Adeon Hawkwood

Actually the three uniques that go in health are procs. They are part of a subset of procs sometimes referred to as proc120s. This terminology is important since it differentiates them from globals such as the Luck of the Gambler Recharge IO. Specifically:

Proc120s:
You must use the power every 2 minutes (or have it active if it's a passive power or toggle)
If you exemplar below the level where you can access the power you lose access to the proc120
The level of the IO is only used to determine when you can slot it
All proc120s are unique (this could potentially change in the future)

Globals:
You do not need to use the power to benefit from the IO
If you are exemplared low enough that you can't access the power you can still retain the benefit of the IO
If you exemplar more than three levels below the level of the IO itself you lose access to the bonus
Unless the IO is unique you may benefit from slotting up to 5 of these

I disagree, To me weapon sets and MM sets don't imply any more theme than, say, Fire Blast while this set is essentially forcing a particular theme. However I'm apparently the only one here who feels that way so I think I can honestly say there isn't much point in us debating it further. You feel one way, I feel another and I don't see that changing.

Really?

Mutation: You have the mutant ability to open holes in the fabric of reality and use that to travel to other dimensions. On one of your adventures you entered a dimension inhabited by demons. You made a pact with a powerful lord of that dimension. He would lend you some of his minions to assist you in exchange for which you would transport them to Paragon City and provide him with the souls of those they slay. No doubt he plans to turn on you in time but for now the forces of the netherworld are at your command...

Technology: Matter is Energy and Energy is Matter. The original idea behind the Dimensional Flux Agitator was to harness the energy inherent in the boundaries between realities however in the process you realized that you could use it to send something to another dimension... or bring it here. You aren't quite sure what the dimension you've locked onto is like but the creatures you can pull forth from it are powerful indeed. It took some careful experimentation but by modulating the frequency of the DFA you can force them to obey your commands.

Natural: You are a demon here to ravage Paragon City and gather souls for your dark masters. The more souls you send to them the higher your rank rises in the forces of darkness allowing you to summon stronger allies to your banner. One day the forces of the netherworld will break forth and the whole world will tremble at your feet.

The problems I can see are the standard code rant (although all of the technology would seem to be present in the VEATs, specifically the fact that Crabs can only take one copy of Venom Grenade despite havign access to two), the fact that it will (generally) require new animation resources and the fact that it will generate arguments between people over which powersets should get the treatment (since it is effectively a buff to the powerset in question).

That being said, I'm not really sure how many powers would actually benefit from it. While there are a number of powers that I think could use a solid overhaul (Time Bomb springs to mind) I'd rather see them fixed within the bounds of the cottage rule rather than just (effectively) replacing them outright. In some cases though fixing them would require a somewhat liberal interpretation of the cottage rule to allow for changing the mechanics of HOW a power works without changing the actual purpose of a POWER and in that case I can see an argument for retaining the legacy power for those who liked the old mechanics.

A good example of this would be Time Bomb. Personally I'd like to see it replaced with Satchel Charge, a power that keeps the basic concept (a large explosion) but gets rid of the problematic portions of the powers (specifically the 8 second cast time and the 15 second delay) and has a more suitable animation (specifically throwing a satchel charge a short distance). Now personally I think that would be a much more useful power and it is still within the cottage rule (given a somewhat liberal interpretation of the cottage rule). However there are some people who like and use Time Bomb the way it is and for them this change would eliminate their current tactics. So keeping the legacy version around would make sense.

That being said I doubt we'll see it happen. As soon as the devs start doing this for the sets that really need it they will get inundated with requests to do it for all sets. Everyone has powers that they hate and even if the set itself doesn't really need the change they will feel as if it does.

Because sets like this would require quite a bit more time and effort than regular sets (due to the extra costume pieces, the coding to support that and extra animations for other powers to work correctly with the costume pieces) while being usable be a very small number of character concepts.

There are still plenty of "generic" powersets for the devs to do before they start working on ones like this.

Why would the devs make a powerset that only allows you to be a robot unless they are making it a new EAT?

My problem isn't the lack of flexibility in selecting an origin since as noted before (by me amongst others) it's reasonably easy to make this fit any origin. My problem is the lack of flexibility in selecting what I want my character to be and how I want him to look. This essentially FORCES me to select one of three looks if I want to use it:
Power Armor
Cyborg
Robot

If I go with any other look then the powerset becomes silly.

The weapon powersets force me to have one additional costume piece which has zero impact on the rest of my costume. I can easily design whatever costume I want and then select a weapon that matches it (yes in some cases I need to unlock the weapon first which is rather irritating but eventually I can get it).

Here it is essentially fixing three of my costume pieces (gloves, back and chest) in a way that severely limits what options I can use for the rest of my costume without it looking silly.

The short version is that none of them are worth taking. Munitions Mastery is probably the worst APP available for Blasters, other APPs offer much better power selections for almost any Blaster. On my AR/Dev I have everything except Sleep Grenade.

Here's my take on the powers:

Body Armor: Even ED capped this only gives about 13% defense (less than half of the other blaster shields). The fact that it doesn't need endurance is nice but unless you take Tough to stack with it you're probably not going to notice the difference

Cryo Freeze Ray: A pretty standard single target hold. Whether this is useful to you depends a lot on your playstyle and powersets. My main problemf with this is that it has a shorter duration than both Char and Shocking Bolt despite having the same recharge (and both of those have higher damage to add insult to injury).

Sleep Grenade: A quite nice AoE sleep power. Completely useless if your primary is AR since Sleeps are pretty much incompatible with AoE attacks but if you're a Blaster with strong single target damage you can get some usage out of it.

Surveillance: A moderately useful single target resistance and defense debuff. It's not a lot of use in regular play since it's single target and Blasters do plenty of damage anyway but it can help with taking down AVs and EBs. It also acts as a Power Analyzer and has a very cool animation, which are my main reasons for taking it.

LRM Rocket: This is one of those powers that is great fun, but not necessarily particularly great. It does a little less damage than the regular crashless nukes (FA, RoA and HoB) but has a recharge nearly as high as the full on nukes (240seconds). If you use some red inspirations (or Build Up) it can one shot minions who don't resist Smashing/Lethal so it is a pretty decent power but realistically at the end of the day it's a power you take for fun not utility. It's recharge is almost as high as the various crashing nukes but only about half the damage. That being said it is a lot of fun and I do like it (as suggested by my sig).

All three use the Assault Rifle weapon for the attack actually.

Well as I said earlier, if it's going to enforce a theme then it makes a lot more sense as an EAT powerset than a regular one. That way you already have a fixed origin and character theme so having a concept driven powerset makes sense.

Why not? Every existing powerset is designed so that the powerset doesn't drive the character's theme. I see absolutely no reason to change that.

Magical AR:
The Assault Rifle is enchanted to always hit it's target
The Bullets are enchanted with various spells of accuracy and power
The character has a normal assault rifle but his magic allows him to use it faster and more accurately than a normal human could manage

Mutant AR:
The character's mutations give him superhuman senses which make him perfectly accurate with an assault rifle
The character is like Gambit and uses his powers to supercharge his rifle bullets

Those are just the ones I can think off off the top of my head. I'll also point out that origin doesn't have to explain all of a character's powers, it just explains what makes him a hero. For example i have a DP/Storm Corruptor. He's magical origin since his Storm powers are magic, but his skill with pistols is Natural.

That would be horribly overpowered in a team setting. A team of 8 Defenders is already one of the best team combinations out there. Increasing the base damage of a team of Defenders just makes it even more broken.

No, they lock you more heavily into a theme for your powers than the other sets do, they don't lock you into a theme for your character.

For example, consider Broadsword. The only thing that it enforces is that I wield a sword of some kind. I could be a normal person wielding a magical sword. I could be a person in a highly advanced suit of power armor wielding a mono-molecular sword. I could be a mutant with super-human reflexes and a sword. The only constant is that my character wields a sword, everything else is up for grabs. In particular it doesn't impose any theme on my character himself. He could be a human, an alien, a cyborg, or a genetically modified catgirl; as long as he has a sword it's all good. Additionally the set implies nothing about the sword itself, it could be the source of my powers, it could have been built using futuristic technology or it might just be 3ft of regular steel.

Similarly for Masterminds the only imposed theme is that you have support from Robots, Thugs, Undead, Clowns, Ninjas, Mercenaries or Demons. It enforces nothing about how or why you have their support only that you do.

This particular set imposes significantly more theme on the character than a weapon set. You are essentially forced to be either a robot, a cyborg or someone in a suit of power armor with special costume pieces to match. You have a bit of flexibility in where you come from but it's still imposing a much heavier theme than any of the existing sets.

It's not so much a matter of origin, I could come up with a character using this for each origin. It's more a matter of theme. This pretty much requires a Cyborg/Robot/Suit of Power Armor character. It doesn't really matter what the origin/power source of the gear is the problem is that it imposes a strong theme on the character.

That's it, I want your membership card back. What part of "secret society" did you not understand?

Probably not, I'd still like to see soemthing doen to decrease the disparity in the soloing capability of different defender primaries.

Yeah I agree. IMHO this sounds a lot more like a powerset for an EAT than one for a regular character. If you look at the normal powersets they can be explained by any character concept. Even the ones like Assault Rifle which strongly suggest a particular concept work with others. This pretty much forces you to be either a cyborg or a power armor user.

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I'm glad that works for you and in general it's true that you can make a functional character that way. However that doesn't mean that it's the best way to make every character. Depending on various factors related to playstyle and your other set certain powers can be reduced to near uselessness at which point taking them becomes pointless. A good example of this is Ignite from Assault Rifle. If you've got a decent hold or immobilize power it's a lovely high damage (if slow) single target attack. However without a Hold or Immobilize it's a very small, short duration "afraid" patch. Not completely useless but a lot less useful (especially when you consdier the long cast time).

Personally my break point is 6 powers. If I'm taking fewer than that from either my primary or secondary then I take a long, hard look at my build since if I'm skipping that many powers then I'm probably missing the point of the set. Epics... well I normally take something from an epic pool but I rarely take 4 powers (my Blaster has four from Munitions mastery, but I only really wanted two of them, one of the others just has a cool animation and the last is useful as an IO mule).

As for filling up the power slots... well Leadership is my first choice (especially on Defenders) and I also like Recall Friend on characters that have Stealth (or the toughness to Tank Stealth).

However those sets already benefit from their own powers which helps a lot when soloing. Personally I think two changes are really needed for Defenders. First a change like this to even out the soloing capability of the different sets and secondly something to make Defenders as a whole solo better.

Actually see the comment by Garent above. The base accuracy is actually worse than the rest of the archery set.

Sturgeon's Law says that 90% of everything is crud. Ignoring the farm missions completely AE missions are essentially fan fic and like fan fic everywhere it falls afoul of Sturgeon's Law. There are some good missions out there but there are a lot more poorly written ones.