Megajoule

This argument is pointless.
No one's going to change anyone's mind, and that goes double for Golden "I have a smug, dismissive comment for everything " Girl.

It's also not going to result in any more proper villain content, because even if the current devs are capable of writing some, it's not as cost-effective for them as co-op content. If a shrinking minority of their playerbase has to grit their teeth while doing it, well, too bad.

I (mostly) soloed a brute through Night Ward this last week, at +1x0, bosses on (my usual setting for this character). It was still frustratingly hard in some places, if not impossible, even with brute resists, inspirations, and self-rezzes from Willpower and a vet reward.

When defending the mansion, I did as the mission text suggested and got help from someone else I saw hanging around - a stalker. Who knew? We quickly found out what others have noted re: Night Ward enemies and stalkers, and also had considerable trouble with the last trio of EBs until we were able to pull them up to where Ward could help (and, by chance, took down the named one first - my habit is to peel off helpers, who often heal or otherwise buff the main boss, before finishing them. In this case, however, defeating just her made the other two vanish. Wish I'd have known ten minutes earlier).

Attacking the asylum was properly epic, and I did take some screenshots as I charged up the hill in the vanguard, surrounded by fellow knights. Then I had the bad luck/poor judgment to actually listen to the "It's Up To You" flavor text, and vaulted over that final skirmish line to try to engage Malaise all by myself. I probably still could have managed it without having to rez (two or three times), if not for the constant taunting. Inability to stay targeted made this more frustrating than fun for me; it was like being under constant confusion. (One of the new trends I'm seeing and not liking is for the designers to laugh at characters who thought having mez protection meant that they were, you know, protected from mez.) It wasn't until reading this very thread that I even considered that the smart thing to do would be to sit back, mop up the blockers, and then let my NPC allies take the boss(es) apart for me. How heroic!

(On a somewhat related note, when I did the DA arcs for Solaris, I learned from my first attempt at the faux-ITF that I might as well just choose to solo it, as my "helpers" will be dead halfway through anyway, leaving me to deal with the rest of it myself.)

In the final encounter in the prison, I just died. And died and died. My NPC helpers were wiped out in the first attempt, and after that even my brute couldn't stand up to what I was up against. The only reason I finished that mission is that the story continued, and the mission was marked as completed, while I was face down on the floor. Really, if it's gonna play out like that, can't we just make it a cutscene and do away with the illusion that this fight is winnable?

As an aside, I reject the assertion by some that an appropriate solution is a tray loaded with reds and purples, because it renders the character's actual abilities (and strengths and weaknesses) irrelevant. It's like saying "no one needs mez protection because we have Clarion" or "no one needs AoE damage because we have Judgments." I submit that effectively replacing the character's normal damage output and defenses with "capped/capped for ___ seconds" is not good play or game design.

Be sure to let your loved ones know how you feel.
(You may not have as much time with them as you think.)

Electric-Knight and Pauper: What you said.
(Though a full team of friends can also be fun. Strangers... sometimes not so much.)

Call upon God, but row away from the rocks.

Well said, Techbot and Sam.

I've no great love for the designer myself, but the character is iconic and should be recognized. And clumsy, misguided attempts to remove stuff from the game and pretend it never existed have always bothered me, going all the way back to how the Fifth Column was (badly) handled - all for, as it turned out, reasons that ended up never happening.

Back when I was new to the game, and it was all new to me, I soloed (at least half the time) a bubble defender to 50. It took a while. (A year and a half, actually, between other alts and the leveling curve of the time, plus my own inexperience.)

If you are short of everything but the enemy, you are in combat.

No, the real problem (IMO) isn't so much that your proposal is redundant with existing powersets, it's that it's a bag full of Kewl Gimmicks in search of a concept to justify it.

A friend of mine plays "Longbow Widow." At first her comrades were a mite suspicious, but hey, she's wearing red and white. Seems legit.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Energy, Luminous, or Radiation Blast. Pick one.

Replacing the (redundant, IMO) statue of M1 in Steel with the Statesman is, again IMO, the best idea I've seen from this thread.

There are some parts of the source material that I like and want the game to emulate, and others - such as inconsistent characterization from too many different writers over time, overblown summer crossovers, character deaths that are more about increasing sales than telling a story, and oh yes, absurdly sexualized (to the point of "_____ don't work that way!") female characters written by and for male fanboys of all ages - that I don't. Really, I get that it's extremely authentic, but do we have to copy the embarrassing stuff along with the good?

Still love that image.

"There you go, citizen. Thank you for using the Paragon Taxi Service!"

Anyone may demand answers from the gods.
Getting them is another matter.
Thus has it always been.

Then for the sake of all of the MMs who are going to be shut out of the trial (non-farm version) as soon as this percolates through the playerbase, I hope this bug is fixed soon.

Ruined FOREVER!