Adeon Hawkwood

Well technically you are losing a slot in that you have one fewer slot than other characters. However, since the slot in question is the auto-slot on Swap Ammo which cannot take any enhancements at all it doesn't really matter.

To the OP: Would you prefer it if the slot was there but you were unable to place any enhancements in it?

This is slightly wrong. The pulsing hold is auto-hit but the initial hold is not (I'm not certain if it actually benefits from ACC or not).

This one can go in a few directions. Blasters cannot realistically pick up that many different defenses so most blasters opt for one or two. The most popular options are either Ranged defense or Smashing and Lethal defense.

Ranged defense is popular when combined with hover since on more open maps you can use your mobility to stay out of melee range and therefore are primarily facing ranged attacks with a few AoEs mixed in. 21% ranged defense is a little low, I find that ~30% is where you really notice a difference.

Taking Smashing and Lethal Defense is more popular with Blappers. Smashing and Lethal defense will protect you against a largish portion of melee attacks and will also protect against some ranged attacks (primarily those used by gun armed enemies such as Council). The other advantage of S/L for a Blaster is that you can take Scorpion Shield or Frozen Armor in your Epic Pool to get some easy S/L Defense.

Some global IOs work even if the power is turned off (the actual global IOs), others are called Proc120s and only work when the power is on. In a passive or toggle the proc120 only works while the power is active, in a click power the proc120 will remain on for 120 seconds after the power is clicked. Kismet is a Proc120.

In terms of global IOs, the obvious one you are missing is the Steadfast Protection +3% defense IO. These are a pretty cheap way to get some more defense.

In terms of general slotting I don't have mids with me at the moment so doing this by eye.

1. For Energy Torrent I'd remove the Dam/Range and see if you can find a better use for the slot elsewhere. Positron's Blast is overslotted for damage anyway and the Range bonus won't make much of a difference anyway (if you take Boost Range that will overwhelm it and if you don't you really need another range boost to notice the difference).

2. Speaking of Boost Range I'd try to take it (possibly dropping Power Boost) but YMMV.

3. For Bone Smasher I'd go for another Mako's Bite over Touch of Death. You don't want to spend much, if any, time in melee range anyway.

4. For Tough I'd lose one of the Aegis pieces, either the Res/Rech or the Global. Aegis is slightly overslotted for Resistance so losing the Res/Rech shouldn't cost you much. Alternative the Global in Aegis is one that sounds a lot more useful than it is.

5. For Weave Luck of the Gambler is not really that great a set. I'd suggest either the LotG Global Recharge bonus and five pieces of Red Fortune or 6-slotting Red Fortune (depending on whether you consider a 7.5% recharge bonus or a 2.5% ranged defense bonus more useful).

6. For Hover I'd add another slot (taken from Energy Torrent or Tough) and add a LotG global recharge bonus (remember, you can slot that one up to 5 times).

7. For Fly I would take the other slot you saved from Tough/Energy Torrent and 2-slot Blessing of the Zephyr (specifically the Fly Speed and Knockback protection IOs).

8. Since you have Knockback protection in Fly replace the KB protection IO in Temp Invulnerability with a Steadfast Protection +3% defense IO.

9. I'd replace the Dam/End in Nova with a Multi-Strike: Dam/Rech. The 6th bonus in Dervish isn't that great and having more recharge in your nuke is better than endurance reduction.

10. I'd replace the Executioner's Contract in Sniper Blast with 5-pieces of Sting of the Manticore. Save the extra slot for now, more in a sec.

11. Personal Force Field doesn't really need any slotting beyond the base. It puts you comfortably over the soft cap anyway. So take two slots out of that.

12. Take the three slots form those and add them to build up which can not take a full set of Gaussian's.

Ok, that's all I can think of for now.

41% accuracy should be fine. If you're planning to do the incarnate trials you really want to hit +4s reliably. To test this you can change the base to hit in Mids to 39% and then see what your final to hit is for each power.

Damage bonuses are less of a concern, it's hard to build up an appreciable damage bonus through IOs so my advice is to take whatever you get incidentally and don't worry about the rest.

My reading is the opposite. It looks like the badge is failed if someone dies or if someone destroys a terminal.

Having the option of two completely different ways to get it would seem very weird to me.

Not really, IOs make Bots/Traps extremely awesome but it's still very awesome even on SOs. Similarly the pulse rifle is not required. A lot of MM's run without any personal attacks at all. If you do take personal attacks the ones in the epic pools offer perfectly viable options. I personally prefer the pulse rifle attacks since most epic pool powers have doubled recharge but you can manage just fine without the pulse rifle.

^This. Although I will add if at all possible try to take at least one attack (either from your primary or your epic pool). Provoke alone will suffice against minions since they go down quickly but against the tougher bosses being able to deal some damage will help immensely for holding aggro.

Taunt effects provide some aggro on their own but they also provide a large multiplier to the aggro generated by subsequent attacks. One useful option if you're taking the PPPs (except mace) is to take the AoE immobilize attack since that way you get control and damage.

No. The way a level shift works is that their base damage and hit points etc. will remain the same but they won't suffer the negative effects from the purple patch.

So currently the lower tier minions generally have a lower base damage than the higher tier ones but this damage is further reduced by the purple patch. Assuming you're fighting enemies that are +4 to you your top minions will do 48% of his base damage but your basic minions will do only 15% of their base damage. With this change all of your minions will do 48% of their base damage. You with no other level shifts your basic minions are having their damage TRIPLED.

Similarly against +4s your top tier minion has a base hit chance of 39% versus 20% for the basic minions, with this change they will all have 39% against +4s.

The damage they take is similarly reduced. Currently +4s will deal 44% more damage to your top minion and 66% more damage to your basic minions (who will also be hit quite a bit more). With this change all minions will take only 44% more damage.

Now once you get your level shifts the bonus is smaller but your basic pets will still be doing about 38% more damage than they currently do as well as being more accurate and taking about 17% less damage.

So to summarize the biggest bonuses will be before you get the level shifts, but it's still a pretty large buff after you get them.

Not really, Traps forte is slamming into enemies and coming out the other side unscathed. It's an extremely offensive buff/debuff set.

Personally I think this will help a lot with the problems melee sets are having. Since all of your pets will be your adjusted level for the purposes of the purple patch the damage they take will be substantially reduced which should make keeping them alive considerably easier. The fact that they'll do more damage is just icing on the cake.

Well it depends a bit on the WST. The shorter ones seem to only give 3 bars instead of 5.

But to answer the OP, yeah it's normal. I try to do the WST on all of my leveling alts simply because it's such a good source of XP.

Here:
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Gainin..._Crafter_Badge

Note that this is a method optimized around minimizing crafting costs. Depending on salvage prices you may prefer other options.

That was my point . The person I quoted was saying that only Mercs, Bots and Ninjas could be Heroic so I was giving Heroic examples of the non-Heroic sets.

Yeah, I would love a Sword and Pistol Assault set, especially if it game paired with a gadget-based control set.

Huh, I'm sure my guy only got to 503/504 with Vanguard Recruit. Maybe I'm misremembering.

Honestly there's nothing wrong with Heroic Necromancers and Demon Summoners either.

The moral objection to Necromancy in most cultures is mainly because it involves desecrating the remains of the deceased. There are multiple ways for a heroic character to get around that (the simplest being that the deceased he controls came back willingly to help him).

Similarly the moral problem with summoning Demon is that they are generally portrayed as being always chaotic evil. A Heroic Mastermind could easily be working with a team of heroic demons. Or even take the vigilante route of summoning evil demons and forcing them to do good.

I consider Cold Domination to be both a Buffer and a Debuffer.

Except for Empathy and Trick Arrow all of the Buff/Debuff sets include both buffs and debuffs but Cold Domination is the set I feel comes closest to straddling the half-way point. So, yeah, I'm always happy to have a Cold Dom on my team.

The problem is that's the wrong way around. Reactive is the best interface by far while soloing, especially for lower damage ATs.

Teaming is where you want a non-reactive interface because so many people have reactive because it's best while soloing. But even there Reactive is probably the best general usage Interface.

It depends on the situation. Against groups of enemies Reactive is still the best since it increases the AoE damage that the team is spitting out.

Against AVs, honestly it doesn't matter. Yes, having a mix of Interfaces is technically better but it's better in the sense that $1.01 is better than $1.00. Take Diamagnetic, against a level 54 AV at 4 stacks it will do -2.6% To Hit and -7.8% regen. In a team situation that is not going to make a significant difference in your odds of defeating the AV.

And of course Hess would have no problem working with a Rogue.

Ah, I was wondering where you'd gotten to. Welcome back.