Adeon Hawkwood

Huh, interesting catch. It's probably worth PM'ing one of the mods (or contacting customer support). I doubt they can do anything but they might want to know.

Not entirely. If you're as rich as Smurphy and you're making an ultra-high recharge build on a character with no regular melee attacks then putting Hetacomb in Brawl might make sense (assuming you can spare the slots). Obviously if the character has an actual melee attack it probably makes more sense to slot the Hetacomb there (and put a Crushing Impact in Brawl).

He didn't say all characters solo'd equally well just that they could. Admittedly Stone/Kin is pretty low on the list but not impossible. It just relies on keeping enemies mezzed while going up and using Fulcrum shift to boost the damage of the few attacks it has, and of course post 32 it has a Animated Stone.

So a TF2 Mod?

Scout: Synapse/Captain Mako
Soldier: Statesman/Lord Recluse
Pyro: ???/Silver Mantis
Heavy: Back Alley Brawler/Wretch
Demoman: Citadel/Black Scorpion
Engineer: Positron/Arbiter Sands
Medic: Numina/Ghost Widow
Sniper: ???/???
Spy: Manticore/Shadow Spider

I think Tired Angel gave a good break down but I would just like to expand a bit.

This game does not follow the classic Tank/Healer/DPS model that a lot of other MMOs use. There are characters that can fulfill those roles but they aren't required. Additionally all characters are designed to provide decent damage and while some provide more than others all characters provide some. This is even more noticeable with the Villain ATs than it is with the Hero ones.

Additionally due to the way buffs and debuffs are handled in the game Healing is actually the weakest form of damage mitigation. It's not useless but once you get above the mid levels it gets outperformed by other types of buffs and debuffs.

As Tired angel said if you like Tanks you'll probably enjoy Brutes. They aren't as tough as blueside Tankers but they have plenty of aggro control and lots of SMASH!

The redside "healer" types are Corruptors. However it's important to note that they are attackers first and support second. Pain Domination is the closest to the traditional "healer" but it's not the greatest set out there. Dark, Rad and Kin are all very good sets which have an AoE heal if you want a Corruptor who can do a bit of healing in between debuffing enemies and blasting their guts out. Thermal and Cold are probably the best options if you want a more Buff oriented character.

Even at level 50 the base duration is only 8.24s so slotting with taunt IOs isn't a bad idea.

Wouldn't this be Sonic Melee and Sonic Defense?

I hadn't heard that the devs were doing bans for this but in any case the solution is simple. If you don't want a ban for exploiting the AE, don't exploit the AE. Now admittedly the devs haven't given a solid definition for what they consider exploits (for a good reason, if they try and define it people will find loopholes in the definition) however a bit of common sense can usually be applied here. If the mission allows you to gain rewards significantly faster than you can in a normal non-AE farm then it is probably an exploit.

As everyone else has said in high end play the actual team composition doesn't matter a whole lot as long as everyone is competent and pulls their weight in fights so I would say go with a character you enjoy playing.

That being said, characters with a buff/debuff set (Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors and Masterminds) act as force multipliers which can make a team really rock. Rad, Dark and Kin are probably the most popular but all of the buff/debuff sets are good.

Lovely, can't say I'm surprised but it still sucks.

That is a bug, the level reduction isn't supposed to happen until I17. I'll have to check and see if it happened to me as well...

The way hero contacts are handled is a bit wierd. As others have said you will need to clear out any open story arcs you have before you can get her arc.

The first step is to clear out any of your old contacts. Find any contacts on your contact list who aren't level 45-50 contacts. Harvey Maylor, Crimson, Unai Kemen and Maria Jenkins are the "standard" level 45-50 contacts. In addition you might have one of the RWZ contacts, the two Cimerora contacts and one or more of the Shadow Shard contacts.

What you want to do is look for an active contact who isn't Harvey Maylor, Crimson, or Unai Kemen, isn't in the RWZ, Cimerora or the Shadow Shard (i.e they are in one of the main city zones) and doesn't have an open story arc. If you go and talk to them then they will introduce you to one of the four level 45-50 contacts. If you have sufficient out-leveled contacts then you can pick up Maria this way. If you go through all of your active contacts who meet the criteria without getting Maria then there are two ways to get her:
1. Run some radios and a safeguard in PI, the detective will then introduce you to one of the 4 level 45-50 contacts
2. Do missions for any of the existing level 45-50 contacts. They should introduce you to a new contact once they reach the colleague level of confidence (generally one or two missions). Harvey doesn't seem to introduce Maria but he will introduce Unai or Crimson. You can only get one introduction per contact this way so once they introduce you to someone switch to a different contact.

Red Tomax has an interesting guide on how contact inroductions work:
http://tomax.cohtitan.com/contacts/coh.php

Ok, I REALLY cannot figure out what you mean here. You seem to be saying that you dislike new issues coming out because they contain new stuff to make the game interesting. I'm trying to wrap my head around how that makes any kind of sense.

It's Golden Girl, what do you think?

It's an interesting idea. I think part of the problem would be that it works a lot better with some (de)buff powersets than others. A Melee/Empath would really suck for example while a Melee/Traps or Melee/Kin would work reasonably well.

Well, the 10second summary of the Blaster secondaries:

Fire: Mostly melee damage, very little in the way of survivability

Energy: Good single target melee damage, decent survivability through stuns, has boost range which is a nice power although DP will get less use from it than some other primaries

Eelctricity: Ok melee damage. Technically adds survivability through sapping, but in practice it lacks sufficient sapping power on it's own. Decent Mez capability although personally I prefer Energy for that. The one very good thing is that Power Sink helps a lot with endurance issues.

Mental: Often considered the best overall set. Adds additional AoE attacks which is nice (although for DP the redraw can be annoying). Adds survivability through some ok mezzes and a very nice Regen/Recovery power.

Ice: Generally considered the toughest set. VERY good mezzes and slows so it's nice and survivable.

Devices: Adds a large To Hit bonus so accuracy is much less of a concern than with other sets. On the other hand the lack of Build Up means you can't front load damage unlike the other sets. Survivability isn't as good as Ice but it still decent. Really needs time to prepare the battlefield before engaging so it works a lot better solo than with teams.


Overall which one works best for you depends a lot on your playstyle. If you want a tough Blaster go with Ice or Devices. If you want lots of melee damage Fire or Energy is probably best. If you want a middle of the road option and don't mind the redraw Mental Manipulation is probably a good option.

Ah ok, well there are 3 ATs than can use Dual Pistols and which one you select along with which other powerset you choose makes a HUGE difference.

Blasters are Heroes who deal high damage but don't have much in the way of support powers. Their other powerset is a mix of control powers, melee attacks and some self buffs or weak debuffs. I believe Mental Manipulation is considered the optimal secondary to pair with DP.

Defenders are Heroes who deal weak damage but have very powerful buffs and debuffs to support teammates (and themselves). Their secondaries are pretty variable so their isn't really an "optimal" pairing but the long redraw animation for Dual Pistols mean that most people prefer sets where you can lay down the buffs/debuffs at the start of combat and focus mostly on blasting. Traps, Storm, Rad and Dark are good for that. Trick Arrow is also good, but the double redraw irritates some people.

Corruptors are basically evil defenders. They do more damage (especially solo) but their buffs and debuffs are quite a bit weaker.

*Objection* That's a loaded question your honor. (sorry, been watching to much Law and Order recently ).