Adeon Hawkwood

The problem with a lot of specialist recipes is that there is zero supply. I had a bid for 70million for a BotZ KB Protection level 10 IO (since I hate losing my KB protection when I exemp). I eventually pulled it since it was clear that I was unlikely to even see one on the market below maybe level 40 and started saving the merits to buy one.

Yep, I seem to remember a Foxtrot cartoon years ago when WoW raised the cap from 60 to 70 with Jason basically saying that the major change was instead of wishing that he could be level 70 he would spend his time wishing that he could be level 80 instead .

And there in lies the problem. I was on a PUG with a PB once who insisted on wading into the middle of my Oil Slick and using Solar Flare. The end result was a huge scattering of enemies with 30%-50% health instead of a nice cluster of enemies burning to death while tripping over with their defense debuffed. Personally I love knockback as a form of damage mitigation but unlike most forms of mitigation the player has to be able to recognize situations where it will do more harm than good. The other good example of this is AoE immobilization powers, if you let them go to early then the enemies end up outside of the Tanks auras meaning that they are likely to used ranged attacks against the squishy characters rather than attacking the Tank.

Pretty much. I've found that with a lot of PUGs the best tactic is to just attack as fast as possible and try to buy a bit of time for the team to react. How survivable this is depends a lot on my character. My Warshade is fine and my Defender is generally ok as long as he has EMP Arrow ready. My Blaster.... might survive if the rest of the team is good.

Note: This first section doesn't really apply to Choking Cloud but does apply to EM Pulse.
Overall Lockdown is an excellent set for a Defender if you can six slot it because it provides large bonuses to both AoE and Ranged Defense so if you're planning to six-slot a power you'd be hard pressed to do better short of 5-slotting Unbreakable Constraint for the Recharge bonus. Basalisk's Gaze is also a decent Hold set for four slotting since it has both defense and recharge (although much less than the first two) but the fact that it caps at level 30 means the recipes are in very short supply (it's popular among high-end scrappers). The reason I don't like the proc in Lockdown is that most hold powers only need the help against a boss and 15% is to low to be useful often enough to make me think it's worth it.

However since choking cloud is a toggle you probably don't want to six-slot it with Lockdown. If you look at the Hold sets you'll notice that they're very heavy on recharge and accuracy both of which are almost useless to Choking Cloud (although a little bit of recharge is handy if you need to retoggle in a hurry) as well as being very light on Endurance Reduction which it needs. Overall you've got a pretty decent slotting in Choking Cloud (ignoring the fact that you somehow seven-slotted it ). However the four-slotted Lockdown isn't really doing much for you. The beauty of the Lockdown set lies in it's 1st, 5th and 6th set bonuses the 3rd (hold duration) and 4th (hold resistance) probably aren't doing much for you unless you've got a very strange build. The proc is slightly more useful in Chocking Cloud than most holds since it's hold is neither automatic nor mag2 but on the other hand CC pulses twice as often as the Lockdown Proc will so overall you're probably not getting much mileage out of it. Here are two quick options I came up with for franken slotting CC depending on your budget and requirements, mix and match to suit your tastes:

Cheap Option (soft cap End Redux and Hold, some recharge, a proc for damage):
Essence of Curare: End/Hold
Ghost Widow's Embrace: End/Hold
Ghost Widow's Embrace: Chance for Psionic Damage (optional)
Lockdown: End/Rech/Hold
Lockdown: Acc/End/Rech/Hold
Paralytic: Endurance/Hold (optional, you'll be at about 90% instead of the soft cap without this, Neuronic Shutdown and Basilisk's Gaze have equivalent IOs but the Paralytic is probably cheaper)

Expensive Option (almost soft cap, End Redux and hold, some recharge, 2 procs for damage):
Ghost Widow's Embrace: End/Hold
Ghost Widow's Embrace: Chance for Psionic Damage
Lockdown: End/Rech/Hold
Lockdown: Acc/End/Rech/Hold
Unbreakable Constraint: Hold/Endurance
Unbreakable Constraint: Chance for Smashing Damage

Hopefully that gives you some ideas.

The name of the Lockdown proc really really bugs me it implies that the porc is a lot better than it is. The duration of the hold proc is very short and unenhanceable so most of the time it's of marginal benefit. If it wasn't for the awesome set bonuses in Lockdown I wouldn't use it . Although I must confess in an AoE hold like EMP Arrow it is very pretty when several enemies get effected by it at the same time.

I'll be honest, I use that term occasionally just to see who reacts

That really depends. SFs offer much better merits/time than story arcs. The downside is that you need to put together a team for them. If you get on your server's global channels you can often find teams being put together (or better yet start one yourself). If all else fails head to Cimerora and find an ITF team, there's normally someone trying to form one.

You are correct for Shield Wall. For Gladiator's Armor the Recovery bonus applies to both PvE and PvP so it may or may not stack depending on the name. I would assume that the name is the same but on the gripping hand PVP IOs do behave a little differently from regular IOs meaning that the code base may have required the devs to give it a different name, so it's probably worth checking out.

Actually most of the badge missions give 1 or 2 merits when done through Ouroborus just not when done via contact normally. There are a few that don't but most do.

Fair enough, I prefer to take my travel power at 14 but if that works for you I can see leaving it off.

Unless you've got the vet badge that lets you take a travel power without prerequisites (or you're not taking a travel power) you'll probably want to push at least one other secondary power off to post Stamina in order to take another attack. Having only Hack and either Parry or Slice would make leveling tricky.

There is a bug where the game forgets that you can make EATs. Try logging in your level 50, logging out without exiting them making the EAT.

Jack Emmert was the original lead developer for City of Heroes. A lot of players regard him as being personally responsible for a number the more controversial changes made to the game (for example enhancement diversification) as well as having an attitude that the game should force players to play it his way. I wasn't around at the time so I really can't say how valid these opinions are but that is why a portion of the player base regards him as the anti-christ.

As Dark Gob said even if you roll in the 10-14 range there are 33 recipes so your chances are less than 1/33 (the roll is weighted so that you get more of the popular damage sets than the less popular like to hit debuff). If you really, really want you're either going to have to buy it on the market or if the market supply is zero (which is sounds like it is) buy it directly with merits.

I'm not bitter about that, not at all .

Personally I would love to see that. The only problem is that all of the Shard TFs have at least one mission in Paragon City so the devs would need to either do some rewriting of the TFs or implement new Co-Op ones. Either way I'd love to see something done with the Shard anyway. It's a beautiful zone that needs some love. Besides, geyser jumping is great fun and villains should get to play to.