Six-Six

You start off as a Huntsman with AR + Nades. You get a nice mix of ST and AoEs as well as a couple of melee, an imobilise power and def + res debuffs. You also get the better version of leadership, and enough res until your path change. When you hit level 24, you will be asked to respec and choose a path, or continue if you fancy the AR. Then you can choose the Crab path. You can still pick powers from the Huntsman and just fix the animation in the tailor so that your attacks fire from the crab legs instead of pulling out a gun. (you can also do this for the mace if you opt for Bane). For example, you can pick Burst (ST) and Heavy Burst (AoE) and have it animate from the crab back pack. Once you go Crab, all of your costume options will have the Crab Back Pack as a default costume piece, even if you have an alternative build. As a crab, you can go Slicer (melee ST,AoE + ranged AoE), Webmaster (ranged ST + ranged AoE), or Crabbermind... or your own mix of powers depending on your play style or fetish. Costume-wise, I personally prefer the standard issue crab armour, but nothing's stopping you from crafting your own unique look.

Awesome concept and challenge.

Poison's the only power in the game that lets you spit at heroes.

Other than the self debuff + foe bufff setting, this seems very similar to an SG I joined a few years back. The idea then was old school CoH: no IOs, which meant no crafting and no AH, only what you can get from drops or get from NPCs. same level or higher setting story arcs ATs were limited to the original offering of CoH also max level was 38. you can take missions after, but you're level-locked and xp locked at 38 (SG was called 38 Special). Solo, it was challenging but doable. as a team it was better, especially since we didn't behave like a PUG. Each member had a particular function and responsibility (tank-healer-dps type of thing) and coordination/strategy was important -- not too strict though, just enough to be an added fun factor, and not so much to be a wet blanket. You could still Leroy Jenkins it at your own peril. Moreover, I myself have gotten used to no temp powers from P2W (she and I are not on speaking terms of late), but temp powers that are part of the story arc are permissible. I rarely use the insp tray, and have recently stopped taking travel powers except for CJ or Hover (if the character demands it). I would say your idea is attractive... I hope I'll have the time to try it seriously.

Bane

I invested literally years of gameplay on 150+ toons that I don't enjoy as much to find 4 or 5 that makes those years worth it.

Haha, embrace it. you have 1000 character slots PER SHARD... that's like 8000 total for all. I myself took a while to realise there was ANOTHER game AFTER character creation. Sometimes, I would cough up different concepts (costume + power sets + back story); some would even be duplicate power sets while others were "fine-tuning" of a certain concept through it's power set/ power picks. for example, I recently rolled a plant/nature controller. but around level 30ish, I felt plant/poison suited the toon better. When that happens, sometimes I shelf the toon for later playing. or I just strip them of resources and delete them, especially if they inherit the costume + back story. other times, I enjoy a power set combination too much that I make a duplicate set with a different costume + story (e.g. Dual Pistols/Ninja Blaster--I have 3). Concept is king. I think every character possible can be played solo to a reasonable difficulty. 98% of my toons are loners and a few dozen of them are already incarnates. a handful have even completed the Hardcore Permadeath challenge. That said, a decent group of 4 would be able to handle almost all +4x8 TFs with an AV. It's not so much your choice of powers, but how well your team gels and how good you strategise. And how awesome your costume is. tried min-maxing, tried going meta... didn't like it. these days, my builds are mostly SOs plus a few procs. I think a build is an intimate thing. there is no one way to slot, and there is no wrong way too. moreover, you can get creative and thematic with the slotting regarding IO names (e.g., my elec toons slot Thunderstrike, but not Detonation or Bombardment like my Ass rifle toons). What do you play when you team up, and why don't you play it solo? I only team up for leagues and certain task/strike forces. While I can arguably handle any TF alone given a few hours and a crap-tonne of patience, I think playing with others is also fun... sometimes. What's your comfort build that lets you breeze through general content? SOs until 40. SO numerical benefits far surpass IOs until 37ish. only then do I slot sets if I'm chasing set bonuses. other than that, a few procs here and there depending on drops and what the toon can afford. speaking of, inf might be hard at the start, but towards the higher level, they're practically throwing inf at you. I have over a billion just sitting in my email because of this. I can get more, but I don't find the market game too engaging for my personal taste. What do you enjoy seeing in a group that isn't a dedicated support? Spiders. Crab, Wolf, Huntsman, Bane. Two of those on your team, and you're nigh invincible... unless they suck. Have you, or have you seen someone do incredible stuff with a powerset? Definitely. I don't play melee as much, just a personal preference. But I've witnessed incredible feats done by Tanks and Brutes while on a TF. I'll never forget an off-tank brute saving the tank with like 2HP left with a perfectly timed taunt. Another time, our team of 5 felt indestructable because of an MM's brilliant heals and buffs-- he/she probably saw us as his pets. and on one occasion, some bloke with Black Hole slowly moved Hami out of the way so the team could attack it without attacking/being attacked by the mitocondria(???) baby hamis. I could go on. but my point is, some people are truly capable of fascinating feats, and it's a joy to witness it yourself... or accomplish it yourself. Feel free to add on to this, I'd love to read about your characters! Don't get me started. what I will share is that I learned the game with a Sentinel. once I was comfortable with the game mechanics, I upgraded to spiders (sentinel on steriods and brainwashing). then I branched out to Brutes and Blasters. I took a liking to ranged, but didn't like how it was rather "unrealistic" that I couldn't punch as much as I zapped. tried my hand feeble brain to be a mastermind and peacebringer -- MMs were fun, PBs and WSs I was limited to human only... brain couldn't compute. and now I've taken a liking to doms and trollers. that doesn't mean I have a whole stable of each of the other ATs, some at 1, some at 20ish. and some are duplicates and some are for the sake of the concept, only to be played in my head. I like the grind more than the endgame, which I think is too OP. So I tend to gimp my toons... (like a setless and petless MM--which incidentally has forced me to become a better player, or at least I'd like to think so). and after I ran my first hardcore permadeath challenge toon, all my toons have been permadeath... unless the concept is too good or too fun to kill off. I found that the threat of death is the fun part. And that concept is king.

Definitely. I mostly play solo. So far, I've got the following up to incarnates: Dark/Time, Dark/Dark and Dark/Poison because I like doggies Illusion/Time and Illusion/Thermal because phantom army Got a bunch more toons all dressed up just waiting to be played: Elec/Elec, Ice/Cold, Earth/Thermal, Plant/Nature and Arse/Traps Right now, I'm playing a Plant/Poison on Hardcore Permadeath challenge. He's currently at level 30.

Depends. Are you Corrupting or Defending, solo or team? Corruptors tend to have better AR (primary) values. So your attacks are more potent especially with Scourge. Fenders will have a better support system (Time) which is their primary. AR as a secondary will be down almost half of what a Corr's would have. Fenders tend to be more useful in teams, and Corrs fend better alone.

I had the same problem a while back, though different Mac OS. I ended up just deleting the game + relevant files, and reinstalling it to fix the quirks. After that, even the sound mods worked fine. An alternative line of reasoning might be to take a look at your machine and the recommended Mac OS. Not all of them can handle the latest one. I myself am on an ancient machine, so the highest the machine can take is High Sierra. my other ancient macbook is on Catalina. Also, I usually give OS updates some time before I install them. Not all new ones are better.

I've heard of someone's vampire boyfriend sparkling.

I went with Dark/Savage dominator.

Here's what I coughed up some time ago. I've included the costume file. Just drop it in CoH folder > Costumes, then load it when you're in character creation. Spartan Armour 2.costume

Arachnos pets are uncontrollable. IIRC, they follow you in defensive stance. so to get them to attack, you have to run into trouble first.

Willpower. But it's not your will, it's His will be done. 😃