OK, first things first - I'm not suggesting a change to the Phantom, I don't particularly care one way or another if it gets nerfed or not - I'm just thowing this out there for debate.

The Phantom's a nifty little ship, and it's had a nifty impact on the game since it's arrival in Wave 4. It was obvious from the moment the spoiler articles came out that it's (so far) unique cloaking action would be an interesting new mechanic for trhe game, really fun to do and lend itself to all kinds of bothersome arc dodging tactics.

But does it do too much?

As it stands, when the Phantom cloaks it doubles it's agility value, but can't shoot until it decloaks (which doesn't cost anything). When it decloaks, it makes a free move, then it's regular move, and can then do an action as normal.

Even with the inability to shoot, that seems like a lot. Especially when you combine it with a Stygium for an evade token, or an Advanced Cloaking Device for instant recloaking following an attack.

So what would happen, do you think, if you forced the player to make a more difficult choice? If (say) the free 2 straight move after decloaking wasn't automatic, but itself tied to a modifcation? Consider:

Stygium Particle Accelerator

Modification

When you either decloak or perform a cloak action, you may perform a free evade action.

Advanced Cloaking Device

Modification

After you perform an attack, you may perform a free cloak action.

Phase Shifter

Modification

When you decloak, perform a free boost or barrel roll action using the 2 straight template.

Admittedly, this particular idea would totally screw over our current incarnation of Echo, but would it have been an acceptable implementation if done from the very start? So you choose when creating your build whether the Phantom can recloak after attacking, arc-dodge OR turtle up - but you can't do more than one.

Again, I'm not looking for a change; just trying to prompt some debate nto the nature of how Phantom cloaking works, and whether it currently does too much (or not, as the case may be).

No

Seriously though, that would really make the Phantom lame and isn't necessary as all

FFG can't exactly go back and change it.

The only thing that makes cloaking seem too good is ACD. The cloaking mechanic is balanced by the fact that you have to give up a turn of actions and shooting to gain access to that free pre-movement reposition that decloaking gives you. A decloaked phantom is also a moderately squishy ship, with equal durability to a Z-95, so decloaking is supposed to carry a risk with it that if you didn't arc-dodge correctly, your phantom might get popped.

ACD throws all of that out the window, and gives us a ship that does either a super boost or super barrel roll every turn for free before it even maneuvers, and also gives us a ship that can take it's action and attack each turn and effectively always has a 4 attack, 4 agility every turn.

If there is anything wrong with the phantom, it's the ACD, BUT FFG has decided that the game is better off with these super phantom's and has brought balance by giving both factions access to super turret ships, so we will continue to see the rock paper scissors meta of Super Turrets, Swarms and Phantoms, and we will keep calling that a balanced metagame.

Is it that cloaking is too good?

Or is it that the ACD removes the drawbacks of cloaking on high-PS, non-stressed Phantoms? And so high-PS Phantoms became the only Phantoms?

I suspect that the cloak ability is actually pretty well-balanced. If anything, I think it's on the underwhelming side, and I suspect that without it, Phantoms would most of the time not use their cloak action. Especially so after the Advanced Sensors Cloak gambit was ruled illegal.

ACD cloaking, however, is a completely different animal.

I've never been on the side that thinks the Phantom is this over barring monster some think it is (or was). The truth is the ship comes at a cost and can be defended against hence the Fat Hans we see all over the passing meta. I say passing meta since we already have the wave 5 ships stirring the pot and soon the Scum and Villainy will make a real mess of things. If we see the Phantom holding the top notch spot at tourneys after the Scum come out then we can have a discussion on what needs to be done. Until then we are wasting our time.

I've never been on the side that thinks the Phantom is this over barring monster some think it is (or was). The truth is the ship comes at a cost and can be defended against hence the Fat Hans we see all over the passing meta. I say passing meta since we already have the wave 5 ships stirring the pot and soon the Scum and Villainy will make a real mess of things. If we see the Phantom holding the top notch spot at tourneys after the Scum come out then we can have a discussion on what needs to be done. Until then we are wasting our time.

You can't deem a conversation a waste of time just because new stuff is coming out sometime in the near future, there's always new stuff coming out for x-wing in the near but vaguely defined future. Nobody even knows when Scum is going to be available, it could be available in January or March for all we know based on what "on the boat" has meant for past X-Wing expansions.

When everyone is talking about the Wave 6 meta, will that be a waste of time because of the imminent release of the Raider?

Currently, I would like to see ACD go so that 5 ships swarms can step up to fight the super turrets that are dominating right now. That is just my opinion though, I think a lot of players will point to tournament results and say that the Phantom is not dominating and we have a balanced game, but really we have a rock-paper-scissors meta where Phantoms are 70/30 against swarms and 60/40 against turrets and turrets are 40/60 against swarms, which makes turrets slightly better against an even field and swarms slightly worse against an even field, but decent against a field with a lot of turrets.

Ultimately though the competitive meta is up to the designers and what they want for the game, and I think this current rock-paper-scissors metagame is here to stay. I do like it that the designers have pushed for more of a focus on maneuvering even with these large ships, although I still think super durable turret ships detract from the fun of the game (which for me is outmaneuvering the opponent and racking up kills over the course of the game).

I thought the Phantom was fine? Fat Han was out there long before the Phantom was. A single ION to the Phantom can seriously change a game.

I thought the Phantom was fine?

The high PS Phantom is quite the killer ship in the right hands. I'm of the opinion like others that the real issue is ACD and not the phantom itself.

Fat Han was out there long before the Phantom was.

Not really, it wasn't until wave 4 came out that a Fat Han showed up.

I thought the Phantom was fine? Fat Han was out there long before the Phantom was. A single ION to the Phantom can seriously change a game.

Fat Han was made possible with the C3P0 upgrade right before Wave 4 released. It only became a thing when people realized that ACD Phantoms were in fact living up to the hype and a counter was needed. You have to give credit to the current designers for knowing that the ship they were making to push swarms out of the game was going to need its counter buffed up with a new upgrade card, and then being so clever as to put that buff behind a $80 pay wall so competitive players would have to buy a huge ship they would never use.

I would enjoy a possibility to decloak backwards,but I think the cloacking mechanic is quite right like it is.

I even enjoy playing with 4 naked Sigmas - its challenging because the lack of any stealth technology upgrades make them very glassy - but you still have the decloak move, which makes this ship unique.

If you would subtract the decloak move you would make the Phantom less interesting to play with.

Stress stops acd also My luke with VI r3 a2 and engine upgrade is phantom hunter and combine with etahn wing man r2d2 hull upgrade and 2 bandit z95s you take down large ships as well easily

ACD throws all of that out the window, and gives us a ship that does either a super boost or super barrel roll every turn for free before it even maneuvers, and also gives us a ship that can take it's action and attack each turn and effectively always has a 4 attack, 4 agility every turn.

That's only true for VI Whisper. There's a ton of stuff that gets to shoot at Echo (VI or otherwise) with only 2 green dice.

To the OP: I think that would result in a huge loss of flavor from the ship. The "I've been over here the entire time!" dynamic is the whole point of the cloaking mechanic, IMO.

It's possible that having all of the movement default to 1 templates, with an EPT to optionally use 2s could have been interesting. As could have making the phantom a 3 agility ship, and cloaking add 1 die.

I really don't feel that an ACD phantom at PS8 is meta-breaking. Enough stuff can shoot at it that it can go down pretty quickly if not flown well.

ACD throws all of that out the window, and gives us a ship that does either a super boost or super barrel roll every turn for free before it even maneuvers, and also gives us a ship that can take it's action and attack each turn and effectively always has a 4 attack, 4 agility every turn.

That's only true for VI Whisper. There's a ton of stuff that gets to shoot at Echo (VI or otherwise) with only 2 green dice.

To the OP: I think that would result in a huge loss of flavor from the ship. The "I've been over here the entire time!" dynamic is the whole point of the cloaking mechanic, IMO.

It's possible that having all of the movement default to 1 templates, with an EPT to optionally use 2s could have been interesting. As could have making the phantom a 3 agility ship, and cloaking add 1 die.

I really don't feel that an ACD phantom at PS8 is meta-breaking. Enough stuff can shoot at it that it can go down pretty quickly if not flown well.

You didn't really refute my point, you just explained why you usually see Whisper instead of Echo in most lists.

Saying that a PS8 ACD Phantom isn't all that great doesn't mean much when there is a PS9 Phantom available for only 2 more points.

I personally love the Phantom, it's super fun to fly and challenging to play against, it's everything I love about the game, and I do think ACD is a needed tool to make the ship competitive, but I just think they messed up on the cost, that upgrade should have cost 8 points, not 4.

Saying that a PS8 ACD Phantom isn't all that great doesn't mean much when there is a PS9 Phantom available for only 2 more points.

It implies that the broken bit of the design was allowing a PS7 phantom pilot to take VI, not the ACD/Cloak part.

Green dice are fickle. I always remember a game where the opening shots of 3 E-wings killed a cloaked Phantom at Range 3. Even with 5 dice, he just died horribly.

If you throw enough attacks at a Phantom, it will die. Also, you can block his de-cloak options. If you can put stress on a Phantom, it will be a lot easier to predict as it won't be able to do any hard turns. If you are able to continually stress a Phantom out, it will run out of board pretty fast.

One idea I had for a fix for ACD awhile back was semi-star trek related.

In trek, once a ship hits a cloaked ship, that ship (and other friendly ships) have a much better chance of continuing to hit the cloaked ship.

To translate that to x-wing, change the cloaking mechanic so that if a ship hits you with an attack while you are cloaked, your agility goes back to 2 until the end of the round. By doing that, if one of your first ships firing hits the phantom, it gives your other ships a better chance to hit as well.

I don't think that would nerf it too badly, as often you might only have one ship shooting at the phantom anyways.

change the cloaking mechanic so that if a ship hits you with an attack while you are cloaked, your agility goes back to 2 until the end of the round.

Lt Blount becomes the ultimate phantom killer.

I thought it was Wedge, especially if he fires first.

Hmmm, maybe adding the suggestion wasn't such a good idea. I was trying to prompt debate about exactly how much the cloaking action does, at least compared to the other range of actions. Check it out:

Take a Focus Action - you potentially modify a single attack roll, or a single evade roll.

Take a Target Lock action - you can potentially modify a single attack roll, or fire ordnance.

Take an Evade action - you can ignore one hit

Boost - move 1 forward, three directions

Barrel Roll - move 1 sideways, with a choice of end locations

Compare that to cloak - double your evade dice, and super boost or barrel roll when you decloak. It seems a lot by comparison - especially when Phantoms can ALSO do regular actions in addition to cloaking with their unique upgrades.

Even actions provided by unique upgrades generally don't do as much as the cloaking action.

Now if the cloaking had done one thing,and an upgrade had done the other, then maybe it wouldn't seem so over the top. If you'd had to choose between arc dodging and instant-recloaking, maybe the Phantom wouldn'thave come to dictate the meta quite as much as it did upon it's release.

But of course TIE Pilot is correct, FFG can't really go back and change it now.

I thought it was Wedge, especially if he fires first.

Sure, he's deadly to a Phantom, especially if you get to range 1.

But you either have to take VI which is a sub-par option for him since he's already PS9, or you have to win init so you can shoot first. That means he moves first which makes it easier for the Phantom to at least avoid range 1.

But if we were to use markcsoul's idea, Lt Blount becomes the greatest anti-phantom ship, because he always hits.

I've never been on the side that thinks the Phantom is this over barring monster some think it is (or was). The truth is the ship comes at a cost and can be defended against hence the Fat Hans we see all over the passing meta. I say passing meta since we already have the wave 5 ships stirring the pot and soon the Scum and Villainy will make a real mess of things. If we see the Phantom holding the top notch spot at tourneys after the Scum come out then we can have a discussion on what needs to be done. Until then we are wasting our time.

You can't deem a conversation a waste of time just because new stuff is coming out sometime in the near future, there's always new stuff coming out for x-wing in the near but vaguely defined future. Nobody even knows when Scum is going to be available, it could be available in January or March for all we know based on what "on the boat" has meant for past X-Wing expansions.

When everyone is talking about the Wave 6 meta, will that be a waste of time because of the imminent release of the Raider?

by all means debate this subject again, and again and again and again and again. I'm sure you'll find the answer this time.

Forget to take the cloak action after performing your attack - you die.

(happens often across skill levels, esp. after a long day full of games)

Don't have a ship in arc - you die.

Meet a higher Pilot Skill enemy with actions - you die.

Shooting at a Rebel Captive - you die.

Dual stressed from a Stressbot/Flechette/Debris Field/Captive, etc. - you die.

Meet a Turret/HLC/Oicunn/Ruthlessnesss (shooting at a range 1 Friendly ship ofc) - you die, slowly, but surely.

Meet low PS enemies with Mines - you die

Fickle dice - you die

Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

In short, no.

Krassis with Recon Spec and HLC scares me more than any Phantom.