Adeon Hawkwood

As opposed to lazy buffers just buffing the tank and completely ignoring anyone else anyway?

A good example form a player set is Grant cover. the caster only benefits from the DDR, not the defense.

I would love to see that but I'm not expecting it. Still it's a step in the right direction, I fully expect them to affect the caster in issue 41.

If you read the fine print and footnotes it looks like all of the new costume/aura/emote unlocks are account-wide.

The Acension Armor is specifically noted as being an account wide unlock for all level 50s and the auras have that implied by the footnote.

Given how many people were complaining about it on the forums and how many people I've seen asking for help with it in game I'm going to say yes.

well the wording says that you still have to target someone to cast it so even if it does work on the caster you'll only be able to use it on yourself while teamed (at least for Defenders and Corruptors).

Because this is the internet, someone will be angry about any change. I agree with you though, it's an option that should have been present from the start.

Huh, never looked at ti that way. That does sort of make sense but it seems an odd way to balance it if that is the reason.

I'm guessing they are a new "generic light thing" type of pet.

Yes and no. With the IO system it is possible to build a character from another AT who is almost as tough as a Tanker. This can make Tankers seem somewhat useless. However, despite what you see on the forums there are a lot of people in game who never even touch IOs so a good Tanker is always very useful. Now, if you prefer soloing then Tankers are not the best choice but for team play they are fine.

Regarding your earlier questions I'd advise against Willpower for a first Tanker. Willpower is a very nice set that makes for a tough character but it's weak for actually holding aggro. There are plenty of ways around it but I'd recommend picking a different set first and making a Willpower Tanker once you've learned the ropes.

Kheldians aren't particularly complex. The main issue is that they do have a number of different play styles and if you try to build for all of them you can have a very weak character. They essentially have three forms: Human, Nova and Dwarf. The Human form is moderately tough, deals decent damage both melee and ranged and has some buff and control powers. The Nova form has no defense but deals a lot of ranged damage (basically a Blaster). The Dwarf form is very tough but lower damage (basically a Tanker).

Well some scrappers get defenses in their secondary powerset or pool powers but defenses beyond that are gained through IOs. You can see what his current defenses are by opening up the combat attributes monitor (bring up the Powers window and click the text in the top left).

To plan a build and see what defenses it would have you cannot go wrong with Mids:
http://www.cohplanner.com/

I strongly recommend making your build in mids and posting it in the Scrappers forum for a critique before respeccing in game.

Devices is... ok. It's not as bad as some people make it out to be but it's clearly also lacking when compared to other manipulation sets.

It's primary advantage is that it matures quickly. The key powers (Targeting Drone and Caltrops) come quickly and make a low level Devices blaster surprisingly survivable. However after that it tails off, the key problem (IMHO) being the long, interruptable, cast times on the later powers.

In many ways the problem Devices suffers from is similar to the problem with Stalkers. It's giving up something but what it's getting in return is not particularly useful within the current iteration of the meta-game.

The main argument I use to show why Devices isn't that great is to ask what can it do for a team that a /Ice Blaster cannot do better with the inclusion of Stealth and Tactics. Devices is a good solo set but it really suffers on teams due mostly to the long cast times of the later powers.

If I were to put together a wish list for Devices it would actually be:
1. Give Trip Mine a 2 second, non-interruptable cast time, maybe increase recharge to balance if necessary (it's hard to say the recharge increase would be needed or not).
2. Turn Time Bomb into something similar to Omega Maneuver. I know Omega Maneuver isn't particularly popular either but unlike Time Bomb it does work reasonably well both solo and teamed and already has similar Damage and Recharge numbers (accounting for base damage scaling)
3. Give Gun Drone a 2 second, non-interruptable cast time.

Those three powers are essentially Device's answer to the melee attacks and Build Up present in other sets. The problem is that all three are almost impossible to use on a fast moving team and annoying to use solo. Making them easier to use allows them to fulfill their role in the set.

Personally I like the second option, putting the shifts in Interface and Lore.

I also would have only released Interface and Judegement with Issue 20 and then released Lore/Destiny in issue 20.5 (i.e. when they release the Keyes Reactor Trial) although I'd have kept the current salvage requirements (i.e. Lore and Destiny would still use salvage from the BAF/Lambda I would have just held off on releasing them)

Get a reasonably smart outfit, a fake ID badge and a clipboard. Go to the mall (or some other area that contains a reasonable cross-sampling of humanity) and ask people if they'd mind participating in a survey about video games.

Sure you'll get a horrible rate of acceptance and possibly even get arrested (or at least escorted out by mall security) but you'll still get a better response than you would on a message board (for the reasons Arcana already gave).

Personally if I were a large company I'd do a customer survey of a random portion of my active player base.

No it wouldn't be perfect either but it would at least eliminate most of the selection bias you get on message boards.

Honestly, the market is the best arbiter of whether or not a set is good. If you ask here you get the opinions of a few people. If you read the market you get the collected opinions of the entire player base.

If you see something with a bunch in stock and no one bidding and a last 5 at or near the vendor price, well chances are it's not regarded as a good IO. Something with a similar number of buy and sell orders is probably regarded as a good set. Something with a lot more buy orders than sell orders means the set is in high demand (often due to a low supply).

Now this isn't perfect, some sets are good but aren't in high demand since most characters can't slot them in significant quantities. The best option here is to compare sets to other sets of the same type. i.e. Lockdown is a decent set but is generally cheaper than Positron's Blast because people have less need for Hold sets than Damage sets. However, Lockdown is more expensive than Ghost Widow's Embrace because it has about the same supply but better set bonuses.