Adeon Hawkwood

When using Detonator who counts as casting it for the purpose of the purple patch, the AMstermind or the Henchman? Based on the info provided by RedTomax I think that it's the Henchman but I'm not certain (and I don't have it yet so can't check). Secondly if it is the henchman who casts it does it benefit from enhancements in his power or does it still need to be enhanced separately (I'm guessing the latter but would like to check)?

Actually as a another option how about adding a new SG badge for completing the CoP Trial in SG mode X times (where X is 1-5) that unlocks all of th eIoP models as cosmetic items?

I agree with Lothic. Releasing a major patch right before half of the team leaves the office for the meet & greet is not a good option (if something goes wrong there are fewer people around to fix it), and similarly I doubt they'll want to release it Thanksgiving week for the same reason so the 9th, the 16th or December sound like the reasonable options.

In is the days approaching All Hallows Eve the dead rise to once more walk the earth...

I base the cape/no cape solely on what looks good. Some characters look good with capes, some don't.

That would be pretty cool. Maybe even make it a personal item that you can get a reward for doing the CoP trial?

(by personal item I mean the ones that anyone can craft or accquire through vet rewards and place without needing base editing privileges)

I really don't see AR being good in PvP (and I love AR). It's got two problems. First it's primarily an AoE set which isn't as useful in PvP as in PvE. Secondly a lot of it's single target damage is based on leveraging Ignite which requires you to keep the target immobilized or held (not practical in PvP). Add in the long animation times for Full Auto, Flamethrower and Ignite and I just don't see it working.

Or maybe the Alpha Slot will only work on non-IO'd characters and everyone will sell thier purples off .

More seriously part of the goal with the Alpha slot did seem to be decreasing the gap between IO'd and SO'd characters so depending on how well it suceeds we might not see a huge spike in demand since people run their 50s through Incarnate content but don't feel the need to IO their characters.

It's an interesting idea. My main objection is how it would shift balance for character designs. Specifically I think it would shift things to far in favor of the "no-travel power except Ninja Run" builds.

The current setup gives us 24 power choices which equals 9 primary powers, 9 secondary powers 4 epic powers and 2 travel pool powers. This is the "default" build and people then drop powers from those areas to fit in other pool powers they want. At the moment there's a practicla limit to how many pool powers you really bother with due to slot limitations. If you add the ability to trade powers for more slots then optimizing a character pretty much means you dump any powers not directly related to combat for more slots. I don't think this would break the game balance but I think it would increase the gap between a perfectly optimized character and one built more around what's fun and that is a sad thing.

Sonic Resonance is probably the least common support set for Defenders which is a pity because on a team it is an excellent set (unless the graphics give you eye problems anyway). In particular a lot of people use IOs to boost their defenses but few use them for resistance (since resistance set bonuses suck) so added resistance is useful to them (layered defenses FTW).

The second least common I would say is actually Trick Arrow. It's a moderately popular set but not one I see people actually playing a lot (including me, I have a TA/A but I rarely play him now that my Trapper is 50). I think the problem is that people who like debuffing Defenders tend to play Rad, Dark or Traps instead since they are, on the whole, more generically useful than Trick Arrow.

Ghost Falcon requires you to do a misison before he seels to you so the Rikti War Zone is the easiest location to get level 50 SOs (talk to the Vanguard Quatermaster).

Those are very nice, unfortunately I can't see any of my characters using them so I probably won't buy it.

Ok, looking over your build it could definetly use some tweaking. General thoughts:
1. You're significantly over the softcap for S/L denfese, you're probably better off losing a few set bonuses to beef up your other defenses or global recharge
2. Some of the sets you've selected don't really give bonuses you want
3. Acrobatics isn't that great choice since FFG provides hold protection and a KB iO will provide sufficient KB protection for most things. (I'd say take maneuvers instead).

Comments on specific powers:
1. 5-slotting Analyze Weakness in Acid Mortar isn't a great choice, the set bonuses are kinda weak (accuracy in particular you'll tend to pick up incidentally in any IO build, you don't need to go for it specially). You can get a similar level of recharge (and a bit of defense debuff and accuracy) with a franken slot and still fit in a proc or two (I recommend the Devastation hold proc first and the Achilles heel proc second). Make sure you're at 93+% recharge though.

2. Removing one of the Heal/Endurance, the Heal/Recharge or the Heal/Recharge/Endurance IOs from Triage Beacon won't significantly impact it's capability and will give you a spare slot you might find handy while maintaining the recharge set bonus.

3. For Poison Gas Trap you might want to replace the Lockdown set with 4 pieces of Basilisks Gaze, the Recharge/Hold form Lockdown and the Proc from Lockdown. The advantages of lockdown are the positional defense bonuses which don't help you a lot.

4. For Empty Clips and Piercing Rounds Positron's Blast is probably better than Detonation (Global Recharge rocks on a Trapper). For any power with Positron's Blast I recommend 5-slotting it and leaving out the Damage/Range IO rather than the proc. The extra range doesn't really help, it's WAY over-budgeted for damage so you're still ED capped and the proc gives you more damage.

5. You really want more recharge in seeker drones. I use 4 pieces of Dark Watcher and an Accuracy/Recharge to add more recharge and a bit of accuracy.

Hope you find some of that useful .