Ok, I have been playing Heroclix for a few months now, and I've been getting familiar with all the rules in great detail, because I've also been responsible for teaching 2 other people how to play (Which sucks when I forget minor stuff such as -2 to Movement when Carrying... oops).
My question is about Feats, as I am now going to be stepping up my gameplay methods going forward. I know a lot of Feats have a prereq of having a certain ability or power in order to be assigned that feat. My question is, as long as I meet the prereq on the dial, can I use the Feat any time? Let me give you an example.
FEAT: Camoflage
PREREQ: Shape Change
Choose a character.
When the character is adjacent to a wall or blocking
terrain, any line of fire for a ranged combat attack
drawn to the character is blocked.
So I need to have a character with Shape Change on his dial to even assign this Feat to them. Fair enough, got that. However, does the fig need to have Shape Change SHOWING in order to use it? For example, Jarvis from Secret Invasion only has Shape Change showing on his very last click. Would he not receive the benefits of Camoflage until that very last click? Or would he have it the entire time because he does have Shape Change somewhere?
Thanks for the help, all. Reading through the forums is supremely educational; I've only had to post 2 or 3 times for answers because it seems like I can find everything else super easy!

A feat can only be used by a character when the relevant pre-requisites for the feat are showing on his dial (or otherwise accessible).

So in other words, no using Camouflage if you don't presently have Shape Change available.

Just take a look at the Feat "Auto-Regeneration" and try and imagine how hard it would be to KO a long-dialed character with it if you could use it every turn whether or not Regeneration was showing on your dial

A figure needs to currently meet the prerequisites from a feat in order to use it, yes. Otherwise Automatic Regeneration would be totally crazy.
In this specific example, Jarvis would actually get Camouflage benefits throughout his dial, but that is because the Skrull TA also lets him use Shape Change, thus satisfying the prerequisites of the feat.

Great minds think alike.

Heh, great (Scandinavian) minds think alike

Bork! Bork! Bork!

That's what she said.

Ok, I thought that maybe this was the case, but I'm still not 100% sure. According to the latest Player's Guide, the Skull Team ability is worded as:

Page 72:
When a character using the Skrulls team ability is chosen as the target of an attack, roll a d6. On a result of 6, the attack can’t be made. The attacker must choose another target or be given a different action.

It does NOT mention that it is Shape Change.
However, if we flip back to page 22 of the Player's Guide, we see this:

Page 22:
Other than the roll that is required, this team ability works the same as Shape Change.

Works the SAME as Shape Change, but is not Shape Change. I'm not trying to shoot myself in the foot as far as Feats go, but I also want to be correct and fair. So what do you all think? I think I would only be able to use it on his last click, unless the line from Page 22 means that the Skrull TA IS Shape Change, albeit one that works a little differently.


(I want to say that I know using Jarvis and Skrulls as examples seems odd, I can't imagine too many players are fielding Jarvis as a matter of course, but I feel that the same situations pop up time and time again, so if you can get a handle on one, you can understand how they all work... however, I am playing a 1000 point Skrull army today for fun.)

That's not the latest player's guide.

The latest Player's Guide says:

Wait a second.
Are you seriously saying that you don't think people are playing a 36 point Outwitter which can move around "freely" and has a decent chance of bypassing being attacked?

Oh. The Heroclix Website doesn't have the latest rules?
Yeah, that's an old date. Well that's just dandy.
So USE Shape Change is the same as HAS Shape Change then?
(Just found my Dec 2010 player's guide. Must have got that from this site then.)

Heck, I'm thinking about playing Jarvis this Monday in a 400 point game.

Perhaps I stand corrected, lol.

No. "Has" or "have" denote possession of the power/ability/symbol typically while "use" is, well, "use".

Possession and use are two different concepts in this game. A character that possesses something can always use that something, but a character that uses something does not necessarily possess that something.

This is critical for a couple different reasons. Most importantly, only possessed powers and abilities can be countered with Outwit. So a character could Outwit that last click of Shape Change on Jarvis (since he possesses Shape Change on his dial), but he could not counter the Shape Change granted via his team ability since the team ability only allows Jarvis to use Shape Change.

For Outwit this makes sense, but what about for assigning and using Feats? If he can USE Shape Change due to the Skrulls TA, he doesn't HAVE Shape Change until his last click. So would the Camoflage Feat work all the way down his dial because he can USE Shape Change, or would it only work on his last click, because that's where he HAS Shape Change?