Some other threads were complaining about how "everybody" had sidestep or indom, so I decided to apply some MATH to those arguments...

"In Modern" right now:

Top 10 Most Common Standard Powers:
1. Sidestep = 899 characters
2. Willpower or Indomitable = 680
3. Toughness = 656
4. Charge = 612
5. Invulnerability = 424
6. Combat Reflexes = 385
7. Super Senses = 368
8. Precision Strike = 314
9. Running Shot = 312
10. Perplex = 305

10 Least Common Standard Powers:
10. Leap/Climb = 70
9. Force Blast = 68
8. Mind Control = 57
7. Support = 49
6. Mastermind = 42
5. Barrier = 41
4. Telekinesis = 40
3. Defend = 38
2. Earthbound/Neutralized = 31
1. Smoke Cloud = 24

Thoughts:

-with only 1685 clix in Modern, if 899 have Sidestep, then 53% have it...
YUP: EVERYBODY HAS SIDESTEP

-I added WP to Indom because they do the same thing...
WOW! 40% of superheroes apparently have WILLPOWER as a superpower!
(but not every Green Lantern, because...reasons...)

-Why is there so much imbalance in the Movement category? (3 top 10 and 4 bottom 10)
Move & Attack is what players want, but does every clix deserve it?
Or are the other Movement powers bad?

-Hindering and Blocking markers can be useful, but with as little Barrier and Smoke Cloud is out there, do we even need them anymore?

-ooooh! Smoke Cloud! Such a rare superpower, not even Batman has it anymore!! why wasn't this shortage of smoke pellets announced?


Any thought from everyone?

I counted 24 figs in modern with ebn. That includes special powers. I also counted over 40 figs with smoke.

It's interesting that outwit and leadership didn't make the top 10 wizkids must really be toning down the use of support powers.

Defense wise I didn't think that invulnerability would be more common than super senses and combat reflexes. Invincible has become a lot more rare then when pink powers were first introduced where it seemed like invincible and toughness were the only two reducing powers.

Getting into the reasons for shortages...

10. Leap/Climb: replaced in large part by Improved Movement.

9. Force Blast: most of the energy projector types who'd have this are much more popular if they have Running Shot.

8. Mind Control: a power limited in distribution sometimes by its name. If they'd called it "Manipulation" or something, it opens more characters to possibly having it.

7. Support: always kind of a rare power, honestly.

6. Mastermind: mostly limited to villains by the nature of how the mechanic works; heroes step in front of attacks, they don't get minions to take them for them. I don't have any concrete evidence behind it, but it feels like we've had fewer villains lately in sets. Also, this power is usually only found on brainy villains vs. brawny villains.

5. Barrier: I've always felt Barrier is miscast as a defensive power because it requires an action to use. It and Regen. are the only ones like that. It's the defense power which is very unpopular on a high-impact/high-cost fig, because if you don't commit that action to protecting themselves, they're generally left wide open. In counterpoint, it's very popular on low-impact figs, because you can use their actions to cover for your key players.

4. Telekinesis: it's been a definitive part of the Cheese game for a while and had multiple rules nerfs as a result. The power carries a bit of a stigma.

3. Defend: because of HeroClix's tightly-bound stat math, it's only really useful on a defense of 18 or higher, and when it IS higher than 18, it can lead to a really stagnant game.

2. Earthbound/Neutralized: in at least 95% of instances, this power showing on the dial is strictly a disadvantage. It opens some novel dial design options like damaged power armor or a size-shifting character returning to normal size, but mostly, players don't want to see it.

1. Smoke Cloud: this one suffers from a combination of the problems of Barrier and Force Blast. Like Barrier, it requires using an action in what is generally a defensive manner, and like Force Blast, when you consider the kinds of characters that would have it, you'd rather see something else there. For Batman types, we'd rather see Incap. For Ninja/Assassin types, we'd rather see BCF. Or Precision Strike for either.

That's the thing about Barrier and Smoke Cloud, though: when seen in the normal incarnation, not very popular. When seen as a Free Action variant, even with limitations on the placement of terrain, it's awesome.

It comes as a surprise to me, that Empower is not on this list.

This is a really cool thread!

The most interesting stuff to me: Toughness is really common. Charge is almost twice as common as Running Shot. Defend is really uncommon, and that bums me out, because it's such a thematically cool power!

This should probably serve as a signal to WK that the least common powers deserve a little bump in effectiveness.

Yeah I really respect the effort that went into this, but the numbers can't be totally accurate. If you search figures with "smoke cloud" anywhere on dial, shadow lass and black mamba don't appear for example. I use them as an example because they never have normal smoke cloud, just in a trait or special power.

EDIT: I looked again and a modern age example would be Gardener. Doesn't show on a search of modern figs with smoke cloud. Does show if you search smoke cloud in special power text box. Also, the raw numbers are thrown off by fig with multiple starting lines. So Giant-Girl from AI will show up 25 times on a search of charge anywhere on dial.

Ooh, I did this same thing once before.
Did you include Power Cosmic in your willpower group? If not you wanna add 117 Power Cosmics and 24 Quintessences.


The game revolves around move and attack. It's the same as getting 2 actions in a turn any character without move and attack is almost guaranteed to not be a reliable piece. As such, the other non-movement powers must suffer. They are only ever really exciting when a special power allows them to be used with a movement power.


I've also said before that the prevalence of Willpower and Sidestep has hurt the game tremendously to me. It's essentially made it easier to be bad, because it make positioning significantly less relevant. When you can move someone out of the way for free or without taking pushing damage, the exact square you put someone in is significantly less relevant. How many games have we played where every turn both teams are practically reorganizing due to a plethora of sidestep?

It's also interesting to think that since Smoke Cloud/LeapClimb/Mindcontrol/Foreblast are pretty much ONLY good when they are paired with a special power or trait that makes them good, any character that uses these powers and is actually good with them is probably not even included in the tallies above since they probably don't have the powers naturally.

Even if it's off by 10-ish each, its still interesting.


Id be interested to see these numbers with each set. See how they change from set to set. Maybe "This set has more Outwit than any other set".

I am not asking anyone to do that. So dont take that as a request. Just curious now.

You should clarify if this is first click only or entire dial. I think the former is much more meaningful, as opening clicks are the only guaranteed clicks, and represent how a character plays/how you strategize for them. Also, if you're doing anywhere in the dial, you need to remove figures with multiple starting clicks- but if you do first click only, you can leave those in while still being true to the concept

352 opening clicks have Sidestep, btw.
Another 140 have it in a special power, but that search doesn't know how to filter first click only, so it's unreliable.

For comparison, 373 opening clicks have Charge (keep in mind how many of these are Giant Girl), with another 93 having a Charge special power. Toughness is on 291 opening clicks (not including via special powers in this, as it would return WAY too many late-dial results).

Basically, numbers can paint drastically different pictures.

Sidestep is still one of the most common opening click powers.

Sidestep has a few uses design-wise.
1) It is more versatile than Charge/Running Shot. For example, Cyclops can have an emphasis on RCE instead of the standard run-and-gun. In that case, he needs Sidestep to be more efficient. He can't use the two together unless some special power/trait specifically allows it. The XXSFF version of Cyclops demonstrates this perfectly, and is also one of the more powerful Cyclops pieces I've seen in terms of damage output.
2) It can be treated as a downgrade from Charge/RS. If they had all this maneuverability, Sidestep can come up from damage to show that maneuverability decreasing.
3) It allows support powers to be more useful. I don't like Telekinesis unless it's on a piece with Sidestep. That little bit of movement means you're not stuck on one specific place. I've found that when you stay in one place too long, death often follows. This is not simply restricted to Telekinesis, but any support power: Barrier, Outwit, Support, etc.
4) It's great on low-cost generic pieces designed to play in a swarm. You only get so many actions. Sidestep allows them some positioning outside of the standard costed actions. I definitely want swarms to be a thing in this game's design. How else are we going to get the standard "Iron Man blows up a ton of Hydra" or "police ambush the crime lords" scenarios? I definitely don't want them getting Autonomous.

That said, to the argument of "why not just give everyone Sidestep as an inherent ability:"
That is an unnecessary sledgehammer to the perceived problem. A character does not need Sidestep + other movement powers, which making it inherent would create. Sidestep + Charge/RS would be absurd, and pretty much negate any element of strategic positioning. If a character has Sidestep, they aren't going to have as much offensive maneuverability as Charge/RS would allow, but they have more versatile options.

Charge and Sidestep are just the most versatile powers.
Charge is so prevalent because generally Charge is better than SideStep for 0 range characters, and 0 range characters make up almost half the game. Even on characters with ranges >0 Sidestep is more common than running shot because Sidestep is at least as viable on average to characters with range as Running Shot is.
Here is a picture of a spreadsheet showing the break up between 0 range and >0 range characters.

Empower: 92 clix
the real surprise was Enhancement: 72 clix.
Didn't Empower used to be rarer than Enhancement?

another thought:
if Precision Strike is so "Precise", why do so many characters have it??



MORE MATH:
It's interesting to see how many people commented on the numbers versus argued with my numbers.
It's right there in the description:
MODERN figures, STANDARD powers

Any standard power that appeared in an SP I didn't count because
1-I just wanted to see what was on the dial
2-is FREE Smoke Cloud really equal to Smoke Cloud? (nope!)

If someone wants to see how many times a specific power shows up in Golden age figs or in SPs or Traits or whatever, knock yourself out.
I just wanted to see how many characters had brown on the last row.

We should not be surprised at the prevalence of Sidestep or Willpower. Here are a few things to consider:
1. The game is, at its core, about moving characters and attacking with them.
2. The core mechanics of the game encourage attacking over moving. In fact, move actions are inefficient last resorts that set you back tempo-wise and usually give up first attack.
3. But movement is dynamic, and interesting, and per 1, a core part of the HeroClix game.
4. Tempo is also a core part of HeroClix, and many abilities and mechanics relate to tempo. Alongside stats, tempo is one of the biggest areas of manipulation in their game design: how much a character can do in a turn, how many turns they can act, etc.
5. Tempo is also clearly a game element they actively want manipulated and varied. From day 1, there were powers that allowed you to combine 2 turns' worth of actions into 1 (Charge, Running Shot). Pushing was a mechanic from the beginning, and Willpower hit the scene by set 2.
6. Range values are also a tempo modification- they allow you to simulate movement when you attack.
7. But long range reduces the need for movement, an interesting and dynamic part of the game, so...
8. Over the years, range values have been reduced.
9. But simultaneously, move and attack powers increased. This required additional variety to be introduced, a more delineated scale of move and attack.
10. There are many ways to manipulate tempo on a character, but they all boil down to how much they can do in one turn and how many turns they can go before needing to clear. A character can move; they can attack an adjacent character; they can move and attack an adjacent character; movement can be modified; their attack reach can be modified (via Giant Size/range); they can attack more than once; they can move more than once. At this point, another tempo manipulation enters- do they allow an opponent an opportunity to respond, and how large is that response space, before they cycle into their action space again?

I do not think it is a bad thing if game design chooses to manipulate tempo with greater and greater options, nor if characters see a fairly varied spread across that tempo line. I certainly prefer it to vast manipulation of stats.