I've been primarily a Rebel player, so I almost never fly TIE ships, and my favorites are X-wings and Y-wings, so I hardly ever take the B-wing.

This being the case, I'm sort of at a loss as to when to use Barrel Roll. Most of the time I use Focus or Evade when I fly TIE Fighters, because when I Barrel Roll I end up wishing I'd had a Focus or Evade.

So how do you best judge when to use this action?

When you can keep an enemy ship in your firing arc but get out of his.

When you want to avoid hitting that asteroid in the following round, or if you and your enemy are still at long range and a barrel roll would improve your placement by getting you closer or further away from your enemy, depending on how you want to time the contest.

Excellent question. And one that one of our youtube celebrities should produce a video on.

The best reason is to put yourself outside of your opponents firing arc, while keeping them in your firing arc.

However, you can use it to avoid asteroids, to reposition your formation, and sometimes you can use it to sneak forward just a touch in order to close to range one.

I think the secret is that you can't use it as an afterthought. You have to plan to use it.

To get into a position where you're confident you can block your opponent. Anti pursuit lasers on the cheapest yt2400 is going to be fun for that.

Barrel roll is only marginally useful on regular TIE fighters, owing to the situational nature of such an ability on a swarm oriented ship. It's amazing when combined with a boost on Interceptors, or Advanced Sensors on a B-Wing. If you think a 2-K is amazing, try barrel rolling backwards before executing a 1-hard.

Barrel roll shines even brighter when you can pair it with some form of action economy. Expert Handling is good on a YT; Expert Handling and Gunner is friggin' amazing. Can't hit anything after barrel rolling your Blue Squadron Pilot? Take FCS. And now that Outmaneuver and Predator are fair game, you have that much more incentive to barrel roll your Black Squadron Pilots.

Barrel roll is only marginally useful on regular TIE fighters, owing to the situational nature of such an ability on a swarm oriented ship. It's amazing when combined with a boost on Interceptors, or Advanced Sensors on a B-Wing. If you think a 2-K is amazing, try barrel rolling backwards before executing a 1-hard.

Barrel roll shines even brighter when you can pair it with some form of action economy. Expert Handling is good on a YT; Expert Handling and Gunner is friggin' amazing. Can't hit anything after barrel rolling your Blue Squadron Pilot? Take FCS. And now that Outmaneuver and Predator are fair game, you have that much more incentive to barrel roll your Black Squadron Pilots.

This. It's ok on a tie.

On a high PS B-Wing with Advanced Sensors or Tie Interceptor with PTL? It's golden. By it self it only provides a moderate maneuverability advantage. But as part of a set of abilities, each of which provides a maneuvering advantage, they each have a multiplicative effect on each other. A barrel roll is fine. A barrel roll that can be used before or after you move, or one that can be used in conjunction with a boost is great. A barrel roll that can be used before or after you decloack or after you move or in conjunction with a boost is ridiculous.

Again, being multiplicative is key. If one maneuvering trick gives you a bonus of 3, then two combined gives you 9, and 3 combined gives you 27! I know that sounds nonsensical, but compare a tie with a single maneuvering trick (barrel roll only, meh maneuverability) to a naked interceptor with boost and barrel roll (extremely maneuverable) to a kitted out interceptor with two-three tricks (fantastic, board dominating maneuverability) to a kitted out Echo (who basically just turns the surrounding range 5 area around him into a giant probability field of "where is he going to appear).

Maneuverability works best when combined with other maneuvers and on high PS pilots, who can pretty much dictate where and when engagements happen (in skilled hands at least).

Also, when it drops your academy tie into the sweet spot wher it blocks 1 forward, 2 forward, and the 1 bank and your opponent has to clear stress. Or any of the other great blocking spots.

Yeah, what they said. Get outta their arc and put 'em in yours! I'll take that over a Focus or Evade any day.