Adeon Hawkwood

It depends on the level of the enemies you are fighting. Caltrops has an 80% speed debuff which is reasonably near the -90% cap for even level enemies. However due to the purple patch this decreases for higher con enemies down to 38.4% for +4s. A single level 50 speed IO caps the debuff at 90% for +0s, +1s and +2s and brings you up to a very respectable 75.5% for +3s and 55.7% for +4s.

I've heard that but not seen it myself. The Protector Bots seem to use their heals pretty effectively even with an extra Heal enhancement. I don't know if they changed the pet AI for heals or if a single heal still falls into the "sweet spot" but it seems to work for me.

I think it might actually be that they changed the AI. I also have a Demons MM and the Ember Demon seems to be perfectly content throwing off heals to "top up" the demons even if they don't need the full heal.

Well since SG names are unique by server the ability to transfer an SG requires at least some provision for renaming it as part of a transfer. So presumably if they do figure that out they'll have at least the capability to make SG Renames possible. Of course, that doesn't mean they will make that option available to us...

Basically mindless pets (Bots, Demons and Zombies) blow up instantly. Sentient pets (Mercs, Ninjas and Thugs) place the bomb and then futilely try to run away.

Interestingly the way in which the power works is significantly different for the two types. The mindless type is an attack from the henchman while the sentient type places a pseudo-pet. This has significant ramifications for the damage done.

What you have seen is (almost certainly) the Rebirth Destiny power. It's much higher healing than Healing Aura (and larger area as well) but on a 2 minute cooldown

It does keep track of the source of buffs in order ot prevent stacking. In fact, if you check the combat attributes window it will even tell you who a particular buff is from. There is a bug where zoning causes all buffs on you to be declared to originate from you (which is why you can temporarily double stack shield buffs after zoning). The zone reset would not be a major deal for the intent behind this suggestion though.

I already do that and I find that on a busy team the buff bar can still easily go half way across the screen .

Nah, the new version is fine.

Ok two comments. First I made a thread a few weeks ago asking for this, I vaguely remembered seeing it but could not for the life of me find it, unfortunately no one else remembered it either, so thank you for posting it.

Secondly I'm looking through the list you gave me and I don't see that doing what I want. Assuming I've back engineered your number correctly you are suggesting I turn on the following settings:
32 status hide buff numbers
4096 group window numeric stacking
8192 group window hide buff numbers
2097152 pet window hide buff numbers

Now when I select the "do not send buff numbers" option from the menu it still shows the buffs icons, it just doesn't give values if you right click on them. Is this supposed to work differnetly?

Well as a warning you may find it hard to get a team going for non-farming AE. The AE has an unfortunate reputation of only being used for farming so a lot of players are wary using it at all (and the ones who want to use it will expect you to be running a farm).

As other suggested you might have more luck running tips or a regular contact (or an AE farm).

As for level I'd definitely state what level you are. With super sidekicking it's not critical to have all teamembers the same level but some people don't like to go up/down to much from their actual level. Some people like to use 25 or 30 as a lower bound for any higher level team since a character at that level has enough powers/slots/SOs to be useful on a high level team. It's not critical but a (for example) level 15 character with DOs struggles on a level 50 team since in addition to fighting +1 or higher enemies level 50 groups tend to have more powers and more debuffs/mezzes that a level 15 lacks counters to.

Actually you're being generous. Debuff resistance uses the following formula:
SufferedAmount = AppliedAmount × (100% – TotalResistance)

So the 5% to hit debuff is reduced to a 0.65% to hit debuff against an AV. That means a full stack of four only reduces his to hit an almost negligible 2.6%.

The regen debuff has a similar problem being only 7.8% for a full stack. The reasons most buff/debuff sets have such high -regen debuffs (500% for most) is that they need it to get past AV resistances.

I normally slot it with a slow and a slow/end/rech triple from one of the sets. I find that proccing it out is underwhelming and I rarely have the slots to use it effectively as a set bonus mule.

Primarily the standard damage and accuracy (at least two accuracies in the lower rank demons, three if you skipped Tactics). It's also worth putting in all four of the pet Aura IOs if you use IOs.

I mostly cast it on the Hellfire Gargoyle. At higher levels he is your primary damage dealer so giving him a damage and to hit buff makes a lot of sense. Additionally the living hellfires will, hopefully, draw some aggro off of him which helps keep him alive.

On the other hand in very sticky situations I will sometimes cast it on the Demon Prince since he's easier to keep alive. In terms of damage the Living Hellfires are more important than the damage buff so having the demon with the buff die really sucks.

My experience is that the Demonlings don't need any, the Demons need one (but can mange well enough until level 32 without any if necessary) and the Demon Prince needs two (although you can hold off on adding the second until you reach level 32 if you want).


Other advice:

The Demon Prince makes a pretty good tanker. If you send him into the middle of a mob he will hold a reasonable amount of aggro on his own. His single target hold is also pretty useful so make sure to target him on bosses or annoying lieutenants.

The Hellfire Gargoyle is also an aggro magnet but keep a close eye on him, he isn't as tough as the demon prince. He and the Ember Demon constitute most of your AoE damage so it's important to keep them alive and well targeted.

The Demonlings are pretty squishy and like to charge into melee so keep an eye on them. Interestingly the Fiery Demonling (the first one) tends to stay at longer range than the other two. His Flares attack has a faster recharge than Ice Bolt/Corruption so he'll often sit back spamming that and Fire Blast instead of charging into melee.

Fair point. I'm still taking Ice Mastery though

Actually it's not a bug in Mids but rather it presenting healing powers in a slightly odd way. The value given on the "Info" tab is the amount healed as a percentage of the ATs base hit points. Since Corruptors have slightly more hit points than Controllers they show a smaller percentage for the same absolute healing. If you hover over the percentage value or check the "Effect" tab it shows the absolute healing value.

I'm not entirely sure why Mids' does it that way. I suspect that it is something to do with how healing scalars are stored/calculated but I don't really know.

Maybe it's cliche but I enjoy each of my characters for what THEY can do rather than what other characters in my stable can do.

To give an example I have a Crab Spider and an AR/Dev Blaster, both have top end builds including purples/PvPIOs and incarnate abilities (mostly T3s). Now by an objective standard the Crab Spider is "better" than than the Blaster, he's a lot tougher, has equivalent AoE damage, and has a large squad of robotic spiders to back him up. Yet even given that I still enjoy playing my AR/Dev. Why? A variety of reasons, part of it's the thrill of playing a Blaster riding the edge and seeing how far you can push it before you face plant. Part of it's the feel of the character, the simple animations of Assault Rifle really appeal to me. To some degree it's the character himself, Adeon is my special character, he is the me that I wish I could be and so playing him is something I enjoy and if he wasn't AR/Dev he wouldn't represent me.

At the end of the day it really comes down to whats important to you. CoH is not a perfectly balanced game there is a huge range of power between different sets and powerset combos. Therefore if your only interest is in the numbers then only the best sets will make you happy and playing anything else is a waste of time. On the other hand if you can look beyond the sets and enjoy a character for who they are and what they can do then any powerset is open to you.

Actually, IIRC there were people who started playing on US accounts but were then converted over to EU accounts when those servers opened (the Passport Badge). Inthat situation those people could conceivably be EU seven year vets.

I don't seem to see radio missions run much these days. AE Farming is still very popular. The Incarnate trials are also very popular amongst level 50s. TFs/SFs also get run a lot (especially the Weekly Strike Target).

The best way to form teams nowadays is global channels. I recommend wondering down to the sub forum for your server and inquiring as to the most popular ones for that server.

Finish leveling the Fire/Kin to 50 and then see if you enjoy the Incarnate trials . There's a lot of action there so if you like them it's a good way to get teams.