Honestly, if you showed the rules to a bunch of people unfamiliar with HeroClix, I think most of them would say he can pulse wave 5 squares. Replacing with half then replacing with the 'as if' range was more of an insider trick.

Well, apparently I am the only person reading this and thinking "this needs clarified".
I think the beginning of your post makes my case, frankly: you saw the power and said "wow!" Then you thought "he can't be meant to be that powerful" and went looking for the rules to justify your impression.
As to the last, I disagree there as well. The game is very complex, and all of the pieces to the answers are not always obvious. But if all the pieces are laid out I rarely find players saying "no, I don't understand". Lots will say "that's dumb" or some other version of "I think it should work differently", but not "I don't see where the rules say that". When you do get that, it is IMO a filing of the rules to provide clarity.

I definitely see the murkiness. I get where the correct answer is coming from and can see the difference between area of effect and half as a replacement value but I can almost guarantee there will be a debate on this where i play and I will have to show this thead as proof.

Considering this was ruled right for the wrong reason at one venue and wrong for the wrong for the wrong reason at two different venues a couple weeks ago, and that before the rule change we had all pretty much been playing replacement ranges with PW wrong, I'd say it definitely is murky.

I'm fine with the ruling as well, but I do not think it is as clear as it should be, and have seen it first hand give experienced players and judges issues. It's not some horrible WK mistake that we need to bash them for. Just something that isn't as clear as it should, in what is already arguably the game most complicated standard power. Asking for it to be cleaned up a bit isn't the most outrageous request.

In one post you state what I've been trying to say in twenty. Thank you.

I still disagree with part of this. You are using the combat value, just indirectly. You are still using the character's range to determine the Area of Effect, my issue (detailed after the eMouse break) was in how I read the Pulse Wave description.

I fall squarely into the "not most people" catagory on this one.
Pulse Wave AoE is written as:

the area of effect for this attack is half the character's range.

This thread has clarified for me that Pulse Wave AoE is determined as:

the AoE is half of X

X being the Character's Range, determined through the normal procedure of Replace then Modify.

From day 1 of the current PAC and up until yesterday, I've been reading it as:

the AoE is X

X being half the Character's Range. Determine Range including the Halving, which is a Replacement Value.

I cannot think of any other instance in this game where a Combat Value is used to determine an effect where taking half of that Combat Value isn't "halving" that CV under the Replacement rules. This seems to have been where my misinterpretation came from.

I will file this under "nuance", and suggest a clarification for the next Player's Guide. I thank everyone for their time and effort to make sure I finally "got it".

That's the thing. We are in newish territory here. I will say Mjolnir's Song and powers like Red Hulk's and CA Quasar's special are the closest thing to something comparable.

Under the old rules, Nerkkod could Pulse Wave for 10 squares (unless Pulse Wave locked your range, which I don't remember it doing). I only checked the PAC because the new Area of Effect rules are, well, new and I wasn't sure what the exact wording was. Once I saw the wording I knew how it worked.

Another similarly wonky one is THE ODINSWORD, WHOSE TRUE NAME IS RAGNAROK, where you are replacing Thor's damage value with his damage value plus the result of a D6 roll. The argument about why adding the result of the D6 to his DV isn't modifying it (and so is not subject to the Ro3) gets lengthy.

I don't have a problem with the answer there, either, but I wish we were finding clearer language to describe these effects and reduce the confusion.

That power has essentially the same language as the Kinetic Accelerator.

It does, doesn't it? Interesting. I imagine we had some lively discussions about that at the time, as well.

I do think wizkids has done a good job fixing their wording on rules by adding things such as Area of Effect and all the symobls for improved moving and targeting. I think the issue comes in when they improperly word characters or in my opinion not as clear as they could. I do see how the wording with this issue will bother some people. It took me a lot of reading on this thread to decide I agree 100%, a simple action as a pulse wave shouldn't take 5 pages of a forum.

This has been very interesting.

I have a"nit picky" question, but given the strict level of precision and nuance of term the discussion is invoking, I'll throw it out there.

The relevant distinction with Area of Effect seems to turn on the understanding that AoE is not a combat value, not a replacement value. I do not see anywhere AoE, itself, is described as a value of any kind, though it may be derived by a value.

The rules say
ROUNDING
At any point in the calculation of a value, if you have a fractional value (usually caused by “halving” a value), immediately round up to the nearest whole number.

No where, I have seen, is AoE defined as a value. So there is no rule requiring its halving to be rounded up. To do so would be to give "value" a second, broader and potentially more ambiguous meaning. Or rather, if you say AoE counts as a "value" here, it would seem you have to count it as a "value" other places.

Of course a judge could just house rule it, that everything is rounded up, but the context would seem to indicate it's specifically combat values, replacement values, well read it for yourself.

The part about rounding talks about values in the normal sense of the word, not just about combat values. If it did talk about combat values it would say "At any point in the calculation of a combat value".

Most of the words in the rulebook still use their normal English meaning.

Halving your range from pw is a replacement

Nerkkods 10 range in water is a replacement

So you can half then becoem 10

saurons "as if" is also a replacement, but is different bc it is a condition of his power. He can use PW, but only by replacing his range with 10. then its halved to 5

Nope. You're incorrect for the reasons already described. PW doesn't halve anything. PW simply places a maximum and minimum distance which is equal to half of the current range. It's a minor difference that results in significant impact.