The reason why I decided to run Deca, is because I find it stronger than NPP. I know NPP is stronger on an mg to mg basis compared to Deca due to it's shorter PhenylPropionate ester compared to the latter being Decaonoate and taking more of the molecule giving less space for the hormone, but for some reason I find Deca to be a completely different drug than NPP. Totally different feeling, also gives much more strength gains. I also stop feeling NPP's pumps working after 4-6 weeks if I don't bump up the dosage. Where Deca gives continual gains over 12+ weeks and is even encouraged to run it for that long of periods. My goal is to put on as much scale weight as possible, while watching my diet, keeping cardio in every workout and staying up to date on my AI/SERMS/PA. Basically, I want to put on as much clean weight as possible by using the classic staple test/deca/dbol stack. In terms of skin health, Deca gives me no acne because it slowly builds up in the blood and is more stable compared to NPP which builds up very quickly and spikes in the blood. But npp is MUCH drier and a much better look. I find it to be a good alternative if you don't have Deca or if you don't want that excess water and to put on quick size on in 6-8 weeks. You can even push it to 12 and beyond if you keeping upping the dose which I don't really recommend doing.
On the other hand, I don't find water retention to be a side effect, but more as an effect of steroids in effect of their use. Every steroid makes you hold water, even tren, whether intracellular or subq. I think the moonface is dose dependant (also depending on what you stack), if you play with your dosage and try to lower it a bit, it might help with the bloating of the face. But when you try to maintain your kind of size, some things are simply inevitable and simply part of the game.
And you are right about the deca/npp causing an awesome look when stacked with lower test, but I also love your advise about keeping my test high on cycle when trying to put on serious weight, helps me stay thicker and build more muscle more easily rather than doing low test cycles with high mgs of different compounds.
Winstrol will drop water and it frees up free test. honistly it is perfekt for that and gives you a very nice look very fast but when you drop it you notice the gains maybe where just from conditioning
IMHO, Winstrol is something that you want to add towards the end of a cycle or after dropping those watery compounds like test and deca to lose that excess water. Even than, I wouldn't run it until I am around 10-11% bf because there is no point in showing your hard muscles if they are covered in fat. And the other reason is because it's liver toxic. Mast would do better until you get lean enough to add winny in. Do you disagree? What's good about winnie though is that I read some old posts saying that at dosages of 25mg per day, it helps control prolactin and keep it within range. I don't know if this theory applies to Mast as well. It could come in handy.