Grouchybeast

If I were you, I'd try working on embracing the non-water liquid possibilities for Water Blast. There are so many. I teamed with someone with an *amazing* magma recolour of water. Absolutely beautiful. I don't remember their AT, but they had it paired with some kind of fire set.

Water Blast is the first set ever where I've found myself wanting to play multiple characters with the same set. First, I rerolled my Praetorian Clockwork character, Cocktail Companion. She was an Ice/Sonic def, but she just had to become Ice/Cocktails instead. Then I have Taste the Rainbow, a blaster who doesn't have a bio yet but does have a classic spandex and cape outfit I love, and Rainbow Water/Rainbow Energy powers. Finally (so far) there's Dairy Queen, a mutant Wild West cow with Milk/Spoiled Milk Corr powers.

If there was a Cephalopod head, I'd probably be rolling an Ink blaster right now. I have hopes for Halloween.

I'm not hugely keen on the Staff sounds. And haven't there been two versions on live? They started off with what someone on the forums described as like 'beating a trashcan inside a whale' and now it's more like someone angrily snapping pencils. I'm hoping at some point the set will find some middle ground. (Angrily snapping pencils inside a trashcan, maybe.)

There were no event badges, red or blue.

The Lusca appeared to be a new special event version -- the head was unkillable, and the tentacles kept respawning.

The main problem we had on Defiant was excess popularity. We were asked to split up with 40 and below in Talos, and the level 50s in PI, and then some zone on redside that I forget, sorry. We still ended up with two instances of both blueside zones, so the Community guys were run ragged trying to keep up with spawning mobs and making Mako apperances in the zones. Fun idea, though!

The best double XP farm is whichever non-AE farm map some kind level 50 is willing to give you a place on. I spent a lot of double XP weekend on Defiant chatting with people while pinging my unslotted low-level attacks at level 54 Freakshow.

There's no real definitive answer as to when you should slot IOs.

If you look on the Paragonwiki here you can see a table with all the relative enhancement values for TO/SO/Common IO/Set IOs. As you can see, level 30 Common IOs are slightly better than even level SOs and level 35 Common IOs are as good as +3 SOs. IOs never expire, so if you slot Common IOs around that level and never replace them, then they'll be as good as SOs forever.

(Personally, I never use SOs at all -- I have a base with a couple of tables full of low-level Common IOs, and I slot them as the slots open up on the character, and put in a new one every ten levels, i.e. if I slot a level 15, then I'll eventually replace it with a 25, then a 35, then leave it alone.)

A lot of people seem to get their characters up to 50 on Common IOs/SOs, and only then give them a Set IO build. Some people slot bits and pieces of Sets as they level to take advantage of the better enhancement values without worrying about set bonuses (frankenslotting) and then make a level 50 build. Some people start slotting full sets much earlier than level 50 (low to mid 30s is a frequent choice), often because they like the flexibility of keeping the set bonuses when they exemplar down.

There are also a few specific Set IOs that you might want to slot even if you generally stick to SOs or Common IOs -- they give things like a global bonus to To Hit, or more End, or KB protection. It depends on your specific character as to what is useful to them.

Really, though, Sets are icing on the cake. I see plenty of people playing with just SOs or Common IOs slotted. This isn't a game where 'gear' matters all that much, and people won't be turning you away from teams because you're using SOs.

If I had a dollar for every time I've seen exactly that debate held about fanfic over the years, I'd never have to buy another CoX sub in my life.

Hi, and welcome to the game!

One thing I haven't seen anyone mention specifically is that you don't really need to worry about exactly how you create your character, or about getting the 'right' one. It's common in CoH for people to have dozens or even hundreds of characters.

Firstly, it's pretty easy to level a new character up to the level cap. Secondly, you don't need any specific 'gear' to play any of the PVE content, and in fact you can have a perfectly playable character all the way through the end-game enhancing your powers simply with the cheapest enhancements available in-game. So it isn't prohibitively expensive to have many different characters. Finally, there are great mechanics for teaming seamlessly with characters way, way above or below you in level, so if you're playing on a brand-new character you've just rolled up, while your friends are running some level 50 missions, you can tag along with them no problem.

So, try a few things out, and see what you like.