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W.r.t. announcing "I see ___ in the wild". I get why folks might do it (excitement! rewards?) but I no longer bother unless I explicitly feel like fighting the Giant Monster and I feel like (or require) teaming (so the announcement includes a "want to team?" component. The GMs are on a regular cycle, and as long as the extras are cleaned up (for those that require it) the GMs will respawn. I used to be a LOT more "inviting" about Giant Monster fights... but between players not willing to stick around to cleanup (seriously, the Grim Vale fight couldn't make it more obvious that it *isn't* over) and players asking for 5+ minutes to "get there" and then showing up with a character that can't meaningfully help I now just shrug and take out the monster myself (on a GM hunter) or let it be. It's no big deal if my new PUGforce can't defeat the GM, but it is a little weird to recruit a team and then have to drop to get a different character because the PUG ends up as no match for the GM. WARNING: what comes next is pure AITA fodder! Spoilers: I'm ok with "yes" being the answer. The "last straws" for me was trivial: My solo GM-hunting character has a pretty well-established pace for all the GMs, and I'm comfortable "dialing back" so that whatever GM takes about 5 minutes... which is about as long as I'll wait for someone to zone in... I realize we all get caught in certain missions, but 5 minutes doesn't seem too short for me to get to wherever. Anyway, I had a couple of consecutive GM fights where I'd announced, dragged out the fight for as long as possible (~8 minutes) for someone who said they were coming, and when that character and I finished off the GM, someone else zoned in and started publicly berating us for "not waiting". I guess teh answer to AITA was "yes"? Another AITA GM circumstance... I'm in a mission and see someone announce that they want to stop the Grim Vale fight. I make a note to fly by after I finish themission I just started... after finishing I decide to check out the Grim Vale (>10 minutes later, I keep timestamps active on my characters, I didn't see the "normal activity resumed" so I assumed the vale needed cleanup) and the fight is still going, with no one engaging the monsters. I ask what is happening and I'm told "we are waiting for ____" so I announce "I'm going to soften them up, can they get here in 5 minutes?" and I'm called every nasty name in the book for being selfish about XP (of all things). Big secret: the XP for clearing up a couple of straggler bosses is going to be greater than the XP from the two monsters that have been pummeling each other. After I start softening, the two "waiters" drop their Lores and call me the bad guy. Like I noted: I'm pretty good at pacing GM defeats, especially without someone else's Lores in play. The vale fight is probably one of the least important fights to use Lores, so I get the feeling that this was just two incompatible approaches to GMs. I don't think the other player was an a-hole, but I think they have a very narrow view of how a 2-hour cycle GM fight can go.

For me it is four racks of enhancements, one for things like catalysts. I make every character buy its own boosters! My enhancement racks ended up being mostly full... for a while I was doing a good job pulling/replenishing(*1) the typical sorts of enhancements I use, but... ...for me the real space hog are the attuned PVP pieces. I use them while leveling, but at 50 if they aren't swapped for purples (or whatever) they are swapped for level 50s that can be boosted. Even converting them into pieces that are on as attuned, I have too many of those things. On the vary rare occasion that I have an unslotted 50+5 purple or pvp... if it looks like it won't get used I just reroll into something that will be used.... typically such PVPs become a Shield Wall or Gladiator's Armor, Purples can become almost any Damage or Damage/Endurance piece. I follow a similar practice for superior Winters and ATOs. (*1)Part of my own replensihment is that the level 50 respec grabs certain pricey (on the secondary market) pieces that are not attuned and swapping them to be attuned. LotG, some globals, etc. which makes the (old, previously) attuned pieces for the next character.

I find the Snipe sets to be (on balance) poor enough (because of level ranges) that when I am actually slotting a Snipe set I always opt for Experienced Marksman. Typically I want the Fast Snipe anyway, but MMV.

I occasionally boost common IOs for use with other enhancement sets: this typically happens on powers with two distinct attributes, such as defense/healing/EndMod.. one of those attributes gets a set, the other gets an IO. I've also used Defense or Resistance IOs boosted when I've already gotten the set bonus I want but I want MOAR defense/resistance. There are a handful of non-purple/non-pvp pieces I have boosted that aren't slotted... but those are quite few and they do get recycled (things like Accuracy/Damage for Brawl, or Accuracy/Endurance for %damage attacks) The boosted purples/PVP not being used... I just convert those into another piece I want. The boosters are pretty cheap (5 merits each), it's not worth sweating IMO.

And what is a solo level 4 bringing to Echo Dark Astoria to help with Adamastor? And why would the solo level 4 be the one to summon it?

Based on the very limited amount of information in the OP, I'm not sure how I feel about this instance. Even so: I really can't imagine a solo level 4 having a reason to spawn Adamastor... level 4 characters can bare get through Ouroboros to Echo: DA anyway. (I know it is 'trivial' but I feel like I spend so little time below level 8 I can't imagine how Adamastor became a priority for a solo level 4 player!) As for the missing pieces of information... normally there is some amount of in zone broadcast and/or tells after such an announcement... before summoning... even if it is just "please wait", so if none of this happened... everyone was salty. TBH: the only thing I see (in recent times) about the Admastor summons that I find annoying is the player(s) who camp their multiple alts there, and resummon it every hour just to multiibox it with 3+ Lore pets. I don't care if they "politiely announce" their intention to resummon... its the Nx16 merits they want, a courtesy announcement isn't absolving the greed.

I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, especially if they are right... yet I want to comment on one well-written, detailed post My Dominators have avoided having Hasten to guarantee permaDom, but I agree that building to achieve permaDom limits my build approaches such that I feel like that the end result (character) is narrowly: really good at certain controls and really hard to be controlled... which feels niche to me. I do like that Domination refills the blue bar... one more thing to micro-manage via build/play choices. I sometimes love living on that knife's edge... but it is otherwise not that enjoyable for me. I feel like my personal distaste for "narrow build choices to achieve permaDom" was a large contribution to why I almost universally avoid including Hasten on Homecoming builds. To me it represents a narrow approach to both play and character design.... especially when "permaHasten" becomes a goal in and of itself. I turned off autoHasten on a character I felt really needed it... and I noticed no significant experience in game play, and I haven't really looked backwards.

The only rationale I was ever able to imagine was one motivated by (some) low-level sets not having many pieces (presumably because low-level characters have fewer slots) and a limited sort of desire to encourage character progression through "gear". I'm far less bothered by (some of) the sets having different min/max level caps than I am that several types of enhancement sets lack the sort of attribute combinations that I'd find useful. (ehem: Threat, Fear and to a lesser extent Accurate ____). I certainly would have thought that Threat would have gotten at least two new sets considering the (smart) improvements made by Homecoming... there are threat powers that can benefit from Endurance reduction, and there are plenty that can use Accuracy.

Nothing is stopping players who find the game boring or tedious from trying out whatever on Brainstorm... so why do so many avoid it?

There is a wide variety of content that I've seen described as "tedious", and such an accusation always lands wrong with me. This is a game after all, and usually the thing accused of being tedious is both: Not required to play the game In the way of someone having the most awesome level 50+++/Incarnate character ever, because that is the only way they want to play the game. The tedious accusation might peeve me less if the game didn't already make it pretty simple to achieve the second bullet point, even if it isn't "on demand".

Of these three recent posts, the only part I take some issue with is (sideways, perhaps?) reference to adapting playstyle (and if necessary, an alt-build) of a MM as a "crutch". MMs cannot be played exactly the same through all content, unlike almost all other ATs... and I'm not referring to swapping out Incarnate powers. I absolutely understand players getting frustrated with MMs if they are used to something like a Blaster/Scrapper/Brute/Tanker... and I've been in circumstances when I've taken a well-tuned MM into content that it was *not* tuned for... writing only for myself, the mental load can be enormous! @Lunar Ronin comment about gross over-inflation of MM issues resonates with me. I've experienced the blue-bar issues. I've experienced some henches getting clobbered before they can get an upgrade. I've experienced bad pathing, and peculiar AI... but these aren't even close to be AT-killers, because they can all be addressed, through build choices (including power picks and slotting choices) and playstyle choices. Personally... I don't even think the T1/T2 less-than-even-level (currently on Live) is that big of a deal... because I can slot and make build choices to augment ToHit and Accuracy... and lets not pretend there aren't some proc-heavy other AT that struggle to hit enemies at +3... yet I can understand if the devs want +7 content they don't want solo MMs to feel left out.. Like @Paradox Fate wrote... are players clamoring to take their MMs solo through such content?

So... it's the T4 unlocks that are causing the tedium?

Even if a non-EAT took every power from the Primary and Secondary, I think they could still pick all five of the Epic/Patron powers by 47.... so maybe the cool kids are doing that, plus a travel power, which is delaying a pick until 49?

This suggestion has all the feels of "have some incarnates on one character; want incarnates on another character, now" thread. I can't really get behind making it easier to get Incarnates: It's really not that hard, in game now... except that there is some content that is impractical to run for Incarnate effort This sort of suggestion would IMO unbalance things such that there would be specific content that was better at accumulating Incarnates Incarnate characters are explicitly supposed to be "taking the slow path" to Incarnate power YMMV on just how necessary it is to ihave T4s (instead of T3s)... or to even have T3s... instantly or otherwise... but for me, I get there eventually... and often by the time I join Incarnate content and find I am missing level shifts, I craft up the ones I need from the Incarnate salvage tab.

I read the quote: I'm not loving the "do 25% less damage against level, because if you play against +3 you now do 30% more (than you would have, but only against +3s)." I get it... there is a perception that MMs were lagging in damage (of all things) against +3s... but my lvl 50 Masterminds were happiest at even levels solo(*1). When my MMs joined +3 content, I never felt like they needed to be providing MOAR DAMAGE... And I'm one of the crazies that has run Penny Yin and Synapse TFs at +3, I ran a test at -1x8 (because I forgot to account for/remove alpha shift) of the Vigilante Mission "Shattered Jar of Flesh", same maps, same strategies, same attack cadence. This was a full-kit MM running Tactics. The only difference between test and live was the placement of objectives and final spawns. Did a defeat all on each. 13 minutes on test, 11 minutes on live. I has slightly more runners to deal with on live, but that is hard to judge. Somewhat inconclusive, as I had intended to do an even level test.