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Reading fail or quoting fail? The quote includes the words "recognize", "revealed", and "rewards"... so I'm not sure how your text applies to the post you quoted.

I've never seen that issue on Snipes, but I have seen it on Assassin's Strikes (for multiple different primaries). The weirdest part of the issue on AS I observed was with a /Bio Stalker running Offensive Adaptation: The extra damage from the Offensive Adaptation occurred, but the actual AS never took. I have been patient, and occasionally the AS damage is applied (~30 sec?) after the AS itself.

I believe that some other content (RWZ, Cape/Aura Missions) also scale to your level, so those can become level 45+ missions too.

I think 'ruin' may be overstating the situation.

The 1Binf bids were worthwhile, but 100Minf are far too low for my taste.

Grabbing some billions from the market...

I am somewhat disappointed that we've reached the point where it has become necessary to ask for changes to Death from Below because part of it is viewed as too hard, or too time consuming to run more than once. Here is my effort to be a little more helpful: Because of the nature of DfB, most characters will NOT have access to powers such as Taunt. It will be possible to draw away the zombies, but it has to be done carefully... either via aggro auras (if available) or low-damage attacks (brawl, origin powers). Generally it isn't worth trying to keep the zombie aggro, but if you have it, you can try to keep (some of) the zombies away from Meinst. Typically, if a DfB group is sincere about wanting to get that badge, a reminder to not use AoE attacks (including Sands of Mu) as well as a reminder to pacify henchmen is usually enough to earn the badge.

Time to roll up "Swee Troll" who will have to be wearing a "95% To Hit" Cap.

World of Confusion is terrible disappointment. Because it is a toggle aura, by design it will likely never be as effective as a click-PBAoE. Because it has Confuse status, it relies on the game AI to get any value, and the short period of confusion isn't really long enough to get enemies to do anything remotely useful. In practice: The enemies either spend their 2 secs running out of the aura or I've moved away from them. I'd like to see the power kept for thematic reasons, but it needs something. I feel like the least game-altering thing to do would be to simply increase its radius so that it is less like a Closet of Confusion.

This should come as no surprise, as certain costumes and emotes were originally 'gated'. I'm not in favor of gates; I'd go so far as to call most of the historically 'gated' content to be adversely affecting the Quality of Play Enjoyment, even if those restrictions could be rationalized with in game Lore, or player CPU specs. On Live certain ATs were 'gated' (at different points of the game), and veteran rewards eventually 'unlocked' the prestige powers which help to make low level grind tolerable. I can't write for anyone else but myself, but: I remember how arbitrary the gates used to be, and how much more enjoyable the game is without those gates. It doesn't matter to me if there is an intellectual movement that seeks to rationalize the re-institution of gates in some particular context which they feel avoids all the historically negative associations with gated content... it's still imposing gates, and gates sine qua non separate classes of players from certain aspects of play.

I thought I'd add this bit that is probably obvious to most players: I almost always default to Ion Judgement because it is practically a no-brainer when it comes to targeting, because of the 'jumping' between enemies and the quasi-random positioning of enemies (aggroed or not, running away or not). The only subtlety I've observed with the power is to be careful not to target a teleporting enemy with it, because they will separate themselves from any other potential targets. I do like to pick judgement powers based on 'flavor', but the utility of Ion Judgement is a cut above the rest.

While I certainly enjoy having my non-DPS AT toss Judgements every two minutes in Unai Kemen missions; it would be nice to be able to run lvl 45+ (and other 'scalable to 50') content without having access to the Incarnate powers. I'm not asking for a nerf, just the ability to select it at a challenge mode in Orobouros. Supposedly unslotting Incarnates is an option, but TBH I have trouble remembering to rescale mission difficulties, and the incarnate power change cooldowns just frustrate me as well!

Muling is generally used to indicate a power/slot choice of an IO piece that will give you a bonus (usually Global). For example, there are plenty of pool powers that take Defense IOs, and folks will often take a power, invest no slots in that power, and simple add a piece like the Luck of the Gambler Defense/Global +Recharge to it. You don't have to activate the power to get the global bonus. The "Mule" is simply carrying the IO. It is possible to add more slots to powers just to carry more Global pieces; I still consider this muling. (see @Chaos Stringpoint above about muling with a set bonus) Franken-slotting is the term used when a power is equipped with multiple slots but the slots are filled with different kinds of IO pieces from different sets. Usually this is done because adding %damage procs to certain powers can increase the amount of damage done, depending on the AT (Masterminds themselves are a low damage scale AT, so the %damage procs contribute more on their attacks) and the proc chance. Crudely: Longer recharge powers with more targets have the best chance to proc; toggles are generally the worse place for procs. %Debuff and %control procs are similar A common power that uses Franken-slotting but not for %damage (or %control, or %debuff%) is Mind Link / Link Minds. This is a power worth having as much recharge as possible, but it ONLY can have boosted Recharge from ToHit sets. This makes it worthwhile to frankenslot with both Adjusted Targeting (Recharge) and Luck of the Gambler (Def/Recharge and Def/Global Recharge).

Preferred, unless you are using the Overwhelming Force piece in another AoE power that doesn't usually do Knockback. My Bots/Traps MM uses the Overwhelming Force piece in Photon Grenade (along with a -Resistance piece) to further keep enemies in areas where they will be taking AoE damage. Mastermind attacks are terrible at damage, but they can be leveraged for (soft) controls and debuffs. I have found that the Robots tear through opponents quickest when the enemies are all 'stuck' in one place.

This was the source of my dislike for the Incarnate system on Live: Aside from the cognitive dissonance of (per the narrative) being one of a handful of entities receiving Incarnate POWA) and playing on leagues with multiple-dozens of other Incarnates) having to limp along on Incarnate Trials just to unlock the slots was insulting. I greatly prefer having the solo path, as well as the ability to unlock Incarnate XP levels via defeating enemies.

An important part (IMO) of the changes is: Every point of ToHit buffing the player has will increase or decrease this damage, up to a cap of 2.76 scale damage with +22% ToHit buff. How this affects my builds: I will try to make sure that characters with snipes (Blasters, but also Scrappers/Stalkers with Patron snipes) have ToHit bonuses from IO set bonuses (and/or Kismet: Accuracy, in an active power) to eek out as much damage as possible. Please note that the Kismet piece contributes to ToHit and not Accuracy, and it is ToHit (and not Accuracy) bonuses that contributes to this extra damage. 'Slow' snipes will do extra damage. Generally, the revision to Snipes has meant that Snipes can now be incorporated into a regular attack chain (which is why having a constant ToHit bonus.

If they go on sale, I'll buy a fixed number and leave them unopened... until the time comes when I have a character that wants to make use of Winter sets. Converter roulette will fill ~80% of what I'll need and then I will simply buy the pieces I am missing. This isn't a market area I play in.

Perhaps the most famous hockey graphic for reducing... something

I have no direct experience with Thugs, but I suspect that Gang War is probably the primary power that moves it to a top-tier primary. The Robots are 'tanky', and Dark almost certainly is one of the better choices for 'Tankerminds' where you put the henchmen in 'Bodyguard' mode and keep the aggro on yourself. The Dark T1 heal should keep the henchmen alive for standard content. Homecoming is very generous with 'respecs', and I encourage new players to try different choices, especially while leveling. As far as picking enhancements to go into powers: Every T1 pet benefits from adding an "Overwhelming Force: Chance for Knockdown" piece, as it adds a soft control. If you stick with 'bots, they all do knockback anyway, so you may want to consider another piece (Sudden Acceleration) that converts all knockback to knockdown. The Overwhelming Force piece is unique, but the Sudden Acceleration piece is not.

Even though I have level 50s that don't slot Incarnate powers, I deeply appreciate that those toons can still slowly unlock the slots. Has anyone yet mentioned Mastermind pets in Incarnate content?

I started a Bots/Elec build, but shelved it due to boredom. As @Crysis points out, henchmen are supposed to be expendable. I didn't the feeling from the /Elec set that I'd have more fun with it than my Bots/Traps build.

Missing a 95% final-to-hit-chance with an Assassin's Strike is at least half the reason to take an epic snipe from the Patron pools. when you miss with the AS, the (slow, damage-boosted) Snipe will hit for maximum damage. It's Streakbreaker lemonade.

I've never slotted one, but I have come close, in the following circumstances: On a Kinetics build, because I had slotted all the alternatives in assorted Kin-powers. On a character with a "combined" travel power (e.g. Sorcery's Mystic Flight which combines both Flight and Teleport) for a slight performance edge. Since I discovered that it is possible to boost any of the Universal Travel set pieces (Blessing of the Zephyr, Winter's Gift) to 50+5 and have them work at any level (down to 7, I presume) and I am almost always using the Knockback protection piece, if I ever multi-slot a travel power it would almost certainly be to get a set bonus.

As far as ZOMG sums... IRL I am responsible for a tiny fraction of a very large budget at a business. The amount I am responsible for is certainly not small, but the annual amount would not be considered 'life changing' (in a non-work budget sense) for even the poorest people without being invested in some specific way. My budget area is essentially in an area with fixed costs, such that those costs will never decline without a radical re-imagining of that area of the business... yet every year I get the same speech about reducing expenses... never mind that every year I've used those fixed cost resources to get more return from them than is expected. I like to think that I'm investing the money I'm entrusted with to do more with it than could be expected by just playing it safe... you know, as in the parable of talents. My perspective is someone limited, but I can recognize that the folks above me responsible for the larger budget don't have the ability to differentiate between good investment over bad (because they'd otherwise ease up on those of us investing their talents wisely) or can't justify to those above them how wisely they are spending the talents they've been entrusted with. I was reminded of this because I *just* got the speech about reducing costs, and if my entire budget line was eliminated it wouldn't cover what I assume is the target goal for the entire department. Let me do some of the radical re-imagining of the entire department and I'll let you know where I think we can get better return for the investment.