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We don't have the ability for Macro buttons to show timers (or any sort of indicator), so I'm having trouble imagining a circumstance where this approach would be valuable... I guess if there is some emote or say the player wants done to indicate that Hasten didn't fire....

This argument feels extremely thin to me. I don't doubt that personal preference doesn't exist... it's more that personal preference =/= non-viable power(*1). If nothing else, it is literally a 1-slot wonder power for slotting the %Absorb piece. If a player opts to slot a different %proc (one that requires a trigger) in it, I believe that Spirit Ward can be cast on the sorts of summonable pets available to all players.... but I rarely slot anything but the %Absorb in it. As much as a b**** about the first three power choices in the Presence pool being at odds with each other, making that pool somewhat "clunky"... i don't think any of those three powers isn't viable (for characters that don't have access to such powers via primary/secondary). (*1) My own personal ranking of the powers in the Sorcery pool would put Enflame at the bottom.... but not because I think it isn't viable, I find it to be one of those powers that looks good on paper but needs rather specific circumstances to really sing. My perception is also colored because it becomes available at level 14, but for most ATs it is rarely the best choice of a power between levels 14 and 30.

Rando comments: I definitely consider Invulnerability to be a "hybrid" set. One of the things I like best about Invulnerability (on Tankers, Brutes, with bigger Health pools) is that it isn't necessary to run all of the toggles (all of the time, or ever) Scrappers... because of smaller caps (on Resistance and HP) I think perform better with a secondary that contributes to debuffing/damaging enemies in melee while also providing healing/absorb to the Scrapper. I'm not really thinking of "damage auras" for Scrappers as much as PBAoE powers that can have %procs added. Off teh top of my head, Radiation and Bio. Defense based Scrappers IMO perform very well... but they need something else when things go pear-shaped. Incarnates can fill the gap, but I don't like relying on Incarnates to make a character awesome... so for Defense based ones I'm usually looking at a T3/T4/T5 power in a power pool to provide that little extra something.

"I saved 2 BInf with one stupid trick!"

I think it is better to say that the Prismatics are farmed because of the market (so indirectly to "people wanting them"). I've been watching the market and I am surprised that we are seeing near daily getting influxes of 1K+ prismatics with the total amount above 5K. Somebody is really dedicated to farming Prismatics; I suppose someone could be playing the "I want to set the market price for them" game, but like everything else that drops freely that would be silly and I can't even imagine it is fun as an intellectual exercise.

KB protection is literally one of the easiest things to build for using enhancements.... especially for Tankers/Brutes because of the +3KB three-set bonuses from useful sets like Gladiator's Armor and Fury of the Gladiator (IIRC both Dark and Fire armor have commonly chosen powers that can take each. Those are on top of the multiple choices of +4KB pieces that can go into travel, resistance, and defense powers. SG bases offer 90 minutes of +10 KB protection. How much easier does the game have to be made for some people? This is a request that sounds like someone wasn't expecting actual variety in the game.

I may be missing something: This approach might be defeating the purpose of having multiple powers queued for auto-execute, Macros act like power icons you have to click, the concept of keybinding is that the player is queue a power along with some key they would be pressing anyway. I suppose you could set up a macro to trigger a rolling set of bindfiles, but for (alternating) powers this seems like the wrong approach for the more common circumstances (e.g. Domination and Hasten).

And it was! When the 4-figure blind boosters were under $10, they made for exciting impulse buys, but now blind boosters are up against $20 for five figures and the internal rarities are so skewed... plus the actual set contents include a LOT of duplicate versions of the same characters... there isn't as much excitement in the boosters. There has been some effort to (recently) make all the figures at all rarities somewhat on par with each other in terms of utility and dial cost... there was a far too long of a period when it was the rarest figures shattered the point formula (and often rules) which made the actual game miserable for a majority of potential players.

In addition to "just playing", there are opportunities to use the game to be creative: base building and costume making can break up any tedium.

As @ShardWarrior noted: it is not at all uncommon.... typically it is direct insults and/or replies quoting direct insults, or posts relating to (or admission of) violation of terms of service/code of conduct. Rarely... I've seen posts/threads hidden that implicate or accuse moderator(s) for specific behavior (including instances of inaction or perceived hypocrisy), but I take those hidings to be more of a sort of "mods can see it, there is no reason for the hoi polloi to see it". Players can of course hide their own posts. Far more common is a thread getting locked. I suppose the excuse is "it's all been said", but given how often certain topics get started from fresh I think a better description of why some threads get locked is "a mod was interested in the thread, but has gotten tired of reading posts by the same two people."

There is enough in the initial build that doesn't align with my own approach(*1), that I'm just going to toss out a few ideas. I agree with the other assessments about Res v. Positional defenses (which may or may not even be worth chasing depending on content being played). I'm not crazy about the (delayed) power picks for 41+, or the slotting. Build Up should not be a level 49 pick for a Scrapper. I really like Combat Teleport when used with Axe. (*1) Grabbing Hasten, a travel power, and 3 powers from the Fighting pool by level 22 is IMO something of an 'old school' thinking, as is multiple attacks from the Epic/Patron. You could take any four of those powers and use something like the Force of Will pool to get a travel power, one/two ranged attacks (or a ST debuff), and a self-buff like Unleash Potential and I think performance would be improved... and you could still take a patron snipe if desired.

I didn't see the thread right before it was 'curated', but it had ventured into a single player admitting violating elements of the ToS, and other players calling them out. I didn't see much rudeness, but I have seen other threads vanish with similar casual mentions of having violated the Terms of Service or Code of Conduct.

I think there is an extra level of irony because HeroClix itself despite sticking around since 2002, and because of the super-hero connection is basically a license to print money, has always shown signs of being a somewhat mismanaged product. It's a much more complicated product than cardboard cards, and even though the production->shelf logistics are "solved", the parent company(s) have always used the profits from HeroClix to prop up other (much less popular) games on top of changing the core HeroClix game just because someone new has an "unbeatable" set of new ideas and approaches. (imagine the ideas in our suggestion forum being implemented/rolled back on a 18-month cycle).

Yep, pretty much all the 'origin' pools have containment effects on the attacks. It isn't something unique to only one of them.

For extra damage on a Controller, I pretty much always go Force of Will. 1) Mighty Leap (for travel) 2) Weaken Resolve (reasonable debuff, plus can %damage at range) 3) Wall of Force (Exceleent AoE cone, with a control piece) 4) Unleash Potential (as a self-buff, holds many good sets) Project Will isn't bad (it also has a control element for Controllers) but typically I don't have the slots for it, and certainly not at low levels. I typically don't have a place in my control/attack chains for it, whereas the Weaken Resolver debuff can fill a gap should I have one.

Dual Blades is (now) one of those sets that I now only consider if there is a very specific costume/character concept I want to implement. The combo mechanic is fine, but I get bored always executing the same patterns of attacks. The all Lethal damage becomes a mood-killer for me after fighting large numbers of certain enemies.

This is the talk of a crazy person.

Strictly my perspective: I feel like the monthly, open-world events amplify the sort of behavior a player favors anyway, no matter if it is: Easy XP Easy Rewards Badges FOMO seems to drive players (myself included!) to focus on certain things that aren't available most of the rest of the time. The only thing about (some) common player behavior during Halloween is that I commonly encounter that leaves me with a sour taste is the weird defeatist attitude towards the Banner events... There isn't a reason IMO for a smallish (even 8 players should be plenty) ToT league of 50s to NOT tackle the banners. I don't know if the players think their characters are simply crap, or if they think it is too much work but I'm feel embarrassment for Peregrine Island's heroes who would rather just grab loot from doors.

I generally do what @CaptA suggests, but with some variation of opinion on: A couple of things: At level 50, a player is (mostly) going to be getting level 50 recipes... which are the priciest to craft. Its more trouble than its worth to avoid getting level 50 recipes, but I will say I almost always vendor Rare (and Common) level 50 recipes, unless the hoard of Rare salvage aligns with the Recipe. Rare salvage otherwise gets used for Purple/PVP recipes. I used to do this, but I came to think I was just hoarding. I don't make characters fast enough (compared to how much I play characters I already have made) to consume the pieces I have in storage. I'm far less 'proactive' about keeping certain enhancements than I used to be. I haven't 'cured' myself of this, but I've taken to having characters grab a LOT of enhancements out of storage early just to have some breathing space!

Those times when Maria Jenkins send you to Seige before starting her arc: Jackpot!

I almost never have all my toggles on. Sprint can do a number on the blue bar during combat. Set bonuses that increase MaxEnd will help, as will the accolades. Attacks (and toggles that will be on) need to have some Endurance Reduction. perma-Hasten is a blue bar killer.The one-track approach to achieving perma-Hasten restricts certain other build choices/set bonuses, but the real nasty is spamming attacks that are probably burning Endurance too quickly. Clicking powers less frequently spends less Endurance and allows more time for blue bar refilling. I only ever use the Numina global if the character is otherwise going to have a power with just one Healing piece in it. By the time a character can slot it, it should pretty much have the Endurance bar under control IMO. From memory: the only character of mine that has Endurance issues that needed adjustment via Incarnates was a Fortunata. Something about the toggles, attacks (I took quite a few from the Patron pool, which is unusual for my builds) and controls that have her running exceptionally hot.

I'll just write for myself: I often find working inside laptops to be somewhat stressful, so I prefer to have them open as few times as possible. I suppose if someone really knows what they are looking for (in terms of RAM) it may not be too hard to track down the new pieces. One thing I've been really annoyed with (for laptops, especially "business models") is when the model is listed as having a hardware interface (internal) but it turns out that teh spec was just listing potential options... that might have been in the model at some point.... Specifically I've been repeatedly surprised by (lack of) drive interfaces. It wasn't much of a big deal for me when one laptop had two SSD interfaces instead of the 1+1 configuration I was expecting, but I fully expected my recent cheapy Dell to have two drive interfaces but only came with one. It looks like the chipset is there, but Dell being Dell didn't put the connector in place. If I hadn't seen how cheap they were 30 years ago with lack of traces on things like floppy drive connectors, I would have been surprised.

When this happens in the same book, I blame the editor (or "publisher's reader") as much as I blame the writer. I suppose I can absolve the editor/publisher and assign all of my annoyance to the author when the author is clearly just filling pages with slop. As an example, I'm reminded of Dan Brown's DaVinci Code which has the exact scene play out several consecutive chapters as the characters visit different sites (one immediately after the previous). This was clearly Dan Brown just "getting away with it." and it was the last book of his I read similar to Kevin J. Anderson (see above)... when the author breaks the illusion that they care about their craft for me, I don't have to waste any more of myself on their work.

Who has some good examples of this? The one that comes to mind for me is much of Kevin J. Anderson's Last Days of Krypton was recycled into one of his earlier Doon novels... I can't say which Doon book, maybe the Butlerian Jihad? I'm pretty sure I read their first Doon trilogy, but had been pretty disappointed, so when I encountered the recycling I pretty much dropped out. There is another slightly adjacent concept: Robert B. Parker's Poodle Springs (a "conclusion" to four chapters of an unfinished Philip Marlowe novel by Raymond Chandler) recycles (IIRC) one of the first four chapters for a later one, and (again, IIRC) recycles elements from other Chandler work for other later chapters. Chandler of course recycled certain themes and archetypes, and reworked his short stories into his novels, but the Parker effort felt criminal to me... at the very least he needed an editor, and if he had one I shudder to think what the first draft was like.

I don't disagree with the approach of maximizing RAM for PC purchases (laptop and desktop, although desktops are typically easier to service), but as for early obsolescence concerns I'd focus squarely on having a dedicated video card first and foremost(*1). Besides the focus on gaming, there are just a few of the activities I regularly encounter that leverage video resources more than they do RAM (YMMV, I'm only sharing my experiences): Video processing, editing, and playback Microsoft programs with a graphical component (like Excel, when plotting)... other companies software probably does this too, but Excel is the tool that hits me hardest Business systems that rely on a Web interface for display/navigation/functionality The last one is a real pisser when working for a company that went all-in on some web-based interface for a critical system, but the interface slows to a crawl for typical business machines. that lack dedicated graphics systems (see also CAD, but that isn't my realm). I wish businesses acted as if they were more aware that their bulk-purchase business laptops might not work so well with their new web-based software. (*1) I have a couple of laptops I use regularly of roughly similar age. the 8GB RAM + Video system outperforms the 16GB system in every way except in power consumption and portability. Having written all that... the price difference between 8GB and 16 GB of RAM shouldn't be a deal-breaker, the difference in price will likely come down to availability (especially for laptops and/or slightly older systems).