Lazarillo

I have a Fire/Earth who's tons of fun. There's plenty of synergy there, though you have to be a little careful about power choices. For example, /Earth has a lot of knockdown, so you'll want to skip the immobilizes except as a panic button, since they negate such. Char and Seismic Smash are great for stacking holds really fast, and powers like Fissure and Smoke help ensure you get a powerful first strike in.

Prepare to play almost exclusively in melee, since /Earth's two ranged attacks are fairly underwhelming (though personally, I use Stone Spears a ton anyway, just for how cool it looks). /Earth was advertised being a Brute-like set, and it's definitely that. You'll be up close, and smashing hard.

One last point is regarding Hot Feet/Mud Pots. It sounds awesome on paper (it's even the reason I originally built my own Fire/Earth), but in practice, it doesn't synergize particularly well. The problem is that Hot Feet has a much wider radius and an Afraid effect. Mud Pots will only hit enemies standing right up in melee range with you, and Hot Feet will basically scatter, albeit slowly, everything you're not directly engaging. For that reason, Mud Pots is actually fairl skippable.

In theory, -ToHit and +Def are exactly equal. You need 45% Defense to soft-cap, but -45% ToHit will have the same effect.

In practice, enemies can gain extra resistance to -ToHit debuffs based on their level, classification, or probably just by wearing blue. Stacking powers that say they do -45% ToHit probably won't actually bottom out the accuracy of the enemies who you'll most want to bottom out.

That said, both are nice, and there's more to both sets than just the +Def/-ToHit, so you may want to judge your pick on that as well.

I suck at names. It's the single hardest part of the process for me.
Character concept? Easy enough.
Powersets I want to play? Got a ton of builds I'll probably never use saved in Mids', just 'cause.
Costume? Sometimes a little tricky, but I usually find something I like.
Name? Prepare myself to sit at the registration screen for an hour, brainstorming.

The random generators never really impress me, or even give me good ideas, but the ones I come up with on my own often lead to me wondering what the heck I was thinking when I came up with them. I've taken to using a thesaurus for inspiration, but even that doesn't work most of the time for me.

Okay, yeah, I can be gripey. There's a lot of things I post about when I don't like 'em. But when I'm playing, I'm generally more upbeat and open-minded than I am on the forums. However, there's one thing that freaking bugs me, to the point of being a major annoyance, even in-game, so bear with me, I gotta lay it out:

What, exactly, is the point of making enemies entirely immune to one or more forms of damage? Particularly, the forms of damage that players will most commonly be using? This has been around, granted, since time immemorial (at least i1, based on the powers I've seen), but it drives me absolutely nuts. Giving Unstoppable to an AV and making them immune to damage doesn't seem to accomplish anything other than making a fight three minutes longer. It doesn't add any sort of challenge; if the AV wasn't acting as a serious threat before going Unstoppable, then it's no more of a threat afterwards. Heck, it's practically the opposite. If my end's running low, it's a perfect time to fall back and Rest, since attacking or ignoring them will have the same ultimate result.

...and yeah, Marauder was the straw that finally broke the camel's back here. I was on a Lambda raid last night that spent as much time just sitting and waiting for his Unstoppable to end as we spent on the entire rest of the fight. He's not the only one, though. There are a good number of others that suffer this same issue, Honoree and Reichsman to name just a couple, and they're just as un-fun.

So it comes down to what's on the subject line: provide a hard, less-than-100% cap to enemy resistance. 95% seems fair, but, heck, I'd be fine with 99. Just give us something outside of a reason to go afk for several minutes.

So all this is "gimme, gimme, gimme", I admit. I'm asking for the tedium to be taken away from AVs, but I offer them nothing in return? Well, I do have a suggestion there, too.

It seems like the (missed) point of adding Unstoppable is to give an extra level of challenge at the 11th hour, and that's certainly a cool idea. However, as noted, it just makes them tedious in the end, not challenging. So here's my suggestion: all AVs with Unstoppable? Just replace the power. With Rage. Most Invulnerability AVs conveniently have Super-Strength as well, so it stays thematic, and I think a boost to offensive capabilities would be a much bigger "oh crap!" for most teams as well, really. Alternatively, give some sort of -Special aura power that weakens buffs around them for the duration. That could give them sort of a rising-to-the-occasion, you're-tough-but-I'm-tougher feel. Either one would be an effective way to turn a stomp into an uphill battle without just making it feel like the intent is to sit around and wait for the battle to end.

Since they just got through doing half-price transfers last week, I doubt they'll do free ones soon.

Generic Resistance/PPD soldiers ala the VEATs isn't a bad idea, but, well...VEATs already did it. I think, if anything, it'd be neat to see something else (not that I'm expecting PEATs in any form anyway). A couple ideas:

~Someone suggested a while back the idea of a Devouring Earth PEAT, and I could get behind that, potentially.

~Alternatively, build off some of the other cannon groups. We have Neuron's Failed Experiments, or Metronome's Clockwork/Seer hybrids. The latter of which, I think, could be exceptionally cool.

~Finally, the idea I like best, honestly (and the one that would be the least work for the devs!) would be to open all ATs to all sides in lieu of an actual Praetorian-specific archetype. I know that for me, personally, just the ability to play some of the villain archetypes blueside from the beginning would revitalize it quite a bit.

I've seen the store, but never Mark out front. IIRC, he does have a Tip mission, though, so clearly, he's still around. Perhaps he went underground?

I love the way they played mindgames in that episode.

The end of that episode has left the seeds of a theory in my head as well:
The Doctor from the beginning of the last episode wasn't the Doctor at all! He was someone else, with a regeneration that looked exactly like the Doctor's current appearance. Who it is or how that could work, no idea. But I'm going to stick by it, if only because I like the idea for now.

Best to worst:

1 - Alpha. Has an effect on most, if not all powers, all the time, simultaneously versatile and strong, grants a level shift in the real game as well as the two raids, and can be acquired reasonably. It's the best by a country mile.

2 - Interface. Probably the most useful in "normal" combat, since it also applies to most powers. Variety of effects that can suit pretty much any character. What it lacks in strength it makes up for in versatility.

3 - Destiny. Very powerful, useful solo and downright amazing when teamed. Only problem is that since it wears off quickly at low levels, it's not especially useful unless you're willing to invest a lot in it.

4 - Judgement. An "I win" button against a single spawn (sometimes two, if they're close together) on a reasonable recharge. Judgement's incredibly fun, but it's not going to be a game changer; things that were already easy will be made easier, but it's not up frequently enough (with good reason) to make a consistent difference.

5 - Lore. Ladies, look at your other Incarnate powers, then to Lore, then to the others, then back to Lore. Sadly, Lore isn't your other Incarnate powers. It has a pathetic uptime, combat pets that are a little too fragile and support pets that aren't very good support. It's just a sad little shadow of a power when compared to what the others do, and that's not even getting into the concept problems.