StrykerX

Depends on your recharge. If you use Burn more often than once every 10 seconds then unique procs are better in Burn, if you use it less often then they may be better in the aura. However, you still have to consider that:

- Burn needs more slotting than an aura since it needs recharge rather than just accuracy, damage and endurance. That leaves less slots available for procs and due to the lower endurance cost Burn is actually viable for 6-slotting with Eradication or Obliteration for the set bonuses while auras aren't.

- Procs in auras check once every 10 seconds, regardless of what's around you. If you use Burn as part of your opening attack you'll have the most chances to proc, whereas in an aura it might fire early on when there are lots of targets or it might go off later when the minions have already dropped. (Only applies to characters with high AoE burst damage.)

- Some damage auras have a significantly larger radius than Burn and can hit more targets. Other don't, so that can affect your decision.

If you fight +2s or higher (common on teams) and don't have global accuracy bonuses or to-hit boosts you do indeed need two accuracy SOs per attack (possibly three in attacks with lower base accuracy). Even against +1s you'll only be at 85% to hit with one accuracy SO if you have no global accuracy or to-hit at all. If you are using SOs then presumably you don't have accuracy bonuses, so unless you have Tactics, Rage, or something similar (or you always team with people who give you to-hit bonuses) a second Accuracy SO is a good idea in most attacks.

Of course it's easy to just frankenslot most attacks to get 60% or so accuracy, endurance, and recharge plus ED capped damage and you can do so dirt cheap, so it's only pure SO builds that really need to worry much about it.

If the aura takes a set that has procs, they'll work in it. Both the Glimpse of the Abyss psi damage proc and the Cloud Senses negative energy proc work in Cloak of Fear... as to whether they're worth it, it depends on how tight you are on slots and your playstyle. Each normal proc adds about 15 damage every 10 seconds on average to every target in range... so if you're usually in range of several targets for extended periods it can help. It can be nice on a low-AoE build like Dark/Dark Scrappers or Brutes, but if you have a lot of AoE already things will probably drop too fast for the procs to be worth it.

I tend to play squishies so when I solo the hardest groups tend to be the ones with the most mez, which means Malta is right at the top and Carnies are bad in large groups (though in small groups they're not too big a threat). CoT is kind of in the middle... Ice Casters can hold and Death Mages are just annoying, but Council and Freakshow are still easier (Super Stunners are no big deal to ranged characters, especially as Lts).

Except the criterion that I've never, ever spent that much for a single IO... But yes, if you can afford it the purple set procs are great.

Minion? None that I can think of... Blasters deal with problem minions by making them go boom. Lieutenant? Well, a +3 or so mezzing Lt comes to mind. The real use for the stun in TF is the same it's always been, though... bosses. Sure you can't one-shot stun them any more, but Power Boost + jousted TF + jousted Stun still equals a boss that's just going to stagger around while you take him out. I use Stunning Shot + Stun on bosses when I need to on my archer, but if I didn't have a primary with a stun I'd take Total Focus and do the same with that.

If you have a stun in your primary to stack with Stun (which animates faster than TF) or you have access to two holds then Total Focus is really just a nice burst damage power. But if you don't have another stun outside of /Energy and only have one hold (or none) then TF + Stun is the most reliable boss control you have. You can risk trying to use Bone Smasher + Stun or (Bone Smasher + TF) but TF + Stun is the only sure bet.

Most "squishies" can't solo AVs, much less GMs. Certain specialized builds can, and a handful of more general ones, but most can't. It's usually Scrappers, Brutes, and perma-PA Illusion Controllers (who literally cannot be killed by a single target since their immortal pets always have aggro) who can solo the widest range of AVs... Doms, Controllers, and even some Defenders do it faster due to debuffs but they generally can't make themselves as tough across the board as melee ATs so they are more limited on what they can solo (not counting certain extreme builds).

In addition, some AV soloing squishies would get eaten alive by a x8 spawn because they rely on single target debuffs or controls to mitigate the damage... getting swarmed overloads their defenses. Having an actual Tank or Brute (or a Dwarf or tough Scrapper for that matter) soaking alphas helps a lot, and even more so having someone tough run in and let the enemies clump up good before the AoEs start flying speeds things up. Sure if you have multiple buffers and debuffers on a team you can usually skip a tank and not worry about it, but without that aggro control things will tend to get a lot more spread out. Even if no one is in any real danger you still take longer to clear a spread out spawn. And if things do go wrong, all-squishy teams tend to wipe fast unless they have massive buffs and debuffs, while melee types can help slow down that extra spawn or two for a few seconds while people regroup.

(This is assuming a standard team of 1-3 buffers/debuffers and the rest damage / tanks / EATs. Teams that are mostly or all Defenders or Corruptors tend to just obliterate everything, but your typical PUG doesn't have that level of buffage.)

I don't know about Aion, but there is (or at least was) a server side vulnerability in CoH. I had my account disabled for a few days a while back because I was told it got hacked... despite having no spyware / keyloggers (at least not unless there's one that's undetectable by multiple virus / spyware scanners) on my system and my never having visited a RMT website, answered a phishing email, or shared my account information. Several other people reported similar problems on the boards around the same time.

Whether the vulnerability is / was in the CoX login servers, the NCSoft master servers, or somewhere else I don't know. It could be something as simple as insufficient protection from brute force attacks and someone just got lucky (good luck hitting my new password that way ) or it could be someone hacked NCSoft and stole account info, or whatever. All I know is that just keeping your system clean doesn't always stop your account from being hacked. Fortunately the launcher itself shouldn't contain any account information since we enter that in the game itself... even if they use a less secure (ie, Microsoft created) API on the launcher that shouldn't make things any worse.