Before you go “But autothrusters was made specifically to counter turrets!” hear me out.

First, let’s look at the numbers, because everyone likes numbers! These are the lists that included at least one large turret or one ship with autothrusters in Regional tournaments so far:

*These are just the results taken from Regional tournaments so far this year, and of those available on listjuggler. I know this isn’t a full representation of what’s being played, but it helps make my point

ATF 2015 Regional Overall Top 8

Turrets 20/60 4/8

Autothrusters 19/60 3/8

Regional Nord 2015 Itzehoe Overall Top 8

Turrets 8/55 1/8

Autothrusters 15/55 1/8

Bydgoszcz Regionals 2015 Overall* Top 8

Turrets 6/36 6/8

Autothrusters 11/36 4/8

*Many lists missing

Ontario regionals 2015 Overall Top 8

Turrets 19/53 4/8

Autothrusters 17/53 2/8

2015 Regionals Overall Top 8

Turrets 22/46 3/8

Autothrusters 13/46 4/8

1. The East Strikes Back Overall Top 8

Turrets 7/26 2/8

Autothrusters 4/26 2/8

Odense X-Wing Regionals 2015 Overall Top 8

Turrets N/A 4/8

Autothrusters N/A 3/8

IQ Games Centre X-Wing Regional 2015 Overall Top 8

Turrets 27/79 6/8

Autothrusters 16/79 1/8

Regionals, Malmö, Sweden Overall Top 8

Turrets 6/30 4/8

Autothrusters 7/30 2/8

As you can see the popularity of lists with autothrusters is pretty comparable in some tournaments to those lists with large turrets. There is a slight overlap, as some of these lists included both a turret and a ship with autothrusters (I’m looking at you Soontir+Chirpy).

All the ships that have autothrusters available to them are inherently "arc dodgers": A-Wings, TIE Interceptors, Aggressors, and StarVipers. Swarms usually fail against this archetype due to maneuverability, so this forces more turret lists, as you can at least fly the ship with the front arc but still get to shoot if it dodges it, at a disadvantage.

Though people are noticing the staggering results of regional champs that are flying turrets (17/21 so far), people are failing to notice that Autothrusters are also having a large effect on the meta (7/21 winners), and 5 are Soontir+VT-49 builds, which have both! It’s looking like this is the build to beat.

I understand why the initial reaction was to nerf turrets because of the results, however it’s important to note how there’s a cause and effect. I think FFG did a great job in balancing the “Arc-dodger”, as all ships within that archetype took a back seat to the TIE Phantom. They balanced this by changing the decloak and adding autothrusters. However this in turn caused people to continue favoring turrets, as they are the best counter to this archetype. Before we start crying out and calling the game broken, we have to identify that there’s still sways in the meta, however it looks like it started in the second tier (TIE Interceptors, A-wings, Y-wings, all improved from Wave 6). I think we will soon find balance in The Force.

Thanks for reading!

I don't follow. Turret counter causes rise in turret numbers?

You're going to have to explain the logic here.

Autothrusters helps with the fact that turrets can just dominate Fel. So Fel gets a bump in popularity. But the only archetype that still has a real shot against him is turrets. So people bring them to counter him anyways. Also they bring them to counter the still-relevant phantoms.

Turrets are still pretty good. Competitive players know they are. Other new list archetypes are also good. But fewer competitive players are going to take something that MIGHT be good. They want to be sure they can compete. The field will widen. It kind of has to so soon after so many changes.

Anything that stacks stress on fel kills him and last I checked that wasn't turrets.

I see your data ... but correlation is not causation.

I see your data ... but correlation is not causation.

Yea it's not enough to demonstrate much of anything, but I think his premise is very sound.

I regularly play a guy who runs Fel. Fight the urge to just decivader him every time I build a list.

Haven't turrets been a thing since Wave 4? That is, pre Autothrusters.

I don't follow. Turret counter causes rise in turret numbers?

You're going to have to explain the logic here.

A percentage of the player base wanted to play non-turrets yet compete against turrets so they built lists incorporating the new hotness upgrade that most impacts survivability against the expected turrets. Even if turrets are a no-show, those autothrusters showed. You could then say autothrusters scared away all the turrets. But maybe it just gave brave players a push to think outside the pancake. Then again, knowing that many players would explore use of autothrusters lists instead of turrets, another percentage of the player base will soon bring stress lists to fell Fel. Then knowing that, yet another percentage play anti-stress lists. And on that day when everyone else was countering everyone else ... the Defender will wins it all.

Haven had a chance to verify OP's data yet, but it just means autothrusters aren't good enough to deter people from using a turret.

Advantages of turret > consequences of getting paired against autothrusters.

Also, the meta is way more complicated than swarms turrets and arc-dodgers, by I don't have time right now to get into that.

When autothrusters came out people said it will be the end of the age of turrets.

When I took a look at autothrusters I said how are they going to end turrets?

Answer is simple, they didn't.

Anything that stacks stress on fel kills him and last I checked that wasn't turrets.

A rebel captive VT-49 might come to mind

I see your data ... but correlation is not causation.

You might be right, it started with me looking at the percentage of lists that had turrets, and in the process noticed many Soontir lists, which made me look at how much of an effect Autothrusters has had. Though it might not be a direct result, I thought it was interesting to note as you would think it would be a deterrent from flying turrets, but obviously it's not.

I don't follow. Turret counter causes rise in turret numbers?

You're going to have to explain the logic here.

A percentage of the player base wanted to play non-turrets yet compete against turrets so they built lists incorporating the new hotness upgrade that most impacts survivability against the expected turrets. Even if turrets are a no-show, those autothrusters showed. You could then say autothrusters scared away all the turrets. But maybe it just gave brave players a push to think outside the pancake. Then again, knowing that many players would explore use of autothrusters lists instead of turrets, another percentage of the player base will soon bring stress lists to fell Fel. Then knowing that, yet another percentage play anti-stress lists. And on that day when everyone else was countering everyone else ... the Defender will wins it all.

I need to make another Rexler build... I'm convinced I can make him work somehow!

Haven had a chance to verify OP's data yet, but it just means autothrusters aren't good enough to deter people from using a turret.

Yup. Turrets aren't increasing in popularity, they're just holding the position they've been in for months.

When autothrusters came out people said it will be the end of the age of turrets.

When I took a look at autothrusters I said how are they going to end turrets?

Answer is simple, they didn't.

But it did fulfill the less boisterous prediction of making soonts viable

But yeah, op's got it backwards. When you're flying your brittle arcdodger against something that, for some flabbergasting reason, can't be avoided...well then you better put some guarantees on your green dice

Pilots like xizor, IG:88x, and eathn/corran also mitigate similar damage with ability/thrusters/evade/r2-d2 and seem to have made a decent showing. Bwings don't have any mitigation, but their green dice won't pop them

So yeah,w.e we're seeing is a reaction to specifically fat han and chiri

Or just viable on their own. That helps

Non-arc dodgers have a hell of a time against Arc dodgers. Turrets counter that. So even with Autothrusters, you need turrets so you can even shoot them. That means that then people take Gunner to counter the Autothrusters.

Heck, I now need to fly a Bugzapper swarm, which is psuedo-turret, to deal with Fel and Phantoms, otherwise I'd have to play turrets myself to even get a shot on them. Arc-dodgers are big, but their counter, the tanky turrets, overshadows them, so the turrets get more heat right now.

Auto thrusters did not hinder turrets what so ever. The people who defend turrets were once again wrong.

All it did was make interceptors competitve and ig2000 competitive

There real question you should be asking is how many autothruster lists without turrets (looking at you fel/chirpy) win championships. Not many.

Turrets are just too powerful, the only way they are going to be Nerfed at this point is for something even more powerful and a strong counter to turrets to bring them down.

That counter is coming in the form of the tie advanced. 4 tie advanced w title and atc is a hard counter to turrets but weaker vs arc Dodgers. the amount of red dice and amount of crits it puts out cripples turrets. However for a tac list I expect a mix of advanced w fel or named phantoms to help vs arc Dodgers in a take all comers list.

Non-arc dodgers have a hell of a time against Arc dodgers. Turrets counter that. So even with Autothrusters, you need turrets so you can even shoot them. That means that then people take Gunner to counter the Autothrusters.

Heck, I now need to fly a Bugzapper swarm, which is psuedo-turret, to deal with Fel and Phantoms, otherwise I'd have to play turrets myself to even get a shot on them. Arc-dodgers are big, but their counter, the tanky turrets, overshadows them, so the turrets get more heat right now.

I still don't understand the turrets counter arc-dodger line of thought

sure, they utterly ignore enemy maneuverability to the point where you might as well not use arc-dodgers unless they have some defensive insurance (thrusters or ACD) which is as much a counter to arc dodging as an atomic bomb is to life as we know it, but the fatties themselves are crazy arc-dodgey

not to mention that with the phantom not being so excessive anymore, the remaining arc-dodgers are susceptible to something low PS love doing: blocking

if you really want to counter arc-dodgers, bring control. The only arc-dodgers they don't completely shoot in the foot are...fat turrets (but they do clip their wings )

It's a very small difference, but in this case it's instructive: Autothrusters were a buff to arc dodgers, not a nerf to turrets. So it's not a surprise that we see a higher percentage of arc dodging ships, but not really a decrease of turreted ships. Turrets are still as good as they were.

When we think about the 5 types of ships (arc dodgers, turrets, jousters, ordnance ships, and filler), "filler" has always been good, turrets have always been good, arc dodgers have only really gotten good since Autothrusters, Ordnance ships are great- as soon as Ordnance gets good, and Jousters... ok, weirdly Jousters- X-Wings, E-Wings, Tie Defenders, and Tie Advanced, all kinda suck. No idea why. Tie Advanced are about to get some tremendous love in the form of the Raider expansion. I bet we'll see a lot more of them in tournaments.

Let's look at the B-Wing. It's a Jouster. Full stop. And it's _great_. People love it. They've loved it since Wave 3 when it came out. Right now, the BBBBZ list is _the_ list to beat- and it's Jouster Jouster Jouster Jouster Filler.

So if we want to see more diversity, if you _really_ want to kill off the turret (which won't ever happen), we need Jousters to actually get good. Unfortunately, their problems aren't something systemic, and so each ship will need to be buffed in turn.

So I'm going to preemptively say it now: the X-Wing/E-Wing/TIE Defender/StarViper buff isn't a turret nerf. It's just something to make those ships perform at the level they should be at.

The increased amount of Soontir players and the moderate amount of triple Autocepter lists around aren't enough to drive away turrets like how the Phantom shut out swarms when it came out.

Also, the standard Buzzsaw Whisper is kind of more of a threat to a turret than 35 point Autothrusters Soontir. Yeah, Soontir is invincible but he's not doing as much damage as four dice with a Target Lock and Focus and Gunner. You still only need to damage Soontir 3 times, with a turret you're always getting shots on him. Eventually you'll get damage through.

Whenever I would play 86 Pre Nerf double Phantom I'd just wipe whatever escort they were flying and then die after stripping the turret of like 40%-50% of its health. Every time I fly Soontir he ends up rolling hit focus blank. Your average 3 dice attack roll + focus isn't enough to shift the meta even if it's on a ship that is essentially invincible.

Soontir is at the very upper limit of 'normal' X Wing. He's about as crazy of a ship you can get before you start breaking the game IMO. He's not 'super' X Wing tier though, he's not a turret that can ignore obstacles and fire an HLC as a ******* turret with a superb dial and the ability to large base boost + Barrel Roll. You block him and he dies, you fly a turret and his arc dodging ability is meaningless, and from a pure offensive standpoint he's not any different than an 18 point Alpha Squadron pilot.

When we think about the 5 types of ships (arc dodgers, turrets, jousters, ordnance ships, and filler), "filler" has always been good, turrets have always been good, arc dodgers have only really gotten good since Autothrusters, Ordnance ships are great- as soon as Ordnance gets good, and Jousters... ok, weirdly Jousters- X-Wings, E-Wings, Tie Defenders, and Tie Advanced, all kinda suck. No idea why. Tie Advanced are about to get some tremendous love in the form of the Raider expansion. I bet we'll see a lot more of them in tournaments.

very teeny tiny nitpick, but character E-wings seem to be doing quite well for themselves especially compared to the other options

we mainly see Corran Horn (but there are a couple E'athns scattered around) and we have to infer he works well since he keeps showing up at high places in these events

given the prevalence of two ship builds in top 8s and especially in top 1s in the recent string of regionals, I think it's safe to say he at least plays against them pretty well. Imo, it's the option of evade action + r2-d2 shield regen that gives him durability on par with thrusters soontir (evade + thrusters) against squads with low volumes of attack.

I think his wave 5 popularity was attributed to him being Dash's "Guardian of the Doughnut Hole," but he and E'athn might have relevance as counters to 2-ship builds

People oversimplify the metagame and how different lists interact with each other.

Turrets beats Arc Dodgers beats Swarms beats Turrets is a gross over-simplication and ignores a lot of important factors about the lists themselves and the subtle differences between them.

How can swarms beat turrets if most turrets are built to be arc-dodgers and arc-dodgers beat swarms? If turrets beat arc-dodgers, then why are there so many videos on Youtube of double Phantom lists beating Fat Han lists in Store Championships? Why does Dash hate playing against lists that are all PS 8+ arc-dodgers?

You can't break the metagame down by ship type, that's just too broad, you have to go list-by-list, and you have to base your match-ups on testing and reality. Good Fat Han players can completely crush swarm players by staying out of their arcs and preventing them concentrating fire, and because Predator+Gunner is so good at popping TIEs. Good Soontir players can beat Fat Han by counter-deploying against the Zs to keep them out of the early fight and focusing down Han quickly.

The rock-paper-scissors only turns on when you have low level players playing one of the top lists against another without knowing how to play the match-up. A lower level player won't know how to keep Han out of the TIEs' arcs, he'll just fly Han straight forward and get crushed. He won't know how to use his arc-dodgers mobility against Fat Han to focus down Han early while staying out of the support ship's arcs. He won't know how to position his TIEs starting on turn 1 to trap, block and kill Soontir early in the game. In these situations it looks like it was impossible for one player to win, but it's just that the consequence of not knowing how to play the match-up was binary.

The point being that the idea that swarms, turrets, and arc-dodgers are rock, scissors and paper respectively is a false one. Therefore, the idea that Autothrusters kicked out swarms which made turrets stronger makes no sense, because super turrets with Engine Upgrade aren't afraid of swarms, and ships with autothrusters are way easier to block then turrets, which makes swarms better against autothrusters ships then they are against super mobile turrets which arc-dodge them and face away from them to make it impossible to be blocked.

Autothrusters aren't supposed to nerf turrets.

Autothrusters are supposed to buff arc dodgers.

Turrets didn't change in popularity, but arc dodgers did increase in popularity.

This is a good thing.

Therefore, the idea that Autothrusters kicked out swarms which made turrets stronger makes no sense,

and ships with autothrusters are way easier to block then turrets, which makes swarms better against autothrusters ships then they are against super mobile turrets which arc-dodge them and face away from them to make it impossible to be blocked.

People oversimplify the metagame and how different lists interact with each other.

Turrets beats Arc Dodgers beats Swarms beats Turrets is a gross over-simplication and ignores a lot of important factors about the lists themselves and the subtle differences between them.

How can swarms beat turrets if most turrets are built to be arc-dodgers and arc-dodgers beat swarms? If turrets beat arc-dodgers, then why are there so many videos on Youtube of double Phantom lists beating Fat Han lists in Store Championships? Why does Dash hate playing against lists that are all PS 8+ arc-dodgers?

You can't break the metagame down by ship type, that's just too broad, you have to go list-by-list, and you have to base your match-ups on testing and reality. Good Fat Han players can completely crush swarm players by staying out of their arcs and preventing them concentrating fire, and because Predator+Gunner is so good at popping TIEs. Good Soontir players can beat Fat Han by counter-deploying against the Zs to keep them out of the early fight and focusing down Han quickly.

The rock-paper-scissors only turns on when you have low level players playing one of the top lists against another without knowing how to play the match-up. A lower level player won't know how to keep Han out of the TIEs' arcs, he'll just fly Han straight forward and get crushed. He won't know how to use his arc-dodgers mobility against Fat Han to focus down Han early while staying out of the support ship's arcs. He won't know how to position his TIEs starting on turn 1 to trap, block and kill Soontir early in the game. In these situations it looks like it was impossible for one player to win, but it's just that the consequence of not knowing how to play the match-up was binary.

The point being that the idea that swarms, turrets, and arc-dodgers are rock, scissors and paper respectively is a false one. Therefore, the idea that Autothrusters kicked out swarms which made turrets stronger makes no sense, because super turrets with Engine Upgrade aren't afraid of swarms, and ships with autothrusters are way easier to block then turrets, which makes swarms better against autothrusters ships then they are against super mobile turrets which arc-dodge them and face away from them to make it impossible to be blocked.

It is a gross misinterpretation, yes, I agree. But it is safe to say that with a good pilot boosting large turrets and Soontir being nearly impossible to pin down, it leaves little desire to fly anything else. I'm sure there are counters to either lists but we're talking about an endurance scenario with big tournament play and these seem to be the only choices. And I don't blame players that make that choice.

The TIE Phantom was not the problem. Autothrusting Interceptors are not a problem.

If anything is a problem (which many don't think there is btw ), it is turrets.

Han Shoots First was a thing before CR90. Fat Han was a thing before Wave 4's TIE Phantom.

Super Dash/Corran and Deci/Ace is still a thing even after the TIE Phantom nerf and the release of Scum and Autothrusters.

Turrets are not going away, they are becoming more prevalent.

I do not believe it is going to get better if people continue to point fingers at maneuverable ships that embody the spirit of a dog fighting game and gloss over the 'easy-mode' winning that turrets grant so very many players.