RikOz

I'm curious as to why the character model is censored in a couple of those screenshots.

Kinetic Keisha (Kinetic Melee/Regeneration scrapper) has reached 50! Had some fun with the "double cape".

I did something similar with a fire/fire scrapper of mine. He's a character who has a bit of 1960s psychedelic vibe. Alas, I can't really show the effects with a screenshot of the character himself, as what I did was apply multiple colors directly to his powers so that every fiery power uses a different color combination. Like so: So when he's fighting, he produces a riot of color.

4th member of The Extracurriculars, and 44th overall level 50, Energy Ellie (Energy Blast/Mental Manipulation blaster)

Honestly, TW's animations are such that there ought to be bisected enemies all over the floor.

Another new level 50 (#43)! To celebrate, Beatriz Brasil (Staff/Bio scrapper) is all dressed up for Carnivale!

Can't find it now, but I saw a photo of somebody's Thanksgiving lawn decoration. It was an inflatable Santa lying on its side, with an inflatable turkey sitting on it and holding a sign that read, "Wait your turn, fat man!"

I've been engaging in some self-inflicted incarnate solo grinding. For my first several level 50s (who hit fifty 3-4 years ago), I just got them to T3 and decided that was good enough for me since I don't really do group content. So since I wasn't gonna bother with T4, I just converted all of their subsequent Empyrean Merits into Reward Merits, which I used to buy boosters to sell on the AH (those things were going for 1-million+ at the time). A few months ago I got the itch to actually get them to T4, but by that point they had enough veteran levels that future Emp Merit rewards were down to like 5 every three levels, and that wasn't gonna cut it to buy all of the Very Rare components. So I just started grinding the first two DA arcs (Heather and Mu'Vorkhan) every day to get the component rewards at the end.

The things that happen when you don't get the name you wanted. Get an idea for a villain named "White Devil". Unavailable. Notice that sentinels can take Storm Blast now, and that set includes a "Hailstones" power. So, in keeping with the devil theme, try the name "Hail Satan". Unavailable. *sigh* End up with "Hail Czar" (Storm Blast/Electric Armor sentinel):

Huh. Logged in a couple characters to re-read these set bonuses, as well as the "proc" IO in the Winter travel set, and am now completely baffled as to how I came to the conclusion I did. I was absolutely positive that at least one of those descriptions said it reduced the duration. That's it. My brain has officially stopped working.

I've no idea how doable this is, but ... I've been looking at the Slow Resistance granted by a couple of the Winter IO sets (and possibly some other sets that I can't think of right now), and have noticed that this "resistance" takes the form of "reduced duration". IMO, reduced duration is not especially helpful in this case. Reduced duration makes perfect sense for resistance to status effects like Hold, Immobilize, Sleep, etc. Effects that completely stop you from moving or, in every case except Immobilize, attacking or performing other actions. Slow, however, does not seem to be classed as a status effect. At least my characters who have a secondary PS toggle that protects against status effects don't seem to resist Slows any better than my characters without such protection. The reason I say Reduced Duration is unhelpful/useless against Slows is the fact that, when in a mission that has enemies with Slow attacks, those enemies appear one after another after another after another. In other words, having the Slow wear off faster is not at all helpful when the effect is almost immediately applied again by one of the mobs in the very next spawn you encounter. The best example of this is the Tsoo Blue Ink Men. Those guys are usually the majority of enemy mobs, often 2-3 per spawn. Not to mention that, in non-cave missions, spawns are typically so close together that the Slow effect, even when reduced in duration, does not have time to actually wear off before you encounter the next spawn. I would suggest that Slow Resistance would be much more useful if, rather than reducing duration, it would reduce the percentage by which the player is Slowed. The same way Damage Resistance reduces the amount of damage you take from an attack. And, particularly at level 50, where one encounters most of these Blue Ink Men, Slowing me still doesn't stop me from defeating every mob with two or three punches. Making the mission as a whole take twice as long is literally the only practical effect these Slows have. You can't even head-canon the idea that slowing the player down gives the bad guy more time to complete his dastardly deed, or at least make an escape, because (nearly) every every mission has you arriving "in the nick of time" anyway, regardless of how long it takes you to get there. Reducing duration is also useless against Slow effects like Caltrops, since the effect immediately ends when you move out of the caltrops' AoE anyway. I'll end by saying I do greatly appreciate the change from a few patches back that made it so the Blue Ink Men's Slow attack no longer stacks when hit with it multiple times.

Just found this on YouTube today:

Yes, but they never show up when I need them :D

As an entirely solo player, I agree with this. I do get a bit frustrated, though, with advice that says, "use thus and such an ability on them", because not every AT/build has that ability. My favorite example is complaining about sappers, and getting the inevitable advice to "use electric armor!" I'm like, "yes, I know electric armor is effective for defending against sappers, but the character I'm currently playing does not have electric armor". But that's the challenge: figuring out how to counter various mobs/abilities with the AT/build I'm currently playing. And sometimes it means accepting the limitations of a particular power set and understanding that you're just not suited to certain situations. There's one hero alignment mission I avoid if I'm playing a particularly endurance-hungry character, like dark melee/dark armor. (The one where you have to rescue a Longbow agent from Arachnos. A mission consisting of ambush after ambush after ambush is futile when fighting a single spawn consumes more than 50% of your endurance, and you can't take time to rest and recover because the next ambush is coming immediately.)

In my experience, the groups that usually fail to appear in radio missions are whichever group for which I have a "defeat 50" mission.