Burnt Umber

The costumes themselves are a fun and neat addition to the game. That said, I feel like it's a bit of a grind (or influence expense) to accumulate the necessary new salvage to get the costumes. But I suppose that the variety of ways to get that salvage is expansive enough that I'm probably not going to be too hassled by it. There are two things that stick out to me about this addition: The new vendors' location in vaults feels a little intrusive/cluncky. They might be more appropriate inside Icon or Facemaker shops that have more space for such vendors and thematically are more in-line with the vendors' purpose? Besides wanting the accompanying badge, I don't really see the purpose of the accolade. It seems to award a pop-menu macro and that's it? Except for someone who fanatically wants all the costumes and to be able to sort through and use them all, the accolade is not really a power but a limited QoL feature? I'd wish that the accolade did a bit more, such as act as a personal/mobile version of the vendor like the Fieldcrafter accolade provides the mobile crafting table. Those thoughts aside, I really like being able to have access to some of these costumes. I look forward to what other ones get added for purchase.

For my Kheldians and my Stone Armor tank, the changes to toggles is very welcomed, if not ecstatically so. Similarly, my squishier characters who have offensive toggles like the change. It makes playing them a great deal more convenient and fun. And like a poster above, I'm probably taking more than 8 seconds to get back into the fight/toggled back on. That said, such characters are likely to be in the middle of melee and running only one or two offensive toggles so 8 seconds might be a tad long (maybe 6 seconds would be better?). Overall, I love this change. It's been really fun testing it out.

Honestly, I feel like this change to defense really doesn't amount to much: it scarcely affects any of my defense-based characters. My Stone Armor Tank doesn't have any Fire/Cold or Toxic Defense but soft-capped to everything else. My Necro/Traps MM is soft-capped to S/L and Energy but his pets are running at 30%+ defense to all so he'll probably get by. The rest of my defense-based characters didn't skimp on their defenses through slotting or otherwise, and I don't notice anything different about playing them on Beta. Re: Slotting/Building Opportunity Cost To be frank, I think if you were building only for S/L and Energy, then the only power that is taking a hit is Scorpion Shield: every other power pool was providing defense to everything. And if you were soft-capping through slotting, it was impossible not to pick-up other defenses to some degree through decent slotting. For example, if you were slotting, say, a ranged damage power, then Thunderstrike was a great set because it provided lots of Energy, N. Energy, and Ranged Defense by slotting it.

Oh, next week I'll bring Kataigis (Elec./Storm Controller) as a the Bride of Frankenstein

For me, I use Sonic Blast on a Corruptor, and my experience soloing on Beta has been mixed. On the one hand, my attack chain of Shockwave -> Howl -> Siren's Song feels more seamless now with the changes to recharge/cast times. Similarly, having a single target attack chain with Scream and Shout is not as draggy as it is on Homecoming due to their activation time changes. On the other hand, the change to damage on Howl (fixing the 1.0 scale damage to 0.66 scale damage) is sort of mitigated with the changes to damage on Siren's Song (bumping it's damage up to 1.0 scale damage). However, I use Siren's Song as an actual mez so having to re-slot it for damage is a bit annoying. Similarly, I normally skip Screech in favor of the hold I pick up in my Patron Power Pool, so the changes to Screech sort of necessitates that I drop the hold to get it and slot it for damage. Overall, the set on Beta feels feels more slick as I chain powers together; at the same time, I feel the set has shifted from blasting and mezzing to blasting with mezzing as a happy coincidence. I do wish that Siren's Song and Screech had their ranges extended to 50 feet and 80 feet, respectively, to make them more in line with their new roles as damage powers used in rotation. I like the direction of the changes and welcome more changes to the set to help it in relation to other blast sets.

I had never noticed how close I had colored my chrono-shift and destiny ageless to the death patches of Battle Maiden. Oops. Worse, her build kind of needs me to fire off ageless somewhat regularly so I couldn't exactly stop firing it off (though I stopped running time's juncture which made my need less frequent, for better or worse).

I'll be bringing Ultra Azure - Elec. Affinity/Rad. Blast Defender.

She's definitely blue rather than Indigo. She normally has a dark blue/powder blue costume that I plan on bringing. But if somebody has a lighter or more saturated blue costume they'd want to bring, I made an alt. costume that's only dark blue (not indigo). (Edit) To further clarify, this is the "dark blue" that I'm using: And she uses this "blue" normally for highlights/ancillary pieces:

Sorry that I had to leave a bit ahead of time. Did we continue with Radio after I logged?

I'll stake out the "Blue" character option with Gelida Obscura - Ice/Time Corruptor. I can narrow it down further to "Dark Blue/Navy" if the need arises.

Put me down for next week with Commenticia - light and dark colored Illusions/FF Controller.

I'll be bringing C. Abyssus - Water/Sonic Corr. This week was a bit of toughie for me in the costume creator. Hopefully, he sort of fits? Also, if it isn't a problem, could we postpone that "clowns" theme for a bit? I think you might have put that one in for me. but I don't think my character will be the right level in time for that week.

Quick question on this one: does the color have to be monochrome (e.g., plain blue), or can we chose different shades of the same color (e.g., light blue and dark blue)?

I hope I don't sound too glib or flippant, but I'd like to be able to delete a certain group of temporary powers in the same way I am able to delete another group of temporary powers. For example, I have a brute who has gotten the smoke grenades in the "raid" portion of a mayhem mission, and as I so chose, I right-clicked and deleted those temp. powers. In contrast, that same brute has one charge of the Wentworth's TP power that he got because he logged of in the Resistance market in Praetoria. I have no desire to ever swap him from Redside to Blueside to burn the charges frivolously, so I'd like to delete it rather than letting it continue to rot infinitely in my powers tray. Also, this. It just sort of bugs me knowing I have a power in my powers tray that takes up space. Admittedly, it's a little odd, but so it goes.

On the contrary, I'd like the ability to delete such powers. Sometimes I don't really need or want the powers I get from particular day jobs but the log off location itself is useful so I have some day job powers that just sit there unused or I use up those with charges on trivial things. For example, I'd like to be able to log off in the Shadow Shard on a flier who (obviously) doesn't really need the jet-pack power for doing so. Similarly, I'd like to delete the charges of AE-only self-rez. after I've logged off in the uni. or AE building.

I wish that the temporary powers from day jobs and the related accolade powers could be deleted in the same way as other temporary powers can. Such a change would allow players to get rid of the powers they don't want, just as they can with other temp. powers. Further, even if anyone wanted to regain a power that they deleted, that power can be regained by logging off in the right location.

Thanks for the pictures! Super fun to see all the fun costumes. Next week I'll bring Veneficio - Crab Spider - in his finest.

I plan on bringing Pugil - Kin. Melee/Energy Aura Stalker - as a 80s (early 90s?) toyetic ninja.

I'll bring Saxum - Stone/Fire Tank.

I absolutely love my multi-build widow, Nox. On her, I have a Night Widow build, Fortunata build, and a widow/fortunata hybrid build. So I can share so of my thoughts which hopefully help. If you like being a stalker, Night Widows are very similar as a specialization. But they also get a few mental blast powers and play a bit more scrapper-y after the first strike from hide (Spin from hide is great fun). At the same time, Night Widows haven't been touched since their launch back in Issue 12, so they feel a little like Stalker 1.5 compared to the current Stalkers 2.0. Further, of the specializations, I find my Night Widow was a bit less AoE-centric and a bit more of an Endurance hog. If you like being a dominator, Fortunatas are very similar as a specialization. But they also get a great deal more survivability and ranged AoE. At the same time, you don't get many of the great controls until you are in your late 20s, and your single-target attacks can feel lacking with slightly longer than average animations. Further, psionic attacks can be a bit all-or-nothing: some enemies have a psionic-hole in their protection, if not a weakness; others, such as the various robot mobs, have a resistance to psionics. The Widow/Fortunata build uses the Fortunata specialization but, instead of using the mental blast powers exclusively, it mixes both the Blood Widow attacks and the Fortunata attacks/controls. It's a bit idiosyncratic because which powers you pick can effect how it plays. For example, on mine, I maintained the Blood Widow single-target attacks and mixed in the Fortunata controls and the psionic nuke. There are many builds to be found on the forums here.

It's great fun so far! I have few notes/habits for these lower levels:

I'll join the club this Saturday, bringing my Crab Spider/Bane Hybrid Veneficio.

I'm not so sure w/r/t making it yet another Proc120: I think too many of such procs get shoehorned into health (or stamina) as a forever-on buff, and I was thinking of it being in a healing power that players fire as necessary, like Radiant Aura, Alkaloid, Energize, etc., and the added rebuff resistance would be an added way to pull up when things were going sideways.

To clarify, I meant the resistance to debuffs, such -def or -tohit or -regen. The same sort of resistance provided by Ageless Radial.

Disregarding the flare-up, I really like the name of the proposed set and think it'd be nice if a healing set - a purple one maybe - existed in addition to Prev. Med. that would fit in a character's build that wasn't focused on healing. For me, the set would progress thus: Heal/Absorb Heal/Absorb/Rech Heal/Absorb/Rech./End. End./Rech. Heal/Abosrb/End. Proc. to Resist Debuff (~25%?) with a 4.5 PPM with the following set bonuses: Two enhancements improves your Regeneration by 16%. Three enhancements increases maximum Health by 3%. Four enhancements improves the Damage of all your powers by 4%. Five enhancements increases Toxic and Psionic Resistance by 6%. Five enhancements reduces the duration of Immobilize effects on you by 10%. Five enhancements reduces the duration of Hold effects on you by 10%. Five enhancements reduces the duration of Stun effects on you by 10%. Five enhancements reduces the duration of Sleep effects on you by 10%. Five enhancements reduces the duration of Fear effects on you by 10%. Five enhancements reduces the duration of Confuse effects on you by 10%. Six enhancements increases Psionic Defense by 5% The set bonuses are a complete copy/paste from Soulbound All., but I think the bonus to it contains some hard to aquire/rare bonuses that I wish I could slip into more of my builds. The major thing for me is a proc that would help resist debuffs since that's a thing that's hard to acquire before you go deep into incarnates with Ageless Radial.