Adeon Hawkwood

Here is my opinion for how the inf sinks compare in terms of total inf sunk:
1. WW Fees
2. A-Merit Conversion
3. IO Crafting Fees
4. Vendors (SO purchases, inspirations and common IO recipes)
5. Prestige conversion

Now the important thing to realize here is that WW fees encompass the vast majority of these sinks. If you look at 2 3 and 4 the total is tiny compared to WW fees. For example it costs less than 6 million to outfit a level 50 with SOs and less than 50 million in crafting fees to make a full set of 100 level 50 IOs (the max is 103 but few people bother to slot all of the sprint variants). Now I think A-Merit conversion probably does come in a bit above those, I can't prove it but just logically if every SO'd character makes 1 or 2 conversions or slightly more for an IO'd character that would make it a slightly larger sink.

Which brings us to WW fees. Given the current market prices each A-Merit that is made into a recipe and then sold sinks about 10million in WW fees which accounts for half of the A-Merit inf sink. Toss in the fact that a lot of items pass through WW's twice (due to either being flipped or crafted and resold) and that a lot of high value items are not produced through A-Merits (each purple recipe sold sinks as much inf as two A-Merit conversions) and I think that WW probably sinks quite a bit more inf than A-Merits although I'm not really sure how much more. I would guess that WW fees account for somewhere between 50% and 75% of the total inf destroyed in game but really that's nothing more than a WAG.

je_saist's point was that making money off the market requires either price variations or crafting. If everyone used the market in a perfectly logical manner then price variations would (theoretically) vanish and the markup for crafted IOs would be equal to the crafting costs + salvage costs + WW fee in which case no one would be able to make any money from the market.

So to summarize:
1. Anybody who wants to make money from the market can do so
2. If everyone wants to make money from the market no one can

This would decrease market volatility (i.e. the difference between the high price and the low price on an item) but would not actually change the general trend. If the amount of inf relative to the amount of items is increasing as seems to be the case then prices will go up. People bidding more intelligently won't change the overall price trends, it will simply decrease the spread.

Have you verified this in game? My understanding is that in a pseudo-pet power like bonfire it's have a change to proc once on you when you cast the power but any subsequent procs will be applied to the pseudo-pet and not you.

No they are all useful, I'll try and explain a bit better. This is what I've been told but I'll admit I've never figured out a way to test it myself, all I can say is that from a programming point of view it makes sense.

When you are slotting your powers you can only slot certain set IOs in them. For example you can't slot a Lockdown set in Dual Wield because Dual Wield does not take Hold sets. Well powers that your pets have work the same way, they will only take certain enhancement types and ignore all enhancements that aren't of that type that are slotted in the power. With SOs, HOs and generic IOs this isn't really an issue since the pet powers are allowed to use all of the types that they can benefit from so it works as you would expect. However for Set IOs this is a problem since a power would sometimes benefit from being enhanced by an IO it can't use.

As a basic rule of thumb look at what the primary enhancement type of the set is (i.e. pet damage sets are type damage) and any powers the pet has that could naturally use that enhancement type will benefit from the set but other powers will not.

To use an example from your slotting the Achilles Heel proc has a chance to work on every attack your Enforcers use except for Blast Clip. Blast Clip does not have a defense debuff component (unlike their other attacks) so it does not benefit from Defense Debuff Enhancements even when those enhancements contain something that would benefit. As another example if you were to slot Force Feedback: Knockback/Damage/Endurance into Call thugs the two thugs would benefit from the Thugs would only benefit form the Damage/Endurance portion on Dual Wield and Empty Clips while the Arsonist would get no benefit.

Another useful trick is to summon a Gun Drone or place a Trip Mine and use the defiance damage bonus from that to buff FA.

The nice thing about Devices is that you can keep people away from you. I specced into Mu Mastery for the AoE immobilize and find that between that and Caltrops it's easy to keep most enemies at range (I try to avoid werewolves obviously). Mu Mastery actually has the worst AoE immobilize of the PPPs, I went with it for thematic reasons and because I wanted the shield. Admittedly I don't go in for toe bombing though so keeping at range is a more viable strategy.

Fitness is now a set of four inherent powers automatically granted at level 2.

Pretty much.

Once you hit 20 and train you will get a new contact who offers you a mission to go to Primal Earth. At that point you will choose if you prefer to go to Paragon City as a hero or the Rogue Isles as a Villain. You can technically stay in Preatoria and do missions with other people if you wish but you will not get any new missions.

No, level 20 is the earliest you can make a decision to leave. Non-Preatorians or Preatorians who have passed level 20 and left can enter Preatoria if they desire (passage is through Pocket D).

No, generic IOs, SOs and HOs will affect all of a pet's powers that can use the enhancement type.

There is however an... issue... with the pet damage sets (I'm not sure if it's a bug, unintended behavior or what) that means that the enhancement bonuses from Pet Damage sets will only apply to the pet's attack powers. Utility powers (such as the Enforcer's Leadership powers) do not benefit from the enhancement in Pet Damage sets even if they can use some of the enhancement types. As such with high level MM builds it's often preferable to make use of HOs to increase your enhancement rather than pet damage IOs unless the pet has no utility powers.

In the case of the Arsonist he will benefit from endurance reduction in Pet Damage sets but not Knockback or Defense Debuff sets so you probably don't want to slot those (the regular thugs benefit from those though). In the case of the Enforcers I'd advise skipping Set IOs for the purposes of endurance reduction (although the Acc/Dam ones will work fine) and using generic IOs, SOs or HOs (useful tip, Enzyme Enhancers will provide end reduction and boost the defense of Maneuvers).

I doubt they will, the devs in general don't seem to mind pulling as a tactic, the only time when they act to stop it is when it serves to nullify an enemies "powers" (such as Trapdoor and the Khan TF).

The area isn't that much larger (both are 180degree cones, CC is 8ft, Pendulum is 7ft) the big difference between the two is that CC has a target cap of 10 while Pendulum has a target cap of 5.

I see where you're coming from. Personally my take on this has always been that powersets should be designed to have as little influence on a character's theme as possible (it's why I generally dislike the idea of a "power armor" set unless it's an EAT). If a person wants to make a character who knows they are a character in a video game that's fine by me but I think it's not something that needs a special powerset.

For example a Grav/Kin Controller would work well for such a character, similarly to The Matrix, he knows he's inside a computer program and is able to use that knowledge to his advantage. Adjusting the apparent time flow for allies or manipulating the apparent gravity to defeat his enemies.

That was my first thought but his responses seemed serious and Seebs doesn't normally troll so I decided on a serious response.

You don't even need to do that now. Simply accept one of them and then abandon the mission. The paper will provide you with a new set.

This pretty much matches my feelings on the matter. I don't think it's practical to really balance buffs/debuffs within the current system. The changes needed wouldn't just violate the cottage rule, they'd whack it on the back of the head shoot it into space and make off with it's wife.

My fondest hope for CoX2 (if and when it ever comes out) is that the devs manage to set things up so that buffs are reasonably balanced without breaking the "casual teaming" element of CoH that I love.

I realize that, my point was that the reason Defense bonuses ignore the ED cap is that they don't interact with enhancements at all they are direct boosts to your character. Heal bonuses, on the other hand, do function as enhancement bonuses but ignore the ED cap since they aren't actual enhancements.

Both types ignore the ED cap but the implementation is VERY different so extrapolating from one to the other is risky.

Powers that are tagged as "Not affected by buffs" do not get any benefit form set bonuses. All powers that can slot Resistance Enhancements are tagged as such but there are probably a few more scattered about that are also tagged to not use buffs but don't take resistance enhancements. Powers that boost resistance but don't take resistance enhancements generally do benefit from the bonuses. It's a minor distinction but it does come up occasionally.

For example Deflection Shield provides toxic resistance but doesn't take resistance enhancements so it is boosted by Power Boost while Ice Shield has enhanceable resistance bonuses so does not benefit from Power Boost.

I'd just like to clarify something here. Defense set bonuses function VERY differently from Healing set bonuses.

Set bonuses can be considered as one of two categories Direct Buffs and Enhancement Buffs. Direct Buffs are the more common type and boost an aspect of your character power directly and cover things like Defense, Resistance, Hit Points, Regen etc. The Enhancement Buffs function like additional enhancements in individual powers (except they aren't affect by ED) and include Accuracy, Damage, Recharge Time, Range, Improved Healing and all of the "increased mez duration" ones.

Direct Buffs, like defense, provide a static effect that is always on (subject to the exemplaring rules) and as such are completely independent of your powers.

The Enhancement Buffs, on the other hand, are increasing the effectiveness of your powers so only work if you have suitable powers. Functionally the game adds these bonuses to the enhancement bonus in the power itself before calculating the effectiveness of a power. This is why, for example, Improved Healing and Recharge set bonuses don't work on Reconstruction, since Reconstruction can take Resistance Enhancements it does not benefit from global enhancement buffs.