And lots of years into future we can tell tales to our grandchildren "I remember times phantom was op, and you see gravestone? That guy lived so long ago Tie swarm was op at his time"

Really, why doesn't someone spell it out for us. Who is Duraham, and what is his claim to good flying?

(not that I dont think he's good, but lets stop beating around the bush here).

I disagree with a lot of what Duraham has to say. But he's been around this game longer and demonstrated far more ability than the vast majority of the twits around here whose only canned response is "Learn2Fly Noob Derp!"

Let's not beat around the bush - who is Blail Berg, and what's his claim to good flying? Who's z0m4d, and what's HIS claim to good flying? Who's nikk whyte? Redblock? Why aren't you making snide comments and demanding to see THEIR credentials? I think we need to have one massive uberthread where everyone who ever wants to post on the board can lay out their entire history in the game and be judged as worthy or not by the community.

Or maybe we can just leave it to your punctuationally-challenged self, since that's really your point there, isn't it?

Haha. sorry no, thats not my point. I mean, he did say to check out his credentials twice...

Also might help to know whether or not any advice we can give is really worth giving. Might be too rudimentary.

--

Also for the record, Blail Blerg is so far a nobody still working their way to getting better.

It's definitely important to understand these situations exist, because the last thing you want is to end up facing that one-one one situation.

Is it a problem? No - it's just part of the game. I high PS arc dodger like VI Whisper or PtL Fel costs a lot of points to bring to the table, you have a similar number of points to spend on something which can deal with the potential threat.

In a competitive setting, it's the player's responsibility to be aware of one-on-one deathtraps, build a list that can handle them, identify them in their opponents list then prioritise targets so they never actually end up in that situation. To summarise:

- make sure you're equipped to deal with a range of threats

- identify the threats

- eliminate the threats before they eliminate you

That isn't always going to be a simple task, of course, but some tactical planning is better than none at all.

My claim to good flying is consistently beating phantoms.

Wedge, VI. What 4 dice? What ACD? Pair him with Etahn A'baht and you're looking at really good damage output against just about everything.

You'll never go into a match with one TIE fighter versus Luke R2-D2 or a tanked Falcon. If you end up with one TIE fighter, that's because they blew up all the rest of your stuff: the game's already been played.

Well like Theorist predicted back when the Phantom dropped, the game has devolved into pretty much anti-Phantom and Phantom builds. In the subset of anti-Phantom builds the Falcon is the strongest build (probably too strong due to C3P0). We just have to wait for the meta to evolve again past Wave 5 (Decimators are the strongest hard counter to Phantoms to the point where I think they'll disappear completely from the competitive scene.)

At very least, what the Designers intended, the end of the TIE swarm, has come to pass.

Everything I hear reported from this Theorist guy is narrow minded, almost zealous adherence to "what everyone else thinks" and the sort of self-fulfilling scaremongering that drives people to these "netdeck" builds. Either he's being throughly misrepresented on these forums or he is nowhere near the godly authority his followers here speak of him as. Also heard he's primarily an interceptor pilot so being angry over Falcons is somewhat inevitable.

The only reason the TIE swarm's faded is because of such internet scaremongering: it's a total overreaction. It's still a strong squad, it's just not got that edge it used to have over everything else. You can take a phantom down with a TIE swarm as long as you don't fly the swarm like it's one ship.

If you don't believe that a TIE swarm can take down a phantom, look at the French national. The TIE swarm and variants are, in a way, potentially something of a wolf amongst the Falcon/Phantom sheep herd. It has the power to shred a cornered Falcon (if you can't corner it that's because the Falcon player is having a lucky game or they could be simply a better player) and if you learn to block phantoms it can take them on too.

The reason Falcons are so prevalent is because so many players have responded to FFG's releases intended to keep the TIE fighter swarm in check by abandoning them entirely as if they were nerfed into oblivion. Blount and the TIE phantom force you to break formation, they're not meant to eradicate the TIE fighter.

You'll never go into a match with one TIE fighter versus Luke R2-D2 or a tanked Falcon. If you end up with one TIE fighter, that's because they blew up all the rest of your stuff: the game's already been played.

Well like Theorist predicted back when the Phantom dropped, the game has devolved into pretty much anti-Phantom and Phantom builds. In the subset of anti-Phantom builds the Falcon is the strongest build (probably too strong due to C3P0). We just have to wait for the meta to evolve again past Wave 5 (Decimators are the strongest hard counter to Phantoms to the point where I think they'll disappear completely from the competitive scene.)

At very least, what the Designers intended, the end of the TIE swarm, has come to pass.

Everything I hear reported from this Theorist guy is narrow minded, almost zealous adherence to "what everyone else thinks" and the sort of self-fulfilling scaremongering that drives people to these "netdeck" builds. Either he's being throughly misrepresented on these forums or he is nowhere near the godly authority his followers here speak of him as. Also heard he's primarily an interceptor pilot so being angry over Falcons is somewhat inevitable.

The only reason the TIE swarm's faded is because of such internet scaremongering: it's a total overreaction. It's still a strong squad, it's just not got that edge it used to have over everything else. You can take a phantom down with a TIE swarm as long as you don't fly the swarm like it's one ship.

If you don't believe that a TIE swarm can take down a phantom, look at the French national. The TIE swarm and variants are, in a way, potentially something of a wolf amongst the Falcon/Phantom sheep herd. It has the power to shred a cornered Falcon (if you can't corner it that's because the Falcon player is having a lucky game or they could be simply a better player) and if you learn to block phantoms it can take them on too.

The reason Falcons are so prevalent is because so many players have responded to FFG's releases intended to keep the TIE fighter swarm in check by abandoning them entirely as if they were nerfed into oblivion. Blount and the TIE phantom force you to break formation, they're not meant to eradicate the TIE fighter.

I'd disagree on some points.

First, its harder to fly low PS ships as you have to keep your opponent's guessed moves in your head. Sometimes with 2 or 3 good possibilities. Then guage barrel rolls without seeing the opponent's actual position. This amount of mental upkeep becomes strenuous and is more suited to someone who really has practice and is good at it.

Also, good bumping is a higher level skill. Sub-optimal bumping is bumbling level skill.

Also, not everyone at local and regional tournaments have access to 8 ties that they have handy to practice with. Its a little bit of a restrictive list, and apparently not that popular anyway.

(Edit: though, C3PO cards are even more expensive actually... hmmm. might have to take back that idea).

the impact is not as immediately evident as opposed to other more tangible aspects of the game

Which is what makes it so potent when you do make a concerted effort to employ advanced placement tactics in your own strategies. Trust me when I say this: I was good before, but I dominate now. I started seriously thinking about it right around the time I started to get good with the Defender, and I have to say placing asteroids with full acknowledgement of your own squad and your opponent's has been a major element in that.

Rather than tell you what you should do, I'll just say what I do in my games. That way you can just extrapolate importance instead of being given specific tips because lets face it: specific tips only really fit for squad and style. My tips may not work for you. I should state that this trick works mostly with low PS builds, so I employ it when I take Rexler into the fray.

First off, I tend to have mid to high PS ships. This means the opponent usually has a few things on the board already. having My primary objective early on will be two things. To place Rexler at an angle from them, so that I can engage with banking turns, followed by having a straight line directly behind where my planned engagement zone is. He tends to go to one side of the board. By doing this, I've planned from the outset on turning into the fight but my opponent has not necessarily done the same thing. This will force them to turn into me through the asteroids that have been placed. While my opening turns from 1-3 have already been at least loosely sketched in from the get-go, my opponent may be having to think turn by turn. Assuming dice luck doesn't fall wildly out of your favor, this is generally enough to give you an advantage by turn three, if it hasn't decided the game entirely (because having an HLC Defender tear into your squad and then have a beautiful k-turn lane to get immediately back into it while the rest of his squad sweeps in to clean up is not something most people can easily recover from). The reason this usually works is because asteroids have been placed with the following in mind:

1. More are on my side than my opponents, giving me better turn options after initial engagement.

2. there are numerous 45 degree angles for me to bank into, completely mitigating the red 1 and 2 turns on the Defender's dial.

3. My other squad is usually something more maneuverable like TIEs or Interceptors, or something i was able to slow-play like my Gunboat Buddy shuttle.

Hmm… gotta leave for work. Maybe I'll have to finish this later...

ACD on a Phantom is OP, Falcon + C3-PO is OP. EVERYTHING IN THE GAME IS OP, LETS GET IT ALL BANNED SO WE CAN HAVE A FUN BALANCED GAME OF ASTEROID VS. ASTEROID.

THE SKY ISN'T FALLING

The thing about these impossible situations is that they are at the end of the game. These situations won't always come up, even when playing the same squads against each other. I don't think that is a flaw in the game.

Sure, having a HWK with a Blaster Turret sucks when you are facing Dark Curse, but it isn't a flaw in the game.

Lately on these forums, whenever you raise a concern, even when you do it on a constructive fashion you will get a lot of unneccessary flakk, instead of answers in the same fashion.

OT : This situations will always exist if the battle went south. If you end up with 2 Ties against one falcon, something went wrong. Game plan is important, and in what terms you get into lategame can be decisive. Taking down Luke may not be worthwhile at that moment, but it can save you a lot of pain in lategame, etc, etc...

I saw it happen today. This evening had an E-wing with R2-F2 and I was at range 3. Was hit with 3 hits, rolled 5 defense dice...... only one evade. And that was the second time in the same game that E-wing had that happen.

Do you realize that 5 evade dice withouth focus are worse than 4 dice with focus, right ?