SawzAll

Not going to lie, this isn't half bad.

Yeah, it's not my image, and I agree: don't transform power kits, it's inefficient.
Unless you just have nothing else better to do and feel like wasting gold.

I'm only arena rank 10/11. I personally don't like a drone I got to keep activating. I used to despise Firefly because it is range 2-4 until I tried it, and until I saw it on the META thread. Now I'm a Firefly user.
Nope, I'm type A and an extrovert. I know I'm wordy but I really try to work on being brief.

Well it's just because I make sure I give myself birthday and Christmas money.  First, because budget.  But second, because I'll forget to be kind to myself.
This is a difficult question to answer.  And there are many opinions on it.  The best way I can put it is, it depends.
First, evaluate the stats.  If drone A average damage + (10 x resistance drain) - backfire > drone B then use drone A.
Second, evaluate the goal of your build.  My heat damage mech on my alt uses backstabbing protector instead of Nemo.  Also, for my "CleverJumper" physical build, selfish protector is better than Tonto because sometimes I end up in range 1.
Third, use your experience.  In my arena rank 6-8 experience, for energy, Unreliable Protector is better Torment. 
Fourth, think of where you're using it.  For campaigns, I never recommend backfire drones, but they work in the arena, and might work in raid.
If you still don't know when to use a backfire drone, my opinion is only when you have one of the top torsos (vests, monkeys, EFA, Nightmare) and the torso is max mythical at least.  And only until you've at least gotten the reduction of backfire arena perk to at least level 5 out of 10.
My other general drone experience:
1) I don't recommend range-limited drones because people tend to range bully them too easily.
2) Limited use drones (Face Shocker, Heatpoint, etc.) are only worth it when they can do more damage / heat / energy drain in 3 turns than the other drones you already have in 4 turns.  I've seen Face Shocker used by people in the top ranks, so it just depends on build and context.
 

I can agree here.  I'd love to give gifts to people in here.

I can agree here.  I'd love to give gifts to people in here.

Here's a list of most to least bang for your buck in terms of divining certain items.  It's still a work in progress.  At the bottom, I will explain the long story.






SHORT STORY: This chart can help you decide what items to divine (but it's "on paper" so use your brain).
LONG STORY: So in my year+ of playing SM, sometimes I've wondered which items I should divine first.  So I set about doing some math to determine this, based on the difference that is made in the stats.
Basically, looking at what stat increases and by how much is used here to determine "bang for the buck," or statistically what factors increase the most.  There are some caveats to this but just hold on, I'm going to explain.  I am still looking for those who can help me with screenshots on these types of items (the page in SM that tells you what you gain by ascending an item).
The great players who have played / are playing SM usually recommend to divine torsos first.  If you look at this chart, you see this is confirmed.  This is because heat, energy, and HP of torsos are increased when you divine them.  Sure, this isn't rocket science, we know this.
But this is useful mainly for other circumstances.  For example, if you're a new player and you can divine either your malice beam or your lightning recoiler, you may not know which you want to divine first.  This chart tells you which item's difference in stats would be the greatest, i.e. which will receive the most benefit from being divined.  (I don't have malice beam yet but based on a 5% reduction from divine, it appears you should divine your malice beams before your lightning recoiler.)
Now note that this chart is pure math, nothing else.  Obviously this chart is a tool or guide, but it does not account for all factors.  It tries to account for how many times you use it in an arena battle by using the more or less "3-4 turns" concept, so unlimited use items receive a "4" here.  Face shocker receives a 3, etc.  This is just to, statistically, try to account for items with limited shots.  This seems to also match real world game knowledge, as most people don't recommend to newbies to divine their basalt dissolvers first, for example.
But what I mean is even looking at this chart, you need to determine what is more important to you.  You should still divine torsos first, but if you have 3 divine MPV and 3 divine LPV like me, your next move is usually not to divine HPV.  HPV is useful for some RAID, campaign, and titan stuff, but you don't use it as often as MPV and LPV in this game, so obviously HPV should not be your next divine if you just got your 5th legendary ascension relic.
So as you look at the chart, think, "what do I use the most?" and use that to decide among the items you use the most.
So for example, my 3v3 heat damage team I'm currently using.  I am using items like Abomination, Shadow Wolf, and Burning Shower.  Per this chart, burning shower receives the most benefit from being divined, so if I'm choosing between these 3 items, I should divine burning shower first, but of course assuming I've already divined more important items like torsos and such.
Statistically, modules tend to be towards the bottom, though platinums would be "most" important statistically, followed by defense matrices, combined engines, and quad cores.  Does that mean you should divine defense matrix?  In my opinion, no, because defense matrix, while very useful, is not an "end game" item.  Your "end game" builds are triple fortress.  I have made rank 1 using defense matrix, but barely.  I generally don't consider defense matrix a "rank 1" item.
I'm still trying to get more data, so this chart IS NOT COMPLETE.  But it's getting close.  There are many other factors to consider like efficiency (damage to weight for weapons, etc.) and build (for instance, Sorrow isn't that good on paper but it works very well in certain builds).
If you would like to help me with this data, contact me on discord.  Thanks!

Here's a list of most to least bang for your buck in terms of divining certain items.  It's still a work in progress.  At the bottom, I will explain the long story.






SHORT STORY: This chart can help you decide what items to divine (but it's "on paper" so use your brain).
LONG STORY: So in my year+ of playing SM, sometimes I've wondered which items I should divine first.  So I set about doing some math to determine this, based on the difference that is made in the stats.
Basically, looking at what stat increases and by how much is used here to determine "bang for the buck," or statistically what factors increase the most.  There are some caveats to this but just hold on, I'm going to explain.  I am still looking for those who can help me with screenshots on these types of items (the page in SM that tells you what you gain by ascending an item).
The great players who have played / are playing SM usually recommend to divine torsos first.  If you look at this chart, you see this is confirmed.  This is because heat, energy, and HP of torsos are increased when you divine them.  Sure, this isn't rocket science, we know this.
But this is useful mainly for other circumstances.  For example, if you're a new player and you can divine either your malice beam or your lightning recoiler, you may not know which you want to divine first.  This chart tells you which item's difference in stats would be the greatest, i.e. which will receive the most benefit from being divined.  (I don't have malice beam yet but based on a 5% reduction from divine, it appears you should divine your malice beams before your lightning recoiler.)
Now note that this chart is pure math, nothing else.  Obviously this chart is a tool or guide, but it does not account for all factors.  It tries to account for how many times you use it in an arena battle by using the more or less "3-4 turns" concept, so unlimited use items receive a "4" here.  Face shocker receives a 3, etc.  This is just to, statistically, try to account for items with limited shots.  This seems to also match real world game knowledge, as most people don't recommend to newbies to divine their basalt dissolvers first, for example.
But what I mean is even looking at this chart, you need to determine what is more important to you.  You should still divine torsos first, but if you have 3 divine MPV and 3 divine LPV like me, your next move is usually not to divine HPV.  HPV is useful for some RAID, campaign, and titan stuff, but you don't use it as often as MPV and LPV in this game, so obviously HPV should not be your next divine if you just got your 5th legendary ascension relic.
So as you look at the chart, think, "what do I use the most?" and use that to decide among the items you use the most.
So for example, my 3v3 heat damage team I'm currently using.  I am using items like Abomination, Shadow Wolf, and Burning Shower.  Per this chart, burning shower receives the most benefit from being divined, so if I'm choosing between these 3 items, I should divine burning shower first, but of course assuming I've already divined more important items like torsos and such.
Statistically, modules tend to be towards the bottom, though platinums would be "most" important statistically, followed by defense matrices, combined engines, and quad cores.  Does that mean you should divine defense matrix?  In my opinion, no, because defense matrix, while very useful, is not an "end game" item.  Your "end game" builds are triple fortress.  I have made rank 1 using defense matrix, but barely.  I generally don't consider defense matrix a "rank 1" item.
I'm still trying to get more data, so this chart IS NOT COMPLETE.  But it's getting close.  There are many other factors to consider like efficiency (damage to weight for weapons, etc.) and build (for instance, Sorrow isn't that good on paper but it works very well in certain builds).
If you would like to help me with this data, contact me on discord.  Thanks!

No problem.  What it does is take factors that are increased by divining.  Because damage is a minimum and maximum, I had to use average of the two as one of the factors.  Heat weapons end up doing more heat, so that's a factor.  The point of this "ugly" math is to just get what 5% does.  So if you were going to buy something that's 5% off and it's normally $100, that's a $5 discount.  This is the opposite: it measures total amount of increase.
Then it takes into account how many uses the item has (4 for unlimited use, based on the average turns in arena battles).  This then tells you, basically, how much of that increase you will see in the arena.  It's not perfect but it's a guess.
For example, scopes would see the most increase.  But if you don't take into account that they are 1 use, you'll think you should divine all your scopes first, not your torsos or whatever.
Basically, this chart tries to tell you what's the best way to use your gold and ascension relics.  That way you don't accidentally divine your basalt dissolver, for example, thinking it's going to make a huge difference in the arena.

No problem.  And you're right.  Windigo was made basically the flagship of F2P torsos.  Archimond, as a premium, should be better.  So either it should be made non-premium (and everyone who owns it given a legendary power kit at least) or it should be buffed so it's better than Windigo.
On that thread, I gave my opinion that a 150 hp buff (at divine, no arena stuff) should make it very competitive without making it better than the monkeys or vests: basically, elevating it to almost equal status but not killing off other things in the meta.

Please see the Archimond buff request post.  It's being addressed.

Not every torso can be the best.  I believe Windigo as specifically buffed because we needed to have at least one torso that was not premium to be powerful enough to take the player into upper ranks.  Which is why Windigo is now listed in the META thread, for example.
I have researched this topic extensively using WU (even though it's not perfect) and I found that (stats only, not accounting for how heavy the torsos are) that Avenger and Hollow Spectral Armor were more powerful than Windigo, and that Nightmare was about equal to Windigo.  But that's overall (I had 3 lineups of heat, energy, and physical tests for them).
I think there's not really a way to determine if it was overbuffed without looking at all the other torsos in some sort of mathematical, scientific way.  Maybe the solution is to request for the other torsos to be buffed?
But again, we come back to the fact that not all the torsos can be the best.  There is going to be a torso somewhere that isn't the best.  And given that Brutality isn't premium, in theory that's ok: if it was premium, that would be more of a problem.
So my 2 cents: maybe creating buff request threads for the other torsos is the way to go?

Not that I know of.

I don't agree with those who seem to be trying to guilt you right now, so understand I'm not on their side.
But smurfing is a problem in low ranks and it is a reason people may quit the game out of frustration.  If we want the game to survive, we should consider not smurfing.
Smurfing is wrong, however, because it's abusive to the newbies.  That's why my clan Noble Warriors doesn't accept smurfs and we don't smurf.
I proposed something like this (rank 10 limit) and I was told it's not going to happen.
Also, I notice they are full divine Frantic Brute, a weapon that was only improved, not nerfed, by a recent update.  Not surprised.  Again, I think Frantic Brute needs to be nerfed.  Spartan Carnage, a premium, is barely more powerful than it, and premiums should have a bigger improvement margin.

An idea I just had for fixing smurfs: maybe going by their inventory would be the best way to prevent smurfs.  So if they have, for example, 3 max vests, 3 maxed massive type legs, etc. if they have a certain # items and such, they should not be allowed to go below rank 10.  It may not be a perfect way to prevent smurfs, but it would mean that smurfing would be way harder.  To smurf, you'd almost have to food all kinds of your myth items to convince the game you're not a smurf.  I don't know if this would work, so it's an idea I haven't had time to think about, but it's an idea.  What does everyone think?
It would have to be configured in the game a certain way, so it might take time to set it up, but I would think it should work.
Maybe if you have 45 myth items, it should not let you fall below 10?
Note, it doesn't have to be 45 items, we can decide what # items it should be.

My Christmas crate from SuperMechs.  Thanks @Alexander ! 🙂  Now my inventory is clogged lol 😕😕

Fight me in the arena some time. I'll change your mind.

Smurfing is intentionally losing in the arena to drop ranks so you can destroy and mess with newbies.  Smurfing is intentional.
Now that we've gotten the definition out of the way, is smurfing wrong?  Yes or no?

there is something they can do, just no one wants to.  they could run a script periodically to find them and put them on temp ban.  they could, you know, maybe actually play the game once a month at that rank level using an alt so they can find them.  they could listen to our reports about them.  they could put in a rank 10 "wall" like we have at rank 5.  tons of options.  nothing is being done.

If it was me, I'd have one factory running power kits and the other 2-3 running fast common items (a level 3 option).  Max the living krap out of all your items.  Keep the factories running 24/7. 🙂 

Just because it's not useful to you doesn't mean it's useless to everyone.

Based on my mathematical analysis, and that of someone else on the official discord, no, the base is more efficient than silver boxes.  Especially now that crafting common items is so cheap (thanks Alexander).
Before the common crafting became so cheap, power kits still gave an advantage in boost power over silver boxes (aka base at level 15) so before it was just "base isn't worth it until you get to ___ level."  Now it's "base > silver boxes."
Besides, I created my alt 2 months ago.  My base is already at level 15 and I'm arena rank 12.  For 75% of that time period, my base was F2P.  The 25 token/day subscription was purchased, but I mostly saved tokens for premium packs, not to do fuel refills.  So someone F2P could easily have a level 15 factory and build power kits in 2 months in the old pricing system.  The new pricing system makes it even faster.

You don't know if it's likely.  The number of people asking for it doesn't always determine whether it's likely.
I would keep it just because it's L-M.  And just in case you want to look like Satan lol.
It's not the best torso.  But I would hold on to it.
My opinion: currently the best torsos are:
Fractured Heat Armor Rusty Energy Armor Nightmare Lightning Platinum Vest Molten Platinum Vest Windigo Hollow Spectral Armor Energy Free Armor (ONLY for energy-free heat builds)
But I'm a rank 11 player so your mileage may vary.

Like I said, every time one weapon gets buffed, all those using other weapons ask for theirs to be buffed next.
I'm 100% against this buff.  Desolation is already powerful enough.