Had a couple thoughts after reading all the "Fix Ship X" threads lately and wanted to start a more high level discussion about it. This isn't about if a given ship needs a fix or what that fix should or shouldn't be.

Rather I'm going to start with two questions.

What makes a ship competitive?

Should we look at Ships or Pilots?

Take the X-Wing for example, some people think it needs a fix, others don't, and one of the reasons I've seen that it doesn't is because of Tarn, Wedge, Bigs, ect... Yet Darth Vader wasn't enough to save the Tie Advanced from being considered one of if not the worse ship in the game.

So do all pilots for a given ship need to be useful at their point value for a ship to be considered balanced and/or competitive? Or does it just need say X% of it's pilots to be that?

Also how do we define what is or isn't competitive? Does it have to be seen in the top 8, 16, 32 at Worlds, or is just showing up in any list at all in any sanctioned tournament good enough?

Myself I'm of the opinion that as long as some of the named pilots are worth taking and at least one of the generics are, then the ship itself is fine as is.

I'd also say that any ship that is in a list that goes 4-1 in a major tournament would be considered competitive, but there is a difference between a tier 1, 1.5, 2 or 3 ship, and that's ok. Because I think a good player like Paul or Hothie can win even with Tier 2 or 3 ships.

What makes a ship competitive?

For me, I look at how the ship performs with minimal upgrades first. This helps keep the ship cheap.

Rookie Pilot (21)

Next, I look at what effects I want the ship to have a role in. This will end up being either Damage or Effects on Target.

Rookie Pilot (21) FlechetteTorpedoes (2) R3-A2 (2)

Now that the ship has a role I go and choose the Pilot. It is also here where EPTs may become available. Many times the pilot is what makes the ship and depending on what you are facing, I believe that Effects on Target sometimes outweigh Damage Potential in order to fulfill the intended role.

Wes Jansen (29) VI (1) FlechetteTorpedoes (2) R3-A2 (2)

Later on, when the rest of the list is built, or I find that I have gone over on points, I can go back and delete any possible redundant systems.

Wes (29) VI (1) R3-A2 (2) (32)

Building ships into particular roles usually works out fairly well for me when you consider the Pilot for the job. One reason why you will be hard pressed to find Wedge running R3-A2 is because Wedge is set up to fulfill the Damage role. Stressing someone in the damage role is not a particularly smart thing to do when flying X-wings because they need the Actions.

The one recurring reason that people complained about with the TIE/Adv was its lack of role within the Imperial fleet. Now with ATC and the X1 title, Maarek Steele can fulfill his intended role as a Damage dealer for the points you spend on him.

Maarek Steele (27) Predator (3) X-1 title (0) Advanced Targeting Computer (1) (31) - here is a pilot in a sturdy ship that will dunk on anything with two shields and two hull. Unshielded ships are also going to be converted into space dust a lot quicker by him. Obviously no single ship can do it alone so choosing the right wingmen for your ships boils down to which roles you intend to fill.

What makes a ship competitive is everything

That's ship profile + upgrade options (including pilot choices)

Darth Vader wasn't enough to make the advance worth it because the advance was shite. The profile had horrible damage output for its cost and the only upgrade slot it offered was EPT (Because missiles are still lol at the moment) and modification. Now that they've been given essentially a free system upgrade (plus a gnarly new system upgrade) to compensate, all advances seem viable across the board.

The X-wing is regarded as defensively incapable for its base cost (compared to the blue squadron B-wing) and is missing some key capabilities such as barrel-roll (again, Blue Squadron) but it has a plethora of solid named pilots and the astromech upgrade slot which has a few solid upgrades (R2-D2, R3-A2, R2 astro, R5 astro...)

I also want to expand on some of the other questions more directly.

Do all pilots need to be useful at their point value to be competitive or balanced?

I would surmise that competitive pilots will be more useful than their point value. This does not indicate that balanced pilots are not competitive however, in a 100pt competitive game you are specifically looking for pilots who are worth more than what they cost. This is why a Academy TIE/ln or Bandit Z-95 are so good at flying as escort. While they may not be pilots in the Damage output role, the blocking Effects on Target they provide more than make up for their smaller damage output. Mid level Pilots like Red Squadron suffer from getting blocked because they move to late, and suffer in the damage role because they shoot too late behind the majority of their peers. Red Squadron may be balanced to push out damage but becomes a liability to build a list around (During Wave 3 I loved to fly Bloody Daggers, at the time the only list archetypes I had to fear were those that had High PS Interceptors. They were so rare because of HSF and Blue Chewie that I rarely ever had to face them competitively. Wave 4 brought Phantoms with ACD that could effectively kill the entirety of XXBB single handedly without any of them getting a shot).

The next question: What is or isn't competitive, as defined by their placement at Worlds?

I would say that as people see certain lists do good in the current meta, they net-deck. In The three World Championships we have seen, there were winning lists that got trampled on because in the end you still have to pilot your squad well to win. The placement of the popular lists may have to do more with their saturation in the meta than the explicit ability of each ship.

I feel as though experience vs the current net builds using ships that are considered inferior will ultimately help improve the confidence in players as they figure out what they need to do while flying their favorite ships and win as opposed to worrying about what is the best ship.

The meta is what makes a ship competitive. If the meta had somehow been flooded with two-attack ships, the Advanced, thanks to its brilliant defense, would have been fairly competitive. Likewise, if the meta was full of high-offense ships with absolutely no defense (HP or green dice), the Advanced would be good.

The meta right now, though, is full of four-attack ships (Phantom, Decimator with Expose, SuperDash, etc), and highly mobile ships (SuperDash and Phantoms). That makes the X-Wing pretty useless right now, since its two defense dice can't stand up to four attack dice, its five hit points aren't enough to keep it alive, and its decent dial isn't enough to counter hypermobility. It's an extreme meta, and the X-Wing isn't an extreme ship.

I think having generics or a couple of named pilots that are competitive for each ship is a good goal to shoot for. Trying to have every generic and named pilot in every ship be competitive is unrealistic. As long as there is some reason to put a ship on the table that's good enough for me.

I wouldn't say that the ship is competitive much than the squadron list is competitive. Calling pilots, ships upgrade good or bad is irrelevant as your composition and how you play with them is the difference between winning the tournament or getting eliminated at the semi finals.

You could talk all day about the best ship builds but the tight 100 point standard limit means that there is a chance you won't be able to fit all those top ship builds in your list so then you will have to cut back on a valuable upgrade like HLC or drop an A-wing in place of a Z-95.

So for what is competitive look to squadron list over individual ship build, anyone can soup up a ship, it is how it acts around the other ships in the squadron that counts.