[quote=@GreivousKhan] That's why T1 uses a turn called 'preps' to dictate the activation of special abilities. In order to avoid people instantly launching some kind of AOE attack when their caught off guard to effecting a large area at a drop of a hat. [i]A 'prep' is a turn in which the character prepares to launch their attack. Some special abilities require a certain amount of prep's before an attack can be successfully launched. As a player, it is your responsibility to be aware of which abilities require preps and then to adhere to these rules. A prepping move should state clearly what ability is being prepared for use and provide some imaginative description of this process, whether it be an elaborate ritual or a intense concentration etc. [/i] Typically the more cheap/powerful an ability the more preps a post it would need before it could be used. I should also point out the difference between preps and charges, as the former exists in T1, while the latter does not and is in fact some weird mutation of prepping that has evolved within the arena and used inappropriately by some players due to interpreting the rules of T1 wrong. [/quote] Prep and charge seem interchangeable to me, if you spend more time preparing an attack it does more damage, pretty simple stuff. So if you want to fluff really powerful damaging spells for your character, make them require a certain amount of preps to activate, where-as someone like Fury can unleash his attacks interchangeably between very light blasts and very heavy ones, so his 'prep' is more akin to charging. They essentially mean and do the exact same thing, except preps to activate an ability are more specific and therefore suit abilities that are always the same. Personally I feel like if magic existed it wouldn't have some magical threshold (prep) at which point you activate the ability, but mechanical items (like the Clockwork Pistol in my case) do work under a specific prep limit. It can be 'overcharged' for negative effects and if 'undercharged' it has a very visible effect. Also, charging came about in its current form due to a massive oversight in T1 rules, it only covers a very small and low tier range of fighting. As characters go up the tier ladder the flexibility in their abilities increases, so a simple preparation period of a specific amount of posts wouldn't be suitable for example in preparing your shield. Think of it like Goku's idiotic spirit bomb, he could have launched it at any point, he kept going to make it more powerful, there was no set point where he really had to launch it (because he's high tier) so extending the time you 'charge' at the cost of your vulnerability pays out. The simple prep x2 = attack function is in my opinion woefully simplistic.