RikOz

They'd only need to look at primary powersets, and specifically for smash/lethal, since those are the only resistances being looked at here. Honestly, I think most powersets are weak against certain enemies, depending on damage type. The idea is that you identify these weaknesses and find ways to compensate for them. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think the designers might have said to themselves, "By level 40, players should have been identifying and working on these weaknesses; let's drive the message home to make sure they get it before they hit 50". Still, I acknowledge that it could simply be a matter of perception, or confirmation bias: I only notice it when it happens that way. But those first three level 50 characters I mentioned (fire blaster, dual blades scrapper, martial arts scrapper) have all been at level 40 or above for upwards of three years, and they have each run those specific alignment missions many, many times (I like doing alignment missions). Once I noticed this "trend", I began to pay close attention each time one of them ran those missions, and the spawn results were very consistent. Mixed spawns for the fire blaster, rock monsters for dual blades, plant monsters for martial arts. There were occasional differences, and it was never a matter of 100% of one type of monster (well, until my stalker got that map with the immobile tree monsters--that was literally all that map had).

They show up in at least two of the level 40+ hero alignment missions. Which is where I actually started noticing the phenomenon I described in the OP. My first 50 was a fire blaster, and she's more or less equally effective against both the rock and the plant monsters, and those missions tended to spawn a roughly even mix of the two types. My second 50 was my dual blades scrapper, and that's when I noticed that the spawns had seemed to change to mostly rock monsters. My third 50, a martial arts scrapper, pretty much confirmed it, when she started seeing those same missions spawn with mostly plant monsters. My fourth 40 was a super strength brute, again with the smashing damage, and again with seeing tons of plant monsters in those missions.

Had it for a while on my fire blaster. Got rid of it because it completely removes the ability to do a proper, full-power snipe.

Last night I was doing the villain alignment mission where you enter the "ether plane". Clicked on the first glowie, and immediately mapserved. Finally managed to get logged back in, and restarted the mission. This time I got all the way through it, was about ten feet away from clicking the final glowie, and got mapserved again. Very bummed because it was an interesting mission with some lore stuff I hadn't heard before.

I can't find it now, but back on live I took a screenshot of my main planking on the ground after getting slapped down by one of those giant rock monsters in Eden, or maybe The Hive. She's laid out on the ground, with a group of these guys standing over her, so I added a speech bubble to one of the monsters, saying, "Sorry for party rocking!" (timely and relevant joke at the time ...)

Yeah, that's what I did on that map. AoE (Rad Melee stalker in this case) to wake them up, then just scrapper them down.

"Happy Place" by Cranius As I prowl around, killing the Alliance I don't believe that I was really called into such violence It's truly dirty business, requiring skill and grace Truth be told, I'd rather be in my Happy Place Chorus: In my happy place In my happy place My lips may both have fallen off But a smile is on my face You may not think an undead rogue Could live with such disgrace But when I'm picking flowers I'm in my happy place It's a place that's filled with harmony, where I could stay for hours I find myself at peace when I'm gathering up flowers While other rogues are busy slitting throats and stabbing backs I prefer to spend my time filling up my packs Chorus If there's one thing I cannot stand, it's being interrupted When that occurs, my mental state becomes a bit corrupted So if you find yourself inclined to meddle with my flowers Well I might find myself compelled to camp your corpse for hours Chorus: In my happy place In my happy place You just made a big mistake Messing with my space So let me introduce you To my dagger and my mace Cuz when you're picking flowers You're in my happy place

Well, D&D did change "Thief" to "Rogue". Mostly to make the class more neutral (I mean, "I play a lawful good thief" sounds kinda funny), but partly, I suspect, as a counter to those players who thought playing a "thief" meant that they needed to be all-thieving, all the time, stealing from the party...

I've come to the conclusion that the Devouring Earth are intentionally designed and programmed to specifically counter whatever a solo character brings to the party. When I do a DE mission on a character that does primarily Smashing damage, the map spawns almost entirely plant monsters (resistant to Smashing). When I do a DE mission on a character that does primarily Lethal damage, the map spawns almost entirely rock monsters (resistant to Lethal). Today I did a DE mission on a stalker. Here is a representative screenshot of literally every spawn on the map: Yup, those tree monsters that remain motionless and untargetable until they actually see you, rendering Assassin's Strike useless.

Yes.

Still happening. Had just gotten this character to 46 and logged out:

I mentioned the balance thing in my OP - the animation needs to be the same length as other snipes. The practical difference is that, when I snipe with Fire or Energy for example, the actual blast itself takes longer, and my target is affected for the duration of the attack. In other words, a DE lieutenant isn't summoning emanators or swarms while he's bouncing across the room from my Energy snipe. If I'm Fire sniping him, he's going "AAAAAAAAAAAAH! IT BURNS!" for the duration of the fire hitting him, not summoning things. And I can then hit him with a second attack (if necessary) the instant my snipe finishes, before he can get off his summons. With Archery, it's a quick poke that is over as soon as it starts, and then I just stand there while he starts summoning things.

Collecting exploration badges in the Praetorian underground: [NPC] PPD Suppressor: I love this assignment. I get to take out Resistance and I don't even have to get punched first.

I was getting it on characters 26-29: It wasn't happening to me earlier in the day with other sub-50 characters (but all higher than 30), and then just suddenly started happening when I got to this particular page of characters.

The Archery blaster has one complete ATO set and 5/6 of the other, and Sting of the Manticore in her snipe. SOs otherwise. Ice Blast sentinel has one complete ATO set and 3/6 of the other. Only other IOs are some procs for +Regen and +Recovery. SOs otherwise. Blaster has the Darkness Manipulation secondary, only really uses the DMG aura and the two melee attacks. Sentinel has only defensive secondary, obviously (Ice Armor). Pool powers other than Flight: Archer - Leadership: Maneuvers, Assault, Tactics; Munitions Mastery Epic Pool: Body Armor Sentinel - Leadership: Assault; Psionic Mastery Epic Pool: Mind Probe (rarely used, as things just don't get into melee range that often)

More likely, given that the guy we're rescuing is an auto mechanic, and the warehouse is supposed to represent his shop, the checker motif is a reference to the "checkered flag" waved at the finish line in auto racing.

Okay, I just got to make an very obvious, back-to-back comparison between Archery and other ranged sets. I have a group of characters that are a "team", and as such I'm keeping them all leveled together (as if they were actually working together and leveling up at the same time). I just got them all leveled from 39 to 40. My Ice Blast sentinel went from 39 to 40 in about half the time it took my Archery blaster.

I was very confused for a while when some of my alts started showing up with the little padlocks on their costume slots, telling me there was some error with the costumes. Took me forever to figure out that, on those alts, I had selected a power from Munitions Mastery, and I needed to select a rifle to use, despite not choosing a power that needed a rifle.

I recall one mission where I had to stop the bad guys from destroying a specific object. Alas, on this particular running of the mission, in addition to the regular mobs whose job it was to start attacking the object when you show up, the random mission spawning placed two other groups of mobs in close proximity to the object. So the instant I showed up, two lieutenants and six minions all started unloading on the thing, and it was destroyed and the mission failed before I could even start my first attack. As far as random hostage spawns, I would love to see, at the very least, the named hostages use the same model every time. For the others, yeah, it's odd when the "recruit" I'm rescuing from the racist 5th Column is a black guy. Or that hero alignment mission where the DE has abducted three heroes, and they are either overweight or elderly.

I just posted some stuff about Ranged Shot over here, before I saw this thread:

Archery's snipe, "Ranged Shot", needs some help. The problem is in the animation. There's this ridiculous delay after the shot is fired. Draw the bow, hold it, aim carefully, loose ... and then just stand there for 2-3 seconds, as if your character is looking to see, "Did I get 'em? Did I get 'em?" Other blaster sets don't seem to have this issue. I can snipe and then instantly start my next attack. As a result of this post-snipe delay, I may take out my first target with that one shot, but then I end up with the rest of the spawn standing on top of me before I can even start my second attack. Or, as I encountered over and over again in the Devouring Earth arc one of my archers just did, the post-snipe delay gives the lieutenants (who usually don't go down with one shot) all the time they need to summon their emanators and/or swarms and now I have to use considerably more attacks to finish them off, and of course I still end up with the minions all up in my face. I finally figured out how to stop their summoning: Hit them with Stunning Shot first, then a quick snipe. That prevents the summons, but with the reduced damage of the quick snipe, I need to shoot them a few more times, and once again that allows the minions to invade my personal space. Compare that to my fire blasters: I can snipe the lieutenant, hit him with a second finishing attack if necessary, then take out the minions--all before any of them get anywhere close to me. I can sort of guess the original reasoning for that post-snipe delay: the actual "shot" part of "Ranged Shot" is considerably quicker than other snipes, but they needed to make sure the actual full attack animation lasted as long as the other sets' full animation times. In that case, I would suggest removing those extra seconds where the archer is doing absolutely nothing from the end of the animation, and just make the pre-shot aiming part of the animation longer by the same amount. (I know, easier said than done.) The same problem exists, though to a lesser degree, with most other Archery attacks. The whole set seems slower than other blaster sets, without any extra damage to compensate.

Flaminatrix decked out for Christmas!

Energy Ellie's latest togs:

Captain Apple's 10th costume slot:

Yesterday I encountered these odd glowing orbs in random sections of the war walls in Brickstown. They look kinda white in the screenshot, but up close they were red. Never seen this before - part of the holiday or something?