biostem

Generally speaking, if you go from a weapon attack to a non-weapon one, you put your weapons away, (the only exceptions I can think of are brawl or the origin attacks). At the same time, and from my understanding, the redraw time is included in the attack animation, so whether you have the weapon drawn already or not, the actual attack will still take the same amount of time to animate.

Here's a slight recolor, with more of a dull white coloration on the bone parts and weapons: barbarian concept4.costume

I kind of went with more of a barbarian/low fantasy vibe, but I think it can be easily argued that he updated or adapted his look a little bit as time went on: barbarian concept2.costume

No, but they do get willpower, which beyond boosting resists and providing some defense, also boosts regeneration.

AFAIK, there is a human-form equivalent of all Nova/Dwarf attacks/abilities, so a toggle that replaces your costume with either a different one or one of some pre-selected ones, (assuming those use a humanoid form), shouldn't be too difficult...

I look at it like this: Since you are playing a duo, you want a more generalized pool of abilities to draw from. To that end, you want damage, buffs/debuffs, and a way to keep the enemies' attention. Defenders have the greatest buff/debuff values, but lose some damage as a result. A corruptor is in a sweet spot, having a bit more damage while still retaining good buff/debuff values. A brute can certainly fill the role of keeping the enemies' attention while dealing good damage, but their inherent, (fury), also means that you want to keep moving and fighting, which may make you reckless and less strategic/more likely to get in over your head. A tanker has better defensive values and aggro-management abilities, so they're the safer option. I tend to prefer controllers over dominators, since they have controls and buffs/debuffs, rather than more attacks, but that's just me. A controller/brute could fair quite nicely so long as the controller knows who to lock down, where best to apply their buffs/debuffs, and the brute goes after the "problem" enemies first.

Cut the required mats for sub-25 generic IOs to only 1-2 pieces, slash their crafting cost in inf, and that should help a bit. The issue, beyond that, is people looking at 50+, or even purple IO sets and using those as the baseline. Another part of the issue, IMO, is getting hung up on the per cent increase vs the absolute increase. For instance, going from 1% to 2% is a "huge" 100% increase, but in an absolute sense it doesn't really mean much. There's also a bit of an "illusory" notion of lower level IOs being less useful because a level 20 SK'd up to 49 still can't hit reliably against those +5 enemies they're up against. Really, it's a matter of someone's subjective experience, and rather than understand the reasons why they are missing so much or getting hit all the time, they'd rather be PL'd to 50, farm for cash to fully kit themselves out, then complain that there's nothing to do...

Well, do you 2 want to be somewhat dependent on each other, or independent and simply working side-by-side? If you want the former, maybe something like a fire/thermal corruptor and an ice/ice tanker. If the latter, maybe an ice/ice and fire/fire sentinel.

I assume it means slotting as many of these enhancements with special effects in order to maximize both your survivability and damage-dealing capability. For instance, slotting taunt with the perfect zinger and triumphant insult special IOs can make it into an AoE damage/disorient ability.

I gotta be honest - I have very little interest in the clean sci-fi aesthetic, (outside of the more farcical/satirical take found in Portal 1&2), not to mention the world doesn't seem to have very much character to it. Fallout 76 has let me down as of these last few months, but CoH is more than enough for me for the time being...

Kinda seems more like he'd be a necro/pain/soul mastermind... On a somewhat related note, I tend to weigh concept over actual effectiveness, so if you want to stick to blasters, maybe dark blast? Also, I rather like the earth manipulation or devices secondaries, so give them a look...

I mean, you could go to the Hive or the Abyss, try to solo some of the monsters there, then try to solo Hamidon. On a more realistic level, the far north of the Rikti War Zone has some pretty tough groups of 54 enemies, and there's always the Pylons you can test your mettle against.

You can get thugs and mercs of different skin tones, so there is some variation possible. MM customization is something highly sought after, so in general I'm in favor of it...

"Resist" and "Defense" were probably not the best ways to describe the differing ways the armor sets function- it's better to look at whether a set helps you avoid damage or whether it just reduces it. That being said... Ice armor is supposed to create a barrier that prevents damage, hence defense. Fire armor takes the hits head-on and just lessens what makes it through, so resist. Dark actually has a little of both, plus other tool, like fear & disorientation. Invulnerability similarly layers, therefore resists, defense, etc.

I have a kin/elec defender which is quite good at "sapping" enemies. The key, IMO, is stacking -end, -rec, and -rech/slow effects to really maximize the end product.

Beyond the complexity issue with "either-or" type powers, as mentioned before, Kheldians get a lot of free powers by taking the forms, with the tradeoff being that they can't get everything at once. Kheldians are, by intent and design, a "jack of all trades, master of none". You want to go human-only, fine - there are ways to compensate for the lack of status protection in dwarf form or damage in nova form, especially when you factor in the invention and incarnate systems.

The only place slotting the ATOs really matters is with Critical Strikes, since it has a proc rate of 2 or 3 times per minute, (so you'll want an attack with roughly the same recharge, or some convenient fraction thereof). Scrapper's Strike is just a passive bonus to crit chance for all your powers, so it really wouldn't matter where you slot that one. I think a better question would be what other melee or tohit debuff sets might serve you better.

Absolutely not! The game should NOT take away my character's autonomy unless they are actively under a mez effect or I choose to move them around. You are free to move and jump around as much as you like, to go along with your interpretation of them actively dodging. The only person forcing your character to stand there doing nothing is yourself!

Perhaps, which is why you need to be both computer savvy enough to work on your own machine and to only buy from reputable resellers. I also favor freshly installing Windows to avoid any undesirable software that may remain on said machine, either by accident or intentionally, (though this also goes back to my "only buy from reputable" comment).

It is a lot cheaper. Some people are hesitant about loading games or other "non-productivity" software on their main computer. If you are in a household where, for instance, you have other people that work from home, attend classes, or do any of a number of other online activities, you may want a completely separate environment where the activities of others will never impact how the machine performs.

The alternate animation options would have to become locked-out if you took shield as your secondary - basically a more specific extension of the aforementioned restrictions.

Now I'm hungry. Thanks a lot! 😡

Not really - it'd just be excluded from being taken along with shield, like other powersets already are...

Primary: Fire for pure damage. Secondary: Devices, since I prefer staying at range, and it offers stealth, some area denial tools, a great tohit buff toggle, and a pet! APP/PPP: Mace Mastery, since who doesn't love a defense shield and some cute widdle spiderlings to clean your room!

If you are at all handy with computers, buy a used tower, (from a reputable seller), then a mid-priced graphics card, (new or used, your choice), and you'll be set to play CoH for life. No need to break the bank or go through multiple layers of emulation or the like. Heck, you could even pick up a cheap KVM switch and stick with your other computer to get the best of both worlds...