Grouchybeast

I had a weird performance issue recently, which was entirely fixed by disabling the Resident Shield component of AVG.

I'm afraid that my issue (FPS was generally fine, but firing any powers caused horrible, unplayable lag) doesn't share many symptoms with yours, but as you don't seem to be having any joy finding a solution I thought it wouldn't hurt to try.

I think all but two of my characters, red and blueside, are female. Of the males, one is a CoX version of a character from somewhere else, and the other is a giant radioactive cockroach. I've tried making other male characters, but the male faces and hair options are all so ugly I inevitably end up switching the character to female again.

Use vetspecs, take out the IOs you think are going to keep falling from as many characters as you can, sell them, and then buy and reslot when the prices go way down?

That seems like an insane amount of work, but you'd end up with more inf that you had at the start.

I ummed and erred about shifting various less-played characters over to a second server for storage, but I only ended up moving a single scrapper, having decided I really do prefer Claws/Elec to Spines/Elec and will probably never play the spines version again.

Fantastic guide!

Just one tiny addition -- you can also use the Midnighter Club to travel between Paragon and the Rogue Isles. It's kind of awesome, actually. I've more than once taken a hero or villain and clicked on the doors to the other side, so when they actually opened for my Vigilante it felt very cool. :-)

Nice to see you back!

I've leaving everything as it is. I CBA to faff around taking everything down and then putting it all back again afterwards. I will be making sure anything is claimed from e-mail, though.

My main badge toon will be heading redside for a crazed badging frenzy, but I'll probably bring her back blueside when I'm done.

Personally, I'm hanging on to my merits and seeing what happens with Going Rogue. As we've had yet another recipe-buying currency system announced, who knows what that's going to do to recipe supply, etc.

Gratz!

I've also made nice, steady money crafting Commons on my main toon. It's just so easy to stick in the salvage bids, drop a crafting bench in WW, craft and list. I made a good few hundred million like that.

Seebs -- somewhat tangentially, if you're starting to playing with slotting sets, then you might like to take a look at Mids' Hero Designer, which allows you to put together builds and check out the effects of IOs without having to spend a lot of inf on respecs. It's an incredibly useful programme. (And despite the name, covers both heroes and villians):

http://www.cohplanner.com/

Common IOs are an excellent slotting choice for low levels. I rarely slot any sets at all, except maybe slotting drops and putting in quality of life IOs like Knockback Protection and Stealth, until I get into the 30s. (In fact, because the game gives low-level characters an accuracy boost anyway, I don't often slot anything at all before level 10, sometimes level 15.)

Anyway, until 30+ I stick to Common IOs, which don't have to be replaced like Dual and Single Origins -- even you can't afford to upgrade them, at least they don't stop working. Plus, they don't really need to be replaced every five levels anyway. I usually do every other five. E.g. level 10 Commons slotted will be replaced by level 20, and then level 30, while level 15s will go 25, 35.

Crafting Common IOs gives badges, and that means there are always players out there crafting for the badges, not to make inf. This means they dump their Common IOs on the market for well below crafting cost, just to get rid of them. Bid low on stacks of premade Common IOs in advance of the level you want to slot them at, and the bids will likely have filled by the time you get to the level you need them.

Other people's crafting badges are also a source of income for my new characters, in the form of flipping. I put in bids for assorted level 50 Common IOs in the range of 15,000 - 30,000 inf, and then resell them for 300,000. It isn't big bucks, but it creates a starting character nest egg pretty quickly.

And speaking of crafting badges, that's a nice, low-stress way to make money. Getting a crafting badge requires crafting so many Common IOs of the right levels (Paragonwiki has the details). Once you have the badge, the Common IO is memorized -- it not longer requires a recipe to craft, and the crafting cost is also reduced. Bid low and be patient to pick up salvage and recipes on the auction house, and get the badges. Then bid low for salvage, and you can craft and sell IOs for much less than people who don't have the badge.

It's perfectly possible to make money (in the ten of millions of inf region) while getting all the crafting badges, if you're patient about picking up the salvage and recipes. But you don't need them all to get started. You can start by looking at Damage, Accuracy and Endurance Modification/Reduction in the 25-40 levels.