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Meaning that the time to slot lv20 enchancements for current 15++ ones isn't level 17, but level 18, as you'll get some benefit out of the current 15++.
If you have open slots, hit them with the new higher levels first. Once you hit 18, you can slot the 20s with 15++, making 21s.
Basically, don't replace "maxed" slots unless you don't have any free ones.
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I'll agree with your final statement here, but not the first. There's no good reason to go through, e.g., level 17 with yellow enhancements when you could be buying shiny new green ones. Not buying any until they're combinable doesn't buy you any additional effective time, it just delays the first purchase.
When you do buy them, though, it is definitely wiser to combine existing enhancements with each other where possible than it is to unnecessarily trash enhs by replacing them with level+3 enhs.
not really...there is no exp penalty for SKing. you get the exp for the level you are fighting at currently. your logic would also say you get an exp penalty for leveling.
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2. Don't chase runners. They'll come back. It's way too easy to aggro a second group or do as I did yesterday and run into a trio of lvl 35 Nemesis just hanging out in Steel Canyon while chasing a runner.
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An extension. If you have Radiation Infection or Enervating field or something similar on a runner, shut it off as the debuffs will aggro other groups too.
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Extension extension. If you WANT to draw a huge huge huge crowd of baddies for watever reason, Radiation infection is a good 'net' as it pisses off enemies bad enough to chase you, but doesn't harm them enough to trigger the urge to flee from inescapable damage.
You can combine DO enhancements of different origins... sorta.
The way this works if you are, say, Science origin and you have a power slotted with a sci/mut damage enh for instance. You can combine any other /sci DO damage. A tech/sci DO and a sci/mut DO would combine just as if they were the same type. The slotted enh would take on the "appearance" of the highest enhancement or the one already slotted if they were the same level. This goes for all DO's as long as one of the /origins is your origin and they do the same thing. damage/damage, acc/acc. You get the idea. Forgive me if this doesnt make much sense. Im tired and have a headache.
That some fifth turn into werewolves. I encountered this on the sister psyche tf..My group had a good laugh at my reaction for about 10 minutes.
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I like your enhancing strategy. My addition to it: when you hit 27, do not wait for 28 to buy your level 30 SOs so you can combine them. Start buying 30 SOs right away, and keep going until you fill up. If you hit 28 before you fill them all out, great.
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One other addendum...
If you have multiple enhancements of the same type (like more than one damage) on a power, and you're not replacing all of them with new SOs, you can combine them This frees up a slot for the new SO, and increases the effectiveness of the old one. It's not much, but it can save you a little.
For example, at 27 you have the following on an attack power
Dam25 Dam25 Dam25
Click on it for the combining screen and combine two of the damage enhancements. Then add the SO in the empty slot. You then have
Dam25+ Dam25 Dam30
I know, it's not much, but it's better than just trashing them.
Member of the OMNI SuperGroup!
Heroes: CaduKaos, AuricFyre
Villains: Lost Widow, Asphault
My Crey Profiles
Clicking on pedestrians whose names begin with certain letters will tell you certain things. Such as what the current time is, how many total hours you have on your character (my personal favorite), paragon city time, etc. A nice little touch.
SweetThang
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Air Superiority - nothing to add here....
Assault and Tactics - If you are not a defender or controller stay clear of these..the 7% buff is not worth it. Why does this power pool penalize you for your AT choice??? No other power pool does this !!
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Air Superiority has uses for a flying defender or controller, or any AT for that matter. ItÂ’s ok because it can knock down flyers. It can also knock down mobs on the ground with a high probability.
As for Assault and Tactics and the unfair bonus, Scrappers and Tankers do more damage and have more of a benefit from the fighting pool than the other ATs.
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Any more specific directions to this store? I haven't been able to find it ...
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The Freedom Corp "store" is in the park with Mynx the trainer and ... Positron? One of the Task Force heroes. Basically, go down the tram ramp and follow a walkway immediately to your right out to the street. Just ahead and a little to the right is a stone-walled-in park. Head in there, Mynx is off ahead and to the right (I think), and the FC person is around behind the TF hero. Just stay inside the walls and you'll find them eventually (they're dressed in the flashy red/white outfits, so they should stand out). There may be an actual FC store building somewhere, but the guy in the park should give the same prices and is very convenient. 
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not really...there is no exp penalty for SKing. you get the exp for the level you are fighting at currently. your logic would also say you get an exp penalty for leveling.
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First off, no, when sked you don't simply get xp based on your clev. A 23 sked to 25 gets xp as if they were 23 and fighting enemies two levels lower than they actually are (because they're fighting two levels higher than their actual level), just like the levels of any drops they receive are reduced by two. A 23 killing a 25 while sked to 25 gets the same xp as a non-sked 23 killing a 23, not the same as a non-sked 25 killing a 25. (XP inflation at higher levels would make this an incredible exploit if you just got xp as if you were your clev - a lvl 2 could sk to a 50 and gain multiple levels from one kill.)
Secondly, yes, if you really want to push it, I would say that there is an XP penalty for being more experienced. I accept that it should take more to gain levels as you become more powerful and there are two obvious ways to do this: Increase the XP required per level or reduce the XP gained from a given task (e.g., killing a lvl 5 minion). You definitely have to do one or the other (or come up with something completely different, but I'm not aware of any commonly-used third option), but I don't like systems that do both. That sort of double-whammy really bothers me... But at this point, we're moving into a more general game design discussion instead of good things to know about CoH, so I'll just leave it at that.
Talos Island is the best place for selling enhancements all the stores are reasonably close 25+ mobs though
I love this thread and I really wish it had been up when I was starting out. Here are some of the best comments I've seen (some are flat out cut and pasted, some use my own wording). As well as a couple I completely disagree with.
Things I learned completely by accident:
- You can combine two enhancements that are already locked in a power.
- The space bar sends you straight up while in flight.
- When fighting Sky Raiders look for and attack the Raider Engineers first. If they are attacked (taunted, provoked, whatever) they won't setup a force field generator, which make you miss 9 ways to Sunday.
- No matter how high of a building you jump off of, you can't die from it. (Which makes for a fun game. How close to the ground can you get before hitting hover?)
- Putting heal buff enhancements on Rest is useless. I wasted extra slots on this as well. Use recharge enhancements.
- Clicking the "Mission Completed" message on the top display will transport you out of the mission. I think I was level 8 before I learned this lesson.
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Things I completely disagree with
- Missions are terrible exp.
Missions are almost always full of white baddies and some yellows. An occasional same level boss is thrown in. Don't stay away from missions because you can hunt +1 or +2 levels above you. They are great fun. I take great pride in the fact I have 13-15 souvenirs at level 31.
- Debt is not a big deal, unless you only do missions.
Debt isn't a big deal period... unless you die over and over and are in a constant state of debt. In this case, rethink the way you play... or whine and moan about it in these forums. The latter must work... I see so much of it.
- You can't change your super group colors or symbol.
Actually you can, but it ain't for the weak of heart. First, get everyone out of the supergroup. If there are no members to the supergroup then it can be recreated as if it were new. Granted, this is more viable during the supergroup creation than when there are 75 members, but that's all we've got for now.
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Other random thoughts
- There really are powers that are not worth taking...ever.
Someone wanted to know which ones. As a blaster who has made this mistake don't take the Leadership power pool. As someone else has already said - if you are not a defender or controller stay clear of these..the 7% buff is not worth it. I'm very upset over my choice here. Luckily I'll go through the Terra Volta Trials as soon as the next issue comes out. Hopefully the rumors are true and I'll get to dump the entire pool and pickup something useful like Medicine or Conceal.
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The most important tips I've seen
- Ignore the jerks. They can't ruin your fun unless you let them. (I couldn't have said it better myself.)
- The stanima power in the fitness power pool is one of the most powerfull powers of them all.
If you take nothing way from this entire thread know that the Fitness Pool is your best friend. Build your hero so that you can take Stamina at lvl 20 (the earliest you can get it). Six slot Stamina as soon as you can. Just get Heath and either of the other powers to get to Stamina. Don't bother with all 3, but at least get Health. Its not as great as Stamina, but it ain't bad.
That's all my thoughts for now.
Striker -HTF
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4. Sprint uses end yes but not as much as others turn it off in combat if you must but as you get more end and ways to replenishg it you may leave it on for quick step to catch a retreating enemy
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Flaw in this statement: You NEVER get more than 100 end. Most people get stamina in their character build, so get swift as the pre-req. Put a couple run speeds into swift, and sprint becomes largely unneeded since swift costs no end and cannot be shut off by stuns.
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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Melee attacks do 3 times the damage on average compared to Ranged attacks.
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That depends entirely on the enemies you fight. At low levels melee is more dangerous than ranged combat, but that changes in the low to mid 20s for some villian groups.
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One word: Snipers. x.x
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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Clicking the "Mission Completed" message on the top display will transport you out of the mission.
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The first time I saw this in action at the end of a team mission I sent a message to the team saying "were did everyone go, you guys just disapeared". It makes geting out of those crazy maze caves so much easier.
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How do people not know this? It tells you specifically that's how you get out of a mission in the tutorial. *sigh* It'd do a lot of people a lot of good if they actually read these things.
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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How do people not know this? It tells you specifically that's how you get out of a mission in the tutorial. *sigh* It'd do a lot of people a lot of good if they actually read these things.
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And that, my friend, is why the phrase/acronym RTFM is so commonly used you see it on T-Shirts! 
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How do people not know this? It tells you specifically that's how you get out of a mission in the tutorial. *sigh* It'd do a lot of people a lot of good if they actually read these things.
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And that, my friend, is why the phrase/acronym RTFM is so commonly used you see it on T-Shirts!
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I used to work tech support for DirecTV. YOu wouldn't believe the number of calls I got about things that were explained in actual simple english specifically in their manual (Programming the remote, etc). 9 out of 10 times, the customer had never even opened the manual and had, in fact, THROWN IT IN THE TRASH with the box and packing material. *sigh*
But, yeah, back in my EQ days, the patch messages are displayed in the launcher window every time there's a patch. Without fail, there'd be /ooc's (/broadcast's EQ equivalent) asking about a new feature that was explained plain as day in the patch message. *eyeroll* I swear, there should be quizzes you have to pass about these things before they allow you to play every time. Even if one doesn't RTFM, they should at least go looking for the answers before asking... Learn to try to help yourself before asking others to do it for you, says I.
Anyway, derail done. We now return you to the actually useful info...
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
some good info in here. I'll add a few tips for getting up buildings, since that's a particularly interesting topic for me (for some reason).
Ascending Fire-escapes : hold down your right-mouse button to steer (assuming you haven't rebound it). You can rip up a fire-escape in no time (or a stair-case, whatever) by steering with your mouse and not the keyboard. Actually, steer with your mouse most of the time and you'll find you have much, much more control than with the keyboard.
By-passing fire-escapes. With absolutely no jump enhancements or powers, one can leap up the side of a good number of the buildings, especially the ol' brick "apartment" buildings with relative ease. This may be a bit tricky to explain but with a little practice, it's easy as pie.
First you have to be at a building that actually has a bottom edge you can jump to, that should be a given.
Run at the side of the building from an angle, leap up while still moving and you should land on an edge. Keep the space-bar depressed and continue to "run" at the building at an angle. You should find yourself jumping up and to the side, catching an edge on the next level up.
As you approach the side of the building, switch your angle of incident (that means angle yourself towards the other side of the wall you're going up) and you should switch directions while still maintaining upward movement (or you'll go sailing off of the side of the building since you didn't change directions early enough). Continue to do this, zig-zagging your way up the side of the building until you reach the top.
Note to Superspeeders, you can do this REALLY fast, BUT if you don't let-off as you crest the top of the wall, you'll totally over-jump the roof and go right over the far-side of the building.
Other handy-tips:
Click the arrow on the team-window. It will roll-out additional info about your teammates. It will tell you where a teammate is when they are in a different zone and what buffs they have when they are in the same zone.
Simply click a teammates name in the team window to select them (and set them as a waypoint. 
)
/bind , "nop" to clear that damn default "/tell $target" key. I always seem to hit this at the most in-opportune times. The syntax /bind <key> "nop" will clear a bind for whatever key you specify.
Right-click a teammate (or their name in the team window) and select "Info" to see exactly what powers that person has. Don't waste time by asking teammates to stop and tell you what they can do.
A good pull is when the monster comes far enough from his group that the rest of his buddies can't see or hear him counter-attack. Too often I see a really good pull get nixed because the team doesn't back off far enough to get the target out of range of his friends. Once the rest of the group sees their minion buddy open fire on something, they all wake up and attack too.
Not sure this has been posted.. but I discovered this using the map patch (love it love it love it). The use of thumbtacks.
While in the map, right click on a location and voila! a thumbtack will appear on the map as well as the compass in your nav screen. You will even be given a range-to-target on the view screen, just like any other waypoint.
To remove, simply right click over it again. Very useful when going to the stores on the map patch.
Some very basic things I was stupid enough not to realize when I began the game (in no particular order).
You don't need to run through Independence Port to get to King's Row. You can take the tram. Duh.
You can run up the ramps below the bridges in Kings Row (and get on top of the bridges). The width of the ramp looks too narrow, but you can do it.
You will at first be unable to find Circle of Thorns in Kings Row. Don't worry about it, it's not your fault. It's the devs' fault. The devs should have to find Circle of Thorns in Kings Row each Friday before receiving their paychecks. Then things would get better.
You can walk on the telephone lines, though sometimes its hard to get on them.
Don't use an awaken if you are within sight of an enemy mob. You will be disoriented when you awaken, unable to take any action, and you will be killed again.
If you are dying too much, or not leveling fast enough, or simply not having fun, it may well be because you have chosen poor powers. As said elsewhere in the thread, there are some powers that are comparatively worthless. The manual will not tell you this, the devs will not tell you this, but it is true. But don't give up on the game, there are powers that actually do work and are fun. EVERYONE rerolls at some point.
Most players know less about the game than you do, regardless of how little you believe you know. This is hard to believe, I know. But it is true.
You will die more often in groups than solo. Always.
If you are in Perez Park, you will always die more often in large groups than in small groups. Always.
You will be trapped and die at least once inside the woods of Perez Park, regardless of whether you are grouping or not. This is not your fault. It is the devs' fault. The keys to the devs' cars should be placed inside the woods at Perez Park every morning at 7 am. Then things would get better.
At some point, you can CALL your contact instead of physically travelling to their location. Duh.
Some missions are "front-loaded" with the tougher monsters first and the weaker monsters later.
Glowies emit a throbbing sound when you are close by.
You can click on the "Mission Accomplished" green letters to exit the mission. You don't have to run back to the door. Duh.
The "follow" command will not effectively jump your character over fences, go up stairwells, etc. Don't expect it to function unattended.
And one more: Galaxy City is a better starting point than Atlas because a) you don't have to run around the fences encircling that darn industrial park, and b) Gemini Park is the best early char farming ground.
You DEFINITELY can not read English. He didn't say controllers couldn't beat minions down. He said tankers were better at the act of controlling than controllers, which is debatable, but at least pay attention.
>Combustion - I guess if you six slot this bad boy...but honestly I've never seen it deal massive dmg...am I wrong?)
Combustion is not GIMP.
It's AOE damage. Massive? No. But moderate, yes.
#1 for Tankers using fire, this provides an AOE damage ability. This is HUGE!
#2 for Blasters this provides another AOE attack. It's unpleasant to have to get in close, but I have seen MANY blasters that rely on it as part of their AOE sequence that flattens every enemy in a group. You can NEVER have too much AOE.
It's not AMAZING, but it's hardly a "gimp" power.
wish i had known that binding and macros was so easy!
simple phrases like "gather" are now only 1 button away and people dont complain bout missing the buffs. plus there are kickin flying binds that will improve gameplay.
so go out and look for binding ideas. make your keyboard helpful and manageable.
If you have fly or hover, you can travel faster by angling down by 45 degrees and holding space ("up") and forward. The vectors combine.
Whether this is true or not, I'm not sure. But it certainly FEELS like I'm travelling faster when I do that - perhaps it's an optical illusion.
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And a final summary of the summary..
Sidekicking does not penalise your xp. But if you are killing enemy+3 unsidekicked, then start killing enemy+1 sidekicked, you will obviously get less XP. That is the way of the XP system.
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Oh, I get how it works. We're really just debating semantics here...
I look at it and see that I got X xp for killing a level 26 while sked and Y xp for killing an identical mob while not sked, where X < Y. Since doing the exact same thing netted fewer xp while sked than while not sked, I call that an xp penalty.
You look at it and see that the mob was +1 to my combat level when sked and +3 when not sked, then reason that it's appropriate for a level 26 (+1 to clev) when sked to give the same xp as a level 24 (also +1 to clev) when not sked, so, therefore, there is no penalty.
It's all just a matter of perspective.