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@Yomo Kimyata care to explain? It isn't exactly straightforward to specify the "best spot" for all primaries, but there are two major considerations that Yomo explained.

I can offer a few 'tricks' for dealing with runners... because some things are going to run no matter what. 1) There are Epic snipes of course, These can also critical! If the Primary contains a Build Up, the Snipe canbe a potent ST attack. 2) Combat Teleport, with a targeting macro is wonderful for melee. 3) Placate (Presence pool) should stop most runners when playing solo, but I haven't tested this with Scrapper variants. The AT-specific version does stop runners, and I know the pool variation is slightly different so I can't promise this one works as well.

I always respec at 50. It is the easiest way to swap large numbers of enhancements I tend to recycle attuned PVP enhancements, non-catalyzed winters and Universal Damage pieces among pre-50s. I experiment quite a bit with powers, so while leveling I sometimes pick powers to test and/or powers I want only as mules... so power picks get shuffled via respecs when I am testing a new combination of powers. The only other thing I often use respecs for is to slot un-catalyzed enhancements into (a large number of) power picks to install crafted-but-uncatalyzed pieces into them, again to support recycling. If the AH price of a catalyzed piece is above 2M, and that piece is one I am pretty certain I'll use on a future character, I will do this using one of the many many catalysts I have on hand in order to have a previously catalyzed piece ready for a future character. The level 49 power pick and level 50 slots are convenient to use to pick a power to catalyze certain enhancement types... if I don't want that power in a final build and I am going to repsec anyway, I find it convenient to use those last four slots to catalyze extra Health, Defense, etc. pieces.

Well-motivated vitriol is one thing, but this is where I think the vitriol is confounding the argument (and the hate!) Anyone who remembers pre-ED should also know that the invention system and the Incarnate system came after ED. "Crafting" was always IMO a weird sort of add-on to CoX, since the nature of the character engine and gameplay was such that "looting" is pretty much one-sided: players can collect loot from defeating enemies, and can only "lose" loot by their own actions. And the original loot was pretty much Enhancement drops (and Inf). "Base Crafting" was IIRC the first attempt at crafting (beyond combining enhancements) and with the brief period of PvP "base combat" this was I think the only way players could actually "lose" something crafted. I mention the "crafting" because despite whatever weirdness was attempted to be bolted onto CoX, landing on craftable enhancements was a pretty good innovation IMO. I'll disclose that I *hated* the craftable enhancement system on Live (but lurv it on HC) because without a fungible approach to ingredients and recipes there was simply too many unique combinations (recipes + ingredients) to be viable for a majority of players. As for Incarnates and grinding... absolutely the Incarnate system was established as a mechanism to keep players 'grinding'. I really did not enjoy the Live days of Incarnates. I remain cold to the Incarnate part of the game even today. Many players love it! Some don't feel "complete" without it... so implementing the Incarnate system clearly was a success (by some measures). The only obvious positive I see from the Incarnate system is that whatever dopamine hits it provides end up have zero affect on the level 1-45 game, as experienced by players. It really should be no mystery that the game's engine can't really provide a scalable challenge to high-HP characters with a ("pre-nerf") Regeneration set... especially if any sort of Resistances are in play, let alone minimizing enemy ToHit chances via "Defense Softcaps" or what not. There would have to be new/updates to enemy groups 35+ to do combinations of -MaxHP, -Regeneration, -Healing in order to provide a challenge... a small amount of this was added in the HC era but not enough (by my judgement) to balance a never-dying-because-always-healing character. Those sorts of targeted debuffs would murder pretty much all ATs!

I feel that it was once CoH 'unlocked' levels 41 through 50 that the pre-ED effects of many-slotting of (Single-Origins, cuz that was the best we had) on game balance became painfully obvious. It was not just four more powers (in an era when the Fitness pool was not inherent and travel powers had to be unlocked) but all those extra slots(*1). I 100% agree with @JJDrakken that there are some serious rose-tinted perspectives on the pre-ED days. I won't deny anyone's good feels they got from ambitious slotting of certain powers, but like a lot of the early game this was IMO one of those elements that wasn't originally well-considered. I know it took a little while for the players to have characters that crept back towards (corner cases of) pre-ED performance, but long before Live's sunset we had that capability... and with HC making it straightforward for everyone to achieve just about whatever they want from the Invention system... there is no IMO reason to feel nostalgic specifically for pre-ED slotting(*2). (*1) I find it hard to describe just how much the extra slots and power picks from Issue 1 meant for *my* characters. I suddenly became less bothered about fitting Hurdle/Swift, Health, Stamina, 2 powers from a travel pool, and Hasten for quality of life... or investing slots in those to improve their performance, since I knew I'd get all those extra slots at higher levels. The Invention system (with globals and set bonuses) and the inherent Fitness pool IMO assuaged at least 95% of whatever grief folks should feel about "Enhancement Diversification". (*2) Unless of course, a player's "Regen" character was affected... but bluntly: I think the pre-ED ability to slot the Regeneration set is almost entirely the reason that set became an eternal target for the nerf bat.

/agreed. Also: Enhancements require a power choice in order to be slotted, whereas Accolade powers have no such requirement. The choice to get a power that can take Resistance uniques isn't trivial for all AT, and for those characters that choose to use one of those globals, it means that they are using a slot to sacrifice the potential for some enhancement value.

This sounds like another suggestion that is a long-ago leftover thought from a completely different era of the game... like from when Fire Tankers could get XP from DE Swarms by just standing around but Inv Tankers could not do the same.

In the Homecoming era, I see the primary advantage of the Fighting pool to be the Boxing/Kick/Cross Punch progression/unlock and not the more classic, Live-era-thinking of "gimme Tough and Weave". Weave isn't nothing (base reduction in enemy Hits by ~1-in-20) but even for my characters that have it I rarely toggle it on. Toughness has IMO fared even worse despite being AFAIK the only non-Epic way to get a pool's Resistance power with as few as two picks. S/L are common damage types, but with the broad changes to Damage type attacks it isn't quite as much of a no-brainer to push S/L resistance as high-as-possible-no-matter-what-the-caps-are. Writing only for myself: I rarely take invest in the Fighting pool if I don't want Cross Punch. Pretty much the only times I plan on the Fighting pool in the HC era for: Non-"armored" characters that won't otherwise have a Resistance power to mule enhancements, and I'm not taking Sorcery "Armor" characters that have primary/secondaries mostly devoid of Resistance powers and can use another mule power (or two) at levels 44+ I guess the second is really a subset of the first! Ultimately what works against the Fighting pool for me is the opportunity cost both in terms of power picks and slot usage... so while I understand where the sentiment of the OP is coming from, I really can't get behind it. Power pools are intended to be extra choices to flavor characters and provide slightly off-brand powers that an AT wouldn't normally have... they aren't supposed to make the game (more) easy mode.

Drive by observation on Force Fields for "Offenders": I like Force Fields because it is easy to delay/skip certain primary powers in order to lean hard(er) into the secondary attacks. I'm not a huge fan of Radiation Blast, but I love my Force Field/Beam Rifle Defender. Even with the HC changes to Force Bomb... I still don't like it. If you are trying to "proc-bomb" I absolutely would include a KB->KD piece in Force Bomb, otherwise the enemies get scattered minimizing the likelihood of another AoE attack's chances for %damage. I see why it gets a lot of love, but my dislike for Force Bomb has subtle motivations: I don't like the animation(s) Even though I opened this post with "skip/delay" FF primary powers, I mostly delay, but this one is a power I skip. If I really want an AoE %damage power that does "knock" for %damage, I'll probably lean into the Force of Will pool to get the cone Wall of Force earlier, even with the tradeoffs.

In terms of graphics, I prefer Energy Aura over Dark Armor; in terms of performance I prefer Dark Armor.... but it is close. The main issue I have with Energy Aura is this: because it is a typed Defense set, I find it takes a lot more effort in the build to get to the levels of survivability I am comfortable with... and even then against +4x8 enemies (without incarnates) my Energy Aura scrapper struggles. I almost never have issues at +0x8, unless the enemies exploit a hole or debuff me (despite the -Debuff protection) Dark Armor is resistance based, and I am personally much more comfortable knowing I will take damage and how I will mitigate that. I find it easier to simply add some positional Defense to (all) my builds. Dark Armor has one HUGE drawback, the lack of an inherent Knockback protection... this is especially problematic because Dark Regeneration (the self heal) is PBAoE and if a Dark Armor character is being flung all-over-the-place then both offense and surviving is compromised. However: I find it very easy to build in 14 points of KB from enhancements on Dark Armor: +3 points from 3xGladiator's Fury (in any PBAoE damage power, like Death Shroud) +3 points from 3xGladiator's Armor (in any Resistance toggle, like Dark Embrace) +4 points from Steadfast Protection (in any Resistance power) +4 points from either Blessing of the Zephyr or Karma (lots of mule power options) 14 points is enough for every common source of KB except the 20 points needed for FREEM! The +4 KB protection pieces are NOT unique, so I find building Dark Armor for +14 makes it easy to also hit/cross the 20 points... but keep in mind that +10 points of KB protection can be crafted at a SG base. If for some reason 14 is seen as overkill, you could go with 12 points, but I think those PVP sets are something of a no-brainer for Dark Armor.

As Homecoming has made it rather straightforward to improve Defenses across the board for all ATs (easy access to enhancements) and Resistances(*1), the places where I see an obvious difference between Blasters and Scrappers depends a LOT on the content being played. For solo: At high difficulty settings (+N), an average Scrapper will probably do better than a Blaster, because of the survival tools common to Scrapper secondaries. At high spawn sizes (x8), an average Blaster will probably do better than a Scrapper, because of the AoE (both ranged and PBAoE) common in both Blaster primaries and secondaries. There are a few niche circumstances where I think an average Scrapper will have better performance than a Blaster. I'm thinking specifically about solo play in content that will include several bosses, elite bosses, and/or AVs, when the Blaster may not have access to everything she needs to survive and fight... so things like lower level TFs where global recharge bonuses may not be available and lower level content where extra power picks needed for a Blaster's survival may not be available because the character hasn't yet picked them, or because they have exemplared down past them. I'm not saying that Blasters (especially full-kit level 50s) will struggle with such content, my sentiment is that it is more straightforward to build a Scrapper that can both survive and defeat lower level content at whatever difficultly level than for a Blaster. (*1) q.v. the lamentations about the "nerf" to Rune of Protection. Rune of Protection, pre-adjustment was effectively giving Blasters reliable and highly available levels of Protection and Resistance similar to multiple power picks from the 'armor' ATs.

Is the intent to circumvent the diminishing rewards of Empyrian Merits?

I'm (still) bitter about the destruction of Galaxy City and the loss of a favorite starting zone, but I don't see a strong reason beyond nostalgia to bring it back as it was. I agree it could have potential as a new 35-50 co-op zone. The loss of Galaxy City was (for me) just one more piece of evidence that the Live devs didn't care about preserving some fundamental "evergreen" aspects of the game (see also "Who Will Die?, Dark Astoria, Praetoria) and would ditch anything in order to tell narrow content about very specific NPC characters' 'development'. I'm mostly neutral on the Live changes to Mercy Island. I have no objection to the Faultline or Hollows Live revamps, as those didn't fundamentally change those zones (as engaged by level-appropriate characters). Similarly the HC changes to Atlas Park and Mercy Island are practically invisible (if not sweating going to another zone for AE). I am cold on the changes Live+HC to the Rikti War zone, but I get why Live revamped it.

Wow, an article about Homecoming that isn't inflammatory click bait! I wouldn't expect negative comments in an article about the only currently licensed version of the game, but I've been disappointed before. The TL; DR of the article: "Hey, this is another time a sunsetted game has been brought back and licensed, is there hope for other games?"