biostem

And if you're really old... 3-2-1 CONTACT!

The issue is giving everyone another free power. I think a better option might be to allow players to tag one of their primary/secondary/pool powers as their "signature power", but with some caveats - Like maybe said power gains a special effect when you are low on health or end, maybe it does way more damage but recharges much more slowly. Maybe it costs no end but has a much longer animation, etc. All of these ideas are nice and all, but when it comes right down to it, I simply do not want to further water down the significance of our already fairly broad ability to select from a wide range of powers. Another idea could be to expand upon the origin-specific starter powers we're already given; Increase the options available to us, (maybe some elemental choices, a simple handgun, etc), allow us to select the specific one we want, and allow it to be slotted.

I would go dual pistols and radiation armor, then pick from the fighting pool. Use your pistols as needed, but focus on the melee attacks. You also get another PBAoE from radiation armor that also heals your allies. The electricity mastery APP also has a melee attack and a damage aura if you really want to ramp up the melee capabilities of your character, as well as an AoE immob and even a chaining heal. Dark mastery also has a melee attack, a PBAoE click, and a toggle debuff that can really aid in keeping you in the fight. I'm a bit partial to ninja tool mastery, though - you get a ranged version of caltrops, a ST sword attack, a PBAoE sword attack, a ranged ST hold, and even a PBAoE placate with some other debuffs attached, if you really wanted to maximize things...

All I ask of my MM teammates is that they don't block doorways or other such chokepoints. Beyond that, play whatever brings you the most happiness!

With a bit of power customization, (possibly including adding more animation options), you can basically turn any power into your "signature power". From what the OP described, it kind of sounds like having the equivalent of a T9 power, only with a longer cooldown and atypical slotting system, while costing no additional power picks, is what they're after.

...ring to rule them all?

Well, there are a few ways you can go with this. For instance, something like a traps/elec defender can basically lay down their traps every once in a while and let their voltaic sentinel, shield gen, acid mortar, and triage beacon do the heavy lifting, only needing to refresh them every so often...

You also get respecs fairly regularly as you level up, and even as part of the post-50 "Veteran levels", not to mention that you have 3 builds to play around with at 50, which while confined to the same primary & secondary sets, can have different regular or ancillary/patron power pools and enhancement slotting, so don't feel like one wrong pick ruins the character.

I routinely lead and take the alpha on +4/x8 radios for teams that I lead. The catch is to play intelligently and leverage the tools you have at your disposal. For instance, utilize your vulnerability inherent as often as possible to maximize the damage you and your team deals. Pick a primary and secondary that you both enjoy playing and that gel with your playstyle. Know when to employ your AoEs and when to focus on single target attacks. While blasters may possess overall higher damage, a sentinel can basically ignore most attackers in favor of dealing more and more damage...

I use a small preset of commands I use on all my characters. The once I can recall off the top of my head are: /bind numpad6 "ah" [This brings up the auction house] /bind numpad9 "manage" [This brings up my enhancement management screen] /bind z "powexecname ninja run$$powexecname beast run$$powexecname athletic run" [This toggles the special run power you can get from the P2W vendor] /bind r "powexecname jump pack$$powexecname steam jump" [This toggles the special jump power from the P2W vendor] I saved the above into a "basicbinds" file, which I then load on any new characters I create to get them off to a good start...

Maybe make it so you can cast your triage beacon or spirit tree on your shield generator or fly trap, respectively, to allow them to be mobile...

Storm blast may need some help, but I do *not* want every single blast set to have to fall in direct parity with each other; Storm's schtick is laying down your storm cell and taking advantage of the additional damage/effects your other powers produce when cast within it. If you aren't doing that, then you aren't taking full advantage of the set. Been much talked about. My understanding is that the animation work, which takes the most time, is what's left to do on it. The opposite of "dark" in CoH is energy. You have rad and energy blast, to that end. Electricity is the closest to an energy control set. Maybe we need a radiation control set, though. Maybe, somewhere down the line, we could get some customization for beast MMs, and get bears of various varieties as options for the animals summoned.

The WIKI doesn't say, specifically, but from what I could gather, he seemed like a giant-sized person who was similarly super strong and durable...

Give an earth control/pain domination controller a try; You have some excellent support powers and a wide array of other powers to support your teammates. You also get a pretty durable pet later on, which can also benefit from your buffs while solo. It's a fun and infrequently-encountered combo if you're looking for something distinct, to boot!

That's kind of the point, though - some powers deal more direct damage, (so therefore don't need the setup required to trigger containment in the first place). Even AVs, IIRC, have a hole to immobilizes. Yes, a few sets lack an immob, but that is also generally compensated for via some other aspect of said power set. This is a sort of "meta-issue", in that some powers deal damage via a "pseudo-pet", so there really wouldn't be a way to have them trigger containment. I suppose they could try to give said pseudo-pet its own form of containment, but that may cause more problems than it solves... TBH, what I'd like to see is to have containment provide some bonus if an enemy is simply impacted by the debuffing effects of the controller's primary powers, instead of only when they are fully under the effects of a controlling power...

What about something like a street justice/willpower scrapper, then take body mastery for laser beam eyes. Just fully slot it so it's always available, since cyclops is also a trained hand-to-hand fighter...

Try a katana/ninjitsu scrapper, or if you're feeling a bit more adventurous, try a titan weapon or war mace/ninjitsu scrapper. I have tried them all and they're rather fun. Alternatively, give a zombie/cold mastermind a try. Lastly, I've had good results with an earth control/pain domination controller, (though this one only really shines on a team, IMHO).

I'm mainly interested in darkest night, so soul mastery seems like the better choice, since you can get it sooner, but dark mastery has a faster-animating hold and a PBAoE damage attack. From my experience, other than for a bit of flavor or as expendable cannon fodder, the PPP pets are kind of useless. What are your thoughts? Thanks for reading!

Without the double XP buff and just doing some street-sweeping around AP, you can get to 6-7 in about an hour. After reaching 6 or so, one can wander around in AP and do a bit more - picking groups carefully, you can then probably get to 10 via another hour or so. If you want a safer option, going to SC can probably achieve the same result, give or take another 30 mins - 1 hr. It may be quicker to do the early story arcs, but there is also a lot of travel between instances which may take more time, (though the mini-arc and mission completion XP may more than make up for that added downtime).

The only catch would be that they'd have to limit the sleeve portion as there are simply too many options to potentially match it too. Maybe just a generic tights option, and maybe the stone/metallic patterns as well...

Planned? No official word on that, but pet/minion customization has been a highly requested feature...

On the flip side, there's the process of learning from your mistakes. Especially with an unfamiliar game that has multiple classes/archetypes, it should be SOP to try different types of characters to get a general idea of how things function. It's also incumbent on players nowadays to, y'know, ask for help or look stuff up online...

I'm not sure how things like choosing to skip the tutorial or selecting one of the "epic archetypes" as a new player is a knock against the game. Consider, for instance, that you used to need at least 1 level 50 in order to unlock the EATs. The game, AFAIK, does introduce you to the "con system" that talks about targeting and enemy difficulty levels, so not sure how one would confuse an enemy with an NPC. I've tried showing younger folks how to play, and in general it seems to be a combination of unfamiliarity with WASD controls, impatience, and them wanting the game to explicitly point everything out for them...

Welcome aboard! I would suggest telling us about the kind of character you want to play; Mainly, do you want to use a particular element? A weapon? Ranged or melee? Any special considerations?

The problem with PvP, IMO, is that there is really only what the game engine does and does not allow you to do; There is no system in place to enforce "fair play" besides what the game itself permits. I'd much rather participate in PvP with a better sense of weight classes or other such systems - pretty much anything that prevents things from degrading into "whomever has the biggest purse wins".