I think something's being forgotten here. When you put the Falcon on the table that's the Millennium Falcon , one of the most iconic ships in Science Fiction as a whole. Only the NCC-1701 Constitution -Class USS Enterprise is even in the same league. Now because it's such an iconic ship it's very good (but beatable). Is it not possible that a part of the Falcon's prevalence is the fact it's very good and one of the most iconic ships. Or, to put it another way, winning is cool, willing with the Falcon is cooler.

FYI: The Malaga regional was played on Sunday and here are the results: http://www.rojocinco.es/2015/05/x-wing-clasificacion-listas-y-fotos_20.html?m=1#more

There were 51 participants that played 4 rounds of Swiss and top 8. The lists in the link are the top 8 (in descending order) with Paul Heaver's worlds list beating the bro bots in the final. Also, a 4 X-Wing list made it to top 4.

Thanks! Top 8 translated and summarized:

this is a definite example that you can have a regional tournament where either turrets don't win, or people aren't playing them because they're not as fun as other ships.

Let's leave aside the former, because it's BS - the only way you get an entire top half without any serious showing by a turret list is if people intentionally decide not to take them, so it's certainly not an example of turrets not winning.

There is no evidence at all to support this assertion. Y-Wings have been doing very well in tournaments so far, and at least from my observations (which appear to be supported by data, but we don't have complete list results for the Swiss rounds) they are doing so despite dramatically lower numbers of entries. In my experience, which is supported by the experiences of other players I know (hardly scientific I realize), Warthog lists are very powerful against small ship count lists like a typical turret list, if they entered in numbers they could easily account for the elimination of turrets from the top 8.

We have also seen Brobots, Xizor+ miniswarm, and Feedback swarms emerge as solid competitors, as well as several new solid tier 2 lists (like Autoceptors) with the potential to win. Brobots has had good representation in terms of total numbers, but the other two lists are hitting the top tables despite usually being the lone example of their type to play.

On the other hand, turrets are still being run in very large numbers, due (IMO) to the fact that they are the top-tier list that most people are the most familiar with. They have been on the top for nearly a year, and recent changes have simply not had enough time to demonstrate sufficient effectiveness for the average players to learn and adopt them. Even after the pieces were released, it took time for Fat-turrets to gain the refinement and numbers needed for the dominance they enjoyed for the better part of 9 months. It is unreasonable to expect that any new archetype to displace them instantly, especially if there are several new viable archetypes all competing with one another as well as turrets.

FYI: The Malaga regional was played on Sunday and here are the results: http://www.rojocinco.es/2015/05/x-wing-clasificacion-listas-y-fotos_20.html?m=1#more

There were 51 participants that played 4 rounds of Swiss and top 8. The lists in the link are the top 8 (in descending order) with Paul Heaver's worlds list beating the bro bots in the final. Also, a 4 X-Wing list made it to top 4.

Thanks! Top 8 translated and summarized:

Málaga, Spain

May 17, 2015

Shark Games

Attendance: 51

List Juggler: N/A

Info: http://www.rojocinco.es/2015/05/x-wing-clasificacion-listas-y-fotos_20.html?m=1#more

• Winner: Han + Predator + C-3P0 + R2-D2 + Engine Upgrade + Millennium Falcon; 3x Tala Squadron
• 2nd place: IG88B + Mangler Cannon + Predator + Advanced Sensors + Autothrusters + title; IG88C + Heavy Laser Cannon + Predator + Advanced Sensors + Autothrusters + title
• Top 4: IG88B&C + Veteran Instincts + Advanced Sensors + Heavy Laser Cannon + Inertial Dampeners + Autothrusters + title
• Top 4: Wedge + Swarm Tactics; Biggs; Tarn Mison; Rookie
• Top 8: Dash Rendar + Predator + Mangler Cannon + Engine Upgrade + Outrider; 2x Blue + FCS
• Top 8: IG88B + PtL + Advanced Sensors + Heavy Laser Cannon + Inertial Dampeners + Autothrusters + title; IG88C + PtL + Advanced Sensors + Mangler Cannon + Autothrusters + title
• Top 8: Chewbacca + Predator + C-3P0 + Lando + Experimental Interface; Corran Horn + Veteran Instincts + FCS + R2-D2 + Shield Upgrade
• Top 8: Whisper + VI + ACD + FCS + Gunner; Soontir Fel + PtL + Autothrusters + Stealth Device; Backstabber

A 4X list in the top 4? That's amazing. I'd love to see that batrep.

4 Y-wings? Those crazy Germans.

Ummm....Belgians.

Ooops.

Yeah... they're closer to the French than the Germans. Good people.

Jacob

*cough* Or the Dutch.

Is Belgium the European melting pot or something?

this is a definite example that you can have a regional tournament where either turrets don't win, or people aren't playing them because they're not as fun as other ships.

Let's leave aside the former, because it's BS - the only way you get an entire top half without any serious showing by a turret list is if people intentionally decide not to take them, so it's certainly not an example of turrets not winning.

There is no evidence at all to support this assertion. Y-Wings have been doing very well in tournaments so far, and at least from my observations (which appear to be supported by data, but we don't have complete list results for the Swiss rounds) they are doing so despite dramatically lower numbers of entries. In my experience, which is supported by the experiences of other players I know (hardly scientific I realize), Warthog lists are very powerful against small ship count lists like a typical turret list, if they entered in numbers they could easily account for the elimination of turrets from the top 8.

We have also seen Brobots, Xizor+ miniswarm, and Feedback swarms emerge as solid competitors, as well as several new solid tier 2 lists (like Autoceptors) with the potential to win. Brobots has had good representation in terms of total numbers, but the other two lists are hitting the top tables despite usually being the lone example of their type to play.

On the other hand, turrets are still being run in very large numbers, due (IMO) to the fact that they are the top-tier list that most people are the most familiar with. They have been on the top for nearly a year, and recent changes have simply not had enough time to demonstrate sufficient effectiveness for the average players to learn and adopt them. Even after the pieces were released, it took time for Fat-turrets to gain the refinement and numbers needed for the dominance they enjoyed for the better part of 9 months. It is unreasonable to expect that any new archetype to displace them instantly, especially if there are several new viable archetypes all competing with one another as well as turrets.

Also, everybody owns a falcon. Not everybody owns 4 Y's and even less people can field 4 scum Y's.

4 Y-wings? Those crazy Germans.

Ummm....Belgians.

Ooops.

Yeah... they're closer to the French than the Germans. Good people.

Jacob

*cough* Or the Dutch.

Is Belgium the European melting pot or something?

And don't most Belgians speak all three, plus English? We lazy Americans can barely speak English, and also can't seem to get over 2-ship lists and Turrets...

On the other hand, turrets are still being run in very large numbers, due (IMO) to the fact that they are the top-tier list that most people are the most familiar with. They have been on the top for nearly a year, and recent changes have simply not had enough time to demonstrate sufficient effectiveness for the average players to learn and adopt them. Even after the pieces were released, it took time for Fat-turrets to gain the refinement and numbers needed for the dominance they enjoyed for the better part of 9 months. It is unreasonable to expect that any new archetype to displace them instantly, especially if there are several new viable archetypes all competing with one another as well as turrets.

This is key, I think. If these newer lists were roughly the same power as fat turrets, I think we should still expect to see turrets doing better initially, if only because of quantity and experience. That a few new lists are making an impact at all against proven lists run by people experienced playing them is a strong sign that they're legit.

And don't most Belgians speak all three, plus English? We lazy Americans can barely speak English, and also can't seem to get over 2-ship lists and Turrets...

personnaly i speak only French (with a poor english) , Dutch side Speak Dutch and for the most English, and German speak French and sometimes Dutch ... its just complex

I'll give you the naked patrol leader was a bit weird, but there was also THE 58 point Dash supported by Corran. That's not exactly a second rate build, and if there is some local meta restriction, then this outrider (heh) should have had a strong placing. The other Dash builds didn't strike me as being all that unorthodox either.

Just bringing a netlist doesn't mean you will win. You still have to be good to win with a big, turret list. It's just that it's easier to win with a big, turret list than other lists. That's why <many of> the really good players all use them.

That's why the really good players all use them.

Nonsense.

That's why the really good players all use them.

Nonsense.

OK...that's why many good players use them.

eh, one of two things are going to have to happen at this point

either the loss of Whisper sinks in and people finally come back to grips with using something that isn't a mind-numbingly dull fat turret (or, god forbid, fat turret 2-ship build)

or, fatties take up the mantle of fathoms and become the target of the next errata

I'm hopeful that the scene will change, especially with tankier ships like the new Advance and the YV-666 coming in. Still, I'd rather FFg just did the right thing and change the obtuse 360 degree firing at ranges 1-3 mechanic. I'm glad the turret player might be having fun zooming around like that, I just wish I also had that same manner of counterplay available to me instead of having to endure dice because I could not find a mathematical impossibility (a degree beyond the 360th) or because I'm not playing a huge ship.

Just bringing a netlist doesn't mean you will win. You still have to be good to win with a big, turret list. It's just that it's easier to win with a big, turret list than other lists. That's why the really good players all use them.

I think that this "fat turrets are superior" mentality is, at least in part, a self-fulfilling prophecy. If one were to assume that all the lists taken to a regional are equally viable and the only difference was in player skill, I'd expect the most repeated archtype would get to the top the most often. Considering that most of regional lists are made up of fat turret + escort, and the rest are "other stuff," I don't consider the current results to be too surprising. If we start seeing that tournaments with few fat turret lists still see them rise to the top then I'll believe that they're overpowered, but as that's unlikely to happen anytime soon we'll just have to wait for MJ's statistics.

Just bringing a netlist doesn't mean you will win. You still have to be good to win with a big, turret list. It's just that it's easier to win with a big, turret list than other lists. That's why the really good players all use them.

I think that this "fat turrets are superior" mentality is, at least in part, a self-fulfilling prophecy. If one were to assume that all the lists taken to a regional are equally viable and the only difference was in player skill, I'd expect the most repeated archtype would get to the top the most often. Considering that most of regional lists are made up of fat turret + escort, and the rest are "other stuff," I don't consider the current results to be too surprising. If we start seeing that tournaments with few fat turret lists still see them rise to the top then I'll believe that they're overpowered, but as that's unlikely to happen anytime soon we'll just have to wait for MJ's statistics.

I don't agree with your analysis of what I typed. I have beaten Fat Turrets. In fact, the last tournament I went to had me beat two double Fat Turret lists. My only lose was at top table in the last round to a double bro bot list. They can be beaten. The people that played those two lists were good players.

I also think that the current Regionals total listing is a lot more varied than they used to be. So, I think the percentage of Fat Turrets is actually less than it used to be, but you are seeing more of them win the top spots. There are fewer Fat Turrets, but they are going higher overall than ever before in the tournament results.

What my current thoughts are is that it's easier to recover from unexpected play with a Fat Turret than it is with other ships. You still have to be good with a Fat Turret to win, but when you make a mistake, it doesn't hurt you as much as other ships. If you guess wrong where you think your opponent will fly, you aren't out of arc and can't take a shot. You still get that shot, as long as it's in ranged and not bumped. If you guess wrong, it's hard to be one shot in one round at full health. It then means you can use your superior mobility (great dial + large base + high PS + EU) to run away...but keep firing while you do it. You still have to be good, but you can recover from errors better than other ships. That's my current thought at the moment, though. I think if you look at the current results you can clearly see something is up.

I also think that Fat Turrets have fewer bad match ups than other lists.

I would like to remind everyone citing a "self-fulfilling prophecy" or w.e kind of mentality as somehow the reason why turrets seem so effective, that we were saying the exact same thing about the phantom

I should know, I was one of them (Stress Wing!)

and yet lo, phantom errata

now fatties and phantoms are obviously two very different types of ships, I'm just saying that "self-fulfilling prophecy" argument on its own doesn't hold much weight anymore

I'd also personally argue the 360 rule is far more obtuse than any de-cloak fen-angling (ala the ion change), and only time will truly tell if turrets are as cancerous to other builds as high PS phantoms were. The fact that the top lists look to be almost exactly the same as the dark ages of Wave 5 is not encouraging, but it is true that not a whole lot of time has passed since we've emerged from that.

not to mention the top 8s provide a glimmer of hope at the end of this incredibly dank tunnel

I also think that the current Regionals total listing is a lot more varied than they used to be. So, I think the percentage of Fat Turrets is actually less than it used to be, but you are seeing more of them win the top spots. There are fewer Fat Turrets, but they are going higher overall than ever before in the tournament results.

...

I also think that Fat Turrets have fewer bad match ups than other lists.

I wonder if the variance in overall options are part of the issue. Perhaps the Meta never moved on from Turrets, but it certainly has moved on from swarms. Swarms are still a good counter (I don't want to face a BBBBZ list with dual YTs of any sort and I played a friend of mine who has a AAAAAX list he likes and he melted my Decimator).

I think that you have a point about them winning more, but I think it has less to do with their superiority and more to the time it will take for some other ships to catch up. The MF title and C-3PO and EU have been out for a long time now. Autothrusters are recent additions to the game, as are all the various Scum upgrades. We have the Raider fix to the Advanced not yet released, and then Wave 7 will bring us a whole lotta awesome stuff to adjust to.

I just think that it's not going to be like this forever. If people are really so worried that they feel like the game is on a slippery slope of doom, I'd remind them that this game is pretty awesome, there are some good Game Devs at FFG, they know this is a darling in their stable and they're not going to either mess with it rashly because the sky is not falling, nor will they ignore it because there is no issue.

Time is what needs to happen. Nothing is going to happen this Regionals/Nationals/Internationals season, and I'd bet that next years will be a lot different than this one.

Jacob

But again, you are looking at results ONE month after the changes took effect. You essentially had one half of the gatekeepers knocked around. Of course the other half is going to stick around immediately afterwards.

I mean, ignoring the winners, the top 8s are looking great, especially as the season progresses. Patience is key.

What my current thoughts are is that it's easier to recover from unexpected play with a Fat Turret than it is with other ships. You still have to be good with a Fat Turret to win, but when you make a mistake, it doesn't hurt you as much as other ships. If you guess wrong where you think your opponent will fly, you aren't out of arc and can't take a shot. You still get that shot, as long as it's in ranged and not bumped. If you guess wrong, it's hard to be one shot in one round at full health. It then means you can use your superior mobility (great dial + large base + high PS + EU) to run away...but keep firing while you do it. You still have to be good, but you can recover from errors better than other ships. That's my current thought at the moment, though. I think if you look at the current results you can clearly see something is up.

I also think that Fat Turrets have fewer bad match ups than other lists.

I'm not sure you're right about this. It does feel like fat turrets don't care as much from guessing wrong, because they still get their shot. The thing is, guessing wrong is often the difference between multiple shots and one or no shots. That ends up being a big difference in damage to the turret, which is especially bad, because they're not efficient enough to exchange fire on a point-for-point basis.

Top turret lists look like wave 5, ehh? You see a lot of Fel and mango fringers in wave 5?

But again, you are looking at results ONE month after the changes took effect. You essentially had one half of the gatekeepers knocked around. Of course the other half is going to stick around immediately afterwards.

I mean, ignoring the winners, the top 8s are looking great, especially as the season progresses. Patience is key.

I agree that patience is the key. I haven't really offered any solutions to "fix" the problem, other than to open a thread to talk about partial points. I do think that there is something off kilter here. I do believe that there is a problem overall.

You still have to be good, but you can recover from errors better than other ships. That's my current thought at the moment, though. I think if you look at the current results you can clearly see something is up.

I'm not sure you're right about this. It does feel like fat turrets don't care as much from guessing wrong, because they still get their shot. The thing is, guessing wrong is often the difference between multiple shots and one or no shots. That ends up being a big difference in damage to the turret, which is especially bad, because they're not efficient enough to exchange fire on a point-for-point basis.

If you bump in front of a bunch of enemy, you will get ripped up, but the chances are that you will still be alive to then zip around and do what Fat Turrets do (kill you while running away). If you don't bump, but miss guess where the enemy is going to be, you still get to fire (most of the time). You can't make a lot of mistakes when flying these lists, but I think you can make that one round mistake and still recover when other lists don't have that option.

Fel has always been good, but Autothrusters has made him great...not to mention that the downward power bump from the decloaking errata that Phantoms received.

I haven't seen as many Mango outriders in the Top 8 lists as HLC Outriders, 7 to 11, but that is more than I had remembered before going back to count. Although, it seems like the love for Out-Mango-riders is more outside the US, so that may have been why I didn't expect to see them as often, being an American player.

Yeah, I'm Canadian and my Outrider typically has a Mangler.

Jacob

But again, you are looking at results ONE month after the changes took effect. You essentially had one half of the gatekeepers knocked around. Of course the other half is going to stick around immediately afterwards.

I mean, ignoring the winners, the top 8s are looking great, especially as the season progresses. Patience is key.

It's true. It is only 1 month since the Phantom changes. However, that is only going to impact the play of turrets a great deal if you buy that most of the reason for "the rise of turrets" was Phantoms.

In reality, there are a lot of things that have gone into effect that impact the utility of these ships. C3PO, R2D2 crew, Ysanne Isaard, the addition of 2 large turret ships, the change to MOV, Phantoms, and probably other reasons I can't think of atm. The rest of the variables that aren't Phantoms haven't changed, so it may not be reasonable to expect a large shift as a result.

Now, swarms might come back as a result, but there is some reason not to be too optimistic about this with a buffed Soontir around, Vader and the Advanced fix, and the MOV edge for large ships.

I've heard "wait and see" and "things haven't settled yet" every time the meta has become stale going back to the days of "EVERYTHING IS A B-WING!". And each time, the meta has not significantly changed until there was either another release or an FAQ change. I can't recall a single time we said "wait and see" and the meta actually did shift significantly after that.