Jade_Dragon

Assuming it does order them by date, the easiest way to change that is to simply open the costume file in Notepad or Wordpad, and resave it. However, you may not have permissions to edit files in your Program Files directory, so you might have to copy it into a work directory to edit it and then copy it back. (I'm fairly sure just copying doesn't change the modified date, you have to edit it)

Seriously, I could have sworn they appear in game in alphabetical order, though.

Taunt auras are also 13.5 seconds, although as they tic every 2 seconds, I would guess that stacks for a good effect. And Invincibility and the like are like 16.8 every one second. (Except Rise to the Challenge which is only 1.25, barely lasting as long as the tic)

Honestly, that is really something inherent to the Tanker. There CAN be Tankers that are fast and agile, dodging everything that comes at them no matter how intense the wall of bullets get. See Vash the Stampede from Trigun, for instance, or the female Dove. There have been times I wanted to see what Tankers could do with Super Reflexes, and I do think with Proliferation they should get it, or a variation at least.

The problem is, though, that the concept of a Tanker is really that of a wall. Dodging bullets means you are taking the risk that one of those bullets will hit someone else you are protecting instead. So you usually have to taunt, and have an awareness of your surroundings beyond that of just being a big, tough rock in the way of the bad guys. It's simply easier to be a Gorilla.

Honestly, Energy Aura and Super Reflexes, when they Proliferate to Tankers, will probably be more for off-tanking. There will be too much of the chance for a sudden Def failure. Dark is kind of like that, although with all of its utility powers and -Acc, it has a lot of mitigation beyond just the Res and Def. And of course, I like the way the stealth gives it a unique, kind of non-tanking feel. As long as my allies let me go first, I like just appearing in the middle of the group and going "Boo!".

Even my main Tanker, though, as much as he is an unstoppable blast of energy rocketing at his foes, still puts himself between the gunfire and his allies. I'm not disagreeing with your assessment, I quite agree with it. It's not for everyone, I guess, which is why there are Scrappers and Stalkers and Brutes. (And they have their own fun parts...)

Wow, you really want an answer to this? I hope so, because I just love answering them.

I have characters of all ATs, but I definately consider myself a concept player. I think I will follow Kelenar's lead and group them by AT, but I'll also try and give a short description of concept as well.

And for sanity's sake, and bandwidth, I'll try to limit it to my mains.

Defenders - 2
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Jade Dragon, 50 Rad/FF - This is my main, his power consists of a field of vapor that surrounds his body.
Galendon, 16 TA/Arch - A brash, careless kid who loves adventure. "Skill based" hero. (Natural, no powers)
I also have several different alternate versions of JD, including a Sonic/Rad.

Tankers - 3
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Blue Diamond, 38 Inv/SS - Jade Dragon's partner, he's your typical bad tempered brick type
Arladen, 23 Dark/Dual Blades - My original concept was a "sneaky Tanker", instead of being a main tank I envisioned him as an off-tank, appearing out of nowhere and grabbing aggro where needed. Originally he just had Stealth, but when Dark came out I rerolled.
Dragoncove, 23 Stone/Axe - This was the original Arladen, with stealth. When I rerolled him, I kept the character but changed his name and concept. He wields a magical axe (Arladen's scimitars were also magic) which gives him powers over stone.
For the longest time, I had no other Tankers but Blue Diamond. He was just so tough an act to follow, I thought I'd never create another one. Then, I came up with the idea for Arladen.

Scrappers - 2
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Blood Wolf, 38 MA/SR - My "Batman clone". He doesn't fight criminals, though, but corruption, and even heroes can become corrupt. So he's actually a vigilante, if a hero goes bad, he'll hunt him down as well. Another "skill based" character.
R4-CHL, 35 Claws/Inv - Rachel is the partner of Alan Midnight, below. She is an AI from his time, and has a robot body in this time. She's actually a lot of fun to play, as she taunts male foes by flirting with them. My teammates seem to like that.

Blasters - 2
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Sandy, 42 Elec/Fire - Sandy is based on a character I wrote for a story. She is a cyborg, parts of her body replaced by machinery in a failed experiment. She is a very reluctant heroine, and hates fighting, but the machine side forces her to.
Alan Midnight, 35 AR/Dev - Alan is from the 26th century, and comes from a time where AIs and cybernetic implants are common. He's a throwback to the past, though, and in fact resembles a film noir detective, like Sam Spade.

Controllers - 2
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Joe Everyman, 38 Illusion/Kin - Joe is a MAN build, so he has only four powers from his Primary/Secondary, and the rest are Pool attacks. He's actually quite powerful, though, as he does a lot of damage with Containment, and with PA and Decieve he pretty much has plenty of pets to back himself up. His concept is that he is just an ordinary guy who became fed up with the constant muggings. So he disguises himself as NPCs (each of his costumes looks like an NPC in the game) and strikes back when mugged.
Genie Gold, 33 Illusion/Rad - The partner of Jade Dragon and Blue Diamond. She is an archeologist, and didn't want to be a hero for a while, so she's still catching up to the other two. She has the ability to transform her body (although she's too afraid of making a mistake to do anything but minor changes) and can transform the air around her by touching it. So she makes shapes and illusions out of air.

Brutes - 2
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Blue Diamond, 38 SS/Inv - This Blue Diamond is an alternate version of the "true" one. His version of Jade Dragon and Genie Gold were killed, and he had to go underground to escape his rival Silver Bolt. He ended up taking jobs as a theif to survive, but he will probably go hero with Going Rogue.
Loopy Loup Garou, 30 EM/WP - The Loopster is an ex-wrestler, and also a werewolf. He was framed by his bosses for using drugs to create his werewolf appearance, but he claims it's real. He's gone underground until he can clear his name.
Loopy also has a "Diva", a female version of himself. I love playing the character, as he uses catchphrases from wrestling, like "Can ya smell what the werewolf is cookin'?"

Masterminds - 3
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The Hitwoman, 50 Thugs/Dark - I've kind of voluntarily generic'ed this character, as she was actually a tribute, and I'm not going to say to whom. But she is a devious manipulator who has a number of dumb thugs at her command. She's not at all shy about calling them dumb, either.
4L4N M1DN1T3, 38 Bots/Traps - An evil doppleganger from an alternate future of Alan Midnight's. He essentially hates all that Alan likes, and vice versa. His Bots are his AIs, the counterparts of Alan's Rachel.
Psycommando, 20? Mercs/Poison - This was the result of a random costume in the costume editor. He wears a soldier's camoflage, but in bright pastel colors, with a peace sign on his chest. He's insane, he believes he's spreading love and flowers, when he's actually blasting people. His mercs often make snide comments behind his back.
I also have a Ninja/FF Mastermind I will be taking hero side with Going Rogue, and until then I haven't played her.

Dominators - 2
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Dragon Lord Morgon, 41 Mind/Fire - Morgon is a wizard, who in the middle ages took over the body of a dragon. He was imprisoned by the Circle of Thorns until the present day.
Silver Bolt, 37 Grav/Elec - Silver Bolt is the main rival of Jade Dragon and Blue Diamond. I have made several versions of him, including a Corruptor in the next section.

Corruptors - 2
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Experiment OEBR1, 35 Dark/Dark - OEBR1 was originally created as a Defender back in Beta, and I played it to about level 20 or so. I then recreated it when CoV came out. It is a robot, powered by an occult power source. But there seems to be some sort of entity trapped in it, which feeds on human life force.
Silver Bolt, 35 Sonic/Elec - Another version of Silver Bolt, concentrating more on forming force fields with his electricity instead of cages. I like both versions, and in fact I may recreate either depending on if an Electric Buff/Debuff or Control set comes out.

Stalkers - 1
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Blood Wolf, 38 MA/Nin - The villain version of Blood Wolf, as he is a vigilante as I mentioned before. I will probably side switch both versions, as I like the capabilities of both the Scrapper and the Stalker for him. I also think Ninjitsu fits him much better than SR. (As he is not really "super" powered, as I said)

Kheldians - 2
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Umbral Unredeemed, 30 Warshade - I will switch this character to be a Nictus, when GR comes out. He is trying to give the "good side" a try, bonding with a willing host, but he unwittingly chose a Skulls gangster as his host. So he will be corrupted back to the villain side.
Element Dog, 23? Peacebringer - Element Dog is actually the original character that was the teammate of Jade Dragon and Blue Diamond. I created Genie Gold because there was no option for dogs in the game. ED is a shapeshifter, though, and so Kheldian fit. He's not really a Kheldian, though.

Arachnos - 1
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Arachnophelia, 24 Crab Spider - My first SoA, I envisioned her as a girl with a obsession with spiders, to the point where she decided she had to join Arachnos, to get the Crab Spider arms.

We don't need a Healer class. 1) It would be useless (sorry, useless is a strong word, let's just say it would be far weaker than any Defender or Controller) 2) There's no such thing as "classes" in this game and 3) I don't believe the devs should design towards the assumption that players are unable to learn new gameplay styles.

Nukes on a Defender are secondary just as their attacks are Secondary. A nuke shouldn't be in the Primary, because that's not what Defender Primaries do. OTOH, that doesn't mean Nukes are useless any more than attacks are useless. Unless you are in the "stupid defender, stop blasting and heal" crowd, you can find a use for any attack.

I have to admit I find them less useful and more situational, because with having to lay down debuffs and the inability to both Build Up/Aim, not to mention the lower damage of the Defender overall, it isn't a guaranteed kill. On the other hand, there have been many emergency situations where a well timed nuke, just as the bad guys were about to mount a comeback and rout the team, dropped half the foes and left the other half vulnerable. It fits better the Defender's role on the team, to protect the team. (And Nukes that have a stun effect, like Atomic Blast, Psychic Wail, Dreadful Wail, or even Blizzard's Slow or Blackstar's -ToHit, can be more useful for their mitigating effect than Full Auto or Rain Of Arrows)

Also note that Full Auto and Rain of Arrows do less damage than the "true" Nukes, as the cost for their lack of a crash. It's sort of like how Unstoppable gives much higher defense boosts than Strength of Will. You gets what you pays for.

I think it's the fact that the travel time is a little slow, and so it feels like you have the next attack up and ready to fire more quickly. It does have fairly good recharge time, though, which I can tell because it seems to eat Endurance.

The reason why you can't see Trip Mine's direct damage is that it is a "pet", so the stats are connected to it, not you. If you upen up the Power Description, and click on the Info tab, there should be links at the bottom that tell you the "pet's" powers. One of those should be the damage, and if you click on it, you should see how much damage it does.

Since it's a pet, its damage isn't directly connected to yours, but in general, it does somewhere between the damage of a Burst attack like Power Burst, and Full Auto. It also has a VERY useful knockback component. It is extremely useful to spread out at your feet prior to beginning a fight, so if anything gets in melee with you, it is automatically attacked and blown out of melee with you. Obviously, the other convenient use for it is to set up a trap of about four or five mines, right at a corner, then pull a foe into them. You run around the corner, and when they come to get you, the explosion takes them out.

I have found that if you want Mines to go off reliably, you have to spread Caltrops around them. That will slow down the foes enough that they will trigger the mines instead of just going through them.

The other main method is to "toe bomb", in which you use Smoke Grenade and then approach with Cloaking Device up. You can get right up into melee, like a Stalker. Set a Time Bomb at the foes' feet, pause a second, lay a Trip Mine, step back and (on AR) trigger Full Auto. There's very little that will survive that.

For slotting, it depends on how much patience you have. It's very satisfying to have five Trip Mines go off at the same time, but one will do the job. Really, I tend to lay down more than one so they don't all go off, and I still have some protection if more come at me. So Damage is definately the priority (after Accuracy, of course) but Recharge will let you put down more in less time.

When you're in a team, really, it's the length of time it takes to lay the mine, not the Recharge, that will irritate your team. Then you would likely just use them in combat, either to protect your own perimeter, or to toe bomb during the fight.

AR has not really improved much. The one tweak to it has been a little bit of additional damage to Sniper Rifle when combined with Targetting Drone, but you have to be AR/Dev, and it's a small amount of damage, not even 1/9 of the base damage. Ignite also got an increase in recharge time or something, I can't really remember.

I guess the best thing is that outside of that, it hasn't gotten any WORSE.

As for builds, I'm not really the best person to go to for that, so I'll let someone else answer.

I am waiting on GR to recreate Loopy Loup Garou, my EM/Willpower Brute as Claws/WP. He's a werewolf. I want to create him as a level pact, though, with his female version, with him as a Brute and her as a Scrapper. So I am hoping I'll be able to do that by creating them both as Preatorians.

I have a number of characters I'm not playing until I can switch sides with them, mainly my Ninja/FF MM (who will be going hero side) and my Warshade. (Who will be going bad) But I don't really plan to create that many new characters, most of them are already around and waiting to switch sides.

I'm quite aware of the End cost of interrupting a Sniper attack with movement or because you change targets. My advice is if you are in a pitched combat, don't use Sniper Rifle unless you are sure the attack can go off before the target is killed, and pause for about half a second before beginning the attack. Do not move or do anything else until the shot goes off.

Honestly, I find this in concept with a Sniper Rifle. It's a sniper shot, it's not supposed to be "shot from the hip". You need time to settle your aim, choose your target, and take your shot. I know a Sniper attack can be used in combat, I do it all the time, but it's not really its intended purpose. It's primarily an opening attack, or an extremely long range shot you can use to pick off targets prior to engaging.

If you compare the End cost to the amount of time it takes to cast the attack, it actually is one of the more efficient attacks. The End per point of damage is about the same as all others. But because it takes so long to cast it, you have more time to regenerate End while using it. (Basically, its DPS is low because it takes so long, so its EPS is low, too)

It's definately a problem that if you're in a team, though, your allies can usually kill a target before you get a chance to get off a shot. I would use it only to attack Bosses or AVs, or foes that are clearly outside of the combat and causing trouble from the sidelines. (Like mezzers) You really shouldn't be using it as often as it's up. It's more a situational power.

Another good rule of thumb, in keeping with don't use it as often as it's up. If you have Aim or Build Up, you should never use a Sniper attack unless you build up first. This isn't an option with AR/Dev, but you do have Targetting Drone, which while it's not a big bonus, you should obviously never fire your Sniper Rifle if the Targetting Drone happens to be down. If you got detoggled, put it up first. And I'll add that the only reason I really have Sniper Rifle on my AR/Dev is that I don't like the idea of wasting that bonus. If the devs put it on anything else, I'd drop it immediately. (Originally he didn't have Sniper Rifle, he had Slug instead, but I essentially use Sniper Shot in combat like I said, so at least I get some benefit from a mostly useless buff )

Propel. You say it's laughably slow DPS? You say I could use three holds while it is animating? You noticed that the team already killed the MOB while I was winding up to fire it? I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sheer awesome of THROWING A CAR AT MY ENEMIES!

I'm much the same about Sniper attacks, actually. Not while on a team, again, like Propel my team has usually killed the foe before I can fire the shot. But solo, I just ran my Dominator though the "Kidnap Akarist" mission last night, picking off the Longbow one by one from so far away they were never alerted.

Kheldian shapeshifting. It's a good thing that "dancing", or constant form shifting is considered a viable strategy, because I'd do it anyway. Pound the bad guy. BOOM! Blast the guy on the other side of the room with a beam. BOOM! Drain a guy to heal. BOOM! Drain a guy to heal again. BOOM! Stygian Circle.

Jump Kick. Most of the time I avoid it, but sometimes it's just too funny. My female Crab Spider, when she Jump Kicks, her crab legs embed themselves in the ground. I can't get enough of that.

Force Bolt. From the top of a building. 'Nuff said.

It sounds like you've got a pretty good idea of how to accomplish it already. Honestly, while I've used two accounts for trading inventory and the like, I've never dual boxed because the increase in foes that resulted was greater than the increase in capability running two characters. But I didn't have the autohotkey setup you're talking about. As with previous posters, I assumed you would have a passive ally set on follow, who would either autofire a heal power (Control-click on an icon to set it on autofire, but only one power can be so set) or have a PBAoE toggle like Dispersion Bubble to protect me.

What you may be wanting to know is how to "assist" targeting, which is simply to target you ally, so whatever attacks you fire are fired at that ally's (the character you're actually playing) target. Ally boosts would work the same way. It would then depend on how you arranged your powers in your trays, making sure similar powers were in similar places for both ATs.

Honestly, though, I don't think there's any real advantage to it in CoH. ATs in this game are usually more soloable than in other MMORPGs like WoW. And you can set your difficulty to spawn foes for a team of two or three even if you are alone, so you don't need to "pad" your team for that, either. I wouldn't say you shouldn't do it if you enjoy it, but I don't really think it'll buy you as much as it did in WoW.

I've always seen Magical Girls, the Sailors especially, as either Blasters or Defenders. Traditionally, they're pretty fragile, they survive mainly because they get a really big first attack. I would say Blaster probably fits overall, but Sailor Mercury for one would be a Cold/Ice Defender, just because her powers are so defensive in nature.

The more action oriented fighters, though, like Cutey Honey or Battle Angel Alita, I would set more as Scrappers. They don't really have magical attacks, though. Even with them, I don't think I'd go so far as to pick a Tanker, unless that was going to be the joke, the tiny little delicate looking girl who is actually indestructable. Tankers aren't really offensive, though, they're more about defending the team, like Defenders.

BTW, I have a Magical Girl themed character, but she's not really magic, just obsessed with Anime. She discovered she had mutant powers, and decided to fight crime with a name she came up with by combining all her favorite characters. So Sailor Cutey Rei. She's more like Cutey Honey than anything else, with a sword (bigger than she is) she's a Broadsword/Regen Scrapper.

I wasn't perma-Dom before, but I do like that I can achieve more now without it.

It's still quite useful, as others have mentioned, for End recharge and mez protection. But it's just helpful at making you better at what you do best, instead of arguably being needed to balance Dominators against the other ATs.

While I may not necessarily agree that Doms were weak soloers compared to other ATs, I do think the change has gone a long way to turn them from a support class on teams to taking more of a primary role as a damage dealer and offensive crowd control. And as they really cannot support as a Corruptor or Controller can, I think that was a positive change.