biostem

It also provides a tohit buff, and can take Gaussian's IIRC.

That hover you get after each TP *is* the bonus power. Clearly other forms of TP do not include this hover period...

The game only allows 2 colors per costume piece, unless it has the customization disabled and the colors "baked in". Still, this could be quite stunning!

I would love to see LRM replaced with something like seismic blast's meteor power, except you call in a missile strike instead...

Dark Miasma has a good variety of tools that you can use while solo or teamed. Tar patch now also applies a -RES effect to enemies, making it a great AoE debuff. You also get a PBAoE stealth, a cone fear, a heal centered around yourself, and even a cool pet as your T9, (which is available even sooner due to a recent change in what levels you gain access to each tier of power).

Weapon customization?

On top of what's been said, NPCs use end "differently", in that the end cost of their powers, and their pool of available end, vary quite a bit from how players utilize these resources. Basically, regular enemies tend to die before any end sapping becomes worthwhile, usually getting off their alpha strike beforehand. Tougher enemies, like EBs and AVs, tend to have very high recovery and larger end reserves, so unless you sap 100% of their end and halt any recovery at all, they'll still attack with full force. On top of that, they don't have toggles to drop should you bottom them out, so it's not really like they'll be much weaker. Stacking holds and slows tends to, IMO, be more effective against such enemies...

The animated stone from earth control is very tough and hits pretty hard. The only issue I've had with it is that you kind of have to drag it into enemies, since it, (and most pets, really), tend to lag behind you. If you paired a stealth IO with the stealth power, you can probably get it to initiate combat before the enemies see you. I also find earth control to be both a versatile and powerful set in its own right. I have an earth/pain controller that is very fun to play, and both world of pain and painbringer make for a potent combo on any target!

Build for recharge so you can keep your phantom army out at all times, and you're set. Just keep in mind you can't buff those particular pets, so you may want to pair it with a secondary that instead debuffs the enemy's damage resistance.

Well, for instance, if you're gonna take fistful of arrows, and if it counts as a ranged AoE attack, an Annihilation chance for -RES could work nicely. If your secondary is trick arrow, then the entropic chaos chance to heal self could fill in a bit for the lack of a self heal. Frankly, though, I'd worry about slotting your attacks after all the other mainstays are taken care of...

TBH, I take the attack for their added effect more than the damage they do, (which is still nice). The -res from merc AR attacks, the extra crit chance from ninja archery ones, and the temporary pet summons from necro dark blasts all assist you and your pets, but I wouldn't say you have to worry too much about particular slotting - maybe just an acc or 2 to start...

I have a 50 en/en stalker, and she's quite good.

My issue with AR has more to do with it trying to do too many things at once, (AKA being a "Frankengun"), instead of being a really good assault rifle. For instance, you could have a series of short controlled bursts for cone attacks, instead of a shoehorned-in shotgun blast and magic flamethrower. Have it ablate the target's armor, thereby imparting small but stacking -DEF and -RES with every attack. You could include W.P. or explosive ammo if you wanted to add a bit of a different damage type and some more AoEs. Maybe give the set a unique mechanic where all attacks start with a few charges, and it requires no end to use powers with charges, but you have to expend end to reload your weapon. In short, it's not, (at least IMHO), that AR is a bad set that causes me to not play it, it's that it doesn't really feel like an AR at all to me...

They are part of Black Scorpion's patron arc - basically, Crey got a hold of his suit schematics and tried making their own knockoffs. AFAIK, it is just a Crey Power tank with an additional attack from the tail. If that is the case, then the question you need to ask yourself is whether you want both the melee and ranged energy attacks, (go with a blaster), or if you want to be tougher, and get melee attacks elsewhere, (like a sentinel with energy blast and maybe air superiority or some fighting melee attacks).

The vast majority of teams, in my experience, don't stop to read the mission text, much less contemplate the greater scope/ramifications of the TF at hand. Sending your team members to different zones to get the "defeat X" missions done in no way reinforces the plot, and the groups are hardly interacting with one-another anyway - you're literally picking off random mobs. An instanced mission on an outdoor map, where you actually see all the groups interacting, would get the point across much more effectively...

Teams typically split up the hunt missions which basically make them trivial. How would limiting them to only a few groups in the same zone diminish the story being expressed? Do players really feel the in-fighting or such you mentioned, with how things are run nowadays?

There are many Task or Strike Forces, particularly the ones created earlier-on in CoH's lifespan, that have a bunch of redundant/repetitive missions, that seem to be there more to pad out the length of said TF than to actually add to the story in any meaningful way. For instance, Citadel has a bunch of "defeat all" missions back to back, as well as several "investigate X" missions that become "defeat all" once you interact with the objective. What is gained by having them setup this way, other than to waste the players' time? If you were to change the "Investigate" missions to complete once that goal is achieved, or outright remove a few of the "defeat all" missions, would the story that is trying to be told be lost? Does Numina really need you to defeat 10+ members of 13 different factions? Would limiting it to maybe only defeating 5 enemies of a few groups that can be found in the same zone hamstring the story that's being told? I get that I can simply *not* run these TFs, but I feel like many people do these simply because they are prerequisites for accolades...

Why do people want these limitations imposed externally? Is there some *other* reason as to why they cannot control the manner in which they play for themselves?

So I rolled up a new water/storm corruptor, and am looking for general advice on how to play them effectively. I'm a little unclear on if powers like steamy mist or hurricane are powers you leave on all the time, whether there are any skippable powers, and which powers become your mainstays. Thanks for reading!

I would say this varies drastically by AT or even powerset - many armor sets, for instance, have "boring" powers, that while useful in that they are necessary to keep your character on their feet, aren't visually impressive or "cool", whereas on something like a blaster, every new attack is an opportunity to beef up your attack rotation or pull off some impressive feat...

Maybe the degree of care taken in the conversion process has some influence on the outcome - so just tossing a rando into the process results in a nearly mindless and feral warwolf, but one where the candidate is carefully selected, tested, conditioned, and otherwise prepped for the process results in one with their mind intact... just guessing, here.

Some people have this weird notion that, even though YOU are doing THEM a favor, they expect you to go about it in a very specific way. Even though a few bad apples may spoil the bunch, keep in mind that even a bad bunch doesn't spoil the orchard...

One of the human-form attacks does carry over to Nova form - the eye-beams, IIRC...

I don't think the person mentioned in the OP was a newbie. My read was that they probably weren't satisfied with the rate of XP gain or simply with the farming method employed by the OP, and just ragequit...

You'll get many answers - mine is that you do your thing, and buff teammates when it's convenient for you. You can be a "helicopter parent" and chase down each and every team member to make sure they're buffed, but at some point, you have to let those that break off from the rest of the team know that you're not going to be their personal guardian angel and follow them around like some loyal puppy...