Adeon Hawkwood

My opinion for Blasters is that for the most part they aren't worth it. The primary draw of Purples is the large Recharge bonuses for 5-slotting them however most Blasters do not have much in the way of long recharge powers and those that they do have are generally not game changing (Build Up is close, but recharge is still only 90sec).

That's not to say that Blasters don't benefit from Purples, for example in Targeted AoEs Positron is the best choice for most blasters and Ragnarok is a clear upgrade over it. Ranged Damage sets have a lot more options though and Apocalypse is not always optimal (personally I like Thunderstrikes).

Several of the purple procs are very useful to Blasters though. In particular the Ragnarok proc is nice for mitigation and the purple damage procs are far superior to regular damage procs.

Well, Positron posted some video card specs for GR here:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=200245

Regarding build your own versus pre-made. I generally advocate building your own simply because it makes it easier to do incremental upgrades as and when you need to (or when things are on sale at your local stores). Some pre-built computers have non-standard board shapes and case designs which limit your upgrade options (Dell does this on at least some of their machines).

Building your own computer is actually pretty easy, it can seem intimidating at first if you aren't tech savvy but there are a lot of tutorials online to help you (sorry, no links at the moment) and once you've know how to do it it makes upgrading your computer in the future a lot less onerous.

EDIT: Just as a personal anecdote, I've had the same computer for close to a decade now. I've replaced every component at least once (most of them more than that) but I've never had to go out and buy a completely new computer. This means that I've generally been able to pick up upgrades when I can get them on sale rather than needing to pay the BUY IT NAO price. Amusingly I've even replaced the case so it doesn't even look the same externally, but to me it's still the same computer .

It should be working, some pet based powers have proc related issues but to the best of my knowledge Freezing Rain is not one of them.

However, in continuing powers procs only get a chance to activate once every ten seconds. This means that in freezing rain the proc will only have a chnage to go off twice over the duration. This is done to stop continuing powers with procs doing insane amounts of damage.

To answer your other questions, the damage will be a different amount from freezing rain based on your combat level (link). It'll look the same but if you look through your combat logs (not sure which of the combat channels though) you should be able to see if it activates.

Good point, I forgot about the -DMG debuff

I've never played a Corrupter but I do have both an AR/Dev blaster and a Traps/AR Defender. With that in mind here are my responses:

1. Do not skip Flamethrower, it's a large part of your AoE damage. Conversely Ignite is basically a single target attack that requires you to immobilize or hold the enemy prior to attacking. I don't like it because of the long activation time and the need to prep the target, but it does do very good damage and compensates for the lack of a third blast in AR so many people like it.

2. At low levels take Buckshot, at high levels either take both or take the one you prefer (for me it's buckshot). they both do about the same damage but Buckshot has half the recharge and two-thirds the endurance cost. Additionally the fact that it's a cone means you can fire off Flamethrower and Buckshot without moving or re-targeting and generally hit the same group of enemies.

3. Seeker Drones are a bit odd. Basically you summon two drones at a target point which will move towards the nearest enemy and explode causing minimal damage, a perception debuff, a to hit debuff and a chance to stun. I'd say take them, the debuffs aren't as convenient as Flash Arrow or Smoke Grenade but the chance to stun can prove useful (if unreliable). Finally, the seeker drones are pets, this means that when you summon them enemies will try and attack them so they are an awesome way of handling NPCs alpha strike.

4. PGT has a mag 3 hold. Since it has a chance to reapply the hold every second it can mez bosses due to stacking holds but it's not a reliable means of doing so.

The answer is erratically. If you look at some belts with side items (the policeman's belt is a good example) they will clip with some of the larger leg options.

I could be wrong, but I think the only custom parts are the belt, shoulder pads and sash, correct? I wouldn't hold up much hope for the sash (Kheldians have been asking for them since Issue 3) but it would be cool to have the other two in game.

Maybe you do, but open-source as a technical term does not apply to Mids. The changes that you're referring to are all edits to the database that Mids draws from rather than changes to the codebase. It's equivalent to using custom skins in a FPS, you're modifying how the game appears to you but not the underlying game.

Now it would (I believe) be possible for a person to go through and add new versions of the powersets for custom critters I just can't see it being worth the effort.

Mids is not actually an open source project as far as I know. It's free as in beer but not speech

I'm afraid that it is the telsa cage animation, same as the other chance to hold procs.

EDIT: To clarify I posted this back when the original post was about Lockdown