Adeon Hawkwood

No link I'm afraid, someone apparently had it in their sig for a while and that's screwing up Google's search (plus they've since removed it from their sig so no clue who it was).

I have FA on my Scrapper almost solely for those purposes. I generally only use it against Carnies and Arachnos but it's pretty handy against both of them.

Personally I suspect it's a lot more likely to be the *ahem* ERPers than the PvPers that the devs are concerned about. I would be very surprised if people were actually relying ont he character's stance rather than the ttargeting box to tell their status.

My opinion on this is that if making it easier to keep the entire team buffed (whether by making it an PBAoE buff that doesn't affect the caster or simply increasing the duration) would mean the effects needed to be nerfed then they need to be nerfed now. It is perfectly possible to keep the entire team SB'd 100% of the time, it's just annoying to do so. So if making it easier means the power is to good then that means the power is being balanced around being inconvenient to use and IMHO that is just poor design.

I don't mind powers being balanced around being HARD to use (such as Warburg Nukes and Vanguad HVAS which require a time commitment before hand for every usage) but a power that is more powerful simply because it's inconvenient to use isn't really balanced, it's just inconvenient and likely to cause fights (and large forum flamewars).

Indeed, I don't think stealthing is required but a lot of the TFs are really annoying without it. Synapse TF is a good example, it starts with 5 kill all missions and then has 5 more missions which are boss kill or hostage rescue. The thing is after 5 kill all clockwork missions I am utterly fed up with killing clockwork and want to get the remaining missions over as fast as possible so I can do something else.

I don't particularly mind kill all missions in TFs, I do TFs partly for the XP anyway and they keep the merits rewards up by limiting the rate you can do the TF but the general structure of the older TFs really disincentives me from doing anything other than the absolute minimum.

That's only true if you have 0% resistance. Since both are applied multiplicatively if you have X% resistance and Y% -damage that less effective than having (X + Y)% of one of them.

Not really, there is a huge difference between temp powers and permanent powers. The big one is how often you can use them. Permanent powers you can use whenever the power is recharged temp powers do incur a cost in time and/or inf to acquire. Even if you only consider the recipe ones the majority won't last a single mission so even if you always make new ones when you run out you still either don't get them for entire missions unless you spend a lot of time running between the mission and a lab bench. Additionally temp powers can't be enhanced so they can afford to be slightly more powerful than regular powers.

Or better yet use a bayonet.

Not really, that is one possible option and the game is designed to facilitate that (frequently adding new content at lower levels rather than all content being top level) but it's not the only way to play. Plenty of people enjoy playing their level 50s whether it's farming, doing the level 50 stories/TFs or just exemping down and running the lower level content.

I just checked on my Corruptor. The information seems to be missing now. I remember it being there before when DP was just released but it seems to have vanished.

It was from the last dev Q&A:
http://www.formspring.me/askcohteam

It's not a case of not wanting more choices it's a case of how we feel the devs should prioritize those choices and what developments would be best for the game. As I mentioned above I feel that power pools should be as generic as possible since they have to work with a huge range of powers and concepts. I would LOVE to have power pool customization that included alternate animations with both gadget and magic themed options for appropriate powers but that doesn't mean I think implementing it would be the best use of dev resources.

Secondly the question is how does this expand the power options available to a character. The basic answer is that it doesn't. Most of the possible options you've suggested are either already available as pool powers (i.e. melee attacks, stealth powers, defense/resistance power etc.) or have almost certainly been deliberately left out of power pools by the devs for balance reasons (i.e. most types of debuff powers).

So a gadget pool wouldn't really open up any new options for characters, it would mostly serve as alternate animations for RP'ers to use. That's not necessarily a bad goal but it doesn't mean it's the best way to implement it.

They stated in the last Q&A that they aren't planning to increase the number of slots per server.

I've never seen a dev statement either way. Although from a coding point of view it's more common to set a seed value when the program starts running and keep using that simply because it's faster (you don't have to make a call to the clock or some other function to get a new seed every time you need a random number). At the same time I would be very surprised if each character has their own loot random number seed. I would expect it to be, at the very least, set for aspecific instance or possibly even server wide.

Ah, I looked that up. You recommended dropping Explosive Arrow which, to me, pretty much kills any credibility you have when it comes to build advice.

Not really. Temp power animations are not up to the same quality as power animations. A good example is to try using one of the bow temp powers on a shield character. When animating the temp powers the devs often just grab a suitable animation for an existing power which works well enough but doesn't necessarily mean the animation will work correctly under all circumstances. Similarly temp powers are not balanced to the same degree that pool powers are. Temp powers have limited charges which means that you can't use them as often as your actual powers since once they run out you'll have to spend time (and maybe Inf) reacquiring them. Additionally temp powers can't be slotted so some of them have more powerful base stats to compensate.

I'm not opposed to new power pools but there are a few things that need to keep in mind.

First off a new power pool requires at least 50% of the work required for a full powerset. You've got to make animations for 4 powers (and like melee sets those animations need to be compatible with shield defense). Secondly balance wise those powers need to be considered for every powerset combo as opposed to just a limited set which creates potential balance issues. Overall I'd rather see new powersets (or epic power pools) than new power pools since those increase ability diversity between characters in a way that power pools don't.

The other issue is more subjective and that's the idea of origin based pools (even unrestricted ones). Power pools aren't supposed to be defining aspect of your character they are to allow you extra flexibility in designing your character. Pools with powers that have a generic animation and naming allow for them to be used with a lot more character concepts than ones that are origin based. So while I like the idea of more power pools, I'd rather see them used to expand power concepts rather than power themes. Of course, I'd ideally like both, make the sets generic and have more specific alternate animations (the medicine pool is an excellent example of where this would be a good idea).

As an example though consider leadership. On a natural hero they might represent inspiring leadership. On a tech hero maybe advanced targeting optics and a squad level C&C system. A magic hero might have an artifact that improves the skills of those near it. A mutant might have a minor ability that increases adrenalin production of those near him making them react faster. A science hero might... um, ok I suck at thinking up science characters, they always end up as tech characters.