Burnt Umber

Barring anything coming up, I hope to bring Hostia Usta - Fire/Dark Corr. - in her stealthiest digs.

I'll have to miss this week's but I hope to be back the week after. Best of luck and I look forward to seeing the pictures afterward.

I'll probably be able to bring Eurtphaessa - Tri-/Human-Form PB (not sure which build to use yet). And if I can manage a second run, I might bring Commenticia - Illusion/FF Controller.

Fun photos, Midnyte! For next week, a sea monster would fit, right? I plan on bringing C. Abyssus - Water/Sonic Corruptor.

Yeah, I was on the same wavelength as Midnyte. I thought at least one powerset had to be dark and all powers/costumes were dark colored. I'm flexible either way, I can stick with my prior or swap to something new. I not particular which way we go; I'm just looking to have fun with the theme so don't stress.

I didn't see until the most recent patch that enemies are starting to be protected from damage when under a sleep power. While I am sure this is a valuable feature for Enfeebling Lullaby, I think it's worth noting that sleep is one of the four conditions that enables containment damage, so I hope that sleep protecting enemies from damage is used sparingly/thoughtfully to prevent an unintentional nerf to containment/controllers.

Gosh, I kinda hope not? I figured the powers only had to be colored dark to be okay. I was hoping to bring Notion Noir - psi blade/dark scrapper. But I may need to amend my choice if I need to be double dark.

I'll try to bring Amentia - War Mace/Shield Brute.

Neat pictures! Looks like a fun time. Although I couldn't quite make an appearance, here was my costume:

Ack, some work came up that I have to take care of, so I unfortunately will have to skip today after all. Best of luck on the Citadel.

Haha, I almost did dragon fruit too! I was also tempted to do a kiwano/horned melon.

I'll bring Prickly Pear - Plant/Psionic Dom.

For comparison:

I'm not sure we'd be able to do a Master Run but we'll certainly get the rest as we make our way through the arc.

So, I'll probably bring my Thugs/Poison MM as Shady Mia (the Mercy Island Black Market Contact).

I sort of agree with you: not to be too much of a downer, but I think the "Elite Boss" status mobs have become a bit too frequent with the recent homecoming content. Here, I feel like what would have normally been bosses were bumped up to EBs in an attempt to generate challenge. Instead, I feel like it creates more of a time sink while sort of watering down the significance of facing an EB (narratively, at least). Changing the minotaurs and cyclopes to be their boss versions would, I think, alleviate most of the problem. It's worth noting that the EBs in the mission cited don't get thrown en masse at you, so you can pull one or two from range to fight. Also, I've noticed that, if you turn off bosses/EBs in the difficulty settings, it downgrades the minotaurs and cyclopes in the original Cimeroran incarnate arc to lieutenants. I think that might help to get rid of the more "un-fun" bits. And, the story itself is pretty fun and solo-able overall.

For yin, I'll bring Cano Arma - Merc./Emp. MM.

Sorry to heat it - these were a lot of fun - but taking care of yourself is important so take the time you need.

I welcome the new patterns and hope they find a use in a character's costume at some point. And my Widow absolutely loves the upgrade available to her uniform look. And while I really like the "No FX" option for the old craftable boots, I noticed that the costume creator really doesn't like me to keep that option. As a result it reverts back to the regular version every time I enter the editor and I have to swap to the "NoFX" option lest I get charged for the change.

I enjoyed going through the missions on my characters so far. I love the new maps as I went on through; I appreciate that there is enough room to hover/fly. I didn't notice any bugs, but I have a couple of minor criticisms: In the second mission, there are a bit too many elite bosses. They didn't add challenge, and, as a poster above mentioned, they made that mission a bit of a slog. The minotaurs and cyclopes could be their boss versions. In the third mission, it's a bit much to suddenly drop from the disguise and have to toggle on my defenses. Might the disguise be a temp. power that causes toggle suspension (the new tech), operating like the Midnight Club raid mission redside? Throughout, my villain character didn't really get to be villainous and the dialogue felt neutral/heroic. I wish that there was a tad of motivation for my villains to be help Sister Valeria. Those minor criticisms aside, the arc is great addition and tells succinct and interesting story.

After playing around with the set on Beta, I would say that Symphony Control is a fun powerset overall. I tried it out with a Controller pairing it with Empathy and Thermal and on a Dominator pairing it with Fiery Assault. I ran various radio missions to get a low stakes and broad spectrum of enemy types. Observations: Because of the damage component of the powers - especially that of Confounding Chant (the stun cone) - and the soft control of many of the powers, the set sort of leans into the powers being slotted for damage rather than the control. And as a result, the set feels very "blast-like" with me being able to clear even level minions by the end of my attack chain. For both archetypes, I ran the attack chain of Sleep Cone -> Immob. Cone -> Stun Cone -> Fear Cone -> Ranged AoE Attack (Fire Breath on the Dom. and Fireball on the Controller) with the cone controls all 5-slotted with "Annihilation" for damage. The damage was nice on the the Dom. and, by pairing it with fire, I was able to stay at range rather than having to jump back and forth from range to melee. But, at the same time, Domination mode was noticeably less helpful because many of my controls broke from the damage and the longer duration/higher magnitude made little difference. Although I was able to get good AoE damage on the Controller, the set interacts oddly with Containment. All of the damaging powers benefited greatly from the extra damage, but Containment itself was tricky to maintain because it breaks from the softer controls (i.e., the sleep) or the controls themselves are lower priority (i.e., the immob.). I personally was having difficulty with Confounding Chant (the stun cone) the most of all the powers because it deals good damage so I want to have it benefit from Containment (thereby preventing me from using it as an opener or immediate followup to the sleep), yet it provided the best control outside the hold and had a long-ish recharge (thereby penalizing me the longer I delayed it in my attack chain). Chords of Despair (the targeted AoE Hold) was sort of lackluster for a hold delayed past level 18. Unlike either Earth Control or Dark Control, it doesn't create a patch or reapply itself. It ends up being sort of similar to Ice Control's (imo) lackluster AoE hold that appears at level 26. Given my prior two points, I wish that Chords of Despair and Confounding Chant were switched in their order, and that Confounding Chant were spiced-up in someway (e.g., it also had a chance for a mag. 2 confusion). Alternatively, if the order is kept as is, I wish that Chords of Despair were spiced-up in someway (e.g. it had a useful debuff like -Res. or -Def. ). Reverb, is a cool, new pet and I found it pretty helpful and hardy once I summoned it, but I found that he seemed to get stuck or to cease following me more often than other pets seem to. I look forward to playing the set more once it gets published to Homecoming.

He's running the non-Granite toggles as well as tough and weave. Against Carnies, Council, Longbow, and Arachnos, he got through it all. I have not played around with my MM, so I can't yet be certain of the impact on him. However, to your question, no, he doesn't have those sets slotted nor is he built for resists. I built him and his pets to have at least 30% (more when barrier is up) defense to all so he does okay for himself. I feel that the changes were not noticeable on my defense-based characters, but they are either built for positionals or all the elements. I think my strategy for slotting may differ a fair bit from the common min-max wisdom of the forums here though. And in that respect I think that's what this change was targeting: people who tried to make a character that trivialized most content by sort of cheezing the way the defense mechanics work in this game.

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.