction). This will add Feat Points when you complete the Iconic Armor Set
- The Gear is probably not as good as your T0 PVP Gear, so just store it in your Bank after you have claimed the Style. Your Objective is to hit CR 40.
- You will probably get to CR 40 by the time you have 4-6 pieces of T1 Gear CR 46. This means 39+39+36+33+29 MoTs, about 176 MoTs. Combined with the weekly Solo Challenges, you should have 5 pieces in Nine Days.

Once you hit CR 40, you may not wish to spend any more MoTs until you hit CR 43 (see below). Instead, focus on joining in the Sub-Avatar Fights, if you haven't already. What you want is the CR 52 Astral Alloy equipment. If you complete the Set, good for you, but in general, you don't have to, you only need just get enough pieces to hit CR 43.
Don't stop farming the MoTs though, the 15-20 MoTs a day that is still good currency for the next Tier. That said, if you have difficulty getting Astral Alloy equipment, you can buy more gear until you hit CR 43 (usually chest or legs)

Inventory Management
- Remember to keep the 2 highest CR Rings
- As you get CR 52 Astral Alloy pieces, destroy the respective piece of T1 PVE Gear. It won't be contributing to your CR. Make sure you destroy the right piece, though, or your CR may drop.

General Tips
- For the Solo Mission Blasts from the Past , Brainiac Bounders are by far the easiest enemies to deal with, with Winged Armors being the most troublesome due to constantly repositioning and knocking you over. Brainiac Tumblers are extremely irritating as well, so AoE attacks go a long way in dealing with them. I personally tend to invest a Skill Point in Rifle just to get this done smoothly against groups of Tumblers.
- For the Solo Mission of disarming the Sub-avatar Devices, you can stand near where most of the action is and go AFK. You generally will get credit if someone on your Faction successfully disarms a device. When doing it alone, camp near the edges of the Construction, further from Sub-Avatar that is under Construction, and avoid patrol paths of Brainiac Tumblers. This sweet spot means you rarely get interrupted disarming/pushed around by Attacks while trying to disarm the Devices.
- Villains have a BIG disadvantage with their Teleport point being so far from the Action. You can avoid this by going to your Base and using a Control Panel to Relocate your Base. There are 2 Addresses very near to where most of the "action" is, a Sub-Avatar construction site just south of the Heroes / Watchtower Teleport point. After you get the Mission from the Panel in the Hall of Doom, use Warp Base and leave your base to get straight to the action, then Warp HQ to get back to Hall of Doom.

Note: Generally speaking, you won't need to use Mods at all for this Tier. Try to save them for later Tiers, namely to complete Tier 3 and get to CR 70. Don't ever sell Exobits.

Sub-Avatar Tips (for when you hit CR 40)
- There are 3 types of Sub-Avatars. The White humanoid one is Magic, the Black Bulky one with Cannons is Tech, and the Spidery one with lightning-like tendrils is Meta.
- I think everyone agrees the Magic Sub is easiest. My view is that the Tech Sub is next easiest, because his deadly attacks has a red "bomb" icon on around the target (ie you), so you can easily see it coming and block etc. The Meta is the most difficult in my view, mainly because he is difficult to escape from, but I hear the Tech one is tough also because he can sometimes do sudden high amounts of damage that a Tank up close may fail to notice.
- If you feel squishy, use the Rifle to make Ranged Attacks while far away. What is far? well, it is when the "targeting" icon that you use has just been Grayed out from being Red if you were only slightly closer. You can tell you still do damage by the Damage numbers that pop up. That said, some of your Powers may not be useful at such Range.
- You want to Survive the fight to get your Equipment, not do a lot of damage. If you've done decent damage and get knocked out with the Sub at low HP, consider just remaining near the fight in a KO state. This way you don't Revive (quite far away) and end up losing your chance at getting a piece of Armor as the Sub is killed too far away.

With the Astral Alloy pieces that you have (and will continue to get more of), most of this Tier can be skipped. Not only that, if your Astral Alloy set is not yet complete, you will be getting even MORE CR 52 Equipment. Yep, life is good (and short) in this Tier.

Best Missions
At this Tier, the Old Gotham Missions are STILL the best and most effective ways of earning 15-20 MoTs per day.
That said, the Solo Challenges become more viable, not just for MoTs, but also for Loot. Each Solo now grants 5 MoTs per run, and an extra 10 every week. For the time and effort spent, they really aren't better than Old Gotham Missions. But most importantly, these Solo Challenges provide you with CR 52 Equipment (See Below)
There are also Mission Chains that end with Gotham University Warehouse and Gotham Subway, so you get additional 10 MoTs (one time) for completing the Mission. Note that you have to travel in Gotham to enter the Challenge in order to get credit for the Mission, instead of using your Alert Board to get in.

Replay Badges
Old Gotham Dailies are still generally the way to go, but if you have difficulty getting groups to defeat the Sub-Avatar, you're really fast/good with a Solo Challenge, or you really want another chance to get that drop (eg. Facemask), the Solo Challenge is slightly more MoT per Badge.
For your consideration, the Math is 18 Replay Badges for 20 MoTs (90%) with Old Gotham Dailies, and 12 Replay Badges for 15 MoTs (80%) on the Solo Challenge. Given the additional Time a Solo takes, Gotham Dailies seems better, but that is my view and much subject to getting the quest with the Sub-Avatar done.
Note that Replay Badges for Solo Challenge grants you 5 more MoTs if you reset it after you have done the Challenge once that day.

Purchasing / Modding Gear
I suggest getting Almost ALL the CR 52 armor first before getting the 56, so you can save on buying the relatively expensive T2 gear. Each T2 gear is typically 160-240 MoTs, which is 8-12 days worth of Dailies (not counting Solo Challenges), which can be tiresome. Even if you're in love with the Style, you can come back and purchase it later. Its relatively easier when you're T4 or even T3.
If you're CR 51-52 and are lacking some CR 52 pieces, you can purchase the missing pieces from the T2 set.

When you get enough MoTs, if you are all in CR 52 Armor and not yet CR 53, you can get the T2.0 Chest or Legs (first and second any order) until you reach CR 53. Notice the order is identical to earlier. At the very latest, when you get CR 56 Head, you should already be CR 53. If you are just at CR 52, you can Mod your Hands, Waist and/or Feet to get your CR up to 10. Use Type I Mods if you must, but you shouldn't have to. Alternatively, you can just buy more CR T2 Gear, namely Shoulders, then Hands, Waist, Feet in any order. It'll be slow going though.

Depending on how well your CR 52 Gear farming goes and if you've saved MoTs from earlier when you hit CR 40, you should be able to purchase your Chest / Legs within 2-5 days, and the next piece in another 10-15 days or so. The Chest and Legs cost 240 MoTs a piece. This should get you to CR 53. If you aren't there yet, you might want to use Mods on your Equipment. You also advance faster if this is an Alt and your Main char provides high CR Account Bound Rings and Necks etc.

NOTE: You will likely start getting many extra Blue CR 52 items in this Tier. It is probably worthwhile to start Salvaging these items for Mod components you will need in Tier 3.
If you have two CR 52 Gear that occupies the same slot, and one is blue and one is green, generally you Salvage the blue one as it gives you a better chance of getting Complex Materials. You can also get Simple Materials. Both are useful for Modding.
The Salvaging Device is the Anvil-like device in the respective Wings of Watchtower / Hall of Doom.

Solo Challenge Tips : Gotham University Warehouse
The Best Solo Challenge to run is probably Gotham University Warehouse. The Enemies are relatively easy, it is generally quick to just rush past a whole bunch of enemies, until about 5-7 of them are on your tail, then defeat them all at once.
Though it is long with 5 Bosses, EVERY Boss is relatively easy, and will drop a piece of CR 52 Damage Equipment, and the well-known Catwoman's Facemask may drop from Catwoman (or the Box that comes from completing the Mission).
You can start Attacking Catwoman about half a second before she activates, so with some Power-boosted damage, you can easily drop her down to 20-25% of her full life as she's making her first attack. Basically, she makes one attack, then she goes right back for her "next" Life. There are 4 Healing Barrels, which is plenty so long you keep your fight to the middle and don't accidentally explode any of them. So if you drop 3-4 Lives of hers for each Barrel you use, you're golden (or orange, whatever).

Solo Challenge Tips : Gotham Subway
Gotham Subway is also a very good instance, more for its loot and also for its demand on your Skill Level (that you will probably need later on). The Two-Faced styles are nice looking and CR 52, but the real gem is the CR 52 Rings and I think a Neck that drop from Penguin. The Challenge can be easy or hard depending on how you play it. The first part, you can ignore the Enemies that are in the lower area, and focus on clearing those in the higher area where Two-Face will decide where you "enter" the Subway. He will appear as long as you clear those Up There.
Hush is easy, just fire away, he'll go down. Use powers when you have the Power Pool, lest he drain it away. He's really easy.
Bane is somewhat harder, but just keep focused on him and avoid him when he is using his huge steel pillar, wherever he gets it from. While doing so, try to find an Orange Healing Barrel - it is hidden off to one side, behind some barriers, I do believe right side of where you enter. When he is Enraged, and you have trouble picking up Barrels because you get knocked down before you can throw it at him, try to engage him near a Venom Barrel, so your attacks cause the barrel to explode close to him. If you are using a Rifle, you can target HIM and bust the Barrel at the same time. When Bane is reeling, throw out as much damaging powers as you can. He should go down after his second Enrage.
Pengbot Maximus is probably the hardest boss without the right strategy. I highly recommend a Minion for dealing with him, just shoot with some weapon. He is separated into 2 Stages/Modes, but both are similar, just stay away from him and shoot him since he moves so slowly, and when he rushes towards you roll away. He spawns exploding or freezing pengbots as he goes along, if you're confident or just flying, and a safe spot away from him on the ground, you can ignore them and suck up the low damage. The main danger from them is knocking you down while Pengbot is coming at you/near you. Rifle also helps to destroy them if they're near Pengbot (guess my favourite weapon lol) without diverting DPS from Pengbot. When the battle starts, you can Frontload your damage so that he gets through his first and more deadly Mode first, where he spins and deals a LOT of damage. Second Mode you can take your time, his lunge-smash is not as deadly, so if he does catch up with you, the damage is low enough that you have time enough to get away. I think you can then backtrack out the way you came and save yourself the trouble of wading through the group of goons occupying the lower levels.
Penguin's 2x4 goons at the start are a bit of a bother if you can't prioritize those that Stun you. Generally speaking, the two girls with double pistols are the stunners, and then the machine-gun guy up close that stun you too. The second wave is relatively easy once the first wave is done.
Don't rush to Penguin - take your time to heal up before going for him.

Compared to the earlier Tiers, you get a LOT of MoTs in a single day. Unsurprisingly, the Gear also costs a LOT more MoTs. More importantly though, you've finally left Old Gotham behind, since after about 15-30 days of play in Old Gotham, you might have gotten a tad sick of the Grind there. That said, you will probably be spending a longer period of time in this Tier...

Best Missions
If you fly, one particular Solo Challenge becomes by far the best Daily to attempt, and that is Star Labs Facility (see below guide). Each Solo Challenge provides 25 MoTs per run, and 50 MoTs once per week. Try to identify another Solo Challenge that you like and find easy. My personal liking is probably Monarch Card Playing Company. It takes a long time to get to Wonder Woman / Circe in her Stronghold, though the final fight is very easy. Regal Hotel is relatively long and with a draggy final fight.
If you are going to play Central City (ie pay for Lightning Strikes DLC), there are 4 Daily Solo Missions in Central City, out of which only 2 - Speed Trap and Paradox Reapers - are really easy and time efficient for a casual player. 1 involves going to the field at the side (not in front) of the museum to capture Reaper Infiltrators. The other involves beating up enough Paradox Reapers to collect their... whatever it is... give it to a scientist and then close Rifts in the field in front of the Museum. Each Daily gives you 20 MoTs.
With some practice, in under 1 hour you should be easily able to complete the 2 easy Central City Dailies (probably 10 mins for each) and then complete 2 Solo Challenges (5-10 mins for Star Labs, 20 for the next) and for 65-90 MoTs a day.

Note that there is a lot going for Lightning Strikes DLC, not just Missions but also Gear. So if you're not grinding in Legendary, and doing mainly Solo content, it might be worth paying for it. That said, you could always just go Legendary to get Replay Badges and get through this Tier in about a month (see below)

If you have time, you can do the Central City Solo Mission that requires you close the Rifts in Central City at the buildings BEHIND the Museum. You usually need at least 1 other person for this, it is easy with 2. That's because most of them involve picking things up (E button), running around AND fighting WHILE enemies are attacking you (and they have the accursed stunning Handblast channelling attack that interrupts you trying to do whatever you can to close the Rift), so it is generally quite a pain when alone.
Your best bet Alone is probably the Rifts with either a Lexcorp or Star Labs operative near them. This involves protecting the device, and so long you kill the incoming Reapers quickly enough, and have a bit of healing to outlast their attacks, or high enough damage so you can rest before the next group of Reapers spawn, you will win. If you can't find enough Rifts that are of this type, just trigger some of the other rifts and then retreat, so that after it fades away, there's a chance a Lexcorp or Star Labs Rift will appear. If this sounds confusing, you'll understand after a few attempts.

To Avoid
Do NOT do the Mission has Flash make you run around chasing Civilians in Central City. Unless you are amazingly good at this with no lag, and not aggro-ing enemies, it'll take forever. Heck, I've never completed it (but my lag is really bad). In fact, don't even accept the Quest at all from Flash when you reach Central City, or he'll switch your movement mode every time you pass by him, which is Really irritating unless you're already a Speed movement mode.
Edit: Just tried it thanks to ShadowDragon's note, and finished it in about 10 minutes, maybe slightly more. They definitely altered it to make it more playable. That said, It is simply not enjoyable for me, feels like a complete drag, so I still recommend avoiding it. If you want to, give it a try, and if suits your taste, Great! That's an extra 20 MoTs a day.

Replay Badges
Using the Replay Badges for Star Labs Facility is by far the BEST. 12 Replay Badges nets you 75 MoTs and a chance to get a CR 60 piece of equipment, in under 5 minutes! Note that Replay Badges for Solo Challenge grants you 25 more MoTs if you reset it after you have done the Challenge once that day.
This Solo Challenge also saves quite a lot of time in you getting to CR 70 (subject to enough Cash for Exobytes). So all said, this is probably the BEST time to spend Replay Badges.

Purchasing/Modding Gear
In T2 you got 15-25 MoTs a day, now you get 65-90 MoTs.
The cost for the whole T2 set is 1,600 MoTs, and the cost for the whole T3 set is 20,000 MoTs. That's 12.5 times the T2 cost, while the MoT earnings is only about a 3-4 times times in MoTs!
Then there's the T2.5 set (High Voltage Set) that is only about 4,200 MoTs for the whole "set". That's about 2.625 times the T2 cost, so it's reasonable, right?
But then there's the CR problem. T2.5 is CR 62, while T3 is CR 68, and the next Tier is CR 70. Looks like T2.5 is a waste of time right?

Nope. To get to the next Tier (while Soloing), it is probably most efficient to Mod T2.5. You will need Cash though, lots of it, for this, since you'll have to be using Type III mods, which are costly. Alternatively you can get ALL the T2.5 Gear first, leaving out the Chest and Legs (that grant the most CR increase), then consider if you want to spend Cash modding all the Gear (in which case you go for T2.5 Chest and Legs), or if you'd rather Grind MoTs (and its a damn long grind...) for T3 Chest & Legs.

Generally speaking, you can replace your Waist, Hands, Feet with T2.5 Gear, especially if they are modded (and they probably will be). Do ensure that the gain in Defence is at least close to the loss in HP, and that the offensive Stats are overall better.

Good News though. In this Tier, you get to spend MoTs to upgrade your Weapon to CR 52 then 62, your Trinket to CR 70, and your Face, Neck, Rings to CR 62. Those are MoTs you will have to spend to get through the Tier if you're not intending to grind for the (insanely expensive) T3 set.

That said, it will still cost you a lot. The full T2.5 Set is 4200 MoTs, plus the accessories are respectively
- Trinket is 700 MoTs
- Weapon is 600 MoTs
- (2X) Ring is 200 MoTs
- Neck is 250 MoTs
- Face is 150 MoTs
To get to CR 70 you will at least need to get ALL of these, probably start with the Weapon (which should greatly improve your speed of clearing things), plus an extra Weapon again for the extra CR boost. That means 2,700 MoTs on top of the 4,200 MoTs for the full T2.5 Set.

6,900 MoTs may seem like a lot, but compare it to the 20,000 MoTs for the T3 Set (its 3,000 MoTs for just 1 Chest!!), and it really isn't that bad. If you get 90 MoTs per day and an additional 100 MoTs per week (for completing the 2 Solo Challenges the first time that week), plus extra 150 MoTs per week (for completing the other 2 Solo challenges once per week), that is 880 MoTs per week.
With so many MoTs per week, this is also a good Tier to go back and purchase all the T0 PVE Sets that cost 1 MoT per piece from the various Vendors in the 3 wings to get some Feat points.

That is about 8 weeks gameplay, which you can cut down very, very significantly by using your Replay Badges. 150 Replay Badges a month means about 12 Solo Challenge runs (each at 5 minutes!!), or about 900 MoTs. If you pay Station Cash (that now cannot purchase DLCs) for another 150 Replay Badges, that is an extra 975 MoTs. That's about 5 weeks to get through T3.

Regardless, this Tier might take a while to get through, so opening your stored-up Promethium Lockboxes here is fine. It doesn't really matter what CR you are, as long as you are below CR 70, your drops should be similar, I think.
Along the way, it may look tough initially, but it is possible to hit CR 70 without any T3 piece. I've done it, so unless the CR formula or something changes, it is assuredly possible.

NOTE: This Note is a quick "overview" of Modding this Equipment, especially if you already know what Mods are (if you don't, look back at this note after you've gone through the Section on CR Equation & Mods)
If you're going to get to CR 70 in T2.5 Gear, you really need Type III Mods. Don't cut the corners until you're at least halfway there. If you are Cash Conscious, try to get just 2 Type III mods, ideally one Purple (covers Red/Blue) and one Green (Yellow/Blue). Maybe even one Blue mod.
When modding, start by modding the T2.5 Hands/ Waist/ Feet first (any order), that will give you the maximum CR contribution initially. If for some reason you want to mod Type IV or V mods in, also apply it to the Hands/Waist/Feet, those will give you the best CR-for-Exobyte exchange (Wondering Why? See the Section on CR Equation & Mods)
Why, you ask? In general, it appears that Fortified Exobits are the cheapest Exobit, and this will help you save Cash in the long run. Plus more HP is generally helpful for a Solo Player. You should not be paying more than 100K per stack of 16 Exobits, except maybe 110K for Aggressive Exobits. Support Exobits may get expensive, but their price will come down in time. You can also start stocking up a few Recovery Kits that can be used on Type III mods, so you can extract your Exobytes when you have better gear in Tier 4.

DISCLAIMER: Other Players have told me that the game is not really designed for Solo Mark Grinding. Few things illustrate it more clearly than this Tier. If you wish to, now is a good time to start Raiding, there should still be players interested in FOS etc.

Solo Challenge Tips: Star Labs Facility
Whether you face off Lex Luthor or Superman, after you get the first door open via a Control Panel, all you need to do is to supersonic fly past the entire instance into the Final Room. You might get hit a few times (and if unlucky or lagged, even get stuck / killed ), but once you get to Superman/Lex Luthor, a cutscene starts that eliminates all the enemies at the entrance of Final Room (make sure the pesky Mech is at the entrance when you start the Talk, and so removed), and blocks off the entrance to it after the Cutscene ends. A few stragglers may sneak in after the Cutscene ends, but your "Mentor" conveniently keeps the Enemy Boss busy, so you can clean up undisturbed for a while, before hitting the first Pulsar/Kryptonite Switch. All in all, it is a 5 minute Challenge, maybe less, and at worse 10 minutes.
I haven't tried this with other Movement Modes, but it should be possible. If running Super Speed on the ground doesn't work, try it upside down on the ceilings. That said, no promises.
NOTE: Try and master this Challenge, and maybe the other Challenge as well. For the 5 or less minutes spent on Star Labs, it will provide you a very decent number of MoTs per day for Tier 3 and even into the next Tier 4.

Wow, you're Here. It might just be me, but I don't think many Solo Casual Players make it past CR 70. So well done, even if you got here by getting a lot of drops from Raids, etc.

Note that from this point on I'm only talking about the "Heroes" side of things, not having a Villain Alt at this CR (yet).

Best Missions
Solo Dailies come from the Home Turf DLC. One each are from Ace Chemicals & Stryker's Island get you 125 MoTs per Mission, and they are the best at this point. (Villains should be getting missions from Divide And Conquer and Stealing from Steel, I think) In my opinion, Ace Chemicals is significantly easier than Stryker's Island.
Try out the difficulty at Ace Chemicals, get used to it, before heading to Stryker's Island. Your experiences may differ, however, and if Ace Chemicals gets too difficult, try out Stryker's Island. To save time, you can also relocate your Base to near Ace Chemicals, and leave the Chinatown Police Station to get to Stryker's Island.
Every 5 Dailies of the same kind will get you to a Solo Challenge, which grants an extra 125 MoTs and CR 74 Gear, and you get to pick its role. This is really much better than it sounds (see below). With the 5 Dailies averaging out, you should be about at 300 MoTs per day (250 per day, plus extra 250 every 5 days). If you have difficulties with your Solo Challenges, and even the Dailies, do look at the section below on tips.
Don't forget to get your Daily 25 MoT from the Star Labs, it is still good chump change for 5 minutes, and maybe an extra one from the other Solo Challenge if you have time. All in all, about 300-350 MoTs per day, not counting Weekly Challenge Awards.

Replay Badges
If you spend your Replay Badges, Ace Chemical Missions are generally easier than Stryker's Island. Once you settle into the Missions and are comfortable with most of them, spending Replay Badges here is quite productive (albeit not as quick as the 5 minute run of Star Labs). For 12 badges, you get about 150 MoTs worth (125 when you complete it, and an extra 125 per 5, so about extra 25 per Mission)

Purchasing/Modding Gear
T4 gear costs an absurd number of MoTs. A piece is 5,000-7,500 MoTs, with the whole set costing a whopping 50,000 MoTs. In comparison your Daily Mark Earnings went up to about 3.5 times (from 90 to 330), the cost of T4 gear against T2.5 (you didn't actually go through T3 gear, after all) is a 12 times increase (from 4,200 to 50,000).

However, one of my favourite feelings about this Tier is how every 5 Daily Missions will let you go to a Solo Challenge, and completion gives you a CR 68-70 Weapon (remember to keep the highest CR weapon you can use, even if you don't actually use it), or CR 74-78 Ring/Mask/Trinket, and also a piece of CR 74 Gear. The CR 74 Gear is generally superior to your T0 PVE Gear, so feel free to replace it. So not only does completing a Solo Challenge give you a confirmed Armor, it also provides Accessories. Not only that, if you haven't got Role Specific Gear, this is the BEST time to get Role Specific Gear.

Still, the BEST thing about the CR 74 Gear is how it can let you quickly get to CR 84. With a few mods, I got to CR 84 with only 1-2 pieces of T4 gear. I got the Chest, and Hands which were modded with Type IV Mods, and my CR 74 Gear was modded with Type I and Type II mods.

If you are a bit more generous with Modding, and get good Ring / Trinket drops, you should be able to get to CR 84 with only 1 piece of T4 Gear. Why not 0? Well, frankly after this Tier your MoTs will not be getting you anywhere (unless you want to complete the T1 and T2 Iconic sets for Feat points), so you may as well work towards getting 1 T4 piece.

So, your objective is 7,500 MoTs. A lot more achievable than say, 50,000 MoTs. At 300 MoTs a day, you should be there in 25 days. 25 days, assuming you can complete all the Solo Challenges promptly, is about 10 pieces of CR 74 gear, and various CR 68-70 Weapons and accessories. Once you get your CR 78 Accessories, and drop in a few mods, you should be CR 84. Easy!

NOTE : Somewhere about CR 70-80, you can try to Solo the Single Player Bounties that were available from Level 1-30, up to Killer Frost and Judge, if you haven't already completed them for the Feats. In my experience, most of them are fairly easy for a Controller of this CR, so as Tank / Healer you might find them total walk-overs. Nepheritos was a little trickier, but the rest were easy. Feats grant you Skill Points, of course.

Solo Mission Tips: General
The Solo Missions at this Tier can get pretty brutal. If you are a Solo Troller without Heals (like me), you will probably need to play well to get through it, even when you reach CR 83 or even CR 84. A significant change will be the inability to "Stun" many things at this Tier, and at one of the places (Stryker's Island for Heroes), even regular Enemies quickly break out of "Stun" effects. Knowing when to run and how not to aggro enemies will help. The following details here may not help Villains much, or maybe there'll be similar missions for Villains, I do not know. All are "In My Opinion", so feel free to disagree (privately, without hijacking this Thread, lol). I guess for villains, one of the Quest areas will also be easier (like Ace Chemicals), though, and one will be harder (like Stryker's Island).

NOTE: Operations really go far in this Tier. A single 4-man Operation can net about 500-625 MoTs. They are really fun too, you get to go around the world and find things to do.

Solo Daily Tips: Ace Chemicals
Note that for any of the missions that involve defeating Goons or Chemoids, ANY of the Goons or Chemoids at Ace Chemicals will count. The best places to find Goons are rooftops where there is generally one or two of them, and Chemoids can be found largely alone by the sea, towards the East side (near where the goons are hurling Toxic Waste into the Sea). Most of Ace Chemicals' regular Enemies are easily stunnable.

The Pipe Sealing mission is easy but has a learning curve.
- Use your Ranged Weapon as far as possible from the Volatile Chemoids, and use your Powers to explode them before they get near and blow you off the pipes. Keep to the centre of the Pipes or you may slide while attacking.
- Position yourself in the middle of the pipe when sealing it, or you tend to slide off one side.
- If you do slide off the pipe, you can't get out of your Hazmat Suit until you take some damage. Then just fly back up to Mission Giver and put on the Hazmat Suit again.
- There's a section that requires you to find your way over to the North Pipes. DON'T BOTHER. After taking the Rifle and getting that, switch out of the suit, and just go over the usual (safe) way using your Movement Mode. There is another Tube there for you to change into your Hazmat outfit.
- When dealing with the Mutant Birds, there is no need to use your powers. Just use the hose to fire them OFF the Pipe. Angle your attack so when your target faces you, its back is to emptiness. They will fall off and just "die".
- When dealing with Chemicrow, your Powers while in the Hazmat Suit do a large amount of damage to it, but wait for him to get closer so it is a confirmed hit. Spraying him is slow way to kill him, as he'll keep falling then you have to wait for him to fly up before spraying. You can also fight him normally, but watch for the Toxic Spray as that will kill you quickly if you are not in a Hazmat Suit. OR, you can switch back to your normal form and take care of him from there.

For the Clown on the Bridge, just fight him behind his Truck so that the spawns do not disturb you. Don't pull him too far away from the Truck or he'll head back and Reset.

For the Mission with turning the Green Chemoid friendly, frontload your damage while taking him down the first time, and make sure you're in the right mode (usually Damage). While it is unconscious, your Power recovers, but your Health won't, so you can wait for Power to recover, or pop a Soder if required and wait for the Cooldown to recover. Once all are in order, then wake him again to turn him "Friendly"

For the mission with the Sludge thing (starts with Hazmat Johnson in a raft in a Slime Pit north of Ace Chemicals), you can fly safely on high and shoot the mutant clusters with your Rifle. You can damage it even though it is grey. At the last part, quickly jump onto the Platform to regain your usual self. This lets you be on high to deal with the Sludge Thing, especially since it will be happily pounding away at the Hazmats on the Raft.

The Saturated Chemoid is best dealt with up close. If you don't stop it from draining from the Vats, it will recover HP.

The Mission with the infection that ends in a fight with a Gorilla is difficult or not-so-difficult depending on where the Gorilla spawns. If you are alone, and the Gorilla is surrounded by Mutants, sometimes it is easier to simply aggro the Gorilla then get away. Wait for him to despawn and find him in another place where there are less Mutants helping him. He also has a significantly larger Aggro radius and can move further from his start point, so you can easily pull him from mutanta to a more quiet place at the side. You'll need some room to avoid his attacks though, so take care not to reset him - it can be very frustrating. He tends to target the closest enemy with his attacks, so having a summonable Minion helps.

One of the hardest Missions (at Ace Chemicals, at least) involves escorting the Biologist to Samples. You don't have to down the Enemies though, you just have to keep them busy. Apart from the usual enemies in the area, the Biologist will always spawn a few Security Guards in addition to the regular enemies. So clearing the Regular Enemies first, or sometimes aggroing them then flying away so they despawn, before returning back to the Biologist helps. At the second floor, flying ahead of the Biologist, damaging Enemies, and then flying far enough (back towards the Biologist) will cause them to disengage from combat, which causes them to Despawn. Knocking Enemies off into pits will cause them to reappear at their starting point, so apart from buying a few seconds, that sometimes doesn't help. An interim section involves dealing with 5 goons, any 5 goons will work no matter how near or far they are. At the finale of the Escort, getting rid of the weaker enemies first then the Lieutenant helps. If you can, knock someone off the roof near the entrance where the Enemies spawn, so they end up onto the platform. This provides a Breather, and sometimes it disengages from combat instead of rushing back to the roof, giving you a chance to regain all your Health. For the final boss Chuckles, you can knock him down off the platform so you can recover, or you can also let him target the Biologist for a bit while you recover. If the Biologist has more than 80% HP, it'll be a while before he goes down to Chuckles.

Solo Daily Tips: Ace Chemicals Prototype Rescue
For the Solo Challenge with Steel, the healing bot is an incredible Ally. You can get full HP AND Power without ever leaving Combat. At the start, pay attention to the Ace Lieutenant and the spawns. Make sure they all stay in the fight and get pounded down by the Steelworks Robot, and if they manage to get away after Steel, get their attention or get rid of them yourself. A loose Lieutenant can injure Steel severely enough that he has to go back and regain HP, or more irritatingly, injure him just enough so that the wave of spawns that appears later on KOs him. Don't waste your time with summoning reinforcements or freeing the workers.. yet.

The Enemies generally come in waves of 3S - Slasher, Scientist, Security - so just avoid them. They are irritating and you get nothing for dealing with them. Wait for the wave to go by, then damage the Chemoids / Monster / whatever it is that TO Morrow put in the Choke Point. Don't worry about disengaging, they almost never reset to full HP, though I'm not sure if they do (very slowly) regain HP. If you are not regaining HP, your Healing Bot will take care of that. When you reduce it to near 0 HP, WITHDRAW and regain All your HP and Power, before killing it, then quickly rush to Steel where he'll come under attack by 3S and a Lieutenant. Get rid of them all - especially the Lieutenant - and escort him and the Prototypes back. Repeat this once more to rescue the second batch of prototypes, and TO Morrow will summon the final "boss" on you. You can fly around a bit and save all the Steelwork workers now if you wish (or don't) and they'll join you and Steel to deal with the Boss. If you wish to, this is also a decent time to go free the Workers, they usually help divert aggro while they're up. Try to get the Boss pulled away from the choke point to the empty space in the lower area, so that new Waves of 3S do not get drawn into the fray. This also means you're near the Healbot and can quickly fly up to recharge your HP and Power before going back down.

All said, a very easy Challenge, just takes a long time if Steel keeps getting KOed. (And time is what us casual players don't always have a lot of.)

Solo Daily Tips: Stryker's Island
Stryker's Island is tough for a Controller, and probably overall harder than Ace Chemicals, especially since the Enemies can be very closely clustered together, and there's almost nothing here that a "Stun" sticks on. You'll be in Damage mode most of the time you are here, and that will be for the better. The normal Enemies hit hard but they don't have that much HP. Note that these are the reasons why it is hard for me (Controller), but there is a possibility that Tanks (and possibly Healers) might find it easier than Ace Chemicals. Although, I doubt it.

If you have a Minion and any powers that stop Enemies from attacking you, this is the place to use it. Some of the Missions - notably the one with the Downed Helicopter and the one where you arm a Crate to knock out Enemies - having this power will stop you from getting attacked and interrupting your actions. Each of the Mission Bosses are slightly different, but thankfully, some of the missions have no Bosses.

The Mission with the Saboteurs ends with you activating a machine gun to take out prisoners that come rushing over like Lemmings. This is great and easy, until the Saboteur respawns right there where you are, and you might not notice that he is much stronger than the rest because THEY LOOK THE SAME. If you just escape from such a situation or quickly burn down the Saboteur before the prisoners destroy the machine gun, you'll be fine. Repeating the last part a few times to get the 40 Prisoners down is really relatively easy.

There is a Mission that involves stealing crates from the enemy, and later arming a Crate and drawing enemies over so that they get Knocked out by the Gas. Some of the Crates on the ground are bugged so that you can't pick them up, in which case just knock an Enemy that is carrying a crate over, and take his Crate - those are assuredly fine. The last part getting them gassed by the Crate is very tiresome, it is best to pull 1-2 enemies and then quickly hide behind the crate so they rush over instead of shooting you from a distance outside the Crate's Gas Range.

The "Faction" Leaders (for Sector 1&2, Sector 3&4 missions) that I tend to deal with for the Sector Missions are Stonefist Leader (instead of Lightning Leader) and Hemlock Leader (instead of Arctic Leader). Hemlock Leader is a bow user and a relatively easy fight, and is usually alone. Stonefist Leader is somewhat harder, but he does generally spawn in a corner by himself, providing adequate room to deal with him, and being a Flyer, he is easier to pull to advantageous position. Lightning Leader is easier than Stonefist, if you can get him on his own, since he always seems to be in the thick of his goons, and he doesn't fly.

The Intergang Leader is a ratlike fellow that spawns at either of the two Docks on Stryker's Island (I'm not sure, but it always seems to be the South Dock to my memory). Ensure that he is separate from his goons when you pull him, then get him INTO THE WATER. When you're there, its relatively unlikely Intergang goons will spawn and interrupt your fight, and there is room to get away from him or just hammer on him.

The Downed Helicopter mission is difficult, and it doesn't help that it is a huge area to cover to try to find the Helicopter. Most of the time though, it is the North side, or Southeast side, in my experience. If your Damage is not enough to down all the 3 Recruits AND the Leader before the Black Box timer runs out, then just down the Recruits and get to the Blackbox, before using a Power to get the Leader off your Back so you can "disarm" the Box. I'm not sure if it works, but I think you can also quickly withdraw to end the combat, and then fly back and disarm the Box, preferably from an angle where the Leader can't see you. I don't recall actually trying to withdraw before though, there is a chance it might simply cause the entire Helicopter and the Enemies to despawn.

The two harder bosses (IMO) are Grodd's Spectre and the rampaging Construction Robot. Grodd's Spectre tends to attack the closest enemy, but he lunges when you are too far, so just keep someone else (Minion) between you and him. He also doesn't reset easily, so you have more room to Manuever. The Robot has a slightly different weakness - his machine-gun-like ranged attacks (that deal very respectable damage) simply deal no damage when you are far, and he does not lunge, so you can get rid of him from a distance and just keep stepping back out of his range.

Solo Challenge Tips: Stryker's Solitary
The Solo Challenge is Stryker's Solitary. If you're just freshly CR 70, this is HARD, make no mistake, and with lag (or just being sloppy) I still get KOed in here at CR 84. You'll most certainly want to do this in Damage Mode. First, you deal with a few waves of Prisoners. After the first wave, second wave will include a Skullcracker Leader. Try waiting at the corner below the staircase, facing the wall, so you can attack him and be unseen by enemies on the upper staircase. Keeping to this position, half the Enemies from one of the waves (I think the 3rd) will not notice you, and you can recover HP and Power. The last wave will have a Leader of some kind, and this will determine the Boss you fight. If you don't get the Hint on who you'll face, the Officer you free will make a remark as well.
Captain Cold : Arctic Leader / "It's getting Chilly..."
Heatwave : Magma Leader / "Temperature in the cells... fire system not working..."
Parasite : Intergang Enforcer / "Prisoner's life signs look weak..."
Metallo : Nuclear Winter Leader / "Geiger counter is off the charts..." (Geiger measures radiation)

For each of them, there is a Shield that will help you when the room explodes into bursts of energy during the Boss fight.
The RED Fire Shield for Captain Cold
The BLUE Cold Shield for Heat Wave. Yes, it's the opposite.
The White Shield will help you against Metallo - you can see it has a Nuclear sign crossed out.
The last Green shield with the Health (Red Cross Sign) will help against Parasite.
NOTE: If you get the wrong shield, all is not lost. Just avoid the Areas of Cold/Fire/Radiation/Whatever Energy on the ground.

(continuing from Solo Challenge Tips - Stryker's Solitary)
When you enter the room, and advance, a cutscene will show you directing a freezing turret on a prisoner.

Here's what the Programmers imply you should do - Enemies spawn into the room, and if you kill them they respawn at the entrances. So what you *should* do is lure them to the freezing cannon, then carry the frozen guy to the cells so they don't return, right? Well, reality is that you have to do this BEFORE the frozen guy breaks free, and WHILE you're doing that, the other Enemies will continue to ATTACK you and OFTEN knock you down.
And unless you're very good, while you're still doing that, the Boss comes in with MORE enemies and your health is crap, and you also REAPPEAR in the MIDDLE of the Room. Then, you lose.

Here's what REALLY works - DON'T AGGRO THE ENEMIES. Hug the left wall as far away from the Enemies as possible, until you get the Cutscene that starts the final Part of the Instance. If you're lucky, you don't aggro ANY of the Enemies, and no fight starts. What often happens though is that SOMEONE will be there, and a fight will start.

Regardless of whatever happens, it is FINE. Just retreat back into the South corridor where you came in, as far as possible from where the Prison Cells are. If the Prisoners are attacking you (you will know if you can't regain HP etc) then shoot the Prisoners. Damage them, kill them, they respawn, who cares. Ignore the warning messge to get them back to their Cells. Some of those that respawn don't aggro again, anyway. If you need to, pop a Soder Cola within the first 30 seconds or so, the cooldown should be all right by the time the Boss spawns.

After a while of this, there is a cutscene, and the Boss spawns with a respective Leader (Magma, Arctic, Nuclear Winter, Intergang) and you appear in the middle of the room. The Boss is just ahead to your Left, but DO NOT go there. Instead, go backwards to your right, back to your safe little Corridor again. If any enemies follow you, kill them all. Guess what, NOW they don't Respawn. If you're lucky, the Boss has not yet locked onto you, and you can regain HP now. If not, just carry on, the Turret (while it is still up) will help you take them down too.

The next part involves pulling the Boss with his Leader add, before retreating back into your safe little corridor where you entered. This is important because MORE enemies will keep entering throughout the fight at the other side, and you really want to be here in the safe corridor, where they'll never see you. Take out the Leader add ASAP, then focus on the Boss. You have some room but not much to manuever, keep yourself safely in the Corridor, and Damage the Boss. Don't even bother with the Reinforcement Terminals - the Boss causes the ground to constantly explode into fire/cold/nuclear/whatever, and since they don't have the shield (just like your Minion doesn't) they will drop VERY VERY QUICKLY. If you get a South Reinforcement Terminal active, you COULD try to time it so that when the circles subside you hit the Terminal and the reinforcements come in... OR you could simply try to take out the Boss. Personally, I prefer just focusing on the Boss.

Frankly though, the space is very small, and as a Ranged guy, I don't do well in enclosed spaces, so I don't tangle with Metallo or Parasite (though I did try, and came close to killing Parasite when I was CR 80). Heatwave and Captain Cold are really very easy, though, even at CR 71-72 they're manageable with enough Soders. So, when I know I'll be facing Metallo or Parasite, I simply leave the instance first. Then Log Out, Log In, and then go back into the Instance.

Now, why not simply Log Out while in the Instance? As you know, logging out while in the Instance causes you to respawn OUTSIDE the Instance. Usually when you first Load the game, things are the slowest, and one of the MOST IRRITATING THINGS about this stupid Instance is that the Entrance has 2 Enemies (Lightning Enforcers I think) that might attack you while you are connecting. So you could log in and find yourself KOed. (Heck, I've even been KOed a few times leaving the instance before) Unless that suits your palate or you have a really good connection and this is not an issue, do leave the instance before logging out, then log in again and see if your "Boss" has changed to someone more manageable.

This Instance can be very time consuming if you keep getting KOed, and if you don't get it the first time on a weekday, save it for a day when you have more time and really dig in. If you KO against the Boss you prefer to deal with, reviving in the Instance will keep it to the same Boss. Remember, if a sucky rifle Mental controller with no heals, no T3 Gear (only 2.5 modded), and a 0.5 to 2 sec lag can do it, I'm sure you can. Once you get a hang of it or simply get higher CR, it can be rather quick, though.

BTW, if you cannot clear the Solo Challenge, don't worry, you can still get your Daily Stryker's Island Mission done for 125 MoTs.

There is no "to XX" since with this CR, you can access all of the Game's Content (subject to having requisite DLCs or Legendary Access). This is it, you're at the top of the food chain!

As for War of the Light Part 1 DLC, I haven't bought the DLC yet, but when I do this guide will be updated.

Well, not quite, but still, CONGRATULATIONS! :) If you actually got here as a Solo, hats off to you! That was a good 2-4 months of your Life! (or maybe just a lot of Replay Badges).

Anyway, for this Tier, you will need Marks of Reality (MoR) for gear, so any spare MoTs you have can go towards purchasing iconic Gear. Purchasing T1 PVE Gear from each wing is a good idea, and if you have more spares you can go for T2 PVE Gear.

DISCLAIMER: Except for the Solo Dailies, much of what I say below will be theoretical, since I haven't yet spent any of my MoRs, and as my luck goes, only defeated Raven once so no CR 85 gear yet either.

Best Missions
The easiest Solo Missions are hands down those in Gotham Wastelands, and you'll need Sons of Trigon DLC to do them. You get 3 easy MoRs every single day from Envy, Lust, Wrath Missions, and that is pretty good considering that a full set of T5 & T5.5 Gear is only 400 MoRs each. After every 5 Missions (in each "Sin") you can try out a Duo that involves going into the respective Instance to fight the Sons of Trigon. I haven't tried this, because I don't Duo, and it really irritates me that they dropped the Solo Content option.

The non-Solo Mission that is totally worth mentioning is the Take Pride, which involves defeating (Good or Evil) Raven. This is a weekly Mission that has to be reset for 24 Replay Badges, but that is fair since it grants 2 MoRs (or 1 MoR and 1 Corrupted/Exalted Armor piece), while the Daily missions cost 12 Replay Badges to reset and grant 1 MoR. When you complete either the Duo or the Raven Quest, you get a chance to get 1 piece of Corrupted/Exalted Armor via the Boss / the Box (not sure which, since I haven't got any yet). This is awesome because this gear is CR 85, the SAME as the Atlantean Monarch / Manta set that you would normally be spending your MoR for.

In other words, by repeatedly killing Raven (or doing the Duos once every 5 days if that tickles your fancy) you can get CR 85 gear and COMPLETELY skip T5 gear. Then you can accumulate your MoRs happily until you hit CR 95 and purchase the Prideful/Blood Lust set with 400 MoRs. (You'll need to mod your CR 85 gear, of course).

As a Minor Note if you don't intend to kill Raven or otherwise farm for CR 85 Gear, do take note that Atlantean Monarch/Manta Set REQUIRES you to have Origin Crisis in order to purchase the equipment. So yeah, that sucks too.

Replay Badges
As mentioned above, probably the best use of 24 Replay Badges is when farming Raven (typically over the Weekend). Otherwise, you can spend them at 12 Badges for 1 MoR each. Of the Envy/Lust/Wrath Missions, I feel that Lust is the easiest.

To Avoid
Zatanna will give you a Mission that requires you to go to Gotham or Metropolis to save Citizens from various Cultists (Envy, Lust, Wrath). They are not that easy to find, have some difficulty, and only grant MoTs ! So unless you want to go back and collect your T1 and T2 Gear for Feat points, do avoid this waste of time.

Solo Daily Tips: Gotham Wastelands
Note that you can turn in All 3 Quests (Envy, Lust, Wrath) at the same time to Wonder Woman. So you can go do all 3 sections, and turn it in to her at the same time. She only gives one voice prompt, but you can check your Inventory, you get 3 MoRs. (edited to include this)

All of the 3 "Sin" Areas (Knightsdome for Envy, Amusement Mile for Lust, Cathedral for Wrath) generally have 5 types of Enemies - Citizens, Imps, Easy Mobs, Tough Mobs, and Boss Mobs. Most of the Enemies are very close to each other, but they have relatively small Aggro Radius. Even the irritating Imp has a small Aggro Radius, but it does have a very long patrol path.

Almost every Solo Mission involves a Boss, and they are nicely put to one side so you should never ever have a chance of accidentally aggroing them. Because they are faced alone (occasionally summoning monsters) and have low HP, they are generally easily defeated. Some have "skull" powers, just roll away or stun them to interrupt.

A Citizen is even easier than an Easy Mob, but if left alone they deal enough damage to let other Easy Enemies swarm you with numbers. AoE powers will quickly get rid of them.

An Imp is about the same as an "Easy" Mob, but they're very irritating in that they have extremely long patrol paths, and hence are not easy to see coming. They get a special category to themselves because of how they can interrupt and swing a battle that was a sure win into a crushing defeat, typically a battle with a Hard Mob (see below). This is not always due to damage - they are "Blaster" users hence can knock down from a distance at times.

The Easy Mobs are the preferred enemies during your missions. They go down fast, and deal relatively little damage. They are also easily stunnable. Do take care though - Melee Easy Mobs sometimes hit quite hard or combo-lock you, especially in the Wrath area, and some Ranged Easy Mobs that are Bow Users use Rain of Arrows to knock you down. That said, fleeing from them is generally easy, they can only do damage as you flee.

The Hard Mobs are mentioned last for a reason - they are hard, at least when you're CR 84 like me. Their characteristic is that their appearance is noticeably Different and Bigger, they can barely be stunned (so damage mode is generally better), quite a lot of HP, and the Melee types can hit fairly hard with weapon combos. That's right, in this Tier they will be using a lot of Combos, so countering and fleeing from some are ideal. They are best pulled Alone, but if pulled with an Easy Mob, try to get it to focus on your Minion while you quickly kill the Easy Mob before focusing your powers on it. This will kill it fast, but more importantly your powers can disable it from time to time, so it cannot get its Combos off on you. If you flee from a Hard Mob, try to disable it partially, as they usually have powers that can knock you back down into the fray.
The Lust Cultist (not sure about the name) with the Pink/Red hood is distinctive as the EASIEST Hard Mob, they barely combo you, deal very little damage, and in quite a few Quests where you have to deal with them they spend half the time pointing their wands to "encase" your objective. Which typically means you get to deal free Damage.

In my view, the best advice dealing with the Solo Missions is to KNOW WHEN TO RUN, and the signal is when you're injured and dealing with 1 Hard Mob and 1-2 Easy Mobs (Imps included). Healers and Tanks probably don't have this problem, but squishy Controllers like me without Healing do. The other note is to pick your battles carefully, where you have some space to pull them into. This usually means picking objectives that are not at the centre of the "red" quest zone, at least whenever possible ( it is not always possible )

Generally, all the Solo Missions involve some objective that has a cluster of 2-3 enemies guarding it. Some objectives have exactly 2 enemies guarding it, and you can pick your fight so that you pick on a pair that does not have any "Hard" enemies as part of the guards. If you don't find any suitable, start a fight with an undesirable pair and flee. Once you escape, they will despawn and (eventually) a new objective with spawn with a potentially different set guards. Eventually you will get one that you can handle, which is 2 "Easy" enemies, then you defeat them and secure your objective.

Some of the Missions can be done if you distract the Enemies, stun them, or otherwise use an ability that prevents them from attacking you as you use E button to pick up / deal with the Objective. This can save a lot of time, but does not always work.

(Continued From Gotham Wasteland Missions)

Envy Missions should be specially highlighted because the Enemies are often "hidden". Some are artifacts that are left unguarded, and once approached teleport in 2 Envy Cultists / Demons. If you can't deal with one "Hard" and one "Easy" enemy at the same time, simply run away and let them despawn, and eventually you'll get one with 2 Easy Enemies.
There is also an Objective that is guarded by 2 Enemies, and after you kill 1, a new 1 spawns in. What you need is some space to pull the 2 original enemies aside, finish them, then go back and kill the new spawn. In such a case, it is most preferred the original 2 Enemies are Easy Mobs.
In another case, there is an Objective guarded by 1 Enemy, and when you engage (not defeat) that 1 Enemy, 2 more Enemies spawn in. You can pull the one enemy far away so that the new Spawns do not aggro, defeat it then finish the other 2. In this case, it is best if you start by engaging 1 Hard Mob, so the 2 new spawns are always Easy Mobs and you can easily finish them both after resting from the fight with Hard Mob.
Getting to pick your fights before starting them will save you a lot of Grief during the Envy Missions.

Most of the Bosses during the Solo Daily Missions are not worth mentioning, they're so easy, but one does warrant Special Mention. The Arena Champion in the Wrath area is probably the hardest Boss of all. Watch out for is his "super" move (ie showing a Skull) that generally summons a burning patch of fire wherever his enemy (ie you) are. Usually when the skull appears, you attack once, then block until the fire appears and roll out of it. Staying in it is about 500+ HP of damage per tick (I think it is 2 ticks per second, but could be wrong).

A cheesy way of dealing with him if you are a Flyer is to fly high over his starting position, since he always spawns in the exact centre of the Arena Circle the dome of spines help you position yourself. He should be just red in your Target Cursor, then get a little higher so that it becomes Grey. You are at the right height when you see him making Ranged Attacks (he uses the Brawling weapon style) and you take absolutely no damage at all, while you should be able to damage him (at least with Rifle). Try not to leave that position, and even if you get "GROUNDED", if you do not move, you should still remain Airborne until it wears off (Not sure if that is a Bug). I used to fight him rolling around in the air to avoid his fire, then flying up to remain Airborne to try to get back the same height, but ultimately the easiest way is to simply save 1 ranged (but instant) Stun power for when he uses his "Super" move. Yep, that's right, don't move from the spot, the moment you see the skull, Stun him to interrupt the power and carry on shooting. As long as he doesn't get his "Super" off, you can potentially defeat him not moving from the spot. It is very easy even at CR 84, like shooting fish in a barrel. Yeah, I know it's cheap, but he is that much tougher anyway.

Minor Note on Origin Crisis
The Origin Crisis content is pretty tough, but if you do feel like trying out the Solo feel free to drop in the two Iconic Anomalies. It is really pretty hardcore, if you like challenges you won't be disappointed. I personally think Test Subject #1 as Bizarro is somewhat more enjoyable and straightforward. Don't forget to REMOVE all your equipment before doing the Iconic Anomaly, you don't get any bonuses for wearing them, and they Degrade when you get KOed. Plus, because you don't get any equipment bonuses, these Iconic Anomalies basically never get any easier. The final Boss is generally the hardest, but if you're looking for some quick Boosts, the interim Bosses drop serviceable Gear (and absolute NO Marks of Reality... sigh) and are not that tough.

Well, that's IT for this Tier 5. I try to only quote from experience.

The Next Section 4.0 is just for those who do not know about CR and the relationship to Modding, and how to calculate CR efficiency in terms of MoTs and Exobytes. If you are already familiar with Modding (as I'm sure you are if you hit CR 84), you might want to stop reading this guide now lol.

This section will focus on helping you manage your Budget while introducing Modding.

CREDITS: All information pertaining to the Combat Rating Equation comes from
https://forums.station.sony.com/dcuo/index.php?threads/combat-rating-equation.366/
If you find this information useful, remember, it wouldn't be possible if not for Tesseract Prime. Do drop PMs to show appreciation! :)

Anyway, here is the Combat Rating Equation, re-arranged slightly to suit the purpose of this guide.

Your Combat Rating (CR) is (approximately) given by the following equation, where the highest CR of each individual item slot is multiplied.

Armor Pieces
1.75 Chest + 1.75 Legs +
1.5 Head +
1.3 Shoulders +
1 Hand + 1 Waist + 1 Feet +
0.95 Back

Others
1.4 Weapon +
0.7 Trinket + 0.7 Face + 0.7 Neck +
0.5 Ring1 + 0.5 Ring2

The Total is then Divided by 14.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?It means that the Chest and Legs (having their CR multiplied by 1.75) will give you more CR than your Hand, Waist, Feet (that only have their CR multiplied by 1.0). That is why in the earlier Sections, there was a certain Order that was recommended for purchasing the Items so you can increase your CR the most.
If only things were that simple, however, there wouldn't be this section. This whole Equation becomes much more interesting with Mods.

NOTE: The CR Equation is an approximation. Actual CR can generally vary within +/-1 CR.

For those new to Mods, you basically create them by collecting (or purchasing) Exobits. 8 Exobits can be formed into 1 Exobyte, and Exobytes can be combined into Mods (with various other components like Focus, Interface, Simple Materials, Complex Materials), provided you have the appropriate Plan.

For Introduction, we will just discuss at Type I II, III, IV, V Mods. Type I Mods take 3 Exobytes to Assemble, and for every increase of 1 Type, they take 3 extra Exobytes. So, a Type IV Mod takes 3 x 4 = 12 Exobytes.

To create a Mod, you'll need a certain number of Materials. Simple Materials and Complex Materials can be obtained from Salvaging Gear that is Dropped, with Blue and Purple Gear having a higher chance of being salvaged into Complex Materials, and Green Gear being most likely to yield Simple Materials.

You will also need an Interface of the corresponding Type. Type II and above Interfaces will need to be purchased and cost more than $2000, so if you are not Legendary (or only sometimes), you will need to purchase what you need when you have Escrowe Access.

Type II and above Mods also require a Focusing Element (I'll call it Focus for short) of the appropriate Type. This is usually only from salvaging Gear of the appropriate Tier, occasionally from Award Boxes, and the chance is not high. For most part, you'll have to purchase high Focus from the Auction for quite a lot of money, and Escrowe Access.

COLORS FOR SLOTS & MODS
Mods are then slotted into your Gear, where they increase the CR of the Gear. For most part, you will only be slotting it into Armor Pieces. Each Armor Piece has a socket color - either Red, Blue, Yellow. If the Mod matches the Color of the socket, you will also usually get a bonus. These bonuses are so substantial that there is rarely a reason to slot a Mod into a socket that does not match it.

Mods come in Colors based on the Exobytes that are used to make them, which in turn are based on the Exobit colors used to make each Exobyte. Purple Exobytes come from 4 Red (Aggressive) and 4 Blue (Fortified) Exobits, Orange Exobytes come from 4 Yellow (Support) and 4 red Exobits, Green Exobytes come from 4 Blue and 4 Yellow Exobits. These "mixed" Mods count as both colors - ie a Purple Mod matches either a Blue or Red slot, so on so forth.

Based on the Auction, Blue (Fortified Exobits) are generally the cheapest, with Yellow (Support Exobits) the next cheapest, with Red (Aggressive Exobits) the most expensive. With this, we have a good base to plan economical mods and plans to acquire.

MOD PLANS
Unfortunately for those new to Modding, the Plans do NOT reflect the Color of the Mod. You will just have to remember the following main color concepts :
Red : Might, Precision
Blue: Health, Dominance
Yellow: Power, Vitalization, Restoration
If/When you forget, check out http://dcuniverseonline.wikia.com/wiki/Equipment_Mods

For most part, we will focus on Plans that are Type I, II, III. Mods that are higher can often be very costly, both in acquiring the plans, in obtaining the Focus, and of course, the Exobyte cost itself. Type IV plans are fine if you are an appropriate Tier, opr perhaps to bring CR 85 Gear to CR 95, but Type V Mods are very expensive and should be avoided unless you're flush with Cash or just really like the Mod.

Because Plans/Focus are fairly random rewards from defeating Bosses, you will often have to buy the plans you want from Auction. That said, try not to purchase Plans/Focus for any Tier higher than yours, unless you see a really good price or you know it is exactly what you want (or as the case might be, you're on a limited time period Legendary/Escrowe and you want to deploy your funds first). As you go about your Daily MoT / MoR collection, you will generally have a chance to get a Mod Plan and sometimes a Focus of your Tier.

CONTROLLING MOD EXPENSES
If you are concerned about your pocket (and most people would be), try to obtain the Purple and Green Colors Mod Plans. As you move from Tier I to Tier IV, try to get 1 Each of the 2 Colors (8 Mod Plans in all). They also fulfill ALL the socket color needs (Red, Blue, Yellow) that you will have.

Generally speaking, the plans with "XX & Health" are cheaper, both to purchase and to create, since Fortified Exobits (blue) are generally cheapest. I think it is because Health is generally frowned upon for Raids, but benefits a Solo reasonably (well, maybe less if you are a Healer...).
NOTE: Try to avoid Red Mods unless Cash is not an issue. They are generally more expensive to build.

Otherwise, you will probably be in T4 wearing CR 74 "Invisible" T3.5 Gear (Dept of Corrections/ Biohazard/ Maniacal/ Machinist) to be wearing fully modded gear, and that's when you will want your Type I and Type II mods to get the bonuses, especially the delicious +1% Critical Chance benefits.

That said, to emphasize, the MAIN Purpose of Mods (based on this Topic/Thread) will be to Increase Your CR so you reach a new Tier, rather than to focus on making you more Combat-Effective.

Synthetic Mods
Instead of farming for exobytes, the devs put in a way to buy mods on tier 3+ armor/gear. They go for MoT and MoR. This is used for us lazy people who don't want to go out and farm exos. But when you get to those Tier 5 Expert Mods, you will want to start farming exos.

Mods increase Your CR based on
a) Mod Type
b) The Gear/Item You Mod
Note: The Color of the Mod is Irrelevant, hence the Earlier Section.
The above determines how much the CR of the Gear/Item increases, but that is Not the amount that YOUR CR increases. Based on the CR Equation that we started out with, this is further multiplied by the Number for that Item Slot in the CR
c) The CR Multiplier (then divided by 14, but we won't divide by 14 below). In the below table, the Multiplier is preceded by an "x", ie x 1.75

CREDITS: Item CR Data thanks to Shroder300 from Silver Age Heroes! :)
http://silverageheroes.guildlaunch.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8258126

The Following Breakdown is based on above is as follows, only for Armor Slots. The best Gear to place the Mod into is at the Top. Notice the Order changes slightly every Type, but for Type II onwards, Hands/Feet/Waist are top.
For the money conscious, I've also included CR per Exobyte, where the term "Exo" used below is short for "Exobyte". (No, I'm not an Accountant by profession)

CR increases can also be granted by modding Weapons, Rings, etc, but that is beyond the scope here. I have included Ring values below for convenience of those reading this, but I have no experience modding Rings, and most Rings have no sockets, so I'm putting Rings right at the bottom of each Type.

TYPE I MOD (3 Exobytes)
shoulders +5 item CR x 1.3 = +6.5 CR ; +2.17/Exo
hands / waist / feet +6 item CR x 1 = +6 CR ; +2/Exo
head +4 item CR x 1.5 = +6 CR ; +2/Exo
chest / legs +3 item CR x 1.75 = +5.25 CR ; +1.75/Exo
back +5 item CR x 0.95 = +4.75 CR ; +1.58/Exo
ring +11 item CR x 0.50 = +5.5 CR ; 1.83/Exo

TYPE II MOD (6 Exobytes)
hands / waist / feet +8 item CR x 1 = +8 CR ; +1.33/Exo
shoulders +6 item CR x 1.3 = +7.8 CR ; +1.3/Exo
head +5 item CR x 1.5 = +7.5 CR ; +1.25/Exo
chest / legs +4 item CR x 1.75 = +7 CR ; +1.17/Exo
back +7 item CR x 0.95 = +6.65 CR ; +1.11/Exo
ring (unknown) item CR x 0.50 = unknown

TYPE III MOD (9 Exobytes)
hands / waist / feet +10 item CR x 1 = +10 CR ; +1.11/Exo
shoulders +7 item CR x 1.3 = +9.1 CR ; +1.01/Exo
head +6 item CR x 1.5 = +9 CR ; +1/Exo
chest / legs +5 item CR x 1.75 = +8.75 CR ; +0.972/Exo
back +8 item CR x 0.95 = +7.6 CR ; +0.844/Exo
ring +17 item CR x 0.50 = +8.5 CR ; +0.944/Exo

TYPE IV MOD (12 Exobytes)
hands / waist / feet +11 item CR x 1 = +11 CR ; +0.917/Exo
head +7 item CR x 1.5 = +10.5 CR ; +0.875/Exo
chest / legs +6 item CR x 1.75 = +10.5 CR ; +0.875/Exo
shoulders +8 item CR x 1.3 = +10.4 CR ; +0.867/Exo
back +9 item CR x 0.95 = +8.55 CR ; +0.713/Exo
ring +19 item CR x 0.50 = +9.5 CR ; +0.792/Exo

As can be seen, Type I Mods are the best Mods granting the most CR per Exobyte by far. That said, Type III is reasonably close to Type II mods when it comes to CR per Exobyte for the Hands/Waist/Feet, and the higher your Tier, the more often you need the higher increase in CR to reach the next Tier.

As per the Earlier Guide above, you generally want to use the following Mods.

Tier 2 / Getting to CR 53
If your full set of CR 52 gear and T2 (CR 56) Chest/Legs are not getting you to CR 53 (or you just want to save the MoTs for Tier 3) you can use Type II on your Hands, Waist, Feet, or Type I on all the pieces you have.

Tier 3 / Getting to CR 70
Use Type III mods starting with Hands, Waist, Feet, then Shoulders, Head.
Mod Chest, Legs, Back last, and purchase Chest/Legs last, so you can decide if you want to go for the T3 Chest, Legs or Mod instead.

Tier 4 / Getting to CR 84
Use Type II mods (or III if you like) on T3.5 (ie CR 74) Gear, or if you wish about two of them can be Type I (Shoulder and 1 out of Hand, Waist, Feet), or all Type II mods on them. Then mod your T4 Gear (Chest or Legs or both) with Type IV. With Cr 74-78 Rings, Trinket and CR 70 Weapon, you should hit CR 84 with 2 pieces of T4 Gear.
This Tier, your mods will also hopefully help you in combat.

For those of you just starting out in this, this reference might help you. Prices given are per stack of 16, and are just my own thoughts, you might find differences in the Market. I don't trade 1-1 btw, I only use the Auction.
Fortified Exobit (Blue): Reasonable is about $80,000 - $100,000. Prices sometimes can go down to about $60-$75,000 for a stack.
Support Exobit (Yellow): Reasonable is about $85,000 - $105,000
Aggressive Exobit (Red): Reasonable is about $90,000 - $110,000. Prices sometimes go up to 130,000 for the cheapest stack of 16.

Each Exobyte is 8 Exobits, so on average you can think of an Exobyte as costing $50,000 (based on $100,000 per stack, and you can save on that by using Fortified Exobits). To get through T3 with 8 Type III mods, that's 8 Mods x 9 Exobytes x $50,000 = $ 3.6 Million

Don't even think of saving up that much, to get that you will have to sell Styles & Auras & Base Furniture on the AH. Or of course, farm Exobits on your own.

That's not counting the cost of Plans (generally $10,000-$30,000 is reasonable) and other components like Focus.

A Modding Crash Course would not be complete without a section on Recovery Kits. Recovery Kits can be used on Mods or Gear with Mods in them to extract the Exobytes from it. You can use them at the same place you salvage mods.

I understand they are made from Plans, but I've never got one. If you do, selling Recovery Kits can make you very wealthy.

Exceptional Recovery Kits drop from T5 (ie Paradox, Nexus) bosses, and cannot be built. Hence they sell for a lot, and are not recommended for purpose of this Guide (which actually involves using the Kit instead of Trading them for profit)

There are Recovery Kits Alpha, II, III, IV, V, but unlike Mods, the higher level Recovery Kits aren't always more valuable or desirable. This is because although higher level Recovery Kits yield more Exobytes, they can only be used on a Mod of a Minimum Level. The Breakdown is as follows

Recovery Kit Alpha: Any mod. Yields 1 Exobyte (33% on Type I mod)
Recovery Kit II: Minimum Tier II mod. Yields 2-4 Exobytes (33-66% on Type II mod)
Recovery Kit III: Minimum Tier II mod. Yields 3-6 Exobytes (50-100% on Type II mod)
Recovery Kit IV: Minimum Tier III mod. Yields 4-8 Exobytes (44-89% on Type III mod)
Recovery Kit V: Minimum Tier IV mod. Yields 5-10 Exobytes (42-83% on Type IV mod)

As can be seen, Alpha is almost not worth wasting time on, but Kit III and IV are very good for our purposes. They have the highest overall recovery of Exobytes. Kit III is in fact the best, but because you will probably be using Type III mods to hit CR 70, and eventually discarding the equipment after that, extracting the Exobytes is going to help save some time. It is also not always available in the market, so Type II is also handy.

In general, a "fair" price of a Kit is equivalent to the value of the MINIMUM number of Exobytes it can recover. So a reasonable price to purchase a Kit III is below than $150,000 (minimum yield is 3 Exobytes), Kit IV is below $200,000 (minimum yield is 4 Exobytes). Type II Kits can also be purchased for their decent price of usually below $100,000.

As Kits have quite a decent yield that is typically HIGHER than their minimum yield (that you bought them for), and in Tier 4 you will usually save money by buying Kits. That said, take care not to buy more Kits of a type than you need, eg. if you are Tier 4 with 6 Type III and 2 Type II mods, take care not to buy more than 6 Kit IV, as you won't be able to use the extras on your Modded Equipment.

Minor Note : CR Gain per Mark of Triumph
As you level up, your Gear will generally be of different Levels. If you do not Mod, as a rule of thumb you can follow the CR equation in terms of prioritizing what equipment grants you the most CR.
If you intend to Mod though, the gain can vary somewhat.

Assuming that you are in a full set of CR 52 Gear (relatively unlikely):
Chest/Leg: T2.5 (CR 62) with a Type III Mod will grant you an increase of (CR 62 + Mod CR 5 - Old CR 52) x 1.75 CR Multiplier = Item CR 15 x 1.75 = 26.25 CR gain for 650 MoTs = 0.0404 CR Gain / MoT
Hand/Waist/Feet: T2.5 (CR 62) with a Type III Mod will grant you an increase of (CR 62 + Mod CR 10 - Old CR 52) x 1.00 CR Multiplier = Item CR 20 x 1 = 20 CR gain for 400 MoTs = 0.05 CR Gain / MoT

This doesn't generally make much of a difference within the same Tier, but when you are trying to get past the "Barrier", eg. You are CR 69 and trying to get to CR 70 with as low an MoT expenditure as possible, this might help you get that last piece of equipment a few days earlier.

In any case, with this concept, you can always apply the Multipliers and do the calculation yourself, which is the most MoT and Exobyte efficient way to get a CR increase. Typically the Hands/Waist/Feet do not disappoint in terms of Economy.

All in all, this guide is to help out solo players reach level 30. I am "Admiral Atomic", and "Admiral Smith" in game. I recently got my league back, called the "Superiors", we are a small league dedicated to helping out new people.

I hope this guide has been very insightful to all of you. It was to my league mates. If any of you have Quake 4, and need a guide. I wrote the complete walkthrough, which can be found on my steam page. I would also like to give credit to Arenis, who is the original writer of this guide, before I updated it and made lots of additions onto it. Let alone put it on steam.

-UltimateDoomer1